One year later, one thing is clear: the stimulus bill has failed. One year later, not one net job has been created as unemployment rose from 7.6 percent to nearly 10 percent nationwide. Mr. President, millions of Americans are asking, "where are the jobs?"
At least 16 of the 65 companies at the job fair received funding from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, including Ball State University -- the location of the job fair -- and at least three more benefited indirectly from the stimulus. The impact the stimulus had on those employers was varied. Brevini Wind USA, Inc. of Yorktown, Indiana benefited greatly, receiving $12.75 million to open a new manufacturing facitlity that will produce parts for wind turbine manufacturers.
While Mike Pence might want to take credit for the benefits of a plan he opposed, national Democrats weren't willing to let this one go without a fight.
But Democrats say Pence's job fair is yet another example of Republicans taking credit for jobs created by the stimulus while at the same time criticizing the program. Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee called the House Republican leadership "blatant hypocrites."
"If such blatant hypocrites like Mike Pence, Eric Cantor, and John Boehner had their way, the jobs in their districts that they've been trying to take credit for wouldn't even be there," DCCC spokesperson Ryan Rudominer said.
Last night, the House failed to pass the James Zadroga 9/11 Health and Compensation Act. The bill needed a 2/3 majority to pass, but the final vote was 255-159. Indiana's Congressional delegation split their votes along party lines: Carson, Donnelly, Ellsworth, Hill, and Visclosky voted for the bill, while Pence, Burton, and Buyer voted against it.
This piece of legislation was named after NYPD detective & 9/11 responder James Zadroga, who died at the age of 34 after developing a disease attributed to inhaling toxic chemicals. Zadroga dedicated 450 hours to helping with rescue and recovery efforts and Ground Zero. This bill would have provided medical care to responders and nearby residents who continue to suffer the after-effects of the terrorist attack.
Today, the GOP wants to talk about arcane rules of procedure or NY Rep. Anthony Weiner's (justifiably) angry speech on the House floor. But that's just because they don't want to talk about this bill or their votes.
While the GOP, including our Hoosier delegation, has never hesitated to call these responders heroes in the past, this vote revealed how little they actually care about the sacrifice of those Americans. When it's cheap to praise them, Reps. Pence, Burton, and Buyer are there. But when it comes to doing the right thing and standing by our heroes, they're nowhere to be found.
Steve Buyer serves on the committee that initially heard the bill, and he followed the GOP script on this bill to perfection. He offered a meaningless, redundant amendment to make doubly sure that no undocumented immigrants would be eligible to receive money under the fund - something already explicit in the text of the bill. Before voting against the bill in committee (PDF), Buyer criticized the bill as costing too much and being a parochial giveaway, saying:
"If we want to talk about New York City and Congress only acting for the benefit of New York City, that's what this bill is about." (Source: NY Daily News)
I think it's clear from the GOP's vote what this what about: protecting tax loopholes for foreign companies instead of protecting the heroic Americans who responded to the 9/11 attacks.
For the better part of the past year, Republicans have tried to come up with a new agenda for the American people with mixed results. However, with the Tea Party now the most potent force in Republican politics, and with the recent launch of the Tea Party Caucus on Capitol Hill garnering the support of Republican leaders like National Republican Congressional Committee Chair Pete Sessions and Republican Caucus Chair Mike Pence, the Republican Party agenda has become clear. Republican leaders and Tea Party supported Republican candidates can now rally around the "Republican Tea Party Contract on America" as the blueprint for how they would govern.
For better or worse, the Republican Party has failed to articulate any sort of policy position on, well, anything. This has been a huge contributing factor in the rise of the Tea Party movement, as far-right conservatives seek to find a banner under which to march to the beat of their very different drum.
And all the while, Republicans in Washington -- yes, my Tea Party friends, that Washington -- have been all too happy to reap in cash and votes while having to do very little other than send folks like Rep. Mike Pence on the Sunday circuits to keep up the illusion they care.
The problem for the Republican power structure in DC? Refuting any of these Tea Party policy positions requires them to come up with something on their own. Considering the GOP is now openly embracing their "Party of No" moniker, I don't think I'll be holding my breath.
