National

Katrina vanden Heuvel previews tomorrow's Republican debate and offers up a list of topics and questions:

Nervous Republican officials can take some solace that the debate is moderated by three Fox News stalwarts. They are unlikely to dwell on the irresistible questions raised by the absurdities that Republican candidates have offered up in the last months. Fox News anchors will no doubt try to get candidates to vent their venom on Hillary Clinton and President Obama rather than on each other. Candidates will have one minute to answer questions, time only for expressing an attitude, not a policy. [...] But my advice — neither solicited nor likely to be followed — would be to pose questions that explore the yawning divide between these candidates and the vast majority of Americans. For example: Inequality and stagnant wages: This is a central concern of Americans. The minimum wage today is $7.25 an hour, far below the poverty wage for a family of four. Cities and states across the country are acting to lift it. In 2014, voters in four red states — South Dakota, Nebraska, Arkansas and Alaska — passed referendums to hike their minimum wages. Seventy percent of Americans agree. Obama and all Democratic presidential candidates support raising the national minimum wage. Yet, Republican leaders in the House and Senate won’t even let it come to a vote in Congress. Wisconsin’s Walker has called the minimum wage a “lame idea” that he does not believe “serves a purpose.” A question on the minimum wage would be enlightening.[...] What’s the matter with Kansas?: Republicans have argued for decades that lower taxes, less government spending and less regulation would boost the economy. In Kansas, Republican Gov. Sam Brownback championed that program, promising that zeroing out taxes on most businesses, cutting top rates and slashing spending would generate growth, jobs and revenue. The result has been deficits as far as the eye can see, with Republicans in the state legislature now scrambling for ways to raise taxes. The candidates should be asked what’s the matter with Kansas — and how that has informed their agenda. Fair taxes: Most Americans are bothered by the sense that the rich and corporations don’t pay their fair share of taxes. Obama has urged passage of the Buffett Rule that no millionaire should pay a lower tax rate than his or her secretary. Would these candidates be willing to raise taxes on the wealthy? Would they support a minimum tax on corporations like GE that often end up paying nothing in taxes while earning billions in profits? Would they act to shut down tax havens and tax multinationals at the same rate as domestic businesses?

"If Republicans were really concerned with reducing abortions, they would be for contraception. They'd be for reducing unplanned pregnancies. They be in favor of making abortion more rare, not in making it illegal. If they honestly wanted to reduce abortions, they would want to increase Planned Parenthood's budget. They don't care about things that have been proven to work thought because they really aren't concerned with stopping abortions. They are concerned with making noise and raising money."

[UPDATE]: This will teach me to read the full article that I am linking to first before posting. Apparently, according to unnamed sources in the Times article I link to below, Vice President Joe Biden considered resigning in the aftermath of Beau Biden's death to care for his grieving family. This further convinces me he is not running. How do you go from thinking of resigning because of family to running for President in a span of two months? The answer is you don't. What we are seeing is a pressure campaign put on by those like Dick Harpoolitan, Biden's South Carolina operative, to force Biden into the race. ---- The New York Times reports that friends and supporters of Joe Biden are concerned that a third run for the Presidency could harm his legacy. Consider me among them.

"Those supporters, in the White House and the Senate, and within the political circles he has moved in for decades, fear that the legacy Mr. Biden has built as an effective partner who took on tough jobs for President Obama, not to mention the deep reservoir of public good will and sympathy he has amassed in his poignant handling of personal tragedies, could be sacrificed in the pursuit of an unsuccessful challenge to Hillary Rodham Clinton for the Democratic nomination.” “They fret that Mr. Biden, as well known for his undisciplined, sometimes self-immolating comments as he is for his charm on the trail, could endanger Mr. Obama’s own legacy by injuring Mrs. Clinton’s candidacy and causing his party to lose control of the White House.”

Not only has he trashed Wisconsin's finances, but his personal finances are a mess.

Gov. Scott Walker of Wisconsin (R) is in some serious debt. National Journal's Shane Goldmacher reported Monday that new federal financial documents showed that Walker had credit-card debts totaling more than $20,000 from two separate cards.

