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Sen. James Inhofe (R-OK) on Wednesday explained that Al Gore and the United Nations get most of the blame for what he called a global warming "hoax," but filmmaker Michael Moore and billionaire George Soros deserved some credit too.

At a Environment and Public Works Committe on President Barack Obama's nomination of Gina McCarthy to be the next head of the Environmental Protection Agency, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) said that he wanted the agency to listen to scientists instead of climate change deniers like Inhofe and Sen. John Barrasso (R-WY).

"What Sen. Inhofe has written and talked about is his belief that global warming is one of the major hoaxes ever perpetrated on the American people, that it's a hoax pushed by people like Al Gore, the United Nations and the Hollywood elite," Sanders told the committee.

"I think that is a fair quote from Sen. Inhofe. Is that roughly right, Sen. Inhofe?" Sanders asked the Oklahoma Republican.

"Yes," Inhofe agreed. "I'd add to that list MoveOn.org, George Soros, Michael Moore and a few others."

"That's exactly the issue," Sanders said, turning back to the committee. "Do we agree with Sen. Inhofe that global warming is a hoax and that we do not want the federal government, the EPA, the Department of Energy to address that issue? Because it is a -- quote -- unquote -- hoax, according to Sen. Inhofe and others? Or do we believe and agree with the overwhelming majority of scientists who tell us that global warming is the most serious planetary crisis that we face, and that we must act boldly and aggressively to protect the future of this planet? That is what the issue is."

(h/t: The Hill)

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It seems Republicans are ready to die on their sword of protecting tax cuts for the rich and are going to do their best to blame President Obama for their unwillingness to negotiate on anything in good faith. They've been wanting to take a pound of flesh from the working class by slashing our social safety nets and it looks like they might use this sequester to finally get their way: GOP Eager For The Sequester To Go Into Effect So They Can Blame Obama For Its Devastating Consequences:

With the sequester deadline looming just two weeks away, Republicans have adopted the public posture of cheerleading for the anticipated spending reductions to social programs, while preparing to blame President Obama for their devastating impact on middle class Americans and national security.

Republicans have yet to offer a proposal that would offset the cuts in the 113th Congress and have categorically rejected the Senate’s balanced approach of higher revenues and spending cuts. Instead they’re sitting on their hands until the March 1 deadline, informing Obama that they will not act to head off the automatic reductions. [...]

Pressed by Crowley on the consequences of the across-the-board cuts, Barrasso initially dismissed their impact before blaming Obama for any deleterious effects. “I believe the president has a lot of authority that he can decide how this works, and, yeah, he can make it very uncomfortable, which i think would be a mistake on the part of the president, but when you take a look at the total dollars there are better ways to do this, but the cuts are going to occur,” he said.

Here's more from them on the damage the cuts would do: How The Sequester’s Budget Cuts Will Devastate Already-Battered Programs:

Federal spending is scheduled to reach historic lows thanks to the Budget Control Act, which placed caps on spending as part of the deal to raise the debt ceiling in the summer of 2011. Non-defense spending is already 14 percent lower than it has been at any time in the last half-century, and it could go even lower if the so-called “sequester,” a series of automatic budget cuts that will begin to take effect at the beginning of March, is allowed to occur.

The drop in domestic spending has already devastated many programs on which Americans depend. But on March 1, those cuts will get even deeper when the first $85 billion of sequester cuts take effect.

That will have a substantial impact on food safety, education, law enforcement, and safety net programs, according to estimates from Democrats on the House Appropriations Committee. And if the sequester is left in place for the full year, it will cut $1.5 trillion and those effects will only get worse: Read on...

Here's a reminder from Greg Sargent on the right's decision to use the sequester as "leverage" against President Obama: We all agree that spending cuts hurt the economy. Right? Right.:

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Surprise, surprise... another Republican senator decided to play the part of mouthpiece for the National Rifle Association: NRA-Backed Senator Says Washington Can’t Find ‘Real Solutions’ To Gun Violence:

On Fox News Sunday this morning, Sen. John Barrasso (R-WY) refused to answer questions about any specific gun control legislation he would consider supporting in the aftermath of the Newtown shooting. Host Chris Wallace referenced the suggestion made by the NRA’s Wayne LaPierre that schools need more armed guards and also President Obama’s call for more gun control, but all Barrasso could offer is that he is a “strong supporter of our Second Amendment rights.”