At a press conference earlier this week, Rep. Mike Pence decided to push the latest GOP talking point on taxes:
"The American people deserve to know that, should Democrats get their way, every income tax bracket will increase on January 1, 2011. Every single one."
Unfortunately for Mike Pence, the crew at PolitiFact decided to actually check to see if this was true. And, not surprisingly, they discovered it was yet another lie from the House Republican Conference leader:
While the legislative drafting is still in process, the Democratic majority in Congress has made clear that it plans to extend tax cuts for all but the top couple percentage points of the income distribution. So it's highly misleading for him to say that Democrats actually want to see all the bill's cuts expire. Indeed, Pence's comment verges on a scare tactic. While Pence would have been entirely accurate to say, "If the Democrats fail to extend the expiring tax cuts, all tax brackets will increase," he didn't. What he did say merits a ruling of False.
As Jed at DailyKos pointed out, "Even Politifact, which generally avoids ascribing motives, said Pence's false claim 'verges on a scare tactic.'" But Politifact, like most Hoosiers, is well acquainted with Mike Pence's history of lying - they've found as many "False" claims from Pence as they have "True" and "Barely True" combined.
Ah, Republicans have never met an irony they weren't excited to embrace, have they? May I introduce you to the "America Speaking Out" project, paid for by the aforementioned America.
Sixteen years ago, House Republicans put together the "Contract With America" based on polls and focus groups. This year, House GOP leaders are launching the "America Speaking Out" project, in the hopes of crafting a new "contract" based on public feedback and interactive social media.
The biggest difference, however, is that this time, American taxpayers are being asked to finance the partisan initiative.
Republican officials will kick off the project with an event in D.C. this morning, and it's been described, accurately, as an initiative intended to help the GOP craft "a set of policy items that Republicans would pursue if they won back control of the House in November."
When asked about this yesterday, GOP Conference Chairman Mike Pence (Ind.) was vague about financing. "'America Speaking Out' is not a project of the political" campaign arm, Pence said, reluctant to go into further detail.
Of course, a laundry list of quotes yesterday from Republican officials made it clear that Mike Pence's ambiguity was the exception, not the rule. Most were perfectly comfortable in saying that this publicly paid for site is about one thing, and one thing only: November.
Thus far, the whole experiment seems to revolve more around awesome ideas like repealing the Civil Rights Act of 1964 than an honest policy debate, which at least is thematically consistent for this particular partisan gimmick.
Here's an interesting wrinkle in the saga of Rep. Mark Souder (R-Ind.), whose pending resignation after an affair with a staffer is sort of being lost in the news cycle. At a short news conference Wednesday (on a subject I'm writing up next), Luke Russert of NBC News asked Mike Pence (R-Ind.) when he learned about Souder's affair.
"I was approached by a journalist I think Wednesday of last week who asked if I had heard anything about my colleague," said Pence. "I indicated that I hadn't. But I did approach Mr. Souder on Thursday on the House floor to inform him of that inquiry, and it was at that point that he shared the fact that he had been involved in an extramarital affair.
But wait, there's more...
Pence's staff emails this statement:
"In response to a general media inquiry, Mr. Pence confronted Mr. Souder on Thursday. Mr. Souder confessed to an affair, but did not mention that it was with a part-time staff member. It was not until Sunday evening that Mr. Souder called Mr. Pence to inform him that the affair was with a part-time staff member. Mr. Pence encouraged Mr. Souder to resign immediately and notified ethics on Monday."
I suppose on the one hand you at least have to hand it to Rep. Mike Pence for walking the walk and talking the talk when it comes to morality and all that jazz. On the other, not allowing Souder himself to come forward prior to reporting the transgression doesn't indicate a lot of warm feelings among Indiana's Republican delegation.
Hoosier Congressman Mike Pence took to the floor of the House of Representatives to demand an investigation into what happened on April 20, 2010. But he's not interested in what caused the Deep Horizon oil rig to explode - he wants to know how he can blame the Obama administration:
"The American people deserve to know why the administration was slow to respond, why necessary equipment was not immediately on hand in the area and why the president did not fully deploy cabinet-level federal officials until he spoke at the White House on April 28th."
