Is This An Opening For the Bottom Feeders in the GOP Presidential Race?

How brave:

Republican National Committee Chairman Reince Priebus told NBC News in a Friday letter that the committee will no longer partner with the network for the February Republican presidential debate.

Citing concerns over the Wednesday night CNBC debate, Priebus wrote that the RNC can not continue to work with NBC for the debate on Feb. 26 until the committee consults with the Republican campaigns. NBC was set to co-host the debate with Telemundo, the Spanish-language media division of NBCUniversal. ***

In the letter to NBC, Priebus railed against the CNBC moderators for failing to focus on financial and economic issues, and he said that the moderators made factual errors and asked “offensive” questions.

Priebus is a fucking coward, as is anyone in the GOP field who complained about tough questions at the last debate. Jesus Christ, people -- did any of you Republicans actually watch the Democratic debate? Here are some of the questions -- or lead-ins to questions -- from that debate:

• "Secretary Clinton, I want to start with you. Plenty of politicians evolve on issues, but even some Democrats believe you change your positions based on political expediency."


• "Senator Sanders. A Gallup poll says half the country would not put a socialist in the White House. You call yourself a democratic socialist. How can any kind of socialist win a general election in the United States?"


• "Governor Chafee, *** [w]hen you were senator from Rhode Island, you were a Republican. When you were elected governor, you were an independent. You've only been a Democrat for little more than two years. Why should Democratic voters trust you won't change again?"


• "Senator Sanders, tell an American soldier who is watching right now tonight in Afghanistan why you can be commander-in- chief given that you applied for conscientious objector status."


• "Secretary Clinton, ***  [w]hat does [your email problem] say about your ability to handle far more challenging crises as president?"

Bottom line: If you are running for President of the United States, you should expect to receive tough questions from the media along the way. The Democrats didn't complain about having to answer difficult questions.

I do know one thing:  If I was one of the GOP presidential candidates whose poll numbers don't allow me to debate at the adult's table, I'd use this opportunity to go after Trump, Carson, Rubio, Cruz, and all the rest of them who are complaining about tough questioning.  I'd probably say something like this:

Look, if some of my fellow GOP candidates can't handle of few tough questions from the media, how would they ever be able to stand up to Putin?  Maybe a few of my colleagues should think about applying for a different job. If Trump, Carson, Rubio, Cruz, and others actually think the last debate was too difficult for them, perhaps they should hold their next one in a bouncy house and invite the folks from Fox & Friends to lob a few softball questions at them prior to nap time.

This stuff practically writes itself.

Rubio Must Have Terrible Advisors

The Sun Sentinel, one of Florida's largest newspapers, has asked Marco Rubio to resign his Senate seat:

After five years in the U.S. Senate, Marco Rubio does not like his job. A long-time friend told The Washington Post "he hates it." Rubio says hate might be too strong a word, but he sure acts like he hates his job.

Rubio has missed more votes than any other senator this year. His seat is regularly empty for floor votes, committee meetings and intelligence briefings. He says he's MIA from his J-O-B because he finds it frustrating and wants to be president, instead. "I'm not missing votes because I'm on vacation," he told CNN on Sunday. "I'm running for president so that the votes they take in the Senate are actually meaningful again."

Sorry, senator, but Floridians sent you to Washington to do a job. We've got serious problems with clogged highways, eroding beaches, flat Social Security checks and people who want to shut down the government.  If you hate your job, senator, follow the honorable lead of House Speaker John Boehner and resign it.

If there has been a bigger unforced error in presidential politics, I don't know what it would be. All Rubio had to do was show up for work a few more times and there wouldn't have been a problem to begin with.  Presidential candidates who are also in Congress often miss votes.  But Rubio missed so many votes, briefings, and hearings that Donald Trump went after him for it, which caused Rubio to respond by saying he's quitting the Senate anyway so no big deal. 

Well, it is a big deal because I just don't see either Trump or Carson winning the nomination. I understand that Republicans are mad at the GOP Establishment right now and probably like to express this anger by supporting lunatic outsiders, but their hatred for Hillary Clinton will eventually overwhelm them to such an extent that they'll feel compelled to support a candidate with the best chance of beating her.

