A new TV ad against Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) -- created by GOP strategist Floyd Brown, the man behind the Willie Horton TV ads in 1988 -- accuses Reid of being supported by Arab slave-masters.
The ad, sponsored by an independent group called the Republican Majority Campaign, goes after Reid's support from MGM Mirage Chairman Jim Murren, who appeared in a Reid ad boasting of Reid's support for his CityCenter project, and the jobs that were created in Las Vegas. The announcer then attacks Murren's business partner from Dubai, Sheik Mohammad bin Rashid Al Maktoum, accusing Maktoum of using "slave labor" in his country: "Slave labor in Dubai, union labor in Las Vegas -- and both the slave-bosses and the union-bosses want Harry Reid re-elected."
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In yet another setback for Gov. Charlie Crist's (R-FL) Senate campaign, it turns out that his former adviser who Crist himself appointed to the Senate, Sen. George LeMieux (R-FL), says he would have voted against the stimulus -- which Crist supported.
LeMieux said he would have voted against the plan, "now that we see how little of that money has stimulated the economy," according to the St. Petersburg Times. LeMieux also said, though, that he could understand why some people had supported it: "You know hindsight is 20/20 ... The sky was falling."
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This is the week that Rep. Bart Stupak (D-MI) will be forced to show his cards and reveal whether he actually has the votes (and the will) to kill health care reform.
By all appearances, House leadership has given up on attempts to reach an accord with Stupak, and other pro-life Democrats who disapprove of the Senate bill's abortion language. Instead, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and others hope that most of them will come to their senses (perhaps after a bit of arm-twisting and pressure from the White House) and vote for the bill.
Stupak himself has acknowledged that Pelosi has probably pulled a couple Democrats away from his group. "The House Democratic leaders think they have the votes to pass the Senate's health-care bill without us," Stupak told the conservative magazine National Review last week. "At this point, there is no doubt that they've been able to peel off one or two of my twelve."
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Virginia Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli (R-VA) who was caught on an audio recording discussing possible Birther legal strategies against President Obama, has now released a statement that he does in fact believe Obama was born in the United States, and was just giving a hypothetical answer to a question about it.
"I absolutely believe that President Obama was born in the United States. I don't buy into the claims that he wasn't. On the recording, I was asked a hypothetical legal question, and I gave a hypothetical legal answer in response," Cuccinelli said in a press release this afternoon. "As I said previously, this issue was not a part of my campaign, and it is not part of what I am doing now as attorney general."
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Rep. David Dreier and Republican leaders are accusing House Democrats of trying to "seriously bend the rules" to pass health care reform this week. The GOP is charging that the Democrats will try to pass a "fix" to a health care bill that they haven't voted on.
It's a bit complicated, but Republicans are using the scary label "The Slaughter Solution" keying off of Rules Committee Chairman Rep. Louise Slaughter's name. They say the Democrats can use a procedural tactic to send the Senate-passed health care bill straight to the president for a signature. Or they could "deem" the Senate bill as passed only after the House passes the fix measure through budget reconciliation. Finally they could write a rule putting a condition that the Senate bill would only pass if the reconciliation bill passes.
Those options are indeed within the rules, and just might ease the heartburn House Democrats are feeling, since many of them don't like the Senate bill without the fixes carefully negotiated by leadership from both chambers and the White House. Republicans say any of those options are fundamentally unfair, and would skip important steps in the process. But Democrats say Dreier and the rest of the Republicans are full of it, and leadership is telling rank-and-file members to ignore complaints about procedure and avoid debates about legislative process.
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House Republicans are trying desperately to make an issue of the Democrats' handling of the Eric Massa fiasco--insinuating that House Speaker Nancy Pelosi knew more about the harassment allegations against Massa than she let on.
But if Republicans hope that they can make an issue of Pelosi's alleged failure to take the appropriate disciplinary steps against Eric Massa, they may have to confront some of their own lapses as well. Check out what House Minority Leader John Boehner said on MSNBC Friday morning.
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Retiring Sen. Chris Dodd (D-CT) unveiled his go-it-alone financial reform proposal this afternoon, after an attempt at bipartisanship fell apart last week.
The bill is neither as sweeping nor as far-reaching as some reform proponents would like -- but it would still amount to a major overhaul of existing financial regulations. Among other things, the bill would put a consumer protection agency at the Fed and give the central bank new powers of oversight.