That's bad. This is worse.

One of the debts is via Barclays and is estimated to be between $10,000 and $15,000. The interest rate on the debt is 27.24%.

What a moron.

2 Men Open Fire On Soldiers At Jade Helm Training Site HATTIESBURG, Miss. (AP) — A sheriff in Mississippi says authorities are searching for two men who fired gunshots from a vehicle at soldiers at a military facility. No injuries were reported. Perry County Sheriff Jimmy Dale Smith tells WDAM-TV (http://bit.ly/1UlrHi6) that the shots were fired just after noon Tuesday. The soldiers were training at Camp Shelby Joint Forces Training Center in Hattiesburg. U.S. Special Forces Command designated Camp Shelby as one of the sites where a multi-state military training exercise, "Jade Helm 15", was expected to take place, according to The Army Times.

I'm inclined to let the south go, but I'd hate to have to live next to a failed state full of psychotic idiots.

Thanks to Roger Ailes, there are now two classes of GOP candidates. The Children's Table Losers and the Prime Time Losers. I think it is safe to say that the longevity of the Children's Table Losers has taken a hit. So who should be happy and who should be sad?

Division 1 Jason330: Huckabee (117), Christie (36), Cruz (161), Carson (118)| 432 Pandora: Walker (23), Paul (145), Rubio (140), and Santorum(72) | 380 AQC: Jindal (46), Bush (55), Fiorina (118), Ehrlich (0) | 219 Division 1A Newton: Paul (145), Rubio (140),Carson (118), Santorum (72) | 475 Prop Joe: Cruz (161), Jindahl (46), Walker (23), Perry (65) | 295 Del Dem: Bush (55), Christie (36), Huckabee (117), Graham (69)| 277

Turns out, with 4 in the Prime Time, I'm the winner of the Roger Ailes follies. Del Dem, Pandora and Newton, both with three did well. Prop Joe has two Prime Time Losers, and AQC is the Rick Perry of this round.    

Joe Biden's sister, Valerie Biden Owens, who has managed all of his prior campaigns for the Senate and the Presidency, said today that she has not had a "single conversation with him about it,” with "it" being running for President in 2016. If she is telling the truth, then that means that Joe Biden is not running for President. So that little boomlet was fun.

New York Times: “After weeks of preparing for a smash-mouth debate with Donald J. Trump, 14 Republican candidates found themselves instead Trump-less but sandwiched into a constricting format on Monday night, delivering strikingly uneven performances just days before the first big test of the presidential primary contest.” “Rather than making the other contenders look more presidential, however, the event, at St. Anselm College in Manchester, N.H., seemed to shrink the candidates. Assembled in the front row, the Republicans gawked as each rival took his or her turn on stage, looking at times as if they were being forced to sit through a tedious school assembly.”

The GOP is going all in to turn Planned Parenthood into the next ACORN. In response to completely debunked and discredited videos that conservatives collectively pretend show Planned Parenthood officials…

Former Maryland governor Robert L. Ehrlich Jr. told the Boston Globe that he's not running for president, making him the only Republican in the country not running for President. This means nothing to the universe of political punditry - except to one person, AQC, who is going into the second phase, the drop phase, of DLGOPFP a three legged chair. (scroll down for updated standings) Don't cry for AQC though. He (she?) has Jeb Bush, so points will be accumulated while candidates like Newton's Rand Paul will fall to the ground like overripe and unwanted apples in an abandoned orchard. It is still anybody's game, and other sports related cliches. [An aside... I wonder if all this attention to the Buffoon Bus (tm) is helping the GOP in some perverse way? They do get to claim that they have an "embarrassment of riches" and while you and I certainly agree that these candidates are embarrassing, they are all getting a lot of earned media, and pushing the Dem candidates into the shadows. Also - since they all agree on all the issues, they get to continue to spout their utter bullshit unchallenged. Certainly the media is not going to call them on their floating of fact impaired fucktardy. ]