So Much For The 'New Republican Party'......

 

 

 

Over the last weeks we have heard about the 'New Republican Party' that is going to make outreach to new constituencies, avoid divisive issues and focus more on traditional conservative issues like the economy. Well, you can hang that fantasy up.

The National Republican Party at a three day meeting in Los Angeles made one of its first actions to pass a resolution against marriage equality. Very little debate took place and there was not one dissenting vote on the resolution. So the message is very clear to LGBT Americans. The Democrats support marriage equality and the Republicans will continue to fight it tooth and nail. The choice could not be any clearer.

Shame on them for rushing in to oppose marriage equality when a vast majority of Americans now support it. Even the young members of their Party support it. The pandering to the religious right and Tea Party must stop or it will soon see a new party of emerge from the ashes of this one.

Glenn Beck: Marriage Equality Won Because LGBT Americans Talked About Freedom

 

 

 

In a shocking video released by Right Wing Watch, right wing commentator Glenn Beck said that LGBT Americans have won the battle for marriage equality. The reason is that LGBT Americans were able to claim the mantle of freedom and having the government dictate individual private lives.

Not sure if Beck found that a good thing or was just expressing anger that we demanded our freedom and got away with it.

Republicans Are Tanking The Economy So This Man Doesn't Have To Pay More Taxes

 

 

The impact of Sequester is beginning to be felt with layoffs, programs being scrapped, unemployment benefits being cut and our national security be placed at risk. Why? Republicans are willing to tank the slowly recovering economy so that people like Hedge Fund CEO Steven A Cohen doesn't have to pay more taxes.

After all, it is people like Cohen that the Republicans will put America back to work right? Right?

Not exactly.

His SAC Capital Advisors has been under investigation and some of the employees already have been indicted for their financial dealings at the company. The company itself faces a fine that the New York Times estimates could be over a half billion dollars.

Fear not.

Cohen is worth over $10 billion and on a big shopping spree. He just paid $150 million dollars for a Picasso. Let's not forget he just spent $60 billion for an ocean front home in the Hamptons. He has another home just down the street in the Hamptons but he needed an ocean front view. In addition, he owns a house in Greenwich , Connecticut. Oh, almost forgot, he has a fourth apartment in Bloomberg Tower worth $115 million.

Now explain to me exactly how the painting, the houses and the fine for corruption totaling over one billion dollars have created jobs? Wonder how many Head Start Centers could have been saved with this money?

Maybe he has some cake we can all eat.....

"Robert Shrum: GOP Should Be Afraid (Very Afraid!) Of Clinton Run In 2016"

 

 

 

Commentator Robert Shrum in his column for The Daily Beast says that Republicans should be deeply concerned about the potential Hillary Clinton run for President in 2016. Why? Because she will knock their socks off and win the election. In the column, Shrum answers his friend David Frum who argues that a Clinton nomination would not be good for the Democrats.

Here are excerpts from Shrum's column:

She's back. And it seems like she never left at all.

After a pause to rest and recharge—and she apparently recharges swiftly—Hillary Clinton reemerged to a rapturous welcome at the Vital Voices Global Leadership Awards last night, to be followed on Friday by a keynote speech at the Women in the World Summit sponsored by Newsweek and The Daily Beast. She came to the first event to pay tribute to Melanne Verveer, her former chief of staff, assistant secretary of State, and a pioneer of women's rights across the world—or as Clinton put it, one of "those amazing women who could not be denied."

The phrase aptly applies to her own prospects for 2016 as the amazing candidate who, if she chooses to run, almost certainly cannot be denied: the nomination or the presidency itself. Outside the Kennedy Center in Washington, the site of the Vital Voices event, a sign-waving crowd chanted: "Ready for Hillary." Almost simultaneously, a new political action committee was launched to promote her next race for the White House—and it promptly attracted 60,000 Twitter and Facebook followers.