Now I'm not saying that Rubio would have been that candidate, but he was certainly on the short list.  Jeb!'s candidacy seems to be fading fast.  Scott Walker and Rick Perry are out.  Lindsey Graham and Chris Christie's campaigns were dead on arrival. That leaves Rubio and Kasich as the only two people left in the field who have a chance of beating Hillary.  But it seems that if Rubio really wanted to be president, then he wouldn't have gone out of his way to brand himself as a quitter. 

So unless Jeb! can find a way to energize his floundering campaign, then Kasich just might end up being the Republican nominee. And that would be fine with me.

What If Rubio Becomes President And Then Hates That Job Too?

This is interesting:

“That’s why I’m missing votes. Because I am leaving the Senate. I am not running for reelection,” Rubio said in the last Republican debate, after Donald Trump had mocked him for his unusual number of absences during Senate votes.

With regard to his job as a senator, the Washington Post reports that a "longtime friend" of Rubio stated that "he hates it." 

For the last few weeks, I've been thinking that Rubio had the best shot at the GOP nomination for president, particularly given that Jeb's candidacy is fading fast (and I still find it hard to believe that Republicans really want either Trump or Carson to be their nominee). But needless to say, Rubio is going to have a tough time spinning this one to make it look like he's not a quitter. At least that other famous Republican quitter -- half-term governor Sarah Palin -- announced after the presidential election that she was leaving her job.

What I like about this particular mess is that the gridlock which Rubio apparently hates can be traced to a group of people who also don't do their jobs, namely, the Tea-Baggers in Congress.  The big difference, of course, is that the Baggers went into politics to destroy government, whereas Rubio apparently wanted to get things done.

Anyway, I guess the Baggers can put another Republican head on their mantel.

Steve Benen has more on this here.

Republicans Can Thank Sean Hannity for Hillary's Surge

Folks from the Left and the Right spent much of the last few weeks falling over each other trying to praise/blame GOP Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Cal) for admitting that the Benghaaazi! Investigation is a political witch hunt and thus undermining the Republicans' efforts to destroy Hillary Clinton.  After all, the GOP had high hopes that the Benghaaazi!-fueled attacks against the Democratic frontrunner would pay huge dividends.

Well, that whole effort has backfired.  Last week's eleven-hour grilling of Hillary was so bad for the Republicans that Fox News was compelled to cease televised coverage halfway through the proceeding. Even conservative commentators agreed that the GOP's Benghaaazi! fiasco has helped Clinton. This result would no doubt make some Republicans even more angry at Majority Leader McCarthy's gaffe, given that it certainly gave Hillary and her allies on the Benghaaazi! Committee momentum going into last week's hearing and it put Trey Gowdy and the other GOP committee members on the defensive.

But one thing I think is missing from all this finger-pointing is the context in which McCarthy made his gaffe.  Sure, he did it on Fox News, but he didn't make the admissions during a softball interview on Fox & Friends -- he made them during a contentious interview with Sean Hannity.  And why was Hannity conducting a contentious interview of a high-ranking Republican?  Well, it's because the GOP base is angry that its leadership has been unable to destroy Barack Obama and his fascist/socialist/Kenyanist agenda.

You can watch the entire Hannity interview of McCarthy here. Hannity set the tone with his very first question: "Congressman, 60% of Republicans polled this week feel betrayed by the Republican Party in Washington -- are they justified?  I'm one of them."  What then ensued was about ten minutes of Congressman McCarthy trying to defend House GOP leadership from the attacks.  During that period, the following now-infamous exchange occurred:

Hannity: *** "You fund executive amnesty, which you told us, the whole Republican caucus told us they would stop, if we would elect the Senate last year. They funded it. And you're about to fund Planned Parenthood."

McCarthy: "Sean, no, Sean, amnesty is not going on. The courts have stopped that. There's no funding there. And there should not be as we go forward."

Hannity: "But in February didn't you guys end up funding it, you passed the Cromnibus, you gave up your leverage."