I want to make one thing clear: Pence isn't one of the handful of conservatives pushing the line that the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico is "Obama's Katrina." That would be too moderate for the former talk radio host. Instead, "Pence asserted that Obama's response time was slow compared to Bush's response [to Hurricane Katrina] in 2005."
White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs and other Democrats have condemned these kind of remarks - and Pence's remarks specifically. But it turns out that Mike Pence's wild allegations are too much for his fellow Republicans.
The most thorough response came from Fox News host Jane Skinner, who was armed with the facts and refused to let Karl Rove get away with baseless allegations about a delayed response from the Obama administration. She told Rove that "the national response team was activated and later that day the President convened a meeting in the Oval Office with all those involved." (Watch the video of their exchange here.)
On Sunday's Meet the Press, host David Gregory interrupted Rep. Mike Pence's rant about immigration to point out that it was Republicans who killed immigration reform in 2007. Seriously, how inane do your talking points have to be for Dancing Dave to knock you down?
Watch - the video gets good at about 1:40 (partial transcript below the cut):
I've been very critical of Gregory since he took over Meet the Press - for example, I've knocked his refusal to fact-check guests, his obsession with polls and ignorance of policy, and his lack of any accountability for the flaws of his show - but this was decent journalism. Gregory was armed with the facts, and Pence had only his talking points.
Senate Republicans killed this bill. And they weren't alone - a certain Hoosier Congressman named Mike Pence wrote a special comment for the Washington Times about why he opposed the "amnesty bill":
I opposed the Senate immigration bill because of its core fallacy that millions of illegal immigrants could get right with the law without having to leave the country. For most Americans, and me, that is amnesty and I cannot support it. (Washington Times, June 10, 2007, page B3 - via Lexis search)
And even if the bill had gone through the Senate, Hoosier Republican Mark Souder was there to stop it in the House:
Mark Souder, the top Republican on the House sub-committee on border security, yesterday warned that the legislation would be "dead on arrival" in the House. (Financial Times, June 27, 2007, page 12 - via Lexis search)
But Gregory didn't go far enough in debunking Pence's tired talking points.
In both clips, Pence throws out a lot of numbers about "enforcement budgets". But those numbers aren't about enforcement or fences, they're about the failed "virtual fence". Media Matters debunked this a few days back, citing tons of statistics about the costs overruns and failed tests by this specific project.
Finally, Pence asserts that, "Phoenix, Arizona, is, is the kidnapping capital of the United State of America." He neglects to point out, as Phoenix police do, that the victims of these kidnappings are almost always drug dealers or other crime figures. And, contrary to what Rep. Pence implies here, "ICE says the spike [in kidnappings] stems from tighter enforcement on the porous Arizona-Mexico border in recent years."
Rep. Andre Carson (D-Ind.) claimed Saturday that healthcare protesters at the Capitol directed racial epithets at Rep. John Lewis (D-Ga.) as he walked outside.
Carson, a member of the Congressional Black Caucus along with Lewis, told The Hill that protesters called Lewis the N-word.
Tea Party protesters held a rally outside the Capitol on Saturday, which included speeches by Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-Minn.) and actor Jon Voight, and then proceeded into the halls to lobby members at the 11th hour.
As our Brian Beutler reports, a few moments ago in the Longworth office building, a group swarmed a very calm looking Henry Waxman, as he got on the elevator, with shouts of "Kill the bill!" "You liar! You crook!"
Not long before, Rep. Barney Frank got an uglier version of the treatment. Just after Frank rounded a corner to leave the building, an older protestor yelled "Barney, you f****t." The surrounding crowd of protestors then erupted in laughter.
At one point, Capitol police officer threatened to throw a group of protestors out of the building but that only seemed to inflame them more; and apparently none were ejected.
This is in response to President Obama's Q & A with Republicans yesterday which is almost universally being hailed as a boffo performance by the President.
