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February, 2009:

A Second Look | Jim Bunning Threatens To Resign From Senate To Hurt GOP

Feb 28th, 2009
by Tom.
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via Jim Bunning Threatens To Resign From Senate To Hurt GOP.

The Louisville Courier-Journal has another bombshell about Sen. Jim Bunning, the embattled Republican who is increasingly going rogue in an effort to hold onto his seat.

In recent weeks, Senate Republican leaders have walked right up to the edge of declaring open war on Bunning. Minority Leader (and fellow Kentucky senator) Mitch McConnell and others reportedly

Kentucky Senator Jim Bunning

believe Bunning is likely to lose his reelection race in 2010, and so are trying to nudge him into retirement by sending signals that the party establishment will not back him.

Bunning has responded aggressively, threatening to sue the Senate Republicans’ campaign arm if it doesn’t fully back his reelection.

Bunning is shouting back at his republican peers that if the National Republican Senatorial Committee gives him anything except the money he asks for, then he’ll sue the NRSC. It seems as though Mitch McConnell thinks that Bunning can’t get re-elected.

You’d think that our great and powerful Senators would have more to do at a time like this, or maybe the most important thing in Washington is the election cycle. From the Louisville Courier-Journal:

Bunning wants to run for a third term, but McConnell and Cornyn have sent clear messages that they want Kentucky’s junior senator to stand aside over concerns that he won’t be re-elected.

But, they don’t want him to stand aside right now, which is what he is threatening to do if he doesn’t get the support he wants.

“I would get the last laugh. Don’t forget Kentucky has a Democrat [sic] governor,” one of the sources quoted Bunning as saying.

“The only logical extension of that comment is, ‘(Make me mad) … enough and I’ll resign, and then you’ve got 60 Democrats,’ ” said another source who was present at the event.

…making the Senate filibuster proof and threatening, of course, to drain the Republicans of whatever small amount of power they have left.

I have rarely seen a more bold and extravagant case of political grandstanding in my life. Whatever McConnell or Cornyn think of Bunning’s chances of re-election, right now he is displaying uncanny political savvy.

If they are basing their fears of Bunning being defeated because of his lack of fund raising, then isn’t that easily remedied by throwing money at him? Isn’t that what he is asking for in the first place?

Grandstanding, or a nexus -  whichever it is, it is getting played out in the media and that’s what Bunning is after. Shrewd. Maybe McConnell is making a big mistake with this guy.

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A Second Look: TPMMuckraker | Talking Points Memo | Jindal Admits Katrina Story Was False

Feb 28th, 2009
by Tom.
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via TPMMuckraker | Talking Points Memo | Jindal Admits Katrina Story Was False.

Remember that story Bobby Jindal told in his big speech Tuesday night — about how during Katrina, he stood shoulder-to-shoulder with a local sheriff who was battling government red tape to try to rescue stranded victims?

Turns out it wasn’t actually, you know, true.

(snip)

Jindal had described being in the office of Sheriff Harry Lee “during Katrina,” and hearing him yelling into the phone at a government bureaucrat who was refusing to let him send volunteer boats out to rescue stranded storm victims, because they didn’t have the necessary permits. Jindal said he told Lee, “that’s ridiculous,” prompting Lee to tell the bureaucrat that the rescue effort would go ahead and he or she could arrest both Lee and Jindal.

But now, a Jindal spokeswoman has admitted to Politico that in reality, Jindal overheard Lee talking about the episode to someone else by phone “days later.” The spokeswoman said she thought Lee, who died in 2007, was being interviewed about the incident at the time.

I watched the rebuttal. Sitting on the sofa with my wife I exclaimed out loud that “That’s a lie! He’s lying!”

I can tell when someone is lying and when he told that tale I knew it was too tall to be true. His chin dropped, his eyes went wide and he smirked all the way through the story. His face gave him away. He could never play poker.

There’s not much else on this story except he’s not the first prominent Republican to stand up to the world and tell a whopper. At least nobody is going to die over this one. I’m including the video from TPMMuckraker. It should go viral:

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A Second Look | Consortiumnews.com: Can You Trust the Republicans?

Feb 27th, 2009
by Tom.
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via Consortiumnews.com.

If you watch the pundits on cable news or read the big-name newspaper columnists, you will find a general consensus that the national Republicans are returning to their core principles in their near-unanimous opposition to President Barack Obama’s stimulus bill and other proposals.

(snip) Republicans are taken at their word when they claim to be motivated by ideological consistency in opposing Obama’s “big government” solutions to America’s economic troubles, not by a political desire to strangle Obama’s presidency in the cradle.

(snip) One of the most telling responses to a recent New York Times/CBS News poll was what people said in answering Question 44: “Do you think [Republicans] opposed [the stimulus bill] mostly because they thought it would be bad for the economy or mostly for political reasons?”

Sixty-three percent of respondents cited “political reasons” and only 29 percent believed the “not good for the economy” explanation from the Republicans. This two-to-one margin suggests that the Republicans are suffering from a serious credibility gap.

“…a general consensus that the national Republicans are returning to their core principles…” Are we talking about the core principles of the Bush II administration? Or, are we talking about the core principles of the Bush I or Reagan’s administration? I have to ask because I’m confused. I was under the impression that the core principles haven’t changed since Reagan -  twenty-seven years ago. The media owes me an explanation.

And how and why did they ever leave their core principles in the first place? (I can’t tell the difference.)

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