In fact, he suggested he might not support any relevant national legislation because “Washington is not necessarily the place” to find “real solutions”: [...]

Barrasso claimed that health care is part of the solution to the “culture of violence,” but he has led the effort to repeal the Affordable Care Act. The American Psychiatric Association has said the law is crucial to extending mental health parity throughout the health care system and expanding access to mental health services to prevent tragedies like the Newtown shooting in the future. He also has supported decreased funding for health programs.

The NRA endorsed Barrasso this year, awarding him with an “A” rating for his support of their positions.

Full transcript below the fold.

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After telling Fox's Neil Cavuto how much the "American people" really want to see the deficit cut by reducing spending and pretended that he and his party have in any way been acting in the interests of everyday working Americans, he reminded everyone of just what we're in for in the near future -- more hostage taking and demands to slash our social safety nets.

I'm awaiting their new excuse after these budget cuts they've demanded start tanking our economy and putting us into another recession. I'm sure they'll be telling us that the confidence fairies out there just can't create any jobs for fear that the Bush tax cuts might not be extended.

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I'll just let Steve Benen take it from here after watching this week's hackery from Sen. John Barrasso and the Republican's weekly address.

PART AND PARCEL OF A LARGER AMNESIA CAMPAIGN...:

In today's official GOP weekly address, Sen. John Barrasso (R) of Wyoming, the vice chair of the Senate Republican Conference, returned to a familiar subject: his party's obsession with eliminating the Affordable Care Act.

The pitch was, not surprisingly, pretty familiar. "Republicans will fight to repeal this job-destroying law and replace it with patient-centered reforms," Barrasso said. What might patient-centered reforms look like? For one thing, the GOP wants Americans to be able to buy health insurance across state lines. For another, they'll "end junk lawsuits that drive up the cost of everyone's care." Barrasso also vowed to "restore Americans' freedom over their own health care decisions."

Substantively, Barrasso, who's never demonstrated any depth of understanding in any area of public policy, has no idea what he's talking about. He clearly doesn't understand the across-state-lines argument; the "junk lawsuits" argument has been debunked repeatedly; and the Affordable Care Act gives consumers more power, not less, over their care.

But it's the "job-destroying law" claim that still rankles.

We know with certainty that Barasso, like others who repeat the claim, is lying. We also know with certainty that if Republicans succeeded in gutting the law, it would cost, not create, jobs.

But it's worth pausing to appreciate exactly why Republicans have a Tourette's-like habit of repeating the phrase at every available opportunity. Jay Bookman had a good piece on this recently. [,,,]

I realize some of this may seem obvious, but it's important and too often goes unsaid. We even have helpful charts to help drive the point home.

The assumption on the part of Republicans is that Americans are idiots. The public knows there's a jobs crisis, and knows Democrats passed a series of landmark bills. The point is for Republicans to convince voters that the two enjoy a causal relationship -- maybe if Dems hadn't done all this important work, we wouldn't have lost so many jobs.

This is lazy, cynical, intellectually-dishonest drivel. Even congressional Republicans should be able to understand the reality here.

Go read the rest but as Steve followed up with, only a fool would be willing to believe Barrasso on job losses. Since no one is comparing Barrasso's lies to Goebbels this week, and whether this is just another part of their "big lie" with propagandizing the American public. I'm sure our national media will simply ignore his statement and whether there's any truth to it.

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They just can't stop themselves. Sen. John Barrasso was the guest on C-SPAN’s Newsmakers program over the weekend and he’s still out there trying to hawk the idea that there wasn’t any bipartisan cooperation when writing the health care bill. He pretends that if the numbers in the Senate get worse for Democrats that we’re going to see some cooperation from Republicans because the Democrats will have to quit putting forth bills that are “far to the left”.

