Day: July 26, 2011
Boehner’s Got a Problem with the ‘C’ Word
First Read reminds us of House Speaker John Boehner’s 60 Minutes interview with Leslie Stahl last December which revealed he knew his caucus would not let him compromise with Democrats. Or else he just can’t bring himself to pronounce, you know, c-c-c-c-com-com-comp-compost …
BOEHNER: We have to govern. That’s what we were elected to do.
STAHL: But governing means a — compromising.
BOEHNER: It means working together. It means find…
STAHL: It also means compromising.
BOEHNER: It means finding common ground.
STAHL: OK, is that compromising?
BOEHNER: I made clear I am not going to compromise on — on my principles, nor am I going to compromise …
STAHL: What are you saying?
BOEHNER: … the will of the American people.
STAHL: And you’re saying I want common ground, but I’m not going to compromise. I don’t understand that. I really don’t.
BOEHNER: When you say the — when you say the word “compromise”…
STAHL: Yeah?
BOEHNER: … a lot of Americans look up and go, “Uh-oh, they’re going to sell me out.” And so finding common ground I think makes more sense.
Bloomberg: ‘Something Profoundly Wrong in Washington’
That the United States of America has come this close to defaulting on its debts — a failure that would have potentially disastrous economic consequences for us all — ought to be all the evidence anyone needs that there’s something profoundly wrong in Washington.
— New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, quoted by the New York Times.
Four in 10 Don’t Know Romney is a Mormon
40%
Of Americans could correctly identify Mitt Romney as a Mormon, according to a new Public Religion Research Institute survey. But many people still don’t know President Obama’s religion either: 18% think he’s Muslim, while just 34% identify him as “Protestant” or “Christian.”
Most Trust Obama on Deficit
46%
Of Americans said they trust Obama most to “make the right decisions” on the deficit while 34% said they place more faith in congressional Republicans. Regarding the debt ceiling, a virtually identical 46% leaned toward Obama and 35% chose the GOP, according to a new National Journal Congressional Connection Poll.
Of Americans said they trust Obama most to “make the right decisions” on the deficit while 34% said they place more faith in congressional Republicans. Regarding the debt ceiling, a virtually identical 46% leaned toward Obama and 35% chose the GOP, according to a new National Journal Congressional Connection Poll.
How to Steal an Election
If you want to steal an election, the absentee box is the place to begin, and if you want to calculate the likelihood of fraud in a county, first figure the percentage of its total vote that is cast in absentia.
— Retired Arkansas Supreme Court Justice Tom Glaze, writing in his memoir Waiting for the Cemetery Vote.
Straight to VHS
At self-promotion, Sarah Palin is a natch,
Her ability to hog the limelight’s unmatched.
She’s got chutzpah and aplomb,
But her documentary’s a bomb —
Instead of “The Undefeated,” it’s “The Unwatched.”
GOP 2010 Campaign ‘Pledge to America’ Broken: ‘We Will Fight Efforts to Use a National Crisis for Political Gain’
By threatening to crash the U.S. economy if they do not get their way in negotiations on economic policy, House Republicans, led by their tea party cohort, have rightly been accused of holding the economy hostage.
Only time will tell if this completely made-up crisis, with its dire ramifications for the financial well-being of every American family, is, as it appears to be, a classic Republican overreach. But two things are certain now: They created this debt ceiling “crisis” solely for the purpose of extorting the Senate and administration into enacting laws that benefit the Republicans’ wealthy corporate sponsors to the detriment of the middle class and wage earners.
And, by creating a national crisis for no other purpose than political gain, they have rendered quaint a key promise they made to independent voters in their 2010 campaign “Pledge to America.”
David Weigel revisited the House GOP’s campaign Pledge yesterday and found this gem:
