ICYMI – Rand Paul to Howie Carr: Withhold Foreign Aid from ‘Crazy Countries’
Rand Paul is touring New Hampshire this week, retail-politicking the first-in-the-nation (again) in an unofficial presidential bid that feels like it's been going on forever. Well in case you missed it,on Friday, Rand Paul called into the Howie Carr show, where he promptly demonstrated both his unpresidential temperament and his dangerous foreign policy platform. Paul, who raised eyebrows a couple years ago when he said we should end all foreign aid, including to Israel, told Carr that we should withhold foreign aid from 'crazy countries,' and then became irritated when Carr followed up. It seems Rand has a tendency for making half-baked policy proposals...
Indiana Lawmaker Carrying Pence for President Legislation Is Tea Party To The Core
Indiana Governor Mike Pence wants to treat his current office as a concession prize and run for both re-election and president simultaneously. Unfortunately for the governor, it's against Indiana law...and the lawmaker attempting to change that for him provides a window into the worst of Pence's Tea Party politics. Meet State Senator Mike Delph, a famously combative Tea Partier who's had a hand in some of Indiana's most controversial legislation, including pushing a gay marriage ban, birther legislation, and Arizona-style immigration laws.
Introduced “Birther” Bill In Indiana
Delph Introduced “Birther” Bill In Indiana. According to The Hill, “Indiana Republican state Sen. Mike Delph, who’s still weighing a potential primary challenge to Sen. Dick Lugar (R-Ind.) next year, is pushing state lawmakers to take another look at his bill that would require presidential candidates to produce a birth certificate. Delph introduced a bill earlier this year to mandate presidential hopefuls produce the document in order to get on the ballot, but the measure is stuck in committee. Now, he wants a legislative study committee to take up the issue, hoping it will gain some additional traction, telling a local radio station that he thinks a ‘trust but verify approach’ is reasonable.” [The Hill, 4/19/11]
TEA COZY: The New Crop of Extreme Tea Party Republicans Settling Into Washington
Today, the first of the 114th Congress, finds Tea Party favorites Representatives Ted Yoho and Louie Gohmert each planning to challenge John Boehner’s reelection as Speaker of the House. The Tea Party darlings’ bids for the speaker’s gavel might have long odds, but don’t let that fool you: nothing about the Republican Party’s extreme, Tea Party agenda has changed as a result of the GOP’s “rebrand.” Indeed, a quick scan of some of the newest members of the House being sworn in today shows just how extreme this latest crop of Tea Party Republican members of Congress truly are. Fortunately, American Bridge has done the work for you and included these Tea Partiers' top extreme hits in our new report:
Tea Cozy: The New Crop of Extreme Tea Party Republicans Settling Into Washington
Representing districts from Georgia to Maine, Virginia to Nevada, Illinois to Iowa, extreme Tea Party Republicans will be sworn today into the U.S. House of Representatives. Take Glenn Grothman in Wisconsin's 6th District to start. We've already detailed the long list of Grothman's greatest extreme hits, but as a quick refresher, the Congressman-elect has: proselytized about the “war on men,” fought for a seven-day workweek, and proposed a law to formally consider single parenthood a contributing factor to child abuse.New Video: Speaker Gohmert
Yesterday, amid growing interest within the Republican conference for a more conservative speaker, Louie Gohmert announced his intent to challenge John Boehner for the job. It's a prospect that could seem far-fetched, except this is a party who just stood by self-proclaimed "David Duke without the baggage" as their whip. Learn more at SpeakerGohmert.com.
VIDEO: The New Voice Of The GOP On Immigration
If you believed that Republicans controlling both houses of Congress meant that they would make efforts to work with President Obama and prove they could govern, I've got a bridge to sell you (but I'm going to need to see your papers first). Nearly a year and a half ago, the Senate passed a balanced, bipartisan bill to fix our broken immigration system. All the Republican House "Leadership" had to do was put it up for a vote. But they've proven that that's never going to happen, so President Obama used executive action to make progress. So how would House Republicans respond? Did they finally pass their own comprehensive immigration reform bill? Of course not. Wednesday, they handed the microphone to de-facto Speaker Ted Cruz, Steve King, Michele Bachmann and friends, and yesterday, they voted to rebuke the President's actions and call for more deportations. Some things never change.
