We begin today's roundup with
Eugene Robinson's takedown of the GOP's failure to govern:
It was only January when Republicans took full control of Congress, but already it is safe to say they have no earthly idea of what they want to accomplish.
What we’re seeing is not just a bit of sputtering before the GOP machine cranks up and begins to systematically fulfill its governing plan. There is no plan. Republican majorities in both the House and Senate are so out of control that they’ve managed a feat once thought impossible: They make the Democratic Party look like a model of unity and discipline.
Over at The Week,
Damon Linker also highlights the fact that conservatives have no real plan to help the vast majority of Americans:
If GOP candidates for high office spent half as much time focusing on [poor and working-class] problems as they do promoting tax cuts for the rich, we'd all be better off.
Yet Republican lawmakers don't slight those issues simply because they'd rather ingratiate themselves to wealthy donors. They also skirt them because the way that conservative policy intellectuals think about class convinces candidates for high office that there's nothing that can be done politically to address the problem.
Much more on the day's top stories below the fold.
The Daily Beast's David Freelander examines the GOP's attempt to declare the war on women over:
[M]ore than two years after the first shots were fired in the “war on women,” when Todd Akin mused aloud about “legitimate rape,” a group of conservative women say the war is over—and that they won.
“What do most women do every week? Do they fill up the gas tank and the grocery cart? Or do they get an abortion?” said GOP pollster Kellyanne Conway to a roomful of conservative activists and congressional staffers Monday afternoon. [...] As far as Republicans are concerned, the sooner this particular war is over, the sooner they can begin to clear the battlefield and tend to the wounded.
According to the panelists, Republicans can cut into that gap by reminding voters that no matter how bad the war on women may seem, it is not as bad as a real war.
Meanwhile, Peter Bacon Jr. at NBC News explains why so many Republican candidates are running to the right:
As they jockey for position, Republicans have also embraced deeply conservative fiscal policies. Rubio early this month unveiled a plan that would provide a new tax credit for parents but also slash the corporate tax rate and eliminate all taxes on income that comes from dividends and capital gains. Those provisions will help Rubio court party activists who are committing to drastically reducing tax rates for the wealthy and corporations because they think those policies will spur economic growth.
Critics note the provisions will drastically increase the federal budget deficit, since Rubio has not laid out any specific ideas to cut federal spending.
Not to be outdone, Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky has said he will soon propose "the largest tax cut in American history."
The latest WSJ poll underscores the
GOP's lack of diversity:
Ninety-five percent of self-identified Republican primary voters are white. That’s among the findings of the latest Wall Street Journal-NBC News poll, as well as that 74% of all Americans age 18 and older are white, a figure that tracks with census data. This means that heading into 2016, the Republican primary electorate is dramatically less diverse than the country overall. The GOP primary electorate is even less diverse than the country was in 1916, when 91% of the voting-age population was white, according to historical census data.
Finally, over at AMERICAblog,
John Green asks an important question:
Can someone please explain to me how Aaron Schock is still a senior deputy whip for House Republicans? [...]
So, sure, Schock has some good will built up with his boss in the leadership, but that good will is only going to get him so far. Shock is currently being battered by a steady stream of problematic revelations relating to his personal and public finances — most recently, the Associated Press revealed a host of real estate projects in which Schock appears to have traded political influence for financial gain. And every time a new report comes out highlighting Schock playing fast and loose with spending disclosure rules, and using campaign donors to buy lower and sell higher in the real estate market than he should otherwise be able to, the more toxic he becomes for GOP leadership.