To me, personally, it’s not a surprise. I debated policy with Mike Pence once and the guy is a stone-cold idiot. That was a years ago and I’ve been surprised since then to learn that conservatives consider him an unusually sharp policy mind and I take leading rightwingers at their word about that. But it’s the kind of thing that I think most Americans aren’t aware of.
Here's another review referencing Pence that made me chuckle:
At the end, shaking hands with the president, Pence's face looked as if he'd sucked a lemon for an hour – and in a way he had.
Here's the full video of the "Rumble in Baltimore" as some are calling it:
Via RedState, a copy of a letter to be sent out later today:
As many of you are aware, I have been approached about running for the United States Senate in 2010. Karen and I have been humbled by the outpouring of support and encouragement which we received from across Indiana, especially since there are several capable and qualified candidates already seeking the Republican nomination.
After much prayer and deliberation, I have decided to remain in the House and to seek reelection to the 6th Congressional District in 2010.
I am staying for two reasons. First because I have been given the responsibility to shape the Republican comeback as a member of the House Republican Leadership and, second, because I believe Republicans will win back the majority in the House of Representatives in 2010.
One year ago I was unanimously elected chairman of the House Republican Conference, the third ranking position in House Republican leadership. I accepted that responsibility because I believed that if Republicans returned to their conservative roots, they could win back the confidence of the American people. And I see it happening every day.
Pence got his free press, which is all he was probably interested in to begin with.
So you heard about that Rasmussen poll, did you? The one that says Senator Evan Bayh is toast and the only decision left is whether Mike Pence or John Hostettler will be the next junior senator from the great state of Indiana?
Well, news travels fast these days.
I, too, read the results of this latest survey yesterday, and I'll admit to being a little taken aback at first. I mean this was, after all, a shocking set of numbers, and coming on the heels of the media-fueled PenceWatch '10 spectacle, seemed to signal the start of a perfect political storm.
But let's take a step back and look at the situation. Aside from the fact that early polls are almost always terrible -- I can show you a few from this time in 2008 proclaiming a McCain victory over Hillary Clinton in Indiana -- and ignoring the fact that the campaign season has yet to even kick off for either side in this race, there are some simple logistical problems with this gem of a poll.
Here are just a few:
This poll is at odds with every other internal/external set of numbers we've seen. Way off. Outliers happen, folks.
The damn thing was taken during the Colts game. Let me ask you: would you trust any statewide survey that was taken during an AFC Championship game featuring Peyton Manning and the boys in blue? I didn't think so.
Rasmussen has become increasingly ideologically motivated, and timing is everything. Politico covered recent criticisms of the outfit earlier this month, and the fact that Republican money paid for this poll while Pence sits on the fence should tell you everything you need to know about the "fair and balanced" output of Rasmussen.
Now, all that aside, it's worth noting that these results are indicative of what is shaping up to be an extremely tough year for incumbents both here in Indiana and across the country. Senator Bayh is well aware of this, and echoed such sentiments this morning on MSNBC.
"People are mad at Democrats, they're mad at Republicans. They are just angry at the situation. I've seen polls that show me in a stronger position than the one probably you just showed your viewers. The important thing is we focus on what matters to people. Job creation, getting the deficit under control, health care reform that will matter to them right now. The polls take care of themselves. The poll in my case is illustative. The people like me personally, I'm happy to say. I'm doing a good job for them. It's all this other stuff in Washington that has them upset. You've got to change business as usual in Washington. If I have one message this morning, that's it."
Smart money is still on this whole fiasco just being a PR push on the part of the Pence camp, but regardless of who the Republican candidate ends up being, Senator Bayh has the resources, the infrastructure, and the campaign trail skills to bring his message to Hoosiers. And media clusterfunfest aside, that's something that no poll -- ideological or otherwise -- can change.
Bad candidates lose elections. That much we know. But it probably warrants repeating that good candidates win elections. And good candidates who happen to already be popular incumbents are in even better shape.
At least one Republican might do more than cheer for Massachusetts: House GOP Conference Chairman Mike Pence is now considering a campaign of his own against Sen. Evan Bayh.
The outspoken conservative could effectively clear the Republican primary field and give his party a top-tier opponent for one of the best funded Democratic incumbents in 2010.