When National Journal’s Terence Samuel asks him why the Democrats couldn’t get more things passed with their large majorities they had in both the House and the Senate instead of admitting that the Democrats got no or next to nothing in the way of cooperation from the Republicans along with dealing with their “centrist” or better put “corporate” Conserva-Dems, Barrasso claims the problem is that their positions were “extreme” and out of the “mainstream”. So in Barrasso’s world, Bob Dole’s health care plan or something resembling Romney-Care is “extreme”.

Barrasso then defends the Republicans use of the filibuster by using that good old tea party fallback—the “Founding Fathers” wanted the Senate to be a place to “let things cool down”. While that is true, I don’t think by “cool” they meant to put legislation into the deep freezer Senator.

Host Susan Swain asks Barrasso if he’d support some sort of filibuster reform, which of course he doesn’t because he knows the Republicans are doing just fine with their record levels of obstruction and preventing Democrats from getting even the mildest of any type of reforms through the Congress and then blaming the Democrats for not getting anything done. They’ve been relying on the fact that unfortunately most Americans don’t even know what a filibuster is or understand the arcane rules of the Senate. Barrasso thinks the rules “have worked well.” They’ve worked well alright, for his party to help keep running America into a ditch.

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Oh here we go again. Sen. Barrasso repeats his claim that it should require a 70 or 80 vote super-majority to pass the health care bill. Never mind that the Republicans have never held themselves to that same standard. And he's got all the talking points down as usual. "Step-by-step", "the bill's too large", "the public doesn't want this". He did forget to mention the health savings accounts in this interview.

This whole thing is just tiresome at this point. The Democrats and Obama have messed around negotiating with these people who are acting in bad faith and who will gladly lie and pretend that so many of the ideas that they supported are not already in his health care bill. Why they played the bipartisanship game with no votes in return is beyond me since it's allowed this sort of nonsense to grow legs.

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President Obama took Sen. John Barrasso to school during the Health Care Summit on why health savings accounts won't work for those who are not wealthy enough already to put some savings aside. From TPM -- Obama Takes Dr. Barrasso To Medical School:

"Would you be satisfied if every member of Congress just had catastrophic care--you think we'd be better health care purchasers?" Obama asked Barrasso. "I mean, is that a change you think we should make?"

"I think actually we would," Barrasso responded. "We'd really focus on it. We'd have more, as you say, skin in the game. And especially if they had a savings account--a health savings account--they could put their money into that, and they'd be spending the money out of that."

Obama's retort left Barrasso speechless:

"Would you feel the same way if you were making $40,000. Or if that was your income. Because that's the reality for a lot of folks," Obama said.

As usual, the Republicans' great ideas for health care "reform" is for everyone to pull themselves up by their own bootstraps, even if those bootstraps are nonexistent. Families USA has a great list of articles as to why these health savings accounts are a really bad idea for anyone who is not already wealthy.

HSA's: Shop While You Drop?:

Health Savings Accounts (HSAs) are being promoted by President Bush and conservatives in Congress as a way to bring down spiraling health care costs. Only if consumers have "skin in the game," they argue, will Americans start to shop around for cheaper health care.

HSAs are tax sheltered savings accounts coupled with high-deductible health insurance policies, and they have serious drawbacks. For many health consumers, HSAs will increase out-of-pocket costs—and complexity.

And here's what they won't do: They won't bring down health care costs and they won't make a dent in the number of Americans without health insurance. This resource center pulls together a range of materials looking at the limitations of Health Savings Accounts.

Check out the articles linked there for much, much more on the topic.

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TPM caught this clip from back in April with a prank call to David Brooks on Washington Journal and think it's the same man who called Sen. John Barrasso this week and claimed he was a teabagger who was afraid his prayers for Sen. Robert Byrd to die before the health care bill vote had backfired and something happened to Sen. James Inhofe instead. The above clip is from Washington Journal Dec. 22, 2009. Here's the clip from TPM with the call to David Brooks.

I think I found another clip with the same man. I knew that voice sounded familiar. Although this call was from Florida, I think it's the same person. I think I've heard him on there a few other times but haven't found any of the other clips. This is from March 29, 2009--Bill Kristol Doesn't Think He Owes Anyone An Apology For Hyping WMD Lies on Iraq.

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Listen to all three and let me know if you think it's the same man.