ICYMI: Ben Carson Kicking Off 2016 GOP Primary With Hour-Long TV Ad
In case you missed it in First Read this morning, the Washington Times announced that Dr. Ben Carson is releasing an hour-long television ad set to…
NEW VIDEO: "Bully"
If you own a television or a computer, you've probably already seen Chris Christie's latest tirade, this one at the expense of a Jersey Shore business owner who is concerned about the area's unfinished recovery from Hurricane Sandy. It's interesting behavior -- aggressively disparaging our own constituent to prove how invested you are in rebuilding New Jersey, and then embarking on a 19-state campaign tour the next day. But then again, this just isn't your average presidential hopeful. This is Chris Christie, the trash-talking, traffic-stopping bully, and he'll be damned if a constituent or the truth are going to come in between him and his narrative. So we decided to round up just a few of his finest acts of belittlement. Check out our new video:
BREAKING VIDEO: Chris Christie Berates Man Concerned About Sandy Recovery
He's at it again. Today, at an event in Belmar, New Jersey, Chris Christie was confronted by a man concerned…
Scott Walker reaps the benefits of loophole created by judge with Koch ties
Earlier this month, Wisconsin U.S. District Judge Rudolph Randa issued an injunction that effectively allows outside groups to coordinate with political campaigns on so-called "issue advocacy," overturning a longstanding Wisconsin campaign finance law banning such coordination. Given that Randa has ties to the the billionaire Koch brothers, who fund several outside groups that would very much like to see Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker win reelection, we likened his ruling to the proverbial fox guarding the campaign finance henhouse. As it turns out, it's even a stretch to suggest in jest that Randa is guarding the state's campaign finance regulations. In a separate ruling in September, Randa dealt another major blow to Wisconsin campaign finance statute, and the most recent financial disclosures from the Walker campaign show that he's reaping the benefits from Randa's newly-created loophole. Last month, Randa ruled that Wisconsin election officials should no longer enforce laws that cap the amount of money that political candidates -- like Walker -- can collect from PACs and campaign committees. Prior to Randa's ruling, the state's limit for PAC contributions, which had been in place since 1990, was set at $700,830 for gubernatorial candidates. According to the Walker campaign's latest campaign finance report filed last week, the campaign has accepted a whopping $2.6 million from political parties and political action committees. In total, that's over three times the amount that was allowed by law, and almost $2 million of it coming in just the six weeks after Randa's determination. Put simply, Walker's campaign has swiftly exploited Randa's ruling on PAC contributions to bolster his campaign in the homestretch. Walker's status as a champion for Koch brothers and their allies is well-documented, with the billionaire brothers holding up his extreme right wing policies as exemplar of their political agenda. After all, prosecutors opened an investigation into illegal coordination between Walker's campaign and a Koch-affiliated group, Wisconsin Club for Growth, during the 2012 recall election. What's clear from Randa's rulings, and the fact that he's attended multiple Koch-sponsored junkets, is that Randa, too, is a Koch ally, who appears to be pursuing a concerted effort to roll back Wisconsin campaign finance laws to the benefit of Scott Walker and his political allies.
Maine students react to LePage's student loan plan (VIDEO)
Tonight, Governor Paul LePage will participate in his third gubernatorial debate, and if last week's debates were any indication, LePage will once again trumpet his plan to address the student loan debt crisis: selling student loans to employers. LePage also raised this proposal on Monday during an appearance at the University of Maine, where students were on fall break at the time. Perhaps if he'd had the event when students were actually on campus, they would have told him what several USM students told American Bridge: it's a singularly "bad idea" to sell student loans to employers in exchange for a tax credit.