Eric Cantor's Magic Bullet

Up and to the left. Up and to the left...

Unfortunately the mainstream media will still probably use this as a basis for false equivalency.

And This Is Why You Can't Take Them Seriously

President Obama had a bipartisan meeting yesterday on the Hill about job creation. During the course of the conversation resident House GOP golden boy Eric Cantor had this to say.

"The president said he would look at some of our proposals,'' Representative Eric Cantor, the House Republican whip, told reporters after the session. But, he added, "there is a stark contrast between what the president is proposing and our no-cost jobs plan.''

And what exactly is their "no-cost jobs plan"?

TAX CUTSSSSSSSSSSS!!!

Of course.

But here is the thing, tax cuts actually, you know, cost money. Any cuts in revenue will have a negative effect on our deficit. Now sometimes that is necessary, like now, when you have an economy that is faltering. But make no mistake about it, when the CBO scores any tax cuts that are proposed and or are eventually implemented, it will affect our bottom line and add to our deficit. That the GOP is still classifying tax cuts as "no-cost" tells you everything you need to know about their mindset. Not only did they learn nothing about how the economy over the previous 8 years of big tax cuts to the wealthy, they seem to know absolutely nothing about what adds to the deficit.

Now again, in this case some targeted tax cuts will probably be beneficial in the short term to get our economy back on track. But to try to say that they will be free is just another sign of how dumb the GOP's leading figures really are. It ain't rocket science. Hell even a high school economics student would recognize that tax cuts cost money.

But this is your Republican Party these days, and that's why there is no reason to really take them seriously.

It is what it is.

Do Mainstream Media Journalists Know The Meaning Of The Word Hypocrite?

Witness this post on the Virginia politics blog at the Washington Post.

For months, Democrats have dubbed U.S. Rep. Eric Cantor of Virginia a hypocrite for strongly opposing the federal stimulus package only to promote aspects of it later.
Here's the latest example:

Nearly half of the 30 organizations participating in a job fair Cantor is holding Monday in Culpeper were recipients of the stimulus.

The list includes a slew of government agencies and schools that have directly benefited from the package and may be using stimulus money to hire people (as the money was originally designed to do), including the Orange County public schools, the Transportation Security Administration and Virginia Department of Labor, and some companies that may have indirectly benefited such as Comcast and Terremark.

Cantor, a Richmond area congressman and the No. 2 Republican in the House, was one of the most vocal critics of the $787 billion economic stimulus bill that Congress passed in February. He has since said the package was a failure.

Now its all fine and good that this blog published what the Democrats "said" about Cantor, but how much damn evidence does the writer need in order to confirm or deny that Cantor is being a hypocrite over the stimulus? Its pretty fucking obvious to most folks that this isn't a matter of opposing opinions. You can't call something a failure then show up at a damn jobs fair skinning and grinning when half the folks there wouldn't be able to participate if not for the stimulus.

Its the same thing with the word liar. I wonder if for just one week American journalists used the words hypocrite and liar when talking about politicians who on a factual basis were hypocrites and liars. Maybe, just maybe they would knock that bullshit off.

Unfortunately nobody in the mainstream media has the balls to do that, so I guess we will never know.

Treasonous

Someone needs to ask Congressman Eric Cantor if he is an American or an Israeli. And fast!

JERUSALEM — The Obama administration's policy on Israel is misguided, puts too much emphasis on the issue of settlements and ignores the bigger threat of a nuclear-armed Iran, a U.S. delegation of Republican congressmen visiting Israel said Thursday.

Led by minority whip Eric Cantor from Virginia, the only Jewish Republican in Congress, the delegation of 25 Republicans say their weeklong mission to Israel is designed to show solidarity with the Jewish state and promote Mideast peace. A group of Democratic congressmen are expected to visit next week.

Cantor said that instead of focusing on issues such as Israeli settlement activity in the West Bank, Obama should concentrate on "the primary issue of import ... and that is the existential threat that Iran poses not only to the state of Israel but to the United States."

The congressman said he is "concerned about what the White House has been signaling of late."

No Congressman sets the foreign policy of this country, the President does that. And Cantor going overseas to another country to undermine President Obama's poicy stance is way the fuck out of bounds, even for the GOP. Its time some enterprising journalist actually asked him some tough questions.

Pucker Up

All bullshit and snark aside, Republicans aren't you sick and tired of your elected officials kissing Rush Limbaugh's crusty fat ass? I am seriously embarrased for you.





But don't get me wrong, the shit IS still funny! LOL

They Got Nothing

When even Joe Scarborough is calling the GOP out for not having any alternatives you know they have hit rock bottom.

The Party Of Hypocrites

Great new ad from the DNC dinging Congressmen Eric Cantor and John Boehner

The House Republicans Are So Full Of Fail

I guess House Republican leadership figures taking a page out of Bill O's ambush journalism book is just what they need to get back in power. I mean reading scripts on the floor of the House? Seriously? I guess all of those 119 people are SOOOOOOOOOOO impressed.

