Scott Walker Gives Away The Radical Right's Healthcare Game... Oops

Congressional Republicans don't know quite how to respond to reporters' and constituents' questions about the TrumpCare legislation they just voted for. Some are following Trump's hubristic, bombastic approach of just flat-out lying and claiming more people will be covered for less money and get better healthcare-- just unsubstantiated nonsense that has been widely debunked. Buffalo-area New York Trumpist Chris Collins just flat out admitted he didn't read the bill and wasn't even aware that his vote cuts a program called Essential Plan that provides low-cost health insurance to low- and middle-income people who don't qualify for Medicaid. Over 20,000 people in his own district are benefitting from it. It's one thing for Collins to oppose the program and vote against it and then tell his constituents why; it's entirely something else for him to not even bother reading the bill and understanding how it impacts the life and death struggles of his own constituents but voting for it anyway. John Shimkus told a TV reporter, on camera, that he wasn't able to read the bill before voting on it because he was busy at baseball practice. (He and his family get government health insurance that has been exempted from the life-threatening provisions of Trumpcare, so... no worries. And that district of his is soon read. Trump won it with 70.7% and the DCCC has never even thought about challenging Shimkus.)

At a townhall meeting in Lewiston, Idaho Friday morning, Republican Raul Labrador, who voted for TrumpCare just hours earlier, drew intense jeers when he claimed nobody dies due to lack of access to health care. That's an incident that every voter in the district will have in the back of her or his mind when they vote in 2018-- not that the DCCC has any intention of ever running anyone against Labrador. They had a rot-gut Blue Dog incumbent, Walt Minnick, who Labrador beat in 2010 and Minnick so destroyed the Democratic Party brand in the district that's it's been irrelevant since then.

Greg Gianforte, the Republican multimillionaire running for the open at-large Montana seat against Rob Quist, has carefully tried to hide his support for the highly toxic TrumpCare. But... oops! On Thursday he told reporters he'd need to read the full bill before voting on it. A few hours later during a private conference call with conservative K Street lobbyists, the dishonest Gianforte felt free to say what he really thinks of the horrendous bill. "The votes in the House are going to determine whether we get tax reform done, sounds like we just passed a health care thing, which I’m thankful for, sounds like we’re starting to repeal and replace." The Times pointed out that "Even in Montana-- a Republican-leaning state on the presidential level, but which still elects Democrats statewide-- it appears no longer politically safe in the heat of a campaign to offer full-throated support for repealing Obamacare." (The DCCC refuses to help in Montana but if you'd like to help Quist beat Gianforte, you can do it here.)

And then you've gotten very vulnerable crackpot Martha McSally in the Tucson area (AZ-02). Hillary beat Trump in her district last year 49.6-44.7%. Local Democrats are trying to recruit state Rep (and surgeon) Randy Friese to run against her. She didn't help herself by voting for the very unpopular TrumpCare and, as Jim Nintzel reported in the Tucson's weekly paper, The Range, "After declining to inform the public of where she stands on the Zombie Trumpcare bill, it appears that Congreswoman Martha McSally (R-AZ02) is fully behind it, according to AP reporter Erica Werner, who reports that McSally told her GOP colleagues it was time to get this 'fucking thing' done."

But most Republicans are just sticking to the focus-group tested talking points Paul Ryan's office sent out, the lies about how great the bill is. One of those lies, which was puked out last week 2 days in row on Chris Hayes' show by Republican leaders, first Tom Cole (OK) and then Mike Burgess (TX), is that "oh, no one's going to use those silly waivers that kill preexisting condition protections-- how'd that get in there anyway? Besides, the Senate will kill it. Doesn't mean a thing--zip... nothing, nada, zero... less than zero."

Hours later, Todd Richmond, reporting for the Associated Press: Scott Walker would consider seeking waiver to let health insurers raise premiums in Wisconsin. Embarrassing. But far more an expression of where Republican ideologues are on this than Paul Ryan, Kevin McCarthy, Tom Cole or Michael Burgess will ever let on.

Gov. Scott Walker said Friday that he would consider seeking a waiver to let insurers raise premiums for people with pre-existing medical conditions if the House Republicans’ health care plan becomes law... Walker, a Republican, told reporters that he would consider seeking such a waiver, saying Wisconsin has run high-risk pools well in the past.

...According to the Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation, a nonprofit organization that tracks national health issues, about 852,000 non-elderly Wisconsin residents had pre-existing conditions in 2015. That’s a quarter of the state’s non-elderly population.

...Assembly Minority Leader Peter Barca, D-Kenosha, said he was disappointed that Walker is ready to sacrifice health care coverage for thousands of Wisconsin residents.

“We need to make health insurance more affordable for everyone, not penalize people who get sick or are born with a serious health concern,” Barca said.

Senate Minority Leader Jennifer Shilling, D-La Crosse, said in an email that she was “shocked” that Walker would even entertain the idea of raising premiums on families with pre-existing conditions.

Louisiana Senator Bill Cassidy, a doctor and a former Democrat, has made quite the splash lately by telling CNN that for TrumpCare to pass the Senate it must pass the Jimmy Kimmel Test.

Jimmy Kimmel's tearful monologue about his infant son's heart surgery struck a cord with at least one member of Congress.

Republican Louisiana Senator Bill Cassidy said Friday that he's basing his support on a bill to repeal and replace Obamacare on "the Jimmy Kimmel test."

"I ask, Does it pass the Jimmy Kimmel test?" Cassidy told CNN. "Would the child born with a congenital heart disease be able to get everything she or he would need in that first year of life ... That they would receive all of the services even if they go over a certain amount?"

TrumpCare doesn't even come close.

The DC Parlour Game: How Many Seats Will The GOP Lose If Trumpf Or Cruz Is Their Presidential Nominee?

Neither Paul Ryan nor Miss McConnell could care less what Herr Trumpf or any other GOP candidates have to say about minority groups. When each one of them denounced his horribly bigoted remarks about Muslims yesterday each was tepid and unengaged. Ryan, who was wearing cuffed mellon-colored chinos & brown leather OluKai sandals, was pulled out of a meeting with his hairdresser, about the pros and cons of growing a man bun for his new look and Miss McC... well he has a taste for a different sort of man buns. As McConnell said, Trumpf's remarks are "completely and totally inconsistent with American values," but do you think McConnell gives a rat's ass about American values? What he does care about is keeping the Senate Majority Leader post, which means holding the GOP majority, which wouldn't be easy this year no matter what. With A Trumpf or a Cruz on the top the ticket, he knows he can forget it.

When Amber Phillips at the Washington Post wrote that Mark Kirk (R-IL), Ron Johnson (R-WI), Rob Portman (R-OH), Kelly Ayotte (R-NH), and Pat Toomey (R-PA) were probably dead men (+ one dead woman)-walking, she only mentioned the Republicans most likely to lose regardless of who the GOP nominee is. These are Republicans running in states that turn out of Democrats in presidential years. Obama won each state in both 2008 and 2012 and either Hillary or Bernie should do better than he did in each one-- with or without Trumpf/Cruz. These were his 2008 and 2012 in each state:

• Illinois- 2008- 62%, 2012- 58%
• New Hampshire- 2008- 54%, 2012- 52%
• Ohio- 2008- 52%, 2012- 51%
• Pennsylvania- 2008- 54%, 2012- 52%
• Wisconsin- 2008- 56%, 2012- 53%

Senate races in all 5 states in those years all went to Democrats:

• Illinois- 2008- Durbin reelected 68-29%
• New Hampshire- 2008- Jeanne Shaheen beat John Sununu 52-45%
• Ohio- Sherrod Brown reelected 51-45%
• Pennsylvania- Bob Casey reelected 54-45%
• Wisconsin- 2008- Tammy Baldwin beat Tommy Thompson 51-46%

This year there are 24 Republican held seats up and just 10 Democratic-held seats. As if that wasn't bad enough, Marco Rubio is leaving his Florida seat empty, Dan Coats in leaving his Indiana seat empty and David Vitter is leaving his Louisiana seat empty. The only open Democratic seats are Nevada's, California's and Maryland's, all dependable for Democrats in presidential years. These are the Obama numbers for the 6 open seats:

• California- 2008- 61%, 2012- 60%
• Florida- 2008- 51%, 2012- 50%
• Indiana- 2008- 50%, 2012- 44%
• Lousiana- 2008- 40%, 2012- 41%
• Maryland- 2008- 62%, 2012- 62%
• Nevada- 2008- 55%, 2012- 52%

These numbers would predict Democratic wins in California, Maryland and Nevada and perhaps Florida, a Republican win in Louisiana and perhaps Indiana.

But back to the topic at hand. If the Democrats take all 6 of the relatively easy races-- Illinois, Florida, New Hampshire, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, Miss McConnell will have a lot more time to chase man buns around pickle park in Louisville. But if Trumpf or Cruz is at the top of the ticket, suddenly North Carolina (Burr), Arizona (McCain) and Missouri (Blunt) and Alaska, Arkansas (Boozman), Georgia (Isakson), and Iowa (Grassley) are in jeopardy. (Trumpf or Cruz at the top of the ticket could actually help the GOP in one state: Louisiana.)

In the House, the Republicans have gross DCCC incompetence-- and terrible recruits-- working in their favor but, at least in theory, Trumpf or Cruz at the top of the ticket could kill the careers of Martha McSally (AZ), Jeff Denham (CA), David Valadao (CA), Steve Knight (CA), Mike Coffman (CO), Carlos Curbelo (FL), Daniel Webster (FL), John Mica (FL), Robert Dold (IL), Mike Bost (IL), Rodney Davis (IL), Rod Blum (IA), David Young (IA), Bruce Poliquin (ME), Tim Walberg (MI), Cresent Hardy (NV), Frank Guinta (NH), Scott Garrett (NJ), Tom MacArthur (NJ), Lee Zeldin (NY), Elise Stefanik (NY), Tom Reed (NY), Peter King (NY), John Katko (NY), Ryan Costello (PA), Will Hurd (TX), Mia Love (UT), Scott Rigell (VA), Randy Forbes (VA), Barbara Comstock (VA). The GOP would also likely lose 7 open GOP-held seats in Florida (Jolly), Michigan (Benishek), Minnesota (Kline), Nevada (Heck), New York (Gibson), Pennsylvania (Pitts and Fitzpatrick) and lose a couple of pick-up opportunities in open Democratic-held seats in Arizona (Kirkpatrick) and Florida (Murphy).

But don't get all excited. Even with Trumpf or Cruz at the top of the ticket, DCCC recruiting will likely keep most of these relatively easy pickups safe. Steve Israel strikes again! McSally, Denham, Valadao, Knight, Mica, Bost, Davis, Walberg, Garrett, MacArthur, Zeldin, Stefanik, Reed and Hurd will owe him and the DCCC their careers-- as will the new Republicans who take over for Benishek and Kline. On top of that, if the DCCC candidates in IA-01 (Monica Vernon) and NY-24 (Colleen Deacon or Steve Williams) win their primaries that's two other seats the Democrats should win that will be won by Republicans.

All that said, Republicans in Congress and Republicans who depend on Republicans getting elected in 2016 are legitimately starting to freak out. The GOP version of Steve Israel-and-sock-puppet-Ben Ray Luján, NRCC chairman Greg Walden was whining to the media that Trumpf's bigotry "certainly... puts competitive seats in jeopardy. We’ll have a much more difficult time." His deputy dawg in charge of incumbent protection, Ohio bankster shill Steve Stivers went even further, predicting that if Trumpf wins the Republican nomination "it would be devastating to our attempts to grow our majority and would cost us seats. There are people that couldn’t win if he was our nominee."

And the former NRCC chair, Oklahoma's Tom Cole, was even more outspoken than Walden or Stivers: "Nothing will impact our majority more than who we nominate for president. The correlation between presidential votes and House votes is higher today than it’s ever been in American history, so we all have a vested interest in advancing the strongest nominee that we can... I think it’s very hard to put a great deal of distance between yourself and your presidential nominee in either a winning or losing year… At the end of the day, you have to recognize the presidential nominee of both parties has the biggest megaphone out there other than the president himself." Cole is aware it might now matter much in most of the Oklahoma seats-- where Trumpf's brand of fascism has a nativist appeal to low-info voters, but in Oklahoma City, the most educated of the districts, it could potentially cause a problem for freshman Congressman Steve Russell in the least red of the state's districts. In fact, his Democratic opponent, Tom Guild, one of the progressive congressional candidates who has endorsed Bernie Sanders told us today that "Donald Trump's campaign rhetoric regularly makes me sick at my stomach. He started by demonizing Hispanics as rapists and murderers on the day he officially announced his candidacy. He mocked and hated on Rosie O'Donnell, Carly Fiorina, and Megan Kelly. I'm not a big fan of any of them, but that's not the point. He thought calling Rosie a fat pig was really clever. He and his misogynist brain clearly don't 'get it' at all. He then mocked a physically disabled reporter, and dissembled and claimed he didn't know him. Now, he spews hate at all Muslims and proposes keeping all Muslims out of the country simply because of their religious status. Radical Islamist Terrorists determined to destroy western civilization are one thing. Demonizing all Muslims, the vast majority of whom are decent and stand up people is quite different. It hit me earlier today that Trump's verbal brutality and recklessness is beyond disgusting, when reading texts from two friends, one from Bangladesh (now a U.S. citizen) and one Saudi Arabian (graduating from UCO on Saturday), who are both honorable and decent, salt of the earth types. As Trump has spewed his vile hatred, his poll numbers with Republican voters have often risen after his cruel misogynist, xenophobic, and racist rants. He has remained for months the frontrunner in the GOP race for president, doing inestimable damage to our democracy and our country. His calling card is to fan the flames of intolerance, bigotry, hate, and fear. I'm a vigorous defender of free speech, particularly in the political arena. Nearly every day, Trump stretches the exercise of his free speech to the breaking point. He's lucky that he enjoys protected rights that in many cases he would take away from decent and honorable human beings. I'd like to point out to him how fortunate he is to have the Secret Service, who are paid for by taxpayers he demonizes, protecting him."

