Now that
National Ice Cream Month is over and all of
their work is completed (
minus a few
appropriations bills and some "
other" stuff),
Congress is ready to
begin its
well-deserved August
recess.
GOP lawmakers will use this downtime to meet with their constituents and plot hashtag strategies aimed at convincing the American people that health insurance is for commies and gheys.
In spite of the packed schedule that awaits them in September, if their efforts this summer prove successful, they hope to take another extended vacation in the fall.
Morning lineup:
Meet the Press: Sen. Dick Durbin (D-IL); Sen. Saxby Chambliss (R-GA); Former NYC Mayor Rudy Giuliani (9/11); Bob Costas (NBC Sports); Roundtable: Joe Scarborough (MSNBC), Former Sen. Rick Santorum (R-PA), Joy Ann Reid (TheGrio.com) and Andrea Mitchell (NBC News).
Face the Nation: Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY); Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI); Rep. Michael McCaul (R-TX); Roundtable: Peggy Noonan (Wall Street Journal), David Sanger (New York Times), Dan Balz (Washington Post), Barton Gellman (Washington Post) and John Dickerson (CBS News).
This Week: Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Martin Dempsey; Rep. Dutch Ruppersberger (D-MD); Rep. Peter King (R-NY); Glenn Greenwald (The Guardian); Roundtable: George Will (Washington Post), Republican Strategist Matthew Dowd, Jeff Zeleny (ABC News), Soledad O’Brien (Starfish Media Group), Neera Tanden (Center for American Progress), Former Secretary of Homeland Security Michael Chertoff and Jeffrey Goldberg (Bloomberg News).
Fox News Sunday: Former NSA Director Gen. Michael Hayden; Rep. Justin Amash (R-MI); Rep. Eric Cantor (R-VA); Roundtable: Bill Kristol (Weekly Standard), Howard Kurtz (Fox News), Former Sen. Jim DeMint (R-SC) and Juan Williams (Fox News).
State of the Union: Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC); Rep. Steve Israel (D-NY); Roundtable: Former White House Communications Director Anita Dunn, Former Rep. Artur Davis (DR-AL), Democratic Strategist Donna Brazile and Republican Strategist Alex Castellanos.
Evening lineup:
60 Minutes will feature: a report on the use counterinsurgency tactics by Springfield, MA police against gangs (preview); a report on the world's largest civilian hospital ship, which takes volunteer medical staff to the Third World where they have successfully treated thousands of people suffering from cataracts, facial tumors and cleft palates (preview); and, a report on the quirky town of Marfa, TX, where cowboys and artists mix it up in the middle of nowhere (preview).
On Comedy Central...
John Oliver assessed Fox News anchors' humanitarian values.
The Daily Show
Monday: Journalist/Author Neal Thompson
Tuesday: Actor Liam Hemsworth
Wednesday: TBD
Thursday: Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY)
And Stephen Colbert was duly impressed by Sen. Ted Cruz's humility.
The Colbert Report
Monday: Actor Hugh Laurie
Tuesday: Electronic Music Duo Daft Punk
Wednesday: Actor Ashton Kutcher
Thursday: Author Colum McCann
Elsewhere...
Rep. Trey Gowdy alleged that Barry Soetero Barack Obama has been changing names to protect the guilty.
Rep. Trey Gowdy (R-S.C.) is accusing the Obama administration of a massive cover-up in the deadly Benghazi, Libya, terrorist attack, saying it was "dispersing" witnesses around the country and changing their names in an effort to hide the truth about what happened.
In an interview Thursday with Fox News host Greta Van Susteren, Gowdy said the administration is "changing names, creating aliases" of U.S. agents who were in Benghazi on the night of the Sept. 11, 2012, attacks.
Meanwhile...
Sarah Palin complained to Greta that she, too, was the victim of a massive cover-up.
"Though I was during the campaign running for VP, I was banned from talking about Jeremiah Wright and Obama's friend, Bill Ayers, who is the character that he befriended and kicked off his political campaign in the guy's living room.
Couldn't talk about that. Couldn't talk about Obama's lack of knowledge and job experience and the things that he said, like America had 57 states, things like that.
In the campaign — Greta, this is important for Americans to understand — I was not allowed to talk about things like that because those elitists, those who are the brainiacs in the GOP machine running John McCain's campaign at the time, said that the media would eat us alive if we brought up these things."
And, on the flip side...
In an interview with The Washington Post's Dan Balz, Mitt Romney denied saying what everybody heard him say.
First, Romney blamed his initial botched response to the video—his bungled, impromptu press conference the night Mother Jones released the video—on a misperception of what was on the video. [...]
Part Two of Romney's explanation to Balz was that the remark was taken out off context:
"The president said he's writing off 47 percent of Americans and so forth. And that wasn't at all what was intended. That wasn't what was meant by it. That is the way it was perceived."
How else could his remark have been perceived? He clearly slammed 47 percent of Americans for not taking care of themselves—and added that there wasn't much he could do about that.
Balz tried to point this out: "But when you said there are 47 percent who won't take personal responsibility—" Romney interrupted: "Actually, I didn't say that…That's how it began to be perceived, and so I had to ultimately respond to the perception, because perception is reality."
Come on!
- Trix