Last Call For The House GOP Circus Of The Damned, Con't

Our next contestant on "Who Wants To Be Humiliated?" is apparently going to be Minnesota Republican Rep. Tom Emmer.

 

Republicans on Tuesday picked Rep. Tom Emmer as their nominee for House speaker. The nominee now goes to the full House for a vote.

It’s three weeks since Republicans ousted Kevin McCarthy. The House speaker will need to accomplish the seemingly impossible job of uniting the GOP majority. Emmer of Minnesota jumped ahead as the top vote-getter on early round ballots and was battling Rep. Mike Johnson of Louisiana on a fifth ballot.

Others are dropping out including Florida newcomer Byron Donalds, who’s aligned with Donald Trump, and Kevin Hern of Oklahoma. The nominee will also need to win a majority in a House floor vote.

Also withdrawing from the race were Reps. Austin Scott of Georgia, Jack Bergman of Michigan, Pete Sessions of Texas, Gary Palmer of Alabama and Dan Meuser of Pennsylvania.

The House has been in turmoil, without a speaker since the start of the month after a contingent of hard-line Republicans ousted McCarthy, creating what’s now a governing crisis that’s preventing the normal operations of Congress.

The federal government risks a shutdown in a matter of weeks if Congress fails to pass funding legislation by a Nov. 17 deadline to keep services and offices running. More immediately, President Joe Biden has asked Congress to provide $105 billion in aid — to help Israel and Ukraine amid their wars and to shore up the U.S. border with Mexico. Federal aviation and farming programs face expiration without action.

Some Democrats have eyed Emmer, the third-ranking House GOP leader who had voted to certify the 2020 election results as a potential partner in governing the House.

But Trump allies and other hard-liners have been critical of Emmer over his support of a same-sex marriage initiative and perceived criticisms of the former president.

Trump downplayed, even derided, Emmer, with whom he has had a rocky relationship, while presenting himself Monday as a kingmaker who talks to “a lot of congressmen” seeking his stamp of approval.

 

Indeed, Team Trump has already warned that they will not support Emmer as Speaker. 

Several key Trump allies and former administration officials, however, have harshly criticised Mr Emmer, characterising him as "disloyal".

Mr Emmer drew the ire of many of Mr Trump's supporters for voting to certify the rightful results of the 2020 election, in President Joe Biden's favour. He is one of only two of the Republican Speaker candidates, along with Georgia's Austin Scott, to do so.

Former Trump strategist Steve Bannon referred to Mr Emmer as a "Trump hater" on his podcast on Friday and urged the former president's supporters in the House to "stop" him.

On the same podcast, a former Trump advisor, Boris Epshteyn, questioned whether "someone so out of step with where the Republican electorate is" can "even be in the conversation" about a new Speaker.

Additionally, US media outlets - including the Washington Post - reported that Mr Trump privately directed his allies to criticise Mr Emmer ahead of the vote.

Citing two anonymous sources familiar with the situation, the Post also reported that Mr Trump's backers circulated a 200-page "opposition research" book about Mr Emmer that critiques many of his policy positions.

The BBC has been unable to independently verify the report.

 

That means Emmer will need Democratic support to be Speaker, and that's not going to happen unless Emmer is willing to make some deals, and he'll get mauled by the Clown Caucus if he does. The plan to recruit The Odious Patrick McHenry may be on again if and when Emmer fails to get to 217.

Ohio Republican Rep. Dave Joyce said if Rep. Tom Emmer can’t get to 217 votes, he’s willing to bring up his resolution to empower interim Speaker Patrick McHenry — but said he doesn’t know when the breaking point for the rest of the conference will be.

“I appreciate the fact that Tom is trying to get to 217 before we go out and create a spectacle on the floor, but if we go over there and we’re not getting the requisite votes that we need, we have to open the place up,” he said.

He said his new resolution “would do just that,” so they can continue to have conversations until they get the numbers.

House Republicans debated the idea last week but put the plan is on ice amid fierce pushback from some corners of the party.

“I don’t know when this conference will feel enough pain to understand that this practice is an exercise in futility, and we need to open the place back up,” he said.

Joyce said Emmer does not want to leave the room until he has 217 votes, “he wants to go, if you’ve got a complaint, let’s hear ‘em right here, let’s get this over with today, he’s not gonna make a public spectacle, unfortunately, that’s been made over there before.”

 

So we're right back to square one: the GOP candidate doesn't have the votes, and Emmer dropped out later in the afternoon as a result.

Dude didn't even last the day. Trump bragged that he "killed" Emmer.

Just hours after Rep. Tom Emmer (R-Minn.) won the Republican Conference’s nomination to be Speaker on Tuesday, former President Donald Trump took to Truth Social to deride the congressman as “totally out-of-touch with Republican Voters” and a “Globalist RINO.”

He then got on the phone with members to express his aversion for Emmer and his bid for Speaker.

By Tuesday afternoon Trump called one person close to him with the message, “He’s done. It’s over. I killed him.”

Just minutes later, Emmer officially dropped out of the race.

 

The Clown Show Caucus rolls on.

The House GOP Circus Of The Damned, Con't

GOP Rep. Jim Jordan is now a three-time loser in his quixotic flailing to try to become House Speaker, and he's still up for more getting face-punched.

Rep. Jim Jordan again defended his choice to continue running for speaker after 25 Republicans voted against him on the third ballot.

“Even Speaker McCarthy took a dip and then came back,” he said, when asked if it is time to get a new nominee. “You guys said we were going to lose 15 to 30. We lost a couple and we had a few people miss it,” he added.

Jordan continued, “We’re gonna go talk to conference right now, listen to our colleagues.”

Asked about several of his supporters saying it wasn’t looking good for him, Jordan replied, “we’ll find out.”

 

Oh yes, Jimmy boy, we're definitely in the Find Out Phase, and today he found out just how much he's hated by his own co-workers.

House Republicans are once again scrambling with no clear path to elect a new speaker after voting to push Ohio Rep. Jim Jordan out of the race, the latest sign of the chaos and divisions that have engulfed the majority party and left the chamber in a state of paralysis.

In a dramatic turn of events, the House GOP conference voted by secret ballot on Friday to drop Jordan as their speaker designee after he failed to win the gavel for the third time in a floor vote earlier in the day.

The House remains effectively frozen as long as there is no elected speaker. The paralysis has created a perilous situation as Congress faces the threat of a government shutdown next month and conflict unfolds abroad. The battle for the speakership has now dragged on for more than two weeks with no end in sight.

