Tag Archives: do nothing congress

Five deadlines in the next four months: negotiating with the party of “100% cuts, 0% revenue”

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Suzy Khimm explains the five deadlines we face in the next 3-4 months, now that the debt ceiling fight has been pushed out to May (if the GOP House bill is passed in the Senate):

In theory, a sweeping budget agreement would render nearly all of these deadlines moot. But Congress and the White House have failed time and again to pull that off, making it more likely that we’ll muddle through from deadline to deadline. Here’s what happens when:

(Dylan Matthews)

Feb. 4: The president is required by law to release a 2014 budget on the first Monday of February. The White House has already said that its budget will be late, citing delays because of the fiscal cliff negotiations, and it’s likely to hold off until congressional Democrats can agree on what budget offer they want to make. But the president will likely lay down some markers the following week, in his Feb. 12 State of the Union speech.

March 1: The sequester is scheduled to take effect, as the Jan 1. fiscal cliff deal only replaced the automatic spending cuts for two months. Senate Democrats have agreed to put out a budget resolution for 2014 by this date as well, per House Republicans’ request. But this is just a blueprint that will still have to be reconciled with the House’s own budget. That means that Congress will have to find another short-term fix for the sequester cuts if it wants to keep it from taking effect.

March 27: The short-term budget funding the government’s discretionary spending expires, as Congress only passed a six-month Continuing Resolution in late September 2012. The spending levels have already set by the 2011 debt-ceiling deal, which placed strict caps on spending. But both President Obama and Republicans have agreed to further discretionary cuts, reopening those caps. If Congress still hasn’t come to a budget deal, the GOP could use the CR as a point of leverage to extract cuts, threatening to shut down the government unless their demands are met.

April 15: Both the House and the Senate will be required to adopt a budget resolution for fiscal year 2014. If they don’t, then legislators will have their pay put into escrow beginning April 16 until one is passed. However, regardless of what happens, any withheld pay will be given to legislators at the end of the current Congress because of the 27th amendment.

May 19: The three-month suspension of the debt-ceiling expires, which means that we risk breaching the debt limit unless Congress acts again. However, it appears that the Treasury Department would once again be able to use “extraordinary measures” to buy a few weeks more time, which means that May 19 wouldn’t be a drop-dead date.

Steve Benen points out the deadline that, with the track record of this Congress, will surely be missed: ”…if Congress doesn’t deal with automatic sequestration cuts before March 1 — just 36 days away — the result is a scenario that neither side wants to see: painfully deep cuts that would undermine both the economy and the military. [...]

In theory, it’s not too hard to imagine a bipartisan deal: half the money could be found through new revenue via tax reform, half could come by way of spending cuts. The problem, of course, is that GOP leaders continue to insist that any agreement be 100% cuts, 0% revenue.

“There’s not a single Republican vote” for more revenue, said Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell.

No, of course not. That would be sensible.

In the House, the picture is similar.

“They already got their revenues,” [House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan] said. “So what, we’ll roll over and they get more revenues? That’s not how it works. In the spirit of bipartisan compromise, they’ve gotten revenue increases already. We’ve yet to get anything as a result of it.”

That Paul Ryan just doesn’t have a very good memory. In 2011, there was a big debt-ceiling agreement in which President Obama accepted over $1 trillion in spending cuts. “We’ve yet to get anything”? House Speaker John Boehner boasted in 2011, “I got 98% of what I wanted.”

And Benen asks the most important question of all: “If the 2011 agreement included cuts, and the 2012 deal featured revenue, is it really so outrageous to think a 2013 compromise should be balanced and include a combination of both?”

It shouldn’t be this difficult for adults to negotiate and find bipartisan solutions to problems facing the entire country. But here’s where we can most easily observe the effects of gerrymandered congressional districts in action: a entire nation held hostage to the whims and fantasies of conservative white, rural, Bible-thumping, gun-clutching, red state ‘Mericans — a shrinking minority! — who elect the most ideologically extreme candidates from their little slice of Teabagistan. Combine these people with the Establishment Republicans, who are the defenders of Power and Wealth, and it’s no surprise the GOP is in chronic gridlock.