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

The Party Of No Is Now The Party Of Zero

Great new ad from the DNC PWNING the House Republicans over their "budget" proposal.



(h/t HuffPo)

Breaking News: Everybody Hates Eric Cantor

You just gotta love this...

House Minority Whip Eric Cantor (Va.), a politically shrewd up-and-comer in the GOP, has broken with his party on two high-profile issues. And the defections on last week’s AIG bonus tax bill and the Obama administration’s troubled assets plan have exasperated some members in the GOP conference.

The grumbling started when Cantor unexpectedly voted with Democrats last week on a measure to recoup the bonuses of AIG executives. Many Republicans called the bill unconstitutional, with more than half of the GOP conference rejecting it. Cantor, who has been labeled “Mr. No” by some Democrats, was one of only two Republican leadership officials who voted for the bill. Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers (Wash.) was the other.

“All the unconstitutional stuff aside, if you don’t believe in raising taxes, why would you vote to raise taxes?” House Republican Conference Secretary John Carter (Texas) said.

Rep. Louie Gohmert (R-Texas) added that supporting the retroactive tax cut “sets a terrible precedent, just terrible.”

snip

Another Republican suggested more members might have voted no if Cantor had.

The GOP legislator who rejected the Democratic bill said sarcastically, “When your whip votes against you, it’s kind of tough to whip for it.”

Cantor’s colleagues in leadership called the bill “a sham.” Minority Leader John Boehner (R-Ohio) said that it was “more than an attempt to cover someone’s rear end because of the political damage that’s out there.”

Boehner told reporters last Thursday that he did not know how Cantor was going to vote on the bill. Boehner voted no early on, while Cantor waited until late to register his vote of yes.

But a leadership aide privy to conversations among GOP leaders said that in the end, Cantor “got spooked.”

snip

Cantor this week adopted a position on Obama’s plan to buy troubled assets from banks that is at odds with that of other GOP leaders on Capitol Hill.

The 45-year-old lawmaker issued a statement that excoriated the administration’s proposal.

Meanwhile, Wall Street and Republican leaders in the Senate embraced the plan as the Dow Jones Industrial Average spiked nearly 7 percent.

Cantor called it a “shell game that hides the true cost of the program from the taxpayers that will be asked to pay for it.”

The top Republican on the Senate Budget Committee labeled it “a genuine and sincere effort.”

Boehner distanced himself from Cantor’s characterization of the assets initiative.

Boehner told reporters on Tuesday that Republicans were going to take a wait-and-see approach before offering an alternative.

“We’ll wait for more details before we prescribe what we think would be a better solution,” Boehner said.

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) said on Monday that he was willing to “give the secretary of the Treasury credit for finally turning to the real issue here.”

Maybe Lawrence O'Donnell Should Host Meet The Press

I just love the fact that Republicans think Eric Cantor is their future. This idiot couldn't answer a follow up question if you gave him cue cards. The only problem is that usually no one asks him any including David Gregory. Well I bet Joe Scarborough hates that he had Cantor on at the same time as Lawrence O'Donnell. Cantor might never forgive him! lol

Eric Cantor On Hypocrisy Watch.

The only question is why David Gregory couldn't call him out on the spot. Oh right, IOKIYAR!

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Real Answers Vs Bloviating Rhetoric

The contrast was stark today on Meet The Press between the answers given by Dr. Christina Romer Chairwoman of President Obama's Council of Economic Advisors and House Republican Whip Eric Cantor. David Gregory was his usual Republican talking point repeating self but even he couldn't cover up the fact that Romer was giving him straight answers while Cantor was doing nothing but criticism without even a hint of a viable alternative. Here are some of the highlights of Romer's segment and some of the lowlights of Cantor's

MR. GREGORY: So back then during the campaign when Senator McCain talked about the strong fundamentals of the economy, it was then-candidate Obama and his team that roundly criticized McCain, saying he was out of touch, he didn't get it, he didn't understand how bad the economy was. And yet now the president's talking about the strong fundamentals of the economy. So what's different between then, the campaign, and now, except for the fact that the economy's gotten dramatically worse?

DR. ROMER: I think when the president says he's focusing on fundamentals, what he means is, is we're focusing on, on fixing the fundamentals; that we've always said we're not looking at the ups and downs of the stock market, we're looking for those crucial indicators: when are jobs turning around, when are sales turning around, when do we see consumers coming to life? That's the kind of thing that--certainly that I'm looking at in terms of when's the economy going to be doing better and, and when can we see some hope.

MR. GREGORY: Are the fundamentals of this economy sound?

DR. ROMER: Well, of course the fundamentals are sound in the sense that the American workers are sound, we have a good capital stock, we have good technology. We know that, that temporarily we're in a mess, right? We've seen huge job loss, we've seen very large falls in GDP. So certainly in the short run we're in a, in a bad situation.

