obstructionist Republicans

Roy Blunt voted against confirming Vivek Murthy today. There was never any chance whatsoever that he would vote for confirmation. Obama nominated Murthy to be surgeon general just over a year and a month ago. The NRA , who have made the nomination into a cause célèbre-- flipped out and the senators they control decided to obstruct the confirmation process-- although after he had made it through the Senate Health Committee hearings last February.

Yeah, theze guyz wuz really gonna do a heapa cooperatin' with Ooh That Damn Obama."[Incoming Senate Majority Leader Mitch] McConnell's conciliatory statements are encouraging, but he's about to discover that he cannot persuade Republican Senators and Congressmen to cooperate on anything constructive. We're about to get two years of intense, horrifying stupidity.

Do fascists now control the Senate GOP? Curtis Haas and Ted CruzFormer Colorado congressman and virulent racist Tom Tancredo wrote on some fringy, far right website that if the GOP captures the Senate today the GOP leadership should move immediately to impeach President Obama. So? Who cares what a crackpot like Tancredo, a private citizen with absolutely no mainstream credibility, has to say?

The Republicans love it when feeble-minded or low-info independents and moderates blame "both sides" for governmental dysfunction instead of focusing, for example, on the conservative ideology and GOP mania to shrink government so that they can drown it in a bathtub... in the poetic words of Republican crooked lobbyist and power monger Grover Norquist.

Former Clinton administration deputy chief of staff Maria Echaveste was named yesterday by President Obama to be our new ambassador to Mexico. The good news for her is that -- as a nonjudicial appointee, not subject to post-"nuclear option" majority vote -- she shouldn't feel any rush about packing.by KenGoodness knows, most Democratic pols aren't good for much, but set them alongside their Republican counterparts and, well, we're looking into an absolute void.

Although Rick Santorum has reassured his far right-wing allies that Collins has to occasionally make believe dh's a moderate to trick Mainers, she never betrays the GOP when push comes to shove, voters still expect her to come through for the mainstream when it's important. Yesterday it was important, very, very important.

The racists and plutocrats who, hand-in-hand, have long taken over the Republican Party are tickled pink-- or deep red-- that their avowed strategy from the day after Obama had the temerity to beat John McCain has worked. They set out to poison the well… and blame Obama for the results.

Congress has been on vacation from their "grueling" three-and-a-half day schedule for five weeks but the least competent Speaker in history, alcoholic mess John Boehner, has only scheduled seven legislative days for Congress between now and November.

It's been nearly a year since Move On, in the wake of the Republican government shut down, polled dozens of competitive congressional districts in Republican-held districts across the country asking, among other inquiries, these two questions:

Almost every Senate Republican-- even extremist obstructionists like Ted Cruz, Marco Rubio, Mike Lee and Richard Burr-- followed Bernie Sanders' lead last month to pass a bill to address the sordid situation at the V.A. It passed 93-3 with the only dissections from mentally unstable right-wingers Ron Johnson (R-WI), Jefferson Beauregard Sessions III (R-KKK) and Bob Corker (R-TN).The House Republicans can't quite get their shit together on the whole V.A.