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On this Sunday's Meet the Press, Sen. John McCain continued to prove the point Chris Hayes made on his show this Friday about just who Congress is responsive to, and it's not your average citizen out there. McCain thinks we have "our priorities a little bit skewed" on these sequestration cuts, but of course there's only one area he's concerned about, and that's defense spending.

MCCAIN: Well I say with all due respect to my friends, it's a little bit hypocritical, the same day when all the focus was on the delays that we have in getting through airports, the Chief of Staff of the United States Army was saying that we're... if we don't reverse this, we're going to have a hollow army. We'll be unable to defend the nation and it would take us ten or fifteen years to recover.

I think we have our priorities a little bit skewed here. Look, I'm for giving the FAA flexibility, but I also want to give the military flexibility and I don't want these sequestration cuts to be as deep as they are on the issue of defense. We've got a lot of savings we can make in national security, but right now we are, in the words of the Secretary of Defense and our uniformed service chiefs, we're putting the security of this nation at risk.

McCain was basically repeating what he said in a press release from this Friday.

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From this Sunday's Meet the Press, despite all of his rhetoric attempting to help the Republican party with their so-called rebranding effort, Eric Cantor didn't do a very good job of hiding just who his party is looking out for, and it sure as hell isn't the average worker out there: Cantor: We Can’t Raise Taxes ‘Every Three Months’:

House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-VA) said Sunday that he does not support bringing in new revenue by closing tax loopholes in order to avoid sequestration, during an appearance on NBC's "Meet the Press."

"We can't be raising taxes every three months in this town," Cantor said, referring to the tax increases that went into effect in early January.

Cantor added that he doesn't want the sequester to go into effect and said it's up to President Obama to make a move now on avoiding it.

Politicususa has more on Cantor's interview here: Eric Cantor Embarrasses Himself Playing Sequester Blame Game and here: Hypocrisy Alert: Eric Cantor Added $3.4 Trillion to Debt But Blames Obama for His Debt. NBC has the full transcript up here, but for this segment, I think I prefer the Bobblespeak version.

Meet The Press - February 10, 2012 :

Gregory: the sequester automatic
spending cuts could happen in a
few days and would cripple
Virginia's economy

Audience: yes Virginia there
is a Sequester Clause

Cantor: these are horrible
indiscriminate cuts I supported

Gregory: so why can't you make
a deal with Obama?

Cantor: because Obama wants to raise taxes

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They just can't stop themselves. Here's Rep. Tom Cotton (R-Ark) on this week's Fox News Sunday, explaining to host Chris Wallace why he doesn't think it's fair to be raising taxes on the rich and why we cannot make any cuts to defense spending, but cut away at domestic spending, or in his words "welfare":

WALLACE: Congressman Cotton, I want you to react to that, and as you saw in the clip we played from the president's weekend address, once again the president is trying to make Republicans pay the price politically. He's basically saying, these cuts are going to affect the middle class in education and law enforcement, food inspectors. And once again, you guys want to protect your wealthy friends from any tax increase.

REP. TOM COTTON, R-ARK.: Chris, the bigger risk, I think, is the way they are going to impact the Department of Defense. It's cutting almost $10 billion or 10 percent of the Department of Defense's budget this year, and that is after four years where the Department of Defense has been the one agency of the federal government that has not had hundreds of billions of dollars stuffed into its budget. You go back and you look at domestic spending over the last four years that exploded under the stimulus and just annual resolutions funding the government, there is a lot more fat to cut there. So as Bill said, Republicans have proposed a responsible alternative to the sequester, which is what President Obama proposed in 2011, which are shift those cuts away from the Department of Defense and to domestic spending so we can ensure, for example, that we have two aircraft carriers in the Persian Gulf, which we just stopped because of the sequester spending.

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I will be really, really happy when these so-called "fiscal cliff" negotiations are over if for no other reason, getting a break from watching Republicans take to the airways to throw hissy fits about having their fee fees hurt. This is the same party that's been calling the President of the United States boy, and every other rude, condescending, racist name in the book for the last four years, but if he dares to say anything that offends any of them in even the mildest way, they're clutching their pearls and dragging out the fainting couches.