McCarthy: "No, no. Sean, no, because the courts had put a stay on that. So there was no funding going towards that. The question I think you really want to ask me is, how am I going to be different?" *** What you're going to see is a conservative speaker that takes a conservative Congress that puts a strategy [in place] to fight and win.

"And let me give you one example. Everybody thought Hillary Clinton was unbeatable, right? But we put together a Benghazi special committee, a select committee. What are her numbers today? Her numbers are dropping. Why? Because she's un-trustable. But no one would have known any of that had happened had we not fought and made that happen. So why don't . . . "

Hannity:  [Trying desperately to interrupt McCarthy] "I agree. I give you credit for that. I give you credit for sequestration, I'll give you credit where credit is due. ***"

Just watch the above-linked video. It is pretty clear at 4:39 that the Idiot Hannity realized he just might have helped give away the Benghaaazi! shop by pushing McCarthy too hard to justify the efforts of GOP leadership.  He interrupted McCarthy and quickly tried to change the subject, but the damage was done.  But why was Hannity being so aggressive with McCarthy in the first place?  Well, it was because he had a bunch of Tea-Baggers from the House on his show the day before and boy were they pissed off at the Republican leadership.

So it turns out that Sean Fucking Hannity -- with a little help from the Bagger Caucus -- are ultimately responsible for the GOP's downward Benghaaazi! spiral and the Hillary Surge that resulted from it.  If that doesn't put a little bit of a smile on your face, then I don't know what could.

I Guess Enhanced Interrogation Really Doesn't Work

From The Washington Post:

After 11 hours, a House committee’s questioning of Hillary Rodham Clinton provided few new details about the 2012 attacks on American installations in Benghazi, Libya – and no clear victory for Republicans seeking to trap Clinton in an admission of bad judgment.

The marathon hearing of the House Select Committee on Benghazi concluded at 9 p.m. with a whimper. As the hours passed, Republican lines of questioning became increasingly opaque and partisan conflict riled members on both sides of the aisle.

As readers of this blog know, I haven't always been a fan of Hillary Clinton. But I was impressed by how she handled herself.

The GOP cannot be happy with what happened today.  In fact, Fox News actually cut away from the hearing halfway through while other networks continued to carry it live.

Good News: Biden Not Running For President

Joe Biden announced this morning that he's not running for the Democratic nomination for president, and I couldn't be happier. I like Joe, but he said some things recently that, in my opinion, made him appear out of touch. 

He actually stated that Republicans were not his enemy, doing so in apparent response to Hillary stating at the last debate that she was proud to have the Republicans as her enemy.  Biden even admitted that he likes Dick Cheney and thinks he is a decent man.

Dick Cheney? My question to Biden:  Have you been living in a cave for the last seven years?

Republicans have gone out of their way to demonstrate that they consider Democrats as the enemy.  The fact that Joe is unable to see the obvious -- even though he had a front row seat to all the GOP fuckery in this regard -- speaks volumes about his ability to assess the current political situation.  In other words, it makes him unfit for the presidency. Digby's analysis on this issue, by the way, is spot-on.

Hillary, should she win in 2016, will at least enter her first term with some clarity of thought on the Republican Party and the threat it poses to this country.

Quote of the Week

"All Germans know the history of the murderous race mania of the Nazis that led to the break with civilization that was the Holocaust. This is taught in German schools for good reason, it must never be forgotten. And I see no reason to change our view of history in any way. We know that responsibility for this crime against humanity is German and very much our own."

-- Steffen Seibert, German Chancellor Angela Merkel's spokesman, responding to Benjamin Netanyahu's statement that a Muslim cleric was actually responsible for the Holocaust.

Trump Is Right About the 9-11 Attacks

An interesting exchange took place during a Donald Trump interview on Bloomberg News last week.  Trump said that "[w]hen you talk about George Bush, I mean, say what you want, the World Trade Center came down during his time."  What I found most interesting about Trump's remark was the way the interviewer responded to it. Stephanie Ruhle, the Bloomberg anchor who asked the question, interrupted Trump and exclaimed, “Hold on, you can’t blame George Bush for that!”

