Elections 2014: The Bad and the Just God-Awful Republican Governors

by Sunnyjane

Don't Re-elect -- Instead, Reject!

Of the twenty-nine Republican governors currently in office, thirteen are either embroiled in scandals, being investigate for corruption, or have recently been indicted.  Of these thirteen, three have presidential aspirations: Chris Christie, Rick Perry, and Scott Walker, who is currently up for re-election.  And some of these governors are simply in deep doo-doo for being lousy executives of their states, but expect their constituents to re-elect them anyhow so they can complete the job of totally ruining their respective states.  Is this a great country or WHAT?

--  Kansas, possibly the reddest of the red states, seems to be in an unstoppable swirl down the political toilet.  Sam Brownback's hyper-conservative tax-cutting policies have brought down the state's credit rating from both Moody's and Standard & Poor's, and risks running a deficit through 2019.  In an effort to stem that particular tide, he then cut the tax rate on the top tax bracket even more, which reduced revenue by forty-five percent -- or $93 million in 2013.  Hail, austerity!  But that's not all, folks: Brownback's former chief of staff and current campaign adviser is being investigated by the FBI for influence peddling operations in Kansas government and privatization of the state's Medicaid program.  (The FBI's a bit touchy about things like corrupt government.  Think McDonnell, Bob.)  Latest poll numbers suggest that Brownback's Democratic opponent, Paul Davis, could win with fifty-seven percent of the vote.  (Heh)

-- Pennsylvania governor Tom Corbett is currently having a close encounter of the porn kind.  It seems that eight former employees of Corbett's while he was Attorney General had sent and received hundreds of pornographic images or videos in emails that his office received during the Jerry Sandusky child sex abuse case.  Two of these guys who had gone to work for Corbett when he was elected governor in 2010 during the Tea Party wave resigned last week.

In touting his new jobs plan during recent debates, Gov. Corbett urged Pennsylvania to check out the new website and see the 250,000 jobs that were waiting breathlessly to be filled.  However, a check of this shiny new jobs website revealed that some of these dandy job opportunities were hardly what one might call viable career prospects.  Two examples:

• VIP Hostess – I have two visiting VIP gentlemen coming to town. Need a couple of female hostesses to join them for cocktailing, dinner and clubbing. Send me a couple of pictures of yourself – under 30 please, if you are highly attractive and in need of $$...
• Casting Couch – Looking for M.I.L.F.S…hot mom & daughter combos!!! Young busty females between 18-45. Please attach pic. Thank you ladies!!!

Pennsylvanians have been suffering voters' remorse for four years.  The Corbett that looked like a moderately conservative candidate turned into a Tea Partier and the voters have had it with that particular deal; a late-August poll showed his Democratic opponent, Tom Wolf, leading by twenty-five points.

 -- Maine's governor, Paul LePage, is a skank of the first order, and God only knows what possessed the people of that good state to elect him -- temporary insanity, perhaps.  Not only has LePage met several times with a group of conspiracy theorists (a polite term for them) calling themselves Sovereign Citizens -- the FBI considers them domestic terrorists -- but it was recently revealed by one member of the group that in those meetings they discussed hanging the members of the Democratic legislature.  LePage, of course, denies that.

LePage will say anything and doesn't care that it may anger or appall people.  Last year he ranted to two reporters how irritated he was with a Democratic state senator, saying, Sen. Jackson claims to be for the people, but he's the first one to give it to the people without providing Vaseline.   Such class!

Hardly had he gotten into office that he told the NAACP it could kiss my butt because he refused to attend an event honoring Martin Luther King, Jr.  His reasoning went something like this:  the NAACP is a special interest group and he doesn't do special interest groups.  (Yeah, like the Tea Party isn't a special interest group.)  And taking a cue from Mitt Romney, LePage announced that 47% of able-bodied Maine residents don't work.  That went over particularly well, as you can imagine, particularly when Politifact gave the remark a Pants on Fire award. 

If the current polls hold, there's a very good chance that Mike Michaud, his Democratic opponent, may very well become the first openly gay governor in the U.S.

If you're not super-weary of these three, check out the ten most vulnerable governors in this election.

And Speaking of Governors...

It would be a very good idea if Romney would just bite his tongue.

