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Republicans Tag

Posted by Mike LaChance on June 29, 2016 10 Comments
This story is a perfect example of why everyone hates Congress. The senate tried to pass a bill funding research and prevention of the Zika Virus. Democrats blocked it and fully intend to blame the GOP for any spread of the virus. Politico reports:
Democrats block Zika funding bill, blame GOP Congress is poised for an epic failure in its efforts to combat Zika before lawmakers leave Washington for a seven-week vacation — and it could come back to bite Republicans at the ballot box if there’s an outbreak of the mosquito-borne virus in the United States this summer.

Posted by Fuzzy Slippers on May 01, 2016 22 Comments
As he has repeatedly stated, Obama is confident that a Democrat will win the White House in November, and now Harry Reid is expressing that he is "fairly certain" that Democrats will take back the Senate this year. The Hill reports:
Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) said on Sunday that he thinks his party will win back the majority in the Senate this year. During a radio interview with John Catsimatidis, Reid detailed the Democratic efforts against several vulnerable GOP senators up for reelection this year.
Considering that Democrats need win only five Senate seats (they currently have 46 seats, including the two Independents who caucus with them) to accomplish this goal and given the disarray on the right, Reid's prediction seems far less laughable than it would have only a year ago. The Hill continues:
“We only need four [seats] to take the majority,” he said. “With the numbers I’ve given you, it’s going to be a fairly certain thing that we can do that.”

Posted by Mike LaChance on February 23, 2016 83 Comments
One of the most fascinating aspects of the Republican side of the 2016 election has been the sharp divide among conservatives over Donald Trump. People tend to fall into one of three camps; love him, hate him or will support him if he's the nominee. On one side, you've got multiple conservative writers and thinkers who insist Trump isn't a conservative at all, as we saw with the special edition of National Review. On the other side, you have people like Sean Hannity of FOX News, Jim Hoft of the Gateway Pundit and John Nolte of Breitbart, all conservatives who appear enthusiastic about Trump's rise.

Posted by Mike LaChance on February 18, 2016 28 Comments
Just four years ago, the Democrats were calling the GOP the party of old white people. Today, Democrats are running two old white people while the Republican candidates have been extremely diverse. Despite this new reality, Hillary Clinton is clinging to accusations of racism against Republicans, in this case because there is opposition to letting Obama choose Justice Scalia's successor. The Washington Post reports:
Clinton: ‘Racial language,’ ‘bigotry’ part of Republican Supreme Court delay Days after Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia died suddenly in Texas, Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton has fused two of the most controversial issues of the 2016 campaign — the debate over who should choose Scalia’s successor, and race.

Posted by William A. Jacobson on January 21, 2016 72 Comments
Anyone who a year ago picked Donald Trump and Ted Cruz to be the two leading Republican candidates heading into the Iowa Caucuses either (i) is a liar, or (ii) should invest heavily in the lottery because they are beyond lucky. Certainly, the powers that be in the Republican Party were not expecting it. Here's what a Fox News poll looked like in January 2015: http://www.foxnews.com/politics/interactive/2015/01/29/fox-news-poll-voters-believe-romney-clinton-remain-top-picks-for-2016-believe/ The pollster didn't even bother to ask about Trump. And Cruz was in low single digits. Now Trump is on top in the national polls and Cruz is in second place. In Iowa, three polls released today show Cruz leading, a dead heat, and Trump leading.

Posted by Fuzzy Slippers on January 12, 2016 4 Comments
Given the atmosphere of deep political division that has widened and deepened during Obama's presidency and the clear dissatisfaction among Republican primary voters, Gallup's latest poll on party identification makes sense. According to Gallup, the percentage of people who identify with either the Democrat or Republican party is "nearing historic" lows.
In 2015, for the fifth consecutive year, at least four in 10 U.S. adults identified as political independents. The 42% identifying as independents in 2015 was down slightly from the record 43% in 2014. This elevated percentage of political independents leaves Democratic (29%) and Republican (26%) identification at or near recent low points, with the modest Democratic advantage roughly where it has been over the past five years.
Despite knowing better, I am sometimes surprised by how very few Americans actually identify as Democrat.  It seems that they dominate the news and the culture, so it's easy to forget that they make up such an insignificant portion of the electorate.   I'm never surprised that Republicans make up an even more insignificant portion.

Posted by Taryn O'Neill on January 07, 2016 14 Comments
Employees at Los Angeles' La Brea Tar Pits arrived Monday morning to find three signs hung on an outdoor display of elephants. The elephants stand in and around one of the museum's tar pits that have seeped natural asphalt for tens of thousands of years. The La Brea Tar Pits and Museum is an active excavation site where archeologists have found and continue to find countless fossils dating back to the Pleistocene epoch, or the earth's last ice age. A 'hello my name is JEB' tag hangs from the tusks of an elephant partially immersed in tar as a visibly worried baby elephant draped with 'Rubio 2016' watches on the perimeter. Another elephant labeled 'establishment GOP' observes the scene nearby. The scene is rich with anti-establishment overtones. Whether one agrees with the artist or not, it was a clever move.

