Posts

No Evidence Dems Can Take Back House

/5 Comments/in /by

Photo Credit: DonkeyHoteyThe 2010 midterm election that swept Republicans into power in the U.S. House of Representatives was a mandate to put the brakes on President Obama and his agenda.

Aside from voters also hoping that Republicans would do something – anything – to boost the economy, restraining Obama was pretty much the issue of that election.

It was the second wave election in four years (Republicans were dumped from the majority in 2006). And it had less to do with voters finding Republicans appealing once again and more to do with putting a halt to the Democrats’ overreach.

At the center of that overreach was the Affordable Care Act, or Obamacare – which is why many of those elected to office in that cycle and reelected last year have been adamant about repealing it, even at the cost of a government shutdown.

Or even at the cost of losing their seats, which has led to talk of a Democrat wave election cycle. It is a possibility pushed by paid pundits as reality, but the facts do not support it.

Read more from this story HERE.

Rand Paul: Dems Treating Government Shutdown as ‘a Parlor Game’ (+video)

/1 Comment/in , /by

Photo Credit: Reuters On Sunday’s broadcast of CNN’s “State of the Union,” Kentucky Republican Sen. Rand Paul slammed Democrats for trying to score political points by making the partial government shutdown as painful as possible.

Paul told host Candy Crowley the hit the Republican Party is taking is exaggerated and said that ultimately both sides will held accountable.

Read more from this story HERE.

Surprise! GOP, Dems Playing for Same Team

/0 Comments/in , /by

Photo Credit: WNDMore of America seems to be catching on to the fact that – while we have two political parties – they aren’t in fact the ones that are labeled Republican and Democrat.

Perhaps these two unlabeled parties should be given names. Let’s call them the Potomics and the Outcasts. You know, those inside and outside the moat that surrounds the castles of government in Washington, D.C.

I confess to having been snookered by this game myself on too many occasions. When election time rolls around, the game works like the good-cop, bad-cop routine in crime novels. The two cops drag the suspect into the interrogation room, and the bad cop wants to beat the confession out of the guy.

The good cop is more sympathetic and holds the bad cop at bay. Given the suspect’s circumstances, his actions were entirely understandable, even if they were wrong. But certainly a court would consider leniency in return for a confession. To the suspect, watching the bad cop ranting and raving in the background, this seems like a plan.

And so, most of America has continued to vote Republican or Democrat, because it seemed like a plan. We simply did not recognize that they were both on the same team.

Read more from this story HERE.

Democrats to America: We Own the Government!

/4 Comments/in , /by

Photo Credit: APIn the current fight over the government shutdown, Republicans are simply representing the views of the American people.

Americans didn’t ask for Obamacare, they don’t want it, but now their insurance premiums are going through the roof, their doctors aren’t accepting it, and their employers are moving them into part-time work — or firing them — to avoid the law’s mandates.

Contrary to Obama’s promises, it turns out: You can’t keep your doctor, you can’t keep your insurance — you can’t even keep your job. In other words, it’s a typical government program, but this one wrecks your health care.

Also, the president did raise taxes on the middle class in defiance of his well-worn campaign promise not to. Indeed, Obamacare is the largest tax hike in U.S. history.

Among the other changes effected by this law are:

— Obamacare will allow insurers to charge 50 percent higher premiums for smokers, but prohibits insurers from increasing premiums for those with HIV/AIDS.

Read more from this story HERE.

After House Democrats Arrested At Immigration Rally, White House Pressures GOP (+video)

/10 Comments/in , /by

Photo Credit: inquisitr.comBy The Inquisitr

After House Democrats were arrested Tuesday at a rally to support an immigration overhaul, the White House turned up the pressure even more on Republicans who stand in the way of reform.

The Democrats arrested were part of a march in Washington on the National Mall to urge Congress to take action on immigration.

Immigration reform has been stuck in Congress after a reform bill drafted by the bipartisan Gang of Eight passed the Senate in June. The bill would create a pathway toward citizenship for illegal immigrants while also increasing border security. It would also increase the number of visas for skilled labor.

