Last Sunday, Attorney General Eric Holder and White House homeland security adviser John Brennan publicly stated that the Times Square bomber, Faisal Shahzad, was facilitated by the Pakistani Taliban. Yesterday, administration officials conducted a closed-door intelligence briefing for members of Congress to present its evidence of the connection. Sen. Kit Bond (R-MO) emerged from the briefing unconvinced, telling reporters that “the information I’ve seen so far” does not confirm a link between Shahzad and the Pakistani Taliban. Bond, however, may have missed portions of the briefing because he reportedly fell asleep:

One person who was in the room for Tuesday’s intelligence briefing said Bond appeared to fall asleep for 10 to 15 minutes, but that he and other senators had spirited exchanges with the briefers. Among those there to answer questions were top officials from the Federal Bureau of Investigation, Justice Department and the National Counterterrorism Center.

In the days preceding Sunday’s House vote on health reform, Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) and Glenn Beck began referring to the reform effort as akin to a Japanese bombing attack. “Nancy Pelosi, I think, has got them all liquored up on sake and you know, they’re making a suicide run here,” Graham said. Graham tried to justify his remarks, saying they were not racial because his “comments really reflect the fanaticism of the Democratic leadership” and that he could have said moonshine, instead of sake. Today on Newsmax, Sen. Kit Bond (R-MO) echoed Graham, saying Democrats are putting “red bandanas on their head” to go on a Kamikaze mission:

KIT BOND: I think it may be more accurate to say they put red bandanas on their head, took a drink of sake, and went out on what I believe to be a Kamikaze mission.

Watch it:

In an interview with ThinkProgress last week, Rep. Mike Honda (D-CA) — a Japanese-American who was placed in a prison camp for Japanese-Americans during World War 2 — said Graham’s comments were offensive and racist. Honda noted that in times of economic calamity, there’s usually an “ignorant politician” who will “scapegoat a group of people,” especially Asian Americans, for political gain.

Repeating conservative lies about reconciliation, Sen. Kit Bond (R-MO) told MSNBC’s Andrea Mitchell today that reconciliation for health care reform “procedurally cannot be done.” Claiming it was never used for major legislation without “overwhelming bipartisan support,” Bond predicted the Senate will ultimately not be able to pass the health care bill through the reconciliation process:

BOND: Well, first of all the president shouldn’t get his allies to cram through on reconciliation, something to which the American people overwhelmingly object. They object to reconciliation. It was never meant to pass major substantive changes, whether they are trying to make a bad bill slightly less worse. No matter how much you put on the outhouse, it would still smell bad.

MITCHELL: Well, that may be a great Missouri expression but that same outhouse was used for the bush tax cuts and for other major legislation in republican years. why shouldn’t the democrats do exactly what the republicans have been doing?

BOND: Major legislation was passed on reconciliation. Everything from the civil rights to social security passed, overwhelming bipartisan support. Reconciliation was meant to deal only with revenue issues, like — dealing with taxes and spending. Not making substantive changes, which the Speaker is trying to convince the house democrats will be made. They will not be made because procedurally it cannot be done.

Watch it:

Bond’s argument is wrong on several counts. Congressional Democrats do not plan to use reconciliation to make “major substantive changes,” but rather to modify revenue issues, like taxes and spending, while keeping most of the bill that already passed the Senate intact.

Regardless, Bond voted for “substantive” bills using the reconciliation process when he was part of the Republican-controlled Senate under President Bush. They used reconciliation to pass “major” domestic policy legislation, including the Bush tax cuts in 2001 and 2003, and important changes to health care policy. In 2005, Bond railed against the filibuster — the use of which has forced Democrats to consider using reconciliation — calling it a “product” of recent Senate rules that “does not derive from the authority of the Constitution.”

Regarding his claim of bipartisan support for reconciliation bills in the past, the Wonk Room’s Igor Volsky has documented how the Senate under Bush passed three reconciliation bills with three or fewer Democratic votes. The 2003 Bush tax cuts were supported by only two Democrats and needed Vice President Cheney’s tie-breaking vote.

And the American people do not “overwhelmingly object” to using reconciliation for health care. A recent Progressive Change Campaign Committee poll of key states found majorities would not “object to the Senate’s use of ‘reconciliation’ rules to pass that bill with a majority vote.” Even 58 percent of people from Bond’s state of Missouri said they would not object.