John Boehner would be doing the entire nation a service to bypass the Hastert Rule and work around his mess of a caucus on all these deadlines and any other important issues facing this Congress.

Ezra Klein: good riddance to the rottenest Congress in history

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“To properly evaluate the 112th, consider the record of its predecessor, the 111th Congress, which ran from January 2009 to January 2011. The fighting 111th passed the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (better known as the “stimulus”), the Affordable Care Act (aka “Obamacare”), and the Dodd-Frank financial reforms. It passed the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act and expanded both the Serve America Act for community service and the Children’s Health Insurance Program. It created significant new anti-tobacco regulations, ratified the New Start nuclear arms reduction treaty, ended “don’t ask, don’t tell” in the armed forces and agreed to the 2010 tax deal, which extended the Bush tax cuts in return for the passage of middle- class stimulus…”

The 112th Congress’ record:

  • it almost shut down the government
  • it almost breached the debt ceiling
  • it almost went over the fiscal cliff (which it had designed in the first place)
  • it cut a trillion dollars of discretionary spending in the Budget Control Act
  • it scheduled another trillion in spending cuts through an automatic sequester, which everyone agrees is terrible policy
  • it achieved nothing of note on
    • housing,
    • energy,
    • stimulus,
    • immigration,
    • guns,
    • tax reform,
    • infrastructure,
    • climate change
    • or, really, anything.
  • it’s hard to identify a single significant problem that existed prior to the 112th Congress that was in any way improved by its two years of rule.

— Ezra Klein, “Good Riddance to Rottenest Congress in History.” (viaquickhits)

The 112th was built by the teaparty and those who didn’t vote in 2010. Thank them.

113th Congress sworn in today, good fcking riddance to the 112th

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Portrait of the 113th Congress – The Hill: “In the House, there will be a roll call vote at 11 a.m. for new members and the swearing-in at noon, followed by a ceremonial swearing-in in the Rayburn House Office building at 3 p.m., which is where new members will get their photo taken with Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio). The lower chamber will gain 82 new lawmakers on Thursday: 35 Republicans and 47 Democrats. This year’s Republican freshman class is much smaller than the legendary class of 2010, which caused many headaches for Boehner.”


think-progress: Meet the Senate’s new women caucus.

A primer for the 113th Congress – latimes.com: “Democrats gained slight ground in both houses in the 2012 election, though control of both remained in the same hands: Democrats still run the Senate and Republicans the House. The GOP leads, 234 representatives to 201, in the House, having lost eight seats to Democrats. And in the Senate, Democrats lead, 55-45, counting independent Sens. Bernie Sanders of Vermont and Angus King of Maine, who will caucus with them. Republicans lost two seats and Democrats gained two, including the closely watched race in Massachusetts between Elizabeth Warren and departing Sen. Scott Brown. The incoming congressional class features a record number of female (100), Latino (31), Asian American (12) and openly gay or bisexual (7) members, along with 43 African Americans.”

FLASHBACK: Two years ago – 112th Congress sworn in, GOP flexes muscles: With the ceremonial swearing in of the 112th Congress, Republicans have taken control of the House of Representatives, promising a fierce challenge to President Barack Obama and the potential for legislative gridlock in the countdown to the 2012 presidential election. Rep. John Boehner, a long-serving Ohioan from a working-class background, was awarded the speaker’s gavel Wednesday, ending the historic term of Democrat Nancy Pelosi, the San Francisco liberal who was the first woman to preside over the House. The speaker is second-in-line for the presidency after the vice president.

[...] Minority Leader Sen. Mitch McConnell said the voters had made it clear they “want lawmakers to cut Washington, tackle the debt, rein in government and to help create the right conditions for private sector growth.”…Many Republican freshmen will feel obliged to answer the call of hardcore conservative constituencies that sent them to Washington on contentious matters such as the need to raise the federal debt limit…..By way of example, House leaders set their first spending cut vote for Thursday, a 5 percent reduction in the amount spent for lawmakers’ and committees’ offices and leadership staff. Aides estimate the savings at $35 million over the next nine months. Republicans have pledged to vote at least once a week on bills that cut spending. And the new House Majority Leader, Rep. Eric Cantor, challenged Obama to include significant spending cuts in his State of the Union address on Jan. 25. But Republicans acknowledge they must do more than simply oppose Obama’s every proposal, as they did the past two years of Democratic rule.

