Anyone that says this hasn't created a job, they should talk to the 150,000 people getting jobs in California

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger (R-Calif.) accused his Republican colleagues in Washington on Sunday of blatant hypocrisy on the stimulus package — railing against the jobs bill in public while poising for stimulus-related projects and ceremonies in their home districts.

Appearing on ABC’s This Week, the moderate Republican frequent GOP scourge pointed to former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney in particular for arguing this past week that the stimulus bill hadn’t produced a single “net” job gain.

“I find it interesting that you have a lot of the Republicans running around, and pushing back on the stimulus money and saying, ‘This doesn’t create any new job,’” said Schwarzenegger. “And then they go out and do the photo ops, posing with the big check and they say: ‘Isn’t this great, look at the kind of money I’ve provided for the state and this is money to create jobs, and this has created 10,000 new jobs, this has created 20,000 news jobs, and all those kinds of things.’ It doesn’t match up.”

It’s hypocrisy, said host Terry Moran. “Exactly,” Schwarzenegger replied.

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Schwarzenegger Rips Romney, GOP For Stimulus Hypocrisy.

No torture

Gen. David Petraeus, the military hero of the Republican (and even non-Republican) masses and the current leader of U.S. Central Command, cast himself as decidedly outside the Dick Cheney school of counter-terrorism thought on Sunday.

Appearing on Meet the Press, the general made a compelling case against torturing terrorist detainees, saying he found it far more pragmatic and beneficial to stick to methods authorized by the army field manual.

“I have always been on the record, in fact, since 2003, with the concept of living our values. And I think that whenever we’ve perhaps taken expedient measures, they’ve turned around and bitten us in the backside. We decided early on, in the 101st airborne division, we just said, we decided to obey the Geneva Conventions…

“In the cases where that is not true [where torture takes place or international human rights groups aren't granted access to detention sites] we end up paying a price for it, ultimately,” he added. “Abu Ghraib and other situations like that are non biodegradable. They don’t go away. The enemy continues to beat you with them like a stick…. Beyond that, frankly, we have found that the use of interrogation methods in the army field manual that was given the force of law by Congress, that that works.”

Petraeus wasn’t done there. In another contrast with former Vice President Cheney — as well as the vast majority of congressional Republicans — he reiterated his support for closing Gitmo, albeit without a date-specific time frame.

“I’ve been on the record on that for well over a year, saying it should be closed,” he said. “But it should be done in a responsible matter. So I’m not seized with the issue that it won’t be done by a certain date. In fact, I think it is prudent to insure that as we move forward with that, the remaining detainees are relocated and so forth… is really thought through and done in a very pragmatic and sensible manner.”

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Petraeus Takes On Cheneyism.

One of my two fucked up senators

Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas), the head of the Republican Senate campaign operation, said Tuesday that the GOP is working to head off the danger of the Tea Party movement forming a third party by getting its activists involved in the primary process.

“I think it’s important that we try to channel these relative newcomers to the political process through our primaries so that they can have an impact on who’s nominated. And hopefully they’ll unite behind that nominee after the primary,” he told reporters in the Capitol.

Cornyn was asked if he saw a danger that the anger that energizes the movement would overwhelm the party. “I don’t think so. I think the greater danger is if they don’t feel like they have a voice within the political parties that they choose to go the third parties route. I think that would be less desirable for all sorts of reasons,” he said.

Cornyn and the GOP have a needle to thread. Their success so far has come from independents drifting away from Democrats and toward Republicans. But those independents might not find themselves at home with a party courting a Tea Party movement and a base increasingly disconnected from reality.

A new survey of 2,000 self-identified Republicans found that significant numbers believe the president was not born in the United States, is a socialist, is a racist and should be impeached and that their home state should secede from the union.

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Cornyn: Teabaggers Forming Third Party A Danger To GOP.

The numbers speak for themselves — a large portion of GOP voters think that President Obama is racist, socialist or a non-US citizen — though, when considering them, it is important to note that a disproportionate percentage of respondents are from GOP strongholds in the South (42 percent) as opposed to the Northeast (11 percent). Also note that this is a poll of self-identified Republicans, which means that independent Tea Party types are not included.