Are you kidding me? We can't accuse George Bush of incompetency during the run-up to the 9-11 Attacks?  Why the fuck not?  Christ, if Obama had been in office during 9-11, does anyone out there think that the GOP wouldn't be blaming him for it?

I have no doubt that Republicans would have been falling over each other blaming Obama for the attacks even if they had occurred a mere few minutes into his presidency.  George Bush had been in office eight months when the attacks occurred, and as this recent Atlantic article demonstrates, the Bush Administration ignored repeated warnings that Al Qaeda was determined to strike the United States.

There has been a Herculean Effort on the part of the GOP to re-write the history of 9-11.  As I noted here, there was even an attempt a few years back to fool the American people into thinking that Bush wasn't even in office on September 11, 2001.  Unfortunately, if the Bloomberg anchor's "you can't blame George Bush for that" response is any indication, this attempt at a history re-write appears to have worked.

So I am happy that Donald Trump is raising the issue of Bush's 9-11 culpability now, and I am particularly pleased that Jeb! decided to come to his brother's defense on this matter. Had Jeb not pushed back on this, then Trump might have simply decided to move on to something else. But I have no doubt that Trump will focus a lot of his attention on this issue now that Jeb! and other Republicans have criticized him for bringing it up. Trump doesn't take criticism lightly.

I hope this issue comes up at the next GOP debate.  If Trump is asked why he feels that George W. Bush and his administration have culpability for the 9-11 Attacks, Trump should answer with something like this:

"Had I been president a month before 9-11 and the CIA informed me of patterns of suspicious activity in the U.S. consistent with preparations for hijackings -- and also made reference to surveillances of federal buildings in New York -- I certainly would have acted.  Bush received such a briefing over a month prior to the Attack and did nothing. In fact, the Bush Administration received other briefings over the summer of 2001 concerning an imminent terror attack on American soil, and all of them fell on deaf ears.

"But that isn't all:  During the transition from Clinton to Bush, outgoing Clinton officials informed Bush's people that dealing with bin Laden and Al Qaeda would be the new administration's top priority, and the bipartisan Hart-Rudman Report -- released just after Bush's inauguration -- predicted a 9-11-type attack where Americans would die on American soil, "possibly in large numbers." But Bush basically scrapped the Hart-Rudman recommendations and turned the domestic terrorism thing over to Cheney and his people, who proceeded to do nothing because they wrongfully thought that Saddam was a bigger threat.

"So yeah, I think Jeb's brother could have done a lot more to respond to that known threat.  I know I would have done a lot more, and I am confident the attacks would not have happened had I been president then."

Trump has demonstrated that he can give these types of answers if he puts his mind to it. At the last debate, he had clearly done his homework on Carly Fiorina and her failed tenure as CEO of Hewlett-Packard. Let's hope he does his homework for the next debate as well.

UPDATE:  Trump tweeted a link today to this New York Times article detailing the Bush Administration's pre-9-11 incompetence.  Looks like The Donald is now fully engaged on this issue.  And if any of you out there think this is "ancient history" and therefore has no current relevance, think again.  After all, Jeb! has decided to surround himself with some of the same folks who worked for his brother.

Last Night's Debate

I was only able to catch parts of it, but based on what I saw, it's pretty hard to argue with Steve Benen's take on last night's Democratic Debate:

Republicans must have been discouraged by Clinton’s strong showing, but I hope they also noticed how much better last night’s debate was than anything the GOP candidates have shown in their events. On every front, the exchanges in Las Vegas showed Democratic candidates better prepared, more substantive, and more knowledgeable than their far-right counterparts.

During the debate, Politico’s Glenn Thrush noted on Twitter, “The level of discourse - nuance of discussion – compared to the GOP debates? Not even close.” The Washington Post’s Dave Weigel added soon after, “[W]atching this debate after slogging through all the Trump debates is like moving from kindergarten into grad school.”

Hillary Clinton won big last night. Republicans lost.