Hahahahaa…

Republicans as the anti-tax party: when political ideology matters more than balancing a budget

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The New York Times notes the last time any Congressional Republican voted for a tax increase was for the budget deal crafted in 1990.

“The conservative revolt against that 1990 legislation — and against President George Bush, who violated his own ‘Read my lips’ vow not to increase taxes — was a seminal moment for Republicans. The party of balanced budgets became the party that opposed tax increases.”

“Republicans continue to embrace the no-new-taxes stand as a centerpiece of the party’s identity, even in the face of public opinion that strongly supports tax increases on high incomes. And some Republicans fear that the party’s commitment to prevent tax increases more and more is coming at the expense of those other, older kinds of fiscal responsibility.”

(via Political Wire)

Also from the Times article:

“Republicans used to be interested in not running continual rivers of red ink,” said former Representative William Frenzel, a Minnesota Republican who as the ranking member of the House Budget Committee in 1990 helped to negotiate the deficit deal. “If that meant raising taxes a little bit, we always raised taxes a little bit. But nowadays taxes are like leprosy and they can’t be used for anything, and so Republicans have denied themselves any bargaining power.” [...]

In the early 1980s, majorities of Congressional Republicans voted for a pair of deficit deals orchestrated by President Ronald Reagan, even though tax increases accounted for more than 80 percent of the projected reductions. But by 1987, a majority of Republicans opposed a third deal, even though only 37 percent of the reductions came from tax increases. [...]

“When I entered politics, the frame of reference was a balanced budget as the principle conservative precept,” said former Representative James Leach, an Iowa Republican who served from 1977 to 2007. “Today, it’s the level of taxes.” 

The Republican “Doomsday Plan” consists of doing nothing, then breaking for the holidays

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Being a Teapublican member of Congress is nice work, if you can get it. They do no actual work, then get a long paid vacation, and they get to plan on returning to do more of the same…

Political Wire: Republicans “are seriously considering a Doomsday Plan if fiscal cliff talks collapse entirely,” ABC News reports.

“It’s quite simple:  House Republicans would allow a vote on extending the Bush middle class tax cuts (the bill passed in August by the Senate) and offer the President nothing more:  no extension of the debt ceiling, nothing on unemployment, nothing on closing loopholes.  Congress would recess for the holidays and the president would face a big battle early in the year over the debt ceiling.”

Two senior Republican elected officials say this doomsday plan “is becoming the most likely scenario” with one variation being that House Republicans “would allow a vote on extending only the middle class tax cuts and Republicans, to express disapproval at the failure to extend all tax cuts, would vote “present” on the bill, allowing it to pass entirely on Democratic votes.”

Meanwhile, Nancy Pelosi: The Democratic-controlled Senate already passed its version of the bill in July, with strong support from President Barack Obama…“If Speaker Boehner refuses to schedule this widely-supported bill for a vote, Democrats will introduce a discharge petition to automatically bring to the floor the Senate-passed middle class tax cuts,” Pelosi said in a statement.

Don’t want your taxes to increase on Jan. 1st? Call your Representative!

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Obama reminds us that middle-class tax cuts are set to expire if Congress does nothing and, if that happens, every person’s taxes will go up on January 1st. We all know that Doing Nothing is an art form with this particular Congress — so what can we do?

Tim F at Balloon Juice says “Now would be a good time to pick up the phone and add some pressure for your GOP Representative to stop acting like such an ass about the tax and spending negotiations. If his party wants to cut social welfare programs, then man up and propose something. Otherwise just pass the Senate bill that protects everyone’s first $250k in income and let the economy get on recovering. This works best as a full court press so yes, whatever Cockhead McDoodlebrains your district is stuck with, phone them…

Find your Congress person here: 
http://house.gov/representatives/

Toll-free switchboard numbers: (888) 355-3588 and (888) 818-6641

Guide for first-time callers:

(1) Use a phone. Email has nigh on zero impact. Trust me on this. Letter mail gets read and in fact has the most impact of all, but you don’t have time. Reach the House switchboard at (202) 224-3121 [or toll-free numbers above]

(2) Remember, this person works for you. You pay his or her salary and you voted for them. You’re the boss here, or at least one of them, and it’s they who should worry about what you think of them.