She is far ahead in polls of Democratic primary voters. Remarkably, in a general election match-up, she leads Jeb Bush by 9 percent and Marco Rubio by 11 in their home state of Florida—and perhaps most stunningly, a PPP survey finds her ahead of Rubio, New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, and Texas Gov. Rick Perry in the incarnadined Lone Star State.

All this sets the stage for extended kabuki theater about Hillary's intentions. She has no reason to rush in from the wings early on: her financial backers and fervent partisans will wait; her strength among women, who think it's time to elect one of their own, won't wane but intensify. She doesn't need an all-out, three-year long march to the Iowa caucuses. Now we have heard something like this before. But there's no Barack Obama out there to challenge her. And she won't make the decisive mistake she did in 2008, when her campaign misread the primary electorate and malpositioned her as a candidate of restoration in a year of change.

And all of this does something else: it sends the chill wind of a potential 16 years of Democrats in the White House, along with a Supreme Court where the justices actually do justice, through the fevered right-wing swamps of the Clinton-haters and the Obama-abominators who see the white-male dominated America of their imagining fading away. My colleague, friend, and podcast sparring partner David Frum is certainly not among them—instead he's offered the GOP perceptive counsel, fortunately spurned so far and perhaps indefinitely, about how to remake the party in substance as well as style. Now, however, on CNN and in The Daily Beast, he has weighed in with advice for Democrats and Clinton herself: She would be "a mistake for 2016." It is a provocative, fresh, and seemingly well-argued piece—but it's just plain wrong.

*****************************

Finally, my friend and this would-be Democratic strategist writes that a Hillary abdication would open the way to a Democratic "renewal"—a debate between the defenders of the Obama legacy and candidates who believe in Bill Clinton's more moderate approach. Inside the party, no major presidential possibility would focus on that disjunction, let alone accept it. Every one of them, Hillary included, will look to the future—not to repudiate the president, but to build on what he has achieved. To do otherwise would be political suicide in the primaries. It's the other party that needs to renew himself, to find a path out of a fundamentalist wilderness on social issues, to reach the young, women, minorities, and Hispanics—and above all, stop looking and acting as if favors government of the privileged, by the privileged, and for the privileged.

The GOP may not transform itself until it's beaten again and again—for example, by Hillary Clinton in two successive presidential races. And if she walks away from 2016, Democrats will not rend themselves ideologically. Indeed, the odds-on choice then and the probable nominee will be Joe Biden. He's hardly in a position, or hardly disposed, to run against the Obama-Biden administration—and anyone who does will lose to him early on.

I can hear Frum's rejoinder: Biden will be 73. But what will count is vigor, not age. And Biden's performance in 2012, in the debate with Paul Ryan and in the critical swing states—and then in the fiscal cliff negotiations—robustly validates Robert Kennedy's observation that “youth is not a time of life, but a state of mind."

Biden appeared at the Vital Voices event too, where he told the cheering crowd: "There's no woman like Hillary Clinton." He's right, and I more than doubt he'll run if she does. Others may, but he's too astute a politician to take the plunge.

So David, Hillary Clinton won't "inherit the Democratic nomination and the presidency as an estate in reversion." She's earned it on her own. I'm convinced she will do it. And then she'll win it.

Yes, she's back—and Republicans should be very, very afraid.

Read the entire column here....

New National Poll Released Showing Republicans Choice For 2016!

 

 

 

Public Policy Polling has released a new poll showing who are the Republican voters favorites for President in 2016. The big news is that Senator Rand Paul has jumped from sixth place in previous polls to a strong second place. The leader in the poll, Senator Marco Rubio, numbers have hardly changed at all.

