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If it's Sunday, it's another episode of Dancin' David Gregory inviting Republicans to come on his show and rattle off their talking points without fear of contradiction. Karl Rove's dance partner allowed House Majority Whip Kevin McCarthy to attribute a very famous statement by Dick Cheney's (that "deficits don't matter") to President Obama! He also said that Democrats are the ones responsible for racking up the majority of the debt we've been dealing with ever since President Obama took the oath of office.

We've been through this here so many times I've lost count, but for anyone who hasn't already seen these charts, President Obama is not the one responsible for the policies that added to most of the deficit during his first term in office.

And pardon me if I'm sick to death of the party that brought us two wars left off the books and the theft of God knows how many of our tax dollars with those debacles, a prescription drug plan that wasn't paid for, the Bush tax cuts, the bailout of the Wall Street gamblers that took down our economy, having the damn nerve to complain about our debt and deficit.

Gregory couldn't be bothered to point out that not only is our deficit shrinking considerably under President Obama, but it's also shrinking at the fastest pace in modern American history.

Transcript below the fold.

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What is it with these Republicans who just can't stop themselves from coming just a hair shy of calling the President of the United States "uppity?" Last week, Bill-O was calling him "cocky" during his Talking Points Memo segment on Fox. Now we've got Lady McCheney Mary Matalin on Mrs. Greenspan's show calling him too "self-reverential" and "self-righteous" and that he wants Republicans to go along with him and pretend they care about doing their jobs and legislating, he'd better start acting nicer to them.

Andrea Mitchell reminded her that he didn't exactly have much good will from the other side, what with them immediately plotting on how to obstruct everything he tried to do from the day he got elected --during that now-famous meeting with Frank Luntz and Newt Gingrich. We also had Mitch McConnell out there just stating openly that his "single most important" goal was to make Barack Obama a one-term president. Matalin feigned ignorance and pretended she had no idea what Mitchell was talking about. She said the GOP leadership didn't attend meetings and the last time she checked, neither Luntz nor Gingrich were in office at the time of that meeting.

Thankfully, Mitchell did remind her that a good deal of the leadership was there, but that didn't stop her from going right back after President Obama and complaining that he wasn't talking nicely enough to those poor sensitive Republicans.

Here's a little reminder of just what went on during that meeting from James Wolcott: The Conspiracy to Commit Legislative Constipation:

In a scene reminiscent of the summit meeting of mob bosses in The Godfather, Republican House leaders were summoned by evil marshmallow and message-crafter Frank Luntz to hash out a strategy to cope with the defeat of their party in 2008 and the election of the newly inaugurated President Obama, according to Robert Draper's just published book Do Not Ask What Good We Do: Inside the U.S. House of Representatives.

From a report on Draper's revelation by Ewen MacAskill in the Guardian UK (the bolding is mine):

During a lengthy discussion, the senior GOP members worked out a plan to repeatedly block Obama over the coming four years to try to ensure he would not be re-elected.

In his book, Draper opens with the heady atmosphere in Washington on the days running up to the inauguration and the day itself, which attracted 1.8 million to the mall to witness Obama being sworn in as America's first black president.

Those numbers contributed to a growing sense of unease among Republicans as much the defeat in the White House race the previous November. The 15 Republicans were in a sombre mood as they gathered at the Caucus Room in Washington, an upscale restaurant where a New York strip steak costs $51.

Attending the dinner were House members Eric Cantor, Jeb Hensarling, Pete Hoekstra, Dan Lungren, Kevin McCarthy, Paul Ryan and Pete Sessions. From the Senate were Tom Coburn, Bob Corker, Jim DeMint, John Ensign and Jon Kyl. Others present were former House Speaker and future – and failed – presidential candidate Newt Gingrich and the Republican strategist Frank Luntz, who organised the dinner and sent out the invitations.

The dinner table was set in a square at Luntz's request so everyone could see one another and talk freely. The session lasted four hours and by the end the sombre mood had lifted: they had conceived a plan. They would take back the House in November 2010, which they did, and use it as a spear to mortally wound Obama in 2011 and take back the Senate and White House in 2012, Draper writes.

"If you act like you're the minority, you're going to stay in the minority," said Keven McCarthy, quoted by Draper. "We've gotta challenge them on every single bill and challenge them on every single campaign."

The Republicans have done that, bringing Washington to a near standstill several times during Obama's first term over debt and other issues.