During the 2012 general election, Mitt Romney told Fox Noxious that he absolutely believes that President Obama is responsible for high gas prices at the pump because  he has not pursued policies that convince the world that America is going to become energy secure, energy independent.  (That's sounds very much like a Sarah Palin statement, doesn't it?) The price of gas at the time was $3.80 a gallon on average; today the price is $3.33 on average, and shows signs of dropping below $3.00 in the near future.  Romney's response today on gas prices?  Echos of the sound of silence.

Perhaps Mr. Romney is just too busy to find out the price of gas because he's been out campaigning for a bunch of losers.  You can tell they're losers because they're desperate enough to reach out to Mitt Romney.  Perhaps the will-never-be-anything-but-a-former-governor is doing this to take the opportunity to spew his unhappiness that he lost in 2012.  In a recent event for Terri Lynn Land, a U.S. Senate hopeful in Michigan, he said that it’s time for the president to apologize to Americans for so many failures.  Uh huh.  Well, Mitt, do you mean like ten million Americans now having affordable health care?  Or, the unemployment rate dropping below six percent?  Or, growing jobs in America -- versus jobs in China -- continuously for the past fifty-four months?  Please explain.  We'll be anxiously awaiting your response.   Any time you're ready.

Romney's really getting tiresome.  

End Note 

You're welcome, Patriots!

(Next post we will talk about the House and Senate races.  Hoo boy!)

The Unbearable Darkness of Being Dick Cheney

by Sunnyjane

Jay Carney: Which president was he talking about?

The Gospel According to Dick Cheney is that President Barack Obama is everything from a naive weakling to a downright fool.  Oh, and the President would rather give people food stamps than build a strong military.  I"m sure it comes as no surprise to anyone who isn't tuned into Fox Noise 24/7 or addicted to the Drudge Report that the United States has the strongest military in the world.  And speaking of Drudge, how did he respond to the recent capture of the Benghazi consulate attack suspect?  He didn't.  Instead, his loyal readers were treated to a paragraph or two on the rising cost of meat, chicken, and fish.  No, really.

A brief background check of the former vice president is appropriate here.  Cheney has been skulking around conservative politics since the 1960s, and served as Gerald Ford's Chief of Staff during his brief tenure as president.  He went from there to being a five-term congressman from Wyoming, and afterward served as Secretary of Defense under George H. W. Bush, during which time he spearheaded the military action to defend Kuwait from Iraq's determination to annex that tiny country.  When Bill Clinton beat Bush One in the next election, Cheney hustled over to Halliburton to be chairman and CEO.  We all know how THAT turned out during the Bush Two incursion into Iraq.  When W won the election in 2000, he decided to gather many of his father's men together to help him steer the ship of state, so to speak.  I'm sure he thought it was a dandy idea, because he knew absolutely nothing about being a leader.  Bush had put Cheney in charge of finding a proper running mate for him, and Cheney decided he himself would be the best vice president in the whole wide world. 

It pays to have contacts.  In fact, it pays VERY well, indeed.

Cheney flunked out of Yale twice because he had a hard time adjusting to the school.  He finally got a bachelors degree in arts and a masters degree in political science from the University of Wyoming.  This rather lengthy college career suited him well, as he was able to get four student deferments to keep him out of Vietnam because I had other priorities in the '60s than military service.  It is inferred by some, um, liberal cynics that his first child, Liz, owes her life to the Vietnam war; she was born nine months and two days after it was announced that only fathers could dodge the draft be granted deferments. 

So let's just charge ahead and see who the fool is in this Middle East mess that the Cheney Bush administration created.

Hey, Guys, Let's Start a War with Iraq!
 

Hail, hail, the gang's all here!

In classic GOP style, the hypocrisy runs rampant.  In 1994, after the Kuwait/Iraq war, then-Secretary of Defense Cheney was questioned about why the U.S. didn't just go onto Iraq and take down Saddam Hussein's government  while we were there.  His response showed a distinct sanity: ...then what are you going to put in its place? That’s a very volatile part of the world, and if you take down the central government of Iraq, you could very easily end up seeing pieces of Iraq fly off.  Twenty years later, however, he's taking great delight in snarling that President Obama has abandoned Iraq and we are watching American defeat snatched from the jaws of victory.  [Victory?]  I guess Cheney forgot that it was George W. Bush who signed the Status of Forces Agreement, which literally threw the U.S. out of Iraq, before he left office. Cheney's op-ed rant prompted Harry Reid to respond, If there is one thing this country does not need is that we should be taking advice from Dick Cheney on wars. Being on the wrong side of Dick Cheney is being on the right side of history. 

