and they (and Grover Norquist) made sure that the "Super Committee" was doomed

by making any discussion of revenue increases essentially verboten from the start. They started it, most of them voted for it and said that they got 98% of what they wanted, so they own it just as much as President Obama and the Democrats whom voted for it. Of course, Republicans didn't have to start the whole battle over the debt ceiling in the first place (and they did, that much should be crystal clear obvious) and then we wouldn't even be talking about this now.

It really sucks

that these so-called "moderate Republicans" always seem to wimp out and decide to leave Congress instead of staying to try and fix their party? They would be more valuable to their constituents and/or the institution if they would stay and try and set an example for the rest of their party to follow than to simply quit and "get out of Dodge". The only thing that is *achieved* by moderates dropping out of the GOP is that what's leftover are the rabid extremists. I would also add that, despite their apparent disgust for the extremists in their party, I don't think that this guy (or Snowe for that matter) ever really stood up to and/or "bucked" their party over anything during most of the last 3-4 years and have pretty much voted the party line, so I'm going to be really disgusted if the corporate media spends a bunch of time fawning over Mr. LaTourette and his supposed "independence" like they did with Snowe.

Obama's economic policies cannot be reasonably said to have failed

because he's not the only person affecting economic policies in this country and, contrary to what Republican propagandists like Senator Mitch McConnell say, President Obama did not "get everything he wanted" in terms of legislation passed in Congress.
Of the policies for which he and the Democrats are plainly responsible for, it's hard to say how they have "failed" except, perhaps, to say that they weren't big enough. Of the remainder of the policies that have been enacted since the 2010 midterms and were heavily Republican-influenced, nobody can reasonably make the argument that President Obama and the Democrats bear full responsibility for the current state of the economy. Republicans may say that they don't want to "co-own" the economy, well, they kind of do since they have controlled a substantial part of Congress since 2011 and have been able to continue to keep business tightly bottled up in the Senate.
President Obama's signature stimulus package-that nearly all Republicans wanted NOTHING to do with- helped stem job losses and kept state governments from sinking any further into the abyss. Maybe it wasn't big enough nor effective enough in producing new jobs but I would argue that, if nothing else, it turned the tide and started to help dig us out of the 2008 financial disaster. Although not enacted by Congress, his assistance with government loans to GM helped keep the auto industry alive and people employed.
Beyond that, the only other major economic policies implemented have been an extension of the Bush Tax Cuts from 2001 & 2003 (as part of a "compromise" in order to get the Republicans to agree to an extension of unemployment benefits) and a spate of Republican-inspired government spending cuts and other austerity measures such as the "Budget Control Act" that were jammed through to keep government operating and avoid a default on our debts (see the 2011 "debt-ceiling debacle&quot , none of which has done much good for economy and certainly not helped improve the job growth situation. The one piece of legislation that has been proposed that has been estimated to actually create jobs (not the phony "jobs bills" advanced by the Republicans in the House) is President Obama's proposed "American Jobs Act", which was introduced last fall but has, in short, gone nowhere because of GOP obstructionism in the House and Senate.
It's obviously hard to know how things might have been had the stimulus been bigger, if the Bush tax cuts had expired, if there had been less cuts to government spending, or if the American Jobs Act had been passed and signed into law but blaming President Obama's economic policies for the still anemic state of economic recovery and harping on President Obama and the Democrats for "not passing a budget" is wildly disingenuous if not entirely untrue. If you view how the economy was doing from around the time the stimulus became law and money started flowing to the states until the point at which the Republicans took the House and boosted their numbers in the Senate (not to mention the kick in the gut the economy took from the "debt ceiling debacle" last year), it seems as though the Republicans whom owe the American public an "apology" for the failure of THEIR OWN policies (i.e. tax cuts, spending cuts), as well as their repeated attempts at sabotaging President Obama's efforts to repair the mess that his predecessor's economic policies and fiscal (mis-)management of the country created.

I'm sure that we could find ways to pay for it

Republicans find ways to pay for everything else (i.e. drug plans for big pharma, tax cuts for the wealthy, wars, etc.). Well, I guess that they really don't pay for them per se but they seem to have no problems with authorizing funding for them anyway. The only things that they seem to insist we make sure are paid for are social programs (which they desperately seek excuses to get rid of in the first place) or pretty much anything proposed by Democrats.

GOP Says Coverage For The Uninsured Is No Longer The Priority (NPR)

If it's a "disgrace, Senator Hatch, then why are you content with allowing it to continue? Do you and your Republican colleagues have no shame?

"Cannon has long questioned the idea that expanding insurance coverage should be the holy grail of health reform.

"The idea that the government should guarantee health insurance to everybody passes as really gospel in health policy circles, without any serious consideration, without any sort of examination of why is it that we want people to have health insurance, is health insurance the best way to serve those goals, could there be lower-cost ways of achieving those goals," he said."

WTF? What else are people going to use in order to get access to health care? Barter with chickens?" Do you guys have ANY alternatives? Bueller...............Bueller...............

"People need to have the freedom not to have insurance if the marketplace is to function properly"

How does NOT being able to go to a doctor when you (or your kids) need it or go into massive debt because of an emergency make you "FREE?!"

List of things that Romney is going to have a hard time with during the rest of the campaign:

1.) Bain Capital (offshoring, outsourcing, when was he there?)
2.) Olympics (London trip 'nuff said)
3.) 1-term Governorship of Massachusetts (Romneycare)
4.) "Obamacare" (Romneycare)
5.) National security leaks (disclosing his meeting with Mi6)
6.) Transparency/Accountability (taxes, hard drives)

What's left by now that he can attack President Obama (or sell himself) with without embarrassing himself/calling *unnecessary* attention to his own "issues"?

He's a business owner who HATES getting money?

Well, I'm sure the envelope has a return address and the insurance provider won't mind.

Aren't "free people" supposed to be "free" to make their own decisions

and if they want to elect Islamist governments (assuming the elections are judged to be legit), aren't they supposedly "free" to do so?

Romney and the neocons (I guess) are fine with "freedom" as long as the outcomes are what THEY want, not necessarily what the people in these new "free" countries want?

Anyway, like Donald Rumsfeld said (re: Iraq looting): "Freedom's untidy, and free people are free to make mistakes and commit crimes and do bad things." (not entirely applicable but he has a point about freedom being untidy and not always turning out like we'd like it to, which is, course, o.k.)

I vehemently disagree with the notion

that "fumbling his biography" is the ONLY (or primary) reason he is not ahead. Maybe the fact that he is "fumbling" such a seeming simple thing as his own "biography" or can't even manage a simple trip overseas demonstrates that he is too incompetent to be POTUS? Not to mention, people don't support what he (claims to) support- though I suspect that he's running an extremely vague campaign short on details in order to prevent people from learning too much about what he supports and would sign into law if elected POTUS. It's going to come out eventually (i.e. during the debates) and that's when IMHO you'll start to see his support collapse beyond repair.

"common good"

is a concept that Republicans and right-wingers clearly don't understand. It has to affect them personally before it means something to them and sometimes they are even oblivious to the concept that other people might need help with the same thing too and that they may not have all the same resources and/or advantages they do.


We need a massive campaign to remind people where things like roads, police, fire departments, schools, etc. come from and how they are provided for. Most people think it's great to continually have their taxes cut until their utility bills go up, school fees go up, potholes don't get repaired, etc.