I’m Calling It For Santorum

I’m Calling It For Santorum

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Know why?  Because we've seen this scene before.  My guess is that Santorum will be the 2016 Republican nominee.  He was first runner-up in 2012, so... it's his turn.  Rand Paul will take over his father's role and act as spoiler.  His Libertarian supporters will be rabid, as usual, and the Evangelical community won't trust him.  Meanwhile, the "business and money" side of the GOP will once again run a Jon Huntsman and lose quickly. Which means... the nomination is Santorum's.  And I think it will be an easy win, mainly due to the make-up of the Republican primary voter.  These voters are incapable of seeing past a primary to the general, and when you consider how many moderate Republicans have left the party then you understand who will pick the nominee. The Republican's base motto of "He's not Conservative Enough" will finally be tested. 
Weakening Dodd-Frank — John Carney Edition

Weakening Dodd-Frank — John Carney Edition

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According to this Saturday's NJ, John Carney is lending some bi-partisan credibility to one of (there's a package of bills out there trying to weaken an already weak legislation) the bills meant to loosen restrictions on banks who are trading in derivatives from their foreign operations:
Heritage Foundation helps GOP hone “not governing” as political strategy

Heritage Foundation helps GOP hone “not governing” as political strategy

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In a letter to members of Congress, which was obtained by NBC News, Heritage Action for America, the lobbying arm of the Heritage Foundation, urged Republicans on Capitol Hill not to govern, and instead, to focus on the would-be “scandals” plaguing the Obama administration.
Why does this un-American, unpatriotic course of action make sense to the Heritage Foundation? They note in the letter that even the most sensible legislation is liable to "fracture" the tenuous relationship that the extreme right-wing of the GOP has with the even more extreme right-wing of the GOP. I know. This is a yawn. Everyone knows that this was, is and will be the Republican "strategy" for the foreseeable future. The Heritage Foundation is adding its two cents to the echo chamber in an effort to appear relevant to GOP messaging. There is no real news here, but there is a silver lining. Today it is hard to find anyone claiming that the cure for all of this is more accommodation of the GOP. The argument that "both sides do it" has become laughable. I don't even hear laziest of lazy Democratic chickenshits extolling the benefits of bipartisanship anymore. Hell. The last time the word "bipartisanship" appeared in a John Carney press release was February 22nd. Progress!
Is it out of stupidity or malevolence?

Is it out of stupidity or malevolence?

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With today's GOP, it is typically both. This Benghazi BS couldn't make that more clear. Check out these poll results, and Attaturk's take below.
A whopping 41 percent of Republicans polled think the Obama administration’s handling of Benghazi is the greatest scandal in U.S. history. “One interesting thing about the voters who think Benghazi is the biggest political scandal in American history,” PPP adds, “is that 39% of them don’t actually know where it is. 10% think it’s in Egypt, 9% in Iran, 6% in Cuba, 5% in Syria, 4% in Iraq, and 1% each in North Korea and Liberia with 4% not willing to venture a guess.”
Greatest.Scandal.Ever.  Say the living embodiments of Comic-Book Guy. Yeah, it's like 12 Benedict Arnolds; 9 XYZ Affairs; 88 Nullification Crises; 35 Mexican-American Wars; like 55,000 Civil Wars; 3,000 Credit Mobiliers; 875 Spanish Flus; 300 Teapot Domes; 84,000 Great Depressions; 9 Million Pearl Harbors; 3,400 Tonkin Gulf Resolutions; 4 billion Watergates; 9 Trillion Iran-Contras; a mere 1.05 Monica Lewinskis; an infinity of Iraq War Resolutions over WMD; and 456 Bankster Induced Economic Collapses -- ALL WRAPPED UP INTO ONE.
General Assembly Post-Game Wrap-Up/Pre-Game Show: Thurs., May 16, 2013