Jordan’s exit from the race now sets the stage for more speaker hopefuls to emerge. Republicans are expected to hold a candidate forum Monday evening. But it appears increasingly uncertain whether any lawmaker can get the 217 votes needed to win the gavel while Republicans control such a narrow majority.

 

The also-rans are lining up to take a swing at the pinata:

With the GOP speakership now once again up for grabs, here’s a list of potential candidates and where they stand on getting in the race. They have until noon Sunday to file.

Confirmed candidates:

• Rep. Kevin Hern of Oklahoma, Republican Study Committee chair
• Rep. Austin Scott of Georgia, who challenged Jordan last time
• Rep. Jack Bergman of Michigan, a former general
• Rep. Tom Emmer of Minnesota, Majority Whip
• Rep. Byron Donalds of Florida, Freedom Caucus member

Considering running:

• Rep. Mark Green of Tennessee, Homeland Security Chair and Freedom Caucus member
• Rep. Jodey Arrington of Texas, Budget chair
• Rep. Mike Johnson of Louisiana, vice conference chair

 

Things are now so bad at the Clown Show Big Top that Assistant Provisional Junior Ringmaster 3rd Class The Odious Patrick McHenry is now threatening to quit his post as punching bag.

 

In a closed-door meeting Thursday, Rep. Patrick McHenry, R-N.C., told GOP colleagues he might resign as speaker pro tempore if Republicans push him to try to move legislation on the floor without an explicit vote to expand his powers, according to multiple lawmakers in the room.

“If you guys try to do that, you’ll figure out who the next person on Kevin’s list is,” McHenry told the room, three sources said, referring to former Speaker Kevin McCarthy's secret list of GOP lawmakers who would serve as temporary speaker in the event of a vacancy.

McHenry's comments underscore the quandary Republicans are in: They can't really do anything until they choose a new speaker, but they can't agree on someone who can get the votes to be that new speaker.

And McHenry is unwilling to set a precedent that would give future temporary speakers the full power of speakers who are elected on the House floor. It could mean that the House wouldn't need to elect speakers in the future.

It's an idea that McCarthy himself has been floating, and it was the subject of debate during Republicans' 3½-hour private meeting Thursday. During the discussion, some Republicans asked whether they could give McHenry more power "by acclamation" or whether they needed to take an internal vote in the room.

It's a different idea from the formal resolution proposed by Rep. Dave Joyce, R-Ohio, which would require a floor vote to empower McHenry to move legislation like spending bills and aid packages for Ukraine and Israel.

A GOP lawmaker described McHenry's remarks as an implicit threat of resignation. The lawmaker said McHenry had made the same suggestion to individual members before he spoke to the larger conference.

A second GOP lawmaker said that McHenry made the remarks “tongue in cheek” but that the message was clear: He questioned the constitutionality of such an option and said he did not want the greater authority unless Republicans agreed to grant it to him through a formal vote.

McHenry “will not act in a manner he interprets as unconstitutional” as speaker pro tem, a third member in the room said.

 

I mean, I wouldn't want the job either. Nobody likes a pitiable wretch with no power to actually do anything, and even worse, a clown with false power that will only come back to bite them in the ass.

 

McHenry wants actual power or he walks, and not even his own party wants to give it to him.

 

The Clown Show rolls on as the world burns, I guess.

Last Call For The House GOP Circus Of The Damned, Con't

Jim Jordan won't be Speaker of the House, but neither will The Odious Patrick McHenry.

House Republicans are abandoning a push to empower a temporary speaker, Rep. Patrick McHenry, after it faced fierce pushback within the party on Thursday.

As they left a nearly four-hour internal meeting about the idea, multiple Republicans said there was no virtually no path forward. The proposal, which may still come back for a vote at some point, would have allowed McHenry and the GOP to reopen the House after 16 days without a speaker.

Many Republicans view that task as critical, given pending deadlines on government spending and an imminent White House aid request for Israel and other nations in crises.

“It certainly does not have the support in conference and to bring it to the floor. It would have to survive with Democratic votes,” Rep. Kat Cammack (R-Fla.) said. “We’re currently sitting on a tinderbox. So to do that, it would set off the fuse that would certainly end in civil war within the GOP, and I don't believe that anybody wants to do that.”

Rep. Byron Donalds (R-Fla.) summed it up succinctly: “The resolution is dead.”

It’s the latest setback for House Republicans who have foundered in near-total bedlam since eight Republicans joined with Democrats to oust former Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) 16 days ago. No member of their conference, including speaker designee Jim Jordan, currently has the votes to win over the speaker’s gavel.

The abrupt about-face on the McHenry resolution — after momentum behind it had grown steadily for days — leaves the GOP in yet another dead-end rut. Some Jordan allies suggested that he could force a third ballot on the floor, though multiple Republican lawmakers have warned that his opposition will only grow on another vote.

Talks are ongoing about a potential alternative approach that could accomplish the same goal as the resolution from Rep. David Joyce (R-Ohio), but Republicans are warning against bringing anything to the floor unless it has a majority of the conference in support.

“The language that was being floated is dead. … mostly dead,” said Rep. Kelly Armstrong (R-N.D.), a Jordan ally. “This can’t be one of those deals where we have Republicans voting no and hoping yes. It just can’t be, so we better have some resolve in how we’re doing it.”

Joyce insisted he is not entirely pivoting away from his plan. He pointed to pockets of the GOP conference that remain adamant about being able to move legislation on the floor in the coming days and weeks.

“I didn’t hear it was dead. I think there are some of these folks in there who wish it was dead. But I think the overwhelming majority of the people in there agree that we can't continue down in this paralysis when the world is on fire,” Joyce said.

Conservatives, in particular, praised Jordan’s decision not to pursue the idea of empowering McHenry — an idea that had emerged from the GOP’s more centrist wing.

“I think that's a good thing. The House of Representatives needs a speaker, not a Speaker Lite. I don't support using temporary powers for Mr. McHenry,” Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.) said.

Jordan doesn't have the votes, but McHenry has far fewer. At this point there aren't any Republicans that can win the Speaker's gavel right now.

And so the House GOP Big Top is currently burning, with the clowns arguing about which standardized water bucket size they need to use to put out the fire.

I'd be laughing my ass off at these idiots if it wasn't increasingly clear that no business will get done and that the federal government will come to a screeching halt in under a month while the Middle East is about to explode into a regional, maybe even a global war.

