Tag Archives: Republican Bamboozlement

The Kids Are All Right

Hundreds of students in a Colorado school district walked out of class to protest another conservative effort to rewrite history and control the information we get:

Hundreds of students walked out of classrooms around suburban Denver on Tuesday in protest over a conservative-led school board proposal to focus history education on topics that promote citizenship, patriotism and respect for authority, in a show of civil disobedience that the new standards would aim to downplay.

Got that? The conservatives in this school district want to replace an education in American History with “patriotic” indoctrination.

The school board proposal that triggered the walkouts in Jefferson County calls for instructional materials that present positive aspects of the nation and its heritage. It would establish a committee to regularly review texts and course plans, starting with Advanced Placement history, to make sure materials “promote citizenship, patriotism, essentials and benefits of the free-market system, respect for authority and respect for individual rights” and don’t “encourage or condone civil disorder, social strife or disregard of the law.”

Those of us who had a fairly well-rounded education in history can see the fatal error in their reasoning here — namely, that the United States of America would have never come into being if there was not “civil disorder, social strife or disregard of the law”. Civil disobedience is in our DNA and many of our signature civic achievements would not have happened without them. Pick your “agitator” — Thomas Jefferson, Thomas Paine and Henry David Thoreau, Martin Luther King, Elizabeth Cady Stanton (the list is very long) — and you find Americans who exercised their rights to actively address a government that was oppressive. You can’t teach a sanitized history of the US — one that encourages blind obedience to authority — because blind obedience to authority is not our history.

Thank goodness these kids already know that and already know that sometimes you have to break the rules to tell an oppressive authority to check itself.

And how about those nanny state conservatives? Because there is NO Freedom in rewriting history in order to create a compliant citizenry.

Anyone Notice the Silence from the NRA on Ferguson?

After most of America’s high profile shootings, you can count on the NRA to immediately get their PR Offensive on — using tragic incidents to extend their lobbying for the gun manufacturers who call the tune over there now and to do even more fundraising. All of this is focused around pushing back on any common sense controls on weapons and advocating that more of us carry — so that everyday can be the OK Corral or some such. But for this — a cop shooting an unarmed kid over jaywalking — they’ve been pretty quiet. It is a surprise, because you’d think that they’d see the government tyranny that they keep insisting that people need guns for and would be out defending this community that is clearly pushing back against that tyranny. As Cliff Schecter points out in the Daily Beast:

The National Rifle Association has been warning us about the threat of a heavily-armed and dangerous government crushing dissent for decades. Their leader, Wayne LaPierre, even referred to the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms as “jack-booted thugs.”

Their dystopian nightmare sounds exactly like what’s happening in Ferguson, Missouri.

Yet somehow, the NRA seems to have missed the whole thing with the SWAT teams and the tank-like vehicles and the snipers and the LRAD sound cannon and the tear gas and the rubber bullets being trained on unarmed Americans. Not a peep from LaPierre on this extended assault on citizens of Ferguson, at least that I can find.

Right? The dystopian nightmare that they’ve been selling as a reason to be scared of your government is happening right now and these people can’t be bothered to defend this community. Wonder why?

Then there’s Cory Pein over at The Baffler, who asks the same question (making note that the other “defenders of freedom”, libertarians and teajhadis have been MIA from this conversation, too):

But libertarians aren’t the half of it. The most telling silence in recent days has come from that timid, mouselike, ever-genteel lobbying organization, the National Rifle Association. The NRA is bigger than libertarianism, bigger than the Tea Party, and indeed in some respects is more effective than the Republican Party itself, given the loyalty the NRA commands among diehard followers and the deference granted to it by politicians, even some who support gun control.

It was only five years ago that NRA chief Wayne LaPierre delivered a characteristically demented performance at CPAC, the national conservative conference, endorsing the so-called “insurrectionist” interpretation of the Second Amendment. This interpretation maintains that the fundamental purpose of civilian gun ownership is to enable citizens to protect themselves from their own government. “Only the Second Amendment breathes life into liberty,” LaPierre said to an adoring audience. And then:

Freedom is nothing but dust in the wind until it’s guarded by the blue steel and dried powder of a free and armed people. . . . It’s not politically correct, but I don’t care if their butts pucker from here to the Potomac: Our founding fathers understood that the guys with the guns make the rules.

