GOP Backtracking on Promised 'Reforms' Before They Even Get Started

What the frak... Can anybody say they're surprised by this? And why are we calling this backtracking. Why don't we call it what it is...LIES... Campaign lies. They say what they need to say to get elected, to motivate their base, with some hollow pledge to America. And as soon as they take power...it's just more of the same. Are we going to see the GOP engage the other side? No, because Boehner is all talk and no action. But I guess that's what happens when you spend a couple years just saying NO, you become useless.

Amplify’d from www.huffingtonpost.com

"Let's let legislators legislate again," Boehner said, summarizing a year's worth of complaints over the Democrats' use of procedural maneuvers like the so-called "Demon Pass."

It's worth pointing out that all of these promises gave Washington Post high priest of centrism David Broder a chubby:

I'd like to see Pelosi and the rest of the Democratic leaders take Boehner up on the challenge he has raised, not try to demean it. He said, for example, that rather than stifling debate through the manipulation of rules, "we should open things up and let the battle of ideas help break down the scar tissue between the parties. ... Let's let legislators legislate again." It would be great if the leaders could engage each other seriously at the start of the next Congress on rules and procedures for doing the nation's business. There's no excuse for the House failing to pass a budget resolution, as happened for the first time this year. As Boehner said, it boggles the mind that spending bills for major government departments are lumped together in an indigestible mass. When large majorities of the nation's voters voice disdain and distrust for a Congress that is supposed to represent them in writing the laws, it is not just a problem for one party or the other. It is a threat to our system of government.

As it turns out, nobody should have taken Boehner seriously. For example, remember that time you were warned that the GOP don't really care about reducing the deficits? You should, because when I say "that time," I mean, "all of the time." But the editors of the Washington Post only just got the news Monday, so for the benefit of anyone else who's been living beneath a rock lately, here's another reminder, from Brian Beutler:

Republicans' deficit reduction platform, which may have helped catapult them into the majority, is about to run headlong into a hard reality: Many of their key policy goals will increase the deficit dramatically. To get around this fact, they've included measures in their new rules package to exempt some of their biggest legislative priorities from deficit consideration. Among the exceptions, which the House is likely to consider in the 112th Congress, are the health care repeal bill (scheduled for a vote a week from Wednesday), the 2001 and 2003 Bush tax cuts, an AMT patch, extending the estate tax, and more. Read more at www.huffingtonpost.com

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How long are we all going to fall for it? Politicians saying what they never mean.

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Blah, blah, blah...from both sides! Politicians say exactly what they think YOU want to hear. They all read right out of the same play-book...and it always has the same ending! Once they take office, all the important issues they talked about get put-off or buried beneath bureaucratic bullshit. The only thing that becomes important to them, is the game of politics. It's apparent because very little get's done in Washington. And now, with the party of "NO" in control of the house, I see more of NOthing getting done.

Amplify’d from www.huffingtonpost.com

As we get ready for John Boehner to take the gavel from Nancy Pelosi on Wednesday, I find myself thinking back to the last time a Republican speaker took control of the House from a Democrat -- and reflecting on how far down the wrong road we have traveled since then. It was January 1995, and Newt Gingrich, now considered a right-wing bomb thrower, was taking the gavel from Tom Foley. After taking the oath of office, he delivered a speech that praised FDR as "the greatest president of the 20th century" and presented concern for the least among us as a shared national objective. "The balanced budget is the right thing to do," he said. "But it does not in my mind have the moral urgency of coming to grips with what is happening to the poorest Americans." For the incoming Republican speaker, reducing poverty and lifting the poor into the middle class was a moral imperative beyond the left vs. right battlefield -- not just the purview of lefties, socialists, and community organizers:

So now, with poverty higher than it was 16 years ago, with greater income inequality, and with the middle class struggling to hold on, what will Speaker Boehner make his number one priority? According to the Washington Post, it's "cutting spending," followed by repealing the healthcare law, and "helping get our economy moving" (no specifics on how he plans to do that).

Interestingly, in his first speech as speaker, Gingrich also talked about being moved by the woes of school kids.

Yet we saw on 60 Minutes that he's very aware of how fragile the American Dream has become, telling Lesley Stahl, "I can't go to a school anymore. I used to go to a lot of schools. And you see all these little kids running around. Can't talk about it." And he choked up when he did try to talk about "making sure these kids have a shot at the American Dream, like I did. It's important." Read more at www.huffingtonpost.com

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Corruption. The GOP calling this administration corrupt...really? Do they just hope we have memory problems?

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The GOP's top House investigator in the new Congress is putting the White House on notice that he's going to be aggressive in going after what he considers wasteful spending by the Obama administration.

California Rep. Darrell Issa is set to lead the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee -- and gain the chairman's subpoena power.

During an appearance on CNN's "State of the Union" on Sunday morning, Issa was asked about a suggestion he made in November following the elections that President Obama "has been one of the most corrupt presidents in modern times." The Republican congressman found himself addressing the controversial remarks despite having already expressed regret over his choice of words.

I corrected -- what I meant to say -- you know, on live radio, with Rush going back and forth -- and by the way that was because Rush had me on to answer the question of -- about coming together, having compromise. He didn't like the compromise word, when I said we're going to agree to disagree and then we're going to find a kind of common ground, the kind of compromise that makes -- and gets things done. In saying that this is one of the most corrupt administrations, which is what I meant to say there, when you hand out $1 trillion in TARP just before this president came in, most of it unspent, $1 trillion nearly in stimulus that this president asked for, plus this huge expansion in health care and government, it has a corrupting effect. When I look at waste, fraud and abuse in the bureaucracy and in the government, this is like steroids to pump up the muscles of waste.

