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That’s basically Jonah Goldberg’s take on the Republican Party’s conduct regarding the Continuing Resolution and the government shutdown. And I basically agree with him. Certainly, mistakes were made — either by Ted Cruz and House hardliners (as I believe) or by Republicans who disagreed with Cruz’s approach. And, in principle, it is time to move on.

Via RCP. Wait, wait, wait — before you start shaking your first at him, isn’t his point here oddly simpatico with what tea partiers say every day about Beltway squishes like King himself? It all depends on what benchmark you use to define “Republican.” The Republican establishment of the past 10 years has been fiercely interventionist, willing to bend on civil liberties in the name of fighting terrorism, and happy to back new entitlement programs like Medicare Part D so long as their guy’s in the White House. Rand Paul, by contrast, tilts towards isolationism, wants to sue the NSA...

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid should do the job he was elected to do and quit lecturing Republicans, says former Florida GOP Rep. Joe Scarborough. "Harry Reid should really be quiet and go back and do the job that he was hired to do, and, at least, pass one appropriation bill. And then come out lecturing us," Scarborough, the host of MSNBC's "Morning Joe," said on his program Tuesday. "I hear Harry Reid lecturing [House Speaker] John Boehner every day about getting things done. And Harry Reid's Senate that Harry Reid runs, first of all, went four or five years...

The vision of democracy is that the federal budget—and all activities of the federal government—reflects the values of a majority of Americans. Yet most people feel that the federal budget does not currently reflect their values and that the budgeting process is too complex to understand. It is indeed a complicated process. Many forces shape the federal budget, some of them are forces written into law—like the president’s role in drafting the budget—while other forces stem from the realities of our political system.

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell tells Newsmax TV in an exclusive interview that Democrats are feverishly raising money to defeat his re-election bid because "I'm a thorn in the side of the president," especially when it comes to trying to defund Obamacare. "I'm sure they'd like to defeat me," the Kentucky Republican tells Newsmax. "I'm frankly proud of my enemies." Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid is among several prominent Democrats and their supporters who are raising millions to stop the five-term McConnell in his election next year against Democratic Senate candidate Alison Lundergan Grimes.

A House minority from white districts want to destroy the first black president, and the GOP majority abets them. On the day the Affordable Care Act takes effect, the U.S. government is shut down, and it may be permanently broken. You’ll read lots of explanations for the dysfunction, but the simple truth is this: It’s the culmination of 50 years of evolving yet consistent Republican strategy to depict government as the enemy, an oppressor that works primarily as the protector of and provider for African-Americans, to the detriment of everyone else. The fact that everything came apart under our first...

On Friday, MSNBC host Ed Schultz insisted that Republicans threatening to pass a budget which defuneds Obamacare, which could possibly result in a government shutdown, is motivated by the fact that President Barack Obama is “other.” Schultz said that the GOP is moved by “hate” and that an “element of serious racism” was clearly evident. “This is all about one thing: obstructing this president,” Schultz said. “To come to the conclusion and to have a big summary to the American people that this president is not legitimate. He is other. We’re not going to let him succeed.” Schultz said that...

“If you like your health care plan, you can keep your health care plan. If you like your doctor, you can keep your doctor.” - Two of the biggest lies so far in Barack Obama’s mendacity-filled presidency On Halloween Day, 2008 — appropriately enough, since his tenure as president has been a nightmare that makes Freddy Kruger look like Santa Claus — candidate Barack Obama told the American people, “We are five days away from fundamentally transforming the United States of America.” Well, guess what. He meant it. As I write this column, we are now five days away from...

(VIDEO-AT-LINK) Former Vice President Al Gore accused Republicans Friday of engaging in "political terrorism" by using a government shutdown as leverage to defund ObamaCare. "The only phrase that describes it is political terrorism,” Gore said at the Brookings Institution, according to ABC News. “Why does partisanship have anything to do with such a despicable and dishonorable threat to the integrity of the United States of America?” The former vice president also criticized Republicans for threats to link defunding ObamaCare to the debt ceiling, which is set to expire Oct. 17. "Now you want to threaten to not only shut down...

