Day: February 15, 2013
Boehner Should Have as Much Influence on the House, Which His Party Controls
The president likes to attack Congress, but if he is serious about enacting this agenda, I think it must start with the part of this Congress that his party controls — the United States Senate. What can he get passed in the United States Senate?
— House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH), quoted by The Hill.
At Some Point It Becomes a GIF
155
Number of times MSNBC played the tape of Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL) taking a drink of water between at 5 a.m. and 11 p.m. yesterday, the Washington Times reports.
Who Knew Same-Sex Marriage Was Discriminatory?
To redefine marriage is discriminatory towards those who hold the sincerely held religious belief that it is a sacred institution between a man & a woman.
— Illinois state Sen. Kyle McCarter (R), on Facebook, in response to the state Senate approving same-sex marriage in Illinois.
More on the GOP SOTU Response: Tea Bagger Technology Went Askew Again, the White House Punked Rubio and Rubio Failed At De-Romneyfication for His Party
Visit NBCNews.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy
On her show Wednesday night, Rachel Maddow dissected the Republicans’ response to Pres. Obama’s State of the Union speech and found that it was even worse than it first appeared:
McCain Admits That Republicans Are Filibustering GOP Nominee for Defense Because He Spoke the Truth about Bush
Sen. John McCain committed a classic Washington gaffe yesterday — he inadvertently told the truth about his party’s motives in filibustering the nomination of Republican former Sen. Chuck Hagel are petty and vindictive:
McCAIN: But to be honest with you, Neil, it goes back to there’s a lot of ill will towards Senator Hagel because when he was a Republican, he attacked President Bush mercilessly and say he was the worst President since Herbert Hoover and said the surge was the worst blunder since the Vietnam War, which was nonsense. He was anti-his own party and people — people don’t forget that. You can disagree but if you’re disagreeable, then people don’t forget that.
Hagel was wrong about Bush — he was the worst president, not since Hoover, but from James Buchanan or possibly Franklin Pierce, of whom Bush is a direct descendant through his mother, Barbara Pierce Bush. Even that is being polite. By every metric for measuring presidencies, Bush was the worst president ever. For example, he left office as the most unpopular president in the history of polling.
But seriously, as with their brinkmanship on the economy, rather than putting the interests of the United States first, Republicans are once again playing politics even at the risk of hobbling the leadership of the United States military and weakening national security. They have also made filibustering presidential nominees a standard practice from now on.
Gays, Lesbians Average 3.5 Percent of Population Nationwide
3.5%
Of U.S. adults identify as lesbian, gay, bisexual, or transgender on average, according to Gallup, ranging from 1.7% in North Dakota to 5.1% in Hawaii and 10% in the District of Columbia.
Chris Matthews: Rubio’s SOTU Rebuttal Was Like ‘Something You Would Hear on a High School Debating Team’
Chris Matthews’ take on Florida GOP Sen. Marco Rubio’s rebuttal to the president’s State of the Union speech Tuesday night was solid gold:
CHRIS MATTHEWS: I thought it was Tinkertoys. I thought it was primitive, something you would hear on a high school debating team … First of all, he went after government as some kind evil, then he admitted he had gone to school on student loans. Well, I went to school on student loans. My dad went to school on the GI Bill. Most of us have benefited from good government. Government’s worked for us. I got in the Peace Corps, changed my life. I mean, I’m very pro-government. And he admitted he was, too. He said, I love Medicare because of how it takes care of my mother, how it took care of my father with dignity. He said, I went the student loan route. I got my education. Where was the consistency here? I didn’t get it. He was saying he was a product of solid government and positive programs, and then he just trashed the whole thing.
And then he played the victim game that everybody seems to play. What’s the Republicans victims? They’re paying one in six dollars now, we have about 15 percent of GDP going to revenues. We’re spending 25 percent, who is being over-taxed? I mean, what are they talking about?
It was almost like a YAF-er convention speech, Young Americans for Freedom speech, from the 1950s. There was no originality to it. It was basic. Again, it was Tinkertoys. It was a kid’s presentation of a philosophy reduced to maybe the 9th grade level. I’m sorry, that’s what it was.
