Michael Tomasky's Blog, page 55

The US Republicans have created a Frankenstein monster | Michael Tomasky

Karl Rove and the neocons were the inspiration for the Tea Party. But they've lost control and now it threatens to overwhelm them

Carl Paladino stood at the victory podium and bellowed: "Tonight the ruling class knows. They have seen it now. There is a people's revolution." Paladino, the Tea Party-backed candidate whom New York Republicans nominated for governor on Tuesday, crushed his establishment opponent – a former congressman with a somewhat moderate reputation – by two to one. This was a...

Primary results | Michael Tomasky

I'm traveling today, taking the kid out to see her grandparents in California for the first time, but I did want to scribble down these quick thoughts.

I know that the Republican Senatorial Campaign Committee issued a rather icy statement about Christine O'Donnell's win in the Delaware Senate primary, which indicates that she's probably not going to get much money from them. And I know that liberals are happy, as her win gives Chris Coons a far better chance to take the seat in November.

But...

Off-topic post on the world's greatest beverage | Michael Tomasky

I've been meaning for some time to look into the story of the world's greatest soft beverage, the Aloe Vera King drink. Do you know it? It's a natural, organic, not-too-sweet aloe beverage, brimming with natural fruit pulp, that comes in a green (original flavor) plastic bottle of 16 oz. in the US that sells for about $2.

It is heaven, kids. Beverages always have their ups and downs - sometimes Diet Coke tastes good, sometimes it tastes like mercury. Fresca is often my beverage of choice. I...

Rand Paul strikes again | Michael Tomasky

Now Rand Paul has promised to vote against and filibuster any budget that isn't balanced. Steve Benen notes:

At face value, this is a pretty absurd position to take. Putting aside the fact that there are plenty of circumstances in which running deficits is the smart, responsible thing to do, there's the small matter of the trillion-dollar deficit Republicans left for Democrats to clean up. This year, the deficit will be about $1.3 trillion -- almost exactly the size of the budget shortfall...

Making it about Boehner | Michael Tomasky

I'm sensing from reading around that Republicans may be a little worried that Obama is making sure the American people know who John Boehner is. I sense this because they're sniffing at it and calling it unpresidential. Here's Fred Barnes:

A word comes to mind about the Boehner gambit—unpresidential. Karl Rove, President Bush's political adviser, offered four words—"nutty, demeaning, useless, ill-conceived." So far as I know, a premeditated assault by a president on the leader of the...

The seemingly unanswerable small-business question | Michael Tomasky

One of the big questions about the current tax debate that I don't know the answer to, and that I increasingly get the sense no one knows the answer to, is how many small businesses would actually be affected if Obama and the Congress did not extend the Bush tax cuts for upper-bracket earners.

Mitch McConnell puts his support for extending all Bush tax cuts mostly in small-business terms. Obviously, he doesn't want to talk about multi-millionaires. So he says things like:

Only in Washington...

Genuinely interesting thing I bet you haven't read about | Michael Tomasky

As you are probably aware from the monthly jobs numbers if nothing else, the decennial census was being taken this summer in the US. This constitutionally mandated process is used to arrive at a population figure which then serves as the basis for figuring out a lot of stuff. Like the country's ethnic and racial makeup. Like federal aid to states. And maybe most importantly, like redistricting.

Brits, it works like this. There are 435 members of the US House of Representatives, each one...

The Pumas return | Michael Tomasky

Remember 2008's Pumas? They were the Hillary die-hards, after it was clear that Obama was going to win the nomination and Hillary kept at it anyway. The first two letters of Puma stood for party and unity. The next one was my. Got it?

Christine O'Donnell, the tea party candidate for Senate in Delaware, says they're back and they're with her:

"I do want to point out that we have broad based support, we've got a lot of Hillary Democrats working behind us -- with us -- because they're frustrated...

My Kenyan, anti-colonialist worldview | Michael Tomasky

Now, as you may have noticed over the weekend, the new explanation for Obama's hatred of America is not so much that he's a socialist (although of course he is that), but that he is a Kenyan anti-colonialist. Dinesh D'Souza wrote a big essay on the matter for Forbes, which I trust has the actual remaining journalists at Forbes taking care to steer clear of social situations this week in which they would be compelled to tell people where they work:

It may seem incredible to suggest that the...

Boehner blinks, and now what? | Michael Tomasky

So Congress reconvenes today, and the Bush tax-cut question is on the top of the list. It certainly looks like House Republican leader John Boehner blinked yesterday when he said:

If the only option I have is to vote for those at [$250,000:] and below, of course I'm going to do that. But I'm going to do everything I can to fight to make sure that we extend the current tax rates for all Americans.

This surprised pretty much everybody, and apparently Robert Gibbs made the rounds of the morning...