Today's New York Daily News

Via Talking Point Memo:

The New York Daily News on Tuesday used its front page to condemn Republican senators for signing an open letter to Iran warning that a potential nuclear deal could be null once President Barack Obama is out of office. The tabloid's front page prominently featured Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) and Sens. Ted Cruz (R-TX), Tom Cotton (R-AR) and Rand Paul (R-KY). It also branded the 47 senators who signed the letter as "traitors" who tried to "sabotage" the President's nuclear negotiations.

Twitchy is very upset about this.

UPDATE: JMG reader Chris sends us an interesting post from The Week:

The next time Republicans in the Senate try to explain treaties and the U.S. Constitution to Iranian officials, they may want to pick someone other than a foreign minister with a masters and PhD in international relations from the University of Denver, plus two degrees from San Francisco State University. Javad Zarif, who is also Iran's chief nuclear negotiator, responded to a letter from Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.) and 46 other GOP senators with an explainer of his own. Not only are the senators shaky on their own Constitution's separation of powers, Zarif wrote, according to Iran's Tasnim News Agency, but "the authors may not fully understand that in international law, governments represent the entirety of their respective states, are responsible for the conduct of foreign affairs, are required to fulfill the obligations they undertake with other states, and may not invoke their internal law as justification for failure to perform their international obligations." That's important, Zarif added, because "the conduct of inter-state relations is governed by international law, and not by U.S. domestic law."

Wingnut Coalition To GOP: Now We LOVE The Democrats' Filibuster Rule Change

A coalition of far-right groups has sent a letter to incoming Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell urging him to keep the filibuster rule change made by the Democrats last year.

A group of 26 conservative academics, advocates and leaders wrote in a letter that they see “very little upside” to restoring the old rules, which had allowed the minority party to require 60 votes to confirm nominees. They say the rules would help Republicans put “committed constitutionalists” on the bench if the White House changes hands in 2016. “The decision by Senator [Harry] Reid and his Democratic colleagues to deploy the so-called ‘nuclear option’ was transparently designed to facilitate the confirmation of judicial nominees who would insulate ObamaCare and other aspects of President Obama’s agenda from meaningful judicial review,” the letter says.  Regardless of their motives, we see very little upside and significant downside in reviving the judicial filibuster.

You will recall that these groups screamed bloody murder when the Democrats made the filibuster rule change, even though many of them had explicitly advocated for that very change the last time the GOP was in charge. Among those signing this week's letter are Phyllis Schlafly, Gary Bauer, Concerned Women head Penny Nance, AFA radio shrieker Sandy Rios, Liberty Counsel head Mat Staver, and Family Research Council senior fellow Ken Blackwell.

Harry Reid Concedes Senate Leadership

Sen. Mitch McConnell Takes Stage At CPAC While Waving A Rifle

McConnell then presented the rifle to retiring Sen. Tom Coburn. If you can stand it, CPAC is being live-streamed on CSPAN3.

Teabagger Vs Sen. Mitch McConnell

This nut is is actually running against Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX) and not McConnell. But he wants you to know that McConnell looks like a turtle. And his dog agrees. Rifle, dog, pickup truck - it's the teabagger trifecta.

Sen. McConnell Has The Kentucky Sadz

"I will continue to support traditional marriage and fight to make sure that Kentuckians define marriage as we see fit and never have a definition forced on us by interests outside of our state. I am a traditionalist, but regardless of one's personal view on the issue, we should be able to agree that only the people of Kentucky, through the legislative process, should have the authority to change the law, not the courts." - Sen. Mitch McConnell, who is very mad at the judge that he recommended for the federal bench.

Infighting Is Funny, Part 94

Enjoy!

BREAKING: Shutdown Deal Reached?

Stand by...

Shutdown Deal Might Be Close

Ten GOP Senators File DOMA Brief

On Friday ten GOP members of the U.S. Senate filed a Supreme Court brief against the overturn of DOMA.  Among the many citations included are two from the landmark case Lawrence Vs Texas, which struck down sodomy laws nationwide in 2003. An excerpt:

Notwithstanding the Attorney General’s belated discovery of DOMA’s allegedly unconstitutional motivation, this argument is flawed because legislative motivation is not a basis for setting aside a federal statute supported by legitimate and rational government interests. This Court’s precedents do not sup-port evaluating the constitutionality of a federal statute based on subjective characterizations of the motives of individual legislators. In any event,support for traditional marriage cannot be equated to“animus,” as Justice O’Connor observed in her concurrence in Lawrence v. Texas, 539 U.S. 558, 585(2003). It would be particularly inappropriate to invalidate DOMA based on the alleged motivations of individual supporters, given that the statute was passed with overwhelming bipartisan support and signed into law by President Clinton.

Much of the rest of the brief takes the position that there is no "animus" behind the desire to deny civil rights to gay Americans. It's just the logical thing to do.

Sen. Joe Lieberman On DADT Timetable

Sam Seder & Servicemembers United On Mitch McConnell's Plan To Stall DADT

Sen. Mitch McConnell: Not Much Chance Of A Vote On DADT Before End Of Year

GOP Senators: We Will Block 100% Of All Bills Until Bush Tax Cuts Are Extended

Today all 42 GOP members of the Senate issued a letter declaring that not one single bill (including DADT) will be considered until Congress agrees to extend the Bush tax cuts to the wealthy. Because when you're out of money, the thing to do is cut your income. And so much for yesterday's bipartisan summit.

"[W]e write to inform you that we will not agree to invoke cloture on the motion to proceed to any legislative item until the Senate has acted to fund the government and we have prevented the tax increase that is currently awaiting all American taxpayers," the letter reads. "With little time left in this Congressional session, legislative scheduling should be focused on these critical priorities. While there are other items that might ultimately be worthy of the Senate's attention, we cannot agree to prioritize any matters above the critical issues of funding the government and preventing a job-killing tax hike." It was penned by Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, and signed by all 42 Republicans. According to the AP, which first broke the news of the letter, and portrayed it as a GOP effort to block all Dem initiatives unilaterally, the START treaty would be exempted. But everything else -- particularly DADT, unemployment insurance and the DREAM Act would be ensnared.

And once again the billionaires of America fuck over the rest of us.

Dems Gay-Bait Sen. Mitch McConnell

In an uncharacteristic turn, this time it's the Democrats that are gay-baiting a candidate, accusing famously anti-gay Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-KY) of being a closet case via this Village People ad.

Conservative queer James Kirchick writes in the National Review:

With prominent exceptions (the inquisition over Mark Foley and the anti-gay witch hunt that followed, Bill Clinton's touting his support for the Defense of Marriage Act on Christian radio stations), gay-baiting has been a Republican, rather than a Democratic, tactic. It is to John McCain's enormous credit -- not that you would ever hear it from his newfound critics in the media, who turned on him once he went from being a thorn in the side of Republicans to the one man standing in the way of Barack Obama's becoming president -- that anti-gay rhetoric has not played a role in this election. Too bad Democrats are picking up the slack.

Michelangelo Signorile doesn't mind the attack:

Yes, the people pushing it are no doubt trying to appeal to homophobia in many voters. But they are also appealing to my -- and presumably many Kentucky voters' -- desire not to have a hypocrite and liar in office. And that's not a bad thing. Sorry, but I have little sympathy for the antigay McConnell, and certainly people should know if indeed he is some tormented closet case.

Since McConnnell is a senator who has voted antigay over and over again, it's certainly relevant to ask the question if things just don't add up, and there's nothing wrong with implying someone is gay or asking the question, is there? And if McConnell is not, and there is some other truth to his discharge, why not just state it?