The first line of the Jimi Hendrix song goes “If you can just get your mind together”.

It looks like Amanda Terkel of ThinkProgress couldn’t, when she wrote:

Franken has had experience with the filibuster dating back to before he was even seated as a U.S. senator. As Republicans attempted to drag out the recount process in Minnesota (even though it became clear that Franken was the winner of the election), the GOP promised to filibuster any attempt to seat Franken early.

He “has had experience with the filibuster” because Republicans “promised to filibuster any attempt to seat Franken early” (even though no filibuster actually ensued)?

By that kind of logic, you lose your virginity the first time someone promises to have sex with you. Not being an expert on this kind of logic, I cannot say for sure, but it may also be possible to lose your virginity multiple times.

Besides, I’m still struggling to understand why seeing Mr. Smith Goes to Washington at an impressionable age — as Al Franken undoubtedly did — doesn’t count as having had experience with the filibuster.

Although I don’t expect it to happen — that is to say, I assign to it a probability of significantly less than 0.5 — if Republicans win control of the House in November, and John Boehner becomes Speaker, I believe he will be the first T-and-A speaker in the history of the House of Representatives.

Nancy Pelosi may be the first woman speaker, but she wasn’t elected to the position just for being a pretty face.

Whereas it’s always been clear — and yet, somehow, becomes more so as the midterm elections approach — that Boehner has absolutely nothing to recommend him for the post other than that tan and his pretty face. (In all fairness, though, we can’t speak to his legs. Maybe he has lovely legs too?)

He has never been accused of exhibiting any leadership qualities. And he doesn’t seem to have enough brains in his head to even provide a viable DNA sample.

Two and a half weeks ago, I flagged a story by Dan Balz in The Washington Post, which I described as people starting to laugh out loud at how, with midterm elections rapidly approaching, the Republican Party is still floundering for a real agenda.

Balz’s piece focused on Boehner, and his complete inability to even come close to articulating what Republicans are actually for, what agenda they will pursue if they regain the majority in the House and/or Senate in November.

And it’s not even about intellect, or at least, not about actually possessing any. Boehner isn’t even able to put on a passably convincing imitation of having any grasp on policy matters that he knows perfectly well he’s going to be asked about by reporters. When your prepared responses to reporters’ questions sound like this, what’s the meaningful difference between you and Sarah Palin?

Asked whether partial privatization of Social Security, which Republicans pushed unsuccessfully in 2005, would be part of a GOP agenda, he twice replied, “I have no idea.”

This business of people starting to laugh out loud at Boehner’s complete asininity has now officially moved from the metaphorical realm to the literal. On Saturday, President Obama actually did laugh at Boehner’s stupidity on policy matters. In public, and on the record. In his weekly radio address, actually:

It was largely overlooked during a busy media week, but House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-Ohio), who’s been reluctant to talk about his party’s policy agenda in detail, was willing to outline three measures he’d pursue as Speaker to create American jobs. The list made it painfully clear — to anyone who takes substance even a little seriously — that Boehner has no idea what he’s talking about.

In fact, the remarks were so patently ridiculous, President Obama devoted much of his weekly address to shining a bright light on Boehner’s understanding of job creation.
[...]
“This week, the Republican leader in the House of Representatives offered his plan to create jobs,” the president explained. “It’s a plan that’s surprisingly short, and sadly familiar. First, he would repeal health insurance reform, which would take away tax credits from millions of small business owners, and take us back to the days when insurance companies had free rein to drop coverage and jack up premiums. Second, he would say no to new investments in clean energy, after his party already voted against the clean energy tax credits and loans that are creating thousands of new jobs and hundreds of new businesses. And third, even though his party voted against tax cuts for middle-class families, he would permanently keep in place the tax cuts for the very wealthiest Americans – the same tax cuts that have added hundreds of billions to our debt.

“These are not new ideas. They are the same policies that led us into this recession. They will not create jobs; they will kill them. They will not reduce our deficit; they will add $1 trillion to our deficit. They will take us backward at a time when we need to keep America moving forward.”

