AI
Thursday, September 26, 2013 11:24:13 AM
John McCain Rips Ted Cruz's Anti-Obamacare Speech, Criticizes Nazi Comparison
09/25/2013
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/09/25/john-mccain-ted-cruz_n_3989887.html [with embedded video, and (over 14,000) comments]
--
Experts: Seuss would be ‘offended’
By LUCY MCCALMONT | 9/25/13 2:46 PM EDT Updated: 9/25/13 5:22 PM EDT
Dr. Seuss wouldn’t have had much of an appetite for Sen. Ted Cruz reading “Green Eggs and Ham” on the Senate floor, experts on the author said Wednesday.
“Not only would he be offended at the misuse of ‘Green Eggs and Ham,’ but he’d be offended at almost everything that Ted Cruz stands for, which is to remove the safety net from poor people, poor and vulnerable people, he’s clearly more power hungry than he is compassionate and he’s a bully,” said Dr. Peter Dreier, a professor of politics at Occidental College.
“Without a doubt, if Dr. Seuss were still around today, he would be poking fun at and criticizing Ted Cruz,” Dreier told POLITICO.
Dreier included Dr. Seuss — whose real name is Theodor Geisel — in his book, “The 100 Greatest Americans of the 20th Century: A Social Justice Hall of Fame” and said Geisel would be “offended” at Cruz using the famous children’s book in his argument against Obamacare.
“‘Green Eggs and Ham’ is about trying new things and giving it a chance and being open to change, right? And here’s Ted Cruz trying to stop Obamacare, really before it gets going,” Dreier said.
Cruz’s office did not immediately responded to request for comment.
Dreier added that most people considered Geisel to be a progressive and before he was a children’s book author, was an editorial cartoonist at a left-wing paper.
Another Seuss scholar says that Dr. Seuss wouldn’t have “much patience” with Cruz.
“I mean in some ways Ted Cruz is a Dr. Seuss character…he is this kind of cartoon character who sort of parodies his own behavior. You could imagine him as being in a Dr. Seuss book without really changing much about him, he’s so outlandish,” said Phil Nel, a Seuss scholar and professor of children’s literature at Kansas State University.
“Seuss was a liberal Democrat and he would not have much patience for people like Mr. Cruz,” Nel said.
Nel added that throughout political history, Seuss has been misappropriated by both the left and right, but conservatives tend to misuse his work more often.
“I think there’s definitely misappropriations from both sides, but because of Seuss’ own politics, it tends to be more from the right that interprets him in ways that he would not approve and did not intend,” Nel said.
“We interpret [literature] according to our needs, so it’s not sort of uniquely a function of being right-wing that you read and work in a way that’s different from how the author intends, but in the case of Seuss, yeah, it’s definitely true that there’s been more misappropriations form the right than the left,” Nel said.
*
Related
10 facts about 'Green Eggs and Ham'
http://www.politico.com/story/2013/09/ted-cruz-10-facts-about-green-eggs-and-ham-97332.html
Politicians bookmark use for Seuss
http://www.politico.com/story/2013/09/dr-seuss-ted-cruz-politicians-97347.html
*
© 2013 POLITICO LLC
http://www.politico.com/story/2013/09/dr-seuss-ted-cruz-97350.html [with embedded video, and comments]
--
Claire McCaskill: Ted Cruz scrambled his ‘Eggs’
9/25/13
http://www.politico.com/story/2013/09/claire-mccaskill-ted-cruz-green-eggs-and-ham-97336.html [with embedded video, and comments]
--
Ted Cruz Tells Dick Durbin He Isn't On Senate Health Care Plan: Here's Why
By Ryan Grim
Posted: 09/25/2013 10:11 pm EDT
WASHINGTON -- Toward the end of Ted Cruz's more than 20-hour occupation of the Senate floor Tuesday and Wednesday, Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) tried to pin the GOP senator down.
“Will the senator from Texas for the record tell us now -- and those who watched this debate -- whether he is protected and his family’s protected?” Durbin asked Wednesday morning, repeating a question he'd been trying to get Cruz to answer.
“I’m happy to tell you now I am eligible for it and I am not currently covered under it,” Cruz responded, diverting the conversation to an uninsured diabetic woman that Durbin had mentioned earlier.
Cruz and Durbin debated where the woman would fit in in a health care metaphor Durbin had concocted, with Durbin arguing that while Obamacare might not give her first-class coverage at its lowest level, at least she was on the plane. Cruz put forward that she was stuffed into the baggage compartment.
Daniel Webster vs. Henry Clay it was not, but it did leave the question of Cruz' health care coverage dangling.
"Senator, you and I are blessed to have the best health insurance in America as members of the United States Senate," Durbin said.
Durbin doesn't get out enough. Members of Congress are afforded top-notch, well subsidized health plans, but they're nothing compared with those provided to the people who make the real decisions in the U.S.
Top Wall Street executives get some of the best health coverage on the planet. Cruz's wife, Heidi Nelson Cruz, is a regional head of a Goldman Sachs division.
According to a 2009 New York Times report [ http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/27/health/policy/27insure.html ], top executive officers and managing directors at the bank participate in a health care program that costs Goldman more than $40,000 in premiums for each particpant’s family annually.
A Cruz representative wasn't immediately available to comment.
Copyright © 2013 TheHuffingtonPost.com, Inc.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/09/25/ted-cruz-dick-durbin_n_3992395.html [with embedded video, and comments]
--
Ted Cruz Criticizes 'Defeatist Attitude' Of Senate GOP In Rush Limbaugh Interview
By Sam Stein
Posted: 09/25/2013 2:22 pm EDT
WASHINGTON -- Shortly after leaving the Senate floor following a 21-hour gab-fest in opposition to the president's health care law, Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) took some sharp jabs at his fellow Republicans for abandoning him in the fight.
In an interview with conservative radio talk show host Rush Limbaugh, the Texas Republican accused his fellow GOPers of being "beaten down" by past legislative battles and of secretly being fine with allowing Obamacare to remain the law of the land.
"The single biggest surprise about arriving to the Senate is the defeatist attitude here," Cruz said. Losing the battle to repeal the Affordable Care Act, he added, was "honestly the outcome that more than a few of [the Republicans] desire."
Intra-party criticisms are not new for Cruz, who has ticked off colleagues within his own party since arriving to Congress. His most recent attempt to defund Obamacare through a continuing resolution to fund the federal government is the most recent incident to draw the ire of members of his own party.
Cruz had just finished carrying out a faux filibuster to stop the CR when he called into Limbaugh's show. Between the end of his speech and that interview, Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) had gone to the Senate floor to admonish Cruz for comparing those who didn't want to have that particular fight to Nazi appeasers [ http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/09/25/john-mccain-ted-cruz_n_3989887.html ].
Limbaugh didn't ask Cruz to respond to McCain's remarks, but did ask him to comment on revelations from Fox News host Chris Wallace that Republicans had sent him unsolicited opposition research when word got out that Cruz would appear on his show. The senator told Limbaugh that he was the target of an alliance between Democrats "and many of the Republicans who are scared of this fight."
"They are scared it won't work and Republicans will get blamed," Cruz said. "They have been here for a long time and they are beaten down and they don't believe it can happen."
Though exhausted, Cruz stayed through two commercial breaks to talk to Limbaugh before saying that he was going to take a nap.
Copyright © 2013 TheHuffingtonPost.com, Inc.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/09/25/ted-cruz-rush-limbaugh_n_3990141.html [with embedded video report, and comments]
--
Rush Limbaugh Tears Into Fox News For Ted Cruz Criticism
Posted: 09/25/2013 2:48 pm EDT | Updated: 09/25/2013 3:31 pm EDT
Rush Limbaugh hammered Fox News on Wednesday for what he called the network's "trashing" of Sen. Ted Cruz.
