The GOP's greatest Obamacare nightmare has arrived.

Courtesy of TPM:  

The politics of the health care law have undergone a sea change since its disastrous rollout last fall, when many conservative operatives were salivating at the prospect of a GOP wave in the midterm elections due to an Obamacare "train wreck." 

But the train never wrecked. The law rebounded, surpassing its signups goal and withstanding a flurry of attacks. The issue seems to have mostly lost its power as a weapon against Democrats, and a growing number of Republican governors — even in conservative states — are warming to a core component of Obamacare, the Medicaid expansion. 

To get a sense of why this is worrying for Republicans in the long run, look no further than conservative strategist Bill Kristol's 1993 memo — "Defeating President Clinton's Health Care Proposal" — warning that reform would paint Democrats as "the generous protector of middle-class interests" and strike a "punishing blow" to the GOP's anti-government ideology. 

"But the long-term political effects of a successful Clinton health care bill will be even worse — much worse. It will relegitimize middle-class dependence for 'security' on government spending and regulation. It will revive the reputation of the party that spends and regulates, the Democrats, as the generous protector of middle-class interests. And it will at the same time strike a punishing blow against Republican claims to defend the middle class by restraining government," Kristol wrote. 

In other words, the real fear back then was that health care reform would succeed.

And now, thanks to Obama, it has.  

Two decades later, Kristol's prophecy is haunting Republicans. Obamacare has provided a lifeline by providing coverage to 8 million people on the exchanges, 7 million under Medicaid expansion and 5 million who bought insurance outside the exchanges but benefit from new regulations like the coverage guarantee for individuals with preexisting conditions. Even Republicans in deeply conservative states are suggesting that the popular new benefits cannot be taken away, even if the Obamacare brand still struggles.

The Republicans pinned all of their hopes on using Obamacare to attack the Democrats who voted for it, and defeat them in 2014.

But now with that hope dashed to the rocks of the Obamacare success, what is left in their quiver?

Jobs? Nope their getting better.

Immigration? Nope the President is tabling that until after the midterms.

Benghazi? The IRS "scandal?" Fast and Furious?

Nope, nope and nope.

Those are all bullshit and really only reflect on the President anyhow.

So exactly HOW are the Republicans supposed to retake the Senate in 2014?

Republican chair of the House Armed Services Committee says he is satisfied with how the Obama administration handled Benghazi.

Courtesy of Americablog:  

GOP Rep. Howard “Buck” McKeon, the Republican chair of the House Armed Services Committee, says he’s satisfied with how the US military – and ergo the Obama administration – responded to the deadly attack on the US consulate in Benghazi, Libya that killed four Americans, including the US ambassador to Libya. 

The news also exonerates expected Democratic presidential nominee, and then-Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton. More on that in a moment. 

“I think I’ve pretty well been satisfied that given where the troops were, how quickly the thing all happened and how quickly it dissipated, we probably couldn’t have done more than we did,” McKeon said to reporters today, as quoted by AP. 

McKeon then went on to plant a not-so-subtle dig at fellow Republicans who keep harping on “Benghazi” as if there were a real scandal there. 

“We have been working on this for a long time. We issued a preliminary report,” McKeon said. “At some point, when we run out of people to talk to, or we run out of people to talk to two or three times, at some point, we think we’ll have as much of this story as we’re going to get and move on.”

Essentially this is the same conclusion that Charles Krauthammer came to the other day as well.

Neither of these two want to admit that there was nothing to investigate in the first place, but both realize that since they have not found the smoking gun at this point, that the Republicans are wasting their time looking. 

So we have Obamacare meeting its goals, the Benghazi "scandal" fizzling out, and nobody really giving a rat's ass about the IRS non-scandal, and the Fast and Furious non-scandal.

Gee one has to wonder what new scandal the Right Wing will pull out of its pasty white morbidly obese ass next?

Gee why did the Republicans stop talking about Obamacare again?

