Quick Take

Here's Rep. Raul Labrador expressing his frustration at the fact that the Democrats successfully filibustered the inclusion of a repeal of President Obama's immigration actions as part of the bill funding the Department of Homeland Security.

If we're going to allow seven Democratic senators to decide what the agenda is of the House Republican conference or the Senate Republican majority, then we might as well just give them the chairmanships, give them the leadership of the Senate, and allow them to decide what the agenda for the American people is going to be.

Of course, this is TOTALLY DIFFERENT from the ancient history of 2010 - 2012 when 7 Republican Senators were able to decide the agenda for the Senate Democratic majority. Or 2012-2014 when it was down to 5 Republicans making the call.

It is rather amusing to watch these folks throw a temper tantrum over a process they were happy to exploite.

Quick Take

From Lloyd Grove on David Axelrod's book Believer:

President Obama despises Maureen Dowd — absolutely loathes the Pulitzer Prize-winning New York Times columnist. He’s annoyed by Mitt Romney. And the president’s messaging guru and top gun, David Axelrod, has little regard for Mark Penn, Hillary Clinton’s erstwhile chief strategist.

I would call that being a GREAT judge of character.

Quick Take

The reality in America today is that an awful lot of white people don't "see" racism. That's because - by definition - it doesn't happen to us. When it does come up, we tend to get defensive and shift to talking about identity politics and political correctness.

So I guess it should come as no surprise that when a white prognosticator examines the demographic trends between the Democratic and Republican Party - what Tim Wise calls "the perfect storm for white anxiety" is not taken into account.

Hence, we get John Judis commenting on the fact that white working class voters and college-educated middle class voters (75% of whom are white) are continuing their drift to the Republican Party during the Obama era without ever once grappling with the role that race plays in that trend.

Lord-a'-mercy!!! Its almost as if we learned nothing from that whole Southern Strategy thing.

Quick Take

Charles Pierce has written a great response to this statement from Jim Webb.

"I think they could do better with white, working people and I think this last election showed that," Webb said, referencing the 2014 midterms where Republicans took control of the Senate and added more power in the House. "The Democratic Party could do very well to return to its Franklin Roosevelt, Harry Truman, Andrew Jackson roots where the focus of the party was making sure that all people who lack a voice in the corridors of power could have one through the elected represented...You are not going to have a situation again where you have 96% of the African American vote turning out for one presidential candidate. ... We need to get back to the principles of the Democratic Party that we are going to give everyone who needs access to the corridors of power that access regardless of any of your antecedents. I think that is a fair concept."

Go read Pierce's whole article and raise your political IQ a few points.

That bolded sentence really caught my eye though. What I take from it is: "We've done that whole black president thing. Time to strategize around white candidates again." Perhaps I'm reading it wrong. But I think its an unspoken racist assumption that's out there.

Quick Take (updated)

You want to know why Speaker Boehner has decided to engage in a second attempt to sue President Obama - this time over his executive action on immigration?

It's simple: he's trying to call off the lunatic wing of his party in order to get a funding bill for the Department of Homeland Security passed by February 27th. In other words, now that they're in control of Congress - the whole hostage-taking thing is backfiring on them. They can't afford to bypass the deadline they themselves initiated and allow a shutdown of the Department that is tasked with protecting us against all those scary terrorists who are out to get us. < snark off > It's also why Boehner is going to allow yet another vote on repealing Obamacare.

I'm thinking there is a betting pool available here to be exploited. How long do Boehner/McConnell drag this all out before they recognize that they have to go to Pelosi/Reid to bargain for votes from Democrats in order to keep DHS open? That's the only way they've been able to pass legislation in the past and it looks like that hasn't changed in this new Congress.

UPDATE: During the Loretta Lynch confirmation hearings it has been noted that the current federal budget allows for the deportation of approximately 400,000 undocumented people currently in the country. Sen. Lindsay Graham asked Lynch to determine how much money would be necessary to deport all 10-12 million. We could suggest that he take the amount currently allocated and multiply it by 30. If Republicans want to "deport-em-all," that's how much they need to increase the budget for DHS. Think they can actually sell that?

Quick Take

Occasionally I have a thought that's too long for twitter but too short for a blog post. I might start putting them up here as "quick takes."

What struck me today is that, with things like Gov. Chris Christie's youtube channel, I'm not sure how Gov. Mike Pence is deviating that far from the current norm in creating his own news outlet. I'll bet Christie's short videos get WAY more eyeballs.

That's why I think the more important story is that Pence is going to be the next "red state" governor to expand Medicaid.