Though he lost the backing of the National Republican Congressional Committee, former Gov. Mark Sanford picked up an endorsement from Tea Party Express on Saturday. The nation’s largest tea party political action committee urged conservative voters to support Sanford in the special election for…
Bloomberg PAC may target Dem who voted against background checks
Michael Bloomberg’s Super PAC, Mayors Against Illegal Guns, is reportedly considering running an ad campaign against Sen. Mark Pryor of Arkansas, who was one of four Democrats to vote against the Senate’s measure to tighten gun background check laws.The National Journal cites an anonymous senior official in the group, who said senior members of the Super PAC met to discuss possible responses to the failure of gun control legislation:The Bloomberg group is mulling a variety of messages and methods for Arkansas. One approach would be to target reliable Democratic voters, including African Americans, with advertising that calls out Pryor for “opposing the president’s agenda,” the official said. Another would be to expand the campaign to suburban women and other moderates. The campaign might not be limited to the issue of guns. “Money would not be an object,” the official said, adding that a decision on whether to target Pryor would come soon and that action against other Democrats is still possible.Pryor is one of the more vulnerable Democrats up for reelection in 2014.Continue Reading… … Read More
TIME Puts Rand Paul on the Cover (and Sarah Palin’s Endorsement of Him Inside)
Granted, it’s one
of seven covers: ;
And here’s Palin’s ode to Paul: ;
When the Tea Party movement wanted to send a message to the
Senate in 2010, it elected a clear-sighted eye doctor from the
Bluegrass State. In a D.C. too often defined by the venal
equivocations of a permanent political class more interested in
consolidating its own power than in upholding the Constitution or
defending the common good, Senator ;Rand ;Paul ;is a
voice of reason awakening the public to what must be done to
restore our prosperity and preserve the blessings of liberty for
future generations. His brand of libertarian-leaning conservatism
attracts young voters, and recently he inspired the nation with his
Capraesque filibuster demanding basic answers about our use of
drones. I sent him some caribou jerky from Alaska to help keep up
his strength on the Senate floor. There’s more where that came from
for this bold Senator with 20/20 vision willing to take a stand for
liberty.
… Read More
ObamaCare Was Designed, Passed, and Implemented by Democrats. Obviously Republicans Must Be Responsible for Its Failures
It was probably inevitable that
as ObamaCare began to fail, Republicans would get the blame. After
all, Republican legislators in Congress didn’t vote for it,
Republican voters have never supported it, and nearly every
Republican governor has let the federal government build and run
the law’s health exchange in their state. Republican critics of the
law warned before it was passed that it would be too expensive, to
complicated, and too onerous on both individuals and businesses. So
of course now that the implementation process has begun to reveal
signs of trouble, it’s the Grand Old Party’s fault. Who else could
possibly be responsible?
If you want the complete argument for why Republicans are the
culprit here, you can find it in Think Progress health wonk Igor
Volsky’s
piece making the case for, in his words, “why Republicans are
to blame for ObamaCare’s delays.” The piece is hooked to this
week’s
announcement that the choice option in ObamaCare’s small
business exchanges would be delayed for a year, and the short
version is that because Republicans refused to implement the law
themselves in the states and have declined to provide additional
funding for implementation at the federal level, the GOP is on the
hook for delays and failures.
It’s hard to blame Republicans for the delay of the small
business choice option: it’s not something that Republicans have
focused on to any great degree, and the main reasons for the delay
seems to be a the technical challenge of designing a multitude of
plans that fit the exchange requirements and the administrative
burden of having to design those plans while working on other
exchange features in the law. Republican opposition doesn’t have
anything to do with it.
Overall, Volsky makes a good try, but sorry, no: Democrats are
to blame for the failures and problems of a law designed by
Democrats, passed by Democrats, and implemented by Democrats. That
it is not working now is the fault of the people who said it would
work, decided to try making it work, and are now tasked with the
responsibility to make it work. They are failing, and the law is
failing because of them—not because of Republicans.
More generally, though, this offers a lesson in why it’s ill
advised to pass major legislation on strict party lines that is
supported by neither the opposition party nor the bulk of the
public. Especially when the law is predicated on the assumption
that the opposition will cheerfully help with implementation. That
Democrats seem to have assumed that Republicans would give in and
play ball suggests some mix of deep arrogance, wishful thinking,
and willful ignorance of the national political dynamic. It’s just
plain bad policy design: A law passed by Democrats that can only
work if Republicans decline to oppose the law is a law that almost
certainly will not work.
And sure enough, three years after passage, ObamaCare shows
signs that it might not be quite as wonderful as promised. But
ObamaCare’s supporters are so determined to avoid admitting that it
might be a failure—or even just less functional than they insisted
it would—that they are refusing to take responsibility for the
politically troubled bureaucratic mess they created. ; … Read More
Do Americans still not get Reaganomics?
The results of a new Gallup poll released Monday reveal an unfortunate yet wholly unsurprising fact: The most commonly offered positive statement about the Republican Party continues to be its capacity for “better fiscal management.”While not unexpected, it’s an absolutely baffling, incredible position, noteworthy even when held by an admittedly slim plurality of the public. Considering the enormous damage the Republican brand has taken recently, it’s significant that voters still reflexively assume conservatives are “better at” or more “serious about” the economy than liberals. (At the same time, voters reflexively assume that liberals care more about “people like me.”)Still, the notion that our economy would be healthier if it were managed by Republicans — who advocate implementing a ludicrous, crippling austerity package that falls disproportionately on the shoulders of the poor and middle class — the damning evidence notwithstanding, is left completely unexamined everywhere, the focus falling instead on the poll finding that showed bipartisan distaste for Republican intransigence.Continue Reading… … Read More
Trump complains: Too many Hispanic ‘illegals,’ but ‘borders are secure from Europe’
Billionaire reality star Donald Trump on Monday warned Republicans that they should slow down efforts to reform the immigration system before “12 million illegals” become Democratic voters because the Hispanic immigrants could easily get into the country, while “the borders are…
Social Democrat support continues to climb
According to the latest polls, the Social Democrats are winning back voters from the ruling conservative Moderates and are gaining growing support among male and urban voters. … Read More
