Republican Talk

Netanyahu says no go on stopping the settlement-building...It’s getting very public and very gnarly between Israel and the U.S. You know, the whole Peace Talk thing- Israel is not at all happy and not at all listening to what the U.S. is asking for. Read more

FloridaThere is a scandal bubbling in Florida.  Marco Rubio, the former Florida House Speaker and leading candidate in that state GOP primary for Senate, has been linked to the misuse of GOP party issued credit cards. He has admitted, after he was exposed, to having charged personal items on the party credit cards. There have been calls for releasing the GOP credit card statements. Rubio opposes this,  because, he says, he doesn't want to confuse the rubes with information that they wouldn't understand. He said the rubes "don't know" how using donor money to get things done works. The  former Florida Senate President, state GOP leader, Tom Lee, agrees with Rubio. Read more

Sarah PalinAt the first (the last?) Tea Party Convention, Sarah Palin (in)famously called President Obama out for using a teleprompter. Then she herself got called out for putting “crib notes” on her hand to remind her of her core issues- even scratching one out and clarifying. For clarity.

It was funny and sort of sad- but was it a big deal? No. Just another press hiccup in the long song and dance that is the Sarah Palin PR machine. I even questioned writing about her in a politics column. Is she still in politics?

In the past two years or so she has:

1 Run and lost for Vice President with John McCain.

2 Resigned as governor amidst allegations.

3 Written, published, and toured in support of a book called “Going Rogue.”

4 Spoken at the Tea Party Convention.

5 Taken a job as a periodic Fox News Correspondent. Read more

"I'm gay," State Senator Roy Ashburn told a radio host from his central California district in an interview this morning. "Those are the words that have been so difficult for me for so long."

Ashburn said in the interview that he repeatedly voted against gay rights because he was representing the views of his conservative constituents. Read more

David BrooksIn the conservative on-line journal, the Daily Caller, conservative writer and thinker John Feehery has a very good article  on contemporary American conservative politics called, "Are Tea Partiers really conservative?"  He weighs the deeds and words of various political actors, who call themselves conservatives, against solid conservative principles and find these actors lacking. He reminds the reader that, "Conservatism is built on the idea of original sin — on the assumption of human fallibility and uncertainty. To remedy our fallen condition, conservatives believe in civilization — in social structures, permanent institutions and just authorities, which embody the accumulated wisdom of the ages and structure individual longings... True conservatives value one thing over any thing else: societal stability... Read more

Ronald ReaganFourteen Republicans goofs in Congress want to dump President Ulysses S. Grant from the $50 bill and replace him with Ronald Wilson Reagan. President Grant was the Civil War commanding general of the Union Army. He fought bravely to preserve the union for all Americans. Reagan was a president who didn't do all that well looking out for the interest of a lot of his fellow Americans. The lead sponsor effort, Rep. Patrick McHenry, a Republican from North Carolina, has the mistaken notion that Reagan was a great American President. Well, didn’t Reagan give us eight years of then record deficits? Didn’t Reagan support the South African apartheid regime?

Wasn’t he on the wrong side of history? Read more

California state senator Roy Ashburn Roy Ashburnwas pulled over by the California Highway Patrol at about 2:00 a.m. on March 3 when California Highway Patrol officers noticed that the senator's state-issued car was being driven erratically. Senator Ashburn had previously been at Faces, a gay nightclub that's been in business and a center for queer culture in Sacramento since the 1980s. Ashburn was placed under arrest for driving under the influence with a blood alcohol level higher than .08%. His unidentified male passager was not charged.

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Michael SteeleTo RNC Chairman Michael Steele and to the rest of the GOP leaders: Shame. The party of No, is the Party of the Big Lie and of The Big Fear.

POLITICO has uncovered  a 72-page secret, hate-filled, Republican National Committee memo, that lays out the GOP plan to use hate talk and fear mongering, to demonize President Obama and other Democratic Party leaders, in order to raise funds. In the memo, the RNC shows its own contempt for its funders and supporters, casting them as dumb and stupid rubes who are easily led.  Read more

Health Care ReformIf your daughter gets sick with Cancer or another life-threatening disease, how will you pay for the treatment she needs to save her life? As heart-warming as community bake sales are, will the proceeds really be enough to pay for her hospital bills?

Unfortunately not.

If you have limited health care now, or don’t have any health care at all, there is a distinct possibility that you won’t have it in the future unless there is serious health care reform soon.

What happens to people when they don’t get preventive care and treatment for serious illnesses?

It’s not pretty. Some of them will get sick and maybe die.

And, who are the uninsured? Are they really the “eleet Liberals” or are they the so-called “Real Americans” in the middle of the country? They are both and we are all Americans.
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Washington State may not have been involved in the Massachusetts senatorial election campaign this week, but the effects are even more far-reaching than just health care: Scott Brown has just replaced our very own Jr. Senator, Maria Cantwell, as the sexiest Senator in the Senate.

Scott Brown Read more