Quick Fact: Larry Craig Says It's Okay to Use Campaign Funds for Airport Sex Sting Defense--It Was Official Business

Remember ex-Idaho Senator Larry Craig who was arrested in a bathroom sex sting at the airport a few years ago?  It seems he used $217,000 in campaign funds to pay for his defense and now federal election regulators say he has to give that money back.

"Mr. Craig used these funds converted from his campaign committee to pay legal expenses he incurred in connection with his arrest, guilty plea and subsequent efforts to withdraw his guilty plea in Minnesota."

Larry is fighting refunding all that money.  His reason?  He says that since he was in the airport on official government business, it was okay to use campaign funds in his defense.

I do not see this turning out well for Mr. Craig.

"Oppose the black guy" is Good Republican Politics

what eye thynk:  Mr. Crawford, a Republican state representative in South Carolina, supports the expansion of Medicaid as part of the ACA.  

His assessment of his party is, unfortunately, ugly--but refreshingly honest.

Eye Recommend --- Why We Miss Kay Bailey Hutchison

WHY WE MISS KAY  BAILEY HUTCHISON, by Houston Chronicle Editorial Board --  http://www.chron.com/opinion/editorials/article/Why-we-miss-Kay-Bailey-Hutchison-4898405.php

Curious to see how Ted Cruz' antics were playing in Texas, I took a look at the Houston Chronicle this week.  The news was not good.  In Wednesday's edition, I found Ted's hometown newspaper had published an op-ed piece apologizing for their endorsement of his candidacy in last year's election.   

"Does anyone else miss Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison?...

...One reason we particularly believe that Hutchison would make a difference in these hectic days is that if she had kept her seat, Cruz would not be in the Senate."

Ouch.

"When we endorsed Ted Cruz in last November's general election, we did so with many reservations and at least one specific recommendation--that he follow Hutchison's example in his conduct as a senator.

Obviously, he has not done so..."

So much for Cruz' claim that he is listening to and standing up for the 'voice of the people'. He's not even answering the message from his hometown.

"Cruz has been part of the problem in specific situations where Hutchison would have been part of the solution.

We feel certain she would have worked shoulder to shoulder with Sen. Susan Collins, (R-Maine), in crafting a workable solution that likely would have avoided the government shutdown altogether.  

But we'll never know."

A recent Washington Post/ABC poll found that 74% of voters disapprove of the Republican Party while an NBC/Wall Street Journal poll found that just 14% of Americans approve of Cruz.  Now it looks like even Mr. Cruz's hometown can't find much good to say about him.  

My heart is not broken.

Quick Fact: Boehner Admits Republican Defeat...Budget Deal Will Get a Vote

The deal is done.  Voting taking place today and President Obama is expected to sign it this evening.

As posted by Steve Benen:

"Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio), officially out of options, has agreed to bring the bipartisan Senate package to the floor, where it's expected to pass with largely Democratic support.  It will still need the support of no fewer than 17 House Republicans, but that's not expected to be a problem...Democrats will pay no ransom...The Republican Party has absolutely nothing to show for their efforts, except a collapse in public support,"

Please, please, please let the House come to their senses and pass this bill.  

And please, please, please, PLEASE stop this from happening all over again in a few months.

Quick Fact: House Republicans Offer Bill to Guarantee We Default On Schedule

In order to guarantee that the United States of America defaults on its debts on schedule, Republicans in the House have proposed a bill that would take away the Treasury Department's ability to move funds around in order to cover our bills for a few extra days thus giving our non-productive Congress more time to come to their senses and raise the debt ceiling as they did seven times under W and eighteen times under Ronald Reagan.

The whole idea behind this bill is to ensure that we wake up on Friday to worldwide financial devastation and that the damage is as fulsome as possible.  House Republicans believe that this will force the Senate to come to their senses and pass the budget and debt ceiling deal as designed by their delusional, ultra-conservative caucus.  

No vote is scheduled on this ridiculous bill. (Apparently even John Boehner has limits.)

House Republicans have allowed themselves to be backed into a corner by Ted Cruz and his homies and are throwing out smoke bombs in order to deflect their constituents from seeing how hopeless their position is.  

Since these people seem to so often enjoin Bible verses in their causes, I would like to offer this one:

Proverbes 16:18 Pride goeth before destruction, and an haughty spirit before a fall.

The Republican War on Women - The (Budget) War in Congress

This is the fifteenth in a series of articles on the subject of women, abortion rights and the Republican Party. 

Republicans continue to say they don’t have to change their core principles, they only have to change the language they use to get their message out.  One perception they want to alter is the idea that they are running a “war on women”.  Looking at the news over the past few years, I’d say the Republican Party has a long way to go on this subject.

• Senator Mitch McConnell (R-Kentucky): “Talk about a manufactured issue.  There is no issue.” 
•  RNC Chairman Reince Priebus:  “It’s a fiction.”