Here is the ranking for the contenders:

Marco Rubio: 21%
Rand Paul: 17%
Chris Christie: 15%
Jeb Bush: 12%
Paul Ryan: 12%
Rick Santorum: 5%
Bobby Jindal: 4%
Rick Perry: 2%
Susana Martinez: 1%

In the same poll, Democrats by huge margins lined up behind Hillary Clinton. What happens if she doesn't run? Here are the results:

Joe Biden: 49%
Elizabeth Warren: 11%
Andrew Cuomo: 10%
Kirsten Gillibrand: 7%

The big news on the Democratic side is the emergence of Senator Kirsten Gillibrand as a contender if Hillary doesn't run. 

Time For Democrats To Find A Great Candidate To Run Against Congressman Peter King (R-NY)

 

 

 

The time has come for New York Democrats to launch a credible and well-financed campaign against Republican Congressman Peter King. In a state where well over 60% of the voters support marriage equality, the Congressman still is opposed to marriage equality and other progressive issues. He is anachronism and it is time for him to go.

King represents Central Long Island and his district includes parts of Suffolk and Nassau counties. There is no question that his constituents now support marriage equality. However, for fear of a primary from his Tea Party compatriots, he is in hiding on the issue.

He has increasingly become an embarrassment to New Yorkers with his anti-marriage equality, anti-immigrant and anti-Muslim rhetoric.. King was a strong supporter of the Iraq War where near 5,000 American soldiers died. The Congressman has been a huge supporter of diminishing the privacy and civil liberates of Americans in the name of national security.

Let's hope the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC) and Governor Cuomo get on the case and send this relic into retirement.

Here is the Congressman on "This Week with George Stephanopoulos" from Sunday talking about marriage equality.

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The Battle For The United States Senate In 2014

 

 

 

Lighter shades of blue and red indicate open seats

The Republicans feel that 2014 is there year to pick up control of the United States Senate. Not only are 21 of the seats up are currently held by Democratic but there has been a number of Democratic retirements in difficult states. Distinguished and liberal Senators like Jay Rockefeller (WVA), Carl Levin (MI), Tim Johnson (SD) and Tom Harkin (IA) have hung up their spurs.

Republicans have only two retiring Senators in Saxby Chambliss (GA) and Mike Johanns (NB)

Adding to the Democrats uphill battle to maintain control are Democratic Senators who are running for re-election in traditional strong red states such as Louisiana, Arkansas. Alaska, North Carolina and Montana.

If you look at how bad President Obama lost in Republican states, you understand the difficulty of keeping them in the 'red column' for the U.S. Senate. Here is by how much our President lost each of those states:

Alaska (Begich): -14%

Arkansas (Pryor): -24%

Louisiana (Landrieu): -17%

Montana (Baucus): -13%

North Carolina(Hagan): -2%

South Dakota(Open): -18%

West Virginia (Open): -27%

Democrats do have some hope if they find good candidates in Senate seats held by Republicans in South Carolina (Graham), Kentucky (Mitch McConnell) and Georgia (Open).

Plus the selection of some very poor candidates in such places as Georgia, Iowa and South Dakota should be helpful to the Dems.

Robert Shrum: GOP Putting Lipstick On Elephant Still Makes It An Anti-Gay Elephant

 

 

 

Responding to the announcement that the Republicans are in the process of a political version of 'Extreme Makeover", commentator and author Bob Shrum says just applying lipstick won't transform the GOP elephant. Writing for the Daily Beast, Shrum states that Paul Ryan and the Republican anti-LGBT faction will make that 'make over' impossible.

Here are some excerpts from this column:

The Republican Nation Committee’s postmortem on 2012 is hardly a guarantee that the party will come back to electoral life in 2014, or even 2016.

And to find out why, look no further than Paul Ryan. First, though, the report itself, grandly titled “The Growth and Opportunity Project.”

In some ways, it is an unsparing document, arraigning a party out of touch with Americans, especially the new America of younger and more diverse voters; slamming last year’s presidential nominee in all but name; and, in effect, calling for a sweeping de-Romneyization. In other ways, it’s as obvious as it is correct, calling for a state-of-the-art social-media and turnout operation to replace the Mitt model nicknamed Orca, which on Election Day beached itself on the shores of untested and outdated technology.