In a separate appearance on "Fox News Sunday" over the weekend, Issa suggested the White House hire more accountants -- not lawyers -- to deal with requests for information from the Republican-led House. He said that it's "more of an accounting function than a legal function" and suggested the White House look at wasteful spending -- not the GOP -- as the enemy. Read more at www.huffingtonpost.com

 Corrupt...corrupt, they're all corrupt! The GOP needs to stop blaming the other side for being corrupt. It's like calling the kettle black. I'd say our whole system is corrupt. I guess it's true what they say..."power corrupts". And isn't that sad. They have all this power and what do they do with it...really, what do they do with it. Money corrupt's, power corrupts, and there is a lot of both in Washington. When the Republican's had the Whitehouse it wasn't any better. I think it was worse, much worse. There were more lies, more secret's, and I didn't see one of their sorry ass's being dragged in with a subpoena when Obama took up residency. And you want to talk spending. The Bush Whitehouse didn't even give a second thought on spending. Did the GOP balk at the spending then.....NO. Remember that word NO, it's all we get out of the GOP now. Why didn't we get it then? Are the GOP going to do what they did to the Clinton Whitehouse when they gain subpoena power. Drag us through years of bullshit...again. How dare any member of the GOP state that this is one of the most corrupt administrations they've seen. Did they have blinders on up until a couple years ago. I don't have a short-term memory problem, I remember how they controlled the Whitehouse & congress. I'm tired of politicians having memory problems because it means we're going to end up going down that same road again. Look were 8 years got us...we were just now putting on the breaks and starting to turn things around. But because of all the short term memory problems in Washington, all the lies and misinformation coming from the GOP and that fake news channel. Because of our laziness to seek out the truth and demand the truth, we get spoon fed bit's & pieces of whatever information they want you to have. All I hear coming out of the GOP right now is all the bitching and whining about the successful lame duck session the Democrat's just had. Or the threats of sobpoena power, or....I can go on. It's your turn again GOP...which road are you going to take us down, one of your roads well traveled?

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As New Congress Begins, Actions of G.O.P. Leaders Anger Tea Party Activists. Get ready...here it comes!

Your damn right it was blatant! They should have been that damn blatant the previous 2 years. Maybe a lot of them would still have a job. It frankly ticks me off that now...just now, they're finally able to work and pass some of the legislation that we put them there to do. It's amazing when they're not on the campaign trail the work they can get done. I don't believe the Tea party would be in the position they're in now, if the democrat's would have shown this kind of leadership and excitement in getting things done. And it doesn't surprise me one bit, the GOP not viewing this session as a win for America, but instead, calling for an end to the lame duck session because it was so productive. I don't know about you, but I'm going to expect a whole lot more out of the GOP now that they control congress. The word "NO" just ain't going to cut it any more. I sure hope John Boehner like's his TEA bending over.

Amplify’d from www.nytimes.com

As Tea Party politicians prepare to take their seats when the 112th Congress convenes this week, they are already taking issue with Republicans for failing to hold the line against the flurry of legislation enacted in the waning weeks of Democratic control of the House of Representatives and for not giving some candidates backed by Tea Party groups powerful leadership positions.

Just a month ago, Tea Party leaders were celebrating their movement’s victories in the midterm elections. But as Congress wrapped up an unusually productive lame-duck session last month, those same Tea Party leaders were lamenting that Washington behaved as if it barely noticed that American voters had repudiated the political establishment.

In their final days controlling the House, Democrats succeeded in passing legislation that Tea Party leaders opposed, including a bill to cover the cost of medical care for rescue workers at the site of the World Trade Center attacks, an arms-control treaty with Russia, a food safety bill and a repeal of the ban on gay men and lesbians serving openly in the military.

“I’m surprised by how blatant it was,” he added.

“Do I think that they’ve recognized what happened on Election Day? I would say decisively no,” said Mark Meckler, a co-founder of Tea Party Patriots, which sent its members an alert last month urging them to call their representatives to urge them to “stop now and go home!!” Read more at www.nytimes.com

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This is one of the major flaws within our political system. We have people who will say not what they mean, but what they think you want them to mean. It seems our political leaders, or our wanna be political leaders lose faith in themselves and their message, or do they even have a message? Do they speak from their gut, their heart...or is it all one big campaign speech right from the get-go? It appears that way to me. Maybe it has something to do with the length of the campaigns? What is it...a minimum of 2 years that we put up with the same stories they think we wanna here? Maybe in that 2 years they totally lose themselves and we end up with some political drone. Are there any politicians out there that haven't lost themselves, that haven't been turned into some political zombie.....I think so, a handful maybe? Dennis Kucinich totally pops into my head as someone whom has always stayed on message and true to himself. I know I need to completely reevaluate how I consider who I would like to vote for, and not get sucked up into the political vacuum of nothingness.

Amplify’d from thehill.com

2012 Republican presidential hopefuls getting a jump on the Tea Party courtship

Three potential Republican contenders for the 2012 presidential nomination would have higher hurdles to clear to win the Tea Party vote in the primary, leaders of the movement say. Former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee and former House Speaker Newt Gingrich each are met with a degree of suspicion by Tea Partiers, and all three have taken early steps to address those voters’ concerns.

And Republicans — particularly those whose relationship with the grassroots activists isn't the coziest — are mindful of the Tea Party’s potential impact, and seem to be operating with an eye toward that base.

Gingrich's personal history and occasional alliances with high-profile Democrats also have prompted concern among some conservatives; during the past two years, he partnered with the Rev. Al Sharpton on an education initiative and with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (Calif.) on climate change. Read more at thehill.com

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