Leigh Valley's mainstrean conservative incumbent, Charlie Dent, probably isn't in jeopardy himself-- can we hear a cheer for Steve Israel again?-- but he is very concerned about the 3 swing districts in the Philly suburbs (PA-06, PA-07 and PA-08), plus the open seat Pitts is giving up. With either Trumpf or Cruz on top of the Republican ticket those will be really tough seats for the GOP to hold. Obama won all 4 of them in 2008 (as well as Dent's) and the only reason those districts are held by Republicans now is because of Steve Israel and the DCCC. Dent wants the party to officially condemn Trumpf's hate talk. "Are these comments helping us as a party? No. Running political campaigns and winning elections is an exercise in addition, not subtraction… When comments are made that are so divisive that alienate women, Hispanics, the disabled, Muslims-- it just simply limits your ability to win. It’s that simple.

Right-wing Republicans hate Dent and dismiss him as a "liberal," which he certainly isn't. But no one would say that about extremist Darrell Issa, who is not just a far right partisan but is also the wealthiest member of Congress. He feels Trumpf is wrecking the Republican Party's chance to hold onto it's big majority in the House and he's willing to personalize it more than some of the other candidates insisting the GOP denounce Trumpf "as the buffoon he is. This man is simply not representing the views of mainstream America when he calls for a religious group to be particularly sectioned out… As much as people like much of what he’s saying, they have to question the fundamental values of somebody that would say that."

Bitter In-Fighting Has Turned The GOP Into A Stalinist Nightmare-- And The Response From Mainstream Republicans Has Been Like Refusing To Get Chemotherapy Because You Want Your Body To Unite With Your Cancerous Tumor

There are few substantive issues that I would find much agreement on with mainstream conservatives like Charlie Dent (R-PA), Chris Gibson (R-NY), Bob Dold (R-IL), Mike Fitzpatrick (R-PA), Chris Smith (R-NJ), Richard Hanna (R-NY), Elise Stefanik (R-NY), Dana Rohrabacher (R-CA) or Rodney Frelinghuysen (R-NJ). My heart goes out to them, though. But none of these congressmen are crackpots, nihilists, infants, sociopaths or anarchists who want to make the country ungovernable if they can't get their way. David Brat (R-VA) is. If you missed Brat arguing with Charlie Dent on Meet the Press Sunday, watch the video up top. Hugh Hewett, the first talking head questioning the two Republicans, is very much a right-wing GOP kook. And even he's sick of the backbiting Republican extremists that are grinding the whole country to a halt and making it impossible for a government to function in an orderly and efficient way.

It goes beyond the grotesque corruption inadvertently exposed by the Speaker-who-never-was when he admitted Trey Gowdy's phony-baloney Benghazi Committee was never anything but a sick, partisan witch hunt at the taxpayers expense. But there is something we can learn about the GOP's willingness to feed their extremists red meat from that sordid episode. There needs it be an investigation of the investigation. Why haven't Trey Gowdy and Darrell Issa resigned from Congress yet?

The House Select Committee on Benghazi is reeling again after a fired GOP investigator accused the Republican majority of conducting a politically motivated probe of Hillary Clinton-- accusations the right says are an attempt to get the committee to pay him a settlement.

Major Bradley Podliska, who left the panel in June after about 10 months on the job, told CNN on Sunday he was fired because he refused to conduct a partisan probe of the former secretary of state. He said the panel has veered off its original course to investigate the Sept. 11, 2012, attack that left four Americans dead-- instead zeroing in on Clinton following news that she used private email while secretary of state.

...Podliska is a Republican and believes the Benghazi investigation holds merit, making his criticism of the panel all the more stinging for the committee. A lawyer for Podliska said he was not partisan and never authorized anyone to go after Clinton.

"I'm scared. I'm nervous. I know that this is, you know, I'm going up against powerful people in Washington. But at the end of the day I need to live with myself," he told CNN. "I told my wife, I will view myself as a coward if I don't do the right thing here."

...Podliska, an Air Force Reserve intelligence officer, plans to file a lawsuit against the panel next month for wrongful termination. Podliska said the termination was twofold: because of his unwillingness to focus his probe solely on Clinton and State but also for taking a leave of absence to fulfill military service obligations.

"I was fired for going on military service, and I was fired for trying to conduct an objective, nonpartisan, thorough investigation," Podliska said.

Meanwhile Bill Scher, a conservative Democrat, begged the conservative Republicans he sometimes makes common cause with to not give in to far-right bullies, telling them that "[p]utting party first has proved to be their fatal error. Instead of standing up to the far-right bullies who perennially take the government hostage for the conservative outrage du jour, Boehner and McCarthy have effectively let them dictate how the House is run." He wrote at Real Clear Politics that Boehner and the mainstream conservatives in the GOP should "have it out for good with what had been known as the Tea Party. He could have drawn a red line by refusing to allow a shutdown in 2013, or forcing a vote on bipartisan immigration reform."

Boehner chose a different path, allowing the inmates to run wild in the asylum while trying to contain the havoc they wreaked. He let them learn the hard way that a government shutdown would hurt Republican poll numbers. He shelved the immigration reform package he said he wanted, shifting the blame to President Obama. He prevented an automatic yet politically suicidal cut in Medicare doctor reimbursements-- opposed by right-wing fiscal scolds-- by sneaking it through the House on a hastily called voice vote.

One can understand why Boehner would go to great lengths to avoid a Republican civil war, especially before the 2014 midterms. Control of the Senate was in sight, as well as a broader House majority. Theoretically, that would free the Republican leadership from the nihilists, and allow them to pass problem-solving legislation that could frame the debate for 2016 on their terms.