We're headed for a crack-up, and that's exactly what the GOP chaos monkeys want.

The House GOP Circus Of The Damned, Con't

With a vote on Jim Jordan as Speaker expected to fail miserably, more than a few House Republicans and even some Democrats are coalescing around the idea that The Odious Patrick McHenry, Speaker Pro Tempore, might be the solution to this mess. Semafor's Kadia Goba:

With the House still paralyzed in the absence of a speaker, the idea of giving Speaker Pro Tempore Patrick McHenry more power to conduct normal business is picking up growing bipartisan support.

A number of Republicans have been pushing to let the North Carolina lawmaker bring bills to the floor in order to keep the chamber functioning while the party works through its infighting. Now at least a handful of moderate Democrats are getting behind the concept as well, especially as it becomes clear that the GOP’s latest speaker nominee, Jim Jordan, faces an uphill battle.

“I think they’re going to go down in flames on that [vote] because there’s just no way that Jim Jordan, with Donald Trump’s support, gets to 217 or 218 votes in the House,” Rep. Wiley Nickel, D-N.C., told Semafor in an interview Sunday.

Wiley is backing a plan that would temporarily expand McHenry’s authority in the House for 15-day increments, and direct him to only bring legislation to the floor that would avoid a government shutdown in November, provide aid to Israel and Ukraine, and deal with the remaining 2024 appropriations bills. Wiley, along with three other Democratic members of the Problem Solvers Caucus, penned a letter to McHenry last week requesting a meeting to discuss the possibility.

They’re also asking McHenry be allowed to introduce so-called suspension bills — which are allowed to head straight to the House floor — “evenly distributed” between Democratic and Republican priorities, to avoid legislation being held up in the GOP-led Rules Committee. Some members have talked about using suspension bills as a route to push through key to-do list items such as the stalled National Defense Authorization Act.

The 10 members of the Blue Dog Coalition, a group of self-proclaimed “pragmatic” Democrats, also endorsed the proposal. Meanwhile, Republicans led by Rep. Dave Joyce, R-Ohio are pushing their own resolution that would empower the interim speaker to advance legislation for a period of up to 90 days. Notably, ex-Speaker Kevin McCarthy has endorsed granting McHenry full powers of the speakership while the House looks for a permanent leader.

Of course, as Goba remarks, temporary things in the federal government have this habit of become permanent. 

Giving McHenry more power is being presented as a temporary fallback measure if Jordan can’t sew up a win this week. But it could also be a gateway to Speaker McHenry. Hear me out.

McCarthy’s ousting came as a surprise, even to those who have long anticipated it, because for all its manufactured chaos, Congress doesn’t do well with abrupt changes. So it wouldn’t surprise me if an incremental change in McHenry’s powers morphs into a longstanding position for the North Carolina Republican.

In fact, some New York Republicans are already floating the idea that Congress doesn’t need to vote and McHenry already has the powers.

“The authority and responsibility to do so is inherent in the title,” Rep. Nick LaLota, R-N.Y., told Semafor. “The position’s post-9/11 description, done in contemplation of continuity of government, makes this obvious to me and many others. You don’t need to have graduated from Hofstra Law to come to that conclusion.”

 

My view on McHenry, the now long-time Congressman from back home in Western NC, is evidenced by his sobriquet, one he earned 15 years ago for being a proto-MAGA crank. 

 

He'll fit right in here at the Clown Show.  I said that over a decade ago he was headed for big things, and here we are.

Honk. Honk.

Last Call For Speaker McCarthy

In the battle of I Dare You To Call My Bluff under the House GOP Clown Show Big Top, GOP Rep. Matt Gaetz gets the last laugh as Kevin McCarthy's speakership goes down in infamy and up in flames.

Kevin McCarthy will not run for speaker again after the House ousted him from the top leadership post in a historic vote on Tuesday, a move that threatens to plunge House Republicans into even further chaos and turmoil.

The House will now need to elect a new speaker. There is no clear alternative to McCarthy who would have the support needed to win the gavel, but the race for a potential successor is already underway.

The vote to oust McCarthy and his decision not to run for the speakership again marks a major escalation in tensions for a House GOP conference that has been mired in infighting – and it comes just days after McCarthy successfully engineered a last-minute bipartisan effort to avert a government shutdown. No House speaker has ever before been ousted through the passage of a resolution to remove them.

“I don’t regret standing up for choosing governing over grievance. It is my responsibility. It is my job. I do not regret negotiating. Our government is designed to find compromise,” McCarthy said at a wide-ranging press conference Tuesday evening.

McCarthy told CNN’s Manu Raju he “might” endorse a successor and did not say whether he would remain in Congress. “I’ll look at that,” he said when asked.

A number of House Republicans are said to be considering jumping into the race for speaker. It’s a scramble as House Republicans do not have a plan nor are they unified behind a candidate.

House Majority Leader Steve Scalise, who has been the No. 2 Republican, has started reaching out to members about a potential speakership bid, according to a source familiar.

Immediately following the vote, GOP Rep. Patrick McHenry, a top McCarthy ally, was named interim speaker and the House went into recess as Republicans scrambled to find a path forward. The House is expected to stay out of session for the rest of the week, and Republicans are expected to hold a speaker candidate forum in a week.

The effort to oust the speaker was led by GOP Rep. Matt Gaetz and comes as a bloc of hardline conservatives continued to rebel against McCarthy, voting against key priorities of GOP leadership and repeatedly throwing up roadblocks to the speaker’s agenda.

A few observances:

Our old friend The Odious Patrick McHenry is now in charge of the circus, but I don't see how anyone has the votes for Speaker right now. Maybe that changes next week, or maybe McHenry stays because nobody else wants the job. It's all off the map now.

Hell, it may take 45 days to come up with a Speaker. Democrats need to point this out on a daily basis: the House GOP is full of children who are going to destroy the country if they are allowed to continue.  This chaos will continue until Republicans are removed from power.

Finally, I'm almost impressed that McCarthy made it this far. I honestly thought he was going to be ousted after the debt ceiling mess, but Gaetz and company chickened out. They didn't this time. As I predicted, the shutdown was avoided, and McCarthy is gone. At this point all other bets are off.

Shutdown Countdown, Armageddon Edition, Con't

House Democratic Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries got the job done yesterday as the debt ceiling deal overwhelmingly passed with bipartisan support, and now GOP House Speaker Kevin McCarthy has to try to save his job.

 

With overwhelming bipartisan support, the House voted Wednesday to pass the debt ceiling legislation negotiated by Speaker Kevin McCarthy and President Joe Biden, sending it to the Senate with days to spare before a potentially disastrous default.

The vote was 314 to 117, with 149 Republicans joining 165 Democrats.

The bill would extend the debt limit for two years alongside a two-year budget agreement if it is signed into law. It is the culmination of months of political warfare and weeks of frenzied negotiations between the two parties that finally broke a lengthy stalemate.

The deal overcame heavy criticism from GOP hard-liners, who argued that its spending cuts and conservative provisions are too weak. It also faced opposition from Democrats, who criticized the added work requirements and nondefense spending cuts negotiated by the two men.

“You are getting so many wins for the American people in this bill,” said McCarthy, R-Calif., who hailed it as a measure that “moves us in the right direction” fiscally. He said his message to fellow Republicans on Wednesday was: “You’re not spending more money. There’s no new government programs. There’s no tax increases. There’s nothing in the bill that you really should be negative about.”

Biden praised its passage.

"This budget agreement is a bipartisan compromise," Biden said in a statement. "Neither side got everything it wanted. That’s the responsibility of governing."

The bill now goes to the Democratic-led Senate, where it needs 60 votes before it can get to Biden’s desk. Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., and Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., have both endorsed it and called for speedy passage.

 

Ironically it was my own normally useless congressman, Thomas Massie, who was the biggest indicator that the bill was going to have the GOP votes needed.  Massie signed off on the bill in the House Rules Committee along with Patrick McHenry, my congressman from back home in NC. Both of these performative contrarians fell right into line when pressed.

Jeffries meanwhile brought the Democrats.

Spokespeople for House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) and Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.) disputed four Democratic sources who told Axios the two leaders had cut a deal for Democrats to help advance the debt ceiling bill to a final vote.

Why it matters: The 52 Democratic votes on a measure to bring the debt ceiling bill to the floor were necessary for the bill's survival after 29 Republicans had voted against moving it forward Wednesday afternoon. The bill eventually was approved on a 314-117 vote.

What we’re hearing: Four Democratic lawmakers said they had been told of a deal, with two saying they believed it involved boosting federal funding for projects in Democrats’ districts — known as earmarks or “community project funding” — if Democrats voted to advance the bill.

What they're saying: McCarthy had told reporters after the initial afternoon vote that he had not cut a deal to ensure the Democratic votes. A spokesperson later told Axios that there was "absolutely no deal" — and that suggestions to the contrary by Democratic lawmakers were "not accurate."

Jeffries' office also denied there was a deal.

"There was no side deal. House Democrats simply did the right thing and made sure the procedural vote passed because failure was not an option," spokesperson Christie Stephenson told Axios.

Earlier, when reporters had asked Jeffries whether there had been a deal, the minority leader said: "House Democrats to the rescue to avoid a dangerous default and help House Republicans get legislation over the finish line that they negotiated themselves."

The context: The GOP resistance in the procedural "rules" vote was an unusual breach of norms — typically the majority party alone is considered responsible for putting a bill on the floor on those votes.

If Democrats hadn't stepped in, the push for a final vote to move toward avoiding a catastrophic default by the U.S. government would have ground to a halt.

 

"What deal?" says the man who learned everything from Nancy Pelosi a sly grin resting on his face,  now having left Kevin McCarthy to face his caucus alone.

 

As the kids say, GIGACHAD move.

The Mask Slips Once Again...

...And House Republicans are gladly saying up front that they can't wait to impeach Joe Biden multiple times for wholly manufactured offenses should they take back the House in 2023, all but promising years of torment and endless hearings for Biden administration officials and Biden's son, Hunter.

 

Republicans can't wait to make Joe Biden's life miserable if they take back control of the US House in the upcoming midterm elections.

Odds are high that the GOP will wrest control of the House from Democrats in 2022. They've got a decent shot of winning back the Senate, too. And House Republicans are feeling so confident that they're already drafting their playbook for taking on the Biden administration once they've got more power on Capitol Hill.

Insider asked some of the very Republicans poised to take charge what they'd do if American voters decide to put them back in the majority in Congress. Their plans: theatrical oversight hearings, investigations into Hunter Biden's art sales, and maybe even one or more Biden impeachments.

"No government agency will want to receive a letter from us," said Rep. James Comer, a Kentucky Republican who is now the top Republican on the House Oversight and Reform Committee and is in position to become its next chairman if the GOP takes the majority.

Republicans are making the case that handing them majorities in the House and Senate would allow them to provide a check against the Biden administration. They argue that Democratic leadership in both chambers of Congress has failed to hold the administration accountable so far.

Democrats made the same pitch in the midterm elections during President Donald Trump's administration, and their House takeover in 2019 dramatically shifted the power dynamic in Washington and paved the way for Trump's two impeachments.

"Everyone's frustrated with the Biden administration," Comer told Insider in a recent interview on Capitol Hill. "What they see in Congress now is absolutely no oversight to the Biden administration. Like who was held accountable for Afghanistan? Who's held accountable for the lack of border security? No one," he added. "Someone needs to hold them accountable and provide oversight, and we're going to do that."

 

Oversight Chair James Comer, Judiciary Chair Gym Jordan, Armed Services Chair Mike Rogers, and the one-two NC GOP punch of Virginia Foxx chairing Labor and Education and Patrick McHenry in Financial Services will almost certainly be the biggest clown show in town, and they'll juggle their burning chainsaws and take the country down while they're at it.

With extreme gerrymandering alone more than giving the GOP the expected margin they'll need for the House, unless Democrats turn out in record fashion, it's all going to burn down with these idiots in charge.

The time to get serious about Democratic primaries and House races was three months ago.

If You're Still Wondering Why I Left Home

Long-time readers will recall that I grew up in Hickory, NC, a nice little NASCAR factory town in the Appalachian foothills that made textiles and furniture, then transformers, then fiber-optic cable, now auto parts and abrasives.  It's also located in arguably the most conservative part of NC, a good hour or so from any of the Tarheel State's major cities, like Charlotte or the Triad area, and at least that far from more enlightened college towns like Asheville and Boone.