Big #Obamacare news: pic.twitter.com/TSr7POJSjC
— Barack Obama (@BarackObama) January 13, 2014

Oh that's right, because it's working.

Well they still have the IRS scandal, Benghazi, and Fast and Furious.

Oh wait. 

P.S. By the way 1/4 of that 2.2 million is made up of young people. 

CBS has apologized for reporting lies about Benghazi. What do you say Fox News?

Courtesy of Media Matters:  

By the end of Fox News' regular programming schedule at 11 PM EST on November 8, the network had acknowledged the fact that CBS pulled its 60 Minutes report in only one 26-second segment. On Special Report, host Bret Baier stated, "CBS is backing off a report on 60 Minutes -- we told you about last week -- that relied on a source whose credibility has crumbled."

I actually don't expect Fox to issue an apology, or retract anything they report, about this, the fast and furious debacle, or the fake IRS targeting Tea Party organizations "scandal."

After all only actual news organizations are directed by journalistic ethics.

Five previous scandals that were going to destroy President Obama.

"Really? They have ANOTHER scandal?"

Courtesy of The National Memo:  

Throughout the past week, revelations regarding the IRS’ targeting of Tea Party groups, the Department of Justice’s decision to subpoena the phone records of over 100 Associated Press journalists, and the Republican Party’s continued obsession with a supposed cover-up in Benghazi have left President Barack Obama on the defensive. As a result, many in the media are speculating that the president has been fatally wounded politically, and Republicans are openly discussing impeachment. 

This is not the first time they have predicted Obama’s demise, however. In fact, the president’s four-plus years in office have been littered with “bombshells” that were supposed to destroy his credibility, only to land with a thud when presented to the American public.

After that the author  presents the other "career ending" scandals that were heralded by the conservatives as signaling the death knell of this Presidency.

Fast and Furious.

Solyndra.

You Didn't Build That!

Obama's "Other Race Speech."

The Birth Certificate.

"Yeah maybe THOSE did not bring down the Muslim-in-Chief, but SURELY 'Umbrellagate' will finally drive the stake through the heart of this most corrupt Presidency in American history." Said the most ignorant closeted racists in the country.

No I don't think that these sad little conspiracy theories are going to result in impeachment or any significant damage to Obama's presidency, but they WILL continue to drive money into the campaign coffers of various Right Wing politicians so the real problem is that scandals do not have to be true, or even ultimately damaging, in order to have an impact on the politics in America.

I would only hope that for every dollar that goes into Mitch McConnell's campaign fund due to this kind of garbage, that two dollars go into the campaign fund of his opponent from people who are sick and tired of hearing about it ad nauseam.

Happening now: Democrats walk out in reaction to Holder contempt charge. Update!

Attorney General Eric Holder

I am watching it now, as it happen on MSNBC.

Will update as more information comes in.

You can learn more about what a bullshit contempt charge this is by clicking here.

Update: Apparently the vote to hold the Attorney General in contempt passed, and that is why the Dems walked out.  Holder is the FIRST Attorney General to ever be held in contempt by Congress, and the only reason it received any support by some Blue Dog Democrats is because the NRA threatened to go after them and essentially place their reelections in jeopardy.

Cowards!

Update: Here is video of the Democrats after they walked out courtesy of MSNBC:

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The Truth about Fast and Furious. Update!

 Courtesy of Fortune:

Quite simply, there's a fundamental misconception at the heart of the Fast and Furious scandal. Nobody disputes that suspected straw purchasers under surveillance by the ATF repeatedly bought guns that eventually fell into criminal hands. Issa and others charge that the ATF intentionally allowed guns to walk as an operational tactic. But five law-enforcement agents directly involved in Fast and Furious tell Fortune that the ATF had no such tactic. They insist they never purposefully allowed guns to be illegally trafficked. Just the opposite: They say they seized weapons whenever they could but were hamstrung by prosecutors and weak laws, which stymied them at every turn. 