But theory was not reality. Only days after the 2015 congressional swearing-in, the House Freedom Caucus formed and painted a target on the speaker’s back. Nonstop fractiousness made the most basic legislative tasks a protracted grind, sidelining any hope of rebranding the party with a shiny new legislative agenda. With greater power did not come greater responsibility.

Something had to give. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell’s “no more government shutdowns” ultimatum suggested that the Republican leadership finally had enough. Boehner no longer had the option of letting the hard right learn the hard way all over again. A showdown was unavoidable. Then Boehner slunk from the fight.

It’s not as if Boehner doesn’t agree that his right flank has become detrimental to the party. “We have,” he said in that CBS exit interview, “members of the House and Senate here in town who whip people into a frenzy believing they can accomplish things that they know, they know, are never going to happen.”

And he knows they cannot be allowed to control the House and represent the face of the GOP if the party is to be competitive in presidential election years. Yet he is allowing that to happen. Abdication doesn’t remove the tumor. The cancer attacks whomever comes next.

I have no doubt that a full-blown confrontation would be as brutal as chemotherapy. Boehner was not wrong that his allies would face primary challenges. Several could lose. What would emerge after the civil war is uncertain. But letting the Freedom Caucus cancer metastasize is an untenable prospect for a major political party.

What’s maddening about this Republican rift is how small the ideological gap is between the factions. This is not a Whig Party torn apart over slavery. That schism led to the creation of the Republican Party. One hundred and sixty years later, the Grand Old Party is breaking apart, not over fundamental philosophic disagreement but over tactics.

And not even the tactics of winning, but the tactics of losing-- how Republicans should handle proposals that cannot survive a Senate filibuster or presidential veto. By putting party unity above all, nearly everyone in the party lost. John Boehner lost his job. Kevin McCarthy lost his ambitions. The party as a whole lost its chance to prove it can govern competently.

Republicans may try to paper-over the rift yet again, praying that Rep. Paul Ryan has the credibility to keep the Freedom Caucus in line. But you can’t remove a cancer with a faith healer.

But with the really craziest of the extremists Ryan has no credibility whatsoever. And that is very upsetting to elderly Republicans. "Anyone who attacks Paul Ryan as being insufficiently conservative is either woefully misinformed or maliciously destructive," said Tom Cole, a very conservative Republican from southern Oklahoma. "Paul Ryan has played a major role in advancing the conservative cause and creating the Republican House majority. His critics are not true conservatives. They are radical populists who neither understand nor accept the institutions, procedures and traditions that are the basis of constitutional governance." What Cole, an old fashioned Republican and ally of Boehner, doesn't understand about the new brand of Ted Cruz neo-fascist Republicans dominating his party is that "constitutional governance," itself, which depends on compromise, is viewed with outright hostility and fury.

Over the weekend Matthew Yglesias, writing at Vox suggested one of the options open to House Republicans now "would be for the House to simply not elect a new speaker. Boehner has made it clear that he remains in office as speaker until a successor is chosen, and if the GOP caucus can't pick a successor, that means Boehner sticks around. Since Boehner is already in office, he doesn't need 218 votes. And since he isn't trying to keep his job, he doesn't need to worry about placating the right. A Boehner-led House would simply do very little. 'Must-pass' measures like the debt ceiling, appropriations bills, and disaster aid would simply be hashed out between the White House and GOP Senate Leader Mitch McConnell, and then Boehner could bring them to the floor, where they would pass with a mix of GOP and Democratic votes... A more creative, but structurally similar, scenario would involve 50 or so House Democrats joining with the bulk of Republicans to elect an orthodox conservative Republican to serve as speaker. In exchange, the GOP caucus would need to agree to buck the Freedom Caucus crowd on must-pass legislation and agree to bring these compromise bills to the floor. Legislative outcomes would be essentially identical to the ones we've been getting, but there would be less posturing and drama, and we would simply skip to the part where McConnell-Obama compromises pass the House despite opposition from many House Republicans."

This is the time when a competent DCCC would come into play-- and elect a Democratic House. Unfortunately, a decade of unbelievably bad leadership from Rahm Emanuel, Chris Van Hollen and Steve Israel has rendered the DCCC so incapable of winning and so structurally compromised that there's a better chance that the country will wind up with an honest-to-God Stalinist government than there is that the DCCC will come even close to winning back a House, something that should be nearly a sure bet at this point. Pelosi's worst failing was the DCCC and it has been absolutely catastrophic for the Democrats... and will continue to be for the foreseeable future. The Republicans could turn the House floor into a real life scene from a chillingly gruesome Hieronymus Bosch painting and Steve Israel and his sock-puppet Ben Ray Luján would lose anyway.

Independent-Minded Progressive Tae Si Taking On Tom Cole In Oklahoma

The sprawling Oklahoma district south of Oklahoma City, covering half of the Red River Valley, OK-04, has been represented in Congress by Tom Cole since 2002. His lowest reelection victory was a 68% win. In 2012, the district, which has a PVI of R+19, gave Romney a 67-33% win over Obama, although, the only 4 counties in the whole state voting Democratic in the last gubernatorial race were all in the 4th-- Commanche, Cotton, Jefferson and Stephens. This year a young progressive Democrat, Tae Si, is taking on Cole and not waging a "Republican-lite" campaign against him, but a full-on battle ideas: progressive vs conservative. Tae, who was born on Seoul and moved to America when he was 6, is a software engineer. "Running for Congress," he told us, "was the furthest thing from my mind. However, the country took a turn for the worst. The leadership of this country, especially my opponent Tom Cole, has put into place policies that will bring misery for years to come."

Tae is a thoughtful, independent-minded progressive eager to represent his neighbors in Congress and not enmeshed in the partisan bickering that Oklahomans hate about Washington. He has fresh, logical ideas that cater to neither Beltway political party, but to the people who live in OK-04. He agreed to introduce himself with a guest post today. Here's what he wrote:

"There Is A Scam In Washington That Sickens Me"
-by Tae Si

President Obama proposed the Chained CPI to address budgetary shortfalls, and Tom Cole wants this to be a reality. They want to use the Chained CPI as a tool that will favor their failed policies. The calculation for the CPI changed several times in the past decade. The Chained CPI is another attempt to hide what is really going on while at the same time cheat people out of what they earned. Medical cost, housing, rent, college tuition, energy, and food are all going up faster than inflation. The Chained CPI payouts to Social Security, military retirement, and many social safety nets will be significantly less in real terms at a time when the middle class and poor need the social programs more than ever. The CPI-E measures the real cost of living, and this is what I support.