I assumed the whole thing would be boring, but the parts I saw were lively and entertaining. Bernie coming to Hillary's defense on the whole GOP Benghaaazi!/email fuckery was obviously the highlight of the night. I liked that moment because it showed party unity, something that is obviously missing in the GOP right now.

Quote of the Week

“Damn straight I [feel vindicated]. But I would have rather been proven wrong -- honest to God -- because we're talking about the fucking country that is at stake here.”

-- Norman Ornstein, a congressional scholar at the American Enterprise Institute, who co-wrote in 2012, "It's Even Worse Than It Looks: How the American Constitutional System Collided With the New Politics of Extremism." 

I quoted from the book in a 2013 post wherein I was ranting about one of my favorite subjects, namely, how some folks in the mainstream press still clung to the idea that Washington Gridlock was the fault of both parties and not solely the fault of the GOP. Ornstein and co-author Thomas Mann challenged that notion:

We understand the values of mainstream journalists, including the effort to report both sides of a story. But a balanced treatment of an unbalanced phenomenon distorts reality. If the political dynamics of Washington are unlikely to change anytime soon, at least we should change the way that reality is portrayed to the public.

I similarly could not understand why the press was clinging to their bullshit narrative that it's "the fault of both sides" when Republicans were openly bragging about the fact that they were the ones causing the gridlock. If a group wants to claim credit for intentionally causing a serious problem, I asked, then why not take them at their word?

As TPM reports in the above-linked article, Ornstein and Mann were viciously attacked by right-wingers who simply did not buy into the book's premise that Republicans were more to blame for the gridlock and that "a sea change" is occurring within the GOP which reflected a willingness to risk harm to the United States in order to achieve certain ideological goals:

The Weekly Standard called the book "relentlessly one-sided." Washington Post columnist Jennifer Rubin wondered if Mann and Ornstein's analysis was "parody." The National Review said, "Their argument bears all of the characteristics, and the subtlety, of a rant."

Well, if recent events are any indication, Ornstein and Mann's "parody" turned out to be right on the money.  Well done, gentlemen.

BONUS QUOTE:

"After a year of peddling selectively leaked transcripts and hyperventilating over and repeating tendentious readings of unexceptional process stories, suddenly everyone is asking whether it could possibly be true that this was just a political witch hunt all along.

"Let's set aside whether it's a witch hunt or even what it is. What it is has been obvious all along to anyone paying attention with even the most baseline level intelligence and experience. And yet it took an offhand remark from Kevin McCarthy to suddenly make the obvious discussable. Step back and think about it and that's amazing. Why didn't reporters feel empowered to pose these completely obvious questions absent McCarthy's remarks? It's been out there totally in plain sight all along. How could journalists of all people either be oblivious to this or not feel they had permission to discuss it?"

-- Josh Marshall, on the sudden unravelling of the Select Committee on Benghazi.

Idiot Gohmert Loses His Shit Over Benghaaazi! . . . But Does So At A Planned Parenthood Hearing!

The video posted below is absolutely hilarious. If you can't stand watching GOP Congressman Louie Gohmert's idiocy for a full four-and-a-half minutes, then I encourage you to skip ahead to 2:30 and watch the really great stuff [h/t Dan]:



The only thing that would have made this video even more humorous is if the witness from Planned Parenthood -- the one Gohmert was questioning when he began his Benghaaazi! meltdown -- waited for Gohmert's rant to end and then asked, "Congressman, could you repeat the question?"  I would have loved that.

This video is awesome because it demonstrates -- better than anything I've seen -- why the GOP is on its last legs as a national party. Gohmert and the rest of the Baggers are filled with so much rage right now that even Jesus Christ and Reagan -- working together --wouldn't be able to talk them down.  And the brunt of this rage is currently being directed at GOP congressional leaders.

I think all this initially began as fake rage, but some of the lesser-intelligent Republicans (i.e., Baggers like Gohmert who are now apparently running the GOP) have actually bought into their own bullshit.