All GOP Roads Led to Iraq

 
The popular spin from the 2003 White House is that Bush decided to declare war on Iraq for retaliation for 9/11.  They also pushed that they were protecting America's oil interests.  And that Saddam had stockpiled weapons of mass destruction.  And that Osama Bin Laden was hiding there.  And that the Iraqis had kidnapped Santa Claus -- you name it, there were plenty of reasons for the invasion, and any of 'em, all of 'em would do.

The truth, however, is much creepier.  According to a great 2004 article, in which W.'s biographer is quoted extensively, Bush-the-candidate was making plans in 1999 to invade Iraq: One of the keys to being seen as a great leader is to be seen as a commander-in-chief.  My father had all this political capital built up when he drove the Iraqis out of Kuwait and he wasted it.  If I have a chance to invade, if I had that much capital, I'm not going to waste it. I'm going to get everything passed that I want to get passed and I'm going to have a successful presidency.  After 9/11, of course, he had a reason no one would argue with, and the rest is a sorry history.

Bush lied to the American people and to our allies.  The weapons inspectors had found no weapons of mass destruction.  He and his staff, including Dick Cheney, had ignored a series of urgent and potentially disastrous CIA reports that bin Laden was planning an imminent attack on the United States.

Vice President Dickless Cheney sleeps through CIA briefings.

They wanted to go into Iraq, and go into Iraq they did.

Mission Accomplished -- NOT

Twenty-one days after the 2003 invasion of Iraq, George W. Bush landed with tawdry drama on an aircraft carrier off the coast of San Diego and declared that the mission in Iraq had been accomplished.  It's hard to say what that accomplishment was, since Saddam Hussein wasn't even captured until seven months later.  Cheney sat in his West Wing office grinning like a fool at the whole phoney spectacle.

It's 2014, Iraq Begins to Implode, and the Right Goes Nuts

I'm too chicken to fight in a real battle, so I'll growl real loud and frighten the President to death.

Like rabid hyenas, the big talkers came roaring out of their flea-infested dens and decided to chew the hide off President Obama.  Chief amongst this pack of Feliformia suborders was Dick Cheney, trying for all his worth to rewrite history and regain some of the respect he never had in the first place.  It hasn't worked out very well for him.

The internet has a long memory, and some in the mainstream media -- including, oddly enough, Fox News -- and a long list of liberal bloggers have taken him on for his barefaced lies and blatant hypocrisy.

The New York Times: This, from the man who helped lead us into this trumped-up war, searching for nonexistent weapons of mass destruction, a war in which some 4,500 members of the American military were killed, many thousands more injured, and that is running a tab of trillions of dollars.       

The Washington Post:  When it comes to being wrong about Iraq, Dick Cheney has been in a class by himself. It was Cheney who said, “Simply stated, there is no doubt that Saddam Hussein now has weapons of mass destruction. There is no doubt he is amassing them to use against our friends, against our allies, and against us."

Just last week, Cheney stated that Barack Obama has stated repeatedly the terrorist threat is gone, we got bin Laden. That’s clearly not the case. That’s not the truth.

What the President very clearly said, on May 1, 2011: The death of bin Laden marks the most significant achievement to date in our nation’s effort to defeat al Qaeda. Yet his death does not mark the end of our effort. There’s no doubt that al Qaeda will continue to pursue attacks against us. We must –- and we will — remain vigilant at home and abroad. 

When called out by Jonathan Karl recently for saying that the President is deliberately trying to undermine America's global standing, Cheney danced the backward shuffle and said that he meant no disrespect.  Uh huh.

Give your useless new heart a rest, Dick, and let the adults handle the situation.  You screwed up the country once; no one is going to let you do it again.

And a little bonus:  Kevin McCarthy, the new House Majority Leader, is also clueless on the subject.  When asked by Chris Wallace what the President should do about the situation in Iraq, McCarthy used the word strategy about fifty times and came up empty.  

End Note

   

 

GOP Still Obsessing Over Growing Success of the Healthcare Act

by Sunnyjane

GOP:  Curses!  This was supposed to be Obama's Katrina!

Oh yes, dear readers, the FUBAR surrounding the October 1, 2013, debut of the President's signature legislation website was gleefully panned by GOPers as the end of that dastardly Affordable Care Act.  Well, by December 1, fifty thousand uninsured Americans an hour were able to access the site, and the Republican Tea Party echo chamber became just the dark-hole vacuum from which it had originally emerged. 

Whaddaya Mean, It's Constitutional?

 
President Obama signed the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act on March 23, 2010; the Supreme Court of the United States found on June 28, 2012, that, except for mandatory expansion of Medicaid in all states, the law was constitutional.  And the Republicans still haven't gotten over it.

Mitt Romney said right after the SCOTUS decision that, if elected in November, he would repeal the law on Day One.  Now either Romney is totally ignorant of the job he wanted so badly concerning the Constraints of Presidential Powers, or he thought his idiot followers were stupid enough to believe him.  Either is a legitimate possibility.  But a president cannot simply sign some sort of repeal paper to get rid of a law he doesn't like.  It's called Separation of Powers, a little thingy the Founders stuck in the Constitution for a damn good reason: to prevent such an act without a consenting majority vote in both the House and Senate.

And the Hits Just Keep on Coming, But Miss Their Target

Lots of people hate Obamacare -- or so they think.  In Kentucky, where one in every five adults has been without healthcare insurance, a public health worker helped a man sign up for the Affordable Care Act.  The man was very pleased that he would qualify for either tax credits under KYTECT -- the Kentucky healthcare exchange chosen by their Democratic governor -- or would be eligible to join a Medicaid pool.  He said, This is better than Obamacare, I hope.   (Can you say Fox News zombie?) 

There's a lot of that going around, and Republicans are fueling it:

**It's been popular for the GOPers to warn young people against signing up for healthcare under the new act because they'd be unfairly charged more than older citizens.  DUH!  That's what any health insurance is based on.  However, that hasn't worked out very well for these, um, lawmakers.
 

**Ted Cruz tried to pull another stunt by tying defunding of the AHA to the $1.1 trillion spending bill.  That didn't work.

**California Republicans tried a dirty trick (shades of Karl Rove) by directing people looking for the AHA to go to a fake website that aimed to scare people from signing up.  Just as an example, the website told senior citizens that there probably wouldn't be enough doctors.  I don't know who they're calling senior citizens; anyone sixty-two or older usually has Medicare.  (And just as an aside, why does Medicare spend $29 million a year to pay for penis pumps?  No, seriously!)

**Marco Rubio is passing around the lie that the AHA is an insurance company bailout.

**Rand Paul says that his twenty-year-old son was forced to sign up for Medicaid.  That, my friends, is bullshit.  The Washington Post's Glenn Kessler is doing an on-going investigation on the issue, writing recently: The available evidence suggests this happened because of an error on the part of either Paul or his son, but there are enough uncertainties that a definitive conclusion cannot be reached. Paul earns the [two] Pinocchios because the process he described on television does not match up with the Kynect screen shots. 

**John Boehner -- you know him, he's supposed to be the Speaker of the House -- stated this past week that at the up-coming Republican retreat, healthcare will be on their agenda.  I think you'll see Republicans come forward with a plan to replace 'Obamacare,' a plan that will actually reduce costs for the American people and make health insurance more accessible.  Very timely, John, so very timely.

**The House passed a bill that would require Health and Human Services to provide them with weekly number on ACA instead of monthly numbers.  Ain't going to happen.

End Note:  President Obama's Up Yours to the Moralists 

 

Amen!

What to Expect When You're Expecting the GOP's Worst in 2014

by Sunnyjane

John Boehner:  Congress should not be judged on how many laws we pass.  Congress ought to be judged on how many laws we repeal.

A House Divided

House Report Card: Members do not work and play well with others.

It's hardly breaking news that the House session ending in early January 2014 has been the least productive in history.  Speaker John Boehner has accused at least three different factions for this dubious recognition:  President Obama for not working with the congress; the Democratic-controlled Senate for not doing its job; and the battle royal between the Republican pragmatists and ideologues that force him to leave the office early and go sprinting to the nearest D.C. watering hole for an injection of Merlot. 

This year is one of elections for all members of the House of Representatives, some senators, and a few governors.  Karl Rove and Scott Reed, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce's chief political strategist, are planning to spend tons of money to see that no losers end up as Republican candidates in 2014.  Scott told the Wall Street Journal recently, That will be our mantra: No fools on our ticket.

As Eugene Robinson of The Washington Post says, Wanna bet?

Matt Taibbi of Rolling Stone also has a hilarious post on this topic, at one point wondering if Ted Cruz will choose Phil Robertson as his more moderate running mate.

Speaking of Fools...