Mitt Romney thinks Obamacare is a bad law that will hurt the country, but disagrees with how conservatives in Washington are trying to get rid of it. In an exclusive interview with CNN’s Jake Tapper, the 2012 Republican presidential nominee said using the politically charged Affordable Care Act as a wedge in Washington’s fiscal wars is counterproductive. "We're more effective tactically not to use a shutdown of some kind to pursue the ... anti-Obamacare objective. I don't think that will be as effective," Romney said in the interview conducted on Friday in Boston. "The tactic of using a government shutdown...

The Republican base must not require its representatives in Congress to run off a cliff and commit suicide as the price of avoiding a primary challenge in 2014. The Tea Party must not eat its young. Polling shows that there are nowhere near the pre-conditions in place that would be necessary for a government shutdown over defunding ObamaCare. Americans oppose defunding it by 44 percent to 38 percent, according to a recent CNBC All-America Economic Survey — and when it comes to shutting down the government to force its defunding, opposition swells to 19-59. To force Republican congressmen to side...

The perfect companion vid to Jay Cost’s analysis this morning of how unusually, relentlessly partisan The One’s rhetoric has been as president, especially in his weekly YouTube messages. Oh, and also to Politico’s round-up of Democrats wondering why someone who’s so often touted as a brilliantly eloquent orator can’t seem to sell the public on anything except his own personal awesomeness. (Headline: “The ‘meh’ of a salesman.”) As usual, Nancy is eye-to-eye with reality. Silver lining: A reporter asking a big-name Democrat why righties dislike Obama is almost always bait to accuse them of racism. She doesn’t take it. Second...

The regular guests on MSNBC’s Morning Joe are in perfect agreement: the Republican Party is walking into a trap of its own making. The internecine feud within the GOP over whether to pursue a strategy of defunding the Affordable Care Act in the political fight over a continuing resolution to fund the government is, in the eyes of Morning Joe’s guests, a self-inflicted wound from which the GOP may never recover. Sure, the panel guests on Washington D.C.’s favorite morning show have predicted the imminent demise of the Republican Party in the past, but this time it’s different. On Thursday,...

HOUSTON – A Texas Court of Appeals in Austin has overturned the conviction of former U.S. House Majority Leader Tom DeLay, attorney Brian Wice told KVUE sister station KHOU 11 News. DeLay, 66, was convicted in 2010 for his alleged role in a scheme to influence Texas elections....

The best way to honor Trayvon Martin is to work to elevate the social status of Black men and boys everywhere. It's up to us to close the opportunity gap and stop the school-to-prison pipeline, so we can, at long last, eliminate society’s negative stereotypes and — most importantly — end the crisis of negative self-perception. Forty-two percent of Black students attend schools that are under-resourced. Young Black Americans are 10 times more likely to be arrested for drug offenses than young whites — in spite of evidence showing that white kids are more likely to abuse drugs. Taken...

ObamaCare is coming. Or, as Elizabeth Hasselbeck quipped in an oh so not scripted totally planned way today on Fox today, “ObamaScare.” Yeah, they didn’t believe Sarah Palin’s lies, so we’ll get Elizabeth Hasselbeck to say them. As Republicans crow that only 23% of Americans want them to destroy ObamaCare because they don’t understand it or like it, the big benefits are starting to roll in. The latest benefit is a doozy, with the Department of Health and Human Services releasing a report today showing that nearly six in ten (56%) uninsured Americans can pay less than $100 per month...

GOP House speaker John Boehner is making a strained effort to check House Republicans in their hell-bent charge against President Obama on the budget, continued government funding and their pet loathing, the Affordable Care Act. His effort is fruitless for one simple reason. The Tea Party, which backed House Republicans loudly, and the GOP establishment quietly, will never shed their obsessive dream of making the Obama presidency a failed presidency. GOP leaders in and out of Congress have been relentlessly hectored, harangued, badgered and even politically threatened by GOP ultra-conservatives to not give an inch on any issue that Obama...

This report is coming from The Hill and relies pretty much on “Republican lawmakers” and staffers “speaking on condition of anonymity” so factor that in. But given what we’ve heard from some other members over the last couple of months, I wouldn’t find it terribly surprising if this were true. Republican lawmakers are growing increasingly frustrated with what they say is a lack of communication from their leaders. Both centrist and conservative members in the House believe that Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) and his lieutenants could have done more earlier this year to counter the Tea Party’s effort to defund...