MR. GREGORY: All right, but then what's different between now and then, when the economy was in even better shape than it, it is now, when McCain was saying the fundamentals were strong and then-candidate Obama criticized him?

DR. ROMER: I think--again, I think what, what we're saying is that the, you know, where we are today is obviously not good. We have a plan in place to get to a good place. I think that's the crucial--a fundamentally crucial difference, is to make sure that you have put in place all of the comprehensive programs that'll get us back to those fundamentals.

The other thing I think is so important, the president has actually said in terms of fundamentals, we need to make changes. That's why he's focusing on energy, education, getting the budget deficit under control, precisely because he said...

MR. GREGORY: Right.

DR. ROMER: ...when we get through this thing, we want to be in a better place.

MR. GREGORY: But perhaps Senator McCain was right when he said the fundamentals of the economy were strong, because you have President Obama saying roughly the same thing now?

DR. ROMER: I really think you're misinterpreting the president. I think the key thing that the president was saying is we have our eyes on the fundamentals, that is why we're concerned about.

Now I have to step in here and point out that John King tried to make a similar case today on his show State of the Nation which is a perfect example of Villager group think. I don't know how someone who purports to be a journalist can't understand the difference between the word sound and the word strong. John McCain was claiming that the economy was just fine and in point of fact didn't even acknowledge the recession we were in until the Bush Administration announced last Septemeber that we had been in a recession since the previous December. Then Senator Obama had been talking about the sorry state of our economy for months before that announcement and he hasn't suddenly said everything was fine. I thought Dr. Romer did a great job of not only setting the record straight but also calling Gregory out for misrepresenting what President Obama said.

MR. GREGORY: But there are, there are economists, like liberal economist and columnist Paul Krugman, who say it's not premature at all if you look at the facts. This is what he wrote on Monday: "Many economists, myself included, actually argued that the [stimulus] plan was too small and too cautious. The latest data confirm these worries--and suggest that the Obama administration's economic policies are already falling behind the curve. To see how bad the numbers are, consider this: The administration's budget proposals, released less than two weeks ago, assumed an average unemployment rate of 8.1 percent for the whole of this year. In reality, unemployment hit that level in February--and it's rising fast. ... As a result, Mr. Obama's promise that his plan will create or save 3.5 million jobs by the end of 2010 looks underwhelming, to say the least. ... Three point five million jobs almost two years from now isn't enough in the face of an economy that has already lost 4.4 million jobs, and is losing 600,000 more each month."

DR. ROMER: I think the crucial thing to realize is that the fiscal stimulus that we've done is not the only thing that we've done. I love one of Secretary's Geithner's comments, is there's more fiscal stimulus in economic rescue than in stimulus, right? That we now that if we get, for example, our banks lending again, that's very good for spending. People can do investment, people can buy cars. And so it's not as though the stimulus package has to carry the whole weight. Likewise, our housing plan. One of the things that that does is allow a lot of people who hadn't been able to refinance to get the lower mortgage rates that have come about, and that's like a tax cut for them. Mark Zandi has estimated something like $30 billion of extra spending coming out of that. So I think if, if stimulus were the only thing carrying the lift...

MR. GREGORY: Mm-hmm.

DR. ROMER: ...Paul Krugman might be right. But to realize we've got a much more comprehensive plan.

Funny how David Gregory never found the occasion to quote Dr Krugman until AFTER the stimulus was passed. I seem to recall that the only point of view he ever put forth was of the economists who wanted the stimulus bill to be smaller back when, you know, it might have actually counted with public opinion. But again Romer has the facts on her side and she is more than willing to enlighten Gregory.

MR. GREGORY: I want to ask you about a few items in the news. One is health care, the administration signaling that the president is now open to taxing employer health benefits for employees. This was something that John McCain proposed in the election and President, then-candidate Obama was opposed to it. Is he changing his view?

DR. ROMER: He is still opposed to it. He certainly was very critical and very skeptical of it. It is certainly not in our proposal. And we have proposed other ways to, to deal with health care and to fund it. And so no, it is not something that he supports.

MR. GREGORY: So the reports about him now considering this being open to it are wrong?

DR. ROMER: He--his, his, his skepticism from the campaign absolutely is, is still there.

MR. GREGORY: So he's opposed to it. It's off the table.

DR. ROMER: He is absolutely opposed to it and skeptical and...

MR. GREGORY: You're not saying it's off the table.

DR. ROMER: I, I'm not going to say one way or the other that...

MR. GREGORY: But he, he might consider it, in other words?

DR. ROMER: I think what he has said from the beginning is there are no such thing as Democratic and Republican ideas, there are just good ideas. He will listen to good ideas. This is not one that he has, has ever supported.

MR. GREGORY: OK, but he's not ruling it out.