While it has support in the Senate, the Republican-controlled House remains a more difficult landscape. Conservatives have characterized the bill as “amnesty” for illegal immigrants, and its passage seems unlikely.

Read more from this story HERE.

_____________________________________________________

Photo Credit: DREW ANGERER/GETTY House Democrats arrested during immigration protest

By CBS News

Several members of Congress were arrested after participating in an immigration “sit-in” on Capitol Hill demanding that House Republicans act to pass immigration reform.

Reps. John Lewis, D-Ga.; Keith Ellison, D-Minn.;. Charles Rangel, D-N.Y.; Jan Schakowsky, D-Ill.; and Luis Gutierrez, D-Ill., were among the lawmakers arrested by the Capitol Police for blocking a street near the Capitol.

The representatives are calling on Congress, particularly Republicans, to push immigration legislation forward. The Senate has passed a bill that includes amped up border security. House Democrats have unveiled a plan with a path to citizenship for the estimated 11 million immigrants living in the U.S. illegally. But it’s unclear if the GOP-led House will ever pass legislation.

Read more from this story HERE.

Top Dem: Shutdown ‘May Widen our Path’ to Re-Taking House

/1 Comment/in , /by

Photo Credit: DonkeyHoteyBy Alexandra Jaffe.

House Democrats believe the shutdown will help them put the lower chamber in play this cycle.

Democratic candidates running against vulnerable Republicans have wasted no time in hammering the incumbents as key actors in what they’re characterizing as a Tea Party-led shutdown that’s hurting Americans.

Many of those Republicans, in a signal they’re concerned about the possible political ramifications, are calling for an end to the stalemate — like Reps. Scott Rigell (R-Va.), Pat Meehan (R-Pa.) and Jon Runyan (R-N.J.), all of whom are facing reelection in difficult districts and all of whom called this week for the passage of a clean CR to end the shutdown.

Multiple polls, too, have shown Americans are placing the blame for the shutdown on Republicans.

Democrats need to pick up 17 seats to win back the House, a tall order under any circumstances, and even taller in an off-year when the party holding the White House typically loses seats.

Read more from this story HERE.

____________________________________________________

Photo Credit: © Images.com/CorbisThe Shutdown Is a Sideshow. Debt Is the Threat

By Niall Ferguson.

In the words of a veteran investor, watching the U.S. bond market today is like sitting in a packed theater and smelling smoke. You look around for signs of other nervous sniffers. But everyone else seems oblivious.

Yes, the federal government shut down this week. Yes, we are just two weeks away from the point when the Treasury secretary says he will run out of cash if the debt ceiling isn’t raised. Yes, bond king Bill Gross has been on TV warning that a default by the government would be “catastrophic.” Yet the yield on a 10-year Treasury note has fallen slightly over the past month (though short-term T-bill rates ticked up this week).

Part of the reason people aren’t rushing for the exits is that the comedy they are watching is so horribly fascinating. In his vain attempt to stop the Senate striking out the defunding of ObamaCare from the last version of the continuing resolution, freshman Sen. Ted Cruz managed to quote Doctor Seuss while re-enacting a scene from the classic movie “Mr. Smith Goes to Washington.”

Meanwhile, President Obama has become the Hamlet of the West Wing: One minute he’s for bombing Syria, the next he’s not; one minute Larry Summers will succeed Ben Bernanke as chairman of the Federal Reserve, the next he won’t; one minute the president is jetting off to Asia, the next he’s not. To be in charge, or not to be in charge: that is indeed the question.

According to conventional wisdom, the key to what is going on is a Republican Party increasingly at the mercy of the tea party. I agree that it was politically inept to seek to block ObamaCare by these means. This is not the way to win back the White House and Senate. But responsibility also lies with the president, who has consistently failed to understand that a key function of the head of the executive branch is to twist the arms of legislators on both sides. It was not the tea party that shot down Mr. Summers’s nomination as Fed chairman; it was Democrats like Sen. Elizabeth Warren, the new face of the American left.