Senator Evan Bayh -- along with Senator Richard Lugar, coincidentally -- has achieved unparalleled popularity with his personal brand of fiscally-conscious centrism.
Mike Pence has spent the better part of the last year throwing himself as far to one extreme of the political spectrum as he could manage.
And most importantly, Senator Evan Bayh is a good great candidate.
If the Republican Party wants to take one special election victory and translate it into a national campaign of self-destructive delusions, I say worse things could happen. But even I don't think Mike Pence is dumb enough to take the bait being dangled by GOP activists in Washington.
Mike Pence, chairman of the House Republican Conference, is a possible 2012 presidential candidate, and today he's added some national-level talent to his political team: prominent Republican pollster Kellyanne Conway has joined his House reelection campaign as a strategist, and he's also announced that former Dan Quayle treasurer Bill Neale will serve as treasurer. Pence hasn't announced any plans for 2012, but it would seem unnecessary to get top GOP talent for a House reelection campaign, since Pence is relatively safe in his seat.
Pence's hyperpartisan positioning over the last year may have soured his chances statewide, but it appears the talking points machine may have his sights set on bigger things.
(...and if it gets him out of the state for any period of time, good riddance.)
My now, semi-regular round up of blog posts relating to Indiana. Obviously, I'm a fan of Masson and A Loyal Opposition. What other left of center, statewide Indiana blogs out there should I be reading?
Our regional FBI branch is a busy little hive of activity these days. With plenty of Republicans under the microscope. Not only are they conducting raids on Indianapolis businessmen who write very large checks to Marion County Prosecutor Carl Brizzi ($150,000) and Governor Mitch Daniels ($50,000) but they are also looking into whether or not members of the Perry Township Constable’s Office run by Constable Roy Houchins was selling badges and using some of the loot for campaign funds.
In discussing the George W. Bush build-up to the Iraq invasion, he points out Bush’s unprecedented tax cuts at the time of preparation for war. Of special note is how Governor Mitch Daniels, then head of the Office of Management and Budget is complicit in the deception leading up to the war:
Disgruntled citizens might suggest that *lots* of lawmakers are guilty of impersonating public servants; but, former representative Dennie Oxley plead guilty to the formal, legal crime of impersonating a public servant.
When asked if they would support a tax to pay for the additional cost of war in Afghanistan, Senator Bayh, Senator Lugar, and Representative Pence all indicated they would not.
This indicates their concern about the deficit is selective. They raise the specter of debt only when the issue is something they would prefer not to pay for.
The committee took testimony on SJR 1 which places the property tax caps into the Constitution. This is state law, currently, but some folks want to get it into the Constitution so that future lawmakers can’t change it if they decide that the current structure is no longer good policy. My position is that there are too many moving parts to the tax cap specifically and our tax structure generally for us to cement the current cap legislation into the constitution.
Long ago the citizens of Indiana voted to send Evan Bayh to the U.S. Senate. His two largest donors in 2008 were Goldman Sachs ($123,750) and Eli Lilly ($65,722). Also in that hall of shame are Blue Cross and the corporate welfare case AIG. Billions of your tax dollars bailed out overcompensated AIG executives who then put nearly $27,000 into Evan Bayh's pocket. Where his loyalties lie are clearly visible to everyone in Indiana.
Update: To answer my own question, I added Reverent & Free to my feed reader. Should have been on there already.
In other words, Pence is in favor of more war and death, so long as the President or Congress doesn't try to find a way to pay for it. His efforts will be applauded by the conservative-dominated media and he will continue to be labeled a "fiscal conservative", even though such a label is completely meaningless.
Via Glenn Thrush over at Politico, it appears that Mike Pence really, really wants to complain about the passage of a health care reform bill in the House. So much so that he went ahead and kicked things off hours before voting started:
Apparently Mike Pence (R-Ind.) jumped the gun on today's health reform vote -- and shot himself in the foot.
While Democrats are professing optimism -- but not certainty about the passage of today's bill, the third-ranking man in the House GOP seems to be conceding defeat, seven hours before voting is expected to start.
