Obama Jobs Bill: Top 10 False And Irresponsible Republican Responses
President Obama delivered a rousing speech outlining his plan, the American Jobs Act, to create jobs for Americans. Knowing any improvement in the economy or in unemployment numbers nets the President a second term, the Republicans are fiercely against his proposal to invest $447 billion — fully paid for — in getting Americans back to work, while repairing this nation’s roads, bridges, and schools.
Most important in this equation, and remember this as you read further, is the revelation — for the second time — from the congressional Budget Office (CBO) that the Stimulus, which Obama implemented when he took office, did work. In fact, “the stimulus raised real gross domestic product by between 0.8 and 2.5 percent, lowered unemployment by 0.5 to 1.6 percent and increased jobs by 1 to 2.9 million.”
So, when you have to lie for your points to sound OK, they’re not.
Here are the top 10 worst, nastiest, most negative and irresponsible responses from Republicans, who clearly are not interested in jobs:
10. Mitch McConnell:
“A debate that was forced upon us by the historic run-up in debt that’s occurred over the past two and a half years as a result of this President’s unprecedented spending,†McConnell said. “Yet here we are, tonight, being asked by this same president to support even more government spending with the assurance that he’ll figure out a way to pay for it later.”
9. Jeb Hensarling:
“By asking the Joint Select Committee to increase the $1.5 trillion target to cover the full cost of his plan, the president is essentially tasking a committee designed to reduce the deficit to pay for yet another round of stimulus.”
8. Eric Cantor:
All I can say is, we are looking forward to trying to see if we can transcend differences, set them aside and try and come together on what we can do to grow the economy and to help people get back to work. That’s why I reject the notion that there is somehow an all-or-nothing approach here, that we have got to accept his package, or somehow he will look to hold us accountable. Again, it’s about results here, and there are plenty of things that we can do to produce results, transcending the differences and trying to stick to where can find commonalities.
7. Rick Perry:
“Like the president’s earlier $800 billion stimulus program, this proposal offers little hope for millions of Americans who have lost jobs on his watch and taxpayers who are rightly concerned that their children will inherit a mountain of debt,†he said. “America needs jobs, smaller government, less spending and a president with the courage to offer more than yet another speech.â€
6. Jon Huntsman:
Americans are “tired of President Obama’s empty rhetoric and failed policies; they’re desperately searching for leadership and, above all, results. Tonight’s list of regurgitated half-measures demonstrates that President Obama fundamentally doesn’t understand how to turn our economy around.”
5. Michele Bachmann:
While the President’s speech comes on the heels of a trillion dollars of failed stimulus, bailouts, and temporary gimmicks aimed at creating jobs, the President continued to cling to the idea that government is the solution to creating jobs.
I stand here tonight to say to the President, not only should Congress not pass your plan, I say, “stop; your last plan hasn’t worked, it’s hurting the American economy.†Instead of temporary fixes, do what has proved to work in the past, permanent pro growth policies that are driven by the free market.
Generational theft is a moral and ethical issue, and I care deeply about both the present generation and generations to come.
The President is politically paralyzed and philosophically incapable of doing what needs to be done.
4. Jeff Flake:
“I feel like I’ve just been to the principal’s office. It was equal parts platitudes and scolding. He has given a lot of good speeches in his day but this wasn’t one of them. It was vacuous. You knew what it was, but some of the talk made me scratch my head. Retention of teachers? It was just lines thrown out there for applause from the Left, without any real connection to what we need to do.†Obama, with his sinking polls, Flake says, threw a “Hail Mary,†and missed.
3. Steve King:
“The president said that we can reduce the deficit and pay down the national debt, which isn’t going to happen. That requires a balanced budget. This president didn’t offer a balanced budget. But he said, several times, it will be paid for. But when you listen, well, it’s goint to be paid for out of the conclusion that is drawn from the super-committee, which sets up a cage match between our national defense and our entitlements. We don’t know what it costs either. He didn’t put a price tag on it. [Note: He did. $447 billion.] Whatever it is, he would ask us to come up with those costs and do that within the crunch time of the super-committee. It’s an extremely heavy lift for Congress to come up with something like this. The president has, essentially, done what we say in the Midwest: he’s just tossed a cat into the kennel. Now he’s going to step back and watch the fur fly.â€
2. Allen West:
“Did I really need to have a speech for this? You could have given me the American Jobs Act and allowed me to read it and understand it; give it to the CBO, let them evaluate it. Now he’s put the cart before the horse, telling people we need to pass something that none of us have seen. In fact, we knew nothing about this since the speech didn’t come out until 7 p.m. We didn’t have an opportunity to really read and understand these points and proposals.â€
“This presidency is absolutely in real trouble,†he concludes. “What I heard at the end was a real sense of desperation. He kept talking about 14 months, we need to do this now, but where was that sense of urgency 34 months ago?â€
1. David Vitter:
Stunning. Evryone standing, cheering, reassured, more confident in r future…just by #Saints entering #Lambeau. On 2 recovery–& #SuperBowl!
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By the way, Nancy Pelosi gets it right:
“In nearly 250 days of being in the Majority, House Republicans have not passed a single piece of legislation to create jobs. The Republican silence on Thursday evening will speak volumes about their lack of commitment to creating jobs.â€
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Maine Democratic U.S. Senate nominee Graham Platner is under fire after releasing a video declaring that new allegations against him are false, yet he is “taking time to reflect” on a path forward.
Politico on Monday afternoon reported that a woman who dated Platner, Jenny Racicot, “says he forced her to have sex with him nearly five years ago despite her repeated objections, an allegation Platner denies.”
“Racicot said she had an on-and-off relationship with Platner,” Politico reported, “for more than two years before he entered her rural Maine home uninvited one night in late 2021, deeply intoxicated, and forced himself on her while she repeatedly told him to stop. She said she cut off contact with him after telling him the encounter was not consensual.”
In a video posted to social media eleven minutes after the Politico story dropped, Platner says, “I wanted to directly address the troubling, serious, and false allegations against me. Any accusation of nonconsensual behavior is categorically false.”
He said he and his supporters “were united in a love of Maine, a belief that our politics must change, in a focus on defeating Susan Collins.”
“So, regardless of the inaccuracy of the reporting, but mindful the political reality will inflict, we are taking the time to reflect on the best path forward for the state that I love, the people that I love, the movement I belong to, and the goal of defeating Susan Collins.”
“Those were the goals when we launched this campaign. And they remain my goals today.”
“Throughout it all, you never turned your back on me. And I will not turn my back on you now. Every one of you deserves to see that vision come to fruition and see Susan Collins defeated. And we will use every tool at our disposal to do so.”
The Bulwark’s Tim Miller, a political commentator who served as the communications director for the Jeb Bush 2016 presidential campaign, blasted Platner.
“I’m sorry but ‘we are taking time to reflect on the best path forward’ is not an option on the table,” Miller wrote. “Either it’s false and you campaign with vigor or it’s true and you get out / apologize to everyone you let down.”
Journalist Ryan Grim, commenting on Platner’s video, noted that Platner “strongly suggests he is considering dropping out. Already Troy Jackson and Chellie Pingree, both gubernatorial candidates, are being kicked around in Maine circles as potential replacements.”
Several others, including Puck News’ Peter Hamby, predicted Platner will be dropping out.
Platner had postponed several campaign events before the Politico story was published.
— Graham Platner for Senate (@grahamformaine) July 6, 2026
President Donald Trump is facing backlash after posting a video of children — including showing their unblurred faces — graduating from kindergarten, with some of the girls purportedly wearing hijabs.
