Last Call For The Mask Slips

...And Republicans tell the truth about their plan to punish a generation of Democratic voters.  Todays contestant is Louisiana GOP Gov. Bobby Jindal, who admits that Republicans want to take affordable health care away from millions.

“I don’t think conservative health care reform is about, we’re going to compete with [the left] in terms of how many people we see have an [insurance] care,” he said. “That not the ultimate goal.”

He later elaborated, “If we start with the premise that we’ve gotta give every single person a card, and that’s the only way we can be successful, we’re done. We’ve adopted their metric of success…if the metric of success is gonna be which plan can say ‘we’ve given people more cards,’ they always win. Because they will always spend more, they will always disrupt more.”…

He also put it this way: “I do think it’s a mistake if we argue we can’t take back what Obama has already given.”

So there you have it.  Jindal is a sitting Governor who actively admit the plan is to punish his own constituents for the criminal act of being poor in a state like Louisiana.  And as long as Republican voters are convinced that Obamacare is a costly handout from a black President to those people then he's right:  what political damage will any Republican candidate incur by saying "I promise to hurt poor minorities"?

The second Republican buy into the notion that government should help the people instead of the one percent, they lose.

And they know it.  Better to keep the people angry, poor, and unhealthy.  After all, without affordable health care, if they die, they're no longer Bobby Jindal's problem, are they?  And millions will go along because they figure there's no way Republicans like Jindal would ever take away their government benefits and health care.

They're wrong of course.  But it's more fun to punish others, because Americans are mean, awful people who vote with the intent of being mean, awful people.  The rest of us gave up some time ago.  You have to look no further than last November to prove that.

No Win Situation In Paris

It's funny that the same media that constantly attacks the President for playing golf and "taking vacations at taxpayer expense" is now laying into the White House for not going to Sunday's Paris rally.

Don’t look for the president or vice president among the photos of 44 heads of state who locked arms and marched down Boulevard Voltaire in Paris. Nor did they join a companion march the French Embassy organized in Washington on Sunday afternoon.

Indeed, Obama’s public reactions to the attacks in Paris last week have been muted. His initial response Wednesday to the killing of 12 people at the Charlie Hebdo newspaper offices was delivered as he sat calmly in an armchair in the Oval Office speaking about the “cowardly” acts and defending freedom of the press. Two days later, as a gunman took hostages and went on to kill four people in a kosher grocery, Obama took a few seconds away from a community college proposal rollout in Tennessee because he said with events unfolding, “I wanted to make sure to comment on them” — but neither then nor afterward specifically condemned that attack.

Obama wasn’t far from the march in D.C. on Sunday that wended silently along six blocks from the Newseum to the National Law Enforcement Officers Memorial. Instead, he spent the chilly afternoon a few blocks away at the White House, with no public schedule, no outings.

Joe Biden was back home in Wilmington, Delaware. Neither they nor any high-level administration official attended either event.

France’s top diplomat in the U.S. tried, diplomatically, to make the best of it.

“Thank you to Victoria Nuland, assistant secretary at the Department of State, who has represented the U.S. Authorities at the demonstration in DC. A friend,” Ambassador Gérard Araud tweeted Sunday evening, as criticism of the administration mounted.

And though it’s symbolism — Obama made several statements last week condemning the terror, and the government has been supporting French efforts throughout — the symbolism has caught a lot of attention.

It's a convenient fiction.  If President Obama had gone to Paris, there's no doubt in my mind this very same Politico article would also be filled with criticism -- this time about how the President's Secret Service presence was disruptive to ordinary Parisians and how the cost was being borne by hard-working American taxpayers while the President was on "yet another vacation jaunt".

Of course, it didn't stop the White House from admitting they should have sent someone to Paris.

Nope, it's just another ridiculous example of our "liberal media" in action.

Brownback To The Drawing Board

Kansas GOP Sen. Sam Brownback may have won re-election, but it just puts him the the cross-hairs of his state's crumbling economy: a mess 100% of his own making as cutting state taxes to the bone has all but collapsed revenues and left the state in hundreds of millions of dollars in red ink. His plan to slash school spending is making him even more unpopular.

Now it seems Brownback has no choice but to raise revenues.

Gov. Sam Brownback will include proposals to increase tax revenue to help fill a projected budget hole when he unveils his budget plan later this week, his chief of staff says.

He also will tackle education spending, which accounts for more than half of the state’s budget, as part of his proposed fix, said chief of staff Jon Hummel.

When Brownback starts his second term — and the 2015 legislative session — on Monday, he will have to balance his signature tax-cut policy with a deficit projected at $648 million in the next fiscal year. His handling of this challenge, which his critics say is self-imposed, could define his legacy as governor.

“The governor has had a very consistent policy of wanting to limit growth in spending. He wants to keep income taxes low,” Hummel said. “And you know, circumstances have changed. Revenue didn’t come in quite as was projected. ... If we can do some things on the tax side and do some things on the budget side and still maintain that overall philosophy, then he’s always been open to that.”

Read more here: http://www.kansas.com/news/politics-government/article5904450.html#storylink=cpy

And just like that, Brownback's tax cuts have caused the state to go from a balanced budget to $648 million in the hole.  Now it's Kansas schoolkids and families who have to pay the price.

He confirmed that education spending, which Brownback left largely unscathed in the plan he announced last month to trim this year’s budget, would not remain untouched this time around.

“School finance will be part of our budget conversation,” Hummel said. “The governor feels like the growth in spending that’s occurred the last several years in school finance is unsustainable. He’s going to encourage them (the Legislature) to look at ways to do that, to address that. There’s different ways to do it. You could reform the current system or you go to a completely new system.”

I have little sympathy for Kansans who voted for Brownback twice despite his snake oil.  And oh yes, he's still in more than a little legal trouble.

A few hours later The Associated Press reported that a federal grand jury is investigating loans to Brownback’s re-election campaign. The only loans the campaign received were from Brownback and Lt. Gov. Jeff Colyer.

The administration has dismissed the investigation as being without merit. But Beatty said it could hamper Brownback as he tries push through a budget fix.

“Certainly being under investigation weakens a governor,” Beatty said. “It weakens his ability to persuade…all those tools you use to get that bill on your desk the way you want it to be.”

Make your bed, Kansas.  You voted for him.  Now it's time for the consequences.

Read more here: http://www.kansas.com/news/politics-government/article5904450.html#storylink=cpy

Read more here: http://www.kansas.com/news/politics-government/article5904450.html#storylink=cpy

StupidiNews!

• Senate Republicans admit that they are at least four votes short of overriding a promised Obama veto on forcing approval of the Keystone XL oil pipeline.
• In a meth bust gone wrong, an Albuquerque police officer shot and almost killed an undercover narcotics officer during a sting operation.
• Movies "Boyhood", "The Grand Budapest Hotel", and "Birdman" all walked away with multiple Golden Globes last night, while "The Affair" and "Transparent" had big night in television.
• The flight recorder from doomed AirAsia Flight QZ8501 has been located by divers, as Indonesian officials hope the data will provide answers as to the deaths of 162 on board.
• SpaceX's Dragon rocket launch was a success for the commercial space transport company, but the ship's planned landing on a flat barge in the Atlantic was too rough for the rocket to survive.