Tom Cole likes to talk about the Constitution but his actions don’t support what he says. He supports the actions of the National Security Agency spying on law-abiding citizens proclaiming it’s a matter of keeping us safe. Yet the NSA actions clearly violate the Constitution protecting us from illegal searches and seizures. Attacking our civil liberties is the opposite of keeping us safe. Tom Cole does not trust the American people.

Our country is way overdue for a universal healthcare system. The Affordable Care Act brought about some much needed positive changes. However, there are two important problems the new healthcare law fails to solve. The first is universal coverage. The second is affordability. Some states, such as Oklahoma, are rejecting the Medicaid expansion. Some people can’t afford insurance yet don’t qualify for subsidies. Nothing in the law changed the price structure. Hospitals and pharmaceutical companies still and will charge higher prices. The cost of healthcare is on the middle class more than ever. I support a healthcare system in which prices are brought down and everyone is covered. Tom Cole isn’t trying to solve the problems of the Affordable Care Act. He just wants to take away your healthcare.

We had 1 or 2 recessions every decade. There was the housing bubble, dot-com bubble, savings and loan crisis, energy crisis; so a recession is practically guaranteed. However, there were laws in place that lessened the pains of the recessions, but the deregulations made pain worse. There’s been attempt to fix the problems like with Dodd-Frank, but the main parts of the law that had any teeth to tame Wall Street got stripped out. Even watered-down, Tom Cole still wants to repeal Dodd-Frank. He is obstructing much needed reform mitigating the next recession in favor of his rich banker buddies.

So what form will the next crisis take, and when will it happen? Your guess is as good as mine. My belief is to hope for the best and prepare for the worst, and the worst will be a burst of the bond bubble. I know many don’t believe there is a bond bubble. However, like prices can’t go up forever, interest rates can’t stay low forever. People who are near retirement are most likely in a bond fund. When interest rates go up, so does their retirement date. Many people have variable interest rate on their mortgage. Meaning they won’t be able to pay the high interest and will be kicked out. Most recently, thanks in part to Tom Cole, student loans switched to variable interest rate. Students are also in trouble especially in this economy. Recessions happen about every 7 years so the next one might be around early 2015.

Tough times are ahead. I recommend you do prepare for the worst and get out of bond funds and switch to fixed interest rates if you can get a good deal. I will do all I can to reverse the destruction set forth by our leaders, I will stop the parasite known as Wall Street, and I will fight for the benefits you earned.

Last year, Tae told the Daily Kos community that "[i]f elected to Congress, my role is to stop the madness. All branches of the government think the same way and that is to give the people’s wealth to the super rich and apply laws only to certain segments of the population. Things are done because they are politically feasible. The only checks and balances that exist are to make sure the people don’t get any economic or social leverage. The government is a well oiled machine for Wall Street and a bunch of red tape for everybody else. The reverse must be true. Red tape for Wall Street and a government that works for the people must be put back in place." You can read more about his views on his campaign website.

Republican Civil War Heating Up Again-- This Time AP Names The Names Of So-Called "Moderate" Republicans

Nothing left of the Tea Party Caucus but garbage

The latest battleground is over the debilitating and draconian spending cuts extremist rightists who are in the pockets of the 1 percent are demanding. These are cuts even greater than the cuts neo-liberals in the Obama administration and among the New Dems and Blue Dogs have been implementing. The extremists want to get rid of public education, food stamps, Amtrak and start the process of ending Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security, their longtime bêtes noires. AP insists there is a significant "backlash" from more mainstreamish conservatives against the "tea party shrillness." So who are these mainstream conservatives? Not Paul Ryan (R-WI). It's his crackpot budget that the teabaggers have embraced and that would do the most harm to the American economy and to ordinary American working families. Ryan is the problem.

Voting in the spring for the tea party budget developed by Rep. Paul Ryan, R-Wis., who was Mitt Romney's vice presidential running mate last year, was one thing. But as long as a Democrat occupies the White House, Ryan's budget is little more than a nonbinding wish list-- cutting Medicaid, Medicare and food stamps and slashing budgets for domestic agencies funded annually through appropriations bills.

Many tenured Republicans, particularly members of the House Appropriations Committee, have viewed Ryan's sweeping cuts as unworkable all along. When more than $4 billion in entirely new cuts came to the House floor in the form of an actual bill for funding transportation and housing programs, House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, confronted shaky support from less ardently conservative Republicans and decided to pull the $44 billion package on July 31.

That sparked a frustrated outburst from the committee chairman, Rep. Harold Rogers, R-Ky. He called for abandoning the Ryan budget and starting bipartisan negotiations that would provide appropriators with "a realistic spending level to fund the government in a responsible-- and attainable-- way."

"Attainable" is code for something that can pass the Senate and get signed by President Barack Obama. That's rarely a recipe for tea party fun.

The House has passed just four of 12 appropriations bills that are all supposed to be on the president's desk by Sept. 30. The Senate hasn't passed any, though it also tried and failed last week to advance its version of a transportation-housing bill.

The four House-passed bills largely embrace Obama's funding levels for homeland security, the Pentagon and veterans' programs. The House has yet to pass one with significant spending cuts in the mold of the Ryan budget.

"When it came time for the general (Republican) conference to affirm the Ryan budget in the form of 12 appropriations bills, the conference balked," said Rep. Jack Kingston, R-Ga. "We need to regroup and say, 'OK, was your vote for the Ryan budget a serious vote or was that just some political fluke that you don't intend to follow up on?'"

On the night before the transportation bill was pulled, the House restored, with little debate and a voice vote, some money for Community Development Block Grants that had been cut in half to $1.6 billion, the lowest level since the program began in 1975.

Mayors love the flexibility of block grants. They can be used for almost anything, from sewer projects and revitalizing slumping downtown business districts to paying for homeless shelters and community health centers. Rep. Shelley Moore Capito, R-W.Va. stepped in with an amendment to add $350 million back. [She's running for the Senate, statewide and needs to come across as vaguely mainstream in the hope that voters won't examine her radical right record.]

"This program has provided much-needed help for our senior citizens, for road repairs and our homeless shelters," she said. "Our local governments need this funding."

Voices of GOP pragmatists such as Rogers and Capito had been drowned out largely since early in the year when Boehner scheduled a succession of votes on bills advancing Democrats' priorities and raising tea partyers' hackles-- a $600 billion-plus tax increase on the wealthy, a Superstorm Sandy relief bill and a liberalized renewal of the Violence Against Women Act.

Each of those bills passed the House in contradiction of a practice instituted by former GOP Speaker Dennis Hastert to only bring up bills that are supported by a majority of Republicans. Since then, Boehner has walked lightly and catered to the party's conservative wing when scheduling legislation.