I don't know how much clearer Dr. Romer would have had to have been. This is classic David Gregory though. He wants to present a negative point of view so he tries to make sure that he casts doubt all the way to the end. Dr Romer literally said "He is still opposed to it" but was that enough for Gregory? Of course not. Look at how many follow up questions he asked to this one question just so he could say in the end it wasn't off of the table. Funny how on the one hand he wants Dr. Romer to declare something definitive and on the other hand if she had he would be complaining that President Obama wasn't bipartisan enough. Go figure.

MR. GREGORY: Small business. There's a proposal that the administration is reportedly thinking about specifically targeted towards helping small businesses. Can you describe it?

DR. ROMER: Absolutely. We know that small businesses are the engine of growth in the economy, and we absolutely want to do things to help them. There are already a lot of things to help them in the recovery package, and some of what will be coming out are the things that were in the recovery package: increasing the SBA loan guarantees, lowering fees. But we also know that, that we've talked to a lot of small business owners, and one of the trouble they're having is just community banks don't want to lend to them because the secondary market in SBA loans has virtually disappeared. So one of the things we'll be...

MR. GREGORY: The secondary market, where most of the lending takes place, about 40 percent of lending takes place in the country.

DR. ROMER: Absolutely. And where, you know, banks go and they sell those SBA loans off their books, and then they can go back and make more of them.

MR. GREGORY: Mm-hmm.

DR. ROMER: And that market has just been frozen. And one of the things we'll be announcing is a program to get that market cleared and, and working again.

MR. GREGORY: And how will you do it?

DR. ROMER: Basically the government will go in and step up and, and buy those loans if, if there aren't private investors to do it, to get them...

MR. GREGORY: How much money? How much money will the government pump into the market?

DR. ROMER: I think that's all going to be announced tomorrow. I don't want to take all the thunder away. But it is a significant amount. It is--we want to, to, to demonstrate a genuine commitment.

MR. GREGORY: Right.

DR. ROMER: Because we know we're doing a lot of help for banks, we're doing a lot of help for homeowners. Small business people need it, too.

Now here is where it gets interesting because the running Republican rhetoric is that President Obama isn't doing enough for small businesses. But Dr. Romer pretty effectively blows that argument out of the water. Once again its easy because the facts are on her side. But you would think that Gregory would know all these things since he is supposedly a journalist.

MR. GREGORY: Most economists believe that until the financial system is shored up, until these distressed assets are removed from these banks' balance sheets, stimulus won't work and the economy won't recover. And yet the administration has yet to provide a detailed blueprint about how they're going to remove these assets. What's taking so long and what is the plan?

DR. ROMER: All right, so there are two things to say. One is I don't agree with the idea that you--that, that stimulus can't do anything until the financial rescue is done. I think in truth, those things go parallel. And if you think back to the Great Depression, it's actually--getting the real economy going was the main thing that, that helped to make--bring the banks around.

MR. GREGORY: But didn't FDR first shore up confidence? The bank holiday was what he did first before he got to fiscal stimulus.

DR. ROMER: Actually, you know, a crucial thing--when he did the bank holiday, it took the next two years to actually clean up the banks, that we actually did not get the things really cleaned up until 1935. And that a big part of that cleanup was he managed to turn around the real economy. We saw employment growing again, GDP growing again, and that inherently helps your financial system. On the financial rescue, again I got to say we've already done a tremendous amount, right? Just last week the, the consumer and business loan initiative got into place, that's going to be crucial for getting, again, those secondary credit markets going. We're in the middle of the stress test, right?

MR. GREGORY: Right.

DR. ROMER: We're doing, we're doing almost the equivalent of what Roosevelt did with the bank holiday, right. He shut it down, he checked all the books. Well, we didn't shut the banking system down, but we're checking all the books.

I just love when guests come on and correct David Gregory. It makes him look like the clown he really is and it also goes to kill some zombie Republican lies. Thank you Dr. Romer for your performance today.

On to Eric Cantor. If you can spot a straight answer to any question that Gregory asks please feel free to let me know.

MR. GREGORY: It sounds like the administration is going to announce tomorrow that they'll provide at, at least $10 billion to try to unfreeze the credit market for--specifically for small business. Are you aware of the, of their plan, and do you support it?

REP. CANTOR: Well, you know, David, I've read the same reports that many people are reading about the announcement tomorrow. I think the, the crux of the issue is the only credit markets that are working, by and large, are the credit markets where the government has stepped in to guarantee the issuance of the debt. We've got to get credit markets flowing again, get private capital into the system. And the problem has been there's a lack of confidence, because this administration has not come forward with a plan on how to take these impaired assets out of the markets.

MR. GREGORY: OK. Well, let's talk about that. Because on the one hand, you're, you're really concerned about how much spending is in this budget, how much spending was in the stimulus. And you were opposed to the stimulus and you sound like you're opposed to this budget, as well. What would you do to get these impaired assets off the books? You know that the budget calls for $750 billion of additional spending to help recapitalize the banks, to absorb some of the losses if they're going to provide financing to private equity to come in and buy those assets. What would you do?