Their locked-shut buttocks will unclench of course should Mitt Romney be elected, at which point they'll be passing legislation like street hawkers handing out strip-club flyers. Every bill will be named after Reagan or some other sentimental favorite.

I don't know about anyone else, but I've about had it up to here with these Republicans and their supposed hurt feelings as an excuse for obstruction when they've disrespected President Obama and called him every name in the book for years. Matalin's pearl clutching is growing tiresome --to put it mildly.

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Before the election, Rep. Kevin McCarthy said that electing Mitt Romney would mean that Republicans have a mandate to overhaul Medicare: House Majority Whip Kevin McCarthy: Election is ‘Mandate’ to Overhaul Medicare:

House Republican Majority Whip Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) says electing Mitt Romney this fall means Republicans have a ‘mandate’ to overhaul Medicare. As McCarthy put it, “If there’s a mandate going through this election, it’s to save Medicare.” As I put it: When Republicans say “save Medicare” they mean end Medicare as we know it. They would keep a government program called Medicare but it would not be the Medicare that has existed for almost half a century. The Republican plan for Medicare is to turn it into a program designed to shortchange seniors while increasing profits for private insurance companies.

We have a single payer health care insurance program that works very well for senior citizens. We don’t need to hand Medicare over to private insurance. Republicans can continue to blame Democrats for doing nothing to “save Medicare” but Republicans are the “kill Medicare” party and they have been for decades.

If what he said on this Sunday's Meet the Press is any indication, McCarthy hasn't seemed to figure out that they lost. And we've already explained here why this trial balloon put out there by the administration, where it seems they've forgotten who won as well, is a really bad idea that needs to be pushed back against forcefully. As everyone explained, even partially privatizing Medicare is not going to "save" the program. It just makes the cost of health care coverage more expensive for seniors.

I was glad to see Sen. Dick Durbin say raising the age is off the table during this interview, but I wasn't thrilled about him offering up means testing. Digby has more on that here: Hot Air Trial Ballooning:

I have a sneaking feeling that Durbin is throwing up a smokescreen there (or he's been smoking some of that special Alan Simpson sensimilla.) He must know that the argument is that Obamacare will pick up the slack if they decide to raise the Medicare age. If he doesn't then he needs to find another line of work.

Even Mitt Romney's health care advisor, Avik Roy from the Manhattan Institute, knows that. Here's what he said on Up with Chris Hayes this morning (with Steve Kornacki subbing for Chris)

"I have to respond to this interesting hyperbole about Medicare death sentence. If you raise the retirement age for Medicare, we have the Affordable Care Act as the backstop. Everybody under 400% poverty level is still covered with the affordable care act in place. So what we are really talking about is means testing Medicare by raising the retirement age. People who are upper income, above 400% of the poverty level won't be subsidized if they're younger retirees. It's where entitlement reform should go, to expand it into the retiree population."

(Kornacki pointed out that ACA is being challenged so it's not exactly a backstop at this point, but he let the topic drop in favor of more masturbation over tax rates.)

It sounds as if Roy and Jonathan Chait may have found the bipartisan sweet spot for Obamacare. Privatize Medicare! Now that really is a Grand Bargain.

Before everyone gets into another tizzy about how shrill and unreasonable I'm being for taking this rumor seriously, let's have a little discussion of what a "trial balloon" is. It is, simply, a rumor that's purposefully spread during a negotiation in order to gauge the reaction. Therefore, it is important to react, not act all glib and self-assured that it could never happen. They want to know if you think this is a good idea, so if you don't you should say so. And you should say it in a shrill enough fashion that they know it's a very big deal, if you think it's a very big deal.

Transcript below the fold.

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Jon Stewart took a shot at the House Republicans for what their logic might have been when deciding to use a scene from The Town to inspire their members to vote for John Boehner's debt ceiling bill.

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Lawrence O'Donnell took Republican House Majority Whip Kevin McCarthy to task for the reports that the "good Christian" showed his fellow GOP House members a clip from The Town during a closed-door meeting, encouraging them to vote for John Boehner's latest proposal for raising the debt ceiling that he already knows is D.O.A. in the Senate.

TPM has more on that here -- CRAM IT! ALL Senate Dems Tell Boehner His Debt Limit Plan Is DOA.

