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Sadly it seems MSNBC has found yet another former Pennsylvania Democrat to come on the air to advocate for rewarding Republicans for their obstruction and intransigence over the last four years. We were already treated to "Fix the Debt" corporate shill Ed Rendell arguing for cutting benefits to our seniors with the chained CPI as way to figure the cost of living increases for Social Security and for raising the age for Medicare eligibility. And in a subsequent interview, he was not only pushing to cut our social safety nets, but to help get more Republicans elected to office as well.

This Saturday, former Rep. Joe Sestak took up Rendell's mantle and recommended that President Obama nominate former Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison for transportation secretary. I probably would not be as irritated at Sestak for this interview had I not heard him earlier this week talking about how reasonable cutting the benefits to our seniors would be and that Democrats are going to have to give into the idea that this chained CPI is coming and there's nothing they can do about it if we want to fix our deficit problems. Never mind that Social Security does not add a dime to our deficit. He did the same thing a little later in this segment but wasn't quite as specific as he'd been in the previous interview on which cuts are going to have to be made to our social safety nets.

Sestak took to the air here to call for more privatization of our infrastructure and nominating a Republican who could get that passed as the solution to fixing our crumbling roads and bridges. It makes me start to wonder if anyone besides MSNBC is signing a paycheck for him just like they are for Ed Rendell, because these sure as hell aren't positions Democrats who don't want to have themselves considered as Republican-lite should be advocating for.

As long as we've got Democrats like Rendell and Sestak shilling for Republicans and their policies on that so-called "liberal" network MSNBC, who needs Republicans?

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It's so brave of her to come out and say this now that she's leaving the Senate, isn't it? Texas Senator Embraces Federal Gun Control, Limits On Large Magazines:

Texas Republican Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison, a strong ally of the National Rifle Association and its legislative priorities, told CBS’s Face The Nation on Sunday that she could support tighter regulations of high-capacity magazines in the aftermath of the shooting in Newtown, Connecticut. [...]

The NRA has taken any discussion of gun control off the table, arguing that government should instead station armed security guards in schools, limit cultural violence, repair the mental health system, and get tough on crime. Though group endorsed Gov. Rick Perry (R-TX) in his gubernatorial primary against Hutchision in 2010, the Texas chapter of the organization gave her an A+ rating, noting that it is the policy of the group to endorse incumbents.

Of course Bob Schieffer didn't ask her why it took her until now to soften some of her views on any new regulations. I'm pretty sure we wouldn't be hearing this out of her if she was planning on running for office again.

SCHIEFFER: I think we reestablished communications with Texas. Senator Hutchison, you were talking about you do suggest, at least schools being able to put police in schools if they think it's needed, but how about some of these other things? What about this idea of a ban on assault weapons? What about, as Senator Warner is talking about, restricting the sales of these magazines that have 30 rounds in a clip? How do you feel about that?

HUTCHISON: You know, I think we ought to be looking at where the real danger is, like those large clips, I think that does need to be looked at. We do have a ban on assault weapons, as was stated earlier. But it's the semiautomatics, and those large magazines that can be fired off very quickly. You do have to pull the trigger each time, but it's -- it's very quick. I think we should be looking at those mega- opportunities as one of the things that might be looked at. And we need to talk to real hunters who say what is a sporting rifle capability that continues the sport? We need to talk to people in all areas. But, Bob, what hasn't been mentioned, you know, in this conversation, is also the violence in our society. What children and kids are seeing even on P.G. movies and these video games like Black Ops 2 and those kinds of things. I mean, really, we have a more violent society in general, and I think a lot of it has to be looked at in that framework.

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In a face to face confrontation that aired on Sunday, Rep. Barney Frank (D-MA) called out Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchinson (R-TX) for using "weasel words" to suggest that President Barack Obama knew about former CIA Director David Petraeus' sex scandal prior to the November election.

Hutchinson told CNN's Candy Crowley and a panel of lawmakers that she couldn't believe that an email threat that Paula Broadwell, Petraeus' mistress, allegedly made to another woman triggered a low-level FBI investigation that the president would not have known about.