BENGHAZI INVESTIGATOR'S BOMBSHELL!!! reveals something everyone already knew

The Great Unravelling continues (from The New York Times):

A former investigator for the Republicans on the House Select Committee on Benghazi plans to file a complaint in federal court next month alleging that he was fired unlawfully in part because his superiors opposed his efforts to conduct a comprehensive investigation into the 2012 attack on the American diplomatic mission in the Libyan city. Instead, they focused primarily on the role of the State Department and former Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, he said.

This latest GOP scandal began in earnest when House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy confessed that the purpose of the Select Committee on Benghaaazi! is to go after Hillary Clinton politically. McCarthy's gaffe ultimately helped end his quest to become Speaker and thus contributed to the creation of the power vacuum in the GOP-controlled House.

What I love about this particular Benghaaazi! scandal is that everyone knew from the very beginning that the purpose of the Select Committee was to bring down Hillary Clinton.  The media, however, did little if anything to report on this obvious political witch hunt, which allowed the GOP efforts along these lines to acquire some legitimacy.  Then, when the whole Benghaaazi! shithouse began to come down a couple weeks ago, everyone in the Press started acting like McCarthy's confession constituted some earth-shattering revelation.

I'm usually critical of the press on stuff like this, but not now. The Corporate Media's long-term laziness on the Benghaaazi! story actually worked to give the Republicans more rope with which to hang themselves, and thus helped contribute to the current chaos within the GOP's ranks.  The big question is:  What the hell do we call this scandal?  Benghazi-Gate seems to be taken already by the radical right to describe Hillary's "involvement" in all this.  "BenghaziGate-Gate" certainly describes the GOP wrongdoing in this situation, but is probably too repetitive to catch on.

UPDATE:  Maj. Bradley Podliska, the aforementioned former Benghaaazi! investigator who plans to sue the Select Committee, perhaps does have something new to add to this story:

Podliska, who said he was reprimanded for using his work email to invite colleagues to a nonwork event, said there was an "Animal House" atmosphere at the committee, but he was not part of it.  He described to CNN an office environment in which employees spent their days Web surfing and sometimes drinking at work. He said staffers joined a “gun buying club” for “chrome-plated, monogrammed, Tiffany-style Glock 9-millimeters,” and some would spend hours at a time at work designing the personalized weapons.

Of course, none of this surprises me -- given that I, along with everyone else, knew from the start that the Benghaaazi! Select Committee was a sham -- but it does benefit from the fact that we had never heard it before.

Some Thoughts On The Recent GOP Turmoil

Karen Tumulty of the Washington Post had this to say yesterday about the current state of  disarray within the ranks of the GOP:

Less than a year after a sweeping electoral triumph, Republicans are on the verge of ceasing to function as a national political party. The most powerful and crippling force at work in the ­once-hierarchical GOP is anger, directed as much at its own leaders as anywhere else.

Tumulty then analyzed how the Republican Party got to this point, citing -- among other things -- changes in campaign finance laws that have "made the parties themselves less powerful, and ideologically driven outside groups more so."  She also noted:

Junior members of Congress no longer have to seek the favor of more senior ones to rise through the ranks. Modern media has given them the power to play to a national audience — as presidential contender and first-term senator Ted Cruz (R-Tex.) has demonstrated in the Senate.

In July, Cruz went so far as to call Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) a liar on the floor of the Senate. Such a breach of decorum would have been unthinkable in earlier times, but it has burnished Cruz’s image with the conservative base.

Bottom line: We are in fact witnessing the End Times for the GOP as a national party. But one thing that may soften the blow to the country is that John Boehner will probably have no choice but to stay on as Speaker (assuming he can't get Paul Ryan to assume that post). He certainly can't let a full-fledged Tea Bagger take on that position.

And if Boehner does end up staying on as Speaker, his relationship with the Bagger Contingent could not possibly be the same as it was prior to his "retirement."  After he announced his departure, Boehner said this:

"The Bible says, beware of false prophets. And there are people out there spreading, you know, noise about how much can get done. We got groups here in town, members of the House and Senate here in town, who whip people into a frenzy believing they can accomplish things they know — they know! — are never going to happen.”