If you listen really carefully at the 3:44 mark, you’ll notice that the president actually chuckles, just a little, when describing just how ridiculous Boehner’s approach to job creation really is.

Back to an earlier post by Steve Benen for the closing summation:

With Boehner, it seems he’s just clueless, uninterested and ignorant about the basics of contemporary policy disputes. Can anyone think of a time they’ve heard John Boehner speak intelligently about any subject? Ever? Can anyone identify an issue where Boehner has demonstrated even the slightest bit of expertise? Or even knowledge?

On Wednesday, ABC News reported that a nice little brawl had broken out at the RNC over “more than $7 million in debt” that was not reported to the FEC in its April and May filings:

A GOP civil war has broken out between RNC Chairman Michael Steele and RNC Treasurer Randy Pullen.http://www.1115.org/wp-admin/post.php?action=edit&post=13983&message=1

The dust-up reveals new levels of dysfunction at the RNC and suggests the Republican National Committee is having real money problems.

In a memo obtained by ABC News, Pullen makes startling allegations against Steeles chief of staff, (Michael Leavitt), accusing him of trying to hide unpaid invoices and causing the RNC not to report more than $7 million in debt in its April and May filings with the Federal Election Commission.

RNC officials categorically deny charges made by its own treasurer that Steele or his chief of staff tried to conceal any debt, but they do acknowledge that RNC did file amended reports for April and May accounting for the previously unreported debt.

What was not clear initially was that the unreported debt didn’t consist of formal loans. It consisted of overdue unpaid invoices, which must be reported as debt under FEC rules:

The Republican National Committee filed amended financial reports Tuesday showing about $3 million (sic)* in debt for April and May that was previously unreported.

RNC Treasurer Randy Pullen said in a memo to the party’s budget committee that he had discovered unpaid bills for telemarketing, legal consulting and other services. Pullen accused RNC Chairman Michael S. Steele’s chief of staff of hiding invoices and telling staff members to withhold information from Pullen.

A political party must report an invoice as a debt to the Federal Election Commission if it’s undisputed and remains unpaid for 60 days past the date the services were rendered.

This, of course, raises the question of why invoices worth millions of dollars remained unpaid for more than 60 days.

In March, the RNC reported record fundraising:

The RNC raised $11.4 million, a record high for a mid-cycle March. The RNC has $11.3 million cash-on-hand and $0 debt.

So why were invoices received well before the end of March not paid in March?

Similarly, the RNC claimed to have “$12.5 million in cash on hand at the end of April.” And yet the invoices remained unpaid at the end of April

If the money really was there, why wasn’t it used to pay the unpaid invoices? Millions of dollars of cash in hand and millions of dollars of unpaid invoices just doesn’t add up.

It’s perfectly possible that Randy Pullen is sadly out of touch with reality. However, given Michael Steele’s past shenanigans and his dismal record of financial stewardship at the RNC, I’m not sure anyone can dismiss out of hand Pullen’s allegation that Steeles chief of staff had instructed RNC staff to hide unpaid invoices from the treasurer.

If we assume for a moment that might be true, one suspicion that inevitably comes up is that perhaps the cash that was supposed to be on hand actually wasn’t, for some reason. That’s one way to make everything add up. If the cash was actually available, why would millions of dollars of invoices remain unpaid, and the unpaid invoices be hidden from the treasurer?

And if the cash wasn’t available, what happened to it? If someone took the money and ran, that would presumably have come out by now. So was it diverted for some undercover political use?

But that, of course, isn’t the only possible explanation. It may have been just an exercise in deliberately window-dressing the RNC’s financial situation. That’s certainly the interpretation that Fox News offered:

In other words, the RNC simply wasn’t paying its bills on time to make it look as though it had more cash than it did.