The report did call for several shifts on policy, outraging conservatives like Rush Limbaugh, the GOP’s waning pooh-bah, who bloviated: “The Republican Party lost because it’s not conservative.” How I wish that advice would be taken to heart—and into electoral oblivion. Instead, saner, more establishment heads have concluded that the party has to moderate, a word they dare not use on issues like gay rights and immigration reform. Easier recommended than realized—and once done, almost certainly not enough.

Gay rights, the report argued, are a “gateway” for “many younger voters”: they just won’t come to the GOP if the GOP doesn’t bend here. Don’t bet on that move. The religious right, with its potentially decisive power in midterm and presidential primaries, will resist any candidate who follows such thoroughly sensible advice. In any event, the advice is queasy and muddy: what exactly are reformed Republicans supposed to say about marriage equality? How about North Carolina Sen. Richard Burr’s dodge? “It’s a states’-rights issue,” he pleads, invoking the age-old rationalization for discrimination and repression. But even this modified, limited hang-out won’t redeem Republicans when their House members are swinging the opposite way in the Supreme Court, spending millions of dollars to defend the so-called Defense of Marriage Act.

Georgia Republican Sen. Saxby Chambliss, asked if his views on same-sex marriage were changing, offered an ugly reply: “I’m not gay. So I’m not going to marry one.” What if he had been questioned in 1967 about the state laws prohibiting interracial marriage about to be struck down by the Supreme Court? I suppose the Chambliss of that year, channeling Georgia’s arch-segregationist Gov. Lester Maddox, would have replied: “I’m not black. So I’m not marrying one.” There is something indivisible about bigotry—and something profoundly revealing in a comment like this. The GOP may want a cosmetic gloss on its hostility toward gays, but it’s more of a gossamer fig leaf over a reflex instinct for inequality and a resolve to hold on to the religious right at all costs. And that kind of masquerade won’t convince the 70 percent of millennials born since 1980 who favor marriage equality. All the social media in the world, no matter how sophisticated

Shrum shows how on immigration and woman's rights the GOP is totally out of step. Paul Ryan's budget is a recipe for disaster. The journalist concludes:

So beyond the mechanics, the outreach, the shorter presidential-primary season—all the recommendations of the RNC report—here is what the party has on offer.

A “gentler” tone on gay rights accompanied by a hard line in the Supreme Court—and almost certainly in the next rounds of primaries for the Senate and for president.

A confused, shilly-shallying, often slur-riven approach on immigration reform that surely won’t convert Hispanics and other ethnic minorities.

And one place where the RNC report is truly shy: an enmity toward a woman’s right to choose and women’s health services that will perpetuate and widen the gender gap.

The coup de grâce comes with the Ryan budget’s rank economic injustice and massive cuts for the middle class, seniors, and the poor. The RNC may be trying hard, but Paul Ryan has starkly shown that you can’t put lipstick on an elephant.

READ THE ENTIRE COLUMN BY CLICKING HERE......

The Secret Attempt To Create A Gingrich/ Santorum Ticket In 2012

 

 

 

One of my favorite times in presidential campaigns is the year afterward when everyone rushes books, articles and interviews to give us the 'inside scoop' of what was happening in the campaigns. In 2008, "Game Change" was a spectacular book that I could not put down.

Joshua Green for Bloomburg Business Week has a great column on attempt to get Gingrich and Santorum to run together as a ticket. The 'Unity Ticket' was meant to detail Romeny and put the team in the White House.

Green reports:

It’s one of the great untold stories of the 2012 presidential campaign, a tale of ego and intrigue that nearly upended the Republican primary contest and might even have produced a different nominee: As Mitt Romney struggled in the weeks leading up to the Michigan primary, Newt Gingrich and Rick Santorum nearly agreed to form a joint “Unity Ticket” to consolidate conservative support and topple Romney. “We were close,” former Representative Bob Walker, a Gingrich ally, says. “Everybody thought there was an opportunity.” “It would have sent shock waves through the establishment and the Romney campaign,” says John Brabender, Santorum’s chief strategist.