LaPierre also claimed that the trend of rising gun sales amid historic recession demonstrates this hunger for freedom, security, and empowerment:

Americans all over this country are saying, “I will fight for my family, I will fight for my neighborhood and I will fight for my freedom from tyranny, from crime and from any threat in any form.”

At this year’s CPAC conference, LaPierre revisited those themes. “The NRA proudly stands for the America we all want. Where we can speak and gather as we choose,” he said.

One would think, given his views on freedom of assembly and the importance of democratized violence, that LaPierre would be shouting through a megaphone for the besieged citizens of Ferguson to powder their muskets and cry liberty! (For the record, I think that is a terrible idea. More guns will only make an already horrifying situation more dangerous and deadly. My point is that the images from Ferguson, so strikingly reminiscent of cities under armed occupation elsewhere around the world, would seem to present an ideal opportunity for grandstanding by Second Amendment absolutists.)

Even our Canadian neighbors find the NRA’s hypocritical absence here pretty glaring:

It’s why the NRA’s silence in the tear-gas wake of Ferguson, Mo., is so telling. The four-day police operation following the police shooting of unarmed teen Michael Brown has essentially shut down the city of 21,000. The resulting images are a gun-obsessed paranoiac’s nightmare made flesh: Phalanxes of flak-jacketed police officers line the streets, firing tear gas and pointing assault weapons at unarmed citizens, often with tank-like police vehicles behind them. Dozens of people have been arrested, including journalists and municipal politicians, and a media camera crew had its camera forcibly turned off and its equipment torn down. The “jack-booted thugs” haven’t just stormed a private residence or seized a compound—they’ve taken over an entire city.

And yet, there hasn’t been a peep from the NRA about the incident. The Gun Owners of America, the NRA’s even more paranoid offshoot, mentions Missouri only to congratulate citizen gun owners there. Former congressman Ron Paul spends much of his time regaling his flock about big-government abuses when he isn’t giving away assault weapons or asking for money. He, too, has been mum. (A blog post on his website, not written by Paul, decries the “militarization of police,” but chides protestors for not remaining calm.)

This seemingly perfect spectacle for NRA outrage—the shooting of an unarmed man, cops with outsized weapons, mass arrests—is flawed for one reason: Michael Brown was African-American. As such, he doesn’t fit the profile of the typical NRA member and, apparently, doesn’t warrant the group’s paranoid rage it has displayed in the case of Randy Weaver, a known racist who was armed to the teeth at the time of the standoff. The NRA’s lack of rhetoric about Michael Brown, like Trayvon Martin before him, speaks volumes about the group’s other reigning paranoia, this one, race-based.

The NRA doesn’t give a damn about government tyranny until the government tries to make it harder for their constituency to sell more guns.

nra and race

The Latest Performance from the DE GOP Clown Show

Remember in 2012 when Jeff Cragg and Sher Valenzuela perfected the technique of campaigning for a Delaware office someplace other than in Delaware? That was seriously awesome, even though I don’t see those SE PA votes tallied anywhere on the Delaware Department of Elections site. But I digress. This cycle, Kevin Wade is taking that technique of campaigning for Delaware votes someplace else To A Whole New Level. Kevin Wade has gone to Israel:

on a week-long fact-finding mission in Israel, on the ground right now (July 29). Wade is researching the situation on the ground and interviewing many. Kevin Wade is also a co-host with the Conservative Commandos Radio Show. Wade will be posting interviews on YouTube from the war zone in Israel.

Here’s the entire Press Release:

NEWS RELEASE / GUEST AVAILABILITY
For Immediate Release

Contact: Duke Brooks
(302) 245-0719

BEN GURION AIRPORT, ISRAEL (July 29, 2014) — Kevin Wade, Republican US Senate candidate from Delaware, has just arrived on a week-long fact-finding mission in Israel, on the ground right now (July 29). Wade is researching the situation on the ground and interviewing many. Kevin Wade is also a co-host with the Conservative Commandos Radio Show. Wade will be posting interviews on YouTube from the war zone in Israel.

