This week in the world of progressive state blogs: Gov. Tancredo Pipeline votes. Cutting 1%er taxes

Thursday the House Republican leadership-- Boehner, Cantor, McKeon, Ryan and their cronies-- dealt with the sequestration disaster they've put the country into as though it were just some political talking point they can use to rev up their delusional electoral base with. And speaking of delusional, the bill, H.R 6365 was introduced by Florida war criminal Allen West and co-sponsored by Joe "You Lie!" Wilson (R-SC). It passed 223-196, only one sleazy Blue Dog, Indiana Senate candidate Joe Donnelly, voting with the Republicans-- but a full dozen Republicans abandoning Boehner and Cantor to cross the aisle and vote with the Democrats, including Justin Amash (R-MI), Ron Paul (R-TX), Walter Jones (R-NC), Steve LaTourette (R-OH), Johnny Duncan (R-TN) and others who felt this is too important an issue to play narrow partisan politics with.
Before the closer-than-expected vote, the Democrats offered a Motion to Recommit as an alternative, that did try to deal with sequestration in a serious and responsible manner. Their bill would eliminate sequestration by requiring "upper income taxpayers to pay their fair share by instituting a 'Buffett rule' [and extending] "middle class tax cuts while allowing components of the tax extensions that benefit upper income beneficiaries to expire as scheduled under current law and including targeted spending cuts." That failed 170-247, not a single Republican voting for it... and 13 Democrats voting with the GOP against it:
?Justin Altmire (Blue Dog/New Dem-PA)
? John Barrow (Blue Dog/New Dem-GA)
? Dan Boren (Blue Dog-OK)
? Ben Chandler (Blue Dog-KY)
? Joe Donnelly (Blue Dog-IN)
? Larry Kissell (Blue Dog-NC)
? Lipinski, Jr (proto-Blue Dog-IL)
? Jim Matheson (Blue Dog-UT)
? Mike McIntyre (Blue Dog/New Dem-NC)
? Gary Peters (New Dem-MI)
? Collin Peterson (Blue Dog-MN)
? Chellie Pingree (D-ME)*
? Heath Shuler (Blue Dog-K Street)
?Hayden Rogers (Blue Dog-NC)
? David Crooks (Blue Dog-IN)
? Gary McDowell (Blue Dog-MI)
? Pam Gulleson (Blue Dog- ND)
? Nick Lampson (Blue Dog-TX)
? Brendan Mullen (Blue Dog-IN)
? Patrick Murphy (R/New Dem-FL)
? Sal Pace (Blue Dog/New Dem-CO)
? Charlie Wilson (Blue Dog/New Dem-OH)
? Val Demings (New Dem-FL)
? Juan Vargas (New Dem-CA)
? Rob Wallace (Blue Dog-OK)
Peggy Noonan is rarely right about anything, but equating Romney to Nixon was the smartest thing she's said in two decades. ?At one point, he had a certain slight grimace on his face when he was taking tough questions from the reporters. And I thought, ?He looks like Richard Nixon.?... Sometimes when really bad things happen, when hot things happen, cool words or no words is the way to go... I think... that in times of great drama and heightened crisis, and in times when something violent has happened to your people, I always think discretion is the better way to go. When you step forward in the midst of a political environment and start giving statements on something dramatic and violent that has happened, you're always leaving yourself open to accusations that you are trying to exploit things politically."
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