GOP Meets with Obama: Deal or No Deal?

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By Fox News.

Republican lawmakers scrambled back to the drawing board late Thursday to modify their plan for a short-term increase in the debt ceiling, after President Obama apparently pushed back on the proposal during a high-stakes White House meeting.

The meeting broke up with no deal announced, despite optimism earlier in the day that the two sides might agree. Senate Democratic Leader Harry Reid also cast doubt on House Speaker John Boehner’s plan. The day ended like it began, with Americans still unsure when the partial government shutdown will end, and the financial markets still uncertain as to whether the country might miss next week’s deadline to raise the debt ceiling.

Nevertheless, both sides claimed to be working together, describing the initial meeting as positive as they worked toward a possible agreement.

A statement from House Republicans said Obama and GOP leaders agreed to continue talking “throughout the night.”

Another key meeting, between Obama and Senate Republicans, is scheduled for Friday morning.

Read more from this story HERE.

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Photo Credit: M.Scott Mahaskey/POLITICOBarack Obama to GOP: ‘What’s it going to take?’

By JAKE SHERMAN, BURGESS EVERETT and JOHN BRESNAHAN.

President Barack Obama and House Republicans clashed in a meeting Thursday afternoon over how soon the government can be reopened, even as the GOP offered to lift the debt limit for six weeks, according to sources familiar with the session.

House Republicans told Obama at the White House that they could reopen the federal government by early next week if the president and Senate Democrats agree to their debt-ceiling proposal. After the debt ceiling is lifted, a House GOP aide said they would seek some additional concessions in a government funding bill.

Obama repeatedly pressed House Republicans to open the government, asking them “what’s it going to take to” end the shutdown, those sources said. He questioned why the government should remain closed if both sides agreed to engage in good-faith negotiations on the budget, according to a Democratic source briefed on the meeting.

The meeting was described by both sides as cordial but inconclusive. Obama acknowledged to Republicans that notable progress had been made. Sources described the meeting without attribution, because the meeting was private.

Aides will continue the discussion through the night to see if they could find common ground on how to move forward on the debt limit and government funding. The short-term debt hike — which was originally proposed at the closed GOP meeting Thursday — did not include plans to reopen the government.

Read more from this story HERE.

Allen West: Obama Acting Like ‘Spoiled Brat’ (+video)

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Photo Credit: Alex Wong/Getty ImagesFormer Rep. Allen West of Florida said President Barack Obama’s refusal to negotiate with Republicans is tantamount to the behavior of a “spoiled brat.”

“I can put it very basic Southern terms: a spoiled brat child,” West told “The Steve Malzberg Show” on Newsmax TV.

“We have been giving Barack Obama everything that he has wanted. We gave him a state senator position in Chicago, we gave him a U.S. Senate position out of the state of Illinois, unproven, untested, no resume, we gave him the presidency twice.

Read more from this story HERE.

Now Is the Time to Delay ObamaCare

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Photo Credit: Martin KozlowskiThe Obama administration has an implementation problem. More than any administration of the modern era they know how to talk but have trouble doing. They give speeches about ObamaCare but when it’s unveiled what the public sees is a Potemkin village designed by the noted architect Rube Goldberg. They speak ringingly about the case for action in Syria but can’t build support in the U.S. foreign-policy community, in Congress, among the public. Recovery summer is always next summer. They have trouble implementing. Which, of course, is the most boring but crucial part of governing. It’s not enough to talk, you must perform.

There is an odd sense with members of this administration that they think words are actions. Maybe that’s why they tweet so much. Maybe they imagine Bashar Assad seeing their tweets and musing: “”Ah, Samantha is upset—then I shall change my entire policy, in respect for her emotions!”

That gets us to the real story of last week, this week and the future, the one beyond the shutdown, the one that normal people are both fully aware of and fully understand, and that is the utter and catastrophic debut of ObamaCare. Even for those who expected problems, and that would be everyone who follows government, it has been a shock.

