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Chris Matthews takes Darrell Issa to task on Hardball for using the term "Democrat Party".

Matthews: Well, I think the Democratic Party calls itself the Democratic Party, not the Democrat Party. Do we have to do this every night? Why do people talk like this? Is this just fighting words to get the name wrong?

Issa: This isn't intended to be fighting words.

Matthews: They call themselves the Democratic Party. Let's just call people what they call themselves and stop the uh, the Mickey Mouse here. Save that for the stump-seriously.

Issa: Chris, Chris.

Matthews: Now let's get to the issue here, seriously we've got a fiscal challenge. I want to go back to Congressman Frank and to some English here. Congressman Frank are you worried about the size of these WWII numbers here? Again, 1.75 trillion deficit this year. A spending level of almost 4 trillion. We're almost running deficits as big as the revenue number we're bringing in.

Frank: Well Chris let me first of all come to the defense of my colleague Mr. Issa and the Republicanistical Party that he represents, um and say that ah...

Issa: Thanks Barney.

Frank: You're welcome there Darrell. The point is this. For him to say oh these are the Democrat's deficits. I have never seen people disavow their own handiwork so quickly. And I knew that born again was an important strain, in in our society but born again deficit haters, it's a new version.

While this is pretty well a slap on the wrist for this sort of childish behavior we've come to expect out of the Republicans it's nice to see them get called out for it once in a while. Democrats need to do what Matthews did here to Republicans every time they pull this and maybe they'd finally stop after they got tired of getting egg on their face. You can watch the full segment with Issa and Franks talking about the budget here.

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From GoLeftTV:

It has been almost a year since Don Siegelman was released from prison, after being convicted on bogus charges. Siegelman's only crime was being a political enemy to Karl Rove. Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. of Air America's Ring of Fire talks with Governor Siegelman about the latest updates in his case, and how he thinks the new Democratic majorities will help bring Rove to justice.

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Lou Dobbs is still attacking unions. This time for President Obama turning over a series of three Bush-era executive orders. From the AFL-CIO:

The men and women in the nation’s building and construction trades won a major victory today when President Obama signed an executive order overturning the Bush administration’s ban on project labor agreements (PLAs) on federal and federally funded construction.

Today’s action follows Obama’s three executive orders last week that reversed a trio of Bush-era orders governing the way federal contractors deal with union workers. The new orders:

• Require federal service contractors to offer jobs to current workers when contracts change.
  
• Reverse a Bush order requiring federal contractors to post notice that workers can limit financial support of unions serving as their exclusive bargaining representatives.
  
• Prevent federal contractors from being reimbursed for expenses meant to influence workers deciding whether to form a union and engage in collective bargaining.

More from the AFL-CIO on those executive orders: Obama Reverses Bush Executive Orders, Creates Middle Class Task Force

President Barack Obama today reversed three Bush-era anti-worker executive orders and created a Cabinet-level task force to rebuild the nation’s middle class. In a White House ceremony this morning attended by AFL-CIO President John Sweeney and other union leaders, Obama signed three executive orders that reverse a series of orders by then-President George W. Bush, which govern the way federal contractors deal with unionized workers.

The three new executive orders:

• Require federal service contractors to offer jobs to current workers when contracts change.
  
• Reverse a Bush order requiring federal contractors to post notice that workers can limit financial support of unions serving as their exclusive bargaining representatives.
  
• Prevent federal contractors from being reimbursed for expenses meant to influence workers deciding whether to form a union and engage in collective bargaining.

Before signing the orders, Obama said:

We cannot have a strong middle class without strong labor unions. We need to level the playing field for workers and the unions that represent their interests.

Bill Tucker brings in Stefan Gleason from the National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation to comment on how this is just a huge payback to the unions for political donations and Dobbs is outraged that taxpayers are being forced to pay money that goes to the unions.

This sounds to me like just more Right to Work rhetoric that doesn't get at the heart of what Right to Work laws do to unions. I think a better term would be the right to financially bust a union. The one thing that no one ever talks about during these discussions is that in "open shops" where a union does manage to get in the door in a "right to work" state, it allows those who choose to opt out of the union to still be afforded the union pay scales which are bargained for by the union and the union is forced to represent those workers even though they haven't paid any dues.

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Keith Olbermann and Paul Krugman break down some of Bobby Jindal's speech and the distortions and outright lies that were told in it. Krugman pretty well hits the nail on the head here:

Uh, I don't think there was much of an argument there. You really have, you know I've said it was Beavis and Butthead. They find things that sound silly if you don't actually know anything, so gosh, volcano monitoring. Why would you want to monitor a volcano? Because it might erupt and kill a lot of people. Uh, but they're basically reduced to just picking out a few things or in some cases just making stuff up. The salt marsh mouse thing on the stimulus and saying this is stupid. See government is stupid. Cut taxes. It's not much of an argument.

Amen brother. Nate's got more on the volcano monitoring comment. As I already noted in "Bill Adair shot down the mouse nonsense on Morning Joe", much to their dismay. There's a good diary up on the boat story over at Daily Kos.

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Keith breaks down the problems with Bobby Jindal's boat story and that media reports didn't place Jindal in Jefferson Parish at the time and the lashing he took from conservatives over his speech. Well, other than Rush Limbaugh who attacked any Republicans who dared to tell the truth about how bad the speech was. Keith follows up with Richard Wolffe who thinks the entire thing looked desperate and that both Palin and Jindal have now potentially ruined their political futures by not being ready for prime time and allowing themselves to become national jokes.

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David Shuster talks to Dan Gross to break down the myth that nationalizing the banks is a form of communism.

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From the Cafferty File.

In the Republican response to President Obama’s speech last night, Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal called the stimulus package “irresponsible”. He said it will grow government, increase taxes in the future and saddle future generations with debt.

“Who among us would ask our children for a loan, so we could spend money we do not have, on things we do not need? That is precisely what the Democrats in Congress just did,” said Jindal.

Interesting, after the last 8 years, it would seem that Republicans are hardly in a position to lecture anyone about fiscal responsibility. When President Bush took office in 2000, the national debt was about $5.7 trillion dollars, which after two wars and lots of other spending, is now approaching $11 trillion. President Bush ran up more debt for this country than all previous presidents combined.

Jindal acknowledged last night that in recent years, “our party got away from its principles.” No kidding.

Keep in mind, Jindal — who some see as a possible contender for his party’s presidential nominee in 2012 — is one of the Republican governors talking about rejecting stimulus funding for his state. Jindal says he plans to turn down $100 million because it would require his state to change its unemployment laws. I guess when you’re a wealthy state like Louisiana you don’t need no stinking stimulus money.

Here’s my question to you: Are the Republicans in any position to lecture President Obama on fiscal responsibility?

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Looks like we can add Jon Stewart to the list of people who thought Bobby Jindal reminded him of Mr. Rogers during his response speech. Or maybe he was just inspired from watching the video below.

February 24, 2009 C-SPAN

February 23, 2009 C-SPAN