Case in point, John McCain this Monday, first on the Senate floor: McCain to Obama: 'That's not the way presidents should lead':

Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) blasted President Obama's Monday public statement on the state of the fiscal-cliff talks as an event that will only antagonize Republicans, and said Obama is not showing the kind of presidential leadership needed to resolve the "fiscal cliff."

"At a time of crisis, on New Year's Eve ... we have the president of the United States go over and have a cheerleading, ridiculing-the-Republicans exercise in speaking to the people of the United States of America," McCain said.

"He made a couple of jokes, laughed about how people are going to be here for New Year's, sent a message of confrontation to the Republicans," McCain said. "I guess I have to wonder, and I think the American people have to wonder, whether the president really wants this issue resolved, or is it to his short-term political benefit to go over the cliff?"

McCain was reacting to the president's Monday remarks, which drew instant criticism from Republicans. He delivered his remarks among a group of people who seemed to be clear supporters, and could be heard clapping and laughing as Obama spoke. Obama at one point joked to the crowd that he would be stuck in Washington for New Year's Eve, along with many of those in the crowd.

He appeared later on Cavuto's show on Fox, still complaining about the President's remarks, all the while promising more of this stuff in the upcoming debt ceiling debate: John McCain: Advantage, Obama:

Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) offered “straight talk” Monday saying he was hopeful there would be a vote later in the day or Tuesday in regards to the fiscal cliff, but added that President Barack Obama has an “advantage” since he was reelected.

“There’s hopes that we vote tonight or tomorrow. I know there are concerns about the sequestration aspect of it. We’re also very concerned that there’s no spending cuts associated with a tentative deal,” the Arizona Republican said on CNN to anchor Wolf Blitzer. [...]

In a later interview on Fox, McCain said Republicans must not back down from their demand to make cuts to social programs during the likely upcoming fight on the debt ceiling extension.

“About zero,” McCain said about his certainty that a cliff deal will include spending cuts. “And that’s why this upcoming debt limit, in a couple months, the extension will be a knockdown, drag out fight. We have to convince the American people that we have to address entitlements, we have to address spending, that we’ve now given the American people at $16 trillion debt.”

Of course, because our social safety nets and our retirees must be sacrificed, but don't dare touch that defense spending. And heaven forbid don't talk about what it would take to get us back to anything close to full employment, which is the best thing we could do to lower our deficit. We all know Republicans don't actually care about the debt or the deficit though. They care about using it as an excuse to starve the beast.

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During part of CNN's god-awful coverage of these ongoing negotiations over the expiration of the Bush-era tax cuts and the defense spending sequestration that none of them in Congress like, Your Money host Ali Velshi was co-hosting their live coverage, and he allowed Tenn. Rep. Marsha Blackburn to get away with painting the Democrats as the ones who are being stubborn and unreasonable during these talks, and to lay the blame for no deal being made on the Senate.

She did get some push back from Velshi, but of course it was the sort we see on that network all the time with the false equivalency game, where they're pretending like "both sides" are acting like petulant children for not reaching some deal and painting cuts to Social Security as harmless and a solution to our budget deficits, even though they'll cause a lot of pain for poor seniors and Social Security does not contribute to the deficit.

Velshi asked Blackburn who was at fault for the impasse, after complaining about the markets potentially reacting to the intransigence in Washington, why they were screwing around until the last minute before coming to a deal and Blackburn's response was that the Senate could have prevented this if they'd just passed all of the legislation that the House sent over to Harry Reid's desk. Paperwork! How dare Harry Reid not pick up their paperwork and send it all through?

Never mind the fact that we are supposed to have three co-equal branches of government and that they knew full well they were wasting everyone's time sending bills over they knew had no chance in hell of passing, or that some of them didn't even have support from Republicans in the Senate or that they were at fault for the bills being held up.

Here's more on some of what she cited here: House ‘Reconciliation’ Bill Was Anything But.

Democrats make last-minute stab at tax extenders

Preventing Crushing Defense Cuts

Too his credit, Velshi came back and reminded her that the House couldn't even pass Boehner's "Plan B" debacle that went down in flames just before Christmas. That said, he let her get away again with pretending that herself or the House Republicans have an ounce of interest in bipartisanship or working with anyone and doing anything other than obstructing if they don't get everything they want.