On Monday, Brit Hume said [ http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/09/24/brit-hume-conservative-radio_n_3981916.html ] that Cruz and other Republicans were being pressured by misguided members of the conservative media into pursuing a defunding of Obamacare and a potential government shutdown. Limbaugh was not pleased. He said [ http://www.rushlimbaugh.com/daily/2013/09/25/fox_news_republicans_are_afraid_of_me ] he had expected to hear such talk from MSNBC or Politico, adding:
"Of all places Fox News trashing all over this, and Fox News essentially blaming me and other conservative media for making Ted Cruz what he is! Brit Hume, of all people, essentially said that Ted Cruz is who he is because he's being pressured by people like me. And left to his own devices, Cruz might not be doing this, is the implication. He didn't actually say that. I was literally stunned watching this. The fact that, even after 21 hours, even at the beginning of it, they cannot at least admit that this is who the man is. He doesn't need any advisers here. He doesn't need any pressure. The man is not a coward. Ted Cruz isn't afraid of anybody. The real question is, what is the Republican establishment afraid of? What are some of these conservative media types at Fox News afraid of? What is the Washington establishment on the Republican side afraid of? Government shutdown, losing elections, what do you guys think you've been doing?"
(via Media Matters [ http://mediamatters.org/video/2013/09/25/limbaugh-attacks-fox-news-gop-establishment-for/196079 ])
Copyright © 2013 TheHuffingtonPost.com, Inc.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/09/25/rush-limbaugh-fox-news-ted-cruz_n_3990639.html [with embedded Limbaugh audio, and comments]
--
Lamar Alexander: Ted Cruz's Strategy Might Have Been Dreamed Up By Democrats
09/25/2013
WASHINGTON -- Sen. Ted Cruz's strategy of forcing a shutdown of the federal government is so ill-conceived that it will not only fail, but also could backfire and hurt Republicans so badly it might have been dreamed up by Democrats, Sen. Lamar Alexander argued Wednesday.
[...]
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/09/25/lamar-alexander-ted-cruz_n_3991486.html [with embedded video, and comments]
--
Women Senators Slam Ted Cruz, Vow To Protect Obamacare
Sen. Debbie Stabenow (D-Mich.) joined other women Democratic senators on Wednesday at a press conference to decry Ted Cruz and the efforts to defund Obamacare.
09/25/2013
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/09/25/women-senators-obamacare_n_3989920.html [with embedded video reports, and comments]
--
Rand Paul: Republicans Won't Defund Obamacare In Government Shutdown Fight
09/25/2013
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/09/25/rand-paul-defund-obamacare_n_3990944.html [with (over 7,000) comments]
--
Surprise! Obamacare foe Cruz votes with Democrats on spending plan
Video [embedded]
Cruz ends 21-hr speech, votes with Dems
September 25, 2013
http://www.cnn.com/2013/09/25/politics/shutdown-showdown/ [with additional embedded videos, and (over 31,000) comments]
*
Ted Cruz Talkathon Ends, Senate Votes As Shutdown Looms
09/25/2013
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/09/25/ted-cruz-speech_n_3989032.html [with embedded video report, and (nearly 9,000) comments]
--
Government Shutdown 2013: House GOP Considers Options
By ANDREW TAYLOR
Posted: 09/26/2013 8:58 am EDT
WASHINGTON — Pressure is building on fractious House Republicans over legislation to prevent a partial government shutdown, as the Democratic-led Senate is expected to strip a tea party-backed plan to defund Obamacare from the bill.
As the Senate telegraphed its moves, House Republicans deliberated an array of imperfect options on both a temporary spending bill required to avert a shutdown and a separate measure to permit the government to borrow almost $1 trillion to keep paying its bills.
Lawmakers face a midnight Monday deadline to complete a stopgap spending bill to avoid a partial government shutdown that would keep hundreds of thousands of federal workers off the job, close national parks and generate damaging headlines for whichever side the public holds responsible.
The timeline is daunting since House GOP leaders appear all but certain to reject the Senate's attempt at a simple, straightforward stopgap spending bill like those routinely passed since the 1995-96 government shutdowns that bruised Republicans and strengthened President Bill Clinton.
A 21-hour talkathon by Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, whipped up the GOP's tea party wing even as it complicated efforts by House GOP leaders to assemble rank-and-file support for a temporary spending measure.
Cruz wants to derail the spending bill to deny Democrats the ability to strip out the anti-Obamacare provision, a strategy that has put him at odds with other Republicans who say the move won't work and fear it would spark a shutdown.
Many GOP senators, including the Senate's top two Republicans, have said they'll vote to advance the measure rather than filibuster it to death, a vote that promises to give Democrats controlling the chamber a procedural edge in a subsequent vote to kill the tea party's effort to use the must-pass bill to derail Obamacare.
Wednesday evening, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., unveiled his version of the stopgap spending bill, which would keep the government running through Nov. 15. It also contains, for now, the anti-Obamacare provision sought by Republicans. He set in motion a key vote on Friday that promises to expose the divide between Cruz and more pragmatic Republicans. Senate passage of the spending bill – stripped of the Obamacare provision – was expected no later than Saturday.
"Any senator who votes with Majority Leader Harry Reid and the Democrats ... has made the decision to allow Obamacare to be funded," Cruz told reporters after his marathon speech ended Wednesday at noon. Cruz himself has predicted that is exactly what the Senate will do, and he's already called on House Republicans to reject the bill when it comes back to them.
The simplest thing for Republicans to do would be to accept the Senate bill and send it to the White House for Obama's signature, a prospect that's unappealing to Republicans because it would make them look like they're surrendering. House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, originally preferred a plan to deliver to Obama a stopgap funding bill without the Obamacare provisions.
Now, GOP leaders are exploring adding face-saving options – like the repeal of a tax on medical devices, which many Democrats also oppose – to the stopgap spending bill. There's also sentiment to take away the health insurance subsidy awarded lawmakers now that they'll be required to purchase health care on Obamacare exchanges.
The House is expected to approve a measure this week allowing the Treasury to borrow freely for another year, although that legislation, too, would include a provision to carry out the Republican campaign against Obamacare. While no final decisions have been made, party officials said a one-year delay was likely to be added, rather than the full-fledged defunding that is part of the spending bill awaiting action in the Senate.
The GOP's demands on the debt limit involves far less dramatic spending cuts than Republicans demanded from Obama in a debt showdown two years. Then, Republicans extracted $2.1 trillion in cuts over a decade for a similar increase in the borrowing cap. Now, GOP leaders are mulling a 14-month borrowing increase that would increase the debt ceiling by almost $1 trillion but are considering only modest cuts, like an increase in the contribution federal workers make to their pensions.
Shutdown-averting stopgap spending bills traditionally have been steered clear of these kinds of battles for fear of a politically damaging shutdown. But with the new health care law poised to enroll millions of people into Obamacare starting Oct. 1, there's a new urgency among opponents to pull out all the stops to try to derail it.
Health and Human Secretary Kathleen Sebelius told reporters this week that consumers will have an average of 53 plans to choose from, and her department estimated the average monthly individual premium for a benchmark policy known as the "second-lowest cost silver plan" would range from a low of $192 in Minnesota to a high of $516 in Wyoming. Tax credits will bring down the cost for many.
Republicans counter that the legislation is causing employers to defer hiring new workers, lay off existing ones and reduce the hours of others to hold down costs as they try to ease the impact of the bill's taxes and other requirements.
"Obamacare is destroying jobs," Cruz said. "It is driving up health care costs. It is killing health benefits. It is shattering the economy."
© 2013 Associated Press
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/09/26/government-shutdown-2013_n_3995145.html [with embedded video report, and comments]
--
Ted Cruz’s Fake Fight Against Obamacare Is Making Millions
Video [embedded]
Twitter erupted with praise, criticism, and comedy as Ted Cruz took to the Senate floor Tuesday. #DisappoinTed?
