Fake Eric Cantor LinkedIn Profile

If this was real, it would be the most accurate LinedIn profile ever posted.

Eric Cantor Didn't Campaign Enough In His Home District

Rep. Tom Rooney, (R-Okeechobee), pointed out that Eric Cantor didn't pay enough attention to his district.

“People are trying to hypothesize that it’s because of immigration or this, that or the other but I think when you boil every race down to the local level, that’s where the answer lies,” Rooney said this afternoon.

“At the very local level, if somebody’s there saying you’re out of touch and you’re not there to respond to it, it’s going to hurt you,” Rooney said. “If you are not there to respond to allegations or charges, people are going to assume that they’re true.”

Ezra Klein reports that Cantor wasn't even in his district on election day. Democratic strategist Dave “Mudcat” Saunders told Time Cantor was AWOL in his district.

“Was immigration an issue? Yes. Was it the deciding factor to the tune of 11%? Not no, hell no. It’s a fairy tale,” Virginia Democratic strategist Dave “Mudcat” Saunders said. “People talk. And they talk about Eric Cantor. ‘Where is he?’ His constituent services suck. He was never in the district. And when he was in the district and he went out, he had a [security] entourage with him. He was out gallivanting all over the country being a big deal and this is a lesson.”

The big lesson is Cantor simply did not campaign in his district. Cantor deserved his primary defeat.

Update: a poll by Public Policy Polling, released on the day of the primary, found aCantor with 30 percent approval rating with voters in his district. Immigration wasn't as major an issue as nationalo pundits made it out to be. 40 percent of respondants said they strongly support the Senate immigration reform bill. Only 9 percent opposed.

The fact is Cantor wasn't liked by his constituents. His lack of campaign in the district only made matters worse.

Cliff Stearns: Birther

Rep. Cliff Stearns currently embroiled in a corruption scandal
. With Stearns facing so many problems, he has found the time to launch a potential investigation into President Barack Obama's citizenship.

“I am, shall we say, looking at all the evidence,” Stearns told reporters in the Capitol Tuesday, comments that come after he expressed similar doubts at a meeting with constituents in February.

Stearns has decided to join the birther movement. This list of fellow birthers includes Donald Trump, Judson Phillips, and the utterly bizarre Orly Taitz. Sterns has joined an all-star team of conspiracy theorists. The perfect reason for House Majority Leader Eric Cantor to give Sterns a vote of confidence.

"I think Cliff Stearns does a good job with the chairmanship of his subcommittee,” Cantor told The Hill in the Capitol Wednesday. “He has my full confidence.”

Well, that settles that.

Joel Award Winner: Eric Cantor

It is time to give out the Joel Award. The award goes any celebrity, pundit, blogger or politician that purposely contradicts himself or herself.



House Majority Leader Eric Cantor refereed to the Occupy protesters as a "growing mob." Cantor is tripping over himself trying to backtrack from his position.

"People are upset and they're justifiably frustrated. They're out of work. The economy is not moving," Cantor said. "Their sense of security for the future is not clear at all. People are afraid and I get it."

Cantor first gave us the impression that we needed to hide the children and lock our doors in fear the the "angry mob." Suddenly, Cantor gets why the Occupy movement is angry about the economy. For that flip flop Cantor receives a well-earned Joel Award.

Cantor never flipped that fast on his messaging for President Obama. If you follow or read the blogs of Joy-Ann Reid and Angry Black Lady, they will bash progressives that say bipartisanship has been a failure for Obama. I asked Angry Black Lady to explain to me how Obama is playing 3-D chess? Angry Black Lady tweeted she didn't have time to get in a fight with me. She then proceeded to pick a fight with Marcy Wheeler (aka Empty Wheel) of FireDogLake. So much for a productive use of time.

The Occupy movement isn't interested in working with Republicans. Occupy is making demands to make a more progressive tax code and for financial reform. These are things that Cantor is against. Yet, Cantor goes out of his way to say that he feels the pain of the Occupy movement. The reason Cantor is playing nice is because the Occupy movement is populist and he is feeling political pressure. Cantor doesn't respond to bipartisanship. He does care about his political survival.

As for an angry mob: that couldn't be further from false. Occupy Tampa has been complying with the police.

Demonstrators have obeyed police commands to keep sidewalks clear and to not camp in city parks, Westlake said. Late Sunday, about 15 protesters were told to move from Lykes park to Curtis Hixon Waterfront Park, a few blocks away.

They peacefully complied, Westlake said.

So far, officers have not made any arrests in the lingering rally, police said.

"It's going very well," police spokeswoman Laura McElroy said. "Any rules we've explained to them, they've been very accommodating. I think they had their mission, which was to make sure their voice was heard on their issues, and they didn't want to interfere with anything going on in the city."

Obama Offers Social Security & Medicare Cuts

President Barack Obama continues to handle negotiations with the terribly. Obama offered Social Security and Medicare cuts. The Republicans have refused to even consider ending tax breaks for corporate jets to help pay off the federal debt. Obama once again forgot which caucus backs him. Obama failed to tell the Democratic caucus that he was putting Medicare and Social Security on the table.

“We would have preferred to hear it from the president instead of from the press,” said Sen. Barbara Mikulski (Md.), a senior member of the Senate Democratic conference. “We first have to go after tax earmarks.”

Mikulski and Sen. Kent Conrad that they are open to Social Security cuts. Social Security is running on a surplus. Republicans have long hated Social Security and wish to turn it into Chile dictator Augusto Pinochet's pension plan. Social Security isn't the cause of the federal debt.

Obama gave the the pay freeze to Republicans without getting nothing back. Obama dropped the public option to garner Republican votes. The result was House Republicans attempted to repeal the Affordable Care Act. Obama's poor negotiating skills have created friction with the Democratic caucuses and the progressive base. Howie Klein urges progressives not to vote for President Obama in 2012.

Read more »

David Rivera Update

David Rivera had an amazingly awkward interview with the Naples Daily News about his ethics problems. No member of Congress likes to be asked about being investigated by several different law enforcement agencies.







In related news: House Majority Leader Eric Cantor and his staff went out of their way to avoid Rivera during a recent visit to Miami.

Republicans Set to Derail Financial Reform

Bank of America is ecstatic about Republicans taking control of the House of Representatives.

"We had been disappointed with a number of legislative outcomes with the past Congress, and so we look forward to better outcomes with this Congress," said Peter Garuccio, a spokesman for the American Bankers Association in Washington.

In April of this year, Mitch McConnell and John Cornyn came to Wall Street and asked for more campaign contributions to the Republican Party. Bank of America spokesman Garuccio it would be huge if Republicans can repeal Durbin Amendment. The amendment barred credit card fees to retalers.

Eric Cantor has vowed to cut funding so regulations can not be properly enforced.

CANTOR: The House has the power of the appropriations process and the leverage that comes with that essentially puts us in a position to deny the administration funding for promulgating the regulations that carry through the missions of these two bills…And that’s what the American people are expecting. They want us to focus on job creation first they results.

BARTIROMO: So that’s what you’re going to do? You’re going to deny funding then? That’s one of your tools in the toolbox, deny funding?

CANTOR: Well, it is a check that this public is looking for on this runaway agenda of this administration. They don’t want to see any more spending, especially if it promotes policies that kill jobs. That’s what you’ve got, both with the Obamacare bill and the Dodd-Frank bill.

Cantor claims the Dodd-Frank bill is a job killer. How many jobs did Wall Street created when mortgage-backed securities, credit default swaps and subprime loans all blew up?





Not a single job was created the year of the Wall Street meltdown. Cantor and other Republicans (and to a lesser extent Democrats) ignore the Wall Street flash crash on May 6th of this year. U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission released a joint report to the Senate. The report illustrates how unstable the market still is.

Between 2:40 p.m. and 3:00 p.m., approximately 2 billion shares traded with a total volume exceeding $56 billion. Over 98% of all shares were executed at prices within 10% of their 2:40 p.m. value. However, as liquidity completely evaporated in a number of individual securities and ETFs,11 participants instructed to sell (or buy) at the market found no immediately available buy interest (or sell interest) resulting in trades being executed at irrational prices as low as one penny or as high as $100,000. These trades occurred as a result of so-called stub quotes, which are quotes generated by market makers (or the exchanges on their behalf) at levels far away from the current market in order to fulfill continuous two-sided quoting obligations even when a market maker has withdrawn from active trading.

Republicans argue for no regulation. That is a fiscal policy only an anarchist could get behind.

Quote of the Day

"I don't think there's any question that this says to the voters, 'we're not listening to you, we think we're right, we're going to continue this same path.'"

Eric Cantor, on if Democrats elect Nancy Pelosi as House Minority Leader.

Notice how Republicans keep repeating the Democrats "not listening to you" meme. These people always get stumped when their talking points fall flat.

Democrats should never listen to a member of the Republican House Majority Leader on what they should do. If Eric Cantor was allowed to handpick the Democratic Minority Leader; what are the chances he would sign a legal document vowing not to say anything critical about the Minority Leader? I guarantee Cantor neither has the spine or the sense of bipartisanship to sign such a document.

Hysterical 'Young Guns' Ad

The latest Republican Party marketing idea is labeling the middle-aged Eric Cantor (47 years-old), Paul Ryan (40 years-old) and Kevin McCarthy (45 years-old) as "Young Guns." If one is going to label himself a young gun, it would help if his hair wasn't completely gray. My God, do these guys actually think they are going to be viewed as hip by college-aged voters because they named themselves after an Emilio Estevez western. The only people Cantor and company with that movie reference are people who went to college in the 80's. All that was missing from the ad was the song Blaze of Glory for maximum cheese factor.

Quote of the Day

"I think that is the ultimate insensitivity. Anyone looking at that with any common sense would say, "what in the world would be doing fostering some type of system that would let this happen." Everybody knows America's built on the rights of free expression, the rights to practice your faith, but come on. The World Trade Centers were brought down by Islamic extremists, uh, radicals who were bent on killing Americans and accomplished that in unimaginable ways. I think it is the height of insensitivity, uh, and unreasonableness to allow for the construction of a mosque on the site of the World Trade Center bombings. I mean, come on."

Rep. Eric Cantor

Republicans are in full xenophobia mode over the Cordoba Initiative mosque being built near Ground Zero.

Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf is the religious leader of the Cordoba Initiative. Abdul Rauf has long advocated better relations between the United States and the Muslim community. Abdul Rauf has been sent to the Middle East by the Bush and Obama administrations to spread the message that the United States supported freedom of Islamic expression. Cantor's ignorant comment shows many in American politics place fearmongering over religious freedom.

The hysterical thing is Cantor admits that Cordoba Initiative has a right to be open and then dismisses his own argument with "but come on." What an intellectual heavyweight.

Quote of the Day

""Reaching out to the Muslim world may help in creating an environment for peace in the Middle East, but we must insist as Americans that our policies be firmly grounded in the beliefs of the Judeo-Christian tradition upon which this country was founded."

House minority whip Eric Cantor, speaking to Christian Zionists.

Jon Chait suspects Cantor is advocating the United States should back Israel based on religious commonality.

Cantor is saying that Israel deserves America's support merely because of its Jewish quality. So if, say, Israel were to become a fascistic state bent on the destruction of its neighbors*, then the case for the U.S.-Israel alliance would be no less strong, because of a shared religious heritage. It's a rancid, illiberal, primitive way of thinking about foreign policy.

Cantor listens to Britney Spears. To suggest Cantor has a foreign policy worldview is giving him too much credit. Cantor was pandering. The fact a member of the Republican Congressional leadership advocates basing America's foreign policy on "Judeo-Christian tradition" and not national interests is troubling. Pandering or no pandering.

Jim Greer Hack Attack

RPoF Chairman Jim Greer doesn't attack President Barack Obama on policy. That would require a nuisanced argument. Greer insinuates Obama is a communist by naming a Czar. The Republican Party of Florida tweet was titled "Back in the USSR?" The Tweet links to the hit piece at the RPoF web site.

Tallahassee–Republican Party of Florida Chairman Jim Greer today released the following statement regarding President Obama’s most recent appointment of yet another czar to his administration which, in 5 short months, has now surpassed the number of czars appointed during the 300 years of Russia’s Romanov Dynasty:

“It is absolutely ridiculous that President Obama has appointed, and will most likely continue to appoint, countless czars which are nothing more than symbolic figureheads to demonstrate to the American people that he is concerned about the buzz word of the day–border czar, regulation czar, infotech czar, urban czar, the list goes on and even includes a “compensation czar,” responsible for deciding the salaries of the top 100 employees of publicly traded companies!”

In over 300 years, the Romanov Dynasty ruled Russia with only 18 czars, yet in only five short months, the United States now has an excess of over 20 czars. What happened to cutting back and doing more with less?”

Greer can't decide whether Obama is trying to copy to USSR or the Romanov Dynasty? The Russian dynasty system and czars was ended by the Russian Revoltion. The two are not mutually execlusive.

What Greer is doing is raising money for the RPoF by using xenaphobic attacks. Greer won't mention the federal government's use of naming czars dates back to former Florida Governor (and Republican) Bob Martinez being named Drug Czar by George H.W. Bush.

Greer is scared of talking about Gov. Charlie Crist's economic record and the Republican-dominated Florida legislature borrowing money to avoid reforming the tax system. I like to see Republican bloggers defend this nonsense. Any takers?

Side note: is Greer aware that the Romanov Dynasty harshly opposed Socialist reforms?

Update: Raw Story is working on a story about comparing Obama to "Putin's Russia." Meet the new Republican talking point. Is Cantor aware that we have free trade and share intelligence on terrorism with Russia? It isn't 1988. Cantor can take off that Member's Only jacket now.

Cantor Argues For Do Nothing Government

Republican House Whip Eric Cantor spoke at the Christian Science Monitor breakfast. Cantor praised Rush Limbaugh's economic ideas and said Democratics were "over-reacting" to the economic crisis.

“As far as Rush, Rush has got ideas. He’s got following. He believes in the conservative principles that many of us believe in –- of lower taxes, of making sure that we turn back towards a focus on entrepreneurialism in this country, to promoting innovation and not stamping that out by over-reacting, if you will, which this town often does, to crisis.”

Rush Limbaugh is a talk radio host that has said repeatly in interviews he intentionally stirs things up. Limbaugh has never created economic policy. Economists generally agree the current economic climate is the worst since the depression. Canter simply does not take economic matters seriously.

Politically, Cantor is pandering to the dwindling conservative base by praising Limbaugh. Republicans lost the last two election cycles because independents, moderate Republicans and Hispanics voted Democratic. The Gop's response is to go further away from the center and reject the responsibilities of governing. Gov. Bobby Jindal argued the federal government should of had no role for disaster relief for Hurricane Katrina. PJinal argued private enterprise is best for disaster relief. Jindal doesn't explain how poor black people are going to pay to get themselves off the roofs of their flooded homes.



Brian Beutler argues Cantor wasn't stating Democrats were over-reacting to the economic crisis. Cantor did use the word "over-reacting." I have bashed John Aravosis but I concur with his conclusion.

I know Joe posted on this earlier, and mentioned Limbaugh, but it didn't hit me until now, looking at the transcript, that Cantor, the minority whip, THE NUMBER TWO REPUBLICAN IN THE HOUSE, said he prefers Rush Limbaugh's solutions to the economic crisis over what the Democrats are offering because THE DEMS ARE TOO CONCERNED ABOUT THE ECONOMY. It's bad enough to suggest that the economic crisis isn't that important a problem, but in the same breath - the same sentence - to say that you prefer Rush Limbaugh's solutions? Are these guys nuts?

The GOP doesn't have a working message or ideas for the economy. We are talking about one of the two major political parties unable to grasp basic economics. That is profoundly scary. Republican are no longer arguing about less government. Their position on Katrina and the economy is to do nothing. Literally. David Brooks described this policy as "nihilism." I call it depressing.

Eric Cantor Slave For 4 U

House Minority Whip Eric Cantor has to explain why he skipped Barack Obama's primetime press conference to attend a Britney Spears concert. My question is why would any grown man be caught dead at a Spears show?

An anonymous GOP aide defended Cantor. Cantor was talked into attending the concert by a fundraiser.

One House GOP leadership aide said Cantor went at the request of a fundraiser. "If suffering through a Britney Spears concert will raise one more dime to help Republicans take back the House, then I'm glad Cantor's willing to do it."

The sacrifice Canter made for his party is touching.