David Corn goes Ezra Klein

DON SURBER: David Corn Goes Ezra Klein. And Corn is old enough to know better . . . . Surber writ
Don Surber: David Corn Goes Ezra Klein. And Corn is old enough to know better . . . . Surber writes: “Here is what is going on: For years liberals have used the courts to dodge the legislative process because liberals are outnumbered. . . . Now ordinary citizens are turning to the Constitution and this has liberals squawking. In their minds the Constitution belongs to them and not we the people.” Ouch. ...

The Constitution Is Dead
Almost every patriotic fiber of my body tells me that reading the Constitution aloud at the commencement of congressional sessions is a good idea. Heck, a pop quiz might even be in order. It is vital that members of Congress fully immerse themselves in the document if they're going to circumvent it effectively. These same instincts demand that I embrace the new Republican rule requiring that every House Bill contain a statement from the author specifically citing the Constitutional Authority on ...

Lunch Break: Ezra Klein Constitution has no binding power on anything.
Yesterday we witnessed a great patriotic video.  Today we witness a patriotic buffoon. Email LauraLoo with your Lunch Break suggestions. “Criticize ideas, not people.” Create one original moniker and stick with it. Please use a unique name. Be civil and considerate. Read fully and consider carefully before responding. Blasphemy will not be tolerated. No swearing or slandering of others. No deliberate inflammatory comments. Do not violate another’s Privacy. Do not t...

ABC Offers Skeptical Take on New Republicans Who are 'Whipping Out' Their Pocket Constitutions
Good Morning America's Robin Roberts on Wednesday offered a doubting take on whether or not the newly elected Republicans in Congress would be able to keep their promises. She skeptically wondered, "And they're not the first ones who go to Washington, with the right intentions and feeling, you know, the things that they talked about to get elected and then, getting to Washington." She continued, " Why do they think it's going to be different with them to be able to, yo...

Michele Bachmann 'Not Ruling Out' Bid for President
Minneapolis — U.S. Rep. Michele Bachmann of Minnesota is the keynote speaker at a GOP event in the early presidential Caucus state of Iowa later this month, and a spokesman said Wednesday that the Tea Party favorite has "not ruled out" a bid for president. "Nothing's off the table for her," said Andy Parrish, Bachmann's Chief of Staff. "She's looking forward to traveling to Iowa for the Fundraiser, and you know, she's looking forward over the next year to traveli...

Attacking Unions Through Budget Fights
In yesterday’s Steven Greenhouse article on attacks on Unions at the state level in the New York Times, there’s a great passage about how the right is trying to undercut Unions through Budget crises. Some union leaders say that proposals like right-to-work laws, which have little effect on state budgets, show that Republicans are using Budget woes as a pretext to undercut unions. “They’re throwing the kitchen sink at us,” said Randi Weingarten, president of the American Feder

Lugar Likely to Face Primary Challenger
Tea Partiers in Indiana are planning to back a primary challenger to Sen. Dick Lugar in 2012, citing Lugar’s support for the DREAM Act, the New START Treaty, and his votes to confirm Elena Kagan and Sonia Sotomayor as evidence that he’s not conservative enough. From CNN: Hoping to head off a primary challenge from the right, Sen. Richard Lugar, R-Indiana, sat down with Tea Party Leaders last month but did little to persuade them of his conservative credentials. The two-hour meeting, ...

NYT: Reading Constitution an 'Empty, Pompous, Self-Righteous Act'
A theatrical production of unusual pomposity will open on Wednesday when Republicans assume control of the House for the 112th Congress. A rule will be passed requiring that every bill cite its basis in the Constitution. A bill will be introduced to Repeal the Health Care law. On Thursday, the Constitution will be read aloud in the House chamber. And in one particularly self-important flourish, the new speaker, John Boehner, arranged to have his office staff “sworn in” on Tuesday by ...

NY Times: Reading U.S. Constitution an Empty, Pompous, Self-Righteous Act
I feel the same way about reading the New York Times. (NY Times)- A theatrical production of unusual pomposity will open on Wednesday when Republicans assume control of the House for the 112th Congress. A rule will be passed requiring that every bill cite its basis in the Constitution. A bill will be introduced to Repeal the Health Care law. On Thursday, the Constitution will be read aloud in the House chamber. And in one particularly self-important flourish, the new speaker, John Boehner, arran...

Desecrating Academia
Diane Schrader, a former television news writer/producer, lives with her family in Los Angeles. She likes a nice cup of tea. Seems like just about everybody wants to get in on this list-making thing at this time of the year. People look forward and make lists of resolutions. Others look backward and make lists of the “best of” or “worst of” the year. Here at Newsreal Blog, we are never bound by the calendar - we make lists year-round! That being said… it does ...

House Republicans Already Walking Back Pledge to Cut $100 Billion From Budget (The Atlantic Wire)
WASHINGTON, DC – House Republicans are already backing off a promise to cut $100 billion from the federal Budget this year. Their excuse? The Fiscal Year started October 1, so they only have seven months' worth of expenses to cut. And the difficulty of scouring the Budget for stuff to cut is compounded by their refusal to cut Social Security, Medicare, defense and Homeland Security funding. That means everything else--schools, cops, highways--would have been subject to steep cuts of abou...

File under 'can't win'
By Ezra Klein WashPost During the Bush Administration, Democrats made a Big Deal of the Republicans' tendency to pass big initiatives without paying for them. The Tax Cuts, for instance, went right onto the Deficit. So too did the Medicare Prescription Drug Benefit. The Democrats promised that they'd be more responsible. They'd pay for their big projects. When health-care reform came around, they made good. They cut $500 billion from Medicare, handing Conservatives a potent attack line. They i...

