Month: January 2015

Republican House Is Stuck on Unpopular Topics

Buck Banks

Week one, we had a Speaker election that didn’t go as well as a lot of us would have liked. Week two, we spent a lot of time talking about deporting children, a conversation a lot of us didn’t want to have. Week three, we’re debating reportable rape and incest — again, not an issue a lot of us wanted to have a conversation about. I just can’t wait for week four.

— Rep. Charlie Dent (R-PA), quoted by TPM, on the priorities of House Republicans.

The GOP Translation of Obama’s State of the Union Speech

Buck Banks

You won nothing in November. The 2014 election had no consequences for my Administration whatsoever. You may have beaten my party and members of my team in the mid-term elections, but you’ve never beaten me. And, now you never will. All this talk about compromise and working together means you do what I want, because I’m not meeting you halfway on anything. My veto pen is ready and inked up. I will fight you and your agenda til the movers come on January 20th, 2017. I am still the President.

— GOP pollster Neil Newhouse translates President Obama’s State of the Union address.

Idaho Won’t Name Giant Salamander State Amphibian

Buck Banks

They were ugly, they were slimy, and they were creepy. And I’ve not gotten over that. So to elevate them to the status of being the state amphibian, I’m not there yet.

— Rep. Ken Andrus (R), who voted against the measure a grade school student’s request that the Idaho giant salamander be named the state amphibian,” the Idaho Statesman reports. Andrus recalled being repulsed by them as a young boy.