DOWNLOADS: (144)

PLAYS: (615)

Embed

Here's your quote of the day from Chris Matthews after Bob Shrum told him that the only reason Republicans got control of the House is because of gerrymandering:

MATTHEWS: I think the problem is the way the votes get counted. Democrats are just doing too damn well in the big cities. They're wasting votes. [...] They need a lot more than 51 percent of the population for them to carry it because they wasted the votes in the big cities.

Here's the problem with that. Even Republicans were bragging that gerrymandering is why they won the House. It was a strategy and they're proud of it.

And what's that word for when you lump as many of the other party's voters into the same district so that their votes won't count? I know it will come to me sooner or later.

DOWNLOADS: (192)

PLAYS: (1519)

Embed

Conservative MSNBC host Joe Scarborough on Sunday warned Republicans that fringe elements were causing the party to shrink and it was "just gerrymandering" that allowed the GOP to keep control of the U.S. House of Representatives in the 2012 elections.

A Republican State Leadership Committee report released earlier this month acknowledged that a "Strategy of Targeting State Legislative Races in 2010 Led to a Republican U.S. House Majority in 2013."

On Sunday, Scarborough pointed to this as evidence that the Republican Party needed to become more inclusive.

"William F. Buckley in the 1960s at some point had to start defining the boundaries of conservatism," Scarborough explained to NBC's David Gregory. "He went after the John Birch Society, Ayn Rand, George Wallace. That has to happen again with this party because it’s getting smaller and smaller."

"In this debate, we actually have conservative thinkers, talking about Ronald Reagan being a RINO -- a Republican in name only -- because he supported an assault weapons ban. They keep pushing themselves closer and closer to the cliff."

"But I just have to say one other really important point, because I made a mistake over the past month talking about how Republicans have also won a majority in the House," he continued. "We actually got a minority of votes nationwide in House races."

"It was just gerrymandering from 2010 that gave us the majority."

A post-election analysis by Think Progress' Ian Millhiser determined that House Democrats actually received almost 1.4 million more votes than House Republicans in 2012, but thanks to partisan gerrymandering, Democrats would have needed to win by 7.25 percentage points to take back control of Congress.

(h/t: Think Progress)

DOWNLOADS: (228)

PLAYS: (2390)

Embed

I guess no matter how badly these so-called "tea party" leaders behave, we won't see them kicked off the air any time soon. Case in point: Wingnut Judson Phillips, CEO of Tea Party Nation, who as we've noted here is prone to misogynistic attacks on female Democrats, has had some trouble paying his group's hotel bills and who wants President Obama to prove that he doesn’t smoke crack and have gay sex. What a guy. But here he was on MSNBC this Thursday, being allowed to pretend he doesn't know Republicans won the House due to gerrymandering, and throwing both Boehner and Romney under the bus.

Thomas Roberts might be good when it comes to LGBT issues (which he actually cares about), but he's fairly useless when it comes to holding most of his guests' feet to the fire on anything else. This interview was just another example of that.

Naturally, Phillips was demanding that John Boehner not give an inch on these "fiscal cliff" negotiations and that we cut spending to take care of our deficit. I agree with him on getting rid of government waste, but I suspect he and I might have very different ideas about what amounts to "wasteful spending." Republicans always think "waste" equals gutting our social safety nets - he was short on specifics and wasn't asked to clarify.

Phillips was also happy to make excuses for why Republicans lost the presidential election and threw Romney right under the bus --and even backed over him a couple of times: Tea Party Leader: Romney Was ‘The Worst Candidate In History’:

Tea Party Nation founder Judson Phillips on Thursday disputed that President Obama claimed a mandate in November's election, arguing that his re-election victory came over "the worst candidate in history in Mitt Romney."

"You know, Obama ran on the fact he was going to raise taxes, the Republicans put up the worst candidate in history in Mitt Romney, yet Obama allegedly has this mandate," Phillips said during an appearance on MSNBC. "Well, why did Republicans keep the House if Obama has this great mandate? People don't want their taxes going up. What people do want is spending cuts."

If Romney was the "worst candidate" ever, what does that say about the rest of the wingnuts he was running against in their primary? He would have been a bad candidate already, but Phillips and his ilk along with the rest of the GOP base pushing him to the right helped to assure his fate. He alienated every group out there other than crusty old white men and the millionaires paying his tab, and he paid dearly for it later.

It's always amusing to watch these guys come on the air and complain about a problem they helped create. It's too bad they're not called out for it and asked about who is funding these AstroTurf groups that they represent when they're allowed on the air.