“President Trump posted a captionless video of graduating kindergarteners on Truth Social on Monday, goading his supporters into verbally attacking little children simply for being Muslim,” The New Republic reported. “The clip is from Gateway STEM Academy, a majority-Black K-8 public charter school in St. Paul, Minnesota. It shows about 21 children in caps and gowns on stage singing a song together. Most of the girls are wearing hijabs.”
The original post of the video which Trump reposted reads: “Public school in St. Paul, Minnesota. Every girl is in a hijab … in kindergarten.”
Trump did not add any comments. TNR called the post “Islamophobic, weird, and creepy,” while noting that the comments section of Trump’s post was filled with calls “by racist, xenophobic MAGA supporters” to “deport the children and ban hijabs.”
TNR also noted that it “should come as no surprise that Trump isn’t above attacking children who just learned how to read, but this post is still particularly discomforting—and will certainly contribute to the already potent level of anti-Muslim sentiment in the U.S. and in Minnesota.”
Critics blasted Trump.
“There is something deeply unsettling about the president of the United States—the most powerful person in the world—going after kindergarten schoolchildren in Minnesota because they wore hijabs, as Trump has done this morning on his website,” The Bulwark’s Sam Stein wrote.
One social media commentator wrote, “Trump posted an unblurred video of more than a dozen Muslim kindergartners to Truth Social, exposing the children’s faces while targeting them for their religion.”
Another added, “Trump is a bigot. The president took to Truth Social to attack kindergarteners in hijabs. These are little kids. The president isn’t just a bigot, he’s also a coward.”
The original video was posted to the X social media platform in June.
U.S. Rep. Nancy Mace (R-SC) at the time commented, “If you are in a public school in America, you should be speaking english.”
Image via Reuters
President Donald Trump’s apparent efforts to delay releasing the $5.8 million civil judgment to E. Jean Carroll are being met with a warning by the journalist’s legal team, who suggest there could be a legal maneuver for Trump to employ to forgo paying the judgment in either of the two cases he lost.
According to The Guardian, on July 4, U.S. District Judge Lewis Kaplan ordered Trump to release the $5.8 million judgment, which is in escrow, to Carroll by this coming Tuesday — or explain why he would not do so.
Carroll’s attorneys think Trump may be trying to buy time to mount another legal strategy, telling the judge that Trump’s request for an extension “appears to be little more than yet another play for time.”
“The case is separate from Trump’s appeal of a Manhattan civil jury’s 2024 award of $83.3m to Carroll for defamation,” The Guardian explains. “But her lawyers have suggested a legal scenario in which the president might seek to conjoin the cases and further delay payment of both.”
Carroll’s attorney Roberta Kaplan (no relation to the judge) wrote, “We can only assume that defendant is seeking … to buy time so he can try to concoct some new basis to put off paying plaintiff presumably in connection with his forthcoming petition and motion for a rehearing.”
Trump’s former attorney, Justin Smith, in one of his final acts, wrote to the Supreme Court suggesting that his client would be appealing the $83.3 million civil judgment.
Smith argued that the Supreme Court “may wish to consider the petitions together,” given they involve the same parties.
The larger judgment case involves possible questions of presidential immunity, and that has Carroll’s attorneys concerned.
“A conjoined case, Carroll’s lawyers fear, could result in both judgments being wiped out,” The Guardian reports.
The president has also made clear he is no fan of Judge Kaplan, after the jurist made several rulings that “angered” Trump.
“What else can you expect from a Trump Hating, Clinton appointed judge, who went out of his way to make sure that the result was as negative as it could possible be,” Trump wrote on Truth Social in 2023, “speaking to, and in control of, a jury from an anti-Trump area which is probably the worst place in the US for me to get a fair ‘trial’.”
Image via Reuters
Platner Scorched Over ‘Taking Time’ Video After New Accusation
Trump Sparks Fury Online After Posting Unblurred Video of Muslim Kindergartners in Hijabs
One Legal Maneuver Threatens to Undo Everything E. Jean Carroll Won
Inside the Group Helping MAGA Voters Walk Away — And What Finally Pushed Them