Under this scenario, invoices were deliberately not paid even though they could have been, and then the unpaid invoices were deliberately hidden from the treasurer so that, for example, he would file an FEC report for April showing $12.5 million cash-on-hand and $0 debt, instead of $12.5 million cash-on-hand and $3.3 million in debt.

Of course, deliberately falsifying FEC reports with a view to misrepresenting your financial situation for political advantage is something the FEC takes an extremely dim view of, and comes down on like a ton of bricks.

If the RNC is to come out of this without serious damage, they’re going to have to convince everyone that there’s a third explanation that adds up. Which may explain why the RNC felt the need to retain former FEC chairman Michael E. Toner as outside counsel.

 
* The discrepancy between ABC News’s figure of $7 million and the $3 million in the Washington Post story may lie in the fact that “RNC Treasurer Randy Pullen amended Federal Election Commission reports to show some $3.3 million in debt for April and $3.8 million for May.” It looks like ABC News assumed the April debt was paid off by the end of May, and the May debt was new debt; so they added up the two numbers. Perhaps the Washington Post assumed that all of the April debt was carried forward to May? If so, the total debt in question was $3.8 million, and they should have reported the debt as $4 million and not $3 million.

It’s not only elections that have consequences. Shortsighted self-centered stupidity has consequences too:

Democratic Sen. Russ Feingold not only refused to support the financial-reform bill that President Obama signed into law yesterday; he also refused to support an up-or-down vote on the legislation, joining the Republican filibuster. At the time, I had some harsh words for his decision. Now, a group of scholars have done some data analysis and come to an interesting conclusion: Feingold “let principle get in the way of making the bill modestly more progressive. Ironically, by refusing to support a bill that he considered too modest, he ensured that the bill would be more conservative and favorable to banks.”
[...]
…the analysis offers a compelling case that Feingold weakened the bill through his procedural objections. In the knife-edge Senate, Harry Reid would have a much stronger negotiation position with Feingold’s support. Now, as then, it is a shame that by joining a filibuster to ostensibly protest weak reform, Feingold weakened it further.

And it’s not as if it was hard to foresee, either, that this would be the inevitable effect of Feingold’s conscientious objections to the bill. Because Feingold took the position he did, an extra Republican had to be brought on board. He was bound to demand his price, and get it.

Too bad Russ Feingold doesn’t get that.

Even for ThinkProgress — which is intermittently capable of fairly mind-numbing stupidity — this is pretty bizarre:

At the same time in March, Boehner himself appeared to be encouraging the anger behind the violence: Violence and threats are unacceptable. That is not the American way I know theres anger, but lets take that anger and go out and register people to vote, go volunteer on a political campaign, and lets do it the right way.

The gods know I’m no fan of John Boehner, but to call this “encouraging the anger behind the violence” is absurd. He’s quite clearly talking about trying to channel the anger in a positive direction. It may be one of the few public statements he’s made in recent months that I would have thought most people can wholeheartedly agree with.

(The author, by the way, is a ThinkProgress intern. I would imagine someone at ThinkProgress keeps on eye an what they’re posting, before they post it. Unless this is an idea that has never occurred to them?)

Somewhere in between calling Shirley Sherrod while she was on her way to work, and telling her to pull over to the side of the road, right now, and resign, and deciding that they owed her an apology, the Agriculture Department seems to have managed to lose her phone number.

This is Robert Gibbs at yesterday’s White House press briefing:

Well, let me — Secretary Vilsack is — has tried and is trying to reach Ms. Sherrod. When the Secretary reaches her, he will apologize for the events of the last few days and they will talk about their next steps.
[...]
A review is taking place and the Secretary is trying to reach Ms. Sherrod to apologize for the exact injustice that you talk about.
[...]
Hold on, let me — can I — if you dont mind, let me finish a few of my answers. As I said, a disservice was done, for which we apologize. I think the next step that has to happen is the Secretary needs to speak with her. And hes tried to reach her and we hope that that –
[...]
And let me — the Secretary is trying to reach her. I hope that the Secretary reaches her soon and they have an opportunity to talk. The Secretary will apologize for the actions that have taken place over the past 24 to 36 hours…
[...]
I think that the Secretary made a decision based on the information that he had, and is in the process of trying to reach Ms. Sherrod to apologize for having made that decision on that incomplete information.