Ted Cruz’s war against Obamacare is a racket to raise his profile and millions of dollars. Patricia Murphy says even his Republican colleagues loathe him.
by Patricia Murphy
Sep 25, 2013 7:16 AM EDT
When Sen. Ted Cruz went to the Senate floor Tuesday to block a bill that would fund the federal government for the next two months, he said to the C-SPAN cameras, "We don't need fake fights. We don't need fake votes. What we need is real change."
But at that moment, Cruz was leading a fake fight over a fake vote that nearly all in Washington agree would never actually defund Obamacare the way Cruz said it would.
As for the “real change” Ted Cruz said he was looking for, that change has arrived in Washington, and the change is Ted Cruz himself. Almost single-handedly, the freshman Tea Party apostle has upended the clubby U.S. Senate, roiled the tradition-bound GOP, and revolutionized the business of power in the nation’s capital, all thanks to the health-care bill that Cruz, former senator Jim DeMint, and a small army of conservative operatives have essentially made a living out of hating.
"These guys aren't stupid. They can read the votes,” says a veteran Republican operative. “That's why Republicans are so infuriated. Folks know exactly why they're doing this. They are using this issue and misleading conservatives in order to expand their own influence and raise money for themselves."
The biggest actors so far in Defund, Inc. have been Cruz, Sen. Mike Lee of Utah, and the Senate Conservatives Fund, the leadership PAC that Jim DeMint launched as a senator and handed off to his former staff members to run as a conservative super PAC. While Cruz led the defund fight in the Senate this summer, the SCF led a huge parallel fight on the outside, setting up a website [ http://www.dontfundobamacare.com/ ], running radio and television ads [ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hn1Zf_xi-A0 (next below)],
Starring in the ads, the robocalls, and the direct-mail campaign were Cruz and Lee, two former Supreme Court clerks turned underdog Senate candidates turned conservative Senate firebrands. As Cruz and Lee staged a filibuster-like marathon speech session Tuesday into Wednesday, the SCF streamed them on its website. But while Lee’s brand of fire is like a light you’d offer a friend looking for a smoke, Cruz’s heat has been pure napalm, much of it focused at his own Republican colleagues in the Senate. It’s made Cruz easily the most hated man in the Senate, but a figure quite beloved by Tea Party purists who want nothing more than to support a senator who is willing to mix it up in a scrum, even—or maybe especially—with his fellow Republicans.
It was that willingness to not only break, but assault, Ronald Reagan’s 11th Amendment not to speak ill of a fellow party member, that got Cruz noticed in his 2012 primary race in the first place. Cruz was running against David Dewhurst, Rick Perry’s almost blindly loyal lieutenant governor in Texas and a trusted member of the Lone Star State Establishment. But Tea Partiers in Texas and DeMint conservatives in Washington wanted someone fresh and feisty and in short order, they got Ted Cruz. Cruz quickly became the marquee candidate for the Senate Conservatives Fund and later Senate Conservatives Action. The Club for Growth’s PAC joined in, as did Dick Armey’s group, FreedomWorks.
According to the Center for Responsive Politics, the conservative pro-Cruz outside interest groups plowed millions into the primary, outspending the pro-Dewhurst super PACS and giving Cruz enough lift to win. The top two super PACs supporting Cruz were Club for Growth Action, which spent more than $5.5 million to help elect Cruz, and the Senate Conservatives Fund and Senate Conservatives Action, which spent $1.3 million and gave Cruz more than any other candidate [ http://www.opensecrets.org/outsidespending/recips.php?cmte=C00487470&cycle=2012 ] that cycle. Members of the Club for Growth and the SCF were also the top two sources for Cruz’s individual donors, with more than $1 million combined.
Fast forward one year and Cruz has become a superstar for the conservative movement that the Senate Conservatives Fund is looking to harness. Thanks to Cruz’s star power, they’re doing it. As Cruz and Lee’s multimedia campaign blanketed the country, the month of August, typically a snooze for D.C.-based fundraisers, yielded the SCF’s largest nonelection year fundraising month to date, at $1.5 million.
Most importantly, the SCF now has in its possession a massive email list of potential like-minded donors, thanks to the 1.5 million people who signed the defund petition on the Don’tFundObamaCare website. While "a list" may just be a roster in some circles, in the parlance of power and politics, a list is nothing less than a warchest-in-waiting for the SCF to use on behalf of its allies and against its enemies in the 2014 mid-term elections and the 2016 presidential race. It also makes the SCF the most relevant, and possibly the most powerful, conservative group in the country, including the Club for Growth and FreedomWorks.
If anyone is still confused after the Obamacare funding fight (faux filibuster and all), Ted Cruz is now a 2016 contender and the SCF’s biggest ally. Its enemies are many of the men and women he shares a cloakroom with—any Republican senator who did not join in.
That’s the part that has Cruz’s fellow Republicans fuming. Although the Fund has run just one ad against a Democrat (Sen. Mark Pryor) this cycle, it has taken the unprecedented step of running ads attacking seven GOP senators, including Mitch McConnell, Jeff Flake, and Lindsey Graham, for not opposing Obamacare enough, even though they all voted against the bill and said they would vote to defund it. Last week, the SCF announced it would also run ads against House Republicans if they fail to embrace the right defund strategy.
"In the summer of 2009, the Tea Party energy was appropriately focused on President Obama and his agenda," said Brian Walsh, the former communications director for the National Republican Senatorial Committee during the 2010 and 2012 elections. "It's unfortunate that a couple of groups are shifting that energy against Republicans for their own benefit. In 2009, they were having town halls bashing Democrats. In 2013, they're having town halls bashing Republicans."
Haley Barbour, the former governor of Mississippi and chairman of the RNC, has similar complaints, singling out the Senate Conservatives Fund for attacking Republicans instead of Democrats in an interview with The Washington Post. "The House of Representatives has voted to repeal Obamacare in one form or another something like 40 times since it went into effect, yet some of these groups like the Senate Conservatives Fund or the Club for Growth attack the same Republicans who voted against OC, but they attack them over tactics,” Barbour said. “There is just no excuse.”
*
Related
11 Crazy Moments From Cruz's Quasi-Filibuster
http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2013/09/25/highlight-reel-11-craziest-moments-from-ted-cruz-s-quasi-filibuster.html
*
© 2013 The Newsweek/Daily Beast Company LLC
http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2013/09/25/ted-cruz-s-fake-fight-against-obamacare-is-making-millions.html [with comments]
--
How Conservatives Cooked A Blue Meth GOP
By Howard Fineman
Posted: 09/25/2013 4:17 pm EDT | Updated: 09/25/2013 5:12 pm EDT
WASHINGTON -- The Republican Party used to be dull and relatively reasonable. It stood for spending restraint, free markets (for big companies) and gentle regulation of business. But it also stood for, or accepted, federal public works and scientific research, a foreign policy that was neither isolationist nor war-mongering, the use of federal power in the name of racial justice, progressive taxation, and a public piety of the most anodyne, “In God We Trust” kind.
The party of Dwight Eisenhower -- of Scotch and soda and sotto voce -- is all but extinct.
What’s left of it is barricaded in the U.S. Senate, under fire in a deadly turf war with Blue Meth Republicanism, a movement at times so angry, reductionist, apocalyptic, God-invoking, fear-mongering and obsessed with purity that it seems to have been concocted in the sub-basement of "Breaking Bad."
One of its younger, more aggressive leaders, Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas, just delivered a grandstanding faux filibuster against Obamacare. Insiders and “mainstream” media weren’t impressed, but then they weren't his audience. The Blue Meth Crew was, and they will be back.
So where did this potent and, to its critics, self-destructive new formula come from?
Just as Walter White needed to know his chemistry, you need to know your history. Here’s a HuffPost Historama -- a brief look at how, over the decades, the Grand Old Party of grandfatherly Ike cooked itself into the anti-government Party of the Temper Tantrum.
