Jun 13, 2011 | By Alex Seitz-Wald
Tonight, Republican presidential hopefuls will gather in New Hampshire for the first real debate of the 2012 election. The CNN/WMUR/Union Leader-sponsored event will help introduce the seven candidates to the country and offer the first chance for the field’s top candidates to go head to head, as the front-runners skipped May’s presidential forum in South Carolina. While much remains to be learned about these candidates, here are the questions we’re hoping they each get asked tonight:
FORMER MASSACHUSETTS GOV. MITT ROMNEY: You’ve positioned yourself as a leader on job creation, releasing a web video today attacking President Obama on the bleak jobs picture. But while you were governor, Massachusetts was ranked 47th on job creation. While you were at Bain, the company slashed jobs. And in 2009, when hundreds of thousands of jobs were on the line when General Motors and Chrysler were struggling for survival, you penned an op-ed titled “Let Detroit Go Bankrupt.” The government’s rescue of these companies helped return them to profitability and save jobs. Given your record, how can Americans trust you on job creation?
FORMER MINNESOTA GOV. TIM PAWLENTY: Last week, you presented an economic plan that would dramatically cut the top individual income tax rate and the corporate tax rate, depriving the government of up to $7.8 trillion in tax revenue. And that’s on top of the $2.5 trillion cost of extending all of the Bush tax cuts. You’ve said you would pay for the cuts with a nearly unprecedented economic growth rate of 5 percent a year for 10 years that even you yourself say is an “aspiration.” But, in case we are unable to achieve that growth rate, how would you balance the budget with these massive new tax cuts, especially since you’ve taken military cuts off the table?
REP. MICHELE BACHMANN (R-MN): You voted for the GOP Medicare privatization plan, but later said there is an “asterisk” by your vote because, you said, “I’m concerned about shifting the cost burden to senior citizens.” Indeed, the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office says seniors would pay thousands of dollars more each year for their health care starting in 2022. By now, nearly all of your potential opponents have come out in support of the plan — do you fully support it? If not, why?
FORMER SEN. RICK SANTORUM (R-PA): Several recent polls show that a majority of Americans are in favor of gay marriage. Republicans here in New Hampshire have veto-proof majorities in both chambers, but chose to not pursue repealing gay marriage to focus on jobs and the economy. Was that the right decision?
FORMER GODFATHER’S PIZZA CEO HERMAN CAIN: In March, you said youwould not appoint Muslims to a Cain administration’s cabinet and then, just this past week on Fox News host Glenn Beck’s show, you called for special loyalty oaths for Muslim political appointees, which you would not give to members of other religions. You’ve also publicly calls on Americans to “re-read” the Constitution, but isn’t your singling out of Muslims unconstitutional under the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment?
FORMER HOUSE SPEAKER NEWT GINGRICH: Before later backtracking, you famously said that the GOP Medicare privatization plan was “right-wing social engineering.” You later disavowed those comments and pledged support for the plan. But now, given the fact that numerous polls showing the plan to be unpopular, theblowback Republican lawmakers faced in their home districts over it, and the results of the special election in New York’s 26th Congressional District, were you right the first time?
REP. RON PAUL (R-TX): You have been very outspoken about your interpretation of the Constitution, passionately arguing that most of what the federal government does today — including Social Security and Medicare — is unconstitutional. As president, would you work to completely repeal these social safety net programs? You’ve also suggested the Civil Rights Act was an unconstitutional encroachment on property owners. Would you work to repeal it? What about similar laws like the Voters With Disability Act or the Voting Rights Act?
In Greenville, South Carolina tonight, five presidential contenders will meet for the first GOP presidential primary debate. According to the pre-debate event’s official program, it is sponsored by several extremist groups, including the Oath Keepers militia group and the radical anti-communist John Birch Society. You can see a picture of the program here. Here’s the John Birch Society’s booth at the site of the debate:
See whole article at Think Progress here.
The Tea Party Republicans in Congress are playing with people's lives by threatening a government shutdown. Real lives are at stake.
If the Tea Party Republicans have their way, they'll shut down the government in order to end life-saving services such as those provided by Planned Parenthood. We all know that Planned Parenthood provides sexual and reproductive health services, but they also provide vaccines, diabetes and cholesterol screening and numerous other general health services. These programs are under threat because of the Republican budget attacks on services for working families.
Republican Members of Congress, such as Pennsylvania Representatives Joe Pitts, Lou Barletta and Jim Gerlach, and Senator Pat Toomey know this is not about the budget. It's about a radical social agenda the Tea Party wants to impose. We have to fight back -- against ideologically-driven budget cuts and against a government shutdown.
Our state can't afford a government shutdown. A shutdown will furlough tens of thousands of Pennsylvania workers. It will close parks, disrupt travel plans, and cripple tourism. It will delay environmental cleanups. It will stop new claims-processing for Social Security and Medicare. But none of this matters to the Tea Party Republicans.
See, they want to close the government -- they want to eliminate vital services like Veterans Affairs, the National Institutes of Health and the Centers for Disease Control. But the Tea Partiers don't care how it will affect real people. They care only about getting their ideological cuts.
Enough is enough. Shutting down the government for ideology is beyond the pale even for these folks. We can't sit back and watch America crumble.