I don't know how many people watch Velshi's show on the weekends, but he's on there every single week, screaming about this impending doom if the Congress fails to work out a deal and then he brings in hacks like Stephen Moore and economists from right wing think tanks to debate about it. Or he's got Norquist on there every time you turn around. You can add him to the list of Villagers who seem intent on painting anyone that doesn't want to inflict some pain on our seniors and the most vulnerable among us as not being Serious, or adults. As Digby noted today: Fiscal cliff notes: The Villagers are stimulated by the prospect of human sacrifice.

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I don't think David Gregory can make it through an interview without pushing the Villagers' favorite theme during these so-called "fiscal cliff" negotiations, which is that Democrats had better be willing to inflict some pain on the elderly and the working class, or they're just not being "serious." He was at it again this Sunday when he asked President Obama about whether he was going to just have to "talk tough" to seniors about Social Security and Medicare.

Of course no such tough talk or pain is ever required of the rich or of our bloated military industrial complex. Gregory also did his best to try to place the blame for Republican obstruction during these negotiations on President Obama's back, asking him "What is it about you, Mr. President, that you think is so hard to say yes to?" About him... really David Gregory? We've got one party that's lost its mind and cares about obstruction above all else and is willing to take us down in flames to get what they want and another party that's willing to bend over backwards to try to negotiate with them, and you want to know why the side that's too willing to compromise hasn't done enough to make the Teahadist happy? Spare me.

Obama: ‘Pressure’ on Congress, blames GOP as deadline nears:

President Obama said Sunday that the "pressure is on Congress" to reach a compromise and resolve the so-called “fiscal cliff,” sharply criticizing GOP leaders for the unresolved talks.

In an exclusive interview with NBC's “Meet the Press” on Sunday, his first appearance since the healthcare debate in 2009, Obama seemed intent on putting the blame solely on Congressional Republicans, if lawmakers fail to reach the pivotal year-end deadline.

"I offered not only a trillion dollars in -- over a trillion dollars in spending cuts over the next 10 years, but these changes would result in even more savings in the next 10 years, and would solve our deficit problem for a decade," Obama said, in the interview . “They say that their biggest priority is making sure that we deal with the deficit in a serious way, but the way they're behaving is that their only priority is making sure that tax breaks for the wealthiest Americans are protected. That seems to be their only overriding, unifying theme.”

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It seems Grandpa McGrumpy wasn't too happy about his buddy Willard getting zinged by President Obama during the final presidential debate this Monday and let the audience know during his appearance this Tuesday on Morning Joe.

McCain: Obama’s ‘Bayonets And Horses’ Remark A ‘Cheap Shot’ And I ‘Resent It’:

Appearing on MSNBC's "Morning Joe," Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) praised Mitt Romney's performance in the final debate and criticized President Obama for mocking the GOP candidate's approach to the defense budget.

"Frankly, I don't understand why the president wants to take these kind of cheap shots -- bayonets and horses, what's that all about?" he said. "You know, when I debated then-Senator Obama I didn't criticize or belittle his lack of experience on national security issues. And he seemed to take these kind of cheap shots. ... I kind of resent it."

"I think you should treat your opponent with some respect. ... It was small ball."

This coming from the same man who inflicted Sarah Palin on the rest of the nation and allowed her to be running around the country during the presidential campaign accusing then Sen. Obama of "paling around with terrorists." And from the same man who called Obama a celebrity and compared him to Paris Hilton. Small ball, huh? Well, you'd know all about that, now wouldn't you?

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It seems Republicans are determined to continue to be completely tone deaf if they think trotting Allen West out there as someone they want representing their party on a national level is a good idea. This is the same man that bragged about torturing a policeman in Iraq, that has called the progressives in the Congress Communists, and who regularly shoots his mouth off being as mean and nasty towards those on the other side of the aisle as possible, where the list is too long to go into here.