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Ken Cuccinelli, the ultra-conservative Republican attorney general of Virginia, has apparently dabbled in Birtherism, having explored the topic with a person who asked him about it, in an audio segment that has just been posted online.
An unidentified man can be heard asking another man -- who does sound like Cuccinelli, based on comparisons with definite clips of Cuccinelli that can be found on YouTube -- what he might do as attorney general to take on the birth certificate issue. "Well, only if there is a conflict where we are suing the federal government for a law they've passed. So it's possible," said Cuccinelli.
Ben Tribbett, host of the Not Larry Sabato blog that posted the video, declined to identify the original source of the audio, but told us his understanding is that it was recorded after Cuccinelli's election and before his swearing-in -- that is, between early-November 2009 and mid-January 2010.
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Democratic leaders and President Obama have mounted a major persuasion campaign, trying to get the party on board with the all-speed-ahead push on health care reform legislation. They are offering wavering members - who voted "No" the first time around or are thinking to switch and oppose health care this time - in-person talks with the president and are walking members through how health care reform would help constituents in each lawmaker's district.
Rep. Scott Murphy (D-NY) is one of the 37 House Democrats who voted against the health care legislation last fall in the House, and is a top target of House leaders who need to win over several Democrats like him if they want to pass the bill this week. Inundated with calls asking him to vote "Yes," Murphy is carrying the Senate bill around with him and his staff is insisting to the thousands of callers to his office on both sides of the health care debate that he wants to read every word before making a decision.
"We have to just rip the band-aid off and have a vote -- up or down; yes or no," House Democrats were told in a memo Friday, written by leadership and obtained by TPMDC. The leadership team also has spent time with members' staffs to help explain all of the benefits that would kick in quickly - especially reforms to the practice of insurance companies excluding customers on the basis of preexisting conditions.
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Pennsylvania state Rep. Daryl Metcalfe says he's a different kind of Lt. Gov. candidate. The self-described "most conservative lawmaker in the legislature" says he won't be "a silent partner" to the top of the ticket in Pennsylvania, where Republicans hope to retake the governor's mansion for the first time since 2003.
Instead, Metacalfe -- best known across the state for his controversial statements about gays and climate change -- promises to be a political check on the Republican nominee he might share the ticket with. If the nominee veers away from the right toward positions that "hurt our freedom," Metcalfe says he'll call him out in public. He's already running against his own party, claiming he had to run a secret campaign to get on the ballot so the state GOP wouldn't try to stop him.
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At a roundtable meeting with several health care reporters and bloggers this morning, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi once again predicted final passage of a far-reaching heath care bill by week's end--but she insisted that success will only be possible if she acts quickly, even if that means members and reformers will have to abandon some of their key priorities, and trust the Senate to pass an amending bill through the reconciliation process.
"I have no intention of not passing this bill," Pelosi said in response to a question from TPMDC. "Let me say it in a positive way: I have faith in my members that we will be passing this legislation."
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Rep. Mark Kirk (R-IL), the Republican nominee for the Illinois Senate seat formerly held by President Obama, has his first TV ad up for the general election, pitching himself as being "the independent-minded Republican" candidate in this usually Democratic state.
"I'll work to stop wasteful spending in Washington, and end the corruption in Illinois," says Kirk, with the screen showing a photo of impeached former Gov. Rod Blagojevich and Sen. Roland Burris, who was in turn appointed by Blagojevich to replace Obama in the Senate. It should be noted, however, that Kirk can't be running against Blagojevich and Burris, only against their party. Blagojevich was impeached and removed form office over a year ago, and Burris is not running to retaining the seat in this year's election.
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Former Rep. J.D. Hayworth (R-AZ), who is challenging Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) in the Republican primary, has declared that he supports a constitutional amendment to ban gay marriage -- because to do otherwise could lead to a man marrying a horse.
"You see, the Massachusetts Supreme Court, when it started this move toward same-sex marriage, actually defined marriage -- now get this -- it defined marriage as simply, 'the establishment of intimacy,'" said Hayworth, during an appearance on a Florida radio show on Sunday. "Now how dangerous is that? I mean, I don't mean to be absurd about it, but I guess I can make the point of absurdity with an absurd point -- I guess that would mean if you really had affection for your horse, I guess you could marry your horse. It's just the wrong way to go, and the only way to protect the institution of marriage is with that federal marriage amendment that I support."
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