It's easy to understand why Scott Reed and Karl Rove might be a tad anxious about idiots running on the Republican ticket in 2014; there is already too much irreconcilable imbecility in both houses of congress.  A brief review of some typical Tea Party Republican legislators making fools of the entire party in 2013 confirms that these two strategists have every right to be uneasy.

Rep. Joe Barton, TPF- (Tea Party Fool) TX:  It should be noted, first and foremost, that Rep. Barton serves on the House Energy and Power and the Environment and Economy subcommittees.  Given those responsibilities, he has a long history of making the most outlandish anti-science statements ever heard from a representative who has to make policy on energy.   To wit, on wind energy technology, he has offered the notion that wind is a finite resource and harnessing it would slow the winds down, which would cause the temperature to go up.  (There's so much wrong with that statement -- beginning with wind being finite -- that I refuse to waste my time dissecting it.)  And on the causes of climate change, he suggests strongly that If you believe in the Bible, one would have to say the Great Flood is an example of climate change.  That certainly wasn’t because mankind overdeveloped hydrocarbon energy.

Rep. Trent Franks, TPF-AZ: Trent took exception to exempting pregnancies caused by rape and incest from provisions of an anti-abortion bill, because of course, ...you know, the incidences of rape resulting in pregnancy are very low.  But when you make that exception, there’s usually a requirement to report the rape within 48 hours.  And in this case, that’s impossible because this is in the sixth month of gestation. 

Rep. Louie Gohmert, TPF-TX:  On immigration, Gohmert said, We know that people that are now being trained to come in and act like Hispanic when they are radical Islamist.  (He failed to explain exactly how one can act like Hispanic, but I'm sure that his remark warmed the hearts of Republican moderates trying attract the Latino vote.)  And of course, this is the same Louie Gohmert who was outraged that Attorney General Eric Holder was trying to cast aspersions on my asparagus. 

I know the U. S. Constitution forbids any sort of religious test for folks running for elected office, but heavens to Murgatroid, might it not be a good idea to check out a candidate's basic knowledge of science and biology?  Oh, and vegetables.

What Can We Expect from the Media in 2014?

The extra 20% is those Fox News viewers who don't even  know what scientists are.

Oh, just a couple of things to consider here: 

1.  Will Jim DeMint work it so that David Gregory of NBC is replaced by Phil Robertson?

2.  Will not-running-in-2014 Michele Bachmann replace Sarah Palin on Fox News?

3.  Will Alex Baldwin land a reality show on A&E, where he'll fit right in?

4. Will Sarah Palin, political pundint, get Willow a job styling birther honcho Donald Trump's hair? 

     4A: Can Willow possibly teach her stupid mother the correct way to wear a wig?

5. Will Chuck Todd learn the difference between a finicky website and an excellent healthcare insurance plan?

6. Will every political analyst, commenter, and guest expert on news shows cease the obnoxious  habit of beginning every response to a host's question with Well, I mean, look...
      
    6A: Will the media learn the difference between less and fewer?  Hint to media talkers and writers:  Less traffic, fewer automobiles.  See, isn't that easy?

   6B:  Will the media ever learn that the past tense of sink is sank, not sunk?  It's OK, media; sank is not a dirty word.

Can the RNC Ever Get Its Minority-Vote Thing Right?

Republican National Committee chairman Reince Priebus is going to slip a disk if he continues to bend over backwards to lure African Americans -- and other minorities -- to vote for his party.

On December 1, the fifty-eighth anniversary of Rosa Parks's brave act of defiance in Birmingham, Alabama, the always-racially-tone-deaf RNC sent a tweet out that read Today we remember Rosa Parks’ bold stand and her role in ending racism.  It's too bad no one told James Earl Ray, who killed Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., thirteen years later.

Right on the heels of that little social-media faux pas, Priebus sent Rand Paul parachuting into Detroit to open the GOP's first African American Outreach office -- or something like that.  They invited people to show up and hear Sen. Paul speak on the subject of how Republicans are going to do more for African Americans than Democrats.  People showed up.  They were white.  The end.

And just recently, Chairman Priebus and Co-Chairperson Sharon Day (I guess including Day was to show how much they Love you women!) sent out a Happy Kwanzaa statement commemorating an event that celebrates African history and culture.  Even conservative media called it pandering to blacks.

Wait for the RNC to tweet Happy Chinese New Year (celebrated in all Asian countries) on February 9, and Happy Cinco de Mayo on May 5.  

These meaningless gestures and transparent platitudes insult the intelligence of those targeted demographics and those white in this country who fight for the civil liberties of ALL Americans. 