[...]
Copyright © 2013 TheHuffingtonPost.com, Inc.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/09/25/blue-meth-gop_n_3989595.html [with several embedded videos, and comments]
--
Jon Stewart Blasts Republicans: 'Obamacare Is Your 'Springtime For Hitler'
09/25/2013
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/09/25/jon-stewart-blasts-republicans-obamacare_n_3987884.html [with the (preceding) Stewart segment ( http://www.thedailyshow.com/watch/tue-september-24-2013/fifty-shades-of-no-way ) embedded (the {following} Stewart segment with the 'Springtime for Hitler' comment at http://www.thedailyshow.com/watch/tue-september-24-2013/fifty-shades-of-no-way---obamacare---government-shutdown ), and comments]
--
Don Lemon: Republicans 'Lied' About Obamacare
By Jack Mirkinson
Posted: 09/25/2013 7:59 am EDT | Updated: 09/25/2013 8:22 am EDT
Don Lemon tore into Republicans on Monday for what he called their "lies" about Obamacare.
Speaking [ http://blackamericaweb.com/168655/check-your-facts-what-you-need-to-know-about-the-affordable-care-act/ ] on his regular slot on the Tom Joyner Morning show, the CNN host said that "some" Republicans had "lied themselves into a corner and threatened to shut down the government unless Obamacare is no longer funded."
"Talk about selfish," he added.
Lemon proceeded to debunk what he called the three biggest "whoppers" Republicans were telling about Obamacare, ending with another shot at the leaders of the push to defund the law and shut down the government.
"If they were really, if they really wanted to do the right thing they would tell the American people the truth," he said. "They would tell the American people that it's not a job stealer, but it's easier for them to give rhetoric and try to save their own hide than to tell the American people the truth."
(h/t Newsbusters [ http://newsbusters.org/blogs/matt-hadro/2013/09/24/cnn-anchor-says-obamacare-defunders-lied-are-holding-american-people-hos ])
Copyright © 2013 TheHuffingtonPost.com, Inc.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/09/25/don-lemon-republicans-lied-obamacare_n_3987747.html [with comments]
--
Obamacare Premiums Report Shows Low Prices For Uninsured With Wide Variation
09/25/2013
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/09/25/obamacare-premiums_n_3984979.html [with embedded video report, and (over 40,000) comments]
--
What Will You Pay For Obamacare? Depends On Where You Live
09/25/13
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/09/25/obamacare-map-_n_3990491.html [with comments]
--
Health Insurance 101: A Starter Course on the Affordable Care Act
09/25/2013
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/veer-gidwaney/affordable-care-act_b_3964250.html [with comments]
--
House GOP Debt Ceiling Offer To Include Pro-Wall Street Provisions, Health Care Cuts
House Majority Leader Eric Cantor of Va., left, and House Speaker John Boehner of Ohio, right, the leaders of the Republican-controlled House of Representatives, stand together at a news conference following a GOP caucus on Capitol Hill, Sept. 10, 2013.
(AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)
By Zach Carter and Luke Johnson
Posted: 09/25/2013 11:21 am EDT
WASHINGTON -- House Republicans plan to demand major perks for coal companies and Wall Street banks, alongside healthcare and social service cuts and a one-year delay in the implementation of Obamacare, in exchange for raising the debt ceiling until the end of 2014, according to a source close to the House GOP leadership.
President Barack Obama and congressional Democrats have repeatedly stated that they will not negotiate over raising the debt limit, saying they will not make a political football of the U.S. government's creditworthiness.
The Republican plan, which would also constitute a significant overhaul of the environmental and financial regulatory system, would cut pensions for Federal employees and raise taxes on immigrant families with parents who do not have a Social Security number. The document claims $7 billion in savings from restricting the child tax credit to immigrants who do have a number, and up to $84 billion from "reform" to the Federal Employee Retirement System.
The plan would increase Medicare means testing, and would eliminate social service block grants and a fund for preventative healthcare in the Affordable Care Act that conservatives have characterized as a "slush fund." Block grants are a capped entitlement program given to states to help fund services like daycare, transportation and home-delivered meals. The Prevention and Public Health Fund has included funds for training primary care doctors and supporting healthy corner stores [ http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2013/04/19/the-incredible-shrinking-prevention-fund/ ].
Coal and oil companies would benefit from provisions to expand offshore drilling and drilling on federal lands. The proposal blocks the federal government from regulating greenhouse gas emissions and coal ash, and would give Congress the power to veto any "major" regulation issued by a federal agency (because an affirmative vote would be required, Congress could void new rules simply through inaction).
In addition, the document claims $23 billion in budget savings from a provision to "Eliminate Dodd-Frank Bailout Fund." The money, however, is not legally permitted to support collapsing banks. Dodd-Frank established the fund to allow regulators to pay some creditors of large banks when they fail, in order to prevent a domino of failures akin to what occurred in 2008 when Lehman Brothers filed for bankruptcy. Absent the fund, the government would have no effective way of limiting the economic damage from a bank's failure, increasing the likelihood that a bailout would be necessary.
A total of 91 Republicans, including House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) and current Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-Va.), voted for the 2008 bank bailout.
Wall Street banks would benefit from an item that gives Congress the authority to slash funding for the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau [ http://www.thenation.com/blog/168954/cfpb-demonstrates-why-banks-fought-its-creation-tooth-and-nail ] -- a signature achievement of the 2010 Dodd-Frank financial reform law. The CFPB is funded through the Federal Reserve, which currently prevents Congress from weighing in on its budget requests. The document claims $5 billion in "budget savings" from a CFPB overhaul; and because the CFPB's annual budget is currently about $450 million, to achieve that figure, the agency would have to be entirely defunded.
Regulators at other banking agencies have complained that GOP budget cuts have limited their ability to police financial excess. In recent years, banks have been repeatedly fined for abuses against consumers, including illegal foreclosures on active-duty military families [ http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/12/business/12military.html ]. Earlier this month, the CFPB required JPMorgan Chase to refund $309 million to 2.1 million customers [ http://www.consumerfinance.gov/newsroom/cfpb-orders-chase-and-jpmorgan-chase-to-pay-309-million-refund-for-illegal-credit-card-practices/ ] over illegal credit card practices.
Despite the Wall Street-friendly provisions, markets are likely to react negatively if the debt ceiling is not raised, or negotiations are protracted. Stocks have have already fallen in recent days [ http://www.marketwatch.com/story/us-stocks-mostly-down-amid-fed-talk-2013-09-23 ] despite a favorable Federal Reserve announcement on monetary policy made in part to allay worries over the debt ceiling.
Former Office of Management and Budget Director Jim Nussle, a Republican, said on CNBC [ http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/09/24/jim-nussle-debt-ceiling_n_3981639.html ] Tuesday, "There'll be repercussions that our economy right now doesn't need, doesn't deserve at a time when it's just trying to get back on its feet."
Treasury Secretary Jack Lew wrote in a letter [ http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/09/25/jack-lew-debt-limit_n_3988025.html ] to Boehner that the debt ceiling would be reached on Oct. 17, and that the Treasury Department would have less cash on hand than expected to meet existing obligations.
The planned legislation will raise the debt ceiling through Dec. 31, 2014. The legislation is also expected to include language backing the Keystone XL pipeline, principles for tax reform and a one-year delay to the individual mandate of the Affordable Care Act.
A Boehner spokesman declined to comment on the proposal.
Copyright © 2013 TheHuffingtonPost.com, Inc.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/09/25/house-gop-debt-ceiling_n_3988783.html [with comments]
--
You Really Ought to Be More Terrified of the Debt Ceiling
REUTERS
The truly scary thing about blowing through the debt limit isn't what we think will happen. It's that we actually have no idea what will happen.