In Solidarity,
Michael Morrill
Keystone Progress
Keystone Progress (KP) filed a suit in Commonwealth Court today, appealing the Office of Attorney General’s denial of its Right to Know request. KP suit is seeking information on correspondence concerning Attorney General Tom Corbett’s politically motivated suit to overturn the federal healthcare reform legislation.
Keystone Progress has been denied this information in two requests and an appeal of its second denial.
“We are saddened that we have to take the Attorney General to court,” said Michael Morrill, KP’s executive director. “The Office of Attorney General should be above reproach, and should be setting an example for transparency and following the letter of the law. We know that the OAG has been in correspondence with some of the political entities in our suit because we have copies of the correspondence. We just do not know the extent of the interaction. It might be within the bounds of the law, or it could be using the OAG for political purposes. We’re suing Corbett’s office to answer that question.”
Fourteen state attorneys general have filed suit to overturn the Affordable Healthcare for America Act, the federal healthcare reform law. Corbett has repeatedly denied that his efforts are political, despite the fact that he agreed to join the suit even before he had read the healthcare reform law. The lawsuit was filed just seven minutes after President Obama signed the bill into law.
The staff of the attorneys general have been working with the Republican State Leadership Committee (RSLC). RSLC describes itself as “the only national organization whose mission is electing Republicans to the office of Attorney General, Lieutenant Governor, Secretary of State and State Legislator.”1 RSLC is organized as a 527 organization which has contributed over $58 million to elect Republicans at the state level. RSLC was Corbett’s largest contributor during his race for reelection as attorney general, giving him $691,000, according to the PA Department of State.2 Keystone Progress has copies of emails from RSLC to OAG staff.
The request seeks all correspondence between OAG and the following:
1 Republican State Leadership Committee website http://www.rslc.com/about-rslc/
2Pennsylvania Department of State http://www.campaignfinance.state.pa.us/ContributionSearchResults.aspx?RequestID=346769&StartRow=1&RowsPerPage=10&SortOrder=0
Keystone Progress is Pennsylvania’s largest online progressive network with over 200,000 subscribers. Keystone Progress is also a statewide communications network specializing in effective earned media and online organizing to advance progressive leadership and values.
"Young Guns” trumpets Rep. Paul Ryan’s ‘Roadmap’ budget plan that would privatize Social Security and replace Medicare with a voucher system that shortchanges seniors on medical care. As the Minority Whip, Cantor along with his follow young guns, ranking Republican Member of the House Budget Committee Paul Ryan and GOP House Leader Kevin McCarthy, could one day be in a position to advance the Bush-era scheme to turn our guaranteed benefits over to their friends on Wall Street.
“Pat Meehan may appreciate the money Eric Cantor will be raking in for him tonight, but Pennsylvanians will be the ones left behind if Cantor and his buddies are able to enact their devastating agenda,” said Michael Morrill of Keystone Progress. Eric Cantor enabled the disastrous Bush economic policies that left so many Pennsylvanians without jobs, retirement savings and health care. And now the man who could help run the House of Representatives one day is in Pennsylvania to raise money for politicians he knows will help him go back to same exact policies that got us into this mess. Is this what Pat Meehan believes? It’s time for Meehan to say if he stands with Washington politicians or the people of Pennsylvania.”
***Click Here to View ‘Young Guns Reloaded’***
“Reps. Ryan, Cantor, McCarthy: Middle-aged conservatives recycling ideas
that were young … when they were.”
Washington Post’s Ezra Klein calls the ‘reforms’ detailed in Ryan’s budget proposal “nothing short of violent.” Indeed, according to an in-depth analysis by the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities: “[T]he Ryan plan would raise taxes for most middle-income families, privatize a substantial portion of Social Security, eliminate the tax exclusion for employer-sponsored health insurance, end traditional Medicare and most of Medicaid, and terminate the Children’s Health Insurance Program. The plan would replace these health programs with a system of vouchers whose value would erode over time and thus would purchase health insurance that would cover fewer health care services as the years went by.”
Long before she became the latest fascination of the political press and the cause-of-the-moment of the Tea Party movement, Christine O'Donnell (R-D.E.) was appearing on news outlets large and small extolling the sins of not just sex but masturbation.
The Delaware Republican, who is challenging Rep. Mike Castle in the state's Senate primary and has earned the financial backing of a portion of the Tea Party movement, made an appearance in the MTV series "Sex In The 90s." Entitled "The Safest Sex Of All," the episode was ostensibly geared towards understanding the importance of abstinence. But O'Donnell's guidance went a bit further. Masturbation, she argued, is not a moral substitute for sex. "The
http://www.politico.com/blogs/bensmith/0710/Inglis_takes_on_Beck_Palin.html?showall
Rep. Bob Inglis (R-S.C.), who lost his primary in part because he was openly critical of Glenn Beck and told his conservative constituents not to believe everything they hear on Fox, is letting loose now that he's not on the ballot.
Pointing a finger at Beck, Sarah Palin and such conservative figures, Inglis told AP:
“There were no death panels in the (healthcare) bill … and to encourage that kind of fear is just the lowest form of political leadership. It’s not leadership. It’s demagoguery,’’ said Inglis, one of three Republican incumbents who have lost their seats in Congress to primary and state party convention challengers this year.
Inglis said voters eventually will discover that you’re “preying on their fears’’ and turn away.
I think we have a lot of leaders that are following those (television and talk radio) personalities and not leading,’’ he said. “What it takes to lead is to say, ‘You know, that’s just not right.’’’