Let's face it: the only difference between a gun-totting, Bible-clutching white supremacist and a Tea Party member of the GOP is the number of tattoos emblazoned on their bodies.

Will Ted Cruz Continue to be a Lying Obstructionist?

Yes.  Yes, he will.

Sen. Cruz has denied that he caused the government shutdown by threatening that identical action back in September if the Affordable Care Act was not defunded.  He stood in the Senate Chamber and read Green Ham and Eggs for -- I don't know, twenty-one hours or so.  We know the results and the ensuing backlash it caused.

President Obama's response to that bit of showboating was: One faction of one party in one house of Congress in one branch of government doesn’t get to shut down the entire government just to re-fight the results of the election.  The idea of putting the American people’s hard-earned progress at risk is the height of irresponsibility and doesn’t have to happen.  You don’t get to extract a ransom for doing your job.  

Cruz is getting as bad as Sarah Palin when it comes to makin' stuff up, many times for no reason at all.  During his filibuster, he included (for no apparent reason and to no one's interest whatsoever) the, um, fact that My father invented green ham and eggs and talked about watching his father prepare the dish. This is quite interesting, since Dr. Seuss wrote that book in 1960 and Ted wasn't born until 1970.  (Even if Raul really told him that, most children outgrow these little stories their parents tell them, like thunder is just God doing his thing at the Heavenly Kingdom Bowling Alley located right behind the Harps R Us store on Pearly Gates Road.)

He is still calling on his fellow Republicans to block immigration reform because it would mean the GOP has no chance of winning the Senate in 2014.

Yes, Cruz will continue to lie and obstruct.  And every time he does, another conservative donor will write a large check to the Democratic Party.

Will Darrell Issa Finally Stop Talking About Benghazi?

Keep digging!  There's gotta be a way to blame Obama and Clinton!

No.  No, he won't.

Just for the record, Darrell Issa is a nasty, dishonest, scheming, mean, vile human being with no redeeming qualities whatsoever.  Any one who believes he has reformed after his criminal activities before getting into congress needs a cerebral MRI -- stat!

Democrat Anthony Clark, who worked on the GOP's House oversight committee, summed up Darrell Issa quite well in an excellent post at Salon: If Darrell Issa says something – based on the record, his statements, and my personal observations of him up-close – there is a strong likelihood it will be baseless and easily disproven.

Clark goes on to reveal that Issa is an inept Chairman who doesn't even know the rules under which he is to hold hearings or the legal powers accorded him in  that position.  He also lets it be known that Issa is a bully: The more bombastic he is, the more he hungrily seeks out the cameras, the more he promises “explosive revelations,” the less he actually has. Bullies don’t win fights; they win defaults. Push back just the tiniest bit, and it’s all over. 

Darrell Issa is so sleazy that when he demanded that Health and Human Services turn over highly sensitive documents to him regarding the Healthcare.gov website, he was refused because of his track record as an untrustworthy guardian of secrets.

On Benghazi, Issa has always insisted that the anti-Islam American-made film, Innocence of Muslims, had nothing to do with the rioting at the American Embassy that resulted in the death of four people.  Regardless of the source, evidence presented to him will not satisfy his lust to bring some scandal raining down the Obama administration. 

The Republican-controlled House twice cut funding for better security at American embassies worldwide, in 2011 by $128 million and in 2012 by $331 million because, You have to prioritize things.  And, obviously, security at embassies is not a priority.  Pointing one's finger and yelling Bang, bang at a well-armed horde of terrorists is hardly an effective deterrent.

And, of course, the Benghazi conclusions reached in the New York Times' recent article was simply to absolve Hilary Clinton. 

It matters not to Darrell Issa; he doesn't believe in real evidence.  Despite the fact that he has called President Obama one of the most corrupt presidents in modern times, but has never succeeded in making one accusation stick, he will continue to waste the tax payers' money and congressional time in trying.  Please proceed, Mr. Chairman.

Will Republicans Continue to Try to Impeach the President?

Of course they will.  

The first meeting of the committee to Get Obama the Hell Out of the White House came to the conclusion that The president has ignored laws, failed to enforce laws, undermined laws and changed laws, all contrary to the Constitution.

And the President's response? 

Heh. 

A Personal Indulgence, If I May

This is one of my favorite images of 2013.  No words are needed, except to say that Pete Souza certainly knows how to capture the most powerful and significant moments during the President's time in office.

End Note -- Happy New Year, GOP!