It's going to be pretty hard for him to un-ring that bell (the Baggers are undoubtedly pissed that he used a Bible quote against them).  Boehner's GOP enemies in Congress made it clear that they were happy to see him go, as did some GOP candidates for president.

Anyway, if Boehner stays on, the dynamic will undoubtedly be different. And maybe that's a good thing.  He certainly won't feel the need to placate the Baggers anymore, and he'll probably be a lot more willing to enlist Democratic help in getting things done.  Of course, that would only result in the Baggers becoming even more unglued, which will initially manifest itself in threats to run primary candidates against any House Republican who does not fully support their extremist agenda, and will ultimately result in a big push on their part to break off from the GOP and form a new party.

Indeed, I think a new Bagger Party is inevitable at this point.  The only issue now is how much damage the lead-up to such a split would cause to the country.  John Boehner just might be in the position to keep the damage to a minimum.

Movie, TV, and Song Quotes That Describe The Current Political Situation

"You can check out any time you like, but you can never leave."
--The Eagles, apparently singing about John Boehner (h/t Slic[k]).





"Like a poor marksman, you keep missing the target!" -- J.T. Kirk, mocking the Benghazi Committee for destroying Kevin McCarthy when its real objective was to destroy Hillary Clinton.





George Costanza, channeling Michael Corleone channeling John Boehner.

GOP Death Throes Continue . . .

Here we go:

CNN and other news outlets are reporting that House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) has dropped out of the race for House speaker, facing resistance from hardliners in the Republican caucus.

Rep. Charlie Dent (R-PA) told CNN that the nomination conference, scheduled for Thursday, had been postponed. He said McCarthy felt he had the votes for Thursday's closed-door nomination, but was concerned he would not have the 218 votes when the nomination would be brought to a full House later this month.

The big concern now is the Debt Ceiling. The Baggers are apparently running the show in the House, and the last thing they want to do is raise the Debt Ceiling, even though failure to do so will mean economic turmoil for the United States.

UPDATE:  Harry Reid -- “The utter chaos of the Republican Party must not threaten the full faith and credit of the United States and the American people. While negotiations on a budget deal continue, we should work together immediately to take the threat of default off the table."

The "Are You Fucking Kidding Me?!" Quote of the Decade

"The in­teg­rity of Trey Gowdy, the in­teg­rity of the work that has been done has nev­er come in­to ques­tion and it nev­er should be. Stop play­ing polit­ics."

-- House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-CA), in response to the Democrats' withering onslaught brought about by his statement that the purpose of the Select Committee on Benghazi was to damage Hillary Clinton politically.

McCarthy's recent admission with regard to the true purpose of Benghaaazi! is, politically speaking, one of those perfect storms.  Not only did it give Hillary and the Dems a very potent weapon with which to beat the living crap out of the GOP, but it also threatens McCarthy's prospects of ascending to the Speakership.  In fact, the Bagger Contingent within the House announced today that it will not be supporting McCarthy for Speaker.

McCarthy will still probably win in the end, but he'll be damaged goods when he takes the gavel.  I had no idea as to exactly how the GOP was going to meet its demise as a national party, but I think we are finally witnessing the initial phases of the endgame.

Quote[s] of the Week

"When people are wrong on the demonstrable facts, the media fails when it doesn't treat them like they are wrong. For instance, three candidates running for the GOP nomination, including two of the top, said that Umpqua is a gun-free zone, implying that only pussies without guns die like pigs in a slaughterhouse.

"But Umpqua isn't a gun-free zone. If you have a conceal carry permit in Oregon, you can take your gun with you on campus. In fact, students with guns were talked out of going after the asshole shooter because they would have been in a shitload of danger and the cops on the scene wouldn't have known who not to shoot. One of the good guys with a gun, an Army vet, said, 'If we would have run across the field, we would have been targets. We made a good choice at the time.' You got that? They had guns and decided that trying to be a superhero was fucking dumb. That makes those gun owners smarter than every fucknut wannabe who thinks life is a game of Call of Duty."

- The Rude Pundit.

Read more on this here.