The most recent squabble is a prelude of what's to come in the fall. When Congress returns in September, it has only nine working days to figure out at what level to temporarily fund federal agencies beyond Sept. 30.

The alternative is a government shutdown that only the most strident tea partyers want to use as a bargaining chip to "defund" Obama's health care overhaul about to go into top gear. GOP leaders like Boehner oppose that idea but have been unwilling to publicly condemn the effort.

In the Senate, the GOP's pragmatic wing includes John McCain of Arizona, Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, Bob Corker of Tennessee and Johnny Isakson of Georgia. They've been meeting frequently with White House staff chief Denis McDonough and other top Obama aides seeking ways to replace deep, nondiscretionary automatic cuts known as sequestration with gentler, more targeted cuts.

Graham and McCain are chiefly motivated by a desire to restore Pentagon cuts they say will cripple the military. Other Senate Republicans like Susan Collins of Maine are going to bat for domestic programs.

Of course, Congress could simply keep the government on autopilot at current funding levels, continuing the automatic spending cuts that kicked in last March. One veteran Congress-watcher says passing it in the 435-member House might again require violating Hastert's practice.

"What Boehner has done successfully in the past, is you have to write it to levels that actually get support in the Senate and get some Democrats in the House," said former Rep. Steve LaTourette, R-Ohio.

Some conservatives among the House's 233 Republicans may "then squeal ...," LaTourette said, "but if they're not going to supply the votes to get to 218 in a way that makes everybody in the (GOP) conference comfortable, then that's the strategy that's left to them. And I think that's probably where we're headed."

Bachmann-- "We're not the mouthpiece... We are the receptacle"-- is still the head of the House Tea Party Caucus but many members have left and the caucus isn't as powerful inside the House GOP as it once was. It hasn't even met once in the last year. This is the garbage left in the Caucus:

• Rodney Alexander (LA)
• Michele Bachmann (MN)
• Joe Barton (TX)
• Gus Bilirakis (FL)
• Rob Bishop (UT)
• Diane Black (TN)
• Michael C. Burgess (TX)
• Paul Broun (GA)
• John Carter (TX)
• Bill Cassidy (LA)
• Howard Coble (NC)
• Mike Coffman (CO)
• Ander Crenshaw (FL)
• John Culberson (TX)
• Jeff Duncan (SC)
• Blake Farenthold (TX)
• Stephen Fincher (TN)
• John Fleming (LA)
• Trent Franks (AZ)
• Phil Gingrey (GA)
• Louie Gohmert (TX)
• Vicky Hartzler (MO)
• Tim Huelskamp (KS)
• Lynn Jenkins (KS)
• Steve King (IA)
• Doug Lamborn (CO)
• Blaine Luetkemeyer (MO)
• Kenny Marchant (TX)
• Tom McClintock (CA)
• David McKinley (WV)
• Gary Miller (CA)
• Mick Mulvaney (SC)
• Randy Neugebauer (TX)
• Rich Nugent (FL)
• Steven Palazzo (MS)
• Steve Pearce (NM)
• Ted Poe (TX)
• Tom Price (GA)
• Phil Roe (TN)
• Dennis Ross (FL)
• Ed Royce (CA)
• Steve Scalise (LA)
• Pete Sessions (TX)
• Adrian Smith (NE)
• Lamar S. Smith (TX)
• Tim Walberg (MI)
• Lynn Westmoreland (GA)
• Joe Wilson (SC)

Of the 49 members, 31 (63%) are treason-minded Confederates.Thirteen were defeated for reelection-- like loudmouths Allen West and Joe Walsh-- defeated in bids for higher office or retired and another 4 still in the House just quit. The most likely 'baggers to lose their reelection bids in 2014 are Gary Miller, Mike Coffman, Steve Pearce and Steve King. Several others, including Bachmann, have announced that they're retiring from Congress. Domestic terror suspect and Texas congressman Steve Stockman was kind enough to point out a post at the Washington Examiner teabaggy website, The Republican Establishment's incoherence on government shutdowns, Obamacare, and the debt limit.

According to establishment Republicans like Karl Rove, it would be absolute armageddon for the GOP if conservatives pursued delays/cuts to Obamacare through the continuing resolution process. “Remember, when Republicans shut down the government in 1995,” Rove wrote at Fox News, “they had funded half the fiscal year’s budget including all of defense and still the GOP lost badly in the court of public opinion.”

FreedomWorks’ Dean Clancy has already addressed some of the factual errors in Rove’s post here, unfortunately many in the House Republican Leadership seem to have bought into Rove’s analysis.

For example, House Majority Whip Eric Cantor, R-Va., told National Review August 9, “No one is advocating a government shutdown... In order to avoid a government shutdown, we need 60 votes in the Senate and 218 votes in the House to pass a continuing resolution,” he explained. “To get 60 votes in the Senate, you need at least 14 Democrats to join Republicans and pass a CR that defunds Obamacare. Right now, I am not aware of a single Democrat in the Senate who would join us. If and when defunding has 60 votes in the Senate, we will absolutely deliver more than 218 votes in the House.”

Which is a fine argument. Except for the fact that Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, is also on record threatening not to raise the debt limit unless Obama agrees to dollar-for-dollar spending cuts. On July 24, Boehner said, “We’re not going to raise the debt ceiling without real cuts in spending. It’s as simple as that.” “I believe the so-called Boehner Rule is the right formula for getting that done,” he added, referring to his rule matching new debt authority with spending cuts.

House Republicans can’t announce they are willing to surrender on Obamacare funding in the CR because they are afraid they will be blamed for a government shutdown, and then turn right around and threaten not to raise the debt limit unless Obama agrees to more spending cuts. There is no reason anyone should take them seriously.

If anything, a government shutdown is much safer ground to fight on. Hitting the debt limit would trigger far harsher consequences than a government shutdown.

If Republicans in Washington don’t want to fight Obamacare through the CR, that’s fine. But they shouldn’t then pretend that Obama and the Democrats should take their debt limit threats seriously at all.

Below is a video of Tom Cole, a very senior mainstream conservative Republican congressman from Oklahoma, being questioned by someone who has apparently pre-set Rush Limbaugh in his tractor. Cole is calmly trying to explain why shutting down the government, despite what the far right propagandists are braying about, is NOT a good idea for anyone. No wonder most Republican congressmen are avoiding Town Hall meetings this year. Is Cole even in the majority of his party anymore?

