From The Roots

In the wake of the devastating Gulf Coast oil spill, Wisconsin Republican Ron Johnson came out as one of the strongest defenders of BP in the country. Johnson not only opposed the President’s plan to make BP pay for the damage caused to the Gulf Coast, but inexplicably decided to support drilling for oil in Lake Michigan, a proposal potentially devastating to Wisconsin’s shores.

Why would Johnson emerge as such a loyal defender of BP and the oil industry?

Because Big Oil is lining his pockets, that’s why. Apparently, Johnson owns between $116,000 and $315,000 of BP stock.

No wonder he thinks that “ this is not the time to be beating up on those guys [BP], quite honestly”…he’s got money riding on BP, and he is putting his own financial interest ahead of the interests of Wisconsin and the nation.

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05:31 PM Jul 12, 2010 - 0 comments permalink

What a week for Sharron Angle!

First, she said she would not be in the business of creating jobs as a senator, and admitted she would not have acted to save 22,000 jobs at CityCenter.

Subsequently, Angle - who wants abortion banned under all circumstances - suggested that a 13-year-old girl who was raped by her father should just turn "a lemon situation into lemonade." This is the same woman who suggested that getting pregnant after a rape just might be "God's plan."

Finally, in another radio appearance, Angle called British Petroleum's $20 billion escrow account to compensate oil spill victims a "slush fund," and agreed with a caller who accused President Obama of "extortion." National Republicans must be closely monitoring all her statements, because a few hours later, she did a 180-degree flip-flop, calling the former "slush fund" an "important first step."

Sharron Angle - too extreme for Nevada.

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06:20 PM Jul 09, 2010 - 0 comments permalink

Fourteen days since an ABC News report revealed that U.S. Senator David Vitter protected his women’s outreach coordinator for more than two years after he learned that Brent Furer stabbed, beat and threatened his girlfriend, Senator Vitter still refuses to answer questions related to the scandal.

With the staffer scandal in Senator David Vitter’s office heating up by the day, the embattled junior senator from Louisiana filed his reelection papers today in Baton Rouge and raised even more eyebrows by ducking questions from the press and even lying about the staffer’s role in his office. According to the Times-Picayune: Vitter declined to directly answer questions about the incident, except to refute media reports that Furer was assigned to handle women's issues in his office.

But multiple third party groups confirm that Furer indeed was in charge of women’s issues in Senator Vitter’s office:

•  Suicide Prevention Action Network USA lists Furer as Women's Issues LA.
•  Parents, Families, & Friends of Lesbians and Gays lists Furer as Women's Issues LA
• National Right to Life Committee lists Furer as Women's Issues LA ... 

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  06:19 PM Jul 07, 2010 - 0 comments permalink

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  Quick Hits

  -Quin Hillyer, a Louisiana native, newspaper columnist and former Republican operative, opines that David Vitter should resign from the Senate:

  U.S. Sen. David Vitter ought not qualify for re-election later this week. Instead, after serving out his term, he should slink away in shame.

  Far too little attention has been paid to new revelations that the senator retained a legislative aide even after learning the aide attacked a girlfriend with a knife and held her against her will for 90 minutes. It turns out the aide has a record of brushes with the law dating back to the 1990s, a record the senator should easily have discovered once he was apprised of the knifing incident in 2008. Yet Vitter not only kept the aide on his staff, but also assigned this abuser of women to handle women’s issues.

  Even for somebody with Vitter’s dodgy record, this abrogation of judgment defies belief.

  Quite a damning indictment of Vitter’s tumultuous first term.

  -Rob Portman launches his first ad in Ohio in which he rails against cap-and-trade…conveniently forgetting that he himself supported emissions trading as a member of Congress:

  As CNN.com reports, it didn't take long for Democrats in Ohio to show ... 

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  06:50 PM Jul 06, 2010 - 0 comments permalink

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  Why Sharron Angle Would Cut Off Unemployment Benefits

  With Nevada still reeling from the destructive Bush economy, and unemployment at 14%, you might think that most Nevadans would be sympathetic to extending unemployment benefits, as Senator Harry Reid seeks to do.

  But not if you’re a Republican, and especially not if you’re Sharron Angle. Despite the fact that Angle’s Republican Party caused the economic crisis in the first place, she is in no mood to offer any assistance to the victims. Here are her comments on unemployment benefits last night, as reported by Ezra Klein of the Washington Post:

  While Reid was introducing his bill last night, Angle was sitting for an interview in which she explained that that "what we need to do is make that unemployment benefit go down," as right now, "we're making [people] make a choice between unemployment benefits and going back to work and working up through the ranks of that job and actually building up a good wage again."

  "There are jobs that do exist," concluded Angle. "That's what we're saying, is that there are jobs."

  But there really aren't. At least not in her state.

  The Post continues:

  The problem for Nevadans is not that they don't want jobs, but that they can't get them. And if Nevadans are suddenly cut off from unemployment checks and have to stop spending what little money they were ... 

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  05:38 PM Jul 01, 2010 - 0 comments permalink

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