Today marks the one year anniversary of President Obama signing into law the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, better known as the stimulus. As the economy continued to crater after President Bush left office, Obama’s stimulus sought to provide tax cuts for 95% of working Americans, funds to buoy cash-strapped state governments, new construction and infrastructure projects, and other programs to create jobs, retrain workers, and promote economic activity throughout the country. In December, the Congressional Budget Office reported that the stimulus had successfully created up to 1.6 million jobs, and today, a report shows the Recovery Act will ultimately create 2.5 million jobs. Even the conservative American Enterprise Institute found that the stimulus had boosted the U.S. economy by 4 percent.

House Republican leaders have fought to maintain partisan unity in their effort to kill the stimulus. And they were largely successful. Every single Republican in the House and every single Republican in the Senate — with the exception of Sens. Olympia Snowe (R-ME), Susan Collins (R-ME), and then-Republican Sen. Arlen Specter — voted against the Recovery Act. By drawing a sharp distinction between Obama and the GOP, Republican leaders gambled on casting the stimulus as a failure in order to win elections in 2010. In a coordinated effort, Republicans have used every opportunity to attack the stimulus for allegedly failing to create “a single job.”

Last month, President Obama admonished Republicans for going to “ribbon cuttings for the same projects that you voted against.” It’s true: Last year, Sen. Kit Bond (R-MO) appeared at a ribbon cutting event for GetAbout Columbia’s MKT Plaza, a pedestrian walking and recreation area funded by the stimulus. (See picture at top right.)

ThinkProgress has investigated opponents of the Recovery Act, reporting throughout the year that many of the lawmakers who tried to kill the legislation have been returning to their home states to claim credit for popular stimulus programs. In a new research report, ThinkProgress finds that over half of the GOP caucus, 110 lawmakers — from the House and Senate — are guilty of stimulus hypocrisy. Among some of the key findings:

– Top Republican Senate Recruits Are Stimulus Hypocrites: As ThinkProgress reported, Rep. Mike Castle (R-DE), a candidate for Senate, touted over $5 million in stimulus programs he voted to kill. Rep. Mark Kirk (R-IL), the GOP nominee for Senate in Illinois, signed a letter urging Gov. Pat Quinn to provide “Recovery Act (ARRA) funding to expand the Illinois Community College Sustainability Network.”

– GOP Leadership Leads The Way In Hypocrisy: Although he regularly slams the stimulus as a waste while in DC, McConnell has returned to Kentucky to take credit for stimulus programs, even taking time to request more funds. ThinkProgress attended two job fairs held by Cantor, where we found dozens of employers able to hire directly because of the stimulus. Indeed, even Boehner’s office released a statement boasting that the stimulus will create “much needed jobs.”

– The Audacity Of Hypocrisy Knows No Bounds: Many opponents of the stimulus have been quite brazen with their ability to try to claim credit for the program. For instance, Rep. Jack Kingston (R-GA) spent the morning of July 28th railing against the stimulus, yelling “Where’s the stimulus package? Where’s the jobs?” on the House floor. On the same day of his rant, Kingston’s office sent out multiple press releases bragging that he had secured hundreds of thousands in stimulus funds to hire additional police officers in his district. Other stimulus opponents, like Rep. Phil Gingrey (R-GA) — who has called the stimulus a “trillion dollar debt bill” — have printed out jumbo-sized ceremonial stimulus checks to present to local communities to try to garner positive press.

Individually, over half of the entire Republican caucus has hailed nearly every aspect of the stimulus as a success — from infrastructure funds, to food programs, to education grants. But politically, admitting its success might harm the GOP’s chances in November. So with Republicans fixated on winning politically, they have focused on deceiving the public by calling the stimulus a failure, while pretending successful programs aren’t stimulus funded.

Almost immediately after Umar Farouk Abdulmuttalab failed to detonate a bomb on an airplane on Christmas Day, conservatives rushed to politicize the attempted terrorist attack. “People have got to start connecting the dots here and maybe this is the thing that will connect the dots for the Obama administration,” Rep. Pete Hoekstra (R-MI) said before he’d even been briefed on the incident. Karl Rove and Rep. Peter King (R-NY) criticized President Obama for issuing a statement on the failed bombing 72 hours after the event, even though President Bush waited longer to comment on “shoe-bomber” Richard Reid’s failed attempt to bring down an airliner in Dec. 2001.