And here's more from The Huffington Post on that meeting with McCarthy 'The Town' Clip Played By Kevin McCarthy At GOP Meeting Ahead Of Debt Ceiling Vote: Report (VIDEO) :

Amid contentious negotiations taking place in Washington on the issue of raising the debt ceiling, the Washington Post offers a glimpse of what went on behind the scenes during a closed-door meeting among House Republican lawmakers on Tuesday.

The gathering took place as some conservative members of the chamber remain at odds with their GOP colleagues on a plan put forth by House Speaker John Boehner to lift the nation's deficit limit. Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) said on Tuesday morning that at the time he was confident the proposal did not have sufficient GOP votes to pass.

According to the Post, House Majority Whip Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) sought to foster a sense of unity among House Republicans at their meeting by playing a clip from The Town, a 2010 crime thriller starring Ben Affleck and Jeremy Renner.

In the segment of footage reportedly shown, Doug MacRay, a bank robber played by Affleck, says to his friend Jem Coughlin, played by Renner, “I need your help. I can’t tell you what it is. You can never ask me about it later. And we're going to hurt some people.” Jem then responds, "Whose car are we gonna take?"

Republican aides tell the Post that Rep. Allen West (R-Fla.), a Tea Party-backed lawmaker with a penchant for making eyebrow-raising remarks, told his colleagues after the clip was shown, "I’m ready to drive the car."

After showing the beginning of the clip from the movie that McCarthy quoted, O'Donnell reminded everyone of just what McCarthy was using to "inspire" his fellow Republicans.

O'DONNELL: That's right, good Christian Kevin McCarthy tried to inspire the party that believes this country was founded on Christian values and should be governed by Christian values, by showing them a film clip about some distinctly un-Christian Boston career criminals who were on their way to beat the living s**t out of a guy.

And as Lawrence noted here and the article at the Huffington Post pointed out, Ben Affleck responded this way:

On Wednesday, Affleck -- who wrote and directed "The Town" -- said that he too found the whole scenario a touch bizarre. And in a statement his spokesperson provided to The Huffington Post, he suggested that Republicans use a different one of his movies next time they need to whip votes.

"I don't know if this is a compliment or the ultimate repudiation," said the actor, who is currently in Turkey directing and starring in "Argo," an adaptation of the Tehran hostage crisis. "But if they're going to be watching movies, I think "The Company Men" is more appropriate."

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If anyone thinks that CNN isn't just a version of Fox-lite, you need not look much further than a typical example like this interview with Chris Van Hollen by Candy Crowley this weekend. Crowley continually hammered Van Hollen about why some Democrats haven't given into the Republican hostage taking on the debt ceiling, even though the Republicans have shown no interest in compromising even one inch, and Van Hollen did a pretty good job of debunking the previous talking point by Keven McCarthy that these tax cuts they're demanding are really just for small businesses and not big monied interests like lobbyists and Fortune 100 companies.

I don't know what it's going to take to get the Republicans to move off of protecting their corporate donors and the likes of Grover Norquist demanding purity on tax issues, but if these idiots are stupid enough to bring down our economy over these demands that most of the public sadly might not be paying any attention to until it's too late, I just hope to hell they think it was worth the political price for their game of chicken and that they are the ones who pay it.

Transcript below the fold.

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As Rachel explained last night, we all know what these guys would cut from the budget if given a chance: Social Security, Medicare, and veterans' benefits. They just aren't going to say it out loud. Here's an example from MSNBC's The Daily Rundown, where Chuck Todd and Savannah Guthrie try to get Rep. Kevin McCarthy to say just what programs the GOP would cut from the budget. As Think Progress noted, he couldn't name one.

GOP Pledge Architect McCarthy Can’t Name A Single Program He’d Cut From The Federal Budget:

Yesterday, House Republicans rolled out their “Pledge to America,” which is supposedly a series of ideas that the GOP would enact tomorrow, if given the chance. At the top of the list, of course, is a full extension of the Bush tax cuts — at a cost of almost $4 trillion — and a promise to allow no tax increases.

At the same time, though, the Pledge claims to put the country “on a path to a balanced budget.” But when it comes to spending cuts, it is incredibly vague, including only a promise to reduce non-defense discretionary spending to the 2008 level and to “set benchmarks” for Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid. Today, in fact, the lead architect of the Pledge, Rep. Kevin McCarthy (R-CA), couldn’t name a single program that he’d cut from the federal budget when pressed by MSNBC’s Savannah Guthrie and Chuck Todd. Read on...