(3) Identify your name and the town or neighborhood where you live zip code. If you are not a constituent don’t bother. Since you guys never listen to me, at least google a zip code in the appropriate district before you call.

(4) State the issue. This is easy: pass the Senate bill or the party gets it. We can (and certainly will) fix the shortcomings later. Talking points above.

(5) How strongly do you feel? Don’t apologize about feeling passionate or pissed off. The squeaky wheel gets the grease. However, keep in mind that teabaggers threaten the apocalypse over everything. Interns get jaded pretty fast when call volume is high. Polite but firm is the best way to go.”

Meanwhile, Nancy Pelosi has had enough: She’s threatening to force a vote on extending the Bush tax cuts for the middle class, since House GOP leaders seem to only look out for the top 2%.

The 112th Teapublican-heavy Congress: the least productive Congress in 64 years

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NBC News reports on the aftermath of the Republican Party’s losing strategy to put party before country, in a very unpatriotic attempt to make Obama a one-term President by bringing government to a halt, resulting in two years of Doing Nothing and Getting Paid For It:

“By passing just 196 bills into law so far, it is in the running to become the least productive Congress since the 1940s. In fact, that amount is 710 fewer public laws than was produced by the 80th Congress (from 1947-48), which first earned the moniker “Do-Nothing” Congress.

[...] The U.S. House Clerk’s office keeps official records of all congressional activity dating as far back as 1947. During those 65 years and 33 different Congresses, more than 20,000 public laws have been passed. The 104th Congress (1995-1996) currently holds the record low for passing the fewest pieces of legislation since 1947 — just 333 bills were passed into law during that two-year span.

[...] The 107th Congress (2001-2002) is next, passing only 377 new laws during its time in Washington. To avoid earning the distinction as the least productive Congress since 1947, 138 bills must move through the House and Senate before the end of this Congress next month.”

— WORST CONGRESS SINCE THE 1940S

The 113th Congress may not be much better. The Washington Post reports that Eric Cantor released the 2013 schedule for the House, and they’re scheduled to meet ONLY 126 DAYS IN 2013!

House lawmakers are scheduled to meet for 126 days in 2013, a slight increase from this year, but in line with the Republican strategy of giving lawmakers extended periods to spend back home. House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-Va.) released the schedule for the first session of the 113th Congress on Friday. The Senate has not yet announced its 2013 schedule, but if history is any guide, senators will generally be in session for four-week stretches between recesses. As with both sessions of the 112th Congress, the House will keep with a two-weeks-on, one-week-off plan that was a boon for the 89 GOP freshmen lawmakers who sought reelection this year. Democrats regularly bemoaned the schedule, arguing that lawmakers should have been spending more time in Washington working to address the nation’s struggling economy and that the time spent away from the Capitol contributed to the rancorous, partisan nature of most debates. But Cantor said Friday that lawmakers need the time back home for what his office has dubbed “district work periods.”

Do you really want change?

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VOTE! Help Others Secure Their Voting Rights!
via: phroyd

What ever you care about, are you more likely to be able to have a conversation about it with the GOP or the Democratic Party? GOTTAVOTE.COM

Remember 2010? Don’t negotiate with terrorists.

The GOP-led House rejects Obama tax cuts, will recess until September

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“Bain Capital is the kind of small business that our Republican colleagues are trying to protect.” — Rep. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.)

The Huffington Post reports that the House will recess this week — until September — without coming to an agreement on the Bush tax cuts and the wealthiest incomes: “The Democratic bill resembled President Barack Obama’s tax plan, which calls for letting the Bush-era tax cuts expire for incomes of more than $250,000 for couples and $200,000 for individuals. The Republican measure would extend all the Bush-era tax cuts for all income levels, but end breaks passed in 2009 that help about 25 million middle-class households.”