Indeed, a six-month Fortune investigation reveals that the public case alleging that Voth and his colleagues walked guns is replete with distortions, errors, partial truths, and even some outright lies. Fortune reviewed more than 2,000 pages of confidential ATF documents and interviewed 39 people, including seven law-enforcement agents with direct knowledge of the case. Several, including Voth, are speaking out for the first time. 

How Fast and Furious reached the headlines is a strange and unsettling saga, one that reveals a lot about politics and media today. It's a story that starts with a grudge, specifically Dodson's anger at Voth. After the terrible murder of agent Terry, Dodson made complaints that were then amplified, first by right-wing bloggers, then by CBS. Rep. Issa and other politicians then seized those elements to score points against the Obama administration, which, for its part, has capitulated in an apparent effort to avoid a rhetorical battle over gun control in the run-up to the presidential election. (A Justice Department spokesperson denies this and asserts that the department is not drawing conclusions until the inspector general's report is submitted.) 

"Republican senators are whipping up the country into a psychotic frenzy with these reports that are patently false," says Linda Wallace, a special agent with the Internal Revenue Service's criminal investigation unit who was assigned to the Fast and Furious team (and recently retired from the IRS). A self-described gun-rights supporter, Wallace has not been criticized by Issa's committee. 

The ATF's accusers seem untroubled by evidence that the policy they have pilloried didn't actually exist. "It gets back to something basic for me," says Sen. Charles Grassley (R-Iowa). "Terry was murdered, and guns from this operation were found at his murder site." A spokesman for Issa denies that politics has played a role in the congressman's actions and says "multiple individuals across the Justice Department's component agencies share responsibility for the failure that occurred in Operation Fast and Furious." Issa's spokesman asserts that even if ATF agents followed prosecutors' directives, "the practice is nonetheless gun walking." Attorneys for Dodson declined to comment on the record. 

For its part, the ATF would not answer specific questions, citing ongoing investigations. But a spokesperson for the agency provided a written statement noting that the "ATF did not exercise proper oversight, planning or judgment in executing this case. We at ATF have accepted responsibility and have taken appropriate and decisive action to insure that these errors in oversight and judgment never occur again." The statement asserted that the "ATF has clarified its firearms transfer policy to focus on interdiction or early intervention to prevent the criminal acquisition, trafficking and misuse of firearms," and it cited changes in coordination and oversight at the ATF. 

Irony abounds when it comes to the Fast and Furious scandal. But the ultimate irony is this: Republicans who support the National Rifle Association and its attempts to weaken gun laws are lambasting ATF agents for not seizing enough weapons—ones that, in this case, prosecutors deemed to be legal.

 As has been mentioned numerous times before, by news agencies that are NOT Fox New, this is nothing more than a witch hunt, and yet another attempt by the rabid Right Wing to create a conspiracy out of virtual thin air in as they desperately try hang a scandal around the neck of President Obama, because in their black little hearts they just "know" that one must exist.

By the way I encourage you to read the entire article as it does an incredible job of revealing to what depths these Republican assholes will go to in order to smear this President.

Update: As usual Rachel Maddow has done an exemplary job of explaining this case in very simple  language.  If you want to understand this issue better then click here for further clarification.

Rachel Maddow exposes the crazy conspiracy theories behind the Republican's "Fast and Furious" witch hunt

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I have been watching this unfold over this last week, and have become increasingly angry at what I clearly recognize as a witch hunt, however leave it up to Rachel Maddow to discover just how completely out of line and insane their crusade truly is.

By the way I just wanted to mention that I was there for the portion that Rachel talks about when she came up here to attempt an interview with Joe Miller, and was standing behind her when she was talking to the crazy, horribly uninformed Miller supporters on the street that day in Anchorage.

"Hey, I've read your blog!"

Even I, a lifetime Alaskan resident, was amazed at their complete lack of intelligence when it came to understanding just what they were supposed to be so angry about. Of course they were Joe Miller supporters, so what could you expect?