The Ugly Republican Politics Behind Aid For Oklahoma Tornado Victims

Like most Americans, President Obama's reaction to the tornado devastation is Oklahoma was to ask how we could help. He pledged "all of the resources" necessary to rebuild to the state that gave him his poorest results in November, 33% and a loss of every single county. (Cleveland County, where the devastation was the most brutal, went for Romney 59,019 to 34,701 in November.) Oklahoma has 5 congressmen, all Republicans. Jim Bridenstine, Markwayne Mullin, Frank Lucas, Tom Cole and James Lankford. The two senators-- both are extreme right Republicans who have been especially obstructionist since Obama became president-- are Jim Inhofe and Tom Coburn. Inhofe and Coburn both voted against aid to the survivors of Hurricane Sandy. In the House, where a majority of Republicans voted against aid, the two most senior Oklahoma Republicans, Frank Lucas and Tom Cole bucked their party and voted with the Democrats in favor of the aid package. Most of the devastation was in Cole's district, which includes Moore. Cole said on MSNBC yesterday that one reason he voted for Sandy relief was his own state’s history of catastrophic tornadoes. “Frankly, one of the reasons that we try to be sympathetic to people in other parts of the country” is that “we’re always going to be there to help because we’re always one tornado away from being Joplin.”

"As a nation," said Obama yesterday, "our full focus right now is on the urgent work of rescue and the hard work of recovery and rebuilding that lies ahead... [F]or all those who have been affected, we recognize that you face a long road ahead. In some cases, there will be enormous grief that has to be absorbed but you will not travel that path alone. Your country will travel it with you fueled by our faith in the almighty and our faith in one another. So our prayers are with the people of Oklahoma today, and we will back up those prayers with deeds for as long as it takes."

Tom Coburn, on the other hand, is insane, politicizing the tragedy to score points for his anti-social, reactionary ideology and, basically, holding the victims hostage-- yes, his own constituents-- unless he gets his way. Coburn, many are saying, is disastrously wrong but at least consistent. I think the picture from Act Blue on the right goes a long way to explain why Oklahoma's right-wing ideologues can behave this way.

Sen. Tom Coburn (R-Okla.) will insist that any federal aid to deal with the tornado in his home state must be offset by budget cuts.

“He will ask his colleagues to sacrifice lower priority areas of the budget to help Oklahoma,” spokesman John Hart said. Should other Republicans join Coburn, it could set up a fight similar to the January tug-of-war over Hurricane Sandy funding. That aid package was delayed by GOP opposition and ultimately passed with mostly Democratic support.

Coburn was against the Sandy relief package, as well as 2011 legislation to replenish the Federal Emergency Management Agency’s disaster fund. His office has noted that the 1995 aid for victims of the Oklahoma City bombing was balanced by cuts to unspent appropriations. However, he did ask for expedited FEMA aid in 2007, when an ice storm hit his state.

Inhofe is already making excuses for his own inconsistency by claiming the Hurricane Sandy bill he voted against was filled with pork and that the bill to help the tornado victims won't be. He's a stinking pile of moldering pig dung. When his constituents finish digging out, they should demand he resign.

Which Politicians Will Be Burned Worst By Sequestration?

As we mentioned yesterday, Republican governors are bringing real pressure to bear on the ideology-driven congressmembers from safely gerrymandered districts in their states to compromise with Obama on Sequestration. Governors will have to face devastating consequences to their state's fragile economies if the Boehner plan goes through. In Ryan Lizza's New Yorker report on a disintegrating Republican Party, The House of Pain, he quotes former NRCC Chair Tom Cole (R-OK), "leader of a large faction of House Republicans who believe that the Tea Party-inspired congressmen are dooming the Party," on the current makeup of the GOP House caucus: “It will do things that it knows are politically not in its interest... If this were football, some of these guys would know only one play, and that’s to throw deep every time. They don’t understand winning incrementally or winning first downs. I admire the zeal, because we have to have that, but it needs to be tempered with a little bit of experience... These guys have no endgame. I mean, they just are so desperate to do something that they don’t think past their nose. And that’s the dangerous part of this. I saw one of them on television who said, ‘Well, Obama will cave.’ Really? With all the polls running in his direction, his popularity moving up, ours in the tank? He’s not going to cave. Some of these guys will hold a political gun to their head and threaten the President: ‘Do what I want or I’ll pull the trigger!’ Like he cares?”

I suspect many Americans would like to watch that in real time on TV. People are fed up with the nihilists and obstructionists who have taken over the GOP. And the Republican governors are among them. It may be too little, too late and Boehner probably doesn't have the political strength inside his own caucus to put on the brakes now, but here are worried quotes from some worried GOP governors.

• Bob McDonnell (R-VA): “They need to stop having press conferences and start meeting. The time for shows is over. We’ve had 18 months.”

• Gary Herbert (R-UT): “I think there’s a lack of leadership, period. And there’s enough lack of leadership blame to go around. The president needs to step up with his proposals. Speaker Boehner needs to come to the table with his proposals... They all need to step up."

• Tom Corbett (R-PA): “Frankly, I think the Hill ought to be saying, ‘We’re ready to sit down and work on a budget right now, and we will go through it line by line.’ That’s what you’ve got to do. That’s what we do as governors... I’m going to object [to National Guard furloughs] We have enough time that we can give them the savings that they want by not hiring for the vacancies that we have. [But] my understanding is that my adjutant general is being told they can’t do that. They’ve got to furlough.”

The Hill posits that the Sequester battle is going to play very heavily in elections this year and particularly points out the Virginia governor's race (in November) and the House race to replace Tim Scott in South Carolina's first congressional district. With the GOP losing the public relations battle badly, Democratic candidates look to benefit from what is being seen as Republican Party ritualized obstructionism.

No one really imagined a Democratic win in SC-01, a district where Romney beat Obama 58.3-40.2% and where Tim Scott was just reelected with 62%, but with disgraced ex-Governor Mark Sanford the likely Republican nominee against Stephen Colbert's sister, Elizabeth Colbert Busch, we'll see if a deep red district is open to sending the GOP the ultimate message about obstruction and nihilism.

The district is rooted in Charleston, an area that remains heavily dependent on military and defense jobs-- the Charleston Joint Air Force Base and the defense contractor hub at the Charleston Naval Weapons Station could both severely feel its impact.

Many military veterans have also retired along the coast, near Myrtle Beach and Beaufort. It’s no wonder why Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), one of sequestration’s most vocal critics, hails from the state.

The timing of the race could also put it in the spotlight. Military furloughs are set to kick in on April 1, the day before the GOP primary runoff election will be held, and the general election will be held shortly after that on May 7.

If Colbert's sister wins this one, expect to see unprecedented Republican Party panic in Congress as obstructionists in "safe" red seats start realizing there aren't enough K Street lobbyist positions open for everyone likely to go down in 2014. And in Virginia, Sequestration, shepherded through Congress by their own Eric Cantor, will be more devastating than to most states.

