If all printers were determined not to print anything till they were sure it would offend nobody, there would be very little printed. -- Benjamin Franklin
A top House Republican has warned Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner that unless the administration consults with Republicans on the make-up and mandate of a fiscal commission, the party won't cooperate, an aide said Friday.Why should they cooperate? They own all the power in Washington and none of the responsibility. Scott Brown counts as 20 Senators because he's a Republican from Massachusetts.
House Minority Leader John Boehner (R., Ohio) spoke to Geithner by telephone Friday about the commission, details of which are expected to be finalized next week, an aide to Boehner said.
According to the aide, Boehner told Geithner that President Barack Obama needs to consult Republicans on who will sit on the panel. He also said that everything needs to be up for discussion, including spending cuts, and that the panel should deliver its report to Congress before the November mid-term elections.
Despite attempts by Obama to restart relations with the Republican minority, it's looking increasingly unlikely that the party will cooperate.
It'll be interesting to see if Griffith gets craphammered, and there is actually a challenger to Shelby now. Things could get real interesting. Matt's right about the Sunday shows...not even the Village can play the bipartisan card on this one.Alarm bells must have gone off at some point. When did Griffith talk to Senator Shelby, I wonder? Oh, to be a fly on the wall... Which brings us to the strangely coincidental timing of the Politico article and the Senator's sudden, unprecedented bid to hold America's national security hostage.
It is a dead certainty Politico called Griffith for comment. Alabama politics are only slightly more incestuous than Washington's. Griffith must have reached out to Shelby in panic -- or minority leadership.This is more than just speculation. As reported by the Mobile Press-Register, Shelby's extortion centers on two items: a military aircraft contract in the southern port city of Mobile, and an FBI experimental program in Improvised Explosive Devices for Redstone Arsenal...which just happens to be in Huntsville, the metropolitan heart of AL-5.
Set aside the question of how badly the FBI needs such a facility. The scope and apparent arrogance of Shelby's move is hard to overstate and smells of the usual hypocrisy (I recall a Democrat named Richard Shelby hammering the incumbent Republican over earmarks and pork in 1986). But more importantly, it smacks of desperation.
If Shelby is making a bid to save Griffith, it will almost certainly fail. Obama will have no reason to help Griffith; he may offer Huntsville a bone, but rest assured no shovels will be digging before November. The Arsenal just doesn't work that fast. Any eventual ceremony will feature Barack Obama and Artur Davis.
Parker Griffith has nothing to show for his switch. Even if he wins the nomination, the entire Democratic machine (which remains larger and better-structured than the GOP) is highly motivated against him and enthusiastically participates in oppo research to the benefit of Griffith's primary opponents. Friday's one-of-a-kind holding action could be a Hail Mary pass; Parker Griffith needs a miracle. But the optics for the GOP are terrible, and I expect a savaging on the Sunday shows.
Next, watch as Senator Shelby makes a mess and the party apparatus scrambles to pick up the pieces. As I predicted here, the flip has turned into a fiasco. Griffith's error was to think of himself as the second coming of George Wallace. I believe that I actually watched the strange transformation of Griffith before my very eyes at that town hall in August, and I have to say I almost...almost feel sorry for him.And what lessons can we take from Griffith's short and mostly profitless career? That the Republican Party is terrified of its own creation. We have all seen this movie; it's the one in which the brilliant scientist attempts to create life -- and cannot see the monster he has unleashed until it is too late.
I'm getting the feeling that if Tea Party conventioneers told the Times' Kate Zernike that the world was flat she'd run with it.
As noted earlier, she referenced Tea Party organizers who claimed "millions" had marched at Tea Party protests within the last year; a figure that appers to be fabricated.
Now in a follow-up piece, Zernike writes [emphasis added]:
Susan and Gil Harper from Cushing, Me. — she a lawyer who telecommutes to New York, he a furniture maker — said they had limited their political involvement to voting. But Mr. Harper said the bank bailout outraged them, and pushed him to his first Tea Party rally.Fact: Nancy Pelosi never called Tea Party supporters "Nazis." Period. But the Times quotes a conservative making that slanderous claim. The Times treats the outlandish allegation as fact.
By Christmas, he told his wife that what he wanted was a ticket to the Tea Party Convention. When she gave it to him, she said she would go along, but only incognito, wearing a hat and sunglasses.
“Because of Nancy Pelosi calling people who believe in the Tea Party movement Nazis,” she explained. “My grandfather’s family, as Polish Jews, escaped Nazism. To call us Nazis is an abomination.”
Sarah Palin, who gave her handlers headaches during the 2008 presidential campaign, isn’t making things any easier.Don't believe it for a second. That battle was decided the second Sarah Palin became a FOX drone:
She has thrown her support behind Rand Paul, a favorite of anti-establishment conservatives such as RedState.com and Gun Owners of America, who is running for Senate in Kentucky.
Palin waded into the race despite it being widely known among political insiders that McConnell backs Rand’s opponent, Kentucky Secretary of State Trey Grayson.
GOP strategists in Washington believe Grayson has a much better chance of winning the general election but Palin has channeled conservatives' frustration over “go-along-to-get-along” Republicans in Washington.
Palin’s not-so-subtle challenge to McConnell’s political authority shows the overall difficulty GOP leaders have in taming the resurgent conservative base, which has made Palin and the Tea Party newly powerful political forces.
Without leaving home, Sarah Palin will be able to reach much of her political base, courtesy of a soon-to-be-built television studio in her living room paid for by her newest media patron, Fox News. From her house in Wasilla, Alaska, Ms. Palin also sends missives to 1.3 million Facebook “fans,” writes newspaper columns, Tweets and signs copies of her book for donors.There's not a single person in this state who will vote for the Democrat in Kentucky just to teach the GOP a lesson that Rand Paul is too extreme. That's because in Kentucky, the GOP and the Teabaggers are one and the same. Grayson's a ghost walking, he just doesn't know it yet. This state already put Mitch McConnell and Jim Bunning in office as Senators, two of the most insane people in the Senate GOP caucus and that's saying something.
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