"I'm very worried about this," she opined. "Did it really trigger an FBI investigation of the CIA director? At a low level? And it wasn't raised to a higher level? I mean, if anybody is investigating the director of the CIA, the president of the United States should know immediately. And I feel like, A, we don't know enough and, B, I have great concerns about a lot of this surrounding..."

"Nobody was investigating the director of the CIA," Sen. Jon Kyl (R-AZ) interrupted. "What they were inquiring into was whether or not somebody had unauthorized access or was taking advantage of access to the director."

"But at what level were these decisions being made?" Hutchinson insisted. "I just think there needs to be a whole lot more."

"Are you suggesting that there was some cover up, that the FBI was playing games, Kay?" Frank wondered. "I think we ought to be explicit about this. I'm troubled by the implication of your statement. Are you suggesting that something wasn't legitimate here? Because that would trouble me."

"I am suggesting that I have great concerns about the legitimacy of this," Hutchinson repeated.

"Using 'great concern' is kind of a weasel word," Frank shot back.

"No, I don't think it's a weasel word," Hutchinson replied. "A general in our military and the CIA director, to all of the sudden have this kind of upheaval when it appears that the president didn't know until two months later? Two months later?"

"It seems to me, frankly, that you're kind of hinting at something bad and I don't see what that could be," Frank pointed out. "I find those kind of implications very troubling. Do you distrust the FBI? Is [FBI Director Robert] Mueller lying? Who are you accusing of not having done the right thing?"

"I tell you what troubles me to some extent, Candy, if this was an investigation into David Petraeus' bank account instead of his sex life, all of us would be paying a lot less attention to it," the Massachusetts congressman added. "And I'm troubled by the prurience of some of this. And the prominence it's getting is -- privacy shouldn't totally disappear."

Earlier this month, Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. told reporters that the policy of not sharing facts about ongoing investigations with the White House had been followed because "there was not a threat to national security."

(h/t: Think Progress)

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I'm not sure how many times we have to debunk at this site the notion that either partially privatizing, or entirely privatizing Medicare and Social Security is somehow going to "save" or keep solvent either program, but here's what we're running up against daily on our cable media outlets.

Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison appeared on Chris Jansing's show on MSNBC, and she did receive a tiny bit of push back at the notion that privatizing our social safety nets are going to make sure they still exist for those under the age of 55 now, it wasn't nearly enough.

As soon as you start pulling funds out of either program by giving people a "choice" as to where their money goes, you're going to starve them to where they don't exist. And if Hutchison was being honest about the Social Security trust fund, she wouldn't be telling MSNBC viewers that taking money away from the fund will keep it solvent and that there's no reason to raise taxes to assure that it is. It's a regressive tax which hits those at the lower income brackets harder and I would love to see the cap lifted and the rate lowered for those who make less money, just as they do with our federal income tax. Regardless of whether you make the tax progressive or not, just raising or lifting the cap would keep it solvent for decades to come.

I also continue to be astounded that Republicans think it's a good talking point that they don't want to screw over current seniors, but they're happy to screw over their kids and are silly enough to think that the current seniors won't care what happens to their children and their grandchildren. Don't worry anyone on the programs now... we're not going to do anything to you. So don't worry your pretty heads about what happens to anyone else who would like those same safety nets in place later. They've all been brainwashed from listening to us that the programs won't be there for them later, so who cares if we don't look out for them. They were expecting it anyway after years of listening to our propaganda.

Rough transcript of their exchange below the fold.

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Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) on Thursday accused Democrats of inventing an "imaginary" war on women to score political points in an election year.

During a Senate speech outlining why he supported reauthorizing the Violence Against Women Act, something that many Republicans oppose, McCain blasted Democrats for "dividing the country in the name of greater fairness and unity."

"My friends, this supposed 'War on Women' or the use of similarly outlandish rhetoric by partisan operatives has two purposes, and both are purely political in their purpose and effect: The first is to distract citizens from real issues that really matter and the second is to give talking heads something to sputter about when they appear on cable television," the Arizona senator declared.

