Quote of the Week (With Update)

In perhaps the most gratuitously — and joyously! — dickish move of his presidency, Barack Obama has scheduled a primetime congressional address next week at the precise moment Politico and MSNBC will be hosting a debate for the GOP presidential candidates.

-- From Gawker.

UPDATE: Obama backs down. Wow -- I didn't see that coming.

No, This Is Not An Onion Article

It's from the New York Times, and yes, Virginia, there actually is a tax cut that the GOP opposes:

It is hard to find a tax cut that Congressional Republicans dislike. Unless it is a tax cut pushed by President Obama.

In a turning of the tax policy tables, Democrats are increasingly hammering on Republicans who oppose the president’s proposal to extend for a year a payroll tax cut passed last year with bipartisan support.

That tax cut — which reduces workers’ contributions to Social Security this year to 4.2 percent of wages, from 6.2 percent — expires in December. The White House would like to extend it for another year. But Republicans in Congress are balking, arguing that such a cut adds needlessly to the nation’s budget deficit, and should be replaced with an overhaul of tax policy instead.***

OK, look -- I get it: We have an election that is a little over 14 months away, so I understand that the GOP doesn't want to support anything Obama proposes. Given the current political climate, Obama could even propose a constitutional amendment banning abortion and the GOP would probably oppose it because Obama supports it.

But opposing a tax cut simply because it helps the middle class and poor people, while at the same time insisting that Bush's tax cuts for the wealthy be continued? That's pretty fucked-up.

Huntsman's Path To Name Recognition?

Via TPM:

The former Utah governor and Obama-appointed ambassador to China has appeared to take glee in poking the Republican base in recent days. Try to convince the base that his appointment by President Obama isn't a fatal handicap? Nah, just mock the base instead.

Huntsman's "Call me crazy" tweet was in response to two prominent blow-ups from Texas Gov. Rick Perry. Within the space of 28 hours he alleged that scientists were making up global warming for profit and had dismissed evolution as "a theory that's out there."

"To be clear," Huntsman tweeted. "I believe in evolution and trust scientists on global warming. Call me crazy."

Crazy? Maybe not, especially if Huntsman -- who really has nothing to lose -- decides to attack his fellow GOP presidential candidates for taking the batshit-crazy positions that folks like Bachmann and Perry seem to take on pretty much a daily basis.

I would love it if, during the next GOP debate when Bachmann says something absurd (which will happen), Huntsman turns to her and says, "That may be the most insane thing I've heard yet during this campaign, and that's saying a lot."

I guarantee that if Huntsman says something along those lines, everybody in the country will finally know who he is.

Quote Of The Week

"I think you want a president who is passionate about America -- that's in love with America."

-- Rick "Love It and Leave It" Perry, Texas Governor and GOP Presidential candidate.

I only have one piece of advice for Gov. Perry: If you want to win the presidency, you really need to change the way you speak. You sound so much like George W. Bush that you'll probably creep out even hardcore Republicans:

A Video That Perfectly Demonstrates Why The GOP Is Screwed Right Now

First, a little context: 21 out of 23 polls now show over sixty percent approval for raising taxes as part of a deficit reduction plan -- the two exceptions are the FoxNews poll (56% approval for raising taxes) and Reuters (59% approval). Now, watch this video from the recent GOP debate in Iowa:



Talk about being out of touch. The Republican Party is so afraid of the Tea-Baggers that every single GOP presidential candidate raised their hand saying they would refuse to support a debt deal that had a 10-to-1 ratio of spending cuts vs. tax increases. UnFuckingBelievable.

The problem with a Republican presidential candidate pandering to the batshit-crazy wing of his or her party is that whomever gets the nomination is going to have shift back to the middle during the run-up to the General Election. Now that Pawlenty has dropped out of the race, there remains only two GOP candidates who can effectively pull off such a shift: Huntsman (who has no chance at the nomination even though he is probably the least crazy of the bunch) and Romney. Perry can't do that because he's just as much of a Tea-Bagger as Bachmann.

This is why Romney will get the nomination. I know he's raised flip-flopping to an art form, but his willingness to change his position on pretty much every issue will probably help him in the long haul, particularly when it comes to the debate over how to deal with the national debt.

Holy Shit!

Given how weak Obama's been looking as of late -- particularly during the Republican-manufactured Debt Ceiling "Crisis," where he pretty much gave the GOP and its Tea-Bagging Masters everything they wanted -- I figured he was going to get his ass kicked in the post-debt ceiling polls. After all, John Boehner openly bragged that he got 98% of what he wanted in the Debt Ceiling Deal. So imagine my surprise when I read the result of the most recent Gallup poll:

According to the monthly survey, which was conducted from August 4 -7, Obama would win 45-39 against "the Republican party's candidate." The previous two polls from Gallup had the generic GOPer running strong with a 47-39 lead in July and 44-39 lead in June.

This flip in the polling made no sense to me, particularly given all the spin being put out by the GOP presidential candidates that the Debt Ceiling Debacle was all Obama's fault (and Obama's apparent unwillingness to aggressively counter-attack on this issue). Then I read the results from this CNN poll:

Fifty-nine percent say they have an unfavorable view of the Republican party, an all-time high dating back to 1992 when the question was first asked. The poll indicates that views of the Democratic party, by contrast, have remained fairly steady, with 47 percent saying they have a favorable view of the Democrats and an equal amount saying they hold an unfavorable view.

"The Democratic party, which had a favorable rating just a couple of points higher than the GOP in July, now has a 14-point advantage over the Republican party," adds Holland.

The same pattern holds for the parties' leaders in Congress. House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, the top Democrat in the chamber, have never had great numbers, but the public's view of them have remained essentially unchanged in the wake of the debt ceiling debate. But House Speaker John Boehner's favorable rating has dropped 10 points, and his unfavorable rating is up to 40 percent, a new high for him. On the Senate side, Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell isn't faring much better - his unfavorable rating is 39 percent, a seven-point increase since July.

The same CNN poll also indicated that views of the Tea Baggers "have also turned more negative, with 51 percent saying they have a negative view of the two-year-old limited government and anti-tax grassroots movement, with favorable ratings dropping from 37 percent down to 31 percent."

All these poll results tell me that the American People were actually paying attention to the Debt Ceiling Debate and were able to see through all the GOP/Tea-Bagger bullshittery. It also tells me that the GOP learned a tough lesson from this, namely, don't try to re-write history when (1) the history just happened within the last few weeks, and (2) lots of people where actually watching the history unfold.

But in any event, Obama and the Democrats really need to exploit this while the Debt Deal Fiasco is still clear in peoples' minds. They need to aggressively attack the Republicans for once again bringing this country's economy to the brink. When a political party fucks up as bad as the GOP did on this issue, it is important to strike while the iron is hot and do so before FoxNews and the Republicans can re-write the history of what just happened.

Best Cartoon Yet On America's Current Political Problems

Fucking-A

By the way, I know this might sound hard to believe, but it looks like the Democrats have finally come up with an effective talking point.

I never thought I'd see the day when the usually-lame Democrats actually succeed at framing an issue. The End Times must truly be upon us.