“Each side made stark arguments, with Democrats casting the issue as protecting the middle class, and Republicans countering that they were safeguarding small businesses and jobs.

“”The president wants to raise taxes on the so-called rich,” said House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio). “Well, let me tell you who the so-called rich are. About a million of those people that you want to increase taxes on are small business owners.”

“”Their priority is cutting taxes of the very wealthy in this country,” countered Rep. Sandy Levin of Michigan, the top Democrat on the tax-writing Ways and Means Committee. “They want to give households that earn more than $1 million a year a tax cut –- on average –- of $160,000 next year.”

“[...] Rep. Bill Pascrell (D-N.J.) derided the policy as “supply-side voodoo,” echoing criticism first made by George H. W. Bush. Pascrell noted that since the George W. Bush cuts were passed in 2001 and 2003, the income gap in America has grown.

“”To those members concerned with tax fairness, today, wealth concentrated with the top 1 percent is at the same level as the period immediately preceding the Great Depression,” Pascrell said. “So you shrunk the middle class with your great economic ideas between 2001 and 2008, and what you did, what you did is made the rich richer. I salute you.”

“[...] “These are not mom-and-pop businesses,” said Rep. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.), arguing that only 3 percent of businesses with fewer than 500 employees would face tax hikes. “Bain Capital. Bain Capital [is] the kind of small business that our Republican colleagues are trying to protect.”

“Democrats also argued that with the expiration of the 2009 cuts — the child tax credit, a bigger earned income tax credit and a break on college tuition — middle-class families would face on average a $1,000 tax hike.

“[...] The failure of Congress to agree on taxes on the remaining 2 percent of Americans guarantees that the argument will be carried through to the campaign trail over the summer, and will be a prime debating point in the fall when Congress returns from its summer break.


Obama Plan Is 39.4% Just Saying… (via: randomactsofchaos)

And that’s 39.4% on the one percent!

Burning down America: Nice job, Grand Old Teaparty

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Political Wire: “A new GAO study finds the 2011 debt ceiling fight in Congress cost the federal government about $1.3 billion in extra borrowing costs.

“Huffington Post: And that’s just the costs that the GAO bothered to count. There are also probably extra borrowing costs that the government is still paying this year and in future years because of the debt-ceiling debacle, but the GAO’s computer was too tired and/or depressed to try to figure those out.”

stfuhypocrisy: They also attempted to repeal ‘Obamacare’ 33 times, on the tax payer’s dime. Can we please stop calling them fiscal conservatives now?

Thanks to the Tea Party Freshmen, the 112th Congress is the worst congress we’ve ever had

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think-progress: Is this what fiscal conservatism looks like?

Seven Tea Party Freshmen Spent More Than $100,000 In Taxpayer Money On Personal Cars | ThinkProgress

  • Rep. Chip Cravaack (R-MN): $25,580.84
  • Rep. Sean Duffy (R-WI): $24,525.00
  • Rep. Bill Flores (R-TX): $10,997.45
  • Rep. Cory Gardner (R-CO): $20,978.07
  • Rep. Bill Johnson (R-OH): $4,889.76
  • Rep. Mike Pompeo (R-KS): $8,848.00
  • Rep. Steve Womack (R-AR): $10,746.59
  • Total: $106,643

Your tax dollars at “work”, America! Now consider the following:

Ezra Klein: 14 reasons why this is the worst Congress ever »

“This week, the House of Representatives voted to repeal the Affordable Care Act. On its own, such a vote would be unremarkable. Republicans control the House, they oppose President Obama’s health reform law, and so they voted to get rid of it.

“But here’s the punchline: This was the 33rd time they voted to repeal the Affordable Care Act.

“Holding that vote once makes sense. Republicans had promised that much during the 2010 campaign. But 33 times? If doing the same thing twice and expecting a different result makes you insane, what does doing the same thing 33 times and expecting a different result make you?

“Well, it makes you the 112th Congress.

“Hating on Congress is a beloved American tradition. Hence Mark Twain’s old joke, “Reader, suppose you were an idiot. And suppose you were a member of Congress. But I repeat myself.” But the 112th Congress is no ordinary congress. It’s a very bad, no good, terrible Congress. It is, in fact, one of the very worst congresses we have ever had.”