They had 3½ years to set it up! They knew exactly when it would be unveiled, on Oct. 1, 2013. On that date, they knew, millions could be expected to go online to see if they benefit.

What they got was the administration’s version of Project ORCA, the Romney campaign’s computerized voter-turnout system that crashed with such flair on Election Day.

Read more from this story HERE.

October 13, 2013: America’s Showdown Veterans March on DC and Truckers Roll

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Photo Credit: Truckers Ride For The Constitution/Facebook On October 13, 2013, American veterans and other patriots are going to launch a major protest. President Obama has been using the government shutdown as an excuse to commit a string of almost unbelievable public outrages against Americans everywhere. These include the following unbelievable eye-poppers:

Denying treatments for children suffering from cancer.

Denying death benefit payments to families of fallen soldiers, while keeping the Andrews Air Base golf course open so Obama can continue to play.

Ordering the Park Service to hold elderly Yellowstone Park visitors in their hotel rooms under armed guard, then ordering them out of the park on busses and denying even a bathroom stop on the 2.5 hour drive out.

Forcing people out of their own homes, including the elderly, when situated on park land.

Closing access to all national parks, monuments and park land, and beefing up patrols to keep people out.

Trying to prevent people from even looking at Mount Rushmore.

All military memorials, including the D-Day memorial and 23 other overseas memorials.

Forcing veterans at the Vietnam War memorial to leave.

Breitbart has included a complete compendium, here.

Three things to note: 1. none of the 17 prior shutdowns closed any of these activities; 2. virtually all of these activities are either costless or “essential,” like medicines for the kids with cancer; many are privately funded; 3. enforcing these extreme measures has cost more than they spent before the shutdown.

All of these outrages can be laid directly at Obama’s feet. The only reason he is getting away with it is because the media continues to largely give him a pass. The media needs to know how angry we are about their shameless cheerleading!

But people are really fed up. Acts of defiance have sprouted up all over the country.

North Carolina innkeeper Bruce O’Connell tried to reopen the Pisgah Inn, a scenic spot on the Blue Ridge Parkway. Now he is taking his case to court

Wisconsin’s Department of Natural Resources, under Republican Governor Scott Walker, has ignored a federal directive to close seven state park properties that get federal funding

An estimated 1,000 hikers and bikers entered Acadia National Park in Maine on Monday, bypassing barricades and signs declaring the park and its roads closed

Dozens of fishing guides in Florida’s Everglades planned to gather on the outskirts of the national park on Wednesday to protest its closing, Who ever heard of closing bodies of water?

These small acts of defiance, while encouraging, are only a prelude to what is coming.

When the people fear the government, there is tyranny. When the government fears the people, there is liberty. Thomas Jefferson

Million Vet March on the Memorials

This Sunday, October 13, 2013, the Million Vets March is descending on Washington, DC.

Here is what the organizer has to say:

I want you to circle the date of Sunday, October 13, 2013.

And then I want you to help “circle the wagons” on that day to help protect and defend our brave veterans who risked their lives for our freedom – and now are being barred from visiting the memorials erected to honor their deeds.

In a mean-spirited fit of selfish anger, Barack Obama has shut down our nation’s war memorials. And he has declared open war on our honored veterans!

The World War II memorial … the Vietnam Veterans Memorial … the Korean War Veterans Memorial – Obama has shut them all down to force his will on the House of Representatives and frankly, to get revenge on the American people who oppose Obamacare and his other naked power grabs.

Let’s put it plainly: Barack Obama is behaving like a vicious tyrant. And if he succeeds in this assault on the democratic system, the Republic we love is at mortal risk. It’s just that simple.

You can support this effort in numerous ways:

Sign the petition, HERE.

Donate to the cause, HERE.

Circle the date: October 13, 2013, and show up!

Truckers for the Constitution

Beginning Friday, October 11, 2013, independent long haul truckers are going on a nationwide strike. They will not haul freight anywhere. Instead, coming from all across the nation, truckers will clog the Washington, DC beltway for the first day of their three-day Ride for the Constitution. The truckers are asking Americans nationwide to participate, either by joining them on the road, joining the DC vets march, or in spirit by spreading the word:

Like them on Facebook, now having 119,000 likes

Keep abreast of news with their hashtag #T2SDA

Go to their website, www.ridefortheconstitution.org for regular updates
Is Obama Planning to Collapse the Economy?

We are all fed up with Obama’s shutdown showdown antics. What is not generally known is that Obama may also be setting America up to default on its debt. That could set off a financial markets crisis that would dwarf 2008. He is hoping to blame republicans and help Democrats take back the House in 2014. That is how corrupt he and the Democrats are.

This could lead to the collapse of the dollar, which suggests the hidden hand of George Soros, who has destroyed the currencies of countless countries, including Great Britain, and has said that America must stop resisting “the orderly decline of the dollar.” An examination of his recent investments, as well as those of Obama and his other cronies, would reveal if they plan to capitalize on this evil plan. They are certainly not above it.

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James Simpson is an economist, businessman and investigative journalist. His articles have been published at American Thinker, Accuracy in Media, Breitbart, PJ Media, Washington Times, WorldNetDaily and others. His regular column is DC Independent Examiner. Follow Jim on Twitter & Facebook

Joe Miller Offers Mark Begich An Economics Lesson

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Fairbanks, Alaska. October 10, 2013 – Senator Mark Begich is currently running ads in Alaska questioning the intelligence of those who do not see matters as he does regarding the economics of Obamacare and the National Debt. Joe Miller thought it might be helpful to ensure the junior senator is fully apprised of some important facts concerning both.

“Obamacare is not only bad public policy, it is bad economics,” said Miller who received his masters in economics from the University of Alaska, where he also taught as an adjunct professor in political science. “Mr. Begich would do well to exercise a little independence and just do the math.”

When Democrats pushed the so-called Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act through on a straight party-line vote in 2010, they told us that the ten-year projected cost to taxpayers was $900 billion. The CBO has now projected those costs have doubled to $1.8 trillion. And just as Senator Begich is doubling down on his vote for the ill-conceived program, it was reported this week that by some projections it may cost up to $3 trillion.

Not only is the price tag astronomical, virtually every promise made about the program is already proving to be false. Instead of “bending the cost curve” as the President promised, insurance premiums have skyrocketed. Instead of Americans being able to “keep the coverage you have,” a recent survey finds up to 30 percent of employers plan to drop coverage in 2014. Further, instead of having no detrimental economic impact, many employers plan to freeze hiring or cut back on their number of full-time employees to avoid the law’s onerous mandates.

This unneeded stifling of job creation comes as our nation continues to experience unemployment numbers well above historic averages. The current unemployment rate of 7.3 percent does not include millions of Americans who have left the workforce altogether. Four years into the “Obama recovery,” only 63.2 percent of Americans are employed in full-time work, which matches numbers not seen since the severe recession of the early 80s and harkens back to the Great Depression.

And this all comes against the backdrop of the largest and most reckless spending spree in American history. During Mr. Begich’s short 5-year tenure in the United States Senate, the deficit nearly quadrupled, and the national debt has risen by $7 trillion, more than 60 percent.

This unprecedented deficit spending coupled with no will to address it has resulted in exactly what Miller predicted in 2010: the downgrading of our nation’s credit rating. The Federal Reserve, in turn, has engaged in massive quantitative easing, to the tune of over $3 trillion, to buy up treasury notes with money printed out of thin air, which has led to the devaluing of our currency. This insidious, unseen tax on all Americans is felt everywhere from the gasoline pump to the grocery store. Yet the junior senator continues to march in lock-step with Harry Reid and Barack Obama as they bring us ever closer to fiscal collapse. And he has the audacity to call the adults in the room “knuckleheads”?

