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Heritage Action CEO Calls Out House GOP

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house_leadershipHeritage Action for America CEO Michael Needham on Thursday cast House Republicans as gutless for backing down on Obamacare and the farm bill.

“Washington loves to play this game of saying something can’t be done,” he said. “Politicians like to set expectations as low as possible so they can’t help but trip over them.”

During a C-SPAN “Newsmakers” interview with CQ Roll Call’s Niels Lesniewski and The Hill’s Bob Cusack, which will air Sunday, Needham said Republicans don’t know what is possible because there are still seven weeks until Sept. 30, when the government will need new spending legislation to avoid a shutdown.

Lawmakers have been asking what Heritage Action’s strategy would be if the government shut down, and they say Heritage doesn’t have an answer.

But Needham shrugged off that concern.

Read more from this story HERE.

Rand Paul: House Leaders ‘Retreated’ on Debt Ceiling

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Sen. Rand Paul accused House Republican leaders of having “retreated” in the face of a confrontation with President Barack Obama, criticizing their decision to vote on raising the U.S. debt ceiling this week during a speech in South Carolina Monday night.

In remarks to the Charleston Meeting, a gathering of conservative leaders in the first-in-the-South presidential primary state, Paul rebuked the House for its plans to delay the debt limit fight by a few months. Republicans intend to vote this week on raising the country’s statutory debt limit to delay a spending standoff with the White House by about three months.

“I saw the speaker on TV handing the newly sworn-in president a flag. I am afraid it was the white flag of surrender,” the Kentucky Republican said, according to a GOP source present at the meeting.

Alluding to the House GOP’s gathering last week in Williamsburg, Va., Paul jabbed: “They came out of their retreat and retreated.”

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House GOP Passes Budget Including Funding for Planned Parenthood, Obamacare

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The Republican-majority House of Representatives on Thursday passed a $1.047 trillion bill funding the federal government through March 2013 that will permit funding for Planned Parenthood and ObamaCare–including the regulation that took effect on Aug. 1 that will require virtually all health plans in the United States to cover, without fees or co-pay, sterilizations and all FDA-approved contraceptives, including those that induce abortions.

The vote was 329-91, and the bill now goes to the Senate for expected approval next week.

The bill funds the government for six months into the new fiscal year and for almost five months after the November elections. Congress turned to the stop-gap measure after failing to pass any of the 12 appropriation bills necessary to fund day-to-day government operations.

The Catholic bishops of the United States have unanimously declared the Obamacare sterilization-contraception-abortifacient regulation an “unjust and illegal mandate” that violates the right to free exercise of religion not only of Catholic institutions but also of Catholic business owners and workers.

The bill, a continuing resolution (CR), does not prohibit funding for either ObamaCare programs or Planned Parenthood. Nor does it stop the government from enforcing regulations, such as the mandate from the Health and Human Services Department that nearly all health insurance plans provide contraceptives, sterilizations, and abortion-inducing drugs free of charge.

Read more from this story HERE.