Derek Thompson
Sep 25 2013, 2:20 PM ET
Sen. Ted Cruz's 21-hour soliloquy was rightly criticized (or, characterized) as theater, but at least it classified as comedy. The debt ceiling fight is the less exciting, but more tragic, drama in repertoire in Washington, D.C. After all, we're dealing with two different beasts here: government shutdown and government default. The U.S. government has shut down before, in 1996. It was inconvenient. It was silly. But life carried on, and the ploy eventually backfired on Republicans
[ http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/8/87/Nydailynews_newt.jpg ] intent on embarrassing the White House. But there is no historical precedent for a rich country choosing to default on its debt. None.
The truly scary thing about going over the debt cliff isn't what we think will happen—a scramble to prioritize payments, delayed checks to groups like veterans and senior citizens, and angry, confused investors.
The truly scary thing is that we actually have no idea what will happen. We don't know if it's even possible for the government to prioritize payments to millions of different clients. Households, businesses, and investors don't know how long they'll have to wait for their money, whether it's a defense contract deal, a doctor's reimbursement, or a Social Security check. And nobody will know how long the nightmare will go on. Our international economic reputation—reflected in our low interest rates, the safe haven status of Treasuries (when everything goes haywire, investors clamor for U.S. debt), and our status as global reserve currency—rests on the assumption that Washington isn't completely insane.
That assumption will be proved wrong if we make it past October 17 without increasing the debt limit. That was the drop-dead date announced this morning, when Treasury Secretary Jack Lew sent House Speaker John Boehner a note detailing the dangers of breaking through the debt ceiling.
Here's the end of the letter:
Besides Denmark, no other country I know of asks legislators to vote to pay for something they've already voted to pay for. The debt ceiling should not exist. But now that it does exist, it must be said again and again that it does not create new laws. It just affirms that we will pay for old laws. It's not a smart scalpel for shaving the deficit, it's a guillotine hanging over the head of the head of the country.
Even when the blade doesn't fall, it can still have consequences. The Summer 2011 showdown that nearly resulted in default cost taxpayers $19 billion this decade in elevated interest rates as investor panic began to build. That's the price of playing with the full faith and credit of the United States.
Just imagine what the "largest self-imposed financial disaster in history [ http://www.nytimes.com/2013/09/15/magazine/our-debt-to-society.html?pagewanted=all ]" would cost us.
Copyright © 2013 by The Atlantic Monthly Group (emphasis in original)
http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2013/09/you-really-ought-to-be-more-terrified-of-the-debt-ceiling/279993/ [with comments]
--
Nancy Pelosi Resurrects 14th Amendment Option In Debt Ceiling Fight
By Jennifer Bendery
Posted: 09/25/2013 5:36 pm EDT | Updated: 09/25/2013 5:45 pm EDT
WASHINGTON -- House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) is breathing new life into a previously floated idea for resolving risky congressional fights over raising the government's borrowing limit: the 14th Amendment.
Speaking to reporters Wednesday, Pelosi said President Barack Obama may not like the idea, but she thinks it's within his constitutional authority to raise the debt ceiling himself, in the event Congress fails to do so. Her pitch comes as House Republicans seem to be preparing for a fight over the matter in the coming days.
"I think the 14th Amendment covers it," said Pelosi. "The president and I have a disagreement in that regard, I guess. I guess!"
She added, "I would never have taken that off the table."
The federal government is on track to run out of money on Oct. 17. Instead of putting forward a clean bill to raise its borrowing limit, House Republicans are signaling they plan [ http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/09/25/house-gop-debt-ceiling_n_3988783.html (item second above)] to load up their bill with unrelated measures that Democrats oppose -- including delaying the implementation of health care reform. The debt limit, or the total amount of money the government is authorized to borrow to meet its existing obligations, currently stands at $16.7 trillion.
If Congress fails to reach a deal in time, the government will default on its debt obligations to other countries. Such a default could trigger another financial crisis in the U.S., with likely repercussions abroad.
In past fights over raising the debt ceiling -- when things got to the 11th hour -- Pelosi and other Democrats urged Obama [ http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/07/27/house-democratic-leaders-urge-obama-to-use-14th-amendment_n_910878.html ] to bypass Congress and raise the limit on his own. They point to Section 4 of the 14th Amendment, which states: “The validity of the public debt of the United States, authorized by law, including debts incurred for payments of pensions and bounties for services in suppressing insurrection or rebellion, shall not be questioned.”
Essentially, Democrats are arguing that since the "public debt" cannot be questioned, then the debt ceiling itself is unconstitutional.
Obama routinely brushes off the idea [ http://tv.msnbc.com/2013/01/14/president-obama-backs-away-from-invoking-14th-amendment-on-debt-ceiling/ ] and says it's up to Congress to address the matter. Asked for a response to Pelosi's latest call, a White House aide pointed HuffPost to comments made earlier this year by White House Press Secretary Jay Carney reiterating that the president wouldn't take that route.
"Our position on the 14th Amendment has not changed," Carney said in January. "And let's be very clear -- Congress has the responsibility and the sole authority to raise the debt ceiling. And Congress must do its job."
Copyright © 2013 TheHuffingtonPost.com, Inc.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/09/25/nancy-pelosi-14th-amendment-debt_n_3991148.html [with comments]
--
Robert Reich To Bill O'Reilly: 'Be A Man, Have The Courage, Let's Debate'
Posted: 09/25/2013 3:42 pm EDT | Updated: 09/25/2013 4:01 pm EDT
Robert Reich challenged Bill O'Reilly on Wednesday to a debate on HuffPost Live, telling the Fox News host, "Be a man, have the courage, let's debate."
It was the latest shot lobbed in the conflict unfolding between the two. Reich, an economist and the former Secretary of Labor under President Clinton, was responding to O'Reilly's criticism of Reich's recent op-ed in the New York Times [ http://video.foxnews.com/v/2687098541001/robert-reich-attacking-the-factor/ ]. In it, Reich said that O'Reilly has called him a communist [ http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/09/21/american-bile/ (the fourteenth item in the post to which this is a reply)].
Reich renewed his call to debate O'Reilly [ http://www.huffingtonpost.com/robert-reich/bill-oreilly-debate_b_3982014.html ] in a piece for The Huffington Post on Tuesday, and during his HuffPost Live on Wednesday.
"I have said to Bill O'Reilly repeatedly, 'Will you please have me on your show so we can debate this... Let's have a civil discussion," Reich said. "He will not do that." He later challenged O'Reilly to a "civil debate."
Copyright © 2013 TheHuffingtonPost.com, Inc.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/09/25/bill-oreilly-robert-reich-debate_n_3990762.html [with embedded video, and comments]
--
Kyle Abraham, MacArthur Fellow, On Government Help: 'You Don't Want To Need It'
MacArthur Fellow Kyle Abraham said he received food stamps for less than a year.
09/25/2013
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/09/25/kyle-abraham_n_3990850.html [with comments]
--
in addition to (linked in) the post to which this is a reply and preceding and (other) following, see also (linked in):
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=64989749 and preceding and following
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=83641599 and preceding and following
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=83473879 and preceding and following
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=92374284 (and any future following)
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=92383893 and following
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=92388556 and following
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=92389582 (and any future following)
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=92392083 (and any future following)
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=92392293 (and any future following)
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=92392316 (and any future following)
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=92392390 (and any future following)
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=92393092 and preceding (and any future following)
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=92393256 (and any future following)
09/25/2013
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/09/25/john-mccain-ted-cruz_n_3989887.html [with embedded video, and (over 14,000) comments]
--
Experts: Seuss would be ‘offended’
By LUCY MCCALMONT | 9/25/13 2:46 PM EDT Updated: 9/25/13 5:22 PM EDT
Dr. Seuss wouldn’t have had much of an appetite for Sen. Ted Cruz reading “Green Eggs and Ham” on the Senate floor, experts on the author said Wednesday.