The 112th Congress is a complete failure, plotting to make the American people suffer to win the next election. They’ve done nothing for the American people for two years, on purpose — hoping you’ll blame Obama — AND THEY SPEND TAXPAYER MONEY ON PERSONAL CARS!

You can thank the country’s Tea Party, Republican, Dominionist voter base. Maybe you’ll want to come out in November and nullify their votes this time?

Your tax dollars at work: the do-nothing Republican House did more of that yesterday

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244 members vote to repeal Obamacare, for the 31st time. House Republicans just spent 89 hours to repeal Obamacare instead of, you know, doing something that actually helps people.

image: demnewswire

And who were the five bluedogs who voted with the GOP? Reps. Dan Boren (OK), Larry Kissell (NC), Mike McIntyre (NC), Mike Ross (AR), and Jim Matheson (UT).

Your GOP-led Congress and jobs, jobs, jobs

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Dave Weigel remarks on the lousy jobs forecast and how your Congress is ON IT:

“Michele Bachmann assures us that the economy is struggling because of “uncertainty.” Mitt Romney wants the “kick in the gut” to end. Amid all the verbs and gerunds expressing disappointment, Eric Cantor gives us a sort of heads-up about how Congress will respond: “In the coming weeks, the House will vote to stop the tax hike on working families and remove the red tape burdening small businesses to reduce uncertainty and make America more competitive.” What this means, functionally: The House will hold yet another vote on full repeal of the Affordable Care Act. It will pass, and die in the Senate. Tread carefully. After that vote, you don’t want to be mobbed on the street by newly certainty-infused people offering you jobs.”

And another thing:

Source: keepyourbsoutofmyuterus

Morning Bunker Report: Monday 4.23.2012

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————————————WHAT THE REPUBLICAN PARTY STANDS FOR TODAY

REDUCING GOVERNMENT DEFICITS Mitt Romney’s way would mean less money for health care for the poor and disabled and big cuts to nuts-and-bolts functions such as food inspection, border security and education. Romney also promises budget increases for the Pentagon, above those sought by some GOP defense hawks, meaning that the rest of the government would have to shrink even more. [...] The GOP front-runner suggests raising the Social Security retirement age and reducing cost-of-living increases for better-off retirees. [...] Like Ryan’s budget, the Romney plan would also cut benefit programs other than Social Security and Medicare. They include food stamps, school lunches, crop subsidies, Supplemental Security Income for very poor seniors and disabled people, unemployment insurance, veterans’ pensions and refundable tax credits to the working poor. Based on the Romney materials, it’s impossible to project the size of the cuts to such programs. Suffice it to say, they would be controversial. [Romney budgeting: Tax cuts for the wealthy + more money for war = austerity for the rest of us]

PAY NO ATTENTION TO POLYGAMY COMMUNES, TAX RETURNS, CAR ELEVATORS, AND SWISS BANK ACCOUNTS! – “Now, though, the general election season is on, and The Times needs to offer an aggressive look at the president’s record, policy promises and campaign operation to answer the question: Who is the real Barack Obama?” Brisbane wrote. “Many critics view The Times as constitutionally unable to address the election in an unbiased fashion. Like a lot of America, it basked a bit in the warm glow of Mr. Obama’s election in 2008.” [...] “The warm afterglow of Mr. Obama’s election,” he wrote, “the collateral effects of liberal-minded feature writers — these can be overcome by hard-nosed, unbiased political reporting now.” [NYT Public Editor: NYT 'Basked' In Obama's 2008 Election, Must 'Aggressively' Vet Him Now ]

  • Also too: Earlier this week Jerry Falwell’s Liberty University announced that Mitt Romney would speak at this year’s commencement and, just as predicted, students at the arch-Christian academy are not unanimously in favor of the idea because they don’t consider Mormons to be “real” Christians. [...] By Friday morning, more than 700 comments had been posted on the school’s Facebook page about the Thursday announcement – a majority of them decidedly against the Chancellor Jerry Falwell Jr.’s invitation, citing that the school had taught them Mormonism isn’t part of the Christian faith. [...] This is the part where the aspiring Christians of Liberty University realize that they’ve been played by their elders who are not at all concerned about Romney’s religion. They’re only concerned with money and power, and Mitt Romney is perhaps better suited than anyone to deliver the gospel of free-markets and white privilege. To pervert religion for the purposes of attaining more money and power.