General Assembly Post-Game Wrap-Up/Pre-Game Show: Thurs., May 16, 2013

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Your last legislative fix for almost three weeks, so savor it! In a Dog Bites Man story, Sen. Colin Bonini sided with the oil polluters, casting the only 'no' vote against legislation eliminating a monetary cap on company liability for damages caused by an oil spill. Bloviator Bonini has suffered a precipitous decline in ink this session, having ceded his senatorial Hot Air Hegemony to Monsignor Greg Lavelle. I, for one, feel sorry for the disheartened former champion, and intend to do everything within my power to rehabilitate his diminished stature (I'm speaking figuratively, of course). The Comedic Gods demand it. Probably the biggest news of the day is what didn't happen: 1. Bill adding 2 more casinos doesn't make it out of committee. Nobody has clean hands in this game. Just read today's News-Journal article about it. Which I can't link. Because even though we still buy the dead trees edition, the online access is screwed up, and I'm still limited to only 5 articles a month. Except the month doesn't begin and end at the beginning and ending of the month. Hate to say it, but this enterprise has earned obsolescence, alienating the few of us who still believe in newspapers. But, I digress. Williams claims to have the support of Governor Markell, but the Executive branch provides weasel words instead (I'm typing this word for word from today's print edition):
"The Governor always looks forward to discussing proposals with the sponsors and supporters to understand how proposals might add to the state's revenue and economy."
Which raises this question: Rep. Dennis E. Williams, overly-optimistic or delusional? For better or for worse, I don't think this bill is going anywhere.
The Real IRS Scandal

The Real IRS Scandal

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Michael Hiltzik at the LA Times has written what I think is the definitive piece on the IRS problems -- making the case that the real scandal in all of this is that the IRS isn't functional enough to have stopped the bastardizing of the C(4) organizations in the first place. As usual, you have to go read the whole thing:
Here are the genuine scandals in this affair: Political organizations are being allowed to masquerade as charities to avoid taxes and keep their donors secret, and the IRS has allowed them to do this for years. The bottom line first: The IRS hasn't done nearly enough over the years to rein in the subversion of the tax law by political groups claiming a tax exemption that is not legally permitted for campaign activity. Nor has it enforced rules requiring that donors to those groups pay gift tax on their donations.

Wednesday Open Thread [5.15.2013]

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Sorry for my absence in the open thread department the last two days. I had some family business to deal with and thanks to Cassandra for stepping in. So it looks like the whole Benghazi Conspiracy Theory being embraced by Republicans is based on a phantom email created by a GOP source. Whomever that GOP source on Capitol Hill is, he or she should be imprisoned. You have to wonder why the GOP does this to itself. Sooner or later some kind of actual government wrongdoing was bound to come down the pike for the GOP to make hay out of. It always does. In some administrations more frequently than others. But the current Repubican opposition is so bereft of ideas and new policies, and so desparate to come up with anything to tarnish the President so that he in reality matches their fantasy version of him, that they have tried to turn either minor stories or tragedies into massive scandals, like Fast & Furious, like Solundrya, and now, like Benghazi. And the reason why they were so desparate is that the Obama Administration, up until now, has been relatively scandal free. If only the GOP had waited..... because now they do have two stories that could turn into actual wrongdoing, at least on the parts of the agencies themselves, but the poor GOP already cried Wolf.
General Assembly Post-Game Wrap-Up/Pre-Game Show: Weds., May 15, 2013

General Assembly Post-Game Wrap-Up/Pre-Game Show: Weds., May 15, 2013

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Just two more days before the Memorial Day 2-week recess. Actually, during the two weeks, the Joint Finance Committee will meet to mark up the budget. Meaning, you'll hear a lot of bitching by Gov. Walker's Markell's budgeteers. The more bitching, the better the budget, IMHO. I especially look forward to their outrage should state employees (and don't forget us pensioners!) get raises. Governor, I've got three words for you: Tax your friends. Three more: Or shut up. Damn, that feels good. I gotta say it: The Delaware General Assembly has done a great job of pushing back at the NRA. And its pigeon-maiming front man. The House passed SB 16(Henry), which will help put an end to 'straw purchases' of firearms. The bill just squeaked through the Senate by an 11-10 vote, and the House passed it by a similarly-close 22-19 count. D's voting no: Atkins, Bennett, Carson, Mulrooney(?), Paradee, and Walker(?). R'(s) voting yes: Ramone(!). The bill heads to the Governor for his signature. Great work all around here! If I were a wounded pigeon in Pa., I'd be veryvery afraid right about now. John Sigler has even more blood in his eye than usual.

The “War on Terror” Surveillance State Hits Journalists

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Yesterday, the AP disclosed that the DOJ obtained lists of "incoming and outgoing calls, and the duration of each call, for the work and personal phone numbers of individual reporters, general AP office numbers in New York, Washington and Hartford, Conn., and the main number for AP reporters in the House of Representatives press gallery." Apparently this is in the service of an investigation of a leak -- one that revealed an Al-Queda affiliate plot to blow up an airliner on the anniversary of the killing of Bin Laden. Except that it wasn't a real plot --it was one cooked up by a CIA plant to try to discover the elements of this affiliate. The Obama Administration has been pursuing this leak -- they seem to pursue them all -- but there is a little extra impetus in this one: