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Subscribe to RSSSecond GOP presidential debate tonight presents us with a few firsts… Pay attention to the topic of health care, after Pawlenty’s “ObamneyCare” broadside yesterday… Debate starts at 8:00 pm ET from Manchester, NH… New Hampshire Dem Party pre-buts the debate with noon ET press conference… Obama’s next two (very political) days in NC, FL, and Puerto Rico… Weiner’s distraction for Democrats… Santorum’s “Meet” appearance… And 2012 GOP presidential candidates embrace the Tea Party’s language.
*** Manchester United: Although tonight's GOP presidential debate in Manchester, NH is the second debate of the primary season, it presents us with a few firsts. It’s the first debate featuring Mitt Romney, Newt Gingrich, and Michele Bachmann, none of whom participated at last month’s GOP debate in South Carolina. It’s the first debate after last week’s Gingrich “Newtiny.” It’s the first debate since much of the economic news turned south. (By contrast, the South Carolina debate was right after Osama bin Laden’s death). And it’s the first debate since Tim Pawlenty took his first true jab at Romney on health care, telling FOX yesterday: “President Obama said that he designed ObamaCare after RomneyCare, and basically made it ObamneyCare.”
*** Pay attention to the topic of health care: It’s a legitimate question to ask: Who will come under more fire at tonight’s debate -- President Obama or Romney? Early presidential debates rarely include direct attacks or heated exchanges, because the candidates all are trying to make a good first (or second) impression. That said, time is a-wastin’, and Pawlenty yesterday telegraphed what could be a more aggressive debate strategy than we're used to seeing this early in the process. If Pawlenty starts in on him, will the rest of the field pile on? As we learned in the ’08 cycle (think that famous Philly debate when the issue of drivers licenses for illegal immigrants came up), the pile-on is the only effective way to stop a front-runner. What’s more, Pawlenty makes a health-care-related stop before the debate at Next Step Orthotics & Prosthetics, Inc. in Manchester at 11:00 am ET. And the liberal Dem Super PAC group Protect Your Care is airing a TV ad (being broadcast in the Boston market and on WMUR in New Hampshire) hitting the Ryan budget’s plan on Medicare. Pawlenty, of course, has his own challenges heading into this debate, including making sure he's not overshadowed by the other candidate from Minnesota making her OWN debate debut: Bachmann.
*** Debate 411: Tonight’s two-hour debate starts at 8:00 pm ET, and it’s co-hosted by CNN, WMUR, and the New Hampshire Union Leader. It takes place from St. Anselm College in Manchester. The moderator is CNN’s John King. The seven Republicans participating at the debate: Bachmann, Herman Cain, Gingrich, Ron Paul, Pawlenty, Romney, and Rick Santorum. Jon Huntsman, who has not yet announced his presidential bid, is NOT participating. The New Hampshire Democratic Party pre-buts today’s with a news conference near St. Anselm at noon ET.
*** Obama’s next two (very political) days in NC, FL, and Puerto Rico: President Obama’s visits to North Carolina, Florida, and Puerto Rico over the next two days is all about presidential politics in NC and FL, even the trip to Puerto Rico. At 1:45 pm ET, Obama delivers remarks at Cree Inc. in Durham, NC. Per the White House, Cree Inc. is a “leading manufacturer of energy-efficient LED lighting.” Then he heads to Miami to attend two DNC fundraisers and overnights down there. On Tuesday, the president travels to Puerto Rico, the native land of plenty of Latino voters who live (and vote in) the Sunshine State. By the way, NBC’s Ann Curry interviews the president today in North Carolina, and the interview will air on “TODAY” tomorrow morning. For those who love looking at the electoral map, realize that Team Obama views FL and NC as their OH insurance policy. Privately, more and more Democrats are nervous about holding Ohio and most of the strategic decisions by the Obama campaign involve making sure they don't get fall into the Kerry trap from 2004 where it's Ohio or bust.
*** Weiner’s distraction: Want to know why Rep. Anthony Weiner’s (D) decision not to resign from Congress -- after calls by top party leaders to do so -- has become a distraction for Democrats? David Gregory’s first 10 questions in yesterday’s “Meet the Press” debate between DNC Chair Debbie Wassermann Schultz and RNC Chair Reince Priebus were about Weiner. Not the Ryan budget plan. Not the economy. Not the war in Afghanistan. “At the end of the day, a member of Congress makes their own decision,” Wasserman Schultz said. And that's certainly going to be up to Anthony Weiner. But we have made clear that he needs to resign.” The Weiner news also led “TODAY” this morning. Weiner has perhaps one friend left in the New York delegation who isn't calling for him publicly to resign. Other than that, he's politically as alone as ever.
*** On Santorum’s “Meet” appearance: Rick Santorum also appeared on “Meet” yesterday as part of the program’s “Meet the Candidates” series. Santorum said, if elected president, he would repeal the health-care law, even its provisions prohibiting denying coverage based on pre-existing conditions. About his 18-point Senate loss in ’06, he said: “I learned from that race is that losing isn't the worst thing that can happen to you.” He said he favors raising Social Security’s retirement age, and he agreed with the characterization that he’s the true conservative in the GOP field. “I'm someone who's been out there for 16 years, having the courage to lead on a variety of conservative issues when they weren't popular.” When asked if Romney and Huntsman are true conservatives, Santorum replied, “I think they have held positions in the past that have not been conservative. And I think they have to account for those.”
*** The GOP and the Tea Party: As one of us will report on MSNBC’s “Daily Rundown” this morning, the early GOP rhetoric on the 2012 presidential campaign trail has been dominated by language associated with the Tea Party. “Conservative values had come to dominate Republican presidential primaries in recent years. But after the election of 2010, on the Republican side, EVERYONE'S Tea Party now.” Roll Call also runs with this theme today: “2012 Race Steeped in Tea Party.”
Countdown to Iowa GOP straw poll: 61 days
Countdown to NV-2 special election: 92 days
Countdown to Election Day 2011: 148 days
Countdown to the Iowa caucuses: 238 days
* Note: When the IA caucuses take place depends on whether other states move up
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I swore I would no longer put myself through the distress of watching Gotcha Gregory on MTP!
However, I must confess I tuned in to see Debbie Wasserman Schultz eat Reince Priebus for LUNCH!
She didn't disappoint!
PRICELESS!
It's no wonder the right wingers are so intimidated by her, she doesn't take any cr@p and refuses to let people talk over her!
Debbie had her facts in order and poor little Reince was shell-shocked before all was said & done! lol
Bonus points to Debbie, for extending not only her hand but her call for BOTH parties to sit down and WORK on the problems facing this country.
Notice – the party of obstructionist's fearless 'leader' did NOT accept the offer?
JUST SAY NO lives on…
Speaking of Santorum - I can sum him up in ONE word - CREEPY!
Meanwhile, I had tears in my eyes when I saw the photos of Gabby Giffords! What a miraculous path to recovery she has traveled! May her journey continue to be successful…
In other news, all I will say about Weiner is, the dude has some serious 'man-scaping' going on.
Even so, he still NEEDS to go!
For those who might of missed Bill Maher & Jane Lynch read Weiner's actual 'sext' messages from the 'Weinerlogues', you HAVE to check it out! It's MUST see TV! LMAO *popcorn*
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HClsBFDLye4
Well, three of the Dem leadership pols finally got around to calling on Anthony Weiner to resign on Saturday, about a week too late. They should have done so last Monday night or Tuesday morning, after his press conference. As noted in the article below, many in the Dem leadership still have not called for him to resign. Although I believe this pervert should resign, I am now looking forward to him staying and being a thorn in the sides of the Dems. Let’s face it, if the DNC Chair and House Minority Leader call for his resignation and Anthony basically tells them to bend over and kiss his weiner, there can only be many, many Hillaryous laughs ahead of us.
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
From Politico:
Dems worry Weiner will hurt agenda
By: Jonathan Allen and Jake Sherman
June 12, 2011 11:10 PM EDT
Democratic leaders face a no-win situation this week as the House convenes for the first time since Rep. Anthony Weiner acknowledged sending sexual photographs and text messages to a half-dozen women over the past three years.
Reps. Nancy Pelosi of California, Debbie Wasserman Schultz of Florida and Steve Israel of New York — the House minority leader, the Democratic National Committee chairwoman and the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee chairman, respectively — failed to force Weiner from office after going public Saturday with previously private demands that he resign from the seat he has held since 1999.
Still, several House leaders — Minority Whip Steny Hoyer of Maryland, Assistant Democratic Leader Jim Clyburn of South Carolina, Democratic Caucus Chairman John Larson of Connecticut and Vice Chairman Xavier Becerra of California — pointedly did not join the choreographed team push. None of them has directly called for Weiner to resign, though Hoyer did say Sunday on CBS’s “Face the Nation” that he hopes “he would make that judgment.”
It was striking to some Democrats that Pelosi called on Weiner to resign, because he had supported her in leadership elections. Now Weiner, who’s always been a bit of a loose cannon, may feel free to make trouble for Democratic leaders if he stays in office.
“She fired the shot. And if he doesn’t resign, she fired and missed,” said a Democratic lawmaker. “He’s not the kind of guy you want out there doing [stuff]” to retaliate.
ECONOMIC DOWNTURN AND BUSH POLICIES CONTINUE
TO DRIVE LARGE PROJECTED DEFICITS
http://www.cbpp.org/files/5-10-11bud.pdf
This is what the GOP/TP keeps denying and then turning around and trying to blame President Obama. The facts as outlined in this detailed report are that the previous administration put us in the toilet and no matter who was elected President he/she would be faced with many years of reconstruction. It took 8 years to get into this mess and no president, Republican or Democrat, can reverse the damage in 2 plus years. Especially if you take into consideration that the GOP/TP for the last 2 plus years have done everything in their power to try and make President Obama fail. They have stalled over 400 Bills in the Senate with outright objections (blocks) or filibusters demanding 60 votes. They (GOP/TP) have opposed virtually every Bill that has anything to do with creating jobs and/or helping Small Businesses. Go look up their record of virtually 100% “Obstructionism” on legislation that would have moved this country forward, like the $50 Billion Dollar infrastructure bill for example.
And to compound the problem, the GOP/TP is proposing the same Agenda today as this one above that got us into this mess to begin with. The GOP/TP has no new ideas; just the same old same old just repackaged, but with the same failed programs. Just look at the “Ryan Bill”, T-Paw’s proposal which is even worse and the new Bachmann initiative that is worse than the other two. None of them address the cost driving issues in this country. None of them have any plans to create jobs and stimulate the economy, in fact they all do just the opposite. And these are being presented as “Fiscally Responsible” Bills” that will answer all our problems when they add anywhere from $5.5 Trillion to almost $8 Trillion to the deficit/debt in the next decade while giving the Millionaires & Billionaires record tax cuts. In addition these “bogus” spending cut /economic bills destroy most of the Social Programs that benefit the Middle Class and Low Income Families, like the destruction of Pell Grants for education, Medical Research, Food and Product Safety etc etc etc etc.
What these have in common is the promotion of the GOP/TP agenda that “Spending Cuts” and Tax Cuts for the richest 2% are Americas answer to all our problems. They are not. Not any of these address the real problems we are facing.
Joe in Albany (saint)
Weiner bla bla bla.....is there a Weiner in you?
GOP in Manchester......what will they say and what will they not say?
they will say Obama brought this impending plague of an economy unto us even when all statistics have shown he's made progress and they will not say they have not offered any meaningful alternative, not alternatives, solution to Washington cul de sac.
Navy Vet, great post, why in the hell aren't we getting this from the MSM? It really torks me off! The Repubs have trashed this country and the TP believes by doing the same things, only more of them will make us all better. Mind boggling. And Fiesty, I'm still laughing at the Maher video. Weiner really has to go NOW! All the BS about him is overshadowing what we need to be focusing on. Can't wait to see the sharks circling Romney tonight!
With 47% of Americans not making enough money to pay Federal Income taxes, with one in 4 children going to bed hungry, with unemployment at over 9%, with foreclosures and homelessness on the rise and home prices at the lowest they’ve been since 2002, not one proposal from any GOP candidate asks that the Bush tax cuts not be renewed so that cuts to programs affecting the poor and elderly need not be so severe.
This weekend, I read some of the proposals made by GOP Presidential candidates to jumpstart the economy. Mitt Romney called for lowering the corporate tax rate from 35 percent to 25 percent, while Tim Pawlenty called for a cut to 15 percent. Michele Bachmann is calling for a reduction in the corporate tax rate to 9 percent. The huge corporate tax not being enough, Bachmann also proposed tax reductions for the rich, as well as a tax increase on the working poor:
“In my perfect world, we’d take the 35% corporate tax rate down to nine so that we’re the most competitive in the industrialized world. Zero out capital gains. Zero out the alternative minimum tax. Zero out the death tax.”
Add to that this from Forbes about cuts in Medicare in NJ.
If you live in the state of New Jersey and are earning $118 a week, congratulations! According to Gov. Chris Christie, you have escaped the bonds of poverty and no longer are in need of the state’s Medicaid program. Never mind that $118 a week is but a fraction of the poverty line as defined by the United States of America. Pay no attention to the fact that New Jersey battles California for the mantle of having the highest cost of living of any state in the nation.
Chris Christie, everyone’s favorite no-nonsense, “tell it like it is” governor, has decided that you can manage quite nicely on this paltry sum while remaining fully capable of paying for your own medical care.
Sound like a joke? It’s not. And it is difficult to imagine anything less humorous.
Under the Christie plan, adults with a family of four who earn more than $6,000 a year would no longer qualify for the state’s Medicaid program. Currently, the cut-off to qualify is $30,000.
Think about that for a moment. A single mother raising three kids on a weekly salary of $118 will no longer be eligible to take advantage of the medical social safety net should she fall ill.
I can hear my conservative friends rising in chorus – mom should have thought about that before having all those kids she couldn’t afford!
Maybe she should have. If only there were some place these women could turn to for family planning advice so that they might avoid this problem. But wait – there is such a program in New Jersey. Or, to be more precise, there was such a program in New Jersey.
It turns out that women’s clinics are disappearing from the New Jersey landscape as Governor Christie uses the budget pen to wipe out women’s health programs that might also provide abortion services as a small part of what they make available to women so badly in need of their health care and counseling services. This, despite the fact that no state or federal taxpayer money went towards paying for any such abortion services long before Christie began his assault on women’s health.
In his last budget, Christy sliced $7.5 million from family planning clinics – a cut his new budget proudly continues. As a result, health and planning services so vital to low income women are becoming very hard to find in New Jersey- not to mention the many other states where Governors are using the budget to enact their social, anti-abortion agendas.
What do we call powerful people when they pick on the weakest among us? We call them bullies. And Governor Chris Christie exemplifies the modern-day bully. Is it any wonder, then, that the GOP sees Christie as the man they would so gladly follow into the 2012 election battle?
Christie’s proposal to cut over $500 million from the state’s Medicaid program would not only affect parents earning far too little to support their families. Some of the deepest cuts would leave seniors, who require full-time, in-facility nursing home care, literally out in the cold as the funding that supports their ability to get the medical attention they need disappears.
I suppose these elderly can move back into the homes of their children – many of whom are the ones earning over $6,000 a year, but well below the national poverty line, who will no longer be able to care for their own health needs let another find a way to pay for the care of their sick parents.
There is some good news in this otherwise bleak story. Come 2014, when the federal government steps in to play a larger role in financing the state Medicaid programs (they already pay for about half of the costs), it will be illegal for these people to be denied care.
Accordingly, all these folks need do is see to it they do not get sick between now and 2014. How hard can this be? As New Jersey U.S. Senator Robert Menendez put it, “The state is effectively telling these families to wait until 2014 to get coverage again. Unfortunately, there is no such thing as a waiver for getting cancer.”
Certainly, some deal can be cut between man, woman and God resulting in that cancer scheduled to show up next year holding off until 2014 when care will be available. And how much damage can uncontrolled diabetes really do when untreated for a three year period? So, maybe you lose a couple of toes as the diabetes ravages your body.
As Chris Christie would no doubt remind you, forfeiting a few digits for the common good of wealthy millionaires for whom Christie continues to cut taxes, is a small price to pay.
After all, those tax cuts might just result in you getting a better job in the future – assuming you’re still alive.
And if you aren’t, at least you will die in the knowledge that you will have given your life to improve Chris Christie’s chances of becoming President of these United States.
http:/blogs.forbes.com/rickungar/2011/06/12/gov-chris-says-earn-6000-a-year-no-medicaid-for-you/
It's a moot point. The Bush/Obama tax cuts will expire on Jan01/2013, three weeks before the new President is inaugurated.
Groucho, I read you same posting on another question here. How much more do you think the people of N.J. should pay? My husband worked two jobs for 17 years I worked two jobs for 6 years. We did it to raise our family and to send our children to college ( without loans or grants). We saved money so when my husband was out of work for six months we had enough money to buy health insurance. Gov't needs to stop punishing people for being responsible
xxx