A subscriber called my attention to an article by the distinguished journalist and political commentator, Bernard Goldberg, which included the following observation: The Tea Party… Read More »Special Bulletin An Update to Blog No. 18: Who’s a RINO Now?
On Thursday, the Senate passed the Employee Non-Discrimination Act (ENDA), 64-32. Subject to broad exemptions for religious institutions, the bill prohibits discrimination in the workplace based on sexual orientation or gender identity. RINOcracy.com salutes the ten Republicans who voted in favor of the bill:
Kelly Ayotte (N.H.)
Susan Collins (Maine)
Jeff Flake (Ariz.)
Orrin G. Hatch (Utah)
Dean Heller (Nev.)
Mark Kirk (Ill.)
John McCain (Ariz.)
Lisa Murkowski (Alaska)
Rob Portman (Ohio)
Patrick J. Toomey (Pa.).
Tuesday was a good day for the Republican Party because it brought the resounding victory of Governor Chris Christie. Christie demonstrated convincingly that, even in a decidedly “blue” state, a Republican can win with an appeal that crosses economic and ethnic boundaries. As the Wall Street Journal argued, Christie is a “conservative” and not a “moderate:”
The Governor has by and large governed as a conservative reformer. He vetoed a tax increase on millionaires and capped property taxes. He pushed tenure reforms that will make it easier to fire bad teachers, and he extracted far more pension reform out of a Democratic legislature than did Democratic Governors Jerry Brown in California or Andrew Cuomo in New York.
Read More »Blog No. 18 A Good Day for the Republican Party – and its Coming War with the Tea Party
Rinocracy.com was among the first to call attention to the fact that Obamacare had led to the cancellation of hundreds of thousands of health insurance policies with millions more cancellations likely to follow. We pointed out, as others had, that such cancellations appeared to make a mockery of President Obama’s oft-repeated pledge that “If you like your health insurance, you can keep it.” (Special Bulletin, October 27, 2013, “What did the President know and when did he know it (or Who’s minding the store?).” Indeed, Glenn Kessler, Fact Checker for The Washington Post has now given the President his highest “award:” Four Pinocchios.
The Special Bulletin of October 27 pointed out that HHS had adopted regulations that eviscerated the President’s promise that “If you like your health insurance… Read More »Special Bulletin Updates: Obamacare and Merkel
Two stories in the current news bring to mind the sadly familiar question “What did the President know and when did he know it?”Read More »Special Bulletin: What did the President know and when did he know it? (or Who’s minding the store?)
Senator Patty Murray and Representative Paul Ryan have drawn the short straws: they chair the Conference Committee that is charged with reaching a budget agreement that will avert a second round of crises over a government shutdown (January 15) or a collision with the debt ceiling (February 7). The entire committee, totaling 29, consists of the entire Senate Budget Committee (12 Democrats and 10 Republicans) and 7 House members (4 Republicans, 3 Democrats).
No one, it is fair to say, is overly optimistic about the outcome. If the Grinch does not steal Christmas, he will be hovering not far away. It is a positive sign that Senator McConnell has expressly ruled out the use of a shutdown, and by implication a threat of default, as bargaining chips. As he put it rather colorfully, “One of my favorite sayings is an old Kentucky saying, ‘There’s no education in the second kick of a mule.’ ” Nevertheless, Ted Cruz and his cohorts in the Senate, and the Tea Party Oozlums in the House appear to have an appetite for mule kicks that is not easily satisfied. Moreover, the Conference Committee itself is hardly lacking in gritty conservatives: 9 of the 14 Republicans, including Ryan, voted against the bill that ended the just concluded crisis. (As noted in a prior blog, however, their votes were “free” in the sense that they were not required for the passage of the bill and may not reflect a tolerance for shutdown or default.)Read More »Blog No. 16 The Patty and Paul Show: Let’s Make a Deal?
The latest episode of our Washington soap opera descended into self-parody, recalling Carol Burnett’s classic “As the Stomach Turns.” Faithful to the formula, the episode ended with the major characters surviving but faced with dire predicaments just ahead. So it was with the bill finally passed by the Senate and House to end the government shutdown and the threat of imminent default. The crisis is over, but not for long: the operation of the government has been continued only through January 15 and the debt ceiling suspended only through February 7.
The most popular phrase to describe Wednesday night’s Congressional action is “kicking the can down the road.” If the beloved William Safire were still among us, he would no doubt enlighten us as to the origin of what has now become a cliché. In Safire’s absence, Timothy Noah of New Republic used Nexis to trace the term back to arms control discussions in the eighties. Noah suggested that kicking the can down the road had not been a bad idea in the earlier context and, writing last January, argued that it might even be the best approach to the budget deficit. Indeed, even in the most recent crisis it was certainly preferable to allowing a government default or even prolonging further the shutdown. But surely enough is enough. Lurching from crisis to crisis is not only a distraction from addressing other important issues, it also deepens public cynicism, and exacts a toll on the economy when we can ill-afford such a burden. That toll could be dubbed most fittingly “The Tea Party Tax” (or in the lexicon of RINOcracy.com, “The Oozlum Tax”).
Read More »Blog No. 15 The Washington Soap Opera and the Tea Party Tax
Matters in Washington are in such an apparently fluid state that this is not a time for extended comment. Followers of RINOcracy.com will know our… Read More »Special Bulletin: The Mess in Washington, Columbus Day, and Ogden Nash
Watching John Boehner’s interview with George Stephanopoulos on Sunday’s This Week program brought back sad and uncomfortable memories of Pete Seeger’s stinging ballad of 1967. For younger followers of this site, Waist Deep in the Big Muddy told the story of a platoon led into a treacherous stream by a stubborn Captain who does not survive the effort. (“We were — knee deep in the Big Muddy / But the big fool said to push on.”) It was widely understood at the time to be a metaphor for Lyndon Johnson and the Vietnam War.Read More »Blog No. 14 John Boehner: Waist Deep in the Big Muddy