"I believe women and men in our country are smart enough to recognize that when a politician or political party resorts to dividing us in the name of bringing us together it usually means that they are either out of ideas or short on resolve to address the challenges of our time," he added. "At this time in our nation’s history, we face an abundance of hard choices. Divisive slogans and the declaring of phony wars are intended to avoid those hard choices and to escape paying a political price for doing so."

"Women and men are no different in their rights and responsibilities," McCain concluded. "I believe this legislation recognizes that. I don’t believe the ludicrous, partisan posturing that has conjured up this imaginary war does."

Democratic National Committee Chairwoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-FL) recently explained to CNN's Candy Crowley why she thought if was fair to pin the "war on women" label on the GOP.

“The policies that have come out of the Republican Party, saying that we should have a debate again over contraception and whether we should have access to it and it should be affordable, saying that — like Gov. Scott Walker in Wisconsin, you know, he tried to quietly repeal the Equal Pay Act,” Wasserman Schultz noted. “Women aren’t going to stand for that. Governor Walker just signed a bill that repeals the equal pay law they had in Wisconsin for years.”

She continued: “You have Republicans who have engaged themselves for the entire Congress trying to redefine rape as only being forcible rape, defunding Planned Parenthood and family planning programs. The Lilly Ledbetter Act — the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act put teeth behind the notion that women deserve equal pay for equal work. That was the first bill the President Obama signed into law. The overwhelming majority of Republicans serving in Congress voted against it.”

“So, the focus of the Republican Party on turning back the clock for women really is something that is unacceptable and shows how callous and insensitive they are towards women’s priorities.”

House Republicans on Wednesday introduced a watered-down version of the Violence Against Women Act that diminishes protections for Native women, lacks provisions for the LGBT community and removes added visas for undocumented victims of violence.

The law was first passed in 1994 and then reauthorized in 2000 and 2005, all by bipartisan majorities.

Vice President Joe Biden, who drafted the original bill while serving as a senator, said last week that he couldn't understand why it had now become a partisan issue.

"The idea we’re still fighting about this in Congress, that this is even a debatable issue, is truly sad," the vice president lamented.

“No one should question whether this is needed,” Biden added. “It would have been bad if the law had never been passed. But imagine now, the message it sends if it is not reauthorized. Just ask what message it would send to every one of our daughters, every woman imprisoned in their home.”

(h/t: The Huffington Post)

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Rachel Maddow started out this segment by taking note of something that Republicans regularly are much better at than Democrats, which is taking your greatest strength and turning it into a weakness which sadly we saw with John Kerry and George Bush and the Swiftboat attacks and which we're seeing now with Mitt Romney supporting Paul Ryan and his push to privatize Medicare and then attacking President Obama for "wanting to end Medicare as we know it."

She followed up with pointing out how they've also attempted to do this with politicians like John McCain and Kay Bailey Hutchison, who were out there this week pretending that their party is not the one legitimately waging a "war on women" and their reproductive health. As she noted, politicians on the national level are finally attempting to walk some of this rhetoric back because they're realizing it's probably going to kill them with female voters in the upcoming election.

Sadly for any of them, as she also pointed out, Republican politicians at the state level apparently aren't getting that message yet and are continuing to push one extreme anti-abortion bill after another through where Republicans are controlling state governments, despite the fact that some on the national level are finally figuring out that these sort of policies might be detrimental to the GOP in the upcoming election.

I frankly still find it astounding that Republicans are polling as high as they are anywhere, because I do not understand how you can be either female, black, Hispanic, gay, atheist, or for that matter... sane... and consider yourself a member of the Republican Party these days.

I wonder as Rachel did here how they think they're going to win a general election if they keep this sort of stuff up at the state level and how it's not going to possibly kill them on a national level. Women make up over fifty percent of the electorate. You cannot win any election if you alienate the majority of them which it appears Republicans are dead set on doing right now.