The Congressional Front 

the facts and commentary:   We are less than 48 hours from financial chaos.  Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) has two choices:  he can continue to dance at the end of the strings held by the Tea Party puppeteers or he can save the country from financial disaster.  He cannot do both.

He continues to refuse to present the compromise budget passed by the Senate to a full vote of the House. If only 10% of House Republicans voted with the Democratic caucus, our financial dance with disaster would be over.  Instead, Mr. Boehner continues to follow the demands of the Tea Party-ers who insist that restrictions to the ACA must be part of a budget deal.

Their latest proposal?  They want to append language to the budget that would restrict a woman's access to birth control.  Any woman wanting contraception coverage would have to pay for it out of pocket at her doctor's office or purchase a separate rider at her own expense.  The cost of this rider could not be covered by employee benefits or paid for with the government stipend intended to help lower income women and families pay for health insurance.

I have just one question for these conservative nut cases:  Since when did my decision to have or not to have children become germane to funding the government?

It is obvious this proposal is going nowhere so why even waste time on it?  I am a woman, not a far right political pawn.  And I vote. 

  

The Republican War on Women is "fiction"?

WHAT YOU DO SPEAKS SO LOUDLY

THAT I CANNOT HEAR WHAT YOU SAY. 

Read more here: http://midwestdemocracy.com/articles/kansas-house-advances-anti-abortion-measure/#storylink=cpy

Million Vet March Organizers Condemn Tea Party Takeover

Last Sunday, a veterans' group organized what they called a "Million Vet March" to protest the government closing of veteran memorial sites like the WWII memorial in Washington DC. http://1mvetmarch.wordpress.com/  Marches were held in over 60 cities across the nation.  "It is our official position that the purpose of this march and the accompanying rallies is focused on the re-opening of the Veterans memorials and keeping them open." 

Their demonstration was intended to be low key and apolitical.  The event turned ugly when Tea Party hardliners, led by Ted Cruz and Sarah Palin, (who were not invited to the event), tore down barricades at the WWII memorial and carried them to the White House where the demonstrators waved a Confederate flag and chanted anti-Obama slogans.  One demonstrator went so far as to say that the President should put down his Koran and come out with his hands up.

The original veterans group had, by that time, abandoned what was no longer the peaceful, apolitical demonstration they had planned.  The next day, the group posted this message on their website:  "The political agenda put forth by a local organizer in Washington DC was not in alignment with our message.  We feel disheartened that some would seek to hijack the narrative for political gain." 

Their Facebook page had this message regarding the Tea Party hijacking of their demonstration:  "We made the mistake of trying to partner with some Washington insiders that thwarted many of our genuine concerns for keeping this apolitical.  We do not support the manner in which they go about it...Our hearts were heavy by the disheartening acts of a few powerful Washington elite and political extremists jumping on the opportunity to make money."

what eye think:    I believe, that, if the government is shutdown, government offices closed, government workers furloughed and national monuments and parks closed, veterans' memorials should not be exempted from the shutdown. They are a government entity like any other, guarded and run by furloughed government employees.  I do, however, believe that veterans have the right to protest their closing, especially in the peaceful manner they had planned.  

What I cannot abide is the Tea Party's seeming belief that their anti-Obama hatred would be welcomed as one and the same with the veterans' message. The Tea Party's insular focus resulted in their inability to see that the veteran group's disagreement with one government policy did not mean disagreement with all policies nor did it equate with hatred of the man who stands at the forefront of those policies.  

As Jason Easley wrote for Politicus USA:

"Tea partiers are proud of themselves for taking an event about veterans and turning it into another platform to showcase their hatred of this president, but they should be ashamed of themselves. The people who turned the march into an anti-Obama rally shamed and humiliated our veterans.  Every vet knows that it doesn't matter what political party a president is from, (he is) still the Commander in Chief.  The organizers of this event may or may not be conservatives, but it is clear that they didn't want the Tea Party mob, or Palin and Cruz's grandstanding at their event.

Veterans are about honor and sacrifice.  The Republicans who politicized the event brought dishonor to the very values that our veterans embody.  To self-promoters like Palin and Cruz, veterans are nothing more than props to be used for political and financial gain, and they are proud to have tarnished our nation's veterans with their selfish extremism."

Tea Party hardliners like Ted Cruz and Sarah Palin are incapable of showing respect for any opinion that is not in lockstep with their own; and they have listened to no one but themselves for so long that they have reached the point where their egos allow them to believe they are speaking for everyone and are welcome everywhere.  They have become totally unaware that their focus on bringing down the duly elected President of the United States at all costs is shameful and antithetical to the principles of our democracy...the same democracy that these veterans fought to preserve.

The veterans' demonstration was an example of our constitutional right to free speech.  The Tea Party preemption  was nothing more than "me speech"--prime examples of their selective deafness to all but their own hate-filled bombast and their belief that no one is as important as themselves...even our nation's veterans.