Boehner And Cantor Deal With Sequestration By Turning It Into A Right-Wing Talking Point For Their Base

Thursday the House Republican leadership-- Boehner, Cantor, McKeon, Ryan and their cronies-- dealt with the sequestration disaster they've put the country into as though it were just some political talking point they can use to rev up their delusional electoral base with. And speaking of delusional, the bill, H.R 6365 was introduced by Florida war criminal Allen West and co-sponsored by Joe "You Lie!" Wilson (R-SC). It passed 223-196, only one sleazy Blue Dog, Indiana Senate candidate Joe Donnelly, voting with the Republicans-- but a full dozen Republicans abandoning Boehner and Cantor to cross the aisle and vote with the Democrats, including Justin Amash (R-MI), Ron Paul (R-TX), Walter Jones (R-NC), Steve LaTourette (R-OH), Johnny Duncan (R-TN) and others who felt this is too important an issue to play narrow partisan politics with.

Before the closer-than-expected vote, the Democrats offered a Motion to Recommit as an alternative, that did try to deal with sequestration in a serious and responsible manner. Their bill would eliminate sequestration by requiring "upper income taxpayers to pay their fair share by instituting a 'Buffett rule' [and extending] "middle class tax cuts while allowing components of the tax extensions that benefit upper income beneficiaries to expire as scheduled under current law and including targeted spending cuts." That failed 170-247, not a single Republican voting for it... and 13 Democrats voting with the GOP against it:

•Justin Altmire (Blue Dog/New Dem-PA)
• John Barrow (Blue Dog/New Dem-GA)
• Dan Boren (Blue Dog-OK)
• Ben Chandler (Blue Dog-KY)
• Joe Donnelly (Blue Dog-IN)
• Larry Kissell (Blue Dog-NC)
• Lipinski, Jr (proto-Blue Dog-IL)
• Jim Matheson (Blue Dog-UT)
• Mike McIntyre (Blue Dog/New Dem-NC)
• Gary Peters (New Dem-MI)
• Collin Peterson (Blue Dog-MN)
• Chellie Pingree (D-ME)*
• Heath Shuler (Blue Dog-K Street)

The bolded names are the Democrats "ex"-Blue Dog Steve Israel is spending the lion's share of DCCC money on-- so they can be reelected and continue voting with the GOP next year. And as far as non-incumbents, most of Steve Israel's recruits are reactionary Blue Dogs, New Dems and other conservatives who will be part of the anti-family, anti-worker coalition that secretly agrees with Mitt Romney that corporations are people and deserve all of Congress' efforts to make them more profitable and more able to bribe political elites. Steve Israel's worst recruits for 2012:

•Hayden Rogers (Blue Dog-NC)
• David Crooks (Blue Dog-IN)
• Gary McDowell (Blue Dog-MI)
• Pam Gulleson (Blue Dog- ND)
• Nick Lampson (Blue Dog-TX)
• Brendan Mullen (Blue Dog-IN)
• Patrick Murphy (R/New Dem-FL)
• Sal Pace (Blue Dog/New Dem-CO)
• Charlie Wilson (Blue Dog/New Dem-OH)
• Val Demings (New Dem-FL)
• Juan Vargas (New Dem-CA)
• Rob Wallace (Blue Dog-OK)

Watch Israel flush millions of dollars in contributions down the toilet futilely trying to persuade Democrats to vote for these conservatives.

* Chellie Pingree is a stalwart progressive and has been a battle-hardened leader for Maine's working families for many years. She's on this list because of a clerical error. When I called her office to ask why she voted with the GOP, she wasn't aware that she "had." She added that her feeling is that "the sequestration cuts are extreme and don't reflect the values of the American people. I didn't vote for the Budget Control Act in the first place for this very reason. Cutting budgets this way is no way to run the government. Republicans steadfastly refuse to accept a balanced approach that includes higher taxes on millionaires and billionaires and have forced us into these difficult situations."

Peggy Noonan is rarely right about anything, but equating Romney to Nixon was the smartest thing she's said in two decades. “At one point, he had a certain slight grimace on his face when he was taking tough questions from the reporters. And I thought, ‘He looks like Richard Nixon.’... Sometimes when really bad things happen, when hot things happen, cool words or no words is the way to go... I think... that in times of great drama and heightened crisis, and in times when something violent has happened to your people, I always think discretion is the better way to go. When you step forward in the midst of a political environment and start giving statements on something dramatic and violent that has happened, you're always leaving yourself open to accusations that you are trying to exploit things politically."