The drumbeat of political criticism from conservatives since then has been unrelenting, especially focusing on the fact that Abdumuttalab was read his Miranda rights after he awoke from surgery. Recently, the Obama administration has begun pushing back at the GOP’s political onslaught. On Meet The Press this past Sunday, Deputy National Security Adviser John Brennan, a 25-year veteran of the CIA, pointed out that he had kept key Congressional Republicans informed of Abdulmuttalab detainment by the FBI:

On Christmas night, I called a number of senior members of Congress. I spoke to Senators McConnell and Bond, I spoke to Representative Boehner and Hoekstra. I explained to them that he was in FBI custody, that Mr. Abdulmutallab was, in fact, talking, that he was cooperating at that point. They knew that “in FBI custody” means that there’s a process then you follow as far as Mirandizing and presenting him in front of a magistrate. None of those individuals raised any concerns with me at that point.

Brennan followed up his critique with a USA Today op-ed arguing that “too many in Washington are now misrepresenting the facts to score political points.” Brennan’s op-ed included the highly-charged assertion that “politically motivated criticism and unfounded fear-mongering only serve the goals of al-Qaeda.”

Republicans have responded to Brennan’s pushback with incredulity. Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, citing former Bush speechwriter Marc Thiessen’s misunderstanding of the facts, called Brennan “troubling” on Fox News yesterday. Rep. Peter King (R-NY) called Brennan an “egomaniac.” Sen. Kit Bond (R-MO) declared Brennan “needs to go,” and is no longer “credible.” On Fox News today, Hoekstra, who repeatedly referred to Brennan as a “White House staffer” as opposed to an intelligence “professional,” said Obama should “fire” him. Watch it:

On MSNBC today, Chuck Todd and Savannah Guthrie grilled Bond about whether the “Republican Party deserve[s] some blame” for terrorism becoming “too politicized.” Bond responded in denial, saying, “give me a break.” “They’re the ones who went out and called politics and they played politics,” said Bond of the White House. In an ironic twist, however, he then claimed that criticisms of the Bush administration’s terrorism policy during the past eight years had been “political attacks.” The White House said today that Bond’s call for Brennan to resign was “pathetic.”

Unintentionally, Fox News’ Brian Kilmeade summed up the situation perfectly this morning when he said that Bond and Hoekstra had told him on the radio yesterday that “they’re just astounded and befuddled that” Brennan “continues to dig like this and act so political in condemning everybody else for acting political.”

In his interview with CBS News’ Katie Couric before the Super Bowl earlier this week, President Obama said that he was going to ask Republicans to put their health care ideas “on the table.” “What I want to do is to look at the Republican ideas that are out there,” said Obama. “How do you guys want to lower costs?”

Just days before Obama made his call for GOP health care ideas, Sen. Kit Bond (R-MO) offered a radical proposal for reform in a conversation with the editorial board of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. According to a blog post by the editorial board, Bond called on Friday for giving means-tested vouchers to Medicare enrollees:

Even before he asked, Missouri’s senior U.S. senator was outlining his: Privatize Medicare and limit benefits for upper-income retirees. Meeting with Post-Dispatch editors and reporters on Friday, Mr. Bond called for radical changes to the federal health insurance program that covers 45 million elderly and disabled Americans.

Since its inception in 1965, Medicare has provided the same basic package of benefits to everyone, regardless of income. On Friday, Mr. Bond called for giving Medicare enrollees a voucher to buy health insurance on their own. “You’re going to have to means-test the benefits,” he said, adding that upper income retirees wouldn’t “get much of a voucher.”

Though Republicans like Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) and RNC Chairman Michael Steele have made protecting Medicare part of their argument against President Obama’s health care reform plans, Bond isn’t the alone in dreaming of dismantling the system. Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-MN) told ThinkProgress last weekend that Americans should be weaned off Medicare. In his recent alternative budget proposal and the one he released in April 2009, Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI) advocated giving vouchers to everyone 54 and younger instead of having them enter the traditional Medicare program. It is unclear whether Bond is referring to current enrollees or just future enrollees.

Bond also isn’t the only Missouri Republican with disdain for Medicare. In July 2009, Rep. Roy Blunt (R-MO), who is hoping to succeed Bond after he retires, suggested to a conservative Missouri radio host that the “government should have never” started Medicare or Medicaid.