REP. CANTOR: David, the, the, the difficulty is, as you have suggested, is trying to evaluate these assets and put a value on the assets underlying these toxic securities. That has always been the problem. This administration has, has had since November, after they were elected into office, to come up with a plan.

MR. GREGORY: Right. Well, it was the Bush administration that started it and couldn't figure out how to evaluate the assets, either.

REP. CANTOR: That, that is correct. But the difficulty is that we don't see Treasury Department now going in and doing the difficult work. If they were to come out and announce that blueprint to say, "Hey, we are going to divide the banks up into three: those that are healthy, those that are impaired and those that, frankly, cannot survive." And then they--if they would announce that there would be some type of RTC-like plan to take these assets off the books and off--and out of the market, you would, I think, begin to see some confidence come back on, on Wall Street.

MR. GREGORY: All right, but you just said that you want private equity to come back into the credit market, and private equity might do that if there's incentive to do that, if the government provides the financing for them to buy some of these distressed assets. My question to you: You're complaining about too much spending, how much are you willing to spend to buy these assets? Because they may be impaired at a level of at least $2 trillion.

REP. CANTOR: Right. Well, there, there's no question. Once you take these assets off the books, then you're going to have a hole on the balance sheets of the financial institutions that you're going to have to address. But if you recall back when the bailout was passed initially, House Republicans had a plan. What we did is said we need to have more protection for taxpayers, we've got to have the investors that hold these assets play a part and put some more skin in the game. And so we came up with an insurance guarantee plan which essentially allowed you to leverage the ability to have a government guarantee, have the investor pay for that guarantee and not have all the taxpayer dollars flow out. And what we're seeing now is what's working in the credit markets is exactly that. The FDIC and others has guaranteed the issuance of debt for some of these institutions, and that's how the commercial paper market has come back a little bit.

MR. GREGORY: Are you willing to vote for more money to capitalize the banks and to, in, in essence, absorb the losses if these assets continue to go down? How much are you willing to vote for?

REP. CANTOR: David, if you're talking about a TARP 3, we've got a long way to go. I think it goes back to the fact that this administration has not put out its plan as to how we're going to be accountable for those dollars spent.

MR. GREGORY: Mm-hmm.

REP. CANTOR: You just heard Dr. Romer, you know, have some difficulty explaining how some of the dollars are spent. You've not seen them come out with a blueprint on what to do with these toxic assets and what the structure is going to be so investors can know their exposure. Again, at the end of the day we want the debt markets to work again because the only way that the financial institution in the, in this country will survive is to get private capital back into the game.

MR. GREGORY: Are you going to vote for the president's budget?

REP. CANTOR: Listen, the budget process, as you know, David, is one that has just begun on Capitol Hill. There is a lot of, I think, reticence to embrace his budget on both sides of the aisle. This budget, frankly, doesn't have the focus that we need right now in this economy. The focus should be, job one, fixing this banking system and trying to get jobs created again.

MR. GREGORY: Right. But the, but the budget says there's $750 billion to help capitalize the banks. You, you have not offered a figure on what you think is necessary to do that, other than saying you got to do something to get private capital in.

REP. CANTOR: David, David, the Republicans will have a plan. We had a stimulus plan. You know, part of the problem with being in the minority is, David, that sometimes your colleagues in the press don't want to cover the ideas that the minority has. We had a plan on the stimulus. It was, it was tailored to small business tax relief. It was focused on what a stimulus plan should be, which is the preservation, protection and creation of jobs. And what we see in this president's budget is, is a lack of that kind of focus. I mean, what we're talking about with him is, is trying to address the energy situation, the health care situation. And you heard Dr. Romer here just today say if we can look long term, these short-term problems will just fix themselves. Well, that's not true. When you sit here and advocate long term, an energy tax and a tax that some have some have said will amount to about $3,000 per household of four, that means everybody that pays an electric bill will have an additional tax, everybody that pays a gas bill will have a tax, everybody that buys anything manufactured in this country will essentially have an $800 per man, woman and child tax. How is that something that will help create jobs in this economy? Again, they're trying to do entirely too much and not focus on the job at hand, which is to get these credit markets working again and have small business create jobs again.

I counted six straight forward questions from David Gregory that Eric Cantor didn't even come close to answering.

1. Are you aware of the, of their plan, and do you support it?

2. You know that the budget calls for $750 billion of additional spending to help recapitalize the banks, to absorb some of the losses if they're going to provide financing to private equity to come in and buy those assets. What would you do?

3. You're complaining about too much spending, how much are you willing to spend to buy these assets? Because they may be impaired at a level of at least $2 trillion.

4. Are you willing to vote for more money to capitalize the banks and to, in, in essence, absorb the losses if these assets continue to go down? How much are you willing to vote for?


5. Are you going to vote for the president's budget?

6. You, you have not offered a figure on what you think is necessary to do that, other than saying you got to do something to get private capital in.

