The new Republican House Majority

Rep. Steve King Boasts Of GOP Leaders' 'Mendacity'
Ryan J. Reilly | January 7, 2011, 9:35AM

Rep. Steve King (R-Iowa) literally accused the Republican leadership of the House of being a bunch of big old liars on the floor of the House last night. But that isn't exactly what he meant.

During a rant on the floor of the House about health care, King used the world "mendacity" -- meaning untruthfulness -- where he likely meant the opposite.

"As I deliberate and I listen to the gentleman from Tennessee, I have to make a point that when you challenge the mendacity of the leader there is an opportunity to make a motion to take the gentleman's words down, however many of the members are off on other endeavors and the leader and the speaker have established their integrity in their mendacity for years in this Congress and I don't think it can be challenged and those who do so are making aspersions by making wild accusations," King said.
/quote]

http://tpmdc.talkingpointsmemo.com/2011/01/rep-steve-king-accuses-gop-leaders-of-mendacity.php

Sheesh

Cycloptichorn

After House Vote, What's Next for Health Care Law Repeal?

By Chris Good Jan 19 2011, 6:30 PM ET

Probably nothing.

The House voted on repealing the health care overhaul tonight, and, with Republicans in the majority, there was little chance for Democrats to stop them. Repeal passed.

But, as has always been the case, Republicans even now stand little chance of actually repealing the 1,016-page law signed by President Obama in March.

In order for the health care law to be repealed, Obama would have to sign the Republicans' repeal legislation, a two-paragraph bill that strikes down the new law. There is no indication that Obama would sign it.

It's also unlikely that the Senate will ever vote on repeal. Democrats control the Senate and, along with it, which bills see the light of day. A Democratic Senate leadership aide confirmed today that there is zero chance Democratic leaders will call this bill up for a vote, ever.

So, legislatively, repeal will hit a dead end if it clears the House.

Politically, on the other hand...expect House Republicans to celebrate making good on a campaign promise to do all they could to repeal the bill. On Wednesday, the GOP's House campaign arm had already blasted an e-mail out to supporters saying "We Kept Our Promise" and raising money off tonight's vote. The liberal Public Campaign Action Fund, meanwhile, will release a TV ad attacking Republicans soon after the vote.

Health care can resurface as a campaign issue, both because 1) it's Obama's signature policy initiative, and he will have to defend it in the 2012 White House race, and 2) because if Republicans take the Senate and White House in 2012, it's possible they will repeal health care--that this bill will pass in the next Congress, and that a Republican president will sign it.

So, after tonight's vote, repeal will hit the back-burner in Congress, transferring all of its weight onto the platform of campaign politics.

Part of the problem for modern Republicans is that their leaders are idiots. This isn't to say that the Republican party has no good ideas, or that their policies are without merit; but those who they have selected to be their leaders and spokesmen are not very capable of expressing themselves logically or rationally on a variety of issues.

Cycloptichorn

Cycloptichorn wrote:

Part of the problem for modern Republicans is that their leaders are idiots. This isn't to say that the Republican party has no good ideas, or that their policies are without merit; but those who they have selected to be their leaders and spokesmen are not very capable of expressing themselves logically or rationally on a variety of issues.

Cycloptichorn

How does that compare
to Ted K. drowning Mary Jo ?

Why Today's Vote Matters

Nearly a year ago, after President Obama signed the Affordable Care Act into law, I recalled the story of Gary Rotzler and what happened to him in the early 1990s. He had a college degree and a life pulled straight out of a Norman Rockwell painting: He had married his high school sweetheart and, together with their three young children, they were living in a tiny village at the foot of the Catskill Mountains.

Then he lost his job, with its health benefits, and went uninsured for two years while getting by with a series of part-time, temporary jobs. By the time he'd gotten benefits, it was too late to treat his wife's breast cancer, which had gone undiagnosed and would soon take her life. But it was not too late to run up five-figure medical bills that forced Gary, the young widower, to declare bankruptcy.

Gary was just one of hundreds of people I've interviewed over the last decade, in my efforts to learn more about the health care system. And the best available estimates tell us that he's just one of millions who have suffered great financial or physical harm since then because he couldn't pay for basic medical care. Every other developed country on the planet protects its citizens from this sort of devastation. And thanks to the Affordable Care Act, the United States is on its way to joining them.

It still is, thankfully. Today's House vote to repeal the Affordable Care Act is merely symbolic. The Senate will almost certainly not pass it and, even if it did, the president surely would not sign it.

But symbolism matters. It sends a message about values. And so it's worth considering what values this generation of Republicans has decided to embrace.

Over the last year, the Republicans have spent a lot of time arguing that the Affordable Care Act will cost too much, that it will micromanage care, that it will burden business with taxes and bureaucracy. The most outrageous claims, like the notion of government-run "death panels," have zero basis in fact. And even the less explosive arguments frequently rely on flimsy evidence. But the most remarkable thing about the Republican campaign against health care reform is what the advocates of repeal haven't said.

They never bothered to engage with the fundamental moral logic behind the Affordable Care Act--that a modern society guarantees everybody access to doctors, hospitals, and the treatments they provide; that it's wrong to sit by and watch people give up their savings, or their lives, just because they happened to get sick. The more serious Republicans have some ideas, yes, but nothing that would come remotely close to insuring 30 million people or bolstering coverage for the people who have it.

As recently as the last major debate over health care reform, in the 1990s, there were prominent Republicans with sincere interest in helping the un- and underinsured. Even today, you can find conservatives who feel the same way or who, at the very least, are honestly convinced that fiscal constraints put those goals out of reach. But the Republicans in the House? The ones who'd gladly run up red ink to finance more tax cuts for the rich? If they care even a little bit about the human casualties of our health care system, they haven't bothered to show it.

In 1965, the House passed H.R. 1, a set of amendments to the Social Security Act that, when signed into law, created Medicare. The designation of the bill as the legislature's first order of business was no accident. President Lyndon Johnson and his allies understood that Medicare was a moral imperative--that extending insurance to the nation's seniors, thus sparing them the familiar indignities and financial deprivations of illness, was among the most important things they would ever do as lawmakers.

Today's vote to repeal the Affordable Care Act was H.R. 2. It, too, was a deliberate signal that the leadership considered this a top priority. All 244 House Republicans voted for it. But this was a bill to take insurance away from millions and to weaken it for millions more.

History remembers what happened in 1965. I hope it remembers what happened in 2011, as well.

OmSigDAVID wrote:

Cycloptichorn wrote:

Part of the problem for modern Republicans is that their leaders are idiots. This isn't to say that the Republican party has no good ideas, or that their policies are without merit; but those who they have selected to be their leaders and spokesmen are not very capable of expressing themselves logically or rationally on a variety of issues.

Cycloptichorn

How does that compare
to Ted K. drowning Mary Jo ?

There's no comparison at all, because the two issues are not related at all.

Instead of attempting to change the subject - you can start your own thread about teddy k if you like - why don't you agree or disagree with the statement?

Cycloptichorn

MAYBE THEY'LL GET TO JOBS EVENTUALLY.... John Boehner, back when he was the House Minority Leader, had a special fondness for asking, "Where are the jobs?" It was effective because it was easily the top issue on the minds of Americans.

Not surprisingly, job creation has been the dominant issue in recent years, and was largely responsible for Republican gains in the 2010 midterms. GOP leaders assured the country, vote for them, and they'll get to work on improving the economy.

What Republicans neglected to mention is that they have a few unrelated items they want to tackle first.

The initial priority for the new House GOP majority was, of course, gutting the health care system, despite the fact that their legislation has no chance at passing, and despite the fact that their proposal would hurt job creation. With that vote out of the way, Republicans are now moving on to their second major initiative.

House Republicans have introduced the first of, probably, many small pieces of legislation designed to pull apart the Affordable Care Act. This morning it was Rep. Chris Smith's (R-NJ) "No Taxpayer Funding for Abortion Act," HR3, a bill that pro-life Democrats have told me they can support.

"[The American people] spoke about this issue on America Speaking Out," said Speaker of the House John Boehner, explaining why the GOP was moving ahead on this part of the health care fight. "They spoke on this issue loudly and clearly."

This prompted the obvious questions: Wait, weren't you promising to focus on job creation?

Well, they were. Now that Boehner & Co. have some power, though, they prefer to focus on some of their other priorities, like abortion. What does abortion have to do with job creation? Nothing, but GOP priorities are apparently a little more fluid than they'd led voters to believe.

They're bound to start thinking about jobs eventually, right?

In March, Boehner asked, "When are we going to address the number one issue on the minds of our fellow citizens? When are we going to focus on the economy and getting people back to work?"

Funny, someone might want to ask Boehner the same thing.
—Steve Benen 12:30 PM Permalink | Trackbacks | Comments (8)

I don't give a **** about your attempts to change the subject. If you can't stay on topic, I'll just ignore you.

As I said earlier - start your own thread about Kennedy if you want to discuss him. Your attempts to deflect discussion away from the idiocy of the chosen leaders of the Republican party has failed.

Cycloptichorn

No, the topic of the thread is: 'The new Republican House Majority.' It's right there at the top.

If you can't stay on topic, then piss off, David.

Cycloptichorn

Now that the symbolic bullshit is out of the way, will the Republicans pivot to actually governing the nation? Hard to say. There are no current bills in the books from them to address anything else and no announced plans to do anything else, other than 'investigate radical Islam.'

Cycloptichorn