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.
Pundits say that Trump’s $5,000 midterm bribe was an overreach,
And they agree that if lies were a crime, he’d be impeached.
Despite all the dividend promises he’s made,
The fact is, not one has ever been paid,
So even before the midterms, he already owes us $8,000* each.
*$5000 stimulus checks via “DOGE dividend”; $2000 stimulus checks via a “tariff dividend”; $1000-plus checks via “savings” from expiring Affordable Care Act subsidies
“The man is afraid of the voice of the people and that the people understand and know what he’s doing. He’s trying to stifle the ability of journalists to let the people of America know what’s really going on with their government.”
— “Kamala Harris called President Donald Trump’s ban of CNN, MS NOW and Politico from the White House ‘absolutely abhorrent,’” The Wrap reports.
“Not one of them is trained in technical skills. Not one research PhD, as opposed to China, where half the cabinet is science and technology PhDs. We’re led by grifters and fools.”
— Columbia professor Jeffrey Sachs, on X, on President Trump’s 35-person cabinet.
“Mr. President, some of your immigration enforcement efforts have gone too far… The same Hispanics who helped you get to the White House in 2024 feel betrayed today.”
— Rep. Maria Elvira Salazar (R-FL), breaking with President Trump in a direct-to-camera video.
“Donald Trump made over a thousand stock sales and purchases worth between $79m and $270m in July,” The Guardian reports. “His two largest sales were of Amazon and Microsoft stock, selling between $5m and $25m each on 20 July. That same day, he also sold up to $5m worth of Oracle and Costco stock, $500,000 to $1m in Nvidia, and bought up to $5m worth of shares in Intuit and Salesforce, among dozens of other transactions.”
“The unprecedented spate of mid-decade redistricting for the U.S. House has changed the congressional districts for one-tenth of Americans and significantly altered the makeup of at least one-fifth of districts, according to a new study,” the Associated Press reports.
A new Fox News Poll finds 71% of voters think the Trump administration lacks a clear strategy for ending the Iran War, including 95% of Democrats, 83% of independents, and 43% of Republicans. Sixty percent say U.S. military action against Iran was the wrong decision, while just 37% say it was right.
“The Trump administration last year spent $9.5 billion on paid administrative leave for federal workers as part of its plan to shrink the government and save taxpayers money, according to a new estimate by a congressional watchdog,” CNN reports.
Reuters has documented at least 470 targets of retribution under Trump’s leadership – from federal employees and prosecutors to universities and media outlets. The list illuminates the sweeping effort by the president and his administration to punish dissent and reshape the government.