“If Senator Begich cannot see the dire economic consequences of Obamacare and profligate federal government spending with all the facts in plain view, he never will,” said Miller. “If Mark Begich is more interested in serving the flawed economic policies of Barack Obama and Harry Reid than the people of Alaska, it is time for him to find a new line of work. I believe Alaskans will assist him in that endeavor in 2014.”

The House Republicans are the Adults in the Room When it Comes to Debt Talks

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Photo Credit: Irish Central President Obama’s minions call conservative House Republicans, jihadists, arsonists and terrorists. He claims they will harm America’s full faith and credit by demanding fundamental changes to the out of control spending in Washington.

Conservative Republican House members claim raising the debt ceiling by a trillion to 18 trillion, 600 billion annual deficits and having the Fed pump 85 billion phantom bucks monthly into the market, are sure ways of destroying America’s full faith and credit.

But on top of all of this is another huge expense getting enacted this month that will add trillions of additional expense to America in the form of Obamacare.

Americans, who have a basic concept of economics, a knowledge of history and how debt has destroyed mighty nations in the past, see the reckless spending in Washington as immoral and irresponsible. They don’t want to see their children become indentured servants to debt incurred today in order to fund America’s present lifestyles.

Current debt is getting close to Italian levels in ratio. Italy is an economic basket case, run into the ground by left wing socialist policies and unchecked union power ….Italy, formerly the seat of the Roman Empire, used to be the greatest nation on earth 2,000 years ago and thought it would last forever, until the advent of “bread and circuses.” There are many other examples of great nations collapsing, or even wars starting due to out of control debt.

Conservative Republican House members have been holding the line when it comes to checking the out of control spending in Washington. They want some accountability and some responsibility.

In spite of intense pressure from the White House, its allies in the media and big government politicians of both parties…these House members will demand some economic concessions from the Obama administration, before they give up their leverage.

It’s a sad note to see that our leadership has devolved to the point that just one segment of the three branches of government, has to be the ones holding the line against big spenders.

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Ed Farnan is the conservative columnist at IrishCentral, where he has been writing on the need for energy independence, strong self defense, secure borders, 2nd amendment, smaller government and many other issues. His articles appear in many publications throughout the USA and world. He has been a guest on Fox News and a regular guest on radio stations in the US and Europe.

Report: Obama Administration Most Secretive Since Nixon

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Photo Credit: Washington TimesThe Obama White House’s war against leaks, and its penchant for secrecy and noted lack of transparency, are the worst “since the Nixon administration,” according to a major new study that relied on interviews from leading Washington reporters and news organization chiefs.

The report, released Thursday by the Committee to Project Journalists, found that reporters from many major media outlets consider the Obama administration the most closed-off in recent memory, and that there is not “any precedent” for its often hostile relationship toward the press.

More than 30 veteran reporters were interviewed for the piece, which was written by CPJ’s Leonard Downie Jr., former executive editor of The Washington Post and now a professor at Arizona State’s Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication.

The massive study goes into great detail in discussing the administration’s battle against leakers such as Edward Snowden; its “Insider Threat Program” that asks government employees to monitor their colleagues’ behavior; and general lack of transparency, despite repeated promises from Mr. Obama that his White House would be the most open in history.

“This is the most closed, control freak administration I’ve ever covered,” wrote New York Times Washington correspondent David Sanger, one of the journalists interviewed for the report.

Read more from this story HERE.

Glenn Beck Reveals a Story He Hasn’t Been Able to Share for Over a Year

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Photo Credit: TheBlaze TVGlenn Beck shared a story with viewers on Wednesday that he’s been keeping close to the vest since before the 2012 election, explaining that he’s been waiting for the right time to say what exactly happened, and what it means for the country.

It all began, Beck said, in what he believes was late August when he was getting ready to do a number of events with FreedomWorks.

“It’s about 4:00 in the afternoon and I get a call from the president of FreedomWorks, Matt Kibbe, and I can hear the distress in his voice,” Beck said. “[Kibbe said], ‘Glenn, I’ve just been escorted out of my office by armed guards and told not to come back.’”