THE DOUCHE SQUAD: REPUBLICAN TEAPARTY FRESHMEN AND THEIR ‘DO NOTHING’ WORK ETHIC. The book, which will be released Tuesday, shows just how much energy had to be expended on the 87 freshmen who took their oath in January 2011, many of them holding office for the first time. Accounting for nearly 40 percent of Boehner’s conference, the freshmen exercised their clout early and often, imposing their will on the rest of the House Republicans. Many freshmen viewed GOP leaders warily from the outset and compelled Boehner’s team to make the rookies the constant focus of its attention. “I didn’t come to Washington to be part of a team,” Rep. Raúl R. Labrador (R-Idaho) told the book’s author. [...] During the debt-ceiling fight, some freshmen were ready to push the government into default. Rep. Blake Farenthold (R-Tex.), a first-time politician who was a surprise winner of a West Texas district, wrote Boehner to express his fear that the debt ceiling was “very possibly a hostage that we’re unwilling to shoot.” In an interview Friday, Farenthold said he has some regret that he eventually agreed, under pressure from local businessmen, to support the compromise, because it brought only $2.1 trillion in savings. “I think we could have survived it,” he said Friday of a federal default. [New book about the GOP freshmen and the very serious business of Washington that's no longer being done]

PRESIDENT OBAMA / DEMOCRATS—————————————————————-

US PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA will issue an executive order Monday allowing sanctions to be imposed against foreigners who use technologies to carry out human rights abuses, The Washington Post said. The order would target those found to have used technologies including cellphone tracking or the Internet to carry out violations.  [...] The executive order, which Obama will announce during a Monday speech at the US Holocaust Memorial Museum, will also target companies and individuals assisting the governments of Iran and Syria, the paper said. The report came after troops in Syria shot dead six civilians on Sunday in Homs despite the presence of UN military observers in the rebel province to pave the way for a 300-strong mission approved by the Security Council. [The Raw Story]

REPUBLICANS IN THE US CONGRESS are under a “reign of terror” imposed by the party’s conservative wing that also has pushed presumptive Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney to the right, President Barack Obama’s senior campaign strategist said on Sunday. David Axelrod, in an interview on CNN’s “State of the Union” program, cited the Obama administration’s plans for immigration reform as an example of Republican intransigence in Congress. The political process in Washington should not be “monolithic opposition to everything the chief executive wants to do as a political strategy,” Axelrod said, adding that an “implacable group of Republicans” had blocked any possibility of immigration reform. “I think there are a lot of Republicans in Congress who want to cooperate … but they’re in the thralls of this reign of terror from the far right that has dragged the party to the right,” he said. [Reuters]

GOP WAR ON THE MIDDLE CLASS: In her bid to unseat Sen. Scott Brown (R-MA), consumer advocate Elizabeth Warren is keeping up her populist message, with a new ad out today that notes she “grew up in a family hanging on by our finger tips to a place in the middle class.” It goes on to hit Washington for “let[ting] big corporations like GE pay nothing — zero — in taxes while kids are left drowning in debt to get an education.” The ad comes after Brown joined Senate Republicans in filibustering the Buffett Rule, and in the midst of new reports showing perilously high student loan debt posing a threat to the economy. Watch the ad:

…

Thursday morning’s 6 barely interesting things

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Sen. Levin would ‘love’ Armed Forces Network to drop Limbaugh - Sen. Carl Levin (D-MI), chairman of the Armed Services Committee, said Wednesday that the Armed Forces Network should drop conservative radio host Rush Limbaugh. “I would hope the people that run it see just how offensive this is and drop it on their own volition,” Levin told CNN. VoteVets.org, the largest progressive group for American military veterans, is calling on the American Forces Network to stop broadcasting Limbaugh’s show in the wake of his attack on Georgetown law student Sandra Fluke. “Rush Limbaugh has a freedom of speech and can say what he wants, but in light of his horribly misogynistic comments, American Forces Radio should no longer give him a platform,” they said. “Our entire military depends on troops respecting each other – women and men. There simply can be no place on military airwaves for sentiments that would undermine that respect. When many of our female troops use birth control, for Limbaugh to say they are ‘sluts’ and ‘prostitutes’ is beyond the pale.” || Send an e-mail to the Armed Forces Network, telling them there is no place on military airwaves for talk like Limbaugh’s. || Remember, your tax dollars fund the Armed Forces Network, which means you’re funding Rush’s co-pay for Viagra — so essentially we’re all paying Limbaugh to have sex! [image: leftish]

ANALYSIS: In Almost Every Primary, Romney Wins Big Among The Rich, Loses The Working-Class Vote - In both states, Romney won among those making more than $100,000 by 14 points, even though he lost among all other income demographics. This trend occurs in virtually every state that has voted thus far. A ThinkProgress analysis of exit/entrance polls from the 14 states that have conducted them shows that Romney consistently does best among those earning more than $100,000 or $200,000 a year, while more often than not losing among middle- and working-class voters. The only states where this wasn’t true were Massachusetts, his home state where he served as governor, and Virginia, where Rick Santorum and Newt Gingrich weren’t even on the ballot.

Number of U.S. Hate Groups on the Rise, Report Says - [A]ccording to a report released Wednesday by the Southern Poverty Law Center… which has kept track of such groups for 30 years, recorded 1,018 hate groups operating last year. The number of groups whose ideology is organized against specific racial, religious, sexual or other characteristics has risen steadily since 2000, when 602 were identified, the center said. Antigay groups, for example, have risen to 27 from 17 in 2010. The report also described a “stunning” rise in the number of groups it identifies as part of the so-called patriot and militia movements, whose ideologies include deep distrust of the federal government. In 2011, the center tracked 1,274 of those groups, up from 824 the year before.

Gun Sales Rise In Texas As NRA Spouts Anti-Obama Fantasies (or how the rightwing nutjob base will believe ANYTHING the NRA tells them!) - National Rifle Association Executive Vice President Wayne LaPierre, recently claimed that Obama would eliminate the Second Amendment — and guns owners’ rights — if he is re-elected. “All that first term, lip service to gun owners is just part of a massive Obama conspiracy to deceive voters and hide his true intentions to destroy the Second Amendment during his second term,” he said at the Conservative Poliltical Action Conference last month. Once he does not have another election to worry about, LaPierre told conservatives that Obama would “get busy dismantling and destroying our firearms’ freedom.”

Never Do Anything / Your GOP-led Congress not at work - The reason [Boehner] lost the urban/suburban Republicans is because Teabaggers stripped out mass transit funding, since Madison, Hamilton and Washington didn’t ride light rail. Boehner knows he’s in trouble: “The American people entrusted us with the majority in the House. What we do with it us up to us,” he said. “We can use it to take steps together, one at a time, toward the vision we share. Or we can do nothing. We can squander the time we’ve been given … allowing our internal disagreements to paralyze us.” Only the soft bigotry of low expectations would let someone think that passing a highway bill, the most bog standard piece of everyday legislation, is an indicator that the House isn’t paralyzed. Boehner knows he’s doomed to repeat 1948 and his suicide caucus won’t let him do anything about it.

Massive solar storm heading for Earth - Airlines and energy suppliers are on alert as the largest solar storm in five years heads toward Earth, threatening to disrupt flights and power lines. The eruption on the surface of the sun, known as a coronal mass ejection (CME), has led to a “massive amount of solar particles heading towards Earth”, which are due to hit the planet between 6am and 10am on Thursday morning, a Met Office spokesman said. But he added that the phenomenon was likely to go unnoticed by most. The forecaster has advised airlines that they may reroute planes from near the polar regions where the radiation caused by the storm is likely to be most intense, while energy suppliers have been warned that the National Grid could also be affected. Solar storms can also cause communication problems, such as radio blackouts, as well as affecting satellites, disrupting oil pipelines and making global positioning systems (GPS) less accurate.

Nasa footage shows two solar flares erupting on the sun:

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