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If you're a Republican and you would like to come on the air and repeat one talking point after another virtually unchallenged, this Thursday, Chuck Todd once again showed us he's happy to oblige you. Todd allowed Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison to get away with a series of lies right off the bat, like pretending increasing domestic oil drilling will have any major impact in lowering the price of gasline (it won't), or that Republicans have some sort of "principled" stance on energy production, unless you consider always doing the bidding of the oil companies "principled."

Todd then asked Hutchison about the Republicans "war on women" and he allows her to get away with claiming that Republicans don't want to restrict women's access to contraception after she just voted for the Blunt amendment. Heaven forbid he might have reminded her of that during the interview.

She finished up with giving a half hearted defense of Planned Parenthood, saying she disagreed with Gov. Rick Perry's decision to turn down the state's Medicaid funding. It would have been nice if she'd bothered to say something when the House Republicans were seeking to defund it last year.

Think Progress has more on Hutchison's defense of Planned Parenthood which I don't think was particularly brave given that it was mainly prodded on by Chuck Todd.

Kay Bailey Hutchison Defends Planned Parenthood, Says Organization Provides Critical Preventive Care:

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It seems Republicans can't quit lying about how President Obama is somehow responsible for the cost of gas going up, or that the Keystone pipeline is somehow going to result in any significant job creation in the United States. That's exactly what we got from Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison during the Republican's weekly response to President Obama's weekly address this week.

I'd just refer everyone to these posts where Hutchison's talking points have already been rebutted.

What Reporters Are Getting Wrong About Gas Prices

Brent Bozell Now Making Up Oil Statistics

It seems the Senator and Bozell are reading their talking points off the same script. Imagine that? I don't have to wonder too greatly about who they might have came from.

Transcript via the GOP's You Tube channel below the fold.

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Here we go again with another Republican telling us we need to make the income disparity in the United States worse. Right now I'm thinking the least amount of damage that so-called "super committee" could do right now is just to remain deadlocked.

And who wants to bet the people Kay Bailey Hutchison is talking here who currently aren't paying any taxes are the poor and the elderly? And naturally the one reason she really wants to see that committee come to an agreement is because heaven forbid we can't reduce our military spending.

Transcript via CNN.

CROWLEY: OK. Let me turn you to somewhat politics as usual up on Capitol Hill, where we have 33 senators who have written the super committee and said, listen, rewrite the tax code with no net tax increase. Does that letter not doom the super committee to failure given what the Democrats want and this is supposed to be a compromise?

HUTCHISON: No, I don't think it dooms it to failure. I think if we are going to realistically get our budget house in order, we've got to cut spending, we have to have a fairer tax code, one in which it is lower and promotes growth in business, but does catch people who aren't paying taxes right now who should be paying taxes.

You get revenue increase by increasing the growth in our business sector, our private sector. You increase growth in the private sector and you'll get new revenue, because people will be working and paying taxes rather than having to be on unemployment.

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I think someone needs to remind Kay Bailey Hutchison that an employer propositioning one of their employees is not just an "off-color remark" and would indeed fit the definition of sexual harassment. Apparently she's a little confused after watching the explanation she gave Candy Crowley on CNN's State of the Union when asked what she thought about Herman Cain's recent troubles.

CROWLEY: Let me ask you about Herman Cain specifically. Is anything that you've heard publicly over the past week disturbed you or made you think, I'm not sure Herman Cain is the best answer for the Republican Party in 2012?

HUTCHISON: Not at all. I just don't see anonymous sources as fair against a candidate. I think if someone has a real concern, they should come out and say it. But nothing that I've heard, in the press that I have read is other than off-color remarks which, you know, I think that he paid a price for that, as maybe he should, but I don't sense that there is something, so far that has come out, other than from anonymous sources that he spoke badly.

And so I don't think that -- I kind of think that this is a presidential campaign thing where his, you know, opponents are coming forward and trying to dredge things up. But unless there's something that's really sexual harassment, which I would stand firmly against, and say that would be a problem.

But until something comes out that's concrete, I think it is politics as usual.

And as Steve Benen pointed out today after watching this same segment, someone might want to remind her what the term anonymous means as well -- Understanding the nature of 'anonymity':

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