“Not only would he be offended at the misuse of ‘Green Eggs and Ham,’ but he’d be offended at almost everything that Ted Cruz stands for, which is to remove the safety net from poor people, poor and vulnerable people, he’s clearly more power hungry than he is compassionate and he’s a bully,” said Dr. Peter Dreier, a professor of politics at Occidental College.
“Without a doubt, if Dr. Seuss were still around today, he would be poking fun at and criticizing Ted Cruz,” Dreier told POLITICO.
Dreier included Dr. Seuss — whose real name is Theodor Geisel — in his book, “The 100 Greatest Americans of the 20th Century: A Social Justice Hall of Fame” and said Geisel would be “offended” at Cruz using the famous children’s book in his argument against Obamacare.
“‘Green Eggs and Ham’ is about trying new things and giving it a chance and being open to change, right? And here’s Ted Cruz trying to stop Obamacare, really before it gets going,” Dreier said.
Cruz’s office did not immediately responded to request for comment.
Dreier added that most people considered Geisel to be a progressive and before he was a children’s book author, was an editorial cartoonist at a left-wing paper.
Another Seuss scholar says that Dr. Seuss wouldn’t have “much patience” with Cruz.
“I mean in some ways Ted Cruz is a Dr. Seuss character…he is this kind of cartoon character who sort of parodies his own behavior. You could imagine him as being in a Dr. Seuss book without really changing much about him, he’s so outlandish,” said Phil Nel, a Seuss scholar and professor of children’s literature at Kansas State University.
“Seuss was a liberal Democrat and he would not have much patience for people like Mr. Cruz,” Nel said.
Nel added that throughout political history, Seuss has been misappropriated by both the left and right, but conservatives tend to misuse his work more often.
“I think there’s definitely misappropriations from both sides, but because of Seuss’ own politics, it tends to be more from the right that interprets him in ways that he would not approve and did not intend,” Nel said.
“We interpret [literature] according to our needs, so it’s not sort of uniquely a function of being right-wing that you read and work in a way that’s different from how the author intends, but in the case of Seuss, yeah, it’s definitely true that there’s been more misappropriations form the right than the left,” Nel said.
*
Related
10 facts about 'Green Eggs and Ham'
http://www.politico.com/story/2013/09/ted-cruz-10-facts-about-green-eggs-and-ham-97332.html
Politicians bookmark use for Seuss
http://www.politico.com/story/2013/09/dr-seuss-ted-cruz-politicians-97347.html
*
© 2013 POLITICO LLC
http://www.politico.com/story/2013/09/dr-seuss-ted-cruz-97350.html [with embedded video, and comments]
--
Claire McCaskill: Ted Cruz scrambled his ‘Eggs’
9/25/13
http://www.politico.com/story/2013/09/claire-mccaskill-ted-cruz-green-eggs-and-ham-97336.html [with embedded video, and comments]
--
Ted Cruz Tells Dick Durbin He Isn't On Senate Health Care Plan: Here's Why
By Ryan Grim
Posted: 09/25/2013 10:11 pm EDT
WASHINGTON -- Toward the end of Ted Cruz's more than 20-hour occupation of the Senate floor Tuesday and Wednesday, Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) tried to pin the GOP senator down.
“Will the senator from Texas for the record tell us now -- and those who watched this debate -- whether he is protected and his family’s protected?” Durbin asked Wednesday morning, repeating a question he'd been trying to get Cruz to answer.
“I’m happy to tell you now I am eligible for it and I am not currently covered under it,” Cruz responded, diverting the conversation to an uninsured diabetic woman that Durbin had mentioned earlier.
Cruz and Durbin debated where the woman would fit in in a health care metaphor Durbin had concocted, with Durbin arguing that while Obamacare might not give her first-class coverage at its lowest level, at least she was on the plane. Cruz put forward that she was stuffed into the baggage compartment.
Daniel Webster vs. Henry Clay it was not, but it did leave the question of Cruz' health care coverage dangling.
"Senator, you and I are blessed to have the best health insurance in America as members of the United States Senate," Durbin said.
Durbin doesn't get out enough. Members of Congress are afforded top-notch, well subsidized health plans, but they're nothing compared with those provided to the people who make the real decisions in the U.S.
Top Wall Street executives get some of the best health coverage on the planet. Cruz's wife, Heidi Nelson Cruz, is a regional head of a Goldman Sachs division.
According to a 2009 New York Times report [ http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/27/health/policy/27insure.html ], top executive officers and managing directors at the bank participate in a health care program that costs Goldman more than $40,000 in premiums for each particpant’s family annually.
A Cruz representative wasn't immediately available to comment.
Copyright © 2013 TheHuffingtonPost.com, Inc.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/09/25/ted-cruz-dick-durbin_n_3992395.html [with embedded video, and comments]
--
Ted Cruz Criticizes 'Defeatist Attitude' Of Senate GOP In Rush Limbaugh Interview
By Sam Stein
Posted: 09/25/2013 2:22 pm EDT
WASHINGTON -- Shortly after leaving the Senate floor following a 21-hour gab-fest in opposition to the president's health care law, Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) took some sharp jabs at his fellow Republicans for abandoning him in the fight.
In an interview with conservative radio talk show host Rush Limbaugh, the Texas Republican accused his fellow GOPers of being "beaten down" by past legislative battles and of secretly being fine with allowing Obamacare to remain the law of the land.
"The single biggest surprise about arriving to the Senate is the defeatist attitude here," Cruz said. Losing the battle to repeal the Affordable Care Act, he added, was "honestly the outcome that more than a few of [the Republicans] desire."
Intra-party criticisms are not new for Cruz, who has ticked off colleagues within his own party since arriving to Congress. His most recent attempt to defund Obamacare through a continuing resolution to fund the federal government is the most recent incident to draw the ire of members of his own party.
Cruz had just finished carrying out a faux filibuster to stop the CR when he called into Limbaugh's show. Between the end of his speech and that interview, Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) had gone to the Senate floor to admonish Cruz for comparing those who didn't want to have that particular fight to Nazi appeasers [ http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/09/25/john-mccain-ted-cruz_n_3989887.html ].
Limbaugh didn't ask Cruz to respond to McCain's remarks, but did ask him to comment on revelations from Fox News host Chris Wallace that Republicans had sent him unsolicited opposition research when word got out that Cruz would appear on his show. The senator told Limbaugh that he was the target of an alliance between Democrats "and many of the Republicans who are scared of this fight."
"They are scared it won't work and Republicans will get blamed," Cruz said. "They have been here for a long time and they are beaten down and they don't believe it can happen."
Though exhausted, Cruz stayed through two commercial breaks to talk to Limbaugh before saying that he was going to take a nap.
Copyright © 2013 TheHuffingtonPost.com, Inc.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/09/25/ted-cruz-rush-limbaugh_n_3990141.html [with embedded video report, and comments]
--
Rush Limbaugh Tears Into Fox News For Ted Cruz Criticism
Posted: 09/25/2013 2:48 pm EDT | Updated: 09/25/2013 3:31 pm EDT
Rush Limbaugh hammered Fox News on Wednesday for what he called the network's "trashing" of Sen. Ted Cruz.
On Monday, Brit Hume said [ http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/09/24/brit-hume-conservative-radio_n_3981916.html ] that Cruz and other Republicans were being pressured by misguided members of the conservative media into pursuing a defunding of Obamacare and a potential government shutdown. Limbaugh was not pleased. He said [ http://www.rushlimbaugh.com/daily/2013/09/25/fox_news_republicans_are_afraid_of_me ] he had expected to hear such talk from MSNBC or Politico, adding:
"Of all places Fox News trashing all over this, and Fox News essentially blaming me and other conservative media for making Ted Cruz what he is! Brit Hume, of all people, essentially said that Ted Cruz is who he is because he's being pressured by people like me. And left to his own devices, Cruz might not be doing this, is the implication. He didn't actually say that. I was literally stunned watching this. The fact that, even after 21 hours, even at the beginning of it, they cannot at least admit that this is who the man is. He doesn't need any advisers here. He doesn't need any pressure. The man is not a coward. Ted Cruz isn't afraid of anybody. The real question is, what is the Republican establishment afraid of? What are some of these conservative media types at Fox News afraid of? What is the Washington establishment on the Republican side afraid of? Government shutdown, losing elections, what do you guys think you've been doing?"
(via Media Matters [ http://mediamatters.org/video/2013/09/25/limbaugh-attacks-fox-news-gop-establishment-for/196079 ])
Copyright © 2013 TheHuffingtonPost.com, Inc.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/09/25/rush-limbaugh-fox-news-ted-cruz_n_3990639.html [with embedded Limbaugh audio, and comments]
--
Lamar Alexander: Ted Cruz's Strategy Might Have Been Dreamed Up By Democrats
09/25/2013
WASHINGTON -- Sen. Ted Cruz's strategy of forcing a shutdown of the federal government is so ill-conceived that it will not only fail, but also could backfire and hurt Republicans so badly it might have been dreamed up by Democrats, Sen. Lamar Alexander argued Wednesday.
[...]
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/09/25/lamar-alexander-ted-cruz_n_3991486.html [with embedded video, and comments]
--
Women Senators Slam Ted Cruz, Vow To Protect Obamacare
Sen. Debbie Stabenow (D-Mich.) joined other women Democratic senators on Wednesday at a press conference to decry Ted Cruz and the efforts to defund Obamacare.
09/25/2013
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/09/25/women-senators-obamacare_n_3989920.html [with embedded video reports, and comments]
--
Rand Paul: Republicans Won't Defund Obamacare In Government Shutdown Fight
09/25/2013
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/09/25/rand-paul-defund-obamacare_n_3990944.html [with (over 7,000) comments]
--
Surprise! Obamacare foe Cruz votes with Democrats on spending plan
Video [embedded]
Cruz ends 21-hr speech, votes with Dems
September 25, 2013
http://www.cnn.com/2013/09/25/politics/shutdown-showdown/ [with additional embedded videos, and (over 31,000) comments]
*
Ted Cruz Talkathon Ends, Senate Votes As Shutdown Looms
09/25/2013
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/09/25/ted-cruz-speech_n_3989032.html [with embedded video report, and (nearly 9,000) comments]
--
Government Shutdown 2013: House GOP Considers Options
By ANDREW TAYLOR
Posted: 09/26/2013 8:58 am EDT
WASHINGTON — Pressure is building on fractious House Republicans over legislation to prevent a partial government shutdown, as the Democratic-led Senate is expected to strip a tea party-backed plan to defund Obamacare from the bill.
As the Senate telegraphed its moves, House Republicans deliberated an array of imperfect options on both a temporary spending bill required to avert a shutdown and a separate measure to permit the government to borrow almost $1 trillion to keep paying its bills.
Lawmakers face a midnight Monday deadline to complete a stopgap spending bill to avoid a partial government shutdown that would keep hundreds of thousands of federal workers off the job, close national parks and generate damaging headlines for whichever side the public holds responsible.
The timeline is daunting since House GOP leaders appear all but certain to reject the Senate's attempt at a simple, straightforward stopgap spending bill like those routinely passed since the 1995-96 government shutdowns that bruised Republicans and strengthened President Bill Clinton.
A 21-hour talkathon by Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, whipped up the GOP's tea party wing even as it complicated efforts by House GOP leaders to assemble rank-and-file support for a temporary spending measure.
Cruz wants to derail the spending bill to deny Democrats the ability to strip out the anti-Obamacare provision, a strategy that has put him at odds with other Republicans who say the move won't work and fear it would spark a shutdown.
Many GOP senators, including the Senate's top two Republicans, have said they'll vote to advance the measure rather than filibuster it to death, a vote that promises to give Democrats controlling the chamber a procedural edge in a subsequent vote to kill the tea party's effort to use the must-pass bill to derail Obamacare.
Wednesday evening, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., unveiled his version of the stopgap spending bill, which would keep the government running through Nov. 15. It also contains, for now, the anti-Obamacare provision sought by Republicans. He set in motion a key vote on Friday that promises to expose the divide between Cruz and more pragmatic Republicans. Senate passage of the spending bill – stripped of the Obamacare provision – was expected no later than Saturday.
"Any senator who votes with Majority Leader Harry Reid and the Democrats ... has made the decision to allow Obamacare to be funded," Cruz told reporters after his marathon speech ended Wednesday at noon. Cruz himself has predicted that is exactly what the Senate will do, and he's already called on House Republicans to reject the bill when it comes back to them.
The simplest thing for Republicans to do would be to accept the Senate bill and send it to the White House for Obama's signature, a prospect that's unappealing to Republicans because it would make them look like they're surrendering. House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, originally preferred a plan to deliver to Obama a stopgap funding bill without the Obamacare provisions.
Now, GOP leaders are exploring adding face-saving options – like the repeal of a tax on medical devices, which many Democrats also oppose – to the stopgap spending bill. There's also sentiment to take away the health insurance subsidy awarded lawmakers now that they'll be required to purchase health care on Obamacare exchanges.
The House is expected to approve a measure this week allowing the Treasury to borrow freely for another year, although that legislation, too, would include a provision to carry out the Republican campaign against Obamacare. While no final decisions have been made, party officials said a one-year delay was likely to be added, rather than the full-fledged defunding that is part of the spending bill awaiting action in the Senate.
The GOP's demands on the debt limit involves far less dramatic spending cuts than Republicans demanded from Obama in a debt showdown two years. Then, Republicans extracted $2.1 trillion in cuts over a decade for a similar increase in the borrowing cap. Now, GOP leaders are mulling a 14-month borrowing increase that would increase the debt ceiling by almost $1 trillion but are considering only modest cuts, like an increase in the contribution federal workers make to their pensions.
Shutdown-averting stopgap spending bills traditionally have been steered clear of these kinds of battles for fear of a politically damaging shutdown. But with the new health care law poised to enroll millions of people into Obamacare starting Oct. 1, there's a new urgency among opponents to pull out all the stops to try to derail it.
Health and Human Secretary Kathleen Sebelius told reporters this week that consumers will have an average of 53 plans to choose from, and her department estimated the average monthly individual premium for a benchmark policy known as the "second-lowest cost silver plan" would range from a low of $192 in Minnesota to a high of $516 in Wyoming. Tax credits will bring down the cost for many.
Republicans counter that the legislation is causing employers to defer hiring new workers, lay off existing ones and reduce the hours of others to hold down costs as they try to ease the impact of the bill's taxes and other requirements.
"Obamacare is destroying jobs," Cruz said. "It is driving up health care costs. It is killing health benefits. It is shattering the economy."
© 2013 Associated Press
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/09/26/government-shutdown-2013_n_3995145.html [with embedded video report, and comments]
--
Ted Cruz’s Fake Fight Against Obamacare Is Making Millions
Video [embedded]
Twitter erupted with praise, criticism, and comedy as Ted Cruz took to the Senate floor Tuesday. #DisappoinTed?
Ted Cruz’s war against Obamacare is a racket to raise his profile and millions of dollars. Patricia Murphy says even his Republican colleagues loathe him.
by Patricia Murphy
Sep 25, 2013 7:16 AM EDT
When Sen. Ted Cruz went to the Senate floor Tuesday to block a bill that would fund the federal government for the next two months, he said to the C-SPAN cameras, "We don't need fake fights. We don't need fake votes. What we need is real change."
But at that moment, Cruz was leading a fake fight over a fake vote that nearly all in Washington agree would never actually defund Obamacare the way Cruz said it would.
As for the “real change” Ted Cruz said he was looking for, that change has arrived in Washington, and the change is Ted Cruz himself. Almost single-handedly, the freshman Tea Party apostle has upended the clubby U.S. Senate, roiled the tradition-bound GOP, and revolutionized the business of power in the nation’s capital, all thanks to the health-care bill that Cruz, former senator Jim DeMint, and a small army of conservative operatives have essentially made a living out of hating.
"These guys aren't stupid. They can read the votes,” says a veteran Republican operative. “That's why Republicans are so infuriated. Folks know exactly why they're doing this. They are using this issue and misleading conservatives in order to expand their own influence and raise money for themselves."
The biggest actors so far in Defund, Inc. have been Cruz, Sen. Mike Lee of Utah, and the Senate Conservatives Fund, the leadership PAC that Jim DeMint launched as a senator and handed off to his former staff members to run as a conservative super PAC. While Cruz led the defund fight in the Senate this summer, the SCF led a huge parallel fight on the outside, setting up a website [ http://www.dontfundobamacare.com/ ], running radio and television ads [ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hn1Zf_xi-A0 (next below)],
robocalls and a direct mail campaign, all designed to raise money from still-hot conservative activists and urge them to sign a petition to tell Congress not to fund the health-care bill when they greenlight funding for the rest of the government.
Starring in the ads, the robocalls, and the direct-mail campaign were Cruz and Lee, two former Supreme Court clerks turned underdog Senate candidates turned conservative Senate firebrands. As Cruz and Lee staged a filibuster-like marathon speech session Tuesday into Wednesday, the SCF streamed them on its website. But while Lee’s brand of fire is like a light you’d offer a friend looking for a smoke, Cruz’s heat has been pure napalm, much of it focused at his own Republican colleagues in the Senate. It’s made Cruz easily the most hated man in the Senate, but a figure quite beloved by Tea Party purists who want nothing more than to support a senator who is willing to mix it up in a scrum, even—or maybe especially—with his fellow Republicans.
It was that willingness to not only break, but assault, Ronald Reagan’s 11th Amendment not to speak ill of a fellow party member, that got Cruz noticed in his 2012 primary race in the first place. Cruz was running against David Dewhurst, Rick Perry’s almost blindly loyal lieutenant governor in Texas and a trusted member of the Lone Star State Establishment. But Tea Partiers in Texas and DeMint conservatives in Washington wanted someone fresh and feisty and in short order, they got Ted Cruz. Cruz quickly became the marquee candidate for the Senate Conservatives Fund and later Senate Conservatives Action. The Club for Growth’s PAC joined in, as did Dick Armey’s group, FreedomWorks.
According to the Center for Responsive Politics, the conservative pro-Cruz outside interest groups plowed millions into the primary, outspending the pro-Dewhurst super PACS and giving Cruz enough lift to win. The top two super PACs supporting Cruz were Club for Growth Action, which spent more than $5.5 million to help elect Cruz, and the Senate Conservatives Fund and Senate Conservatives Action, which spent $1.3 million and gave Cruz more than any other candidate [ http://www.opensecrets.org/outsidespending/recips.php?cmte=C00487470&cycle=2012 ] that cycle. Members of the Club for Growth and the SCF were also the top two sources for Cruz’s individual donors, with more than $1 million combined.
Fast forward one year and Cruz has become a superstar for the conservative movement that the Senate Conservatives Fund is looking to harness. Thanks to Cruz’s star power, they’re doing it. As Cruz and Lee’s multimedia campaign blanketed the country, the month of August, typically a snooze for D.C.-based fundraisers, yielded the SCF’s largest nonelection year fundraising month to date, at $1.5 million.
Most importantly, the SCF now has in its possession a massive email list of potential like-minded donors, thanks to the 1.5 million people who signed the defund petition on the Don’tFundObamaCare website. While "a list" may just be a roster in some circles, in the parlance of power and politics, a list is nothing less than a warchest-in-waiting for the SCF to use on behalf of its allies and against its enemies in the 2014 mid-term elections and the 2016 presidential race. It also makes the SCF the most relevant, and possibly the most powerful, conservative group in the country, including the Club for Growth and FreedomWorks.
If anyone is still confused after the Obamacare funding fight (faux filibuster and all), Ted Cruz is now a 2016 contender and the SCF’s biggest ally. Its enemies are many of the men and women he shares a cloakroom with—any Republican senator who did not join in.
That’s the part that has Cruz’s fellow Republicans fuming. Although the Fund has run just one ad against a Democrat (Sen. Mark Pryor) this cycle, it has taken the unprecedented step of running ads attacking seven GOP senators, including Mitch McConnell, Jeff Flake, and Lindsey Graham, for not opposing Obamacare enough, even though they all voted against the bill and said they would vote to defund it. Last week, the SCF announced it would also run ads against House Republicans if they fail to embrace the right defund strategy.
"In the summer of 2009, the Tea Party energy was appropriately focused on President Obama and his agenda," said Brian Walsh, the former communications director for the National Republican Senatorial Committee during the 2010 and 2012 elections. "It's unfortunate that a couple of groups are shifting that energy against Republicans for their own benefit. In 2009, they were having town halls bashing Democrats. In 2013, they're having town halls bashing Republicans."
Haley Barbour, the former governor of Mississippi and chairman of the RNC, has similar complaints, singling out the Senate Conservatives Fund for attacking Republicans instead of Democrats in an interview with The Washington Post. "The House of Representatives has voted to repeal Obamacare in one form or another something like 40 times since it went into effect, yet some of these groups like the Senate Conservatives Fund or the Club for Growth attack the same Republicans who voted against OC, but they attack them over tactics,” Barbour said. “There is just no excuse.”
*
Related
11 Crazy Moments From Cruz's Quasi-Filibuster
http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2013/09/25/highlight-reel-11-craziest-moments-from-ted-cruz-s-quasi-filibuster.html
*
© 2013 The Newsweek/Daily Beast Company LLC
http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2013/09/25/ted-cruz-s-fake-fight-against-obamacare-is-making-millions.html [with comments]
--
How Conservatives Cooked A Blue Meth GOP
By Howard Fineman
Posted: 09/25/2013 4:17 pm EDT | Updated: 09/25/2013 5:12 pm EDT
WASHINGTON -- The Republican Party used to be dull and relatively reasonable. It stood for spending restraint, free markets (for big companies) and gentle regulation of business. But it also stood for, or accepted, federal public works and scientific research, a foreign policy that was neither isolationist nor war-mongering, the use of federal power in the name of racial justice, progressive taxation, and a public piety of the most anodyne, “In God We Trust” kind.
The party of Dwight Eisenhower -- of Scotch and soda and sotto voce -- is all but extinct.
What’s left of it is barricaded in the U.S. Senate, under fire in a deadly turf war with Blue Meth Republicanism, a movement at times so angry, reductionist, apocalyptic, God-invoking, fear-mongering and obsessed with purity that it seems to have been concocted in the sub-basement of "Breaking Bad."
One of its younger, more aggressive leaders, Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas, just delivered a grandstanding faux filibuster against Obamacare. Insiders and “mainstream” media weren’t impressed, but then they weren't his audience. The Blue Meth Crew was, and they will be back.
So where did this potent and, to its critics, self-destructive new formula come from?
Just as Walter White needed to know his chemistry, you need to know your history. Here’s a HuffPost Historama -- a brief look at how, over the decades, the Grand Old Party of grandfatherly Ike cooked itself into the anti-government Party of the Temper Tantrum.
[...]
Copyright © 2013 TheHuffingtonPost.com, Inc.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/09/25/blue-meth-gop_n_3989595.html [with several embedded videos, and comments]
--
Jon Stewart Blasts Republicans: 'Obamacare Is Your 'Springtime For Hitler'
09/25/2013
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/09/25/jon-stewart-blasts-republicans-obamacare_n_3987884.html [with the (preceding) Stewart segment ( http://www.thedailyshow.com/watch/tue-september-24-2013/fifty-shades-of-no-way ) embedded (the {following} Stewart segment with the 'Springtime