Speaker-To-Be BoehnerIf Republicans win back Congress this November, House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-Ohio) is in line to replace Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) as speaker. At his weekly press conference this week, Boehner was asked who should pay for cleaning up the Gulf oil spill:
“I think the people responsible in the oil spill — BP and the federal government — should take full responsibility for what’s happening there,” Boehner said at his weekly press conference…
Yea, those nasty feds. Greedy, grimy bastards. Let’s stick it to ’em!
Hey, wait a minute. The “federal government?” He means us — the American taxpayers. But wouldn’t that be like a bail out of BP?
The Democratic candidates at the top of the ticket in the California primary ran mostly unopposed, so turnout on Tuesday should have been driven by the purportedly intense “energy on the right” that the national media has been promoting.
Calbuzz has done the math and figured out that Whitman spent about $90 per vote in the primary, while Jerry Brown — who barely campaigned at all — spent just 20 cents per vote.
If voter turnout is a gauge, however, the right-wing’s “energy” fizzled in California. With all but a few mail-in ballots counted, it appears that voter turnout on Tuesday was about 25 percent, which makes it the lowest turnout in almost a century. The last time only a quarter of California voters showed up at the polls was 1914.
Until now, the lowest recent turnout was in 2006, when, as a solidly Democratic state that already had a majority Democratic congressional delegation, California merely ratified the wave that swept Democrats into power on Capitol Hill. The turnout that year was 33.6 percent.
FIORINA: [Lawter?] saw Barbara Boxer briefly on television this morning and said what everyone says, “God, what is that hair? (Cackles) Soo yesterday.”
Earlier, at the top of the video, she says she’s puzzled that her frenemy Meg Whitman, the former eBay CEO who won the GOP gubernatorial spot on Tuesday, had scheduled an interview with Fox News’ Sean Hannity.
FIORINA: I find it surprising that on the first day of the general, Meg Whitman’s going on Sean Hannity. Did you hear that?
OFF-CAMERA VOICE: That’s weird.
FIORINA: It’s bizarre. I mean, she’s never been on Sean Hannity.
OFF-CAMERA VOICE: [Indistinct.]
FIORINA: I think it’s a very bad choice, actually. You know how he is.
This is so bad it’s like an unguarded moment “The Real Housewives of New Jersey” diary-cam. So much for the “year of the woman.”
A gaffe like this on day one of her campaign does not bode well for Fiorina, a political novice who is funding her campaign with the $21 million she received when she was fired as the CEO of Hewlett-Packard in 2005. […]
Again and again, the [California] Republican Party has nominated candidates who are not viable in a general election and have defeated candidates in the primaries that would be.
— Tim Hodson, political analyst at the Center for California Studies at Sacramento State reacting to California Republicans’ choice in the June 8 primary of Carly Fiorina over more moderate former Rep. Tom Campbell to run against Sen. Barbara Boxer (D), despite polls showing that, unlike Fiorina, Campbell could beat Boxer in the fall.
GallagherThe last time the National Organization for [Hets-Only] Marriage was in the news was during the Carrie Prejean scandal, when NOM’s Maggie Gallagher publicly humiliated herself by first rushing in to support Prejean after she came out against gay marriage during the Miss Universe pageant — only to drop Prejean months later when it was revealed that a recent boyfriend was in possession of solo sex home videos produced by the future Miss California USA. This was embarrassing for Gallagher who is also an anti-porn crusader.
Now, in the afterglow of the Republican primary in California, the New Jersey-based group is back in the news. Despite the fact that gay rights were not an issue during the primary campaign, NOM is taking complete credit for Carly Fiorina’s victory in the U.S. Senate vote on Tuesday:
I have not not — and will not — think about any future plans until my final days in office arrive. I don’t allow myself. Even if I sometimes wander off, I come right back to this year. I don’t allow myself to have no meetings, and nothing about next year or about my future because this time, right now it’s about now, and getting things done, serving California. That’s my job.
— California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger (R), on what he will do after his term ends, in an interview with ABC News.
I wasn’t surprised, but not really. I mean, just a little, but not much.
— Alvin Greene (D), in an interview with Mother Jones, when asked about winning the Democratic nomination to challenge Sen. Jim DeMint (R-SC) this fall with no website, lawn signs, or fundraising.
Orly TaitzThe results at the top of the ticket in the California primary yesterday were a foregone conclusion going in — the Democrats, Jerry Brown, the gubernatorial nominee, and Sen. Barbara Boxer, mostly ran unopposed and the top two GOP candidates — Meg Whitman (governor) and Carly Fiorina (U.S. Senate) literally bought their wins by outspending their opponents — Whitman, the former eBay CEO, spent $80 million of her own money on the primary, and Fiorina spent $7 million of the $21 million golden parachute she received when she was fired as CEO of Hewlett-Packard.
There was one contest in doubt, however. And with results in, the only bad news for the state’s liberal majority is that Birther queen Orly Taitz lost her bid to run as the Republican candidate against incumbent Secretary of State Debra Bowen, a Democrat, in November.
Taitz received 368,210 votes, but her opponent won with over 1 million votes. (Now we know that the approximate number of certifiable nutcases in California is 368,000, or about 1 percent of the state’s population.)
Taitz’ loss is also another sign of the weakness of the tea party mob phenomenon in California — as was the loss of tea bagger Chuck DeVore in the U.S. Senate Race. DeVore received just 19 percent of the Republican vote.
From Trump’s “stolen election” lies, we can’t get no relief,
He carps on about stolen votes, but he never names the thief.
Somebody needs to tell this guy
Americans aren’t buying his lies,
And that he’s turned us into the United States of Disbelief.
“If you are committing fraud against the American people, all of us in public leadership should be trying to stop it and throw you in prison for enriching yourself off the American taxpayer.”
“We are done, Americans are done with endless conflict in the Middle East, spending trillions of dollars, American lives… this is insane and we have to call it for what it is.”
“The U.S. State Department announced on Monday that it has revoked more than 175,000 visas during President Donald Trump’s administration so far,” Fox News reports.
President Donald Trump is asking for $1,500,000 million for the military for next year. That’s close to $600 billion (adjusted for inflation) more than we were spending on the military in fiscal year 2025, before Trump took office, Alternet reports. This increase is huge by any measure. It comes to around $4,600 per household. It is around 8% of the total budget.
A new Emerson College survey of likely 2026 voters finds the Democrats with an 11-point advantage over the Republicans on the generic congressional ballot, leading 53% to 42%. President Trump holds a 39% job approval rating, consistent with the past two months, whereas his disapproval increased another point, to 57%.
A new American Research Group poll finds just 30% of Americans say they approve of the way Donald Trump is handling his job as president and 67% say they disapprove.
Wall Street Journal: “Around 40% of voters in the 2024 election said the economy was their top issue, far outstripping any other matter. And those voters favored Donald Trump by 60% to 38%. Many say they were moved by his pledges to tame inflation, rebuild U.S. infrastructure, cut red tape and trim government waste. … About a year and a half later, more voters disapprove of Trump’s handling of the economy than approve, 61% to 35%, an average of polls by the Cook Political Report found this month.”