UPDATE: Ben Carson chimes in on the Roseburg massacre:

"Not only would I probably not cooperate with [the shooter], I would not just stand there and let him shoot me, I would say, ‘Hey guys, everybody attack him. He may shoot me, but he can’t get us all.'"

In other words, according to Dr. Ben, all the victims of the mass shooting at UCC were nothing but a bunch of cowards and they deserved to die. I'm thinking that Carson needs to go fuck himself.

A Battle of [Dim]Wits: Chaffetz vs. McCarthy for House Speakership

Am I the only one who finds it interesting that the two of the GOP's most prominent idiots are also the two leading candidates to replace Boehner as Speaker of the House? 

U.S. Republican Representative Jason Chaffetz, chairman of the House oversight panel, announced on Sunday he was running for speaker, a bid seen as a long shot that could still stir up the contest to replace John Boehner.Representative Kevin McCarthy, currently the House majority leader, remains the favorite for the speaker position. But many conservatives have reservations about McCarthy and say he does not have enough votes to win.

Chaffetz's idiocy is probably far more forgivable to the Bagger Contingent in the House because all he did was look like a complete fool in his effort to take down Planned Parenthood last week -- most  GOP radicals probably still love the guy because, even though he is profoundly inept, at least he was "fighting the good fight." 

McCarthy, on the other hand, committed the unforgivable gaffe of revealing something that everyone already knew, namely, that the Select Committee on Benghazi is nothing more than a political witch-hunt.  McCarthy also has the Palin-esque quality of constantly mangling the English language, but a flaw like that might actually be appealing to some Baggers, who oftentime prefer leaders who don't talk good.

Anyway, should be an interesting battle.

Don't Quit The Benghaaazi! Committee Now, Dems -- It's Just Starting To Get Interesting

Yesterday, Congressman Adam Smith (D-Wa.) said this in response to Republican Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy's confession that the purpose of the Select Committee on Benghaaazi!! is to go after Hillary Clinton politically: “[T]he committee is a joke and I think Democrats ought to call it what it is and say we`re not going to participate in this anymore."

Wait what?  The Republicans just handed you the greatest cudgel ever and you're gonna quit now?

Look, I know that it must be pretty hard to be in the minority party in the House these days, particularly given that the GOP doesn't seems to have any interest in actually governing anymore, preferring instead to spend its time incompetently going after Planned Parenthood, conducting dozens of useless Obamacare repeal votes, and presiding over bogus Benghazi investigations.  But every so often, the Republicans do something so incredibly stupid that it makes enduring all the GOP horseshit almost worth it.

And this is one of those times.  So instead of threatening to quit, Congressman Smith should say something like this: "Quit?  Are you fucking kidding me? Given what Majority Leader McCarthy just admitted, I can't wait for the next hearing!"

I know if I was on that Committee and it was my turn to ask Hillary some questions, I'd ask something like this:

"Secretary Clinton, last month, Republican House leadership finally came clean and admitted what everyone already knew, namely, that the purpose of this committee is not to investigate the Benghazi attack, but to go after you politically.  As president, what would you be willing to do in order to curtail such Congressional abuses of power?"

Of course, there is nothing a president could do directly to stop crap like this from occurring in Congress, but such a question would give Hillary an opportunity to go on the attack and bring up stuff like how much these bogus investigations have cost taxpayers.  She could then say that as president, she would use the bully pulpit to highlight these types of Congressional abuses and then ask voters to punish those responsible.

Anyway, my point is that the Democrats have the GOP on the ropes right now with regard to all the Benghaaazi! fuckery, and the time has come to start landing blows.  The knife is in and the time has come to start twisting it. The ball has been tee'd up and it is time to hit it 350 yards down the fairway.  I'm running out of metaphors.

Bottom line:  If anyone is going to quit the Select Committee on Benghaaazi!!, it should be the fucking Republicans.  But they'll never quit, because quitting now would make them look weak to their Hillary-hating, Obama-despising base.  The inability of the GOP to throw in the towel on shit like this is a weakness, one the Democrats need to exploit.