Welfare check

By Mustang Bobby 

The Romney campaign ran a few ads last month perpetrating the lie the President Obama wanted to roll back the work requirements in the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Act. Just about everybody called them out on it, including the major fact-checkers. They still ran with it, though.

But it turns out it wasn't the Democrats in Congress or President Obama who wanted to gut the work requirements. It was the Republicans:

The legislation — H.R. 4297, The Workforce Investment Improvement Act — was unveiled in March by Rep. Virginia Foxx (R-NC) and cosponsored by six Republican colleagues. Among them was Education & Workforce Chairman John Kline (R-MN), who passed the bill through his committee in June.

The measure is aimed at streamlining workforce training by letting states slash redundant programs and consolidate them with the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) welfare program — into one Workforce Investment Fund (WIF). States would be given so much flexibility that the restrictions in the 1996 welfare law need no longer apply, according to the nonpartisan Congressional Research Service.

Oops. I guess the Romney campaign didn’t check with their answering service. But why let a good dog-whistle go to waste?

(Cross-posted at Bark Bark Woof Woof.)

Harry situation

By Mustang Bobby

Ed Kilgore writes:

I don't know whether Harry Reid is making stuff up or not. But I think it's important to stipulate that if he is, that's a bad thing, although it in no way absolves Mitt Romney's completely independent responsibility to release his tax records and resolve all doubts.

I have said all along that I don't know for a fact whether or not Mr. Reid is making stuff up. That is an important element of the story, to be sure, but what's also important is how the defenders of Mr. Romney have reacted to the allegation that he didn't pay taxes for ten years. We've gotten a lot of outrage and accusations flung at Mr. Reid, including the rather laughable riposte from Mr. Romney himself of "put up or shut up," but no one who is defending Mr. Romney has offered any affirmative proof that Mr. Reid is making stuff up.

The Republicans have made a cottage industry out of accusing the Democrats (they're communists and atheists) and the president of terrible things and unsavory associations (he's a Muslim, he's a Kenyan, he's a socialist*) without a shred of evidence. The list of such accusers is long and includes such luminaries as Michele Bachmann, Allen West, Louie Gohmert, Virginia Foxx, Steve King, and Darrell Issa, just to name a few. (And just when you thought he was gone, Newt Gingrich pops up like a toadstool on the lawn.) These are not Cheetos-munching bloggers in some basement, but members of Congress. When they're called out on their fact-free rants, they respond with evasions and red herrings, and when the Republican leaders such as Speaker John Boehner or Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell are asked to comment or repudiate their wild-eyed members, they shrug and say "Oh, well, it's not for me to tell others what to say." The harshest pushback from these brave souls is "Those aren't the words I would use."

It's a little more than ironic -- not to mention hypocritical -- to get buckets of crocodile tears and righteous indignation from the GOP when Harry Reid makes a so-far unsubstantiated statement about Mitt Romney's taxes. Their only claim should be one of copyright infringement.

*There's nothing at all wrong with being a Muslim, a Kenyan, or a socialist. It's just that in Mr. Obama's case, he's not.

(Cross-posted at Bark Bark Woof Woof.)

Senate rejects Republican health-care repeal effort

By Michael J.W. Stickings

Not much drama here. The GOP-controlled House voted to repeal the Affordable Care Act, but it was clear that the repeal effort wasn't going anywhere, what with Democrats still in control in the Senate and, of course, with Obama prepared to use the veto if necessary.

So today the Senate voted along party lines, 51-57, against repeal.

And that, as they say, is that, at least as far as Congress is concerned. The issue will continue to play out in the courts, where Republicans are trying to use the law's individual mandate to bring the whole thing down. And it will ultimately be up to the Supreme Court to rule on it.

**********

There's nothing funny about what the Republicans are doing, even if their effort is pathetically misguided and without merit.

But this -- this is funny:

Republicans Vote To Repeal Obama-Backed Bill That Would Destroy Asteroid Headed For Earth

WASHINGTON—In a strong rebuke of President Obama and his domestic agenda, all 242 House Republicans voted Wednesday to repeal the Asteroid Destruction and American Preservation Act, which was signed into law last year to destroy the immense asteroid currently hurtling toward Earth.

The $440 billion legislation, which would send a dozen high-thrust plasma impactor probes to shatter the massive asteroid before it strikes the planet, would affect more than 300 million Americans and is strongly opposed by the GOP.

"The voters sent us to Washington to stand up for individual liberty, not big government," Rep. Steve King (R-IA) said at a press conference. "Obama's plan would take away citizens' fundamental freedoms, forcing each of us into hastily built concrete bunkers and empowering the federal government to ration our access to food, water, and potassium iodide tablets while underground."

"We believe that the decisions of how to deal with the massive asteroid are best left to the individual," King added.

Repealing the act, which opponents have branded 'Obamastroid,' has been the cornerstone of the GOP agenda since the law's passage last August. Throughout the 2010 elections, Republican candidates claimed that the Democrats' plan to smash the space rock and shield citizens from its fragments was "a classic example of the federal government needlessly interfering in the lives of everyday Americans."

"This law is a job killer," said Rep. Virginia Foxx (R-NC), who argued the tax increases required to save the human species from annihilation would impose unbearably high costs on businesses. "If we sit back and do nothing, Obamastroid will result in hundreds of thousands of lost jobs, which we simply can't afford in this economy."

"And consider how much money this program will add to our already bloated deficit," Foxx continued. "Is this the legacy we want to leave our children?"

Very funny -- especially so because it could very well be true. It gets the Republicans perfectly.

Craziest Republican of the Day: Virginia Foxx

By Michael J.W. Stickings

We all know Foxx is crazy. Apparently, she's also incredibly stupid. Consider a couple of things she said yesterday:

-- "Actually, the GOP has been the leader in starting good environmental programs in this country."

Maybe, if you go all the way back to the days of Teddy Roosevelt. More recently, the GOP is the party of global warming denialism and opposition to environmental legislation generally.

-- "Just as we were the people who passed the civil rights bills back in the '60s without very much help from our colleagues across the aisle. They love to engage in revisionist history."

If it's revisionist history you want, you'll get it whenever Foxx opens her mouth. She's certainly old enough to remember that it was a Democratic president, Lyndon Johnson, who was largely (but not solely) responsible for the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965. Furthermore, Republicans were broadly against civil rights, and in fact it was to a great extent their opposition to civil rights that flipped the South from the Democrats, who had long held it, ushering in a new regional alignment in American politics and paving the way for Republican electoral success over the next few decades, pretty much up to the present. It was only in 2008, with a hugely popular presidential candidate, that the Democrats were able to break through in parts of the South -- notably Virginia and North Carolina -- that were for the most part solidly Republican. Even with Obama, though, the South remains a Republican bastion.

Did some Republicans support civil rights in the '60s? Of course. A lot of them did -- and a lot from parts of the country that are now solidly Democratic, now that the GOP has moved to far to the right. But it's crazy to think that they did it on their own, or that they were largely responsible for it, or that Democrats not only had nothing to do with it but were actively against it. That last one is insulting, not just to President Johnson but to the many Democrats who were on the front lines of the struggle, and to those who stood with their president to change America for the better.

But, then, this is Virginia Foxx we're talking about. If she's not a blatant liar, she's insane.