Read more from this story HERE.

Democrats say House Vote for Back Pay Shows GOP Wants Government to Stay Closed

/3 Comments/in , /by

Photo Credit: REUTERSThe Republican-led House passed a bill Saturday to give thousands of furloughed federal workers back pay when the government reopens, but Democrats promptly characterized it as a signal the GOP doesn’t want the partial shutdown to end.

“Now we’re saying to federal employees: We’re going to pay you when this is all over with,” Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid said minutes after the 407-to-0 House vote. “But right now, you just stay home … watch TV, play chess, whatever you’re going to do, because we won’t let you work.”

The Senate is expected to OK it as well but adjourned Saturday without a vote. The Democrat-controlled chamber will not scheduled a vote until at least Monday afternoon, when members return to Washington.

The back-and-forth comes on the fifth day of the partial government shutdown and marks the second straight weekend that members of Congress are on Capitol Hill trying to agree on a spending bill to end the saga.

At the same time, House Democrats extended Reid’s talking point while also adding that both sides have agreed to spending levels for a temporary funding bill to end the partial shutdown, so House Republicans should drop their effort to defund or delay ObamaCare and vote this weekend to fully re-open the government.

Read more from this story HERE.

Democrats’s Shutdown Is Refusal To Face The American People

/3 Comments/in , /by

memorial closedWe’ve heard stories of Democrats attempting to shut down Mount Vernon and many other privately funded and run parks. They want the shutdown for use as a weapon, to “hurt and rescue” the American people. Case in point: Canyon Voyages Adventure Company.

Don Oblak’s Moab, Utah-based Canyon Voyages Adventure Co. depends on the Colorado River, which winds through breathtaking ravines in the Arches and Canyonlands National Parks.

But national parks will have to remain closed during any government shutdown. The Bureau of Land Management has told Oblak that he would not have access to rivers on its lands.

That means he’d have to cancel kayak and whitewater trips on the river, his core business.

Oblak fears that if the government shuts down even for a short time, it will affect his business for the entire month of October because his clients will cancel their trips. If that happens, he’d have to furlough all 25 employees at Canyon Voyages and cancel pre-sold tours. Combined with lost sales from his retail store, a lengthy shutdown could lead to an estimated $200,000 loss.

Read more from this story HERE.

Waxman on 10,535 Pages of Obamacare Regs: ‘Is It Important That I Read It?’ (+video)

/2 Comments/in , /by

Photo Credit: AP

Photo Credit: AP

When asked by CNSNews.com whether he had read all 10,535 pages of final Obamacare regulations that have so far been published in the Federal Register, Rep. Henry Waxman (D-Calif.) asked in return whether it was “important” the he read them, dismissed the inquiry as a “propaganda question,” and did not ultimately anwer.

CNSNews.com: “What I was going to ask you is if you’ve read those [10,535 pages] of regulations.”

Waxman said: “Have you read them?”

CNSNews.com: “No. Have you read them?”

Waxman said: “Is it important that I read it?”

Read more from this story HERE.

‘Deuce Bigalow’ Actor: I Haven’t Made a Movie in California in 7 Years Because of Democrats (+video)

/1 Comment/in , /by

Photo Credit: Wikipedia

Photo Credit: Wikipedia

“Saturday Night Live” alumnus and “Deuce Bigalow: Male Gigolo” actor Rob Schneider appeared in a short video (embedded below) with California Assemblyman — and Republican gubernatorial hopeful — Tim Donnelly and Politichicks reporter Ann-Marie Murrell on Monday. In the video, Schneider declared that he hasn’t worked on a film in California in seven years because of the recent rise of Democrats in state elections.

“The state of California is a mess,” Schneider declared, “and the supermajority of Democrats is not working. I’ve been a lifelong Democrat and I have to switch over because it no longer serves the people of this great state.

Read more from this story HERE.