MSNBC host Joe Scarborough calls the Republican House Leader ‘a lazy bar hopper’

MSNBC host Joe Scarborough said that Republicans on Capitol Hill tell him "all the time" that House Minority Leader John Boehner "is not the hardest worker in the world" and that by early evening he can be found hitting up the Washington bar scene.

"I hear it on the Hill, I'm sure you hear it on the Hill all the time, it's not reported, but so many Republicans tell me this is a guy that is not the hardest worker in the world," said Scarborough on Wednesday's edition of Morning Joe. "Every Republican I talk to says John Boehner, by 5 or 6 o'clock at night, you can see him at bars. He is not a hard worker."

Scarborough, who represented Florida's first district in congress from 1995 to 2001, said that the way he hears it, Boehner has a tendency to become "disengaged" and by comparison doesn't put in the work hours Newt Gingrich did when he was the ranking Republican in the House.

Watch Scarborough’s comments here: 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y6jEIh52jbA&feature=player_embedded

Republican Senator says his party is 'full of slogans but empty of ideas'

Utah Sen. Bob Bennett, who lost his re-election bid in a republican primary, told a Republican group on Tuesday that the party could even take back the Senate soon but will lose both houses just as fast if the GOP continues to rely on slogans and not solutions.

“As I look out at the political landscape now, I find plenty of slogans on the Republican side, but not very many ideas,” Bennett told The Ripon Society.

“Indeed, if you raise specific ideas and solutions, as I’ve tried to do on health care with Sen. Ron Wyden (D- Oregon), you are attacked with the same vigor as we’ve seen in American politics all the way back to slavery and polygamy; you are attacked as being a wimp, insufficiently pure, and unreliable.”

Bennett was criticized before the Utah Republican Convention in May for teaming up with Wyden to push a health care measure he considered a rival to the Democrats’ reform effort, and the senator came in third to two challengers — Mike Lee and Tim Bridgewater — who courted the tea party movement.

Bennett said there was great momentum for Republicans to take back the House and, with the death of Sen. Robert Byrd, of West Virginia, there’s a chance a Republican could win that seat as well and join a landslide to bring the Senate into GOP control.

But, Bennett added, the Republican Party may find itself in the role played by Robert Redford in the film, “The Candidate,” who after winning office turns to his aides and says,“What do we do now?”

“The concern I have is that ideology and a demand for absolute party purity endangers our ability to govern once we get into office,” Bennett said.

 Utah Republican Party Chairman Dave Hansen says Bennett is right on one part: if the GOP takes over without any good solutions or doesn’t learn from past mistakes, it will hand the government back to the Democrats quickly.

But Hansen noted that the party hasn’t put together one major campaign document focusing on what ideas it will pursue if it controls Congress, like it did in 1994 with the Contract for America.


Watch Sen. Bennett's comments here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R1e3h78wzL0&feature=player_embedded

Senate Republicans block bill to help homeless veterans with children, instead want to give tax breaks to CEO's to ship American jobs overseas

Today, Sen. Patty Murray (D-WA) brought her bill, the Homeless Women Veterans and Homeless Veterans with Children Act, to the Senate floor seeking unanimous consent. Murray said the bill would “expand assistance for homeless women veterans and homeless veterans with children and would increase funding and extend federal grant programs to address the unique challenges faced by these veterans.”

However, Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) objected on behalf of Sen. Tom Coburn (R-OK) to this seemingly non-controversial issue:

Minority Leader McConnell: Madam president, reserving the right to object and I will have to object on behalf of my colleague Sen. Coburn from Oklahoma. He has concerns about this legislation, particularly as he indicates in a letter that I’ll ask the Senate to appear on the record that it be paid for up front so that the promises that makes the Veterans are in fact kept. So madam president I object.

Washington Monthly’s Steve Benen said ,“This is pretty low, even for Republicans.” While Murray  pledged to continue to fight for the bill’s passage, Majority Leader Harry Reid’s (D-NV) spokesperson said “Republicans have their priorities backwards — according to them, it’s OK to give tax breaks to CEOs who send American jobs overseas, but not to help out-of-work Americans and homeless veteran.”

Watch the Republicans block the Homeless Women Veterans and Homeless Veterans with Children Act:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=riNOnsbI6bQ&feature=player_embedded#!