House Minority Whip Rep. Eric Cantor (R-Va.) visited the conservative Heritage Foundation last week to unveil what he called "a no-cost jobs plan." Andrew Leonard summarized the pitch: "Cut regulations. Freeze spending. Cut taxes. No new taxes. That's the plan."It was, of course, the Bush/Cheney agenda -- which helped get us in this mess in the first place -- warmed over.
A week later, Cantor appeared at the Economist's World in 2010 conference. The frequently-confused GOP leader said his party has plenty of important "big ideas" and policy proposals. The Economist's Daniel Franklin asked Cantor to identify the Republicans' big idea on jobs. Pat Garofalo reports that Cantor couldn't think of anything specific.
FRANKLIN: What is the big idea? "Jobs" is not an idea.
CANTOR: The big idea is to get, to get, to produce an environment where we can have job creation again.
I almost feel bad for the guy. Cantor was elected to Congress before he was able to learn anything about public policy, and was put in the GOP leadership before he could speak intelligently about any issue.
Eric Cantor as a congressional leader is a classic example of a post turtle -- you know he didn't get up there by himself; he obviously doesn't belong up there; he can't get anything done while he's there; and you just want to help the poor, dumb thing down.
His "big idea" is an economic environment in which the employment marketplace improves from the recession's lows? That sounds an awful lot like the stimulus package -- which Cantor rejected and continues to trash -- which has created as many as 1.6 million jobs in less than a year.
There are conservative policy proposals related to job creation. Eric Cantor can't think of any. Better opposition, please.
Think Progress: New Childish Republican Obstruction Tactic: Refusing To Use Their Assigned Cards In Order To Delay Votes
In September, the Orlando Sentinel reported that Rep. Alan Grayson (D-FL) had noticed Republicans House lawmakers intentionally forgetting or losing their voting cards in order to delay votes. Starting late in the summer, Grayson said he saw 60-70 GOP congressmen engaging in this tactic:
GRAYSON: They’d all walk to the front of the House and, laughingly and jokingly, put their arms around each other’s shoulder like it was some kind of clownish fun. And they did this over and over to make sure every vote took half an hour. That’s how low things have gotten. I could give you countless examples just like that. They’re simply obstructionists and there’s nothing you can do about it.
Yesterday at the Center for American Progress Action Fund, Majority Leader Rep. Steny Hoyer (D-MD) delivered an address on unprecedented minority obstruction of reform. ThinkProgress spoke to him afterwards, and the Majority Leader confirmed that even the House parliamentarian had criticized Republicans for this very tactic. Hoyer admonished what he called “such a transparent effort at solely delay”:
HOYER: Well we’ve seen a couple of instances of that. Not so much forgetting their cards, but not using their cards and voting by the cards that are available at the desk. You have to write in and stand in a long line. And very frankly, the parliamentarian himself criticized that as delaying tactics which are not countenance by the rules. Obviously, every member has the right to vote. I thought they were unfortunate because it was such a transparent effort at solely delay as supposed to giving opportunity, fair opportunity to voting to every member.
Watch it:
All year, Republicans have dedicated themselves to reflexively blocking progressive legislation rather than even attempting to participate in the legislative process. The examples are boundless:
– In July, Minority Leader Rep. John Boehner (R-OH) forced the House clerk to read aloud a 55-page motion to recommitt in order for House Republicans to attend a “2009 Boehner Beach Party” fundraiser.
– Sen. Tom Coburn (R-OK) attempted to block the veterans’ benefits bill because of unrelated concerns with the Recovery Act.
– Republicans have “filibustered” committee markups by offering dozens of frivolous amendments.
– Sen. Judd Gregg (R-NH) went so far as authoring a memo on various parliamentary maneuvers Senate Republicans can use to delay and kill health reform in the Senate.
The voting card delaying may be the least mature of all obstruction measures, however.
John Cole: Whatever
I’m calling bullshit:
Running under the Tea Party brand may be better in congressional races than being a Republican.In a three-way Generic Ballot test, the latest Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey finds Democrats attracting 36% of the vote. The Tea Party candidate picks up 23%, and Republicans finish third at 18%. Another 22% are undecided.
Rasmussen’s raison d’être in between elections is to push the overton window to the right. The way they make their money is telling wingers what they want to hear for 46 months, then they swing back in line for one month every two years so they don’t look like total idiots and retain some credibility. They are the echo chamber’s official polling place.
DougJ: ACORN remix
No one could have predicted this:
The videos that have been released appear to have been edited, in some cases substantially, including the insertion of a substitute voiceover for significant portions of Mr. O’Keefe’s and Ms. Giles’s comments, which makes it difficult to determine the questions to which ACORN employees are responding. A comparison of the publicly available transcripts to the released videos confirms that large portions of the original video have been omitted from the released versions.I’m going to see if I can get the ombudsmen at the Times and Post to admit that this story is bullshit and that they don’t need to have special reporters running around “investigating” everything they hear about Glenn Beck.
Update. As Cerberus points out, the media person who looks the most stupid right now—partly because he had some credibility to begin with – is Jon Stewart.
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