Posted by Mike LaChance on November 28, 2015 9 Comments
If current fundraising totals are any indication of the 2016 election, and they should be, the Republicans are in much better shape than the Democrats. The Republican National Committee is flush with cash, while the Democratic National Committee is mired in debt. This news doesn't apply to any single presidential candidate at this point but it's still important because these organizations fund congressional races. FOX News reports:
DNC deep in debt as RNC builds up $20 million war chest The Republican National Committee keeps building its cash advantage over its Democratic rivals, strengthening the party’s position going into the election year – with the latest monthly reports showing the DNC with a major debt, while the RNC has accrued a $20M war chest. The Republicans announced last week that they had raised $8.7 million in October, which they say broke a record for presidential off-year fundraising record.

Posted by Fuzzy Slippers on November 27, 2015 9 Comments
An Arizona state senator has jumped off the Democrat bandwagon and joined the Republican party. https://twitter.com/RaquelABC15/status/668858904877514752 Citing the values of self-determination and self-empowerment, Carlyle Begay announced his decision earlier this week. The Arizona Republic reports:
Carlyle Begay, a Democrat who was often viewed as the state Senate's 18th Republican, officially joined the GOP Monday. The announcement, attended by a bevy of Republican elected officials, surprised no one and makes no substantive change to the power dynamics in the Arizona Legislature.

Posted by Mike LaChance on November 09, 2015 18 Comments
Yesterday on Meet the Press, Chuck Todd outlined the huge losses the Democratic Party has suffered under Obama's tenure. He even spoke to a Politico reporter who called the Obama machine a lie. David Rutz of the Washington Free Beacon:
Meet The Press host Chuck Todd and his Sunday panelists outlined the Democratic Party’s heavy losses under the Obama administration, with panelist Marc Caputo saying the idea of the “Obama political machine” was a “lie” that couldn’t win without him on a ballot. Under Obama, Democrats have lost 13 Senate seats and 69 House seats in Congress, and the results are even more staggering on a local level. Democrats have lost 12 governorships, including Kentucky last week with the election of Matt Bevin, 30 state legislative chambers and more than 900 state legislative seats. That’s the worst showing for an incumbent president’s party since the Richard Nixon years, due to the taint of Watergate...

Posted by Mike LaChance on November 04, 2015 82 Comments
Liberals have declared the death of the Tea Party countless times---but apparently, no one told Republican Matt Bevin, who won the gubernatorial election in Kentucky last night with strong support from the Tea Party. Bevin is a successful businessman who is pro-life and a veteran. News of his win is sending shockwaves through political media as the Democrat incumbent Conway was strongly favored to win, according to polls. The election was highly contested, as Kevin Robillard of Politico reports:
Republican Bevin wins Kentucky governor's race GOP businessman Matt Bevin easily won Kentucky’s governorship on Tuesday night and will become just the second Republican to inhabit the governor’s mansion in Frankfort in more than four decades.

Posted by New Neo on October 29, 2015 70 Comments
It turns out that instead of a snoozefest, the third debate was fascinating. And it was all thanks to the incredibly clear anti-GOP bias of CNBC. What am I talking about? Group dynamics, that's what. I've studied groups and I've run groups. Groups don't happen just because you get a bunch of people together in a room, even if they're sitting in a circle, holding hands and singing "Kumbaya." There comes a time in the life of a collection of people when they become a group, even if only temporarily---even a group of people that's pitted against each other in competition, like the candidates last night. If you give them a common enemy against which to unite, they sometimes become a group, and that's what happened Wednesday evening. It took a little time. Even though the candidates knew they were in enemy territory with these moderators, I think even they were surprised at the extent of the bias and the sharpness of the "gotcha" questions. So it took a while to know how to react. Trump had already called one question "not nicely asked," but Cruz was most definitely the leader, the first to go on a lengthy offensive against the moderators. And what an attack it was! Take a look:

Posted by Mike LaChance on October 29, 2015 37 Comments
If you watched the CNBC Republican primary debate last night and the political analysis that followed on FOX News or any other center right outlet, you know what a disaster the event was. The moderators were so far left and openly combative that it was like watching a Republican debate moderated by the Democratic Party. CNBC's moderators succeeded in making CNN's Candy Crowley look fair and balanced. Everyone who's familiar with John Harwood and CNBC had some idea it was going to go this way. Everyone except Republican Party chairman, Reince Priebus. Following the debate, Priebus reacted harshly. Ben Kamisar of The Hill:
RNC chief: 'CNBC should be ashamed' Republicans are lashing out at CNBC over Wednesday's night's GOP debate, with the party's campaign chairman saying the network "should be ashamed" of how it was handled.