Kibbe added that he wasn’t the only one forcefully escorted out, and that they had been hijacked, so to speak, by the “old guard” GOP establishment.

“There was a coup during the election, and it was powerful,” Beck said. “They were trying to get rid of the libertarian, Tea Party-minded power players, and first and foremost on that hit list was Matt Kibbe and his allies. They didn’t like the fact that FreedomWorks was cleaning house in the GOP…that they were targeting people like Orrin Hatch. It didn’t sit well with the Karl Roves of the GOP world…”

Read more from this story HERE.

NBC/WSJ Poll: 60 Percent Say Fire Every Member of Congress

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Photo Credit: J. David Ake / APThrow the bums out.

That’s the message 60 percent of Americans are sending to Washington in a new NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll, saying if they had the chance to vote to defeat and replace every single member of Congress, including their own representative, they would. Just 35 percent say they would not.

The 60 percent figure is the highest-ever in that question recorded in the poll, registered in the wake of the government shutdown and threat of the U.S. defaulting on its debt for the first time in history. If the nation’s debt limit is not increased one week from now, Treasury Secretary Jack Lew warns that the entire global economy could be in peril.

“We continue to use this number as a way to sort of understand how much revulsion there is,” said Democratic pollster Peter D. Hart, who conducted the poll with Republican Bill McInturff. “We now have a new high-water mark.”

The numbers reflect a broader trend over the last few years. Americans have traditionally said that while they might not like Congress, they usually like their own representatives. But that sentiment appears to have shifted.

Read more from this story HERE.

Obama Just Made a Terrible Mistake Regarding Egypt

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Photo Credit: Ozan Kose | AFP | Getty ImagesIn a certain sense, the Obama administration’s decision to withhold much of the $1.3 billion in annual aid given to Egypt isn’t surprising. U.S. law mandates cutting off aid to countries in which a coup has taken place, and the Egyptian military’s ouster of President Mohamed Morsi this summer was, analytically speaking, exactly that. Moreover, the Egyptian military’s behavior during the three months since Morsi’s removal has made Egypt’s slide towards enhanced autocracy impossible to ignore: Over 1,000 people have been killed in the military-backed government’s crackdown on pro-Morsi protests; journalists who criticize the military have been prosecuted in military courts; and the new constitution will likely further shield the military from any kind of civilian oversight.

Indeed, the generals are not democrats, and never have been. They are bureaucratic actors who selfishly guard their bureaucratic privileges, which include autonomy over their internal affairs and control over vast economic assets (for example, among other consumer products, the Egyptian military produces bottled water), and they know that true democracy could cost them these perquisites. But cutting off aid won’t make the military democratic, and it will come at a substantial cost: namely, the ability to encourage the military in a more progressive direction down the road, when the environment might be riper for a more assertively pro-democratic U.S. policy in Egypt.

The calls to cut off military aid in the aftermath of Morsi’s ouster reflect a fundamental misunderstanding of what transpired in Egypt this past summer. To say, as is frequently said, that the military removed a democratically elected president from office is to overlook a very basic reality: that by the time unprecedentedly mass protests against the Muslim Brotherhood’s rule commenced on June 30, Mohamed Morsi was a president in name only. Morsi’s November 2012 constitutional declaration, which put his own edicts above judicial scrutiny, and his subsequent ramming of an Islamist constitution through to ratification, severely undercut his popular legitimacy, and shrunk his support in a country of 85 million people down to the Brotherhood’s base of approximately 500,000 members. Meanwhile, the Muslim Brotherhood’s decision to dispatch its cadres to brutally attack and torture protesters outside the presidential palace on December 5 led many Egyptians to view the Brotherhood—an organization that they had elected only months earlier—as an emerging fascist regime. From that point forward, protests against Morsi’s rule became so frequent and destabilizing that by late January, the military—at Morsi’s request—assumed control over the three major Suez Canal cities.

Read more from this story HERE.