That is the North star we must follow no matter what fake scandals are strewn in our path. Apathy and Complacency taught us a huge lesson in 2010, whose ramifications stall our progress now. Many of us failed to appreciate how recalcitrant entrenched plutocratic power is. So we have to defeat the GOP and their brand of UNAMERICAN callousness toward the 99% of this country’s population. When someone shows you who they are, believe them. Republicans do NOT care about this country’s welfare, only to grab for their monied friends. Period.
As President Obama said on election night 2008 “the road will be long, our climb will be steep, but America, we will get there.” Every one of those predictions has been borne out. Good news is we conquered them in 2012. But we have more fight on our hands. Today’s 37th repeal Obamacare vote should remind us that Republicans never give up on eroding our rights. They keep gnawing and gnawing and gnawing at our rights until they can wear us down and chip away till we have only empty shells left.
1:05: Tours Ellicott Dredges (which manufactures innovative dredges and dredge equipment being sold for infrastructure projects across the country and around the world)
1:20: Delivers remarks
2:15: Visits a community center
3:0: Departs Baltimore
3:25: Arrives the White House
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Kevin Drum (Mother Jones): It’s Official: Those Bogus Email Leaks Came From Republicans
It’s not as if we didn’t know this already, but Major Garrett made it official: last week’s leaks that misquoted the Benghazi emails came directly from Republicans….
So here’s what happened. Republicans in Congress saw copies of these emails two months ago and did nothing with them. It was obvious that they showed little more than routine interagency haggling. Then someone got the bright idea of leaking two isolated tidbits and mischaracterizing them in an effort to make the State Department look bad…..
But it was typical GOP overreach. To their surprise, the White House took Republicans up on their demand to make the entire email chain public, thus making it clear to the press that they had been burned. And now reporters are letting us all know who was behind it.
Steve Benen: Whether or not an issue is a “scandal” tends to be a subjective question — one voter’s world-changing controversy may be another voter’s meaningless distraction. Indeed, the Beltway has spent a week telling the nation that the White House is engulfed in three ongoing scandals, though many of us suspect this analysis is deeply flawed.
But if we’re going to talk about real political scandals, can we at least have a conversation about Republicans lying to reporters about Benghazi?
Jeffrey Goldberg (Bloomberg): So it turns out that Susan Rice, the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations and, before a group of leading Senate Republicans decided that she was evil incarnate, a top contender to replace Hillary Clinton as secretary of state, had nothing to do with formulating the White House’s response to the fatal attacks last year at the American diplomatic mission in Benghazi, Libya.
…. Republican Senators Lindsey Graham and John McCain, among others, argued for weeks that Rice was a crucial cog in a huge conspiracy to hide the facts of Benghazi from the American people….
…. I don’t expect that Graham will apologize to Rice for accusing her of engaging in an enormous conspiracy, when all she seems to have done is take the consensus of several government agencies and present it publicly. But you would hope Graham would think twice before threatening again to stop her advancement in government.
President Obama checks to see if he still needs the umbrella held by a U.S. Marine during a joint news conference with Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan in the Rose Garden of the White House, May 16
Washington Post: Since Republicans took control of the House of Representatives in 2011, the House has voted 36 times to repeal either all, or part, of President Obama’s health-care law.
On Thursday, the House is scheduled to do it again, taking up another bill that would repeal the health care law in full.
With number 37 on the way, here are the details of the first 36 votes….
Steve Benen: Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) was asked yesterday about House Republicans, once again, voting to repeal the Affordable Care Act, even though House Republicans realize this is pointless. Noting the insanity of doing the same thing over and over again, expecting different results, Reid said they have “truly lost their minds.”
Generally, once partisan, tendentious sources leak information that turns out to be wrong, nothing’s ever done about it. That’s for many reasons, some good or somewhat understandable, mostly bad. But on CBS Evening News tonight, Major Garrett did something I don’t feel like I’ve seen in a really long time or maybe ever on a network news cast. He basically said straight out: Republicans told us these were the quotes, that wasn’t true….
Washington Post: Doing the same thing over and over again — and expecting a different result — is supposed to be the definition of insanity. On Thursday, it is the only thing on the calendar for the House of Representatives.
Since Republicans took over in 2011, the House has voted five times to repeal President Obama’s health-care law. It has also voted 31 other times to repeal individual pieces of the law or to strip away its funding.
Still, on Thursday the House will do it all once more — voting on a new bill to repeal the law. It will pass again. Then it will die in the Senate, again.
Joy-Ann Reid: Amid the uproar, and calls for investigations, over IRS employees using inappropriate criteria and questions to vet applications for 501(c)4 non-profit status by tea party groups, a few facts are falling through the cracks. Among them: tea party groups weren’t the only ones subjected to unfair scrutiny. And while none of the dozens of tea party groups who complained of bias had their applications denied, in the case of at least one Democratic leaning organization, the IRS said “no” to their request to be declared tax exempt.
