Year: 2013

Van Hollen: GOP’s Threats to Unfund Obamacare ‘Going from Crazy to Crazier’

Buck Banks

This is like going from crazy to crazier. Threatening to shut down the government is like playing with fire. Threatening to default on our debt obligations is the economic equivalent of playing with nuclear weapons. For the cooler heads in the GOP, this has to be raising all sorts of alarm bells.

— Rep. Chris Van Hollen (D-MD), quoted by the Washington Post, on using the debt limit to force the defunding of Obamacare.

Christie Sounds Like a Presidential Contender

Buck Banks

I think we have some folks who believe that our job is to be college professors. Now college professors are fine I guess. Being a college professor, they basically spout out ideas that nobody does anything about. For our ideas to matter we have to win. And if we don’t govern all we do is shout to the wind, and so I am going to do anything I need to do to win.

— New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie (R), quoted by NBC News, at a closed-door meeting of the Republican National Committee.

King Says GOP Under a ‘Spell’ on Immigration Reform

Buck Banks

Last year, almost everybody in my conference would’ve agreed with me on this immigration issue. And this year, it seems as though after the presidential election a spell’s been cast over a good number of Republicans and they seem to think the presidential election was about immigration. I’d ask them, find me that debate between Mitt Romney and Barack Obama that addressed immigration. I don’t remember it. I can’t find it. The election was about jobs and the economy, not immigration. And yet some Republican strategists and leadership have decided let’s just go ahead and debate immigration for twelve months and then we’ll see if we can solve the problem.

— Rep. Steve King (R-IA), explaining to CNN why Republicans can’t get together for immigration reform.

Breaking News: Pensito Review Uncovers Stunning Evidence That Rightwing Radio Host Is Right — Bin Laden Situation Room Pic WAS Photoshopped

Trish

Some people laughed when American Family Association member Bryan Fischer claimed that the famous photo taken in the White House Situation Room during the raid that captured and killed Osama bin Laden was Photoshopped. Fischer said that Obama was added in later because his head appears smaller than anyone else’s in the room, but Pensito Review has found evidence, after scrutinizing the photo anew, that there does indeed seem to be something amiss in the famous shot that only the use of Photoshop can explain.

Gingrich Notes GOP Has No Alternative to Obamacare

Buck Banks

I will bet you, for most of you, you go home in the next two weeks when your members of Congress are home, and you look them in the eye and you say, ‘What is your positive replacement for Obamacare?’ They will have zero answer. … We are caught up right now in a culture, and you see it every single day, where as long as we are negative and as long as we are vicious and as long as we can tear down our opponent, we don’t have to learn anything. We have to do the homework.

— Newt Gingrich, reprimanding his fellow Republicans in unusually harsh terms, blaming GOP lawmakers for not developing alternatives to President Obama’s health care reform law, CNN reports.

Three Kinds of Republican Candidates in 2016

Buck Banks

Our most recent rating of Republican presidential contenders features a top tier of three notably different candidates: A Midwestern governor (Scott Walker) who is known best by the activists who will help decide the nomination; a leading national figure (Chris Christie) who has irked conservatives; and a firebrand senator (Rand Paul) with devoted supporters who would shake up the party’s platform and, perhaps, identity.

— Larry Sabato’s Crystal Ball.

Rand Paul: We Can Get Rid of the Special Voting Provisions Now Because They Work

Buck Banks

The interesting thing about voting patterns now is in this last election African-Americans voted at a higher percentage than whites in almost every one of the states that were under the special provisions of the federal government. So really, I don’t think there is objective evidence that we’re precluding African-Americans from voting any longer.

— Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY), quoted by WFPL.