Year: 2012
LaTourette Says a Deal Could Be Done, But No One’s Willing
If the president and Sen. Reid and John Boehner all said to me today… let’s put Simpson-Bowles on the floor, I guarantee you, given the urgency, we could cobble together something to solve this problem. But nobody’s willing to pull the trigger. Everybody wants to play the blame game. And this blame game’s about to put us over the edge.
— Retiring Rep. Steve LaTourette (R-OH), in an interview on CNN.
Most Americans Identify as Christian, God Help Us …
77%
Of American adults identify with a Christian religion, including 52% Protestant, 23% Catholic and 2% Mormon. Six percent identify with a non-Christian religion and 18% have no explicit religious identity, according to Gallup.
Could Rick Scott Be the Best Thing to Happen to Florida Democrats in the Next Election?
The path to power for Florida Democrats might run through Gov. Rick Scott’s office, if recent polls accurately reflect opinion.
The “let’s run government like a business” Medicare cheat won Florida’s highest office in the 2010 tea party wave that crested that year and ebbed a bit in 2012, sweeping some of those, like Rep. Allan West, back out as swiftly as they rolled in.
Scott, despite spending $75 million of his own money on his campaign, won by only 1 percent over Democrat Alex Sink. After taking office, his approval ratings plunged lower than anyone thought an elected official could go and not simply announce an early retirement, ala former Sen. Mel Martinez (R). Even the infamous former Florida Secretary of State Katherine Harris (R) didn’t poll this badly.
71% of Floridians hate Scott’s idea of setting different education goals based on race and ethnicity
The new numbers show that not only might Scott lose in 2014, he could take lots of other Republicans down with him.
A stunning 43 percent of Florida voters view Scott unfavorably in new polling and just 31 percent viewed him favorably. Scott is in a rare position political operatives call “upside down” because his unfavorable percentage is much greater than his favorable — an ominous state for any political candidate.
Maybe more damaging for Scott is that a majority of his own party — 53 percent of Republicans — said they want someone else to run in 2014 instead of Scott…
Florida Democrats Mourning the Man They Wish Had Been Governor
Former Democratic candidate for Florida governor Bill McBride died suddenly of a heart attack at age 67 while on a family trip to Mount Airy, N.C. on Sunday.
Florida Democrats remember McBride fondly from his run in 2002, when he tried to unseat incumbent Jeb Bush. The state would have been a very different place under McBride, an attorney and former Marine, and one of the best – and most colorful – examples of a moderate, down home Democrat.
McBride’s wife, Alex Sink, also ran for governor and lost, but in 2010. She lost by the thinnest margin – 1 percent – to tea bagger Rick Scott, who has earned the lowest approval ratings of any governor in Florida. Sink, a former NationsBank executive, was born and raised in Mount Airy and was elected Florida’s Chief Financial Officer in 2006, serving under Gov. Charlie Crist.
We at Pensito Review are sad to hear of McBride’s passing and offer deepest condolences to his family.
If Only Romney Could Have Skipped That Whole Campaigning Part
Great, now you tell that to the thousands of volunteers, contributors, supporters and those that voted for Governor Romney. Smart move…
— Comment from a Republican friend on Facebook, linking to this story quoting Tagg Romney saying his father didn’t want to run for president. Unfortunately, campaigning and governing are two different skill sets and very few people have them both.
Republicans’ Failure to Resolve Fiscal Cliff Could Produce Another Economic Catastrophe
Just four years after Republican ineptitude, malfeasance and blind dedication to its failed supply-side ideology led to the worst economic collapse since the Great Depression — and just 18 months after tea party obstruction led to the United States’ first-ever credit downgrade — the GOP is ready to do it again.
From the Rachel Maddow Show on MSNBC last night:
A Holiday Poem of Affirmation
While researching a technical problem with my office’s current internet provider, I learned that error messages are actually complex codes, that each number in an error code (such as “404” when a web page doesn’t load) represents a different message. That inspired me to write this heartwarming and ultimately life-affirming poem based on server error codes.
Error 15342
The server has accepted the command, but does not yet take action.
A confirmation message is required.
The server has encountered an error.
The server has understood the request, but requires further information to complete it.
The server has encountered a temporary failure.
If the command is repeated without any change, it might be completed.
The server has completed the task successfully.
Jon Ponder’s commentary:
Beautiful! The server encounters an obstacle but believes in its heart of hearts it is only temporary. It perseveres and soon the task is completed successfully. Its mission completed, the server is happy. An ode for our times.
Happy Holidaze!
Stand Down, Boehner
Speaker John Boehner’s epic fail last night — his inability to deliver enough Republican votes for his own “Plan B” for avoiding the fiscal cliff — proves that he has been negotiating in bad faith all along. He has never had the votes to pass any sort of deal, because, as the tea party has shown repeatedly, conservatives want the U.S. economy to fail. Why? Apparently, their objective is to replace our century-old regulatory capitalist system (which in other advanced nations is called “democratic socialism”) with an Ayn Randian, regulation- and tax-free utopia, where the sick and old die in the streets.
David Kurtz at TPM suggests that if the United States had a modern parliamentary system like the governments of all our allies and competitors, Boehner would be history:
It is easy to overreact to these things in the moment, to overread them. But Speaker Boehner just put it all on the line. The entire nation was watching, and he was exposed. He knows it. His conference knows it. Anyone left in Washington who had doubts about this speaker’s clout now knows it, too. In a parliamentary system, he would resign and his party would elect a new leader. We don’t do it that way here … usually. But it’s hard to see how Speaker Boehner continues from here — or why he would want to.
Republican operative Craig Shirley agrees that last night’s fiasco was the equivalent of a vote of “no confidence” for Boehner:
