Archive for March, 2011
Boehner…caught between a rock and a hard place
John Boehner
The Tea Partiers are growing impatient with House Republicans because they are not following through with their campaign promise of cutting $100 billion from the budget. The number right now is $61 billion but some say that it may be lower than that. John Boehner is the one sitting in the hottest seat right now and Tea Party leadership is threatening to find a primary opponent to replace him in the next election cycle.
(Fox) As U.S. lawmakers seek a compromise on how much federal spending to cut in order to avoid a government shutdown, Tea Party activists who helped propel Republicans back into power are growing impatient with the debate.
When Republicans captured the House in November, vowing to slash $100 billion in federal spending from the budget year ending in September, 76 percent of Tea Party activists supported their deficit-reduction plan, according to a new Pew Research poll released last week.
But after House Republicans approved a plan last month to cut federal spending by $61 billion, that Tea Party support fell to 52 percent.
Now Tea Party Nation founder Judson Phillips, arguably the most vocal critic of GOP leaders, is pushing for a primary opponent against House Speaker John Boehner in 2012 for breaking his campaign pledge to cut $100 billion and for what he sees as hints that he’s willing to cut less than $61 billion in a compromise with Senate Democrats.
“Charlie Sheen is now making more sense than John Boehner,” Phillips wrote in his blog earlier this month.
In an interview with FoxNews.com Thursday, Phillips said he stands by his comments and goal of seeking a primary challenger to Boehner.
“Charlie Sheen still makes more sense than John Boehner because at least Charlie Sheen is winning,” he said.
“This is the one message the Tea Party needs to be out there pushing,” he said. “If you don’t live up to your promise, we’re going to throw you out.”
Boehner’s camp acknowledged the frustration among Tea Party supporters, but didn’t accept responsibility for it.
“The speaker – and every Republican in the House – is frustrated by the pace of the debate, but the blame lies squarely with the Democrats who run Washington, D.C.,” Boehner spokesman Michael Steel said in an e-mail to FoxNews.com.
“The House passed a bill that funds the government for the remainder of the year while cutting spending,” he said. “It’s the Democrats who are insisting on the status quo, and no one should be happy with the status quo.”
Democrats controlling the White House and Senate have only two weeks to broker a deal with Republicans in charge of the House before the latest temporary spending bill keeping the government afloat expires April 8.
House Republicans have been digging their heels in on the $61 billion in cuts they approved last month but the Senate is not going along and Obama has threatened to veto it, making it unclear where they’ll find compromise.
Levi Russell, a spokesman for the Tea Party Express, told FoxNews.com that the midterm elections in November may have set expectations too high.
“We forget the Tea Party is only influential over one third of the government,” he said. “Tea Partiers are going to continue to be disappointed by what comes out of Washington until Republicans have control of the Senate and the White House.”
The Tea Party Express has set its sights on defeating two Republican senators — Olympia Snowe of Maine and Dick Lugar of Indiana— in 2012 primaries but is not targeting Boehner or other GOP leaders.
“We may not love everything that they do; we may wish they would be on the same page with us. But we know they got the message in 2010,” he said.
Boehner’s the “least of our worries,” he added.
What has many Democrats worried is a fight over the federal debt limit, which they cannot increase without some GOP support in both the Senate and House. The administration has warned Congress that failing to raise the debt limit would lead to an unprecedented default on the national debt and derail the national economic recovery.
The Treasury Department estimates the government will hit the $14.3 trillion debt ceiling sometime between April 15 and May 31. But Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell has warned that GOP senators would not vote to increase the federal debt limit unless Obama agreed to significant long-term budget savings that could include cost curbs for Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid.
Phillips said Republicans should reject any kind of compromise over the budget, even if it leads to a government shutdown or a default.
“What is worse: a government shutdown or an economic collapse,” he said. “Is it worse to deal with a $14.3 trillion national debt or a national debt of $20 or $25 trillion and the whole thing collapses?”
So…what is Boehner to do?
Would a small victory ($61 billion) be better than an impossible to pass budget ($100 billion)?
Is $61 billion even a victory?
What are your thoughts?
Friday Open Thread: March 25th, 2011
The root of America's problems
What’s on your minds this Friday?
What are people talking about in your part of the country?
Anthony Weiner (D-NY) wants health law waiver
Anthony Weiner
Huh? Wasn’t Anthony Weiner one of the biggest supporters of Obamacare? Wasn’t he one of the last holdouts for the public option? Well, what’s good for the country apparently isn’t good enough for New York.
(Politico) Rep. Anthony Weiner said Wednesday he was looking into how a health law waiver might work for New York City.
Weiner, who is likely to run for mayor of New York, said that because of the city’s special health care infrastructure, his office was looking into alternatives that might make more sense. Weiner is one of the health care law’s biggest supporters; during the debate leading up to reform, he was one of the last holdouts in Congress for the public option.
“The president said, ‘If you have better ideas that can accomplish the same thing, go for it,’” said Weiner. “I’m in the process now of trying to see if we can take [President Barack Obama] up on it in the city of New York, … and I’m taking a look at all of the money we spend in Medicaid and Medicare and maybe New York City can come up with a better plan.”
New York is one of two states that pass on Medicaid expenses to cities and localities, so “the city winds up having an enormous Medicaid expense,” Weiner said.
The congressman was trying to debunk Republican “myths” about the health care law during a speech at the Center for American Progress. He used the waivers as way to describe how flexible the law actually is and how “this notion that the government is shoving the bill down people’s throats” is not true.
“The administration needs to make this argument more forcefully,” he said. “A lot of people who got waivers were … people who are our friends.”
Oh…the hypocrisy of the left.
Ungrateful, ignorant Harlem residents complain Bill Clinton “never did anything for them”.
Who out there can name something – anything at all – that Obama has done for the people of Harlem…or blacks in general.
Hell, name one good thing Obama has done for anyone, period.
Years from now, the black community will seriously regret turning on the Clintons in 2008 and going along with the Obama campaign’s strategy of branding anyone who opposes him a racist.
The Clintons have done more for blacks in their lifetime than anyone else I can think of.
Bill Clinton selecting Harlem for his post-presidential office was the psychological greenlit needed for people to see Harlem as something other than an ideal soundstage for the next Snake Plissken adventure.
I remember public perception of Harlem pre-Clinton, and it was not good.
Bill Clinton is not a wizard or some sort of magical elf who can make entitled, lazy, irresponsible people clean up their acts and make their neighborhood a wonderland. He did not move to Harlem to hand out freebies and pave the streets with gold.
He could have setup shop on Wall Street, in the Empire State Building, or in the Waldorf=Astoria (like President Hoover and the Duke of York did), but he chose to put a spotlight on Harlem to give Harlem a chance to prove itself.
Clinton removed the stigma from Harlem, but the people of Harlem just sat on their sorry butts bellyaching the gravy train never pulled into the station.
Well, Harlem, Clinton tried, so now let’s see how you fare without him.
The last time I was in New York, I saw a great many blacks walking around with Obama tee shirts, some of which depicted him as a god-with-a-small-g, larger than life and more important than Dr. King.
I am still waiting to hear anything, besides the Pigford Black Reparations scheme, that Obama has done for blacks in general…and the bellyaching, entitled, whiners of Harlem specifically.
Because in 2013, when Obama’s post-presidential office opens in the most expensive suite in Honolulu, I want someone to check back with the erudite scholars of Harlem to see how they feel about their precious, living “god”…the man they turned on the Clintons for…the one they used up all their race cards to elect…the lazy and indecisive poser they have bet everything on.
Obama is the biggest mistake the black community ever made, and in our lifetime I firmly believe even the big-thinkers of Harlem will be forced to admit this.
Jamie Gorelick, who is tied to Fannie Mae and 9/11, is on Obama’s short list to head the FBI
Jamie Gorelick
Jamie Gorelick is said to be on Obama’s short list to be the next director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation. You say “so what?”….as did I, but further reading enlightened me as to who this woman really is and why it would be a disaster to put her in the highest position of the FBI.
(Fox Nation) The Obama administration reportedly is considering former Clinton administration official Jamie Gorelick, among others, to become the next director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI).
The Wall Street Journal’s Evan Perez first reported the news last week, citing “U.S. officials” familiar with the situation.
Gorelick served as vice chairman of the Federal National Mortgage Association (Fannie Mae) when the government-sponsored enterprise began bundling subprime loans into securitized financial instruments. Prior to that, she served as deputy attorney general in the Clinton Justice Department under then-Attorney General Janet Reno from 1994 to 1997.
But Gorelick is perhaps best known for her 1995 memo, written when she was deputy attorney general, that later became known as “Gorelick’s Wall,” a policy prescription limiting the flow of information between intelligence gatherers and criminal investigators that some believe helped allow the September 11, 2001 attacks on the World Trade Center to go unchallenged.
Will the madness ever end?
Justice Department suing Chicago school district on behalf of Muslim teacher
Safoorah Khan
Safoorah Khan had only taught in the Chicago area middle school for 9 months when she asked for 3 weeks off to make her pilgrimage to Mecca. She was the only math lab instructor in the district and the end of semester exams were approaching so the district said “no”. She quit her job and continued on with her trip. Then the feds stepped in…..
(via FocusUk) The lawsuit, filed on Khan’s behalf, seeks her reinstatement, back pay and unspecified damages, and an order requiring the district to adopt a policy designed to “reasonably accommodate the religious observances, practices and beliefs of employees and prospective employees,” the justice department said.Khan would not comment on the action.
Doesn’t Eric Holder have anything else better to do?
Thursday Open Thread: March 24th, 2011
union workers.....working their butts off
(h/t Moonbattery)
What’s on your minds this Thursday?
What are people talking about in your part of the country?
Evil burning the candle at both ends again: George Soros announces new plan to engineer global chaos
Seriously.
Paging James Bond.
Super-villain at work again.
Openly admitting his schemes.
Why can’t George Soros be stopped?
Anyone?
ANYONE?
Bueller?
Of course he is. Miss Thang refuses to return undeserved joke of a Nobel Peace Prize.
Every day seemingly presents Obama with a new opportunity to stand up, do what’s right, and rein in the cult of personality he’s stoked for himself.
And every day he leads with his ego, redefining the Guinness record for extreme narcissism.
Hope!
Change!
Is anyone surprised?
Oklahoma tries again to ban Sharia law
Oklahoma is once again introducing a new law that would ban Sharia law from being considered in cases within their state.
(from Jihad Watch)
70% of Oklahomans voted to ban Sharia last November, but an ignorant Leftist judge, Vicki Miles-LaGrange, bought Hamas-linked CAIR’s deceptive line that Sharia was just private religious law, and ruled against the will of the people. The obvious problem with her ruling is that no one cares if Muslims choose to practice Islam; the only difficulty arises when they infringe upon the rights of others in that practice. The political and supremacist elements of Islam that contradict the U.S. Constitution were the point of the Oklahoma law, not Islamic laws regarding prayers or ablutions or the Ramadan fast and the like.
The new law (thanks to Ron) is more pointed and doesn’t mention Sharia, but accomplishes the purpose.
SECTION 1 (C) Any court, arbitration, tribunal, or administrative agency ruling or decision shall violate the public policy of this state and be void and unenforceable if the court, arbitration, tribunal, or administrative agency bases its rulings or decisions in the matter at issue in whole or in part on any law, rule, legal code or system that would not grant the parties affected by the ruling or decision the same fundamental liberties, rights, and privileges granted under the United States and Oklahoma Constitutions.
Hopefully….this time it will work.