That last one of course is more of a statement than a question but it was an opportunity for Eric Cantor to give a figure on how much the Republicans would be willing to spend to bring private capital back in to the market. Of course just like the rest of the questions Cantor doesn't even attempt to address it and instead he talks about a mythical plan that the Republicans had that nobody has seen and goes into attack mode. Did you notice how Gregory just allowed his answers to stand though without any follow ups unlike the segment with Dr. Romer?

MR. GREGORY: Where was all the concern about fiscal conservatism and reining in spending from you and your Republican colleagues during the Bush years?

REP. CANTOR: Well, well, listen, David, if you're asking could we have done better, absolutely. If you're asking us did we blow it in terms of restoring fiscal sanity into this system, absolutely. But that doesn't give now the Democrats in power in this town to go in and repeat the mistakes that perhaps we may have committed in the past. You know, you look at this budget, how can it be that they claim that they're balancing the budget when they are doubling the debt, when they are increasing the deficit to record levels of a trillion, seven hundred billion dollars this year? How is it that, that that is a fiscally sane plan? We've got to remember...

MR. GREGORY: Did you oppose President Bush's budgets that increased the deficit or the debt?

REP. CANTOR: Well, David, we were in a time where I think the priority then was to make sure that we could deliver the money for our troops. And I joined along with Democrats on, on the other side of the aisle as well as my colleagues on mine to say the most important thing we needed to do at the time was to support the efforts of our military to insure our national security.

MR. GREGORY: So it was OK to, to support deficit spending at wartime, but it's not OK now during an economic crisis, when Warren Buffett calls that the equivalent of Pearl Harbor?

REP. CANTOR: Listen, I, I, I--there is no question that priority one has to be to restore the confidence in this economy, and, and we must do that which we have to do. But when you're talking about the type of budget--and look, look, over the last 50 days we have passed the stimulus bill, we have passed the omnibus spending bill. And it is striking to see the lack of change in that bill, the type of waste and pork barrel spending, the earmarks that exist in that bill. You've got that train from Disneyland to Las Vegas, you have, you know, you have other things like the, the money that goes to remove pig, pig odor.

MR. GREGORY: All right.

REP. CANTOR: I mean, come on.

MR. GREGORY: How many earmarks have you supported...

REP. CANTOR: Well...

MR. GREGORY: ...in the time in Congress?

REP. CANTOR: Well, I mean, I...

MR. GREGORY: Because Democrats provide data saying that you voted for more than 46,000 earmarks. Is that wrong?

REP. CANTOR: Well, in terms of the votes and the budgets in the past, clearly. But I for one, along with our leader, John Boehner, have said we ought to all embrace a moratorium on earmarks so we can get the process working again.

MR. GREGORY: Mm-hmm.

REP. CANTOR: And we're looking to President Obama. You know, he did promise, he said he'd come to Washington to get rid of the pork barrel spending. We saw him sign the omnibus spending bill without doing anything of the sort. And what I would say to him is we will work hard to sustain his veto if he will, you know, keep--deliver on his promise that he made. We'll work to help sustain his veto on these pork barrel spending bills. And frankly, if he wants to look at some of the things that he's already signed into law, we'll work as well with him to try and rescind some of those expenditures.

MR. GREGORY: But, but isn't the problem in the, in the public's mind, Republicans are calling for things now that they didn't actually do during the Bush years? And you look at some of the polling, here's our recent NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll: Which party would do a better job of getting the U.S. out of a recession? It's the Democrats that have, by a 48 to 20 percent margin, the advantage in terms of people's confidence. What do you do to change that as the minority party?

REP. CANTOR: Well, I mean, listen, as the minority party, I think part of our job is to be the honest opposition. And we also, I think, are charged with the task of bringing President Obama back to the center. That's what bipartisanship is about and, frankly, that's what the solutions are going to be about going forward. And what we see is very troubling given the last 50 days and the direction of the ideology of this administration and, frankly, of Speaker Pelosi and others in Congress. We've seen the failure of that ideology in the '70s in Great Britain, in the '80s in France. We, we understand in this country, I believe, that we're about free markets, we're about individual freedoms, and that is what our goal is. And when you apply that to the budget that we're going to be discussing over the next couple weeks, we've got a job to do. I mean, because I don't think that the American people are going to embrace this budget. I think you've seen the news reports that the administration now is on an all-out campaign to beef up the support for their budget. If it was a sane budget, I don't think you'd have to have some kind of multitiered campaign plan to get people behind it. It'd sell itself.

MR. GREGORY: Final point. You, you've mentioned that priority one needs to be fixing the financial system in this country. There's been a debate touched off this week about whether the financial press has done enough to sound the alarm prior to this bubble bursting, about how dangerous the financial system was. As a member of Congress, do you think you did something adequate to raise the alarm about what was happening on Wall Street in the financial system?