The 43rd Annual Legislative Conference of the Congressional Black Caucus Foundation will gather under the theme “It Starts With You” from Sept.18-21 at the Walter E. Washington Convention Center in Washington, D.C. About 10,000 persons are expected to attend the yearly gathering of Washington power players, industry leaders and ordinary men and women in the nation’s capital. With an eye to developing leaders, informing policy and educating the public, the conclave will comprise more than 70 forums and brain trusts on the critical issues facing African-Americans and the African Diaspora. Most notably, this year’s national town hall meeting, “From Poverty...

Multiple people confirm to me that just a few hours ago Pete Sessions blew up about Ted Cruz and made sure everyone in the room knew he held Cruz in absolute contempt. It might be because Ted Cruz just called BS on Eric Cantor and Pete Sessions trying to screw conservatives. Cantor and Sessions are pursuing a plan to make it very easy for the House to vote for defunding Obamacare while ensuring Obamacare is still able to get funded. Cruz, in a press release earlier today, called on the House of Representatives to not get cute and actually defund...

Moderate Republicans are, were, good things. I use the past tense "were" because as they became rarities, the centrists' chief function was preserving majorities in Congress for their radicalized party. New England used to send lots of moderate Republicans to Washington. No more, and it's not because there aren't attractive Republican candidates. It's because the ones representing liberal-to-moderate regions became scapegoats at which party extremists directed their primal screams. There arose the stupid "RINO (Republican in name only) Hunters Club," courtesy of the National Federation of Republican Assemblies. In 2005, Rush Limbaugh pounded away at Republican "traitors" in the Senate,...

On Election Night 2010, I watched the returns come in alongside a prominent liberal columnist. As he observed the Republicans capture the House of Representatives and gain in the Senate, in governor’s mansions, and in state houses across the country, my friend put the best spin on events that he could. “Well,” I remember him saying, “the Obama electorate just didn’t show up.” How right he was. The voters who went to the polls in 2010 were older and whiter than the voters in 2008. Whites made up 77 percent of the electorate in 2010. And the Republican share of...

Rep. Alan Grayson (D-Fla.) recently expressed his concern about Sarah Palin someday becoming president and having control over the information gathered by the U.S government about Americans citizens. In an interview with Shark-Tank.net, Rep. Grayson said he has introduced a bill, 'The Mind Your Own Business Act,' that would ban the U.S. Department of Defense from gathering Internet, phone and other personal information about U.S. citizens without probable cause or evidence of a criminal offense, which is what the Fourth Amendment is supposed to do. Rep. Grayson explained how 'The Mind Your Own Business Act' was modeled "very closely after...

Last week we ran a story analyzing an op-ed piece that one-time Democratic presidential candidate Howard Dean wrote for the Wall Street Journal in which the former Governor of Vermont conceded that the Independent Payment Advisory Board was “essentially a health-care rationing body.” ObamaCare has been controversial from long before it passed by the narrowest of margins and probably no facet has drawn more critics that the IPAB. National Right to Life laid out the rationing problems that are part and parcel of the IPAB from the very beginning (www.nrlc.org/HealthCareRationing/ObamaHCRationingBasicDOCUMENTATION.pdf). Thus it was helpful that Dean admitted there really was...

Mickey: Stay down, Stay down Rocky 1974 John Rambo: Live for nothing or Die for Something Rambo 2008 I was watching Morning Joe today and as usual the entire table was united in asserting that Ted Cruz and the Tea Party caucus was wrong to consider fighting to de-fund Obamacare highlighting a piece by Krauthammer This is about tactics. If I thought this would work, I would support it. But I don’t fancy suicide. It has a tendency to be fatal. They stressed the wisdom of Krauthammer’s assertion that the GOP should not fight. It seemed an odd assertion since...