But the negotiations collapsed in acrimony because Gingrich and Santorum could not agree on who would get to be president. “In the end,” Gingrich says, “it was just too hard to negotiate.”

Romney eked out a three-point win in Michigan on Feb. 28 and was never seriously threatened again. While this type of elaborate scheming is more typical of political thrillers, it was real this time. A year later, many of those who worked to build the Unity Ticket still believe it could have been decisive.

“I was disappointed when Speaker Gingrich ultimately decided against this idea, because it could have changed the outcome of the primary,” Santorum says. “And more importantly, it could have changed the outcome of the general election.”

The discussions between the two camps commenced in early February, just after Gingrich got trounced in Florida. Brabender called members of the Gingrich brain trust, hoping they could persuade Gingrich to drop out and endorse Santorum, who was rising in the polls. “I’ll tell you this,” says Brabender, “If Gingrich had dropped out at the right time, Santorum would have been the nominee.” Brabender wasn’t short on moxie: He wanted Gingrich to declare in the middle of a nationally televised debate that he was dropping out and endorsing Santorum. “I couldn’t write an ad to match the political theater that would have created,” he says.

Gingrich had other ideas. He proposed that both men join forces but remain in the race, each concentrating on the states where he matched up best against Romney. Gingrich thought he could carry Georgia, Delaware, Washington, and Wisconsin (from which his wife, Callista, hails). Santorum would focus on other states in the South and the upper Midwest. But there was a catch. “The appeal of a Unity Ticket was strength in numbers,” says Kellyanne Conway, Gingrich’s pollster. “The big question was, who was going to unify with whom? Who was going to be the sheriff and who was going to be the deputy?”

Gingrich thought that he belonged on top of the ticket. “Our reasoning,” says Walker, “is that we had won a major primary at that point [South Carolina] and people like Rick Perry were coming on board. Perry had just endorsed Newt.”

To Santorum’s team, however, the Gingrich campaign was a sinking ship, and their own man was the obvious choice to lead the ticket. “At the end of the day,” says Brabender, “we won 11 states and tied two others. He won two states, which makes it only logical that Rick was the one who had earned the right to go one-on-one with Romney.”

Even so, the obstacles did not seem insurmountable. Both camps agreed that Romney was vulnerable. “If Romney had lost either Florida or Michigan, I believe the money people would have begun to abandon him,” Walker says. Both agreed that a joint ticket could catalyze the powerful “Anybody But Romney” faction already emerging among GOP primary voters.

Read more here.........

Republican Speaker John Boehner's Grandstanding About White House Tours

 

 

Of course the House Republicans want you to believe that the White House staff did not have to stop the White House Tours for the American people. Why? Because it has become a very visible sign of the cuts, services and benefits that this nation will have to endure because of the Republican insistence that the super wealthy should not have to pay their fair share in taxes. The fact of the matter is that the tours is just a tiny part of the pain this nation will start feeling in April.

Nevertheless, cutting the tours was essential to protect the jobs of dozens of uniformed personnel who have served this country magnificently and loyally. The cost of the tours run $74,000 a week. If the tours weren't stop, near 40 people would have been laid off without notice because of the Republicans desire to bring this nation to a halt. Sequester hurts and they are hoping you won't notice it until they can force the President to bend on saving the tax privileges of the rich.

There is only one reason that the tours have been canceled and one reason only - the Republican House attempting to shake down America for their personal agenda's. They are willing to put people out of work, endanger the economy and wiped out desperately needed programs for the middle class in order to protect wealth and privilege. The White House tour are just a symbol of their willingness to go to any extreme. There are no White House tours because of Speaker John Boehner which makes his grandstanding all the more sickening.