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Man, I get sick to death of so-called "journalists" letting these Republicans come on the air and repeat unchallenged the lie that the expiration of the Bush tax cuts will affect a great deal of small businesses.

Worse, they repeat endlessly an even bigger lie: that those tax cuts are going to create jobs. If they were going to create jobs, why did we have the worst record on job creation already under Bush? Wolf Blitzer, do your job, dammit.

Republican "Young Guns" Eric Cantor and Kevin McCarthy get asked some questions that might be half-way hard hitting if there was any follow up after they answered them, but of course we got zero from Blitzer. Pitiful, but typical, and tiresome. If these fools knew how to the the "economy back on track" it would have been on track when Bush left office.

CNN... the network where we pretend to be unbiased reporters and do almost zero reporting other than fake balance he said/she said bullpucky and chase ambulances. Every once in a while you get some decent stuff from this network, but not too often.

BLITZER: President Obama's returning today to one of his favorite lines of attack against Republicans. We heard him just a short while ago in the Rose Garden over at the White House accusing the GOP of holding middle-class tax cuts hostage because they want to extend Bush-era tax breaks for the wealthiest Americans.

And joining us now from Capitol Hill, two members of Congress. Eric Cantor, he's the number two Republican in the House of Representatives, and Kevin McCarthy, he's a Republican of California. They are two of the three authors of a brand new book entitled "Young Guns: A New Generation of Conservative Leaders." The third author, Paul Ryan, unfortunately, couldn't be with us. We'll talk to him on another occasion.

Congressmen, thanks very much for coming in. Congressman Cantor, I want to start with you. In the end, if it comes down to getting the tax rates continued, the current tax rates for the middle class, for about 97 or 98 percent of the American people, those earning less than $250,000 a year, and not able to continue to the tax rates for the richer Americans, will you, like John Boehner, go along with that proposal?

CANTOR: Wolf, the situation here in Washington in the U.S. House is this. We have a bipartisan majority in support of the position that says we ought not be raising taxes on anybody, especially in a recession.

I mean, we need jobs right now. We know that over two-thirds of the jobs come from small businesses. The problem with allowing taxes to go up right now is you're going to tax the very people that were expecting to put their money to work to create jobs.

The House Democrats, Wolf, have continued to say that they're going to look to the Senate to go first on this bill. We know as well, yesterday, senators Lieberman and Webb joined Senator Conrad, senators Bayh and Nelson, saying, we don't think we ought to raise taxes on anybody.

They joined the president's former budget director, Peter Orszag, saying, now is not a time to raise taxes.

So I think what we can see again is a bipartisan majority saying, Speaker Pelosi, bring a bill to the floor that staves off tax increases period until we can get the economy back on track.

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Good grief Candy Crowley is one horrid interviewer. She starts out the segment pretending that she doesn't know full well that Republicans want to privatize Social Security and then after Rep. Chris Van Hollen points out that they clearly have wanted to privatize it for years and that Minority Leader John Boehner has been quite vocal on the issue, Crowley then asks if it is fair to imply that Republicans want to get rid of it. Van Hollen does a good job of explaining why it is completely fair to imply that and if they had their way they'd privatize Medicare as well and turn it into a voucher system.

CROWLEY: But the implication is the Republicans want to get rid of Social Security. Is that not the implication, and do you think that's true?

VAN HOLLEN: Well, yes, effectively. Because if you take -- if you partially -- if you privatize Social Security, if you privatize it, the end result will be that that money is not there. There is not a stable source of retirement money because we will be literally gambling it on Wall Street.

And that has been a long-held position of our Republican colleagues. And they all voted last year, Candy, on a budget that would also privatize Medicare. It would cut it by 75 percent. It would turn it into a voucher program. And a senior would be given a voucher and say, hey, you go out with this -- you know, this voucher that has been cut by 75 percent, and go get your insurance. They voted on that. That's part of their...

Van Hollen could have also pointed to Rep. Paul Ryan and his budget proposals which also call for privatizing Medicare and Social Security.

Crowley also cut off Van Hollen before he could respond to McCarthy's statement that the Democrats cut Medicare by $500 billion. Paul Krugman laid waste to this sort of double speak from Republicans last year during a panel discussion on This Week.

Maybe Chris Van Hollen can go have a little talk with President Obama's debt commission and try to talk some sense into them next.

Full transcript below the fold.

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