Republicans change the House rules
Washington (CNN) - How a bill becomes a law is the educational building block of every American civics class. But as House Republicans take control of the House today, they will shift, ever so slightly, that civics lesson. First, all bills and joint resolutions submitted for approval will be required to have an accompanying statement explaining their Constitutional Authority. Republicans and the members of the Tea Party have argued that Democrats regularly overreached the Constitutional powers ...

Can Obama Crash the Tea Party?
After starting out as just a few people with signs, then morphing into a viable third-party force tipping Elections and surprising skeptics, the Tea Party is now moving into next phase on Wednesday, as members will hold their first formal positions in Washington. Wednesday also marks the first time President Obama will face Tea Party members in a concrete sense. So far he's only had to deal with them in a distant way. His party competed against Tea Party Candidates in the Midterm Elections, othe...

Kansas' Pompeo joins the new Republicans in the house
Mike Pompeo will be amoung the new Republican Representatives taking over today in Congress. Pompeo is a conservative Republican who was elected to fill the seat left by Todd Tiahrt in the 4th Kansas District for the US House of Representatives. Kansas politicians, he did not make a point of identifying himself with the Tea Party during his election campaign. He seems to be a more conventional conservative. He does share many of the Tea Party platforms. On Health Care he opposes the Obama Heal...

Small Biz Owners Say Health Care Reform Helps Cover Workers
Here’s something that certainly isn’t going to be highlighted when Republicans began their let-no-facts-get-in-the-way show trial of Health Care reform. Small Business owners say the Affordable Care Act will spur them to provide Health Insurance for their workers. Yep, while House Republicans stage their Health Care reform Repeal vote Kabuki dance this week and next, the same small business owners Republicans claim to represent are looking at Health Care reform as way to cut their health c...

Let's Call Them All Congressmen
Here’s a minor peeve. “Congress” is both the House and the Senate. But we only call members of the House “congressmen.” Why? I think we should call them all congressmen. I have a number of quasi-plausible rationalizations for why we should do this. But mostly I just think it would annoy senators, which is reason enough. Can you imagine how Arlen Specter would take it if you called him a congressman? Oh wait, that guy’s not a senator congressman anymore. Good t...

A Harper majority and other perilous predictions for 2011
Nothing is more self-defeating than predictions. The looking glass is cloudy at best, and that darn Internet provides constant access to everyone’s clunkers. But it’s fun to try and no one gets hurt, so here are my fearless predictions for 2011. My head says that there won’t be a federal election in 2011: everyone seems pretty happy sticking it out for another year. But my gut keeps telling me that the Conservatives will force an election. There are plenty of reasons to go now....

A Harper majority and other perilous predictions for 2011
Nothing is more self-defeating than predictions. The looking glass is cloudy at best, and that darn Internet provides constant access to everyone’s clunkers. But it’s fun to try and no one gets hurt, so here are my fearless predictions for 2011. Does anyone have the courage to chart a creative course on climate? Should the opposition vote down the next Conservative Budget, expected in March, to force an election? My head says that there won’t be a federal election in 2011: ever...

Why Do So Many Conservatives Like Mitch Daniels?
Mitch Daniels presents something of an enigma for Conservatives. One more than one occasion, Mr. Daniels, Indiana’s Republican Governor and a potential 2012 Presidential Candidate, has rejected conservative orthodoxy. As governor, he has raised Indiana’s Sales Tax. He has mentioned the possibility that the Federal Government may need to adopt a national sales tax to close the Deficit. He has even suggested that Republicans have too paid much attention to Social Issues. Why, then, are so man...

Social Security 101
I am writing this after seeing young Progressives I respect parrot conservative lies told about Social Security. It appears that the press has done a bang-up job of NOT reporting the truth about Social Security and allowing specious conservative lies to take deep root. So deep that intelligent young liberals even believe the spew, not to mention Conservatives who have a vested interest in believing and spreading it. My career, pre-blogging, was as third-party administrator of employer-provided r...

Rep. Bachmann 'not ruling out' bid for president
Minneapolis — U.S. Rep. Michele Bachmann of Minnesota is the keynote speaker at a GOP event in the early presidential Caucus state of Iowa later this month, and a spokesman said Wednesday that the Tea Party favorite has "not ruled out" a bid for president. "Nothing's off the table for her," said Andy Parrish, Bachmann's Chief of Staff. "She's looking forward to traveling to Iowa for the Fundraiser, and you know, she's looking forward over the next year to traveling and sharing the story ...

Lawrence G. McDonald: What You Should Know About the New Congress
Later today, all of the members of the House and a third of the Senate will be sworn in and the new reality in Washington will officially set in. The initiatives that will roll out of each body in the coming days and weeks will be a radical departure from the Democratic dominance of the past years. However, we expect that the most serious proposals will also be strikingly different from the long list of priorities that existed for both parties during the last two shifts in power. In addition t...

Bachmann mulling run for president
According to ABC News, Rep. Michele Bachmann is mulling a run for president in 2012 and will start meeting with Iowa power brokers to determine the efficacy of such a move this month. Her aides would neither confirm nor deny that she had plans on the high office, and her spokesman did not rule out a Bachmann bid for president. Gov. Mark Dayton is scheduled to sign an early Medicaid expansion for Minnesota on Wednesday, and the Tea Party is planning to be there to Protest. Former Gov. Tim Pawlen...

Moving Against The Tide
Funny, it seems people are voting with their feet again. They’re leaving Blue States, where liberal policies don’t create jobs to Red States where conservative policies do create jobs. Bizarre how that works. I just hope their voting patterns change with their address changes. Otherwise, this might end up being not such a good thing. Funny, it seems people are voting with their feet again. They're leaving Blue States, where liberal policies don't create jobs . . . Go Republi...