Let Them Eat Caca

From THE HILL:

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) is facing blowback from across the political spectrum after he suggested states should be able to declare bankruptcy as they face severe budget holes sparked by the coronavirus outbreak.

…snip…

But McConnell sparked his own political firestorm when, in response to a question from radio host Hugh Hewitt, he said he supported letting states declare bankruptcy and positioned Republicans as cautious of providing them with additional federal relief.

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The Lobbying Epidemic

From The Charlotte Observer:

The drug epidemic of the 1980s and ’90s was horrific.

…snip…

That period is no longer considered the worst drug epidemic in the nation’s history. The ongoing opioid crisis has, unfortunately, taken that title – because no one was lobbying Congress on behalf of crack cocaine dealers the way they have for large drug companies. That’s the devastating finding from a joint investigation by “60 Minutes” and The Washington Post released last weekend. Between 2014 and 2016, the drug industry spent $106 million lobbying Congress for a law that makes it virtually impossible for the DEA to freeze suspicious narcotic shipments from the companies.

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Just because I’m the leader doesn’t mean I have to lead!

From THINK PROGRESS:

Three weeks ago, Rep. Eric Cantor (R-VA) — the second-highest ranking Republican in the House of Representatives — repeatedly refused to call theories that President Obama was not born in America “crazy.” He told Meet the Press’s David Gregory that “I don’t think it’s nice to call anyone crazy,” and refused to rebuke the wild conspiracy theories. Today on the same program, Speaker of the House John Boehner (R-OH) also refused to repudiate such theories under a similar line of questioning from Gregory, who showed Boehner a Fox News clip in which several Iowa Republicans in a focus group said they believed Obama was a Muslim.

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Food for Thought: Slimming Down Incentive Edition, continued…

Yesterday, we looked to Lindseypoo Graham to inspire us to lose all that weight we gained from eating all that good stuff over the last week. I thought we’d look at Lindseypoo over the years to see how he got to be where he is now.

Lindseypoo has always been a fashion-plate, even when he was just a baby…

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The Pledge of a Grievance

From CQ POLITICS:

STERLING, Va. — House Republicans on Thursday officially unveiled what they hope will be a majority-making agenda at a Virginia hardware store warehouse.

The agenda, “A Pledge to America,” calls for a series of reforms, including cutting the size of the federal government, to try to put the country back on a path to prosperity. The agenda, months in the making, only lightly touches on divisive social issues.

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The Know-Nothing No-Everything Party

From POST POLITICS at The Washington Post:

In February, when unpredictable Sen. Jim Bunning single-handedly stalled extensions of unemployment benefits for several days, his Republican colleagues quickly abandoned him, worried that the GOP would be cast as the party against helping people who are out of work.

Last month, as jobless benefits were again to set to expire, Bunning (Ky.) still objected to funding them in a way that would increase the deficit. But this time, nearly every Republican in the Senate joined him, leading to a month-long impasse in which more than 2 million people briefly lost their benefits. When the extension finally passed last week, only two Republicans backed the $34 billion unemployment measure, compared with 21 who had voted with Democrats in March.

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(l to r: Michele Bathshit Bachmann, Mitch Yertle McConnell, Kay I-Lost-to-Gov-Little-Ricky-Goodhair Bailey Hutchison, Lindsey Lindseypoo Graham, Virginia So-Not-A Foxx, Marsha! Marsha! Marsha! Blackburn, Tom Acts-of-God Cole, and Jim Beanball Bunning

Bob McDonnell: No Slave to History

From PostPartisan at The Washington Post:

So it turns out that slavery did cause the Civil War. So says Bob McDonnell, Republican governor of Virginia — a student of the Better Late Than Never School of Political Damage Control.

On Tuesday the governor issued a proclamation that declared April as Confederate History Month, noted that “all Virginians” honored the Confederacy’s sacrifice and, amazingly, included no mention of slavery or slaves. Never mind that nearly half a million black slaves lived in Virginia at the time, or that large numbers of Virginians (especially non-slave owners) opposed secession.

Governor xKen Dollx McDonnell has also proclaimed that new currency will be used to commemorate Confederate History Month.

That’s Governor xKen Dollx McDonnell on the left and his wife, Maureen xStepfordx McDonnell on the right. As you can see from the picture on the bill, there was none of the “bad” slavery in Virginia, and that’s why the governor forgot to mention it. Look closely, and you’ll see that those aren’t hoes the slaves are holding. They’re golf clubs, and the slaves were having a helluva good time! If not for Virginia slavery, we wouldn’t have Tiger Woods today.

Look at the other cool bill that will be in circulation:

Pearls(tein) of Wisdom

From Steven Pearlstein at The Washington Post:

I’m not sure what else was accomplished at Thursday’s Blair House summit, but surely one result is that we learned what Republican “leaders” really think about health care and health insurance.

The most important thing Republicans think is that if there are Americans who can’t afford the insurance policies that private insurers are willing to offer, then that’s their problem — there’s nothing the government or the rest of us should do about it.

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