Trayvon Martin's brother Jahvaris Fulton steps down after taking the stand during the George Zimmerman trial in Seminole circuit court, July 5, 2013 in Sanford, Florida. Zimmerman is charged with second-degree murder for the February 2012 shooting death of 17-year-old Trayvon Martin.The brother of Trayvon Martin, whose shooting death by George Zimmerman gained international attention over the past year, is currently serving as an intern for Rep. Frederica Wilson, D-Fla., her office confirmed to NBC News. A Florida jury found Zimmerman not guilty of a crime in Martin’s death on July 13. Martin’s brother Jahvaris Fulton attends Florida International University...

Des Moines, Iowa — The front line of the Republican civil war may be Grand Avenue, a hilly road that cuts through the heart of Iowa’s biggest city. On one side of the street is the gold-domed state capitol, home to Republican Terry Branstad, Iowa’s longest-serving governor. On the other side is a weathered brick building housing the Iowa GOP, which is chaired by A. J. Spiker and David Fischer. Both men are faithful allies of Ron Paul, the retired Texas congressman who twice ran for the Republican presidential nomination. These days, relations between the two camps are as messy...

Dear Sarah, I have never asked you for anything, but I am asking you to please lead the charge in helping us stop the Amnesty Bill from passing in the House. RUBIO is R.I.P. for me, so is McCain and the rest of the Gang of 8. Their careers mean nothing. Our country does. We’re stuck cleaning the damage they did by passing Amnesty in the Senate. As if that was not enough, they have the gall to continue working against us by targeting House Republicans to pass it there (see link below). They are disrespecting Americans and disregarding the...

A leading House Democrat questioned Friday whether the Justice Department (DOJ) has the evidence to mount a civil rights case against George Zimmerman, the man acquitted of killing an unarmed black teenager in Florida. Rep. Henry Waxman (Calif.), the top Democrat on the Energy and Commerce Committee, said in a television interview that "it seems unlikely" Attorney General Eric Holder would file discrimination charges against Zimmerman. The killing of Trayvon Martin and Zimmerman's subsequent acquittal have sparked demonstrations around the country. Protests were scheduled nationwide on Saturday as disappointed court-watchers urged DOJ to pursue charges against Zimmerman. Waxman's comments put...

Former state Rep. Pam Byrnes, a Democrat from Washtenaw County's Lyndon Township, announced Thursday she's running for Congress to help fix a "broken system" in Washington. Byrnes is seeking the 7th District seat held by Tim Walberg, a Republican from Tipton who unseated Democrat Mark Schauer in 2010 to regain the seat. Walberg held the seat in 2007 and 2008 before losing to Schauer in November 2008. Byrnes will take her shot at unseating Walberg in 2014. "Washington is broken and Tim Walberg is part of the problem. He puts special interests and corporations ahead of middle-class Michigan families," Byrnes...

Rep. Andy Harris, Maryland's sole Republican representative in Congress, is receiving attention for comments he made on WMAL radio Tuesday about last week's verdict in the trial of George Zimmerman. "We're hung up on this one case where this one fellow was in fact found not guilty by a jury," Harris said during the interview. "That's the way the American law system works. Get over it." Zimmerman, a neighborhood watch volunteer in Florida, fatally shot Trayvon Martin last year in a case that captured national attention. He was acquitted of second-degree murder and manslaughter charges on Saturday, sparking protests around...

State Sen. Mimi Walters announced Tuesday that she plans to run for the 45th Congressional District seat retiring U.S. Rep. John Campbell (R-Irvine) will vacate next year. Walters, a Republican, currently represents the 37th District in the California Senate. The district includes Costa Mesa, Newport Beach, Irvine and portions of Huntington Beach and Laguna Beach. "John Campbell has served the people of Orange County, California and the United States with distinction and with a commitment to a firm set of principles," Walters said in a prepared statement. "He will leave behind some big shoes to fill. In Congress, I will...

Perhaps we should no longer be surprised when the former half-term Alaska governor jabs at GOP colleagues weighs in on public policy. And yet... It's easy and tiresome to trash Sarah Palin as an uneducated embarrassment to the Republican Party (a party of which I am a member). But when the great anti-intellectual takes ridiculously simple-minded shots at Marco Rubio for supporting immigration reform, something needs to be said. The Sunshine State News asked the former Alaska governor to comment on immigration reform. She took the opportunity to take a giant swing at Marco Rubio: Just like they did with...