REP. CANTOR: David, I think there's a lot of blame to go around everywhere: regulators, members of Congress, the administration, the prior administration. All of us, I think, can, can take some of that blame. The press, always. But you know, at, at the end of the day it's about going forward. And I think what we're going to have to do is understand that there was so much risk out there in our system, and the old regulatory structure that we have in place just did not provide the transparency of that risk to the investors. And that's what we're going to have to improve and act quickly on, because part of this is about making sure this doesn't happen again.

Eric Cantor is great at avoiding answering the question that is asked and of course Gregory isn't really following up hard with him but I want to point out a blatant contradiction in what Cantor said today that Gregory didn't even attempt to point out.

First he said

REP. CANTOR: Well, I mean, listen, as the minority party, I think part of our job is to be the honest opposition.

Then he turned around and repeated the thoroughly debunked everywhere but FoxNews cannard about the stimulus bill this time attributing it to the omnibus bill.

You've got that train from Disneyland to Las Vegas

I guess when you lie as much as Cantor and his colleagues do you are sure to get your lies crossed up sooner or later.

Now if you think its just Eric Cantor who doesn't have any answers or alternatives to President Obama's plan then you should check out Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell this morning on "This Week with George Stephanopolous".




And that dovetails with House Minority Leader John Boehner's statement that the GOP shouldn't even consider themselves as legislators and instead just focus on winning messaging wars. It has got to be really hard to support such a sorry ass party at this point. I mean seriously, how much do you have to just disregard reality in order to be a Republican these days? Not even David Gregory is going to be able to save their asses come election time next year.

David Gregory Is Also Unspoofable

First David Gregory lets Eric Cantory repeat the lie that there is a train from Disney to Sin City in the stimulus bill unchallenged. Then right after he asks about Jon Stewart's eviceration of Jim Cramer over financial journalists' failure to ask tough questions and follow ups.


What is the chance that David Gregory will go on The Daily Show anytime soon?

Tweedle Dumb and Tweedle Dumberer

I get the opportunity for a twofer today thanks to this article from "The Hill"

Following the GOP's weekly conference meeting, the second-ranking House Republican told reporters that President Obama should be focusing on the "economic crisis," as opposed to holding four-hour meetings on healthcare, as the president did last week. The efforts may be laudable, Cantor said, but the White House should be devoting all resources to fixing the economy and not to "impose these cap-and-trade schemes."

Would that be the four hour meeting that Cantor himself was at skinning and grinning? I mean it wasn't mandatory so if things are soooooo bad that nothing else matters, why didn't Cantor stay away? Because he is a shameless media whore thats why. Try again dipshit.

Other House Republicans in the leadership refrained from answering questions on that matter but did reiterate the call for President Obama to veto the omnibus likely headed to the White House this week, as soon as the Senate approves the $410 billion package.

Minority Leader John Boehner (R-Ohio), who has attacked the package for the number of earmarks in the bill and the lack of scrutiny of many of those 9,000 pork projects, said that Obama should send the bill back to Congress for additional consideration.

But Boehner's earmark reform committee remains deadlocked over the issue as to what the conference should do about earmarks. The 10-member panel has thus far failed to agree on a way forward and told their leadership as much at a meeting Monday night.

Great job there Boner! Maybe your criticism would carry more weight if you could actually come up with a new plan for earmarks instead of wasting the time of whomever drew the short straws to sit on your "earmark reform committee". Talk about making the title Minority "Leader" ironic.

Please Please Please Keep These Fools Talking

I keep hearing from conservatives that Eric Cantor is their new shining star. If by that they mean that he is out of touch, tone deaf, and pretty damn stupid I would say they have a point.

President Obama’s impending reversal of the restrictions on embryonic stem cell research is meant to distract from the economy, House Minority Whip Eric Cantor (R-Va.) suggested Sunday.

“There’s a reason it’s coming up this week,” Cantor said during an appearance on CNN's "State of the Union." “Why are we going and distracting ourselves from the economy? This is job No. 1, let’s focus on what needs to be done.”

President Obama is set to sign an executive order on Monday that would reverse limits on federal funding for embryonic stem cell research established early in the Bush administration.

“Let’s take care of business first – people are out of jobs,” Cantor, an opponent of embryonic stem cell research, told the network’s John King. “And again, there is a reason why all of this is happening right now.”

What are there, like 5 people in the country who don't support stem cell research at this point? And for people dealing with family members with special needs how much do you think they appreciate being told overturning the ban on stem cell research funding is just a "distraction from the economy". If there was ever going to be a book written about how to maintain political irrelevance and ensure it for years to come it would probably be based on everything the GOP is doing these days. What would possess him to even speak on an issue that he is totally out of step with most Americans on?

YouTube Response To Eric Cantor

This is AWESOME!



(h/t WisconsinLiberal

Not Very Bright, That One

Congressman Eric Cantor, an opportunist if there ever was one, it seems is not very bright. I guess up till now he has gotten over with decent looks and an ability to talk in complete sentences. But unfortunately the problem with being a power hungry politician is that sooner or later you get to a level where you actually have to DO something to justify your stature. It seems the more Cantor opens his mouth the more we see just how empty of a suit he is.

