Drug Test Congress

/2 Comments/in /by

This past June, Florida’s Gov. Rick Scott signed a bill into law requiring welfare recipients to be tested for illicit substances. This popular legislation weeds Florida druggies out from the public dole. Given the idiocy demonstrated by the Ruling Class over the past several weeks, I’ve been thinking that Gov. Scott’s novel legislation could find good use in D.C. There’s obviously something being smoked in the halls of Congress.

For instance, you have to be high as a kite to think that any of the pending debt-ceiling proposals does anything to reduce our national debt – even in the long run. In fact, all of the conventional proposals increase our national debt by trillions of dollars over the next decade. No congressional plan actually cuts anything from our debt – it just slows the fatal increase.

In all fairness, some members of Congress pushing to extend the debt ceiling probably aren’t high; they know exactly what they’re doing: deceiving their constituents into thinking that reducing future years’ deficits means debt reduction. They try to hide that the fact that within a decade our national debt will increase to well over $20 trillion. Even that number is impossibly optimistic as it depends on interest rates remaining at historic lows.

Like many other Americans, I’m sick and tired of being lied to by the D.C. establishment that will do anything to keep big government in place. Conservatives were lied to when George W. Bush campaigned on a limited-government platform but then exploded the growth and reach of the central government during his two terms. And we were lied to just earlier this year when our federal budget was supposed to cut billions from the prior year’s wildly inflated expenditures. CBO projections later revealed this was all smoke and mirrors.

Leaders of both parties now claim that the debt ceiling must be increased to avoid default. But we’re being lied to again. If Congress fails to increase the debt ceiling, there are sufficient revenues to meet our debt obligations.

Each and every month over the next year, the central government can reasonably expect to receive over $200 billion in federal revenues. Debt servicing amounts to less than $30 billion per month. This still leaves more than $170 billion per month to cover Social Security (currently $60 billion per month), leaving $110 billion per month for the military and other essential functions of the federal government.

Yes, there would absolutely be disruption if the ceiling is not increased. Some worry that the nation’s triple-A credit rating would be lowered. Frankly, that credit rating is undeserved given our current debt structure, and the world’s rating agencies know it. The rating is at risk no matter what happens over the next week.

 

Read more at World Net Daily HERE.

Murkowski Signals Support for Reid Debt Bill

/0 Comments/in /by

The Hill (by Josiah Ryan):

Forty-three GOP senators on Saturday signed a letter addressed to Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) expressing opposition to his debt-ceiling legislation currently being considered in the upper chamber.

Their unified opposition to the bill leaves Democrats at least three votes short of the 60 needed to a clear cloture and virtually assures its defeat when it comes up for a vote tonight or tomorrow morning.

Only moderate Republican Sens. Susan Collins (Maine), Olympia Snowe (Maine), Scott Brown (Mass.) and Lisa Murkowski (Alaska) did not sign on to the letter.

“We are writing to let you know that we will not vote for your $2.4 trillion debt limit amendment which, if enacted, would result in the single largest debt ceiling increase in the history of the United States,” reads the letter.

Read more at The Hill HERE.

We’ve Been Played for Saps, Folks: Boehner Bill Will Become Reid Bill

/4 Comments/in /by

RUSH: I think we’ve been played for a bunch of saps, I mean not us exclusively, I just mean the whole country, the Republican Party, ruling class. I’ll explain as uncomfortable as it is and as grading as it is, I’ll explain as the program unfolds it’s great to have you here as always telephone number if you want to be on the program. 800-282-2882. The e-mail address [email protected].

Where are we on the debt deal? I suspect that most of the people, and this is what a lot of people are relying on, “Just finish it!” A lot of people are sick and tired of hearing about it, let’s move on to something else. “I’m tired of talking about it. Can’t we do something that’s fun? What the hell is going on?” I understand the sentiment. Yesterday or last night the Republican leadership succeeded in getting Allen West to flip and vote for the Boehner plan or to commit to it. The same thing with Paul Ryan, and I’ve had a lot of e-mails: “What’s Allen West doing? I can’t believe Allen West, of all people.” These Democrats, folks, you have to understand who we’re dealing with here. This whole thing with Debbie “Blabbermouth” Schultz going on the House floor and accusing West of wanting to cut Medicare and Social Security and all that in the south Florida district, and you remember the contretemps that begin with West responding to it and so forth. They have put his re-election into play and, of course, they’ve got the media on their side down here in south Florida.

So all over the media is the allegation that Allen West wants to do all this damage to senior citizens and so forth so that’s how his vote gets — I’m guessing. I haven’t spoken to him. But I think that’s a large part of it. Now, as we all know the Boehner bill is not ideal. It’s another one of these eight hundred, nine hundred, I don’t even think it gets to a trillion, but let’s say it does, a trillion dollars in cuts over 10 years, the debt limit raised immediately so the spending occurs immediately, but it re-invites the debt limit debate all over again in a few short few months and in fact there is from the Daily Caller today a story that says the GOP is stealing Christmas. The Democrats are going back to the Gingrich that stole Christmas theme from the Clinton days. And here’s the story from the Daily Caller: “GOP Aims to Gut Christmas, White House Alleges — House Speaker and national grinch John Boehner is planning to spoil Christmas, White House officials are claiming, as they try to head off passage of Boehner’s two-stage debt ceiling bill.”

They don’t want to head off passage of the Boehner bill. They want the Boehner bill to pass in the house. There’s a trap essentially that’s being set, and I noticed that there’s an AP story, and way down at the AP story: “In fact, Boehner’s plan has enough in common with Reid’s — including the establishment of a special congressional panel to recommend additional spending cuts this fall — that Reid hinted a compromise could be easy to snap together,” between his nonexistent bill and the Boehner bill. What does that mean? What it means is that over in the Senate Reid really doesn’t have a bill. He’s got an idea, but he doesn’t have a bill. And what he’s put forth as an idea hasn’t gotten all that much support. But here comes, let’s say the House, and Boehner doesn’t have the votes in the House yet according to Politico. And this is key. That was as of 9:30 this morning and they’re going to be working the Republican caucus all day long before the vote tonight. But, as of now, Boehner doesn’t have the votes for his bill. But let’s assume he gets the votes. The Boehner bill then goes to the Senate where it’s dead on arrival. There are 58 senators that are going to vote against it, by design. However, they’ve got a bill over there now.

So Dingy Harry can take the Boehner bill and tweak it and rewrite it, make additions to it, take some things out of it, play with it however he wants, and get enough votes from Democrats since it becomes the Reid bill, and then it gets sent back to Boehner in the House looking nothing like his bill, but the rationale for passing the Boehner bill in the House is we’ve got to do this, the time is up, we’re not going to get blamed. So if Reid monkeys around with the bill that he gets from Boehner, and it passes in the Senate, with whatever changes that are not favorable to us, of course, they throw it back in Boehner’s lap, and then the pressure is going to be back on Boehner. Okay, do you sign the Reid bill? Do you pass it? Do you get your guys to vote for it and send it to Obama, basically a Democrat bill. That is what a lot of people — and I sign on to the theory, too — this is one of the traps that’s being set. The Boehner bill is essentially being used to be a foundation for a nonexistent as of yet Reid bill. And thereby the Boehner bill becomes the Reid bill, therefore Democrat bill all in the absence of an Obama plan. No Obama plan at all in this.

Read More at RushLimbaugh.com

Bachmann on Boehner Debt-Ceiling Plan: ‘I Will Not Be Casting My Vote for That Bill’

/2 Comments/in /by

At the National Press Club on Thursday, Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-Minn.), who is running for the GOP presidential nomination in 2012, said she would not support House Speaker John Boehner’s (R-Ohio) plan to raise the debt ceiling or any other proposal that increases the debt limit, which is currently set at $14.29 trillion.

“John Boehner now has a second alternative as you have heard of,” said Bachmann. “I will not be casting my vote for that bill and we [the House] will be casting our votes later this afternoon. I cannot. I am committed to not raising the debt ceiling. My colleagues may give the Speaker that vote today.”

She went on to dismiss the fiscal year 2012 spending cuts in Boehner’s plan as minimal.

“If this bill goes through today, that’s a cut of approximately $22 billion in spending,” she said. “We all know the numbers — that’s perhaps one estimate says two-and-a-half days of spending. Let’s get serious. Let’s get serious.”

Boehner’s plan raises the debt limit but also reportedly cuts and caps spending by $917 billion over next decade – $22 billion in FY2012 alone, according to an analysis by the House Budget Committee.

Read More at CNS News By Edwin Mora, CNSNews.com

Did Palin Urge Freshmen to Vote Against Boehner Plan?

/4 Comments/in /by

Is Sarah Palin swaying tea party conservatives to vote against House Speaker John Boehner’s debt plan?

The former Republican vice presidential nominee put an enigmatic comment on her Facebook page Thursday afternoon that seemed to warn freshman Republicans in the House that they just might face primary opposition if they cave in to demands by their party to raise the debt ceiling, The New York Times theorized.

“All my best to you, GOP Freshmen, from up here in the Last Frontier. Sincerely, Sarah Palin,” she wrote. “P.S. Everyone I talk to still believes in contested primaries.”

Just two hours later, House Republican leaders were forced to postpone the vote on their proposal to increase the debt ceiling at the last minute, apparently facing a revolt among some of those very members.

In her 4:03 p.m. Facebook posting, Palin wrote that “I respectfully ask these GOP Freshman to re-read this letter and remember us “little people” who believed in them, donated to their campaigns, spent hours tirelessly volunteering for them, and trusted them with our votes. This new wave of public servants may recall that they were sent to D.C. for such a time as this.”

Read More at NewsMax Newsmax.com

Murkowski attacks Tea Party Again

/2 Comments/in /by

Bloomberg (by Wingfield & Klimasinska):

“Absolutist” lawmakers aligned with the Tea Party have put the U.S. “on the brink,” Senator Lisa Murkowski said.

House Speaker John Boehner is grappling with a “situation that is perhaps out of his control” as he struggles to persuade those members to compromise on raising the U.S. debt ceiling, Murkowski, an Alaska Republican, said.

“I am really worried about where we are standing and I think part of that has come about because you have individuals that say, ‘It is my way or the highway,’” Murkowski, 54, said today in an interview at Bloomberg’s Washington office. “That is not how you govern.”

House Republicans backed by Tea Party groups have pledged to support a debt-ceiling increase only if it’s accompanied by spending cuts and doesn’t raise taxes. President Barack Obama and Democrats propose a mix of tax increases and spending reductions.

“You have folks who are so black-and-white, who are so absolutist, that we are in a process now where we are on the brink,” said Murkowski . . .

Read more at Bloomberg  HERE.

Angle to McCain: Wait a minute, you campaigned for me in 2010. Now you’re insulting me and the Tea Party?

/6 Comments/in /by

Sen. John McCain, R-AZ, blasted opponents of the Boehner plan yesterday, borrowing a phrase from a Wall Street Journal editorial that described such opposition as representing “the kind of crack political thinking that turned Sharron Angle and Christine O’Donnell into GOP Senate nominees.”

Angle has now released a response, which, among much else, reminds McCain that in the end the Hobbits actually won the day and saved the world. The former Nevada GOP senate nominee called herself a “TEA Party Hobbit.” This could be the start of a new branding movement among Tea Partiers:

“One man in Washington, who chose Sarah Palin to be his VP running-mate and came to Nevada to campaign for me last year in the Senate race against Harry Reid, is now promoting attacks against TEA Party activists, ordinary American citizens, and fiscally conservative members of Congress – all of whom are adamantly opposed to continuing the deficit-spending strategies proposed by some congressional members and the president.

“Ironically, this man campaigned for TEA Party support in his last re-election, but now throws Christine O’Donnell and I into the harbor with Sarah Palin. As in the fable, it is the hobbits who are the heroes and save the land. This Lord of the TARP actually ought to read to the end of the story and join forces with the TEA Party, not criticize it.

It is regrettable that a man seeking dialogue, action and cooperation for votes on the floor of the United States Senate has only one strategy to achieve that effort: name-calling. Nice.

Read More at the Washington Examiner By Mark Tapscott, The Washington Examiner

Concealed Carry Would Have Kept Norway Safe

/3 Comments/in /by

How long would the Norway gunman have lasted in Texas or any state where concealed-carry laws are on the books? I ran a survey while on a cruise: in Texas, 3 minutes; in Montana, 7 to 8 minutes; in Arizona, 2 minutes; and in Nevada, 3 to 5 minutes.

Had Norway not surrendered to the anti-self-defense nuts, and allowed Norwegians to protect themselves by legally carrying guns, the massacre might well have been prevented. There’s a lot of truth in the old adage that if guns are outlawed only outlaws will carry guns.

That was certainly true in Norway where Anders Breivik, a lone gunman, launched his assault on youth campers of Utoya Island. According to press reports he fully expected Norway’s special forces to swoop down and stop him at any minute. It didn’t happen. Faced with unarmed victims he was given plenty of time to kill 68 innocent people who could not defend themselves. Had just one of them been armed, Breivik could have been stopped dead and lives would have been spared.

Moreover, if anyone had paid attention to Breivik’s rants they would not have been surprised when he acted on them, especially since Breivik had preceded his attack by setting off a car bomb in the heart of Oslo.

Tragically, Norway’s anti-gun hysteria resulted in laws restricting gun ownership by law-abiding citizens, leaving them exposed to gun violence at the hands of criminals such as Breivik, who simply ignore anti-gun ownership laws. Despite the Second Amendment, which protects American citizens’ rights to access to guns for self-protection, the Constitutional right of citizens to bear arms is under constant assault.

Read More at Floyd Reports By Michael Reagan, Floyd Reports