Republican lawmakers say they anticipate a flood of questions in the coming months from constituents on the implementation of ObamaCare, which will pose a dilemma for the GOP. [WATCH VIDEO] People regularly call their representatives for help with Medicare, Social Security and other government programs. Yet, Republicans believe healthcare reform spells doom for the federal budget, private businesses and the U.S. healthcare system. They're also enormously frustrated that the law has persevered through two elections and a Supreme Court challenge and believe a botched implementation could help build momentum for the repeal movement. Some Republicans indicated to The Hill they...

When the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (“Obamacare”) was being debated, proponents were accused of saddling Americans with inferior and expensive health care while keeping generous coverage for themselves at taxpayer expense. To rebut that allegation and build confidence in the bill, a provision was added mandating that members of Congress – and their staff members – get there coverage through the new exchange system the bill set up. Now that the time to sign up for exchange coverage is nearing, a Democratic member, Rep. John Larson (D., Conn.), is saying that “this is simply not fair” – as...

In a recent column we discussed the sad state of the Republican Party. Today’s Republicans lack original ideas and a positive agenda. The leading Tea Party politicians — such as Sarah Palin, Jim DeMint and Michele Bachmann — don’t seem to like to do the work of staying in office. Despite more than a decade of war, Republicans keep trying to get us into more wars. They like to restrict individual freedoms, except for any restraints on buying guns. And Republicans want businesses to be able to do just about whatever they want to do. Now let’s turn our attention...

Michele Bachmann’s decision last week to leave Congress at the end of this term silences the Republican’s best-known female voice on the national political stage. It’s not a secret that her undisciplined style made her unpopular with the party’s leadership. But with women making up just 8 percent of the Republican majority in the House, Bachmann’s Tea Party populism, her run for the White House and her wide-eyed, often inaccurate claims, still made her a GOP stand out. At the moment, the best-known Republican woman at the national level has never run for office – that’s former Secretary of State...

In the Missouri special election held Tuesday night Jason Smith won his race in a landslide, with 67 percent of the vote. Mr Smith will go to Washington! Sarah Palin who endorsed Smith tweeted her congratulations: Sarah Palin ✔ @SarahPalinUSA Mr. Smith goes to Washington! Congrats @RepJasonSmith -- stay strong and true to your roots! 9:01 PM - 4 Jun 2013 193 Retweets 93 favorites From Ed Harris the Chairman of the Missouri GOP: On Tuesday night, conservative Republican Jason Smith was elected to Congress in a landslide. He finished with 67 percent of the vote, 40 points ahead of...

David Axelrod is pushing — again — the meme that the GOP is all about to “overreach” on the collective Obama scandals. There are clearly serious things that ought to be looked at, and the Congress has the right to look at them. And the question is just, will they overplay their hand? You know, if, Darrell Issa has torqued this thing up so high that he threatens to take the party over the cliff. And if I were Republicans, I would say to Issa, in the parlance of his old business, ‘please step away from that car.’ I think...

The House Ways and Means Committee Hearing today shocked America. But it destroyed Democrats. No matter what the Democrats tried to do to deflect attention away from the scandal targeting conservatives, nothing worked. They don’t have an answer. The Democrats on the panel looked sad and despondent by the end of the hearing today.

After Michele Bachmann announced her retirement this week, many people — Republicans included — thought the move would make it easier for the GOP to hold MN-06 with a fresh face. Looks like Bachmann’s already-announced opponent, Jim Graves, agrees: Minnesota Democratic congressional candidate Jim Graves plans to halt his campaign to replace Republican Rep. Michele Bachmann in Congress just days after she ruled out a re-election run, according to his top aide. Campaign manager Aaron Wells told The Associated Press that Graves will issue a statement later Friday explaining the decision. Graves was quoted as saying the goal of unseating...

Former Vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin’s Sarah PAC contributed $5,000 on 5/14 to Jason Smith (R-Mo.), who is running in the Missouri 8th District Special General Election on 6/4. The seat was vacated by Rep. Jo Ann Emerson (R-Mo.) in January. Emerson is now the CEO of the National Rural Electric Cooperative Association. Smith, who is the Speaker Pro Tem of the Missouri House of Representatives, reported raising $200,313 from 4/1 to 5/15, and has $228,147 cash on hand as of 5/15. Smith raised $114,083 from individuals, including $5,200 from Anthony Kelly (owner, Precision Tent Rental, MO); $5,200 from Charlotte...