Whether it was last year when he blamed the House Republicans voting against the TARP on Nancy Pelosi hurting their feelings or whether it was his office a week ago releasing a very vulgar youtube parody of an old union ad (this after he campaigned against obscenity in media)in response to pressure put on him to vote for the bill by union groups Eric Cantor has seemed to undermine himself and his party at every turn. So now he comes out with the relevation that he "studies" Newt Gingrich's opposition as leader of the minority in the early nineties as some kind of model for what House Republicans should do now. Then when he catches flack for admitting that he his patterning himself after a guy who got run out of Washington on a rail because of his antics, Cantor doubled down on teh stupid.

Today over at Greg Sargent's Plum Line we find out that Eric Cantor has now released a statement to the media that he ALSO studies Winston Churchill as a model for how to react when in the minority. Now first of all wouldn't you know it, Cantor got the basic facts of when Chamberlain was even the leader of the minority wrong. But the best part of the story is how it might directly relate to the vote on the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act.

Churchill was appointed Chancellor of the Exchequer in 1924 under Stanley Baldwin and oversaw Britain's disastrous return to the Gold Standard, which resulted in deflation, unemployment, and the miners' strike that led to the General Strike of 1926.[82] His decision, announced in the 1924 Budget, came after long consultation with various economists including John Maynard Keynes, the Permanent Secretary to the Treasury, Sir Otto Niemeyer and the board of the Bank of England. This decision prompted Keynes to write The Economic Consequences of Mr. Churchill, arguing that the return to the gold standard at the pre-war parity in 1925 (£1=$4.86) would lead to a world depression. However, the decision was generally popular and seen as 'sound economics' although it was opposed by Lord Beaverbrook and the Federation of British Industries.[83]

Churchill later regarded this as the greatest mistake of his life. However in discussions at the time with former Chancellor McKenna, Churchill acknowledged that the return to the gold standard and the resulting 'dear money' policy was economically bad. In those discussions he maintained the policy as fundamentally political - a return to the pre-war conditions in which he believed.[84] In his speech on the Bill he said "I will tell you what it [the return to the Gold Standard] will shackle us to. It will shackle us to reality."[85]

The return to the pre-war exchange rate and to the Gold Standard depressed industries. The most affected was the coal industry. Already suffering from declining output as shipping switched to oil, as basic British industries like cotton came under more competition in export markets, the return to the pre-war exchange was estimated to add up to 10% in costs to the industry. In July 1925, a Commission of Inquiry reported generally favouring the miners, rather than the mine owners' position.[86] Baldwin, with Churchill's support proposed a subsidy to the industry while a Royal Commission prepared a further report.

That Commission solved nothing and the miners dispute led to the General Strike of 1926, Churchill was reported to have suggested that machine guns be used on the striking miners. Churchill edited the Government's newspaper, the British Gazette, and, during the dispute, he argued that "either the country will break the General Strike, or the General Strike will break the country" and claimed that the fascism of Benito Mussolini had "rendered a service to the whole world," showing, as it had, "a way to combat subversive forces"—that is, he considered the regime to be a bulwark against the perceived threat of Communist revolution. At one point, Churchill went as far as to call Mussolini the "Roman genius… the greatest lawgiver among men."[87]

Later economists, as well as people at the time, also criticised Churchill's budget measures. These were seen as assisting the generally prosperous rentier banking and salaried classes (to which Churchill and his associates generally belonged) at the expense of manufacturers and exporters which were known then to be suffering from imports and from competition in traditional export markets,[88] and as paring the Armed Forces too heavily.[89]

If you have been following the whole stimulus bill discussion you might remember that Keynes fellow. He is the guy whose theory of economics is the basis for President Obama's stimulus bill. He is also the guy that WingNuts like Cantor have decided didn't know what the hell he was talking about. If Cantor is REALLY studying Churchill maybe he would have noticed what happened when Churchill rejected Keynes' advice way back when. At the very least you have to wonder does he REALLY want to bring this kind of attention to Churchill when essentially he made the same mistake the GOP is right now in rejecting Keynes expressly for political reasons?

Like I said before, not very bright.

Awesome Sauce!

Republican Minority Whip in the House of Representatives, Eric Cantor, decided he wanted to send a little jokey joke along about unions. It would seem his office emailed this youtube vid to media outlets trying to poke fun in anticipation of the EFCA. This ain't quite at the level of Barack The Magic Negro but it's pretty close. Its like the Republicans WANT to lose all their support.


Warning, very vulgar words on the video.



(h/t DougJ)

You Heard The Man!

Wingnut Eric Cantor wants you to tell him EXACTLY what you think about the Rethugs in the House putting politics over the good of American. I say you take him up on the offer.



(h/t RawStory)