Kevin Wade is a Republican who is running against Chris Coons, who was elected in 2010 when Coons won over Republican Christine O’Donnell.
Kevin Wade will be available for radio interviews from Israel, but is sending updates versus TWITTER from
@kevinwade2014

You may contact Duke Brooks (302) 245-0719 for assistance setting up interviews by phone or email to Kevin Wade at:
klw@wadefordelaware.com

Kevin Wade’s website is: http://www.WadeForDelaware.com/
BACKGROUND:
Businessman Kevin Wade was the Republican nominee for U.S. Senate in 2012. He was persuaded to run again for U.S. Senate against Democrat U.S. Senator Chris Coons. Coons gained notoriety as Christine O’Donnell’s Democrat opponent in 2010 after O’Donnell won the Republican primary over Mike Castle. Kevin Wade has been endorsed across the board from Ron Paul to Sharron Angle. He worked for Rudy Guiliani’s Presidential campaign in 2008. Wade is an engineer who started out at Dupont and then founded Philadelphia Control Systems 30 years ago in New Castle, Delaware. He also co-hosts the Conservative Commandos Radio Show in Philadelphia on Mondays.

Kevin Wade went to work in a steel mill within days of high school graduation in Pennsylvania. He worked his way through college eventually earning a BS in Electrical Engineering at the University of Delaware. As a young employee of the DuPont Company Engineering Department his talents for problem solving and leading teams of people stood out.

He started his own engineering business at the age of 29 and continues to run it 30 years later. Philadelphia Control Systems, Inc. in Christiana, Delaware, is a professional engineering corporation specializing in the engineering, design and programming of information automation and process automation systems. He has worked on projects ranging from Amsterdam to Singapore.
He is not only a businessman who has created jobs, balanced the companys budgets, and regularly made a payroll, but is also a specialist as an engineer in careful and precise problem-solving. His 30 years in business inform him of the need for government to be a respectful junior partner in the economy, not an opponent or master to job creators.

Fighting for U.S. energy independence, Kevin Wade has personal experience most politicians lack. It is believed that he will be the only U.S. Senator who has actually worked on an oil rig in the open ocean (in the North Sea), and certainly the only U.S. Senator who has climbed 5 stories down the side of an oil tanger in pitch dark to a wating boat. When Wade works to provide the energy to strengthen America’s economy and foreign policy, create jobs, and lower gas prices at the pump, Wade draws on professional experience. He is not influenced by the spin of think tanks, activists, lobbyists, or junk science. He also is deeply conscious of the natural beauty of the Delaware River visible from his quaint hometown of New Castle, Delaware, flowing into the Chesapeake Bay, and the need to maintain human balance with America’s natural beauty.

Mr. Wade has traveled the world professionally and is known everywhere for his fair dealings and trusted results. This taught Mr. Wade a deep respect for different people from different cultures. These experiences have also formed a firm belief in the exceptional character of the American people and the historic purpose of the American nation.

Kevin Wade became active in Republican party activities in 2004. He worked as a volunteer for candidates in literature drops, candidate walks, phone calls and as-needed campaign web site designs and deployment. He has Co-Chaired the GOP Colonial Region’s signature fund raiser, “Separation Day” for many years.

In 2007, Mr. Wade became Chairman of the 17th Representative District and also joined the GOP State Executive Committee. Kevin wade was invited to present his “Resolution in Support of the Troops” to the assembled delegates of the Republican Party State Convention. That sentimental and intimate speech brought tears to the eyes of many in the audience and Mr. Wade received an extended and roaring standing ovation. This led to frequent and, to this day, continuing invitations to address Republicans across the state.