This, just now, from Pence's website:
PENCE DENOUNCES HOUSE PASSAGE OF PELOSI HEALTH CARE BILL
"This 1,990 page government takeover of health care holds devastating consequences for every family and small business that wants to lower health care costs."
The release has been taken down, but it's worth noting that Pence has already thanked the entire GOP caucus for voting against the bill. So much for debate and deliberation, eh?
A major theme of last night's speeches at Americans for Prosperity's "Defending the American Dream Conference" was, ironically, out-and-out gloating about Chicago's failed bid to host the 2016 Olympics.
Mike Pence was in attendance and had this to add:
Following shortly after Ingraham, Rep. Mike Pence (R-Ind.) got in more political barbs about the loss of the games. "After those first-round results," said Pence, "it looks like the president has had about as much luck pitching Chicago to the Olympics as he had pitching health care reform to the American people."
If a Democratic congressperson said something similar about Dubya, they would have been accused of treason and of being Anti-American. I doubt Michele Bachmann will be asking the media to investigate Pence for being Anti-American.
Oh, and this is an interesting statistic:
Chicago 2016 CEO Patrick Ryan said a poll conducted last week shows 72 percent of Chicagoans back bringing the Games to the city while 84 percent of Americans support the Games.
When he isn't busy blowing millions of tax dollars on bad investment strategies, or blowing millions more on quixotic lawsuits to distract from said investment strategies, it sure seems like State Treasurer Richard Mourdock has plenty of disposable time to dedicate to political activities.
Take this weekend, where Mourdock was a speaker at a gathering of teabaggers in Washington. He wasn't the only Hoosier in attendance:
The list of speakers included only a sprinkling of politicians. The highest ranking was Rep. Mike Pence (R-Ind.), chairman of the House Republican Conference. The other politicians on the roster of speakers were Rep. Marsha Blackburn (R-Tenn.), State Rep. Tom Graves of Georgia and Indiana State Treasurer Richard Mourdock. Former House Majority Leader Dick Armey, now the leader of FreedomWorks, also spoke.
I wonder why only the most radical of politicians were willing to participate in this thing. Maybe it had something to do with the fact that most of the people attending are, for lack of a better term, crazed conspiracy theorists.
Protesters and speakers used the rally to voice their anger at Obama's stimulus package, the House-passed "cap-and-trade" energy bill, and the $700 billion Wall Street bailout.
But it went well beyond that to include anger about federal funds going to the liberal group Acorn, the number of "czars" appointed in the Obama administration and accusations that the White House solicited critics' e-mails to compile an "enemies list." Others pushed for tort reform and making English the official language and questioned whether Obama was born in the United States.
That's a hot mess of wackiness there, and the Pence / Mourdock teabagging tag-team had to feel right at home.
Starting in August, the GOP apparently - and suddenly - became stalwart defenders of Medicare. Republican chairman Michael Steele unveiled a new "Seniors Bill of Rights", vowing to protect Medicare from cuts during the health reform debate. Indiana's Mike Pence was at the forefront of this GOP push, urging his house colleagues to avoid
''harmful cuts'' to Medicare that would ''result in millions of seniors losing their health coverage.'' [1]
What Mike Pence hasn't thought to mention lately is that in April 2009, he - along with fellow Hoosier Republicans Dan Burton and Steve Buyer - voted to kill Medicare. Not to cut its funding or to limit its benefits, but to end the Medicare program, leaving elderly Americans to the whims of Wall Street insurers.
In April, during the budget hearings, Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI) introduced an "alternative" GOP budget document. This plan called for the elimination of Medicare and providing subsidies so that those 65 and older could buy a private insurance plan. In all, 137 Republicans were willing to vote for a budget that killed Medicare. (The only member of the Hoosier GOP delegation to vote against the bill was Mark Souder.)
Do Hoosiers actually believe that, in less than six months, Mike Pence has gone from wanting to kill Medicare to wanting to "protect" it from plans that would reduce waste and fraud? Of course not - we can see through his political opportunism in opposing Obama, even when it means opposing the positions he took just months earlier. But it's still sad to see a Hoosier give in to beltway thinking.
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