Nevertheless here are some of the standout figures as provided by Daily Kos/Research 2000:

• 39 percent of Republicans believe Obama should be impeached, 29 percent are not sure, 32 percent said he should not be voted out of office.
• 36 percent of Republicans believe Obama was not born in the United States, 22 percent are not sure, 42 percent think he is a natural citizen.
• 31 percent of Republicans believe Obama is a “Racist who hates White people” — the description once adopted by Fox News’s Glenn Beck. 33 percent were not sure, and 36 percent said he was not a racist.
• 63 percent of Republicans think Obama is a socialist, 16 percent are not sure, 21 percent say he is not
• 24 percent of Republicans believe Obama wants “the terrorists to win,” 33 percent aren’t sure, 43 percent said he did not want the terrorist to win.
• 21 percent of Republicans believe ACORN stole the 2008 election, 55 percent are not sure, 24 percent said the community organizing group did not steal the election.
• 23 percent of Republicans believe that their state should secede from the United States, 19 percent aren’t sure, 58 percent said no.
• 53 percent of Republicans said they believe Sarah Palin is more qualified to be president than Obama.

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Large Portion Of GOP Thinks Obama Is Racist, Socialist, Non-U.S. Citizen: Poll.

Take Obama’s original proposals for health-care reform. Child-rearing equivalent? Broccoli. Most effective strategy? Chocolate cookie.

Take Obama’s original proposals for health-care reform. Child-rearing equivalent? Broccoli. Most effective strategy? Chocolate cookie. Now what do you do with this cookie? Mix it in with the broccoli? (i.e. weaken the public option into national exchanges?) No. Put it on the plate alongside the broccoli? (i.e. give each state the choice of rejecting a public option?) No. Offer it to your child as an appetizer after extracting his promise to consume the broccoli afterward? (i.e. commit $30 billion to continue the war in Afghanistan?) Nope. Do you suggest that tonight he have only chocolate cookies for dinner and tell him in no uncertain terms that tomorrow night he must eat all his broccoli? (i.e. abandon the public option, national exchanges, and a Medicare buy-in for people 55 and over?) Absolutely not.

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How to Handle GOP Tantrums – Page 1 – The Daily Beast.

In an interview on Connecticut’s Face The State program this weekend, Lieberman once again said that it was “possible” he could run for re-election as a Republican. Noting that “it would be harder, to be honest, to get the nomination in the Democratic party,” Lieberman said that while he is “most likely” to remain an independent, he could see himself as a Republican:

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Think Progress » Lieberman: ‘It’s Possible’ I Could Be ‘A Good Old-Fashioned New England Moderate Republican’.

Ass Hat Palin

Sarah Palin believed that Sen. John McCain chose her to be his running mate in 2008 because of “God’s plan,” according to a top political strategist in the Arizona Republican’s campaign.

In an interview with the CBS news magazine “60 Minutes,” Steve Schmidt described Palin as “very calm – nonplussed” after McCain met with her at his Arizona ranch just before putting her on the Republican ticket. McCain had planned to name Sen. Joe Lieberman, I-Conn., as his vice presidential choice until word leaked, sparking what Schmidt called political blowback over picking the 2000 Democratic vice presidential nominee.

Schmidt said he asked Palin about her serenity in the face of becoming “one of the most famous people in the world.” He quoted her as saying, “It’s God’s plan.”

Palin has not ruled out a run for the presidency.

Schmidt was interviewed by “60 Minutes” for a segment about a new book about the 2008 presidential race, “Game Change,” by John Heilemann of New York magazine and Mark Halperin of Time magazine.

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Steve Schmidt: Palin Believed Candidacy ‘God’s Plan’.

With the Republican Party on the cusp of major gains in the House next year — and with the dream of retaking the House appearing to be a real, if improbable, possibility — one major obstacle remains: tightfisted Republican incumbents.

The National Republican Congressional Committee, the key cog in helping to finance GOP campaigns, has banked less than a third as much money as its Democratic counterpart and is ending the year with barely enough money to fully finance a single House race — no less the dozens that will be in play come 2010.

A big part of the problem, according to Republican strategists, is that GOP members themselves — the ones who stand the most to gain from large-scale House gains — haven’t chipped in accordingly, despite evidence of solid opportunities in at least 40 districts next year and with as many as 80 seats in play, according to the Cook Political Report’s estimates.

In the past three months, only 75 of 177 Republicans — most of whom represent safe districts — transferred money into the committee, netting it $2.1 million. The average donation was just $28,000, with only 11 members donating $50,000 or more during that time period.

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GOP cash woes threaten House bids – Ben Smith and Josh Kraushaar – POLITICO.com.