Funny how sometimes you can reach out and touch somebody so easily, and sometime you can’t.

The one thing that is abundantly clear about the whole Shirley Sherrod fiasco — other than the fact that it was beyond absurd for her to be fired for her speech to the NAACP — is that Andrew Breitbart is guilty of race-baiting in the third degree. He deliberately edited the video of Sherrod’s speech, with malice aforethought, to completely distort her message, and he did this entirely in order to inflame racial hatred among white folks (just months before the November elections, what a coincidence!).

But the Obama administration’s half-cocked and totally brainless response to Breitbart’s racial mischief seems to have crowded out everything else in mainstream media coverage of the story. It’s become all about the grave injustice done to Shirley Sherrod by the Obama administration, the subsequent apologies, the new job offer. Along the way, yes, it does tend to get mentioned that all this started with a deceptively edited video launched by Breitbart, with a slingshot assist from Fox News. But the mainstream media really hasn’t (yet?) got around to focusing on the indefensible ugliness of Breitbart’s deliberate plan.

At this point, it is perfectly possible that Breitbart will walk away from the multi-car accident he deliberately caused with nothing more than superficial scratches. Today is probably the key day. The story will continue to be in the news. In fact, there are probably at least two rounds of stories still to come. The first will relate to the unique new position Sherrod has been offered. This morning, we learned on CNN’s “American Morning” that Sherrod “was offered some type of civil rights position in the department’s Office of Outreach”. That seems to be all that is known at this point. As more details emerge, there will no doubt be extensive coverage. And then we can expect another round of coverage when Sherrod accepts or rejects the job.

Will these stories go on to call out Andrew Breitbart for ugly, deliberate, racial hate-mongering for political purposes? Or will they just lightly glide over his actions once again?

Republicans in Congress have continued to hawk the myth of the fat lazy unemployed, living high on the hog off their extended unemployment benefits instead of lifting a finger to actually seek work, despite all the jobs out there.

Here’s a random sampling:

Sen. Richard Burr:

The wrong thing to do is to automatically today extend unemployment for 12 months. I think that’s a discouragement to individuals that are out there to actually go out and go through the interviews.

Sen. Judd Gregg:

Q: Senator Gregg, is there a point, you think, when the government has to sort of end these ever-continuing claims?

Gregg: Yeah, right now. This week, however, we’re going to extend it again. And this has become counterproductive. We’re basically undermining the cyclical event. Because you’re out of the recession, you’re starting to see growth and you’re clearly going to dampen the capacity of that growth if you basically keep an economy that encourages people to, rather than go out and look for work, to stay on unemployment.

Rep. Steve King:

We shouldn’t turn the ’safety net’ into a hammock. It should actually be a ’safety net’.

Sen. Jon Kyl:

In fact, if anything, continuing to pay people unemployment compensation is a disincentive for them to seek new work…

And here are some of the facts and figures that these heartless humanoids are so firmly divorced from:

Unemployment benefits, New York state:

The average unemployment benefit amount for a New Yorker is about $330 per week, according to the Labor Department. The maximum is $405 per week.

$330 a week in New York City. For rent, food and health insurance. I sincerely wish Richard Burr, Judd Gregg, Steve King, Jon Kyl, a retired life that’s just half so comfortably hammock-y.

Unemployment benefits versus the poverty level, from a report issued by the Joint Economic Committee last week (the JEC is a bipartisan, joint committee of the House and the Senate):

Unemployment benefits are not particularly generousaverage weekly benefits are just 74 percent of the poverty threshold for a family of four. So it is unlikely that extended unemployment benefits inhibit individuals job search efforts. Simply put, even a low-paying job is likely to provide more support than that offered by UI.

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