Bush, Walker, Paul Top Polls For GOP

CNN

A CNN/ORC poll shows Republican presidential candidates Bush, Walker, and Paul in stable positions in a wide-open GOP field for 2016. CNN’s Jeff Zeleny, Peter Hamby, and John King discuss it.

GOP Warns Iranian Nukes May Hit US Cities: Are They Serious?

A week ago, three presidential candidates talked to a roomful of wealthy donors at the Koch Brothers’ American Recovery Policy Forum in Palm Springs, California. The discussion underscored disagreement within the GOP over global affairs and national security.

Republican Sens. Marco Rubio, Ted Cruz and Rand Paul took part in a largely friendly, but occasionally fiery, panel at the event sponsored by Charles and David Koch.

The event was moderated by ABC’s Jonathan Karl, and marked the first time potential GOP contenders gathered on the same stage at the same time to talk about policy in 2015, a year that’s expected to see several candidates compete for the Republican nomination.

TYT Network

Vox Tries To Figure Out Why The GOP Hates Eric Holder So Much

The website Vox tries to answer the question: “Why does the GOP hate Holder so much?”

This website, OK Fine, would simply answer the question with “because they hate him, that’s why,” but Vox actually tries to figure it out.

The answers have something to do with policy — Holder is the face behind the “Fast and Furious” scandal, and his Justice Department’s been slammed over its resistance to transparency and prosecution of leakers.

However, it is also because Holder has taken on the responsibility of going where the president can’t — talking about race bluntly where Obama is conciliatory, expressing contempt for Republicans where Obama has to be polite.

Holder is the perfect target for GOP opposition. The man is responsible for carrying out some of the Obama policies they hate most and is also a personal proxy for the president — partly just because they’re both bi-racial men who identify as black.

“The attorney general nomination hearings starting Wednesday in the Senate Judiciary Committee are ostensibly about nominee Loretta Lynch. But they’re really about outgoing Attorney General Eric Holder,” according to Vox.

For Loretta Lynch, one of her strongest assets in her path to confirmation is that she’s not Holder — and he’ll stay in place until someone else is confirmed. The question is whether Republicans will welcome Lynch as a chance to turn the page, or condemn her automatically for Holder’s sins.

Vox article:

http://www.vox.com/2015/1/28/7927257/republicans-holder-lynch

More On The GOP Social Security Disability Attack

According to sources, on the first day of the 114th Congress, Republicans went after Social Security by placing new restrictions on routine transfers between Supplemental Security Income and Social Security Disability Insurance, known as “re-allocations.”

This was not a bill, but a new House rule that would allow any member to raise a “point of order” if the House considers a “clean” bill to fix a predicted shortfall by authorizing an internal re-allocation of Social Security funds.

Instead of enacting immediate cuts, they rigged the rules so that clearly foreseeable circumstances will trigger disability benefit cuts late next year — just in time to influence the 2016 presidential election.

According to the Center for Budget and Policy Priorities, SSDI isn’t broken but is strained due to demographic trends that the re-allocations are intended to address. According to the CBPP, if these re-allocations are made, both programs are solvent until 2033.

Some believe if the cap is raised on the rich (the point at which the rich no longer contribute), Social Security will be solvent for many more years.

The Republicans also pushed for “dynamic scoring.” That allows them to set budget projections based off the debunked “Reaganomics/trickle down” theology, which says if you cut taxes for the rich it will magically add revenues to the Treasury. For those who still subscribe to this debunked theory, just look at what Gov. Sam Brownback has done to Kansas, which is now suffering huge budget shortfalls.

Dynamic scoring will set the table for more tax cuts for the super wealthy, furthering our national debt.

GOP Lawmakers Reject Findings Of Other GOP Lawmakers On Benghazi

According to MSNBC, some GOP lawmakers on the panel of the Republican-led House Intelligence Committee described the findings of their recent report on the 2012 attack in Benghazi as “definitive.”

Every question has been answered. Every conspiracy theory has been looked at.

Every House committee, every Senate committee, every State Department investigator, and every inquiry launched by independent news organizations have reached the exact same conclusion.

There may be a general feeling, even among many Republicans, that it’s time to just move on.

But that’s not going to happen. Not only is the House on track to spend at last another $1.5 million – of our money – on yet another committee, but many GOP lawmakers have decided to reject the findings of other GOP lawmakers.

Notable politicians such as Lindsey Graham and Rand Paul have been rejecting the findings of the report from members of their own party.

As Simon Maloy noted, Republican senator Rand Paul even proceeded to suggest his own GOP allies may be “helping the Obama administration cover-up the truth about Benghazi.”

According to the Huffington Post, millions in taxpayer money have been spent on the several Benghazi investigations that have been conducted over the past couple of years.