With the scent of scandal encircling the White House, some Republicans are already licking their chops over the 2014 midterm elections, while some Democrats are pre-emptively licking their wounds. Not so fast, folks. Retract those tongues. While it is impossible to predict what might drive voter attitudes in an election 18 months away, there are quite a few signs that 2014 will be nothing like 2010, which produced tremendous success for Republicans. First, the electorate is less conservative. In May 2009, the Tea Party had just begun to flex its muscle and feel its power on a national level. Now,...

For the far right, dreams die hard and delusions never end. As Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Calif.), who represents a congressional GOP with unpopularity of 75 percent, prepares to summon former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, with popularity above 60 percent, to testify, the overreach of House Republicans now threatens Republican control of the House. The triumph of the Tea Party within Republican politics is a gift to Democrats in 2014, as the disastrous vice presidential nomination of Sarah Palin in 2008 helped propelled Barack Obama to a two-term presidency. In the latest poll I've seen about 2014, a generic poll...

Less than a month remains before the June 4th special election for Congressman in Missouri's 8th Congressional District. Both major candidates continue to get endorsements from within their own party. Former Alaska Governor Sarah Palin has endorsed the Republican contender Jason Smith while the Democratic contender has received an endorsement from Governor Jay Nixon. Others running for the open seat, that was vacated when Jo Ann Emerson resigned, include Constitution Party candidate Doug Enyart, Libertarian Bill Slantz and two write-in candidates Thomas Brown and Doctor Robert George.

Forget background checks and gun control, divisions within the GOP on immigration, and Republican intransigence on negotiating a budget deal with the president. The current triple play of Benghazi, the IRS and now the Justice Department’s seizure of journalists’ phone records has the potential to be a political game changer for 2014. It’s hard to overstate the potential significance of the past week. What we are witnessing is nothing less than a dramatic reversal of the nation’s political narrative — from how bad the Republican brand is and how President Barack Obama is going to mobilize public opinion against the...

BEGIN TRANSCRIPT RUSH: You know, folks, on this IRS business, I think the 2010 midterms really shocked the Democrats. I think they might have expected to maybe lose some seats, although, actually, my memory -- no, no, no, no, no, my memory is that they thought with the overwhelming popularity of Obama it might be the first time that a sitting president's party increased seats. Well, it wouldn't be the first time. I think Bush did it. But they were clearly hoping for at least a draw. In the 2010 midterms they got shellacked. It's one of the reasons I...

A top GOP critic pushed back Sunday on charges that Republican efforts to investigate last year's Benghazi attack are designed to inflict political damage on former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. "Hillary Clinton's not a target," said House Oversight and Government Reform Committee Chairman Darrell Issa on NBC's Meet the Press. "President Obama is not a target." Issa, who heads a panel probing the assault on the diplomatic outpost that killed four Americans, including Ambassador Chris Stevens, said he will seek depositions from Benghazi review board heads Ambassador Thomas Pickering and retired Adm. Mike Mullen, the former chairman of the...

Rep Steve Stockman (R-TX) giving away a Bushmaster AR-15 on July 4. People who visit his re-election website--www.stockman2014.com--can find a link marked "Enter To Win An AR-15." Under this are the words, "Click here to enter to win the gun Obama doesn't want you to have." Once you click where instructed, you are asked to enter your name, zip, and email and that's that--you're entered into the drawing and are added to his online mailing list. Democrat National Committee Communications Director Brad Woodhouse reacted to news of the give away by pointing out this was the same gun Adam Lanza...

Disgusted and fed up like the rest of us, Sarah Palin rips members of the Republican Party a new one over their support for the so-called “Marketplace Fairness Act” a sales tax on internet purchases. More new taxes? How can we be divided on new taxes? In this horribly weak economy with an over-reaching, over-spending, anti-small-business government continually making the wrong decisions, Republicans can’t even stay committed to “No New Taxes”? Please step away from your Washington, DC bubble and get back in touch with the hard working people who sent you there. Read the planks in our party’s platform...