Ed Kilgore: Well, it doesn’t get much more official than this: an VandeHei/Allen “Behind the Curtain” column announcing that D.C. (“the town”) is “turning on” Barack Obama, and there will be nothing but venom coming from any direction for the foreseeable future
Too bad, voters, and all those who have an interest in their federal government doing something constructive; Obama has to have his spanking from “D.C. stakeholders,” so enjoy it or look the other way.
What amazes me the most about this column is the forthright announcement that the MSM are going to make explicit common cause with the GOP
Nate Cohn: After President Obama’s reelection, analysts and commentators wondered whether his young and diverse coalition would outlive his presidency. Many believe, based mainly on their intuition, that 2008 and 2012 were the anomalous results of a historic candidacy. On the other hand, the country is getting more and more diverse with each passing year. Recently, one prominent demographer at the Brookings Institute used the exit polls to argue that Obama would have lost if turnout rates returned to ’04 levels. But his effort was misguided and premature.
Today, the Census released the November 2012 Current Population Survey (CPS) Voting and Registration Supplement, which is based on interviews with hundreds of thousands of residents. Unsurprisingly, the CPS found that the 2012 electorate was more diverse than any in history.
The biggest mistake that Republicans made in 2012 was assuming that 2008 was a special, one-time product of a historic candidate. That was superficially appealing and maybe even “felt” right, but the CPS said that the 2008 turnout wasn’t as unique as the huge crowds and palpable enthusiasm made it seem. The GOP should not delude itself into believing that taking Obama off of the ballot will return them to the White House, even if black turnout rates should be expected to decline in 2016. Demographic change, not turnout, is the primary force driving the declining white share of the electorate, and the GOP will need to adapt.
ThinkProgress: Staff who served in Libya with Gregory Hicks, the GOP’s primary “whistleblower” in this week’s hearing on the Benghazi terror attacks, undercut his story that State Department officials demoted him as retribution for speaking out, instead telling ThinkProgress about a man who one described as “the worst manager I’ve ever seen in the Foreign Service.”
“He was removed from here because he was a disaster as a manager,” the second employee went on to say, expressing the belief that Hicks’ reassignment had “nothing to do with him being a whistleblower, it had everything to do with his management capacity or lack thereof.” This includes going to a meeting with the Libyan Prime Minister Mohammed Magarief in a t-shirt, cargo pants, and baseball cap. “I’m too upset to wear a suit,” Hicks allegedly told a staffer. “I want the Libyans to know how upset I am about this attack.”
Three years ago today: President Obama, Vice President Biden and Solicitor General Elena Kagan wait in the Blue Room of the White House, May 10, 2010, prior to the President’s announcement of Kagan as his choice to replace retiring Justice John Paul Stevens in the Supreme Court (Photo by Pete Souza)
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Today:
12:30: Press Briefing by Press Secretary Jay Carney
2:40: The President delivers a statement on the Affordable Care Act
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USA Today: President Obama turns his attention back Friday to one of his signature issues, health care. A White House event this afternoon ties implementation of the massive 2010 health care law to Mother’s Day on Sunday.
Obama will discuss the benefits of the law for women, and also ask mothers to encourage young people to sign up when insurance exchanges go on line in October.
Sun Times: President Barack Obama returns to Berlin in June – the city where he staged a triumphic speech during the 2008 election – with First Lady Michelle, the White House announced on Friday.
The June 17-19 swing will start in Belfast and move to Lough Erne in Northern Ireland for the G-8 Summit. After that the First Couple head to Berlin.
Austin Bergstrom International Airport, Austin, May 9
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Norm Ornstein (National Journal): ….. Bob Woodward has pushed the idea that Obama has failed in his fundamental leadership task – not building relationships with key congressional leaders the way Bill Clinton did….
…. No one schmoozed more or better with legislators in both parties than Clinton. How many Republican votes did it get him on his signature initial priority, an economic plan? Zero in both houses. And it took eight months to get enough Democrats to limp over the finish line. How did things work out on his health care plan? How about his impeachment in the House?
…. For Obama, we knew from the get-go that he had no Republicans willing to work with him ….. schmoozing was not going to change that.
…. it is past time to abandon selective history and wishful thinking, and realize the inherent limits of presidential power, and the very different tribal politics that Obama faces compared with his predecessors.
The vice president on guns, global warming and why he’s “the last guy in the room” on every decision Obama makes……
“Remember, I got criticized for saying I support gay marriage …. I just decided I couldn’t be quiet about it anymore, and everybody was stunned that that’s where the public is. And I’m not stunned; it’s where the public’s been for a while. Talk to any of your kids, for God’s sake.”
Did you get blowback from the president or people in general?
“I got blowback from everybody but the president. I walked in that Monday, he had a big grin on his face, he put his arms around me and said, “Well, Joe, God love you, you say what you think.” I knew he agreed with me. It wasn’t like he was in a different place…..”