Catawba County is about as red as NC gets, and there's a reason why I no longer live there.  Hickory and the surrounding suburbs have been gerrymandered to be in 3 different districts, assuring NC-10 remains home to The Odious Patrick McHenry, NC-5 keeps electing Virginia Foxx, and NC-11, Mark Meadows.  The three are some of the worst Tea Party meatheads in Congress too.

Little wonder then that neighboring Lincoln County to the south brings us this national embarrassment.

Carrol Mitchem, chairman of the Lincoln County board of commissioners, said he does not want people from other faiths “changing rules on the way the United States was founded,”reported the Lincoln Times-News. 

“A Muslim? He comes in here to say a prayer, I’m going to tell him to leave,” Mitchem said. “I have no use for (those) people. They don’t need to be here praying to Allah or whoever the hell they pray to. I’m not going to listen to (a) Muslim pray.” 

A federal court judge ruled last week that nearby Rowan County had violated the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment by leading county commission meetings with prayers to “Jesus, the Savior.” 

Another county commissioner said Lincoln County said officials had not purposefully excluded other faiths, but pointed out that all 102 houses or worship in the county were Christian. 

“We have never said that we would limit it to one denomination or one religion,” said Alex Patton, county commissioner. “I just don’t know that there’s any Jewish pastors or anything like that in Lincoln County.” 

Patton said he disagrees with the Rowan County ruling, saying the courts had “gone overboard in catering to the small vocal minority.” 

“Atheists are 1 or 2 percent or whatever, but because they cry the loudest, people cater to them,” Patton said. “Judges cater to the freedom of religion. That freedom is for me as a Christian as well.” 

The Republican Mitchem agreed, saying that Christians should enjoy privileged status as the dominant religious group. 

“Other religions, or whatever, are in the minority,” he told WBTV-TV. “The U.S. was founded on Christianity. I don’t believe we need to be bowing to the minorities. The U.S. and the Constitution were founded on Christianity. This is what the majority of people believe in, and it’s what I’m standing up for.”

So no, I don't live there anymore.  I don't expect many of you would be happy there either, and yes, the Cincinnati- Northern Kentucky area actually looks pretty damned liberal compared to where I'm from.

The Odious Patrick McHenry And Obamacare

As I've said before, NC-10 where I grew up is one of the most miserable places in the country to live, and GOP Rep. Patrick McHenry is doing everything he can to keep it that way.  He has no problem taking Obamacare benefits away from some of the most needy people in the country and now he has to face those voters over the Easter recess.

The two-week recess is the first extended break from Washington for lawmakers since the 2014 open enrollment season ended and coverage for many Americans kicked in. Many people with new plans received subsidies to make their health insurance more affordable, or they became eligible for expanded Medicaid.

It’s not that red-state representatives and senators won’t come across negative stories about the Affordable Care Act from constituents who say the law caused their plans to be canceled, forced them to change doctors or raised costs for their businesses.

It’s that other group, comprising the people being helped, that potentially poses a challenge.

In North Carolina, enrollment was higher than the national average, and 91 percent of those signing up were eligible for subsidies as of March 1. California, Florida, Idaho, Maine and Michigan also had greater rates of enrollment and subsidized coverage than elsewhere in the country. (Final state numbers, which would include the late March surge, haven’t been released.)

But nobody actually signed up for Obamacare, remember?  The 8 million is a giant myth, a hoax, a scam!

“We’re talking about those outside of a narrow band of folks who have benefited from this law,” said Rep. Patrick McHenry of North Carolina. “We’re talking about the average American who’s been harmed by it, and those are the people that are speaking today.”

And of course since McHenry is a Republican, "narrow band" means those people.  But it's red state Republican voters who are starting to realize Obamacare has given them affordable health insurance for the first time in ages.

Yet the latest Gallup poll shows that the public’s attitude could be shifting, certainly far more than the lawmakers’ comments suggest. The change is particularly sharp among Republicans. In late February, 72 percent of Republicans surveyed said the law would make their own health care situation worse in the long run. By early April, that had dropped to 51 percent, and more than 4 in 10 Republicans said the law would have a negligible impact for them.

They're starting to come around.  And that means Republicans are starting to deal with some very hard questions about repeal and what that would really mean for millions of Republican voters.

Misery Loves Company

Gallup has compiled its annual list of America's Most Miserable Cities, and surprise, the overwhelming majority are in red states. 

To determine the well-being of Americans, Gallup-Healthways surveyed hundreds of thousands of Americans in 189 metropolitan areas in the U.S. in 2012 and 2013. The survey recorded the physical and emotional health of the residents, as well as financial, employment, and social indicators, among others. The resulting Gallup-Healthways Well-Being Index allows for comparisons between places and over time.

In America’s most miserable cities, residents were less likely to be in good physical health and far more likely to report unhealthy behaviors. Residents in all of the nation’s 10 most miserable areas were more likely to smoke than the average American. In the second most miserable area, Charleston, West Virginia, slightly over 35% of people said they smoked — the worst rate in the nation.

While income wasn’t a direct measure in the index, differences in income were quite prominent between America’s most content and miserable areas. In each of the 10 cities with the lowest well-being scores, incomes were lower than the typical American household. In three of these metro areas -- including the worst-off metro area, the so-called Tri-State region of Huntington-Ashland, comprising parts of West Virginia, Kentucky and Ohio -- median household income was less than $40,000 in 2012.

The list:

10. Evansville, Ind.
9. Mobile, Ala.
8. Shreveport-Bossier City, La.
7. Columbus, Ga.
6. Beaumont-Port Arthur, Tex.
5. Hickory-Lenoir-Morganton, NC
4. Spartanburg, SC
3. Redding, Ca.
2. Charleston, WV

and America's Most Miserable City is:

1)  Huntington-Ashland, WV

Having grown up in #5 up there, I'm not surprised to see it on the list.  Hickory was one of many textile and manufacturing towns in the Carolinas to get utterly screwed by NAFTA, and when the city tried to put itself back together again in the 90's with fiber optic cable plants, the dot com bust came along and wiped that out too, it's one of the major reasons I moved away.

Roughly 51% of residents in the Hickory region of North Carolina were considered to be struggling, based on self-evaluations of their current lives and futures, compared to just 44% of Americans. Residents were less optimistic about their futures than respondents in all but seven other cities. About 19% said they did not have enough energy to keep pace with their daily lives within the previous 24 hours, which was close to last nationwide. Additionally, only 77.4% said they had not been sad within the past 24 hours, among the lowest rates in the nation. Possibly adding to the unhappiness of residents was the area’s economy. The median household income was just $37,364 in 2012, among the lowest in the country.

So yeah, northern Kentucky was a step up from where I came from, one of the poorest metro areas in the country.  The area is also most of NC 10th Congressional District and The Odious Patrick McHenry, one of the reddest districts in the entire country (and 88% white.) Our most famous local hero is NASCAR driver Dale Jarrett for crying out loud.

I'm glad I moved out when I did, I've lived in several places since, and seen a lot of things. that just made me shake my head when I think about how right-wing back home was and still is.

Last Call For The Odious Patrick McHenry

Ahh yes, the Congressman of the Zandarparents, good ol' The Odious Patrick McHenry.  Of course he was going to have a town hall meeting bashing Obamacare in blood-red NC-10.

Only, the best laid plans of mice and men...

In Washington, D.C., Rep. Patrick McHenry (R-NC) issues countless press releases boasting about his votes to repeal the Affordable Care Act, insisting that his constituents in North Carolina are clamoring for relief from the law. But during a town hall in Swannanoa on Wednesday, voters confronted the five-term Congressman with an entirely different sentiment: they demanded to know why Republicans would take away the law’s protections for people with pre-existing conditions without offering any credible other alternative for reforming the health care system. One grieving mother, who spoke to reporters before the event, said that her son was denied insurance because of a pre-existing health condition and eventually died of colon cancer. 

Oops.  You know Patrick, there are real people out there in towns like Mooresville, Lincolnton, Swannanoa and Hickory.  The area where I grew up got the crap kicked out of them in the 80's when textiles went under, in the 90's when NAFTA shipped industrial manufacturing jobs to Mexico, and in the Oughts when the dot-com bust took out the fiber optic cable plants, and it got crapped on again by the financial crisis here in the 2010's.  So yeah, you might want to remember that.

McHenry did offer a prescription for insuring individuals with pre-existing conditions, suggesting that sicker people who are cherry picked out of coverage on the individual market, should enroll in high-risk pools. The comment elicited boos from the crowd, as the plans, which are only open to sick people, are usually “unaffordable, unavailable or ineffective for many of those who most need health insurance.” The Affordable Care Act included a temporary program that failed to attract enough applicants and several states have experimented with similar initiatives. 

Sorry, Pat.  Here in the Unifour, people know what it's like to be out of work and to struggle with health care and insurance costs.  We happen to think the individual benefits of Obamacare are pretty damn necessary, even when we hate calling it Obamacare.

And if there's hope for health care reform even in fire-engine red NC-10, the rest of the country is asking what the Republicans plan to do after a repeal of Obamacare, too.

The Odious Primary

Back home, I see my good friend The Odious Patrick McHenry has drawn a particularly mean primary challenger in Ken Fortenberry, who's wasting no time in attacking McHenry ahead of May's primary in NC-10 over ethics and his whole "lapdog to the banks" act.

“When I asked Rep. Patrick McHenry last week why he would not co-sponsor the STOCK Act, a bill that would prohibit insider stock trading by members of Congress, he replied that the legislation was the creation of  ‘liberal Democrats’ and not worthy of his support,” Fortenberry said.

“Restoring the public’s trust in government has never been a priority for McHenry, who turns everything into a petty partisan battle,” he added. “This is one of the reasons Washington is broken and not working for the people, and why we need to clean House on Election Day.”

“Members of Congress should play by the same rules as all Americans,” Fortenberry asserted. “McHenry is dead-wrong in putting his friends above the people he is supposed to represent.”

When asked for comment on these allegations, Ryan Minto, who handles press for the congressman’s office, offered a statement from McHenry to the Times-News on Tuesday.

“While I personally don’t trade stocks, I understand the concern over this issue,” McHenry said. “The STOCK Act does not address holes in the existing insider-trading law, which may allow lawmakers to improperly enrich themselves. It would not, for example, address the troubling practice of access to exclusive IPOs by high-ranking members.

“Members of Congress should have to report all of their stock trades publicly in every instance — period,” McHenry added. “Increased disclosure will add transparency to help enforce the current insider-trading law, and anyone guilty of committing a crime should be prosecuted.”

In his release, Fortenberry additionally stated that ethics and honesty in government should not be viewed as a partisan issue.

Furthermore, he also said he would introduce legislation, if elected, that would prohibit members of Congress and Cabinet-level officials from lobbying for four years after they leave their positions, in addition to requiring them to fully disclose all of their personal finances during that time period.

“It’s bad enough that Mr. McHenry ignores the shenanigans of the big banks and securities firms, but it’s made even worse when he turns a blind eye to the corruption among his colleagues,” Fortenberry concluded.

It's damn impressive to see with as many bank employees in the Charlotte suburbs of NC-10 that the Republican is attacking McHenry on being too friendly with banks and stocks.   It's entirely true, of course.  But it's interesting seeing the Republican challenger pull a Ron Paul and go after McHenry on this angle in arguably one of the reddest districts in the country.

We'll see how it turns out.

The Odious Attempt To Stop Cordray And The CFPB

The path Republicans are choosing to take as their response to yesterday's recess appointment of Richard Cordray to head the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau goes through our old friend, The Odious Patrick McHenry.

Rep. Patrick McHenry (R-N.C.) wrote to Richard Cordray Wednesday to request his presence on Jan. 24 to discuss how he will "implement and enforce the unparalleled powers of your new office."

Cordray was the subject of a partisan firestorm Wednesday, after President Obama opted to circumvent Republican opposition and recess-appoint him to head the new agency, created by the Dodd-Frank financial reform law.

Exacerbating GOP ire is the fact that Republicans do not consider the Senate to technically be in recess, because several brief pro forma hearings have been held during the holiday break in an effort to block such recess appointments. Several Republican lawmakers have called Obama's move unprecedented, with some suggesting it violates the Constitution.

McHenry said in his letter that the appointment is in "apparent contravention of constitutional requirements."

However, White House attorneys have concluded that the seconds-long pro forma sessions do not actually prevent a recess, freeing the president to push through picks during congressional breaks.

The CFPB declined to comment on whether Cordray would agree to testify, but if he did, he would be squaring off against a GOP lawmaker with a history of feuding with the CFPB.

So McHenry wants a another public screaming fit involving Cordray, the CFPB, and President Obama, does he?  I'm not sure what he's trying to accomplish other than to become the very visible poster child for the GOP backing the big banks over the voters in an election year.  I hope he's ready for that.  There are a couple of Democratic challengers back home waiting for him this year.

Just playing this confrontation between McHenry and Elizabeth Warren should be enough to get the attention of all the unemployed folks back where I grew up.  Since McHenry took office, unemployment has tripled from around 5% to nearly 15% in parts of his district.



So go for it, Pat.

Another Challenger Appears!

The Odious Patrick McHenry continues to draw a number of challengers to my hometown NC-10 district, this time Asheville NC House Rep. Patsy Keever says she'll run in the Dem primary for a shot at challenging him next November.

Rep. Patsy Keever said Friday she’ll run for Congress after being drawn out of her state House district by Republicans in the legislature.

The Democrat and former Buncombe County commissioner said she’ll seek the nomination to challenge U.S. Rep. Patrick McHenry in the 10th District.

Keever was “doubled bunked” into the same legislative district with state Rep. Susan Fisher, another Buncombe Democrat, and doesn’t want to run against Fisher.

“I was drawn out of my district,” she said. “So rather than run against Susan, who I feel is doing a great job, I decided I would run against Patrick McHenry.”

Keever, a 63-year-old retired teacher, said her campaign would focus on creating jobs and representing the interests of women and middle class voters.

“I’m in a position to be a voice for the people and I want to do that,” she said. “They need a strong advocate.

That means there's growing interest in taking down McHenry, as earlier this week Asheville Mayor Terry Bellamy announced she was seeking the nomination as well.   That's good news, because McHenry has to go considering he's well into the pockets of the big banks, doing everything he can to block financial regulatory reform in the House.

This is definitely a race to keep an eye on.

Last Call

Looks like The Odious Patrick McHenry is getting a challenger he should worry about for NC-10 next year:  Asheville Mayor Terry Bellamy.

“Washington is broken, and people are tired of watching the bickering and political posturing while businesses and families are struggling,” said Terry Bellamy. “As mayor, I’m expected to get results and we should expect no less from our Representatives. It’s time to send some people to Congress who can get the job done, and put North Carolina and the country back to work.”

A lifelong resident of Asheville, Bellamy is married to Lamont Bellamy and the mother of two children, Seth and Imani and her nephew, Keithan. She is the first African-­‐American and the youngest person elected mayor of the city. In 2009, she handily won re-­election to a second four-­‐year term.

Bellamy said jobs would continue to be her top priority. Most of the counties in the district have double-­‐digit unemployment and have been hard hit by trade policies that sent manufacturing jobs overseas.

“We need to refocus our priorities and stop outsourcing our jobs,” said Bellamy. “Instead of looking at companies’ bottom lines, we need to look at families’ bottom lines. We need to make serious investments in education that give our people the skills to create a workforce that attracts new industries and keeps those that are already here.”

I'm going to say this: an African-American woman Democratic challenger in NC-10 means this is going to be about as nasty a race as it can possibly get from McHenry.  It's going to be nothing short of brutal, but Terry Bellamy knows this.  More power to her.

I'd love to see my hometown Teabagger go down in flames.  Here's hoping.

TOPM Versus Elizabeth Warren

The douchebag Republican in charge of oversight on the newly created Consumer Financial Protection Bureau and Elizabeth Warren running it is our old friend, The Odious Patrick McHenry.  Here's what he had to say to Warren today in an oversight hearing on the CFPB

Testimony by White House consumer adviser Elizabeth Warren before a House subcommittee broke down into acrimony when the panel's Republican chairman accused her of lying about the terms of her appearance.

Warren testified on Tuesday before a House of Representatives Oversight and Government Reform panel about her efforts to set up the new Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, an agency Republicans and Wall Street do not like and want to gut.

The hearing focused on disputes over the scope of the agency's power, but her appearance ended in heated wrangling over how long she would testify.

About an hour into the hearing Republicans sought to temporarily adjourn for votes. Warren objected to sticking around for more questions upon their return, saying her afternoon was packed with meetings and that the committee had agreed she would only stay an hour.

"Congressman, we had an agreement," she told Republican subcommittee Chairman Patrick McHenry after some back-and-forth.

"You had no agreement, you are making this up, Ms. Warren," McHenry responded.
The committee's lead Democrat, Elijah Cummings, jumped in, telling McHenry, "I'm trying to be cordial here, you just accused the lady of lying."

Like Republicans give a damn.  And what really galls me is that having grown up in NC-10, I can tell you that these are hard-working furniture factory folks, working in what's left of North Carolina's rapidly dwindling manufacturing base.  The textile mills and the GE transformer plant were killed by NAFTA.  The fiber optic cable plants here are next.

When the dot-com boom was going strong in 1998-1999, unemployment was literally 2% in Catawba County.  When that bubble went unemployment jumped to near 10% in 2002.   We got things down to 5% or so in 2008, but when the financial crisis hit the unemployment in the county tripled to 15% by June 2009.  It's 11-12% now and will stay above 10% for a very, very long time.

This is the prime example of what Republican economic practices did to America and why America needs the CFPB.  But Patrick McHenry is going to do everything he can to hand over as much power as possible to the banks that wrecked our economy.

Someone should point out that unemployment in NC-10 has more than doubled on average since Patrick McHenry took office in 2007.  In January 2000 the unemployment rate for the district was about 2.5%  In January 2010 it was 16.5%.  And yet Republicans have been in charge of NC-10 since 1969.

Go figure.

Why Wasn't Wachovia Too Big To Fail?

Our old friend Republican The Odious Patrick McHenry wants to know why North Carolina-based Wachovia bank was allowed to die when the Treasury and Fed were spewing out trillions to big banks to keep them going as he takes over the new House subcommittee dealing with TARP.

McHenry, 35, will chair the new Subcommittee on TARP, Financial Services and Bailouts of Public and Private Programs when he starts his fourth term in Congress next month. It's part of the Oversight and Government Reform Committee, which Republicans are reorganizing as they prepare to take over the House next month.

The subcommittee is still in its early stages: McHenry's appointment came less than two weeks ago, and the other members have not yet been named. McHenry said there's "a very rich environment for potential oversight hearings," including topics like troubled Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae.

Like other lawmakers, McHenry is sometimes accused of being in lockstep with the banks. Two of his biggest donors are the political action committees of Bank of America and the American Bankers Association, according to data compiled by the Center for Responsive Politics. This summer, he voted against the Dodd-Frank financial regulation overhaul, which imposed strict new rules on banks. But McHenry said he is not on the side of big banking or big government, and that he's willing to ask tough questions of either.

"If there's incompetence on the side of the regulators, I'm willing to point that out," he said. "If there's incompetence on the side of the private institutions, I'm willing to point that out."

He voted against the 2008 bill to bail out the banking industry, saying it was "inherently wrong" to send taxpayer money to Wall Street when families in North Carolina were struggling to pay bills. Instead, he backed a Republican-led alternative that essentially would have been a private-sector-funded rescue plan.

"Certainly we had to deal with the toxic assets and bad investments, the dumb decisions, by some of the significant financial institutions," he said.

He called the original bailout bill, which was passed when George W. Bush was president, a "bipartisan bad deal."

His main concern, he said, are the people caught in the middle, like the small businesses trying to get lending.

So, on one hand he did vote against TARP.  On the other hand, he voted against Wall Street regulation too.  McHenry's game is actually pretty simple:  he figures his "oversight" job means to let the banks do whatever they want to with as little government interference as possible, the standard Republican line on anything.  Government shouldn't do anything at all, as far as the banks are concerned.

Don't kid yourself, however.  He's going to try to stick as much of the financial crisis as possible on the Democrats over the last four years and let the banks walk free to play more Big Casino games.  Keep an eye on Patrick here.  The winger from my old neck of the woods is looking to hit the big time in the 112th Congress.

Committing Patrick-cide

Having grown up in western NC, it alternately enrages and depresses me to see my hometown represented by a complete dipstick like The Odious Patrick McHenry.  April Fool's jokes aside, today I've almost developed a third emotion towards this individual, and that's pity.

Why pity?  Because the man feels the need to take to The Hill today to dispel the irresponsible rhetoric his own party has laid out on that prickly tool of government invasion, the dreaded Census.

Few things make will make Nancy Pelosi happier than large numbers of conservatives failing to respond to the census. If we do not respond, we will not be counted and if we are not counted, then we effectively will not exist. That would reduce conservatives’ power in elections, allow Democrats to draw more favorable congressional boundaries and help put more tax-hiking politicians in office.

Boycotting the census also offends me as an American patriot. Our society spends too much time talking about what government owes us; and not enough on the duties of citizenship and the hard work required to keep our freedom. Filling out the census is one of the few things our Constitution specifically asks of U.S. citizens and it is our duty as Americans to take that responsibility seriously.

Anyone who tells you that this year’s census is unconstitutional and that you are not required to fill out the form completely is flat out wrong. They argue that because this year’s census asks for more than a simple count of how many people live in your home, it is unconstitutional and therefore should not be completely filled out. That argument doesn’t stand up to either history or the Constitution’s text.

He's right, for once.  (Stopped grandfather clock being right twice a day and what not.)  But the truly pathetic part is that McHenry lacks the courage, the will, or the intelligence to ask "Hey, why DO conservatives dislike the Census so much?  Why do they not like the federal government?"

The answer to that is the right-wing propaganda that any government not led by Republicans is inherently evil and corrupt, and then turning around and proving any government actually led by Republicans is inherently evil and corrupt.

The fact that McHenry lack the simple self-awareness to see who to blame for this mess (hint: it's not Obama telling people not to fill out the Census) probably explains why he's drawn not one, but two teabagger primary challengers who don't think McHenry is conservative enough, and here, conservative enough means he didn't stop Obama from passing legislation.

But McHenry's walking down a dangerous road here.  If he starts examining too closely where this notion that conservatives should reject the Census came from, he's going to find himself Hoffmanned right out of NC-10's GOP primary in June.  Unemployment is bad back home, well above the national average, and not everyone thinks it's Obama's fault.  In this case, the bum to be thrown out is one Patrick McHenry.

The real problem of course is that Patrick McHenry belongs to a Republican party where many of the rank and file believe filling out the Census will steal their souls and give them to Obama, and all McHenry can do is get on his little soapbox and shout into the whirlwind he is currently in the process of reaping.

Like I said, I almost...almost...feel pity here, if it weren't for the fact that McHenry will most likely be replaced with someone far worse come November.  Then again, the winner may be so crazy, a Democrat could actually win here.

Maybe.

Last Call

Mike Stark.  Making Washington miserable, one politician at a time.  Today's target:  my good friend The Odious Patrick McHenry.



TOPM:  Still not gay.  Also, still not very polite to liberals with cameras.

Also, adding the Stark Reports to the blogroll.

A Fifty-Fifty Proposition For McHenry

Our old friend The Odious Patrick McHenry has a plan to help the NC-10 area's 14%+ unemployment rate back home.  His clever plan to create jobs, help families and bolster the economy?

Meh, OK I lied, McHenry's got nothing on that front.  But he does want to waste America's time by putting Ronald Reagan on the $50 bill!

Rep. Patrick McHenry announced that he will introduce a measure that would replace Grant's face with Ronald Reagan's, just in time for the 40th president's 100th birthday next February.

"President Reagan was a modern day statesman, whose presidency transformed our nation's political and economic thinking," McHenry said in a statement. "Through both his domestic and international policies he renewed America's self confidence, defeated the Soviets and taught us that each generation must provide opportunity for the next."

McHenry says it's only logical for Reagan to replace Grant on the $50 bill because several historians have ranked Reagan as a much better president than Grant. McHenry specifically cites a 2005 Wall Street Journal survey of scholars who placed Reagan at No. 6 and Grant at No. 29.

"Every generation needs its own heroes," McHenry also said. "One decade into the 21st century, it's time to honor the last great president of the 20th and give President Reagan a place beside Presidents Roosevelt and Kennedy."

He does have a point:  Ronald Reagan was certainly half the man Ben Franklin was on the $100.  Apparently the bar for getting on currency as a Republican is "Being a president not universally despised when they left office."  Compared to Nixon, Ford, and the Bushes, yeah, I guess Reagan's not a complete douchebag.  Also, his wife was on Diff'rent Strokes once.

Seriously though, Pat.  I'm fairly sure your constituents have much bigger problems to worry about than whose face is on the fifty dollar bill...I'm sure most of them would rather have the fifty dollar bill, in fact.

Or a job.  Throw in the U-6 numbers in this part of North Carolina and you're looking at, what, over 22% being underemployed or unemployed?  One in five, approaching one in four?

And you're trying to get Reagan's face on money?  No wonder you're getting Hoffmaned from the right by not one, but two teabagger challengers.