Month: April 2011
Bachmann Touts Her Wide Extensiveness
I have a very broad, extensive background. I’m a student of many years. I’ve studied a number of, a wide berth of topics. I sit currently on the Intelligence Committee. We deal with the classified secrets and with the unrest that’s occurring around the world. I also sit on Financial Services Committee. But again, I’ve lived life. Tomorrow, I’ll be celebrating my 55th birthday, and I’ve had a wide, extensive life. And again, my background is a very practical, solution-oriented vision.
— Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-MN), in a Fox News interview, explaining why she’s qualified to be President of the United States.
Punished for Working
In the event of a government shutdown,
Lawmakers are putting their foot down.
“No checking of emails
Or chatting up females —
You’re furloughed, no Blackberrys, you clowns!”
We’re All Disabled Under the Revised ADA
30,000
Disability-discrimination charges are expected to be filed with the U.S. government in 2011, a 42% increase since 2009, when a law signed by President George W. Bush broadened the definition of disability. Under the revision of the Americans with Disabilities Act, nearly everyone with any form of mental or physical impairment is considered disabled.
Charlie Cook: Swing Voters’ Shift Back to Center Worries Republicans
I would be surprised if either party picked up or lost more than 10 seats, something like that. Democrats need a 25 seat net gain to get their majority back in the House. And I think that’s awfully hard. They may pick up five or 10; they may lose five or 10. I don’t see a lot of change in the House of Representatives right now.
Based on current trends and past performance — the record of the parties’ gains and losses in the House in past presidential elections — chances that Democrats will take back the House next year remain statistically unlikely.
But statistics have their limits as predictors. Events — natural disasters, wars, economic downturns and the like — can change the political landscape seemingly overnight, as can human folly and hubris.
Now, in a column published in the National Journal this week, Cook says recent developments, particularly in the tea party-controlled U.S. House, are starting to worry top Republicans:
Gingrich Whines About Obama’s Ability to Raise Money
Here’s a president who 18 months before the election is going to use his office to extort contributions on a scale we’ve never seen before. He’s in effect trying to create a Chicago-style machine for the whole country with a billion dollars.
— Newt Gingrich, quoted by CNN, in reaction to President Obama’s re-election campaign announcement.
GOP Could Be Headed for a Fall
Among the worries the party now has is that a government shutdown could get blamed on the GOP. Additionally, these party insiders believe that taking on entitlements, specifically Medicare, could jeopardize the party’s hold on the House, its strong chances of taking the Senate and the stronghold that the party has been established with older white voters — not coincidentally, Medicare recipients. … Part of what is happening is that there is a giant gap between the attitudes of Republican base voters and those who are swing voters.
— Political analyst Charlie Cook, on why the Republican Party could find itself headed for a train wreck in 2012.
Payback Time for Maine’s Expensive Mural
$60,000
The amount the federal government wants back from Maine. The U.S. Department of Labor says Maine Gov. Paul LePage (R) “violated the terms of a federal grant when he removed a labor-themed mural from a state office building last month,” the Kennebec Journal reports.
The Lover Governor
We may not appreciate Rick Scott’s antics,
But we admit he’s quite the romantic.
He knows what to do
To tell his wife “I love you” —
He gave her $62 million worth of Solantic!
Because Your Uterus Is Your Business
We’ve been telling you how the Florida legislature, which is currently pushing through 18 different bills to restrict abortion, is making women’s uteruses their business. And how State Rep. Scott Randolph (D-Orlando) pointed out that if his wife’s uterus were incorporated, the big-business fat cats in the legislature would leave it alone (and, I might add, give it tax breaks). Republicans were so upset at Randolph’s casual use of the correct name for his wife’s lady parts that they formally scolded him, citing the delicate ears of legislative pages.
Randolph recently appeared on Rachel Maddow’s show, and she was particularly taken with the new web site, www.incorporatemyuterus.com, which seeks to establish exactly whose business a woman’s uterus is. The site even offers articles of incorporation. Before you visit, be thinking of the official name for your incorporated uterus, as you will need to supply it on the form.