The state relies heavily on federal government spending, with a high number of military bases, a federal shipyard in the Tidewater region and defense contractors all over Northern Virginia.

Virginia could lose 200,000 Virginia jobs if the full 10-year sequester takes place, according to one study. Mitt Romney, 2012 Senate candidate George Allen (R) and Rep. Eric Cantor’s (R-Va.) Democratic opponent all focused on it in their Virginia campaigns.

Terry McAuliffe, Democrats’ likely gubernatorial nominee, ripped the plan.

"Sequestration is an unbelievable drag on Virginia’s economy that is already being felt because politicians in Washington can’t come together to find a solution,” he said in a statement to The Hill.

“Extreme politicians who oppose compromise are threatening Virginia’s economy with continued gridlock. It is time for mainstream leaders of both parties to come together and find a common sense solution. We simply can not afford any more rigid ideological posturing when hundreds of thousands of Virginia jobs are on the line."

GOP nominee and Virginia Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli (R) told The Hill last week that sequestration was “not a policy,” but didn’t weigh in on whether or not it should be averted or replaced by other cuts. He did say that the government had to eventually “spend within its means and Virginia, no doubt, with one third of its economy based on federal jobs, will take a hit on that.”

With Republicans still playing "chicken" and strutting around saying they're ready to call Obama's "bluff" the magnitude of the mindless chopping of programs is starting to sink in with voters.

Republicans questioned whether the sequester would be as harmful as the White House predicted and worked on a proposal that could preserve the cuts while giving the administration more discretion to choose how to implement them. Democrats expressed worry that they might be forced to accept the cuts if the public outcry is not loud enough in coming weeks.

Seeking to raise alarm among a public that has not paid much attention to the issue, the White House on Sunday released 51 fact sheets describing what would happen over the next seven months if the cuts go into effect.

...The sequester-- worth $1.2 trillion over 10 years-- effectively orders the administration to make across-the-board, indiscriminate cuts to agency programs, sparing only some mandatory programs such as Medicaid and food stamps. It is the result of a 2011 deal forged by the White House and Congress to reduce federal borrowing. It was intended as a draconian measure so blunt that it would force lawmakers to find alternative means of reducing the budget deficit. But while Republicans and Democrats have both made suggestions for how to do so, no plan has gotten enough support to pass Congress.

On Sunday, White House officials painted an ominous picture of cuts affecting a wide range of government services if the sequester takes effect-- and spotlighted the impact in states that are politically important to Republicans.

Hundreds of teachers could lose their jobs in Ohio, home to House Speaker John A. Boehner (R), officials said, and thousands of children may not get necessary vaccines in conservative Georgia.

Obama’s aides said they would seek to make clear that Republicans are choosing to allow the cuts to go forward instead of agreeing to reduce the deficit by scaling back tax breaks for corporations and the wealthy.

“It’s important to understand why the sequester is going to go into effect,” said Dan Pfeiffer, an Obama senior adviser. “The Republicans are making a policy choice that these cuts are better for the economy than eliminating loopholes that benefit the wealthy.”

“The American people overwhelmingly disagree with that choice,” he added. “But in a constitutional government where Republicans control the House, if they want to force that choice on the American people, they have the right to do that.”

...While every other fiscal showdown of the past 21 / 2 years has been resolved at the last minute, there’s little reason to expect that to happen this time.

Obama and congressional leaders have had no face-to-face talks about avoiding the spending cuts. The White House has been pressing liberal allies in the past 10 days to sound the alarm to ratchet up pressure on Republicans, with an eye on making them fold by the late March deadline.

The House returns Monday evening to approve several non-controversial bills-- including naming a California space research center after Neil Armstrong-- with the latter part of the week devoted to passing its version of a reauthorization of the Violence Against Women Act.

The Senate also returns Monday evening, first considering a non-controversial judicial nominee and then dedicating Tuesday to the expected confirmation of Chuck Hagel as secretary of defense.

Neither the House nor the Senate is planning to be in session when the sequester hits on Friday.

Why Won't Boehner And Cantor Allow House Republicans An Up Or Down Vote On Keeping Tax Rates Low?

GOP chief House whip and right-wing zealot Kevin McCarthy, who had no Democratic opponent in the election a few weeks ago, only a free pass, like every member of the Republican leadership team, was on Meet the Press yesterday muddying the waters again. Extending tax breaks for the middle class-- and giving a tax break for the first $250,000 of income for everyone-- is something McCarthy and the rest of the free pass boys equate with raising tax rates. But on December 31, the tax breaks McCarthy and his cronies voted for expire-- for everyone, rich, poor and in between. Obama is asking the conservatives to extend the tax breaks on the first $250,000 now, before it expires, and then deal with the GOP hope to pass highly unpopular tax cuts for people who make over $250,000 in January, or whenever they have the guts to bring it up. [FYI, Blue America tried talking civil rights champion Dolores Huerta, who lives in Bakersfield, to run against McCarthy. The DCCC has no interest in any such thing. Do you?]

But not every member of McCarthy's whip team agrees with him. Take a look [below] at the discussion Tom Cole (R-OK), a senior Republican whip, had with Cathy Crowley on CNN's State of the Union yesterday and pathetic GOP airhead Marsha "Big Ideas" Blackburn (R-TN). Although Blackburn was flailing insanely at the very idea of it, Cole predicted that if Boehner and Cantor allowed the extension of the middle class tax cut to come to the floor this week, it would pass. “Yeah, honestly I think if it got to the floor, it would carry... Look, that’s my judgment, but I spend a lot of time counting votes and looking around. But this doesn’t say we’re going to raise taxes on anybody, it says OK this group for sure, your taxes aren’t going up. Get that done with, get it over with.”

Cole, of course, will never put his money where his mouth is. Like every other Republican-- and 4 slimy Blue Dogs who always vote with them (Barrow, Matheson, McIntyre and Donnelly)-- he has refused to sign the discharge petition that would force an up or down vote on the House floor, something that has Boehner and Cantor paralyzed in paroxysms of fear. Even a fanatic like Rand Paul is telling Boehner to just get over it and allow the vote. He says Republicans can call for 2 votes, one to keep all the taxes low and one to just keep the taxes under $250,000 low and that way the dumbells in their base will be placated and they can all vote "Present" and let the Democratic bill pass. “And then the Democrats are the party of higher taxes and we’re still the party of lower taxes,” said Paul. “And we have elections over that and people decide which party they like best.” Didn't that just work out pretty badly for them a few weeks ago?