Posted by Fuzzy Slippers on October 11, 2015 8 Comments
The meme we've been hearing for years is that radical right-wing "hard liners" are hijacking the Republican party and forcing it to the right; however, an interesting new study argues that Democrats are moving more quickly to the left than Republicans are moving to the right.  It also indicates that the Democrats' move leftward has had the unintended consequence of moving state legislatures to the right. The study--conducted by social scientists from the University of Oregon, Princeton, and Georgetown--was funded by a grant from the Washington Center for Equitable Growth (John Podesta's think tank) and focuses on income inequality and the redistributive goals of the current Democrat party.  The authors come to the conclusion that political polarization is the result of income inequality and that income inequality is the result of political polarization. American Interest provides a helpful summary of the authors' argument:
The study’s overall argument is that income inequality has increased political polarization at the state level since the 1990s. But the authors find that that this happens more by moving state Democratic parties to the left than by moving state Republican parties to the right. As the Democratic Party lost power at the state level over the past 15 years, it also effectively shed its moderate wing. Centrist Democrats have increasingly lost seats to Republicans, “resulting in a more liberal Democratic party” overall. The authors find that the ideological median of Republican legislators has shifted much less.

Posted by Mike LaChance on September 26, 2015 50 Comments
When John Boehner shocked everyone yesterday by announcing he would step down as house speaker, even Obama dropped his partisanship long enough to say a few nice things. No such courtesy was afforded by former house speaker Nancy Pelosi who used the opportunity to bash House Republicans as extremists who want to shut down the government. Carolyn May of Breitbart reported:
Pelosi: Boehner Resignation 'Indication of Disarray in GOP' Speaking to reporters Friday, Pelosi called Boehner’s resignation “a stark indication of the disarray of the House Republicans.” She continued, adding that it is “a demonstration of [House Republicans’] obsession with shutting down government at the expense of women’s health and a sign of the failure of the House Republicans to be willing to engage in dialogue for the good of the American people and for us to move forward.”

Posted by William A. Jacobson on September 25, 2015 103 Comments
Speaker John Boehner will resign from his House seat at the end of October. The Hill reports:
Speaker John Boehner told GOP lawmakers on Friday he will resign at the end of October. The embattled Ohio Republican will resign from both his Speakership and his House seat, he told GOP lawmakers at a closed-door conference meeting. "Speaker Boehner believes that the first job of any Speaker is to protect this institution and, as we saw yesterday with the Holy Father, it is the one thing that unites and inspires us all," a Boehner aide said. The aide said the Speaker had only been planning to serve through the end of last year but decided to stay on after then-House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-Va.) suffered a stunning primary loss. "The Speaker believes putting members through prolonged leadership turmoil would do irreparable damage to the institution," the aide said. "He is proud of what this majority has accomplished, and his Speakership, but for the good of the Republican Conference and the institution, he will resign the Speakership and his seat in Congress, effective October 30."
Watch press conference LIVE: There was supposed to be a live press conference, but it was cancelled when it was announced Boehner left through the back door: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KIinDt19q2I Turns out. the press conference was held later:

Posted by Mike LaChance on August 14, 2015 25 Comments
Lois Lerner is back in the news. According to a new report, emails Lerner sent to a friend reveal that the called Republicans evil and dishonest. She also criticized the Citizens United ruling as one of the worst things to happen in the United States. Andrew Kugle of the Washington Free Beacon:
Lois Lerner: GOP is ‘Evil and Dishonest’ Former IRS official Lois Lerner said that Republicans are “evil and dishonest,” in a email dated March 26, according to Fox News reporter James Rosen. In the email, Lois Lerner described the time when she was called back to testify about the IRS targeting of conservatives before Congress. “They called me back to testify, on IRS ‘scandal,” Lerner wrote. “I took the fifth again and they had been so evil and dishonest in my lawyer’s dealings with them.”
Here's the video report with James Rosen of FOX News:

Posted by Fuzzy Slippers on June 20, 2015 24 Comments
There has been a lot of speculation, including by me, about what the Republican-controlled Congress will do should the Supreme Court rule against Obama in King v. Burwell.  Should the Court strike down federal subsidies, Republicans will need to have a plan in place to address this decision as it impacts those who are currently receiving subsidies for ObamaCare from the federal exchange because their state did not set up a state exchange. Republicans are still talking about a "fix" but are now stressing that it is to be "transitional" rather than permanent.  According to Bloomberg:
[Representative Dennis Ross of Florida] added, “There’s a strong consensus in that room” that the subsidies must be continued in some form “until Republicans can substantively change the law.” Participants at Wednesday’s closed-door meeting said key aspects of a transition plan were presented to lawmakers by Ryan, Energy and Commerce Committee Chairman Fred Upton, Budget Committee Chairman Tom Price of Georgia and Education and Workforce Committee Chairman John Kline of Minnesota. Along with immediate repeal of the law’s individual and employer mandates, the plan would give states the option to build their own insurance exchanges and offer subsidies, using federal money. Alternatively, people in states affected by the ruling would receive a subsidy to purchase an insurance plan either from healthcare.gov or on the open market.
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