The reason I say they're continuing to promote him on a national level is because Mitt Romney decided this is just the guy who should serve as the chair of his Black Leadership Council. Now they've got him out there, giving their weekly address, complaining about the defense cuts that their vice presidential nominee voted for. I can only assume they're hoping that no one ever watches this, or that their base who might be interested in it, is just too uninformed to realize that all West is serving up for them here is a big huge pile of steaming hypocrisy and misinformation about who has been obstructing and making sure nothing gets done or passed in the Congress if President Obama might gain from it, the consequences of their actions and how damaging they have been to the American public and our economy be damned.

West seems to be doing his best to give cover for their vice presidential nominee Paul Ryan, who voted for those defense cuts and as David Plouffe pointed out last weekend, is now running from that vote as fast as he is his fictional marathon time.

And this is a member of Congress that just decided to go on vacation again while, as Think Progress noted, leaving key bills awaiting action. They've got more on other bills but here's the portion on the defense cuts:

5. Sequestration. A spokesman for Boehner said earlier this week that stopping budget cuts he voted for last August “topped our July agenda and remains atop our agenda for September.” While House Republicans have complained about the imminent spending reductions and passed a bill that would require President Obama to find offsets for spending cuts they don’t like, Republican Leader Canter could not name a single compromise he was willing to make to get a deal.

Go read the rest of the list if you want your stomach to churn. But never mind all that. It's all President Obama's fault that these cuts might be coming if you believe Allen West and not the fault of a House of Representatives that is completely unwilling to compromise, ever -- Weekly Republican Address: Rep. Allen West (R-FL) on President Obama’s Defense ‘Sequester’:

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Fox News host Brian Kilmeade says that cutting defense spending is just not the Christian thing to do.

During a Thursday Fox & Friends segment about a defense industry-sponsored study that warns unemployment will rise if Congress does not find a way to avert $500 billion in sequestration cuts, Kilmeade declared that it would be a "sin" to reduce defense spending back to 2006 levels.

"Could the $500 billion in cuts from the next budget mandate potentially trigger a recession?" Kilmeade exclaimed. "According to the Aerospace Industry Association, the unemployment rate would climb above 9 percent and more than 2 million jobs would be lost all in the name of cutting back defense!"

"It threatens our national security, it threatens our economic security, it threatens our technological leadership, it threatens over 2 million jobs," agreed Jay DeFrank, a public relations official with defense contractor Pratt & Whitney.

"It's a sin that Republicans and Democrats both brought the defense industry in to this," Kilmeade asserted. "They had nothing to do with the [debt ceiling negotiations] impasse that took place last year."

But even as defense contractors are warning of a recession, their stock is up 11 percent this year, outperforming Standard & Poor's 500 Index.

Lockheed Martin CEO Bob Stevens recently told the House Armed Services Committee that "sequestration kills jobs," but his company's earnings are also up 26 percent.

RBC Capital Markets analyst Robert Stallard told Bloomberg that defense contractors that "stray into the area of politics" by threatening mass layoffs could open themselves up to questions about profits and executive compensation.

"It is potentially a risk down the line that these politicians come back with things that maybe the defense industry is not prepared for," he explained.

(h/t: Media Matters)

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As our friends over at Show Me Progress noted this Tuesday evening, Claire, you must be living right. Regardless of what the polls show right now, I don't think Rep. Todd Akin's primary win in Missouri to face off against incumbent Sen. Clair McCaskill is good news for Republicans in the Show Me state. He's a wingnut of the first order and hopefully is not going to be very attractive to general election voters once they start to get a better look at him.

Back in 2009, we shared this lovely video of the Representative, making jokes about lynching his Democratic colleagues, which you can watch above. It was apparently a big hit with his constituents in his district, but he's going to have to appeal to voters all across the state now, and I'm sure there are a good deal of us besides myself that don't find lynching jokes particularly funny.

In August of last year, Akin refused to meet with his constituents to defend his vote to eliminate Medicare which you can watch the video of here: Rep. Todd Akin Refuses to Meet With Constituents and Defend Vote to Eliminate Medicare.

And we got a reminder on primary night from some local bloggers as to why Akin is going to have some trouble come the general election as well. From MO_Snark: The One reason Todd akin will lose to Claire McCaskill:

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