This is very, very sad. Not sad as in "oh, look at this poor injured puppy" sort of sad, but sad in the "oh look, that man has his arms stuck in two vending machines, they'll have to come off"
sort of way.
Congressional Republicans, seeking to counter efforts by President Barack Obama and Democrats to win the House next year, are launching a program Monday aimed at preserving their 17-seat majority.
The National Republican Congressional Committee will unveil what it dubs the “Patriot Program,” which will provide support to the party’s most endangered incumbents.
Does
everything have to be named the "Patriot" something? It's common knowledge at this point that you can accurately gauge how much of an asshole someone is by how much they loudly call themselves a "patriot." You're not a patriot, guy on Twitter, you're just an ass with a flag-toting eagle as his avatar. It's not
really an Act for Patriots, lawmakers, it's a Constitution-gouging thing that you all voted for because the Constitution isn't very patriotic at all, what with all those rights and restrictions and whatnot.
No matter, though. Republicans are sure they're the "patriots" in America, so the name gets put on everything. They start wars for patriots to fight, and cut regulations so that patriots don't have to follow quite so many laws, and have very patriotic massive recessions because if all of America's economy doesn't hinge on periodic drunken bets by our financial betters then the terrorists win.
Anyway, the goal of the Patriot Program is to patriotically protect a small list of GOP incumbents that might get their ass handed to them in 2014. The good/bad news is that there's apparently only 11 true patriots in the nation, all in districts that have significant ass-handing probability.
We know that Barack Obama’s most important goal is to get Nancy Pelosi elected speaker of the House,” Colorado Rep. Cory Gardner, who is helping to oversee the Patriot Program, said in an interview. “This is an offensive program that will expand the playing field by helping keep members who are critical to our majority.”
Yeah, that's not an "offensive" program, that's a "defensive" program, by definition. You suck at this.
Other things you will want to know so that you can sound smart at parties: This is the third go-round of the "Patriot Program," having come into existence under that particular 'Murica-loving name only in 2010. And the Democratic side has much the same thing, but their version is the rather less 'Murica-invoking "Frontline Program." No, there is no indication it is named after the popular flea and tick medication. Yes, however, it includes Blue Dogs.
Blast from the Past. At Daily Kos on this date in 2003—Still no WMDs, and chances fading:
With all of Iraq under US control, it's noteworthy that still no "weapons of mass destruction" have been found. It's even more noteworthy that Bush administration officials are losing hope any will be found.
With little to show after 30 days, the Bush administration is losing confidence in its prewar belief that it had strong clues pointing to the whereabouts of weapons of mass destruction concealed in Iraq, according to planners and participants in the hunt.
After testing some -- though by no means all -- of their best leads, analysts here and in Washington are increasingly doubtful that they will find what they are looking for in the places described on a five-tiered target list drawn up before fighting began.
So how do you start spinning this massive failure? Indeed, thousands died in order to secure the world from this so-called threat. So what if there was no threat to begin with?
Blame "Iraqi insiders" of stealing such info.
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Tweet of the Day:
Greg Dworkin returned, and although Boston was kind enough to wrap up that whole terrorism thing by Friday, we figured we might as well revisit it. Hold the remaining bomber as an "enemy combatant?" Is the
Miranda issue as big as all that? Then Arkansas Republicans poured on the stupid. One Congressman figured everybody in Boston was wishing for AR-15s. And a county Republican chair said the 2nd Amendment is really about our right to conduct sucker punch political assassinations.
GideonAB checked in on Boston and filibuster reform. Finally, Maureen Dowd's much-talked-about gun bill post mortem, and the blistering critique from Walter Russell Mead. Yow!
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