In 2008, Kevin became the New Castle County Chair of the Rudy Giuliani Presidential Campaign. He served frequently as a surrogate speaker at statewide events and GOP debates. Also, in 2008 Mr. Wade gave the seconding speech at convention in support of the gubernatorial nomination of Judge Bill Lee, the GOP candidate that year.

The GOP State Convention in 2009 invited Mr. Wade to address the assembled delegates. He spoke about “What We Believe.” His simple and straightforward speech about our core conservative principles received another standing ovation. Kevin Wade campaigned for the Party endorsement as US Congressional candidate in 2010.

Mr. Wade spoke to the 2011 State Convention. He alerted all to the pending national financial crisis, identified the road to real recovery as a conservative path and passionately condemned the bitter legacy of Democrat failures in Delaware and across the US. Kevin concluded the speech and again earned a raucous standing ovation.

Mr. Wade has spoken before countless Rotary, Ruritan and Lions Club service organizations, including on tax reform and a complete overhaul of the Federal tax code.

Mr. Wade and his family are long-time residents of the historic City of New Castle, Delaware. His wife Gail is a tenured Professor of Nursing in the College of Health and Nursing Sciences at the University of Delaware.

Mr. Wade enjoys salt water fishing and snow skiing. Additionally, he is an amateur historian focusing on the economic, political and military histories of nations and their leaders. Abraham Lincoln is a figure of particular interest and admiration.

###

Jon Moseley
Cell phone: (703) 656-1230
Fax (703) 783-0449

Right? While everyone else in Delaware who wants to be elected in November is out door knocking, lit dropping and putting up pictures of everyone they’ve shaken hands with on Facebook, Kevin Wade is burnishing his fake journalist cred by “fact finding” in Israel. Apparently, the US of A doesn’t have enough big problems to do any fact finding on. I mean, it’s tough finding people who are unemployed to find out how the job market is not serving them. And I guess that someone with the ambition to be a Senator from Delaware won’t be meeting with the CEOs of too big to fail banks here to do any fact finding on how they are still looking to dump their shenanigans on taxpayers. Heck, there’s really an immigration issue that actually impacts many Americans that apparently is no where near as urgent as going to Israel to join the propaganda machine. Josh Marshall talks about the defacto alliance between Likud and the GOP today:

But Netanyahu has made the de facto alliance between the Likud or what remains of the faction he owns (that part gets very complicated) and the US Republican party increasingly explicit. And that’s dangerous. Dangerous for all concerned but particularly for Israel. I wish Netanyahu and his government had a better sense of the toxic repercussions of mobilizing GOP proxies as cut-outs in this way. It should go without saying that the Israel-US alliance becomes more brittle as it becomes more clearly identified with a single US political party.

But before Kevin Wade makes himself part of the problem, he needs to win an office. Which is isn’t going to do from Israel. Or with Jonathan Moseley, whose track record in Delaware is a totally losing one.

In Which We Find the Christian Right Trolling for an Activist Judge

Or, as named in this article, the “new frontrunner in the race for dumbest Christian Right lawsuit”. In this case, we have a nurse (how she got past the schoolwork, we’ll never know) who applied for a job at a Title X clinic in Tampa (Title X meaning that they explicitly in the business of all things family planning). She went into this interview telling her would-be employer that she could not dispense birth control pills, because she “believes” they cause abortions:

Hellwege said she couldn’t prescribe birth control since, in her unscientific mind, it caused abortions. Lindsey, knowing that all of the job openings involved prescribing birth control, told her there were no other positions available and that there was no reason to proceed with the interview process.

So she’s suing him.

I repeat: She’s suing him because he’s not hiring her for a job she refuses to do.

It makes as much sense as a vegetarian suing Taco Bell for not hiring him even though he told the manager he couldn’t be near meat.

Right? So it is not enough that this so-called nurse has passed enough courses to actually be able to practice as a nurse, but she has applied for a job that she doesn’t want to do. And once she was told she wasn’t suitable, she decided to sue the people whose job she had ambitions to not do.

Apparently is is not enough that she applied for a job that she had no intention of ever performing, but is doing the work of the people who can’t wrap their minds around science. She is trying to get the courts to validate her unscientific belief. Even though most birth control does not count as abortifacients. An activist judge who won’t pay attention to either the science or the fact that an employer is specifically in the business if hiring people who *will* do the work specified could open the doors to a brand new right-wing grift. Apply for jobs you have no intention of doing and collect when you don’t get them.

The General Assembly is Back to Work and It Is Open Bamboozlement Season for the DE GOP

In the past couple of days, the DE GOP (almost extinct) has taken to the NJ editorial pages to push more of their innumerate BS — going back to their message of having all The Government You Can Eat for free. Even though that is not true, they’ve decided that no one will get the math — apparently taking their cue from Colin Bonnini. Both are taking aim at the .10/gallon gas tax proposal, and neither grapple with the fact that there are 1) real costs to getting road improvements and repairs done, 2) there have to be revenues to pay for those costs, or 3) be very clear about what improvements, repairs and programs they would be willing to see die on the vine in order to get the budget in shape:

Let’s start with Gary Simpson’s piece in the NJ from Friday:

Oh, to have Connecticut’s “problem” of how to spend an additional $365 million. Or in Wisconsin and Michigan, where revenue forecasters have raised estimates for the next 18 months by $893 million and $971 million, respectively. Nationally, according to Moody’s Analytics, state revenues were up 6.7 percent for the fiscal year ending in June 2013.

Michigan cut taxes on its businesses, but raised taxes on the working poor and retirees and cut education spending. Michigan also has a sales tax, which would increase as people feel more comfortable spending. Are we to take it that Senator Simpson is going to advocate for Connecticut’s income tax rate? Or Connecticut’s sales tax rates or even their vehicle registration fees? Or how about CT’s incredibly high property tax rates — is Senator Simpson proposing those too to get to a surplus? Then again, California, Minnesota and New York also have budget surpluses, but none of them got theirs in an ALEC-approved manner. It doesn’t make much sense to compare Delaware to any of these states — all of which have higher income taxes, all have sales taxes, higher gas taxes (!) and mostly higher property taxes. Many of these taxes are responsive to increased spending activity by their citizens. Our taxes are lower — as I understand it — because we can rely so heavily on corporate taxes. Anyone think that Senator Simpson will endorse higher corporate taxes so we can get the kind of budget surpluses these other states have?

Pretty much every state he cites as an example has had tax increases of some kind since 2009. There were not many states who could balance their budgets otherwise. Taxes is still a responsible way to making sure that state services get done — because no one has a magic wand that removes snow or fixes the potholes on Rt 13. Of course, he continues to peddle the idea that some small business somewhere is not hiring because of taxes. That business is not hiring because they do not have the business demand to support additional staff. That’s Business 101. That business’ problem is less about taxes and more about not having enough customers. These fairy tales need to die.

THEN, there’s today’s missive from Reps. Hudson and Short — complaining that the NJ has not covered their “substantive” proposal to fix DelDOT’s fiscal woes. In short, the DEGOP is proposing to take the DelDOT operating budget out of the Trust Fund. That focuses the Trust Fund entirely on road projects and places the day-to-day operating budget back into the General Fund. Which is fine, but it never answers the question of how you now pay for this operating budget. The operating budget costs money — and everyone is bitching about .10/gallon to fix roads — so how exactly do Hudson and Short plan on paying for this new item to the budget? It definitely has to be paid for, and hand-waiving at efficiencies is not a plan. Details is what sells this kind of thing to the people who are paying attention, otherwise the only people to even take up this idea are the usual teajhadis who could use some Common Core remedial math. So this plan from the GOP doesn’t pay for a damn thing — it just moves money around and hopes you don’t notice the vaporware here.

Road repair and expansion certainly won’t pay for themselves. And I’m back to asking EVERYONE in the GA to get serious about dealing with our roads. You can’t just approve every single bit of development that comes down the pike and then pretend that no one needs the roads to support them. Or that the roads that we have (as battered as they are by recent snow removal) don’t need fixing. Unless, of course, you’re OK with paying for torn up tires and broken tie rods.

In Which Sheriff Christopher Pretends He’s Real Law Enforcement Again

The ever hapless but ever blustering Sheriff Christopher has signed on to an effort to not enforce President Obama’s gun control laws — whatever they might be. If you look at this list of associations and Sheriff’s who have signed on to this idiocy, you can definitely tell that the completely non-law enforcement Christopher is hoping that no one will notice that he is not wearing the grownup’s long pants at this table. He can’t enforce anything, so here he is pretending he really does belong at the grownup table. But the other thing that is funny about this bit of wingnuttery is that there are new gun control laws right in his own backyard that he can’t be bothered to claim to not be enforcing. Maybe he won’t enforce these laws in where ever it is that he is supposed to be moving to after being smacked down by the state courts.

Most police oaths involve a commitment to uphold the constitution and the laws of your jurisdiction. All of these Sheriffs are in violation of those oaths, in addition to not knowing that they have a wannabe Sheriff in their midst. You can see the wannabe still squealing about fighting for his rights here on his Facebook page , trying to get people to pony up for this crazy coin as a way to pay for this boondoggle. And who could possibly be stupid enough to buy these things?

h/t Thanks to an Anonymous Tipster

Herman Cain is Being Dissed by the Republican Party Because He Is a Black Man

Hey, it’s Herman himself making this claim!

“The RNC sent out a flyer to some of its members talking about potential 2016 presidential candidates. Do you know what they had in common? … ,” he said. “They were all white.” Where was Allen West. Where was Dr. Ben Carson. And have they ruled out the possibility that I might consider another run?”

Uh Oh! Our pal Herman here is starting to get the clue — that African Americans really are useful props for the GOP, but genuine inclusion is gonna be completely against their religion. Besides, Herman should know that he and several of his running mates are the reason why the RNC is looking to control their nominating and convention process so closely that they’ll damn near hand pick the next candidate. A convention in June? Reince Preibus is looking to get the clown show done early and the clowns on serious lockdown before the real show begins the next time. And all you have to do is look at what they did to Michael Steele after a successful run to know that they do not want functional black members — just the ones who will be happy to have Republican show up on their chyron and tell the world that minimum wage workers don’t really want more money with a straight face.

And I suspect Herman is pissed he isn’t getting his share of the wingnut welfare, too.

Christine O’Donnell Is Still Grifting — Halloween Edition

According to CNN, O’Donnell is working on shaking down her supporters for MORE money for her legal bills related the the FCC investigation into the misuse of her campaign funds. Apparently she is in settlement talks and it looks like she is looking for money to keep fighting the FCC over charges of misuse of campaign funds — misuses she admitted she did.

“I’m going to be straight forward and candid in this email – probably more candid and vulnerable than my political advisers would like!” O’Donnell said in a message to the supporters of her political action committee ChristinePAC. “I am facing a major decision and you play a large part in this decision.” […]

“There is a greater good in this fight – this is about STOPPING THE BULLYING when citizen politicians step up to fight against the corruption in DC. The establishment tries to push us off the field and distract us by burying us with non-sense battles.”

The e-mail was sent to supporters in an effort to solicit donations for her legal defense against the FEC complaint, which was brought against her by Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington during her 2010 campaign and alleges that she used campaign funds to pay for personal expenses.

So where did all of the money go? (You can see the FEC reports available for Christine PAC here. PDF of her 2013 Mid Year report is here.)You’ll recall that I always thought she was in this for the Wingnut Welfare and I still think it is true. You can see her most recent PAC filing and can see plenty of money going to lawyers, management consultants, list managers as well as Comcast, Delmarva Power and Mid-Atlantic Realty (which looks like they rent apartments, not offices — anyone know?) AND $32K to the IRS.

Another question — she reports almost $25K on Line 17 — an item that is meant to identify Other Federal Receipts like dividends or interest. What could this number be from?

Rumor also has it that the DE Finance Department has been cleared of wrongdoing by Grassley’s office in checking her tax records.

In any event, I’m betting she won’t run for anything next cycle, but will keep up the grift on her supporters.

h/t anon source

Late Night Video — Eric Cantor Has Control of the House CR

Interesting, yes? The House GOP quietly passed a rule change on October 1 that changes the House rules from letting any member of the House bring forward a bill with amendments WITHOUT the amendments; to only Eric Cantor can bring ask for a vote on a bill with controversial amendments WITHOUT the amendments. Go that? Apparently they went to this length of changing the rules so that they could continue to control their caucus — even when they would weaken as the government shutdown persisted. Contrast that with Harry Reid hanging on to the filibuster. The GOP loudly has been wringing its hands and warning that changing the filibuster rules would be a “nuclear event” in the Senate. But here we have the House GOP going so far as to making certain that their guys face all of the damage being done to them — and they made this rule change while no one was looking. No reason to come to any accommodation with these fools any time soon, I’m thinking. If they want to burn down the house, make sure they are firmly locked in it. This is Chris Val Hollen on the House floor showing how the new rule works (a little over 5 minutes):

Eric Cantor, people. They wouldn’t even trust their Speaker with this CR.

I Thought They Wanted to Talk!

For all of the theater around the GOP claim that it is time to talk to get rid of this stalemate (even though the GOP have been dragging their feet on this for 6 months), it turns out that they don’t want to talk, really. President Obama invited ALL Democrats and Republicans from both the Senate and the House to meet with him at the White House this week. Only 18 of the GOP members are going. Seriously. You whine and whine about talking with the President, the President invites ALL of y’all to meet with him in the White House and you can’t bother to rouse your caucus. This isn’t much better than not appointment members to a budget conference, really.

The WH responds:

“President Obama is disappointed that Speaker Boehner is preventing his members from coming to the White House,” White House spokesman Jay Carney said in a statement.

“The President thought it was important to talk directly with the members who forced this economic crisis on the country about how the shutdown and a failure to pay the country’s bills could devastate the economy,” he said. “The President will talk to anyone anytime and looks forward to their visit to the White House, but will not pay the Republicans ransom for doing their job. If the Republicans want to have a real discussion they should open the government and take the threat of default off the table.”

Paul Ryan Has a Plan to Save the Government — You Have to Give Up Your Social Security

After being completely invisible over the past few weeks, Paul Ryan re-appears in today’s WSJ to: 1) whine that the President is not negotiating with the House, 2) lie about previous debt-ceiling negotiations, 3) offer a trade of the sequester cuts for entitlement reform, 4) demand an opening of natural areas for more fossil fuel exploration, and 5) reform taxes.

Let’s get past the fact that these people haven’t been able to do much except execute a bunch of stunt votes to eliminate the ACA, we know that Ryan wants to voucherize Medicare and reduce the Social Security benefit. While spinning up his story about how Social Security was saved in 1982, all he notes is that the benefit was cut in order to extend the life of the program. That’s quite wrong, though — there was a combination of a benefit cut AND increased taxes to extend the life of the program. And even though President Obama keeps proposing chained CPI as a way to extend the life of Social Security, there is simply no one in the House who can say Yes to this proposal. They are waiting for all of their proposals to be agreed to, and aren’t interested even in incremental change.

But re-orienting their Ask to their usual list of GOP wants, they continue to muddy the water over this shutdown AND the looming debt limit crisis. At first it was defunding Obamacare, then it just devolved into a long and distasteful litany of attempts to save face. Note that he doesn’t call for a vote on a clean CR and nor does he remind his readers that the House has been refusing to negotiate with Democrats over the budget for 6 months or that the GOP plotted to take the government hostage back in the winter.

All of the stuff he lists as possible ways out are things that are already under consideration in the regular budget order. What Ryan thinks can happen is that they can gain ground towards their wish list by holding their hostages, rather than sitting down and getting back to the regular order. What I suspect Ryan and the GOP know now is that giving up their hostage means they have to not only work for a living now, but that they’ll need to settle for considerably less than their wish list.

And All Hands Off of Social Security. Congress needs to pay back the Trust Fund and they need to raise taxes so that the system can pay adequate benefits as it was designed to.