Friday Open Thread [1.25.13]

What is with Republican leaders speaking the truth these days? Yesterday it was Boehner and today it is McConnell: Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) responded to President Obama's [..]…

Senator Chris Coons Reintroduces the FAST Voting Act

Senator Coons and others filed this bill last November, after we saw one more US election marked with long lines to vote, registration questions and issues and other problems that got in the way of very many Americans to exercise their franchise. He has reintroduced this bill, with Senators Mark Warner (D-Va.), Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.) and Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.) to help states to improve their election capabilities and make it easier for Americans to vote.

Sign this open letter to Congressman Carney: Corprate Tax Reform Needs to be Revenue Positive

Congressman Carney, Through relentless lobbying, big businesses have turned tax avoidance into an art form. While families and main street businesses pay our mandated tax rates of 30 - 35%, large corporations now have an effective tax rate of about 18 percent. Worse yet, instead of investing record setting profits in job growth here, large corporations are using off shore tax havens to hoard cash. The "S&P 500" companies alone have $1.5 trillion stashed offshore. And the "Fix the Debt campaign" that you are so enamored with, is working to protect and enhance off shore tax shelters.

In which John Sigler begs for money while lowering himself to get into a pissing match with DelawareLiberal

If you had any doubt that John Sigler is a clown after his last missive, he works to dispel those doubts in this weeks episode of "The Looneyville Chronicles"
Dear Republican Friend, It didn't take much to launch the arrogant liberal elite into a self-defeating attack against its opposition party... Just a short time after I sent an email sharing my regret that the President didn't offer a more unifying message during his inaugural address, the extreme liberal smear site DelawareLiberal.net took my words and continued the name calling that President Obama "urged" against.

Thursday Open Thread [1.24.13]

For once, the weeping willow gets one right:
Speaker John Boehner said he believes the primary goal of President Obama’s second term is to “annihilate the Republican Party.” “Given what we heard yesterday about the president’s vision for his second term, it’s pretty clear to me that he knows he can’t do any of that as long as the House is controlled by Republicans,” Boehner said in a speech Tuesday to The Ripon Society. “So we’re expecting over the next 22 months to be the focus of this administration as they attempt to annihilate the Republican Party. “And let me just tell you, I do believe that is their goal — to just shove us into the dustbin of history.”
My only quibble is that it is really the Republicans' own actions and policy preferences that are leaving them in the dustbin of history. But the President will do all he can to pursue just, popular and right policies this year and during the entirety of the second term, and the GOP's radical, feverish and irrational opposition to those policies, as well as their delusional conspiracy theories and hateful and bigoted social policy proposals will most assuredly leaving the Republican Party annihilated. It is long past time that the the Republican Party in its current form be destroyed, and in its place a rational center right party dedicated to a social libertarian principles and fiscal responsibility. That is a opposition party that even I could vote for if the circumstances were right. So yes, Boehner, we want your party destroyed. The secret is out.

General Assembly Post-Game Wrap-Up/Pre-Game Show: Thursday, January 24, 2013

Big doin's, today. BIG doin's. Senate Bill 3 is on today's House Agenda. I'd first like to thank everybody who made this vote possible. From sponsor Sen. Marshall; to Sen. Blevins, who assigned the bill to a favorable committee; to the 11 yes voters in the Senate, to the Speaker, to committee chair Bryon Short, and to everyone who has made consideration of this bill a priority. I'm not sure that this gets done without the blogs, the media, and some damn good public servants. This bill also demonstrates that elections matter. Think about it. The Senate vote was 11 yes, 9 no, 1 not voting. Had Tony DeLuca been reelected instead of Bryan Townsend (a yes vote), it would have been due in large part to the extraordinary intervention of Governor Markell in that election. Meaning that SB 3 could well have been buried in DeLuca's Executive Committee, never to see the light of day. If it had somehow made its way to the floor, DeLuca quite possibly would have sided with the Governor, leaving the bill one vote short of passage. Perhaps two, had Nicole Poore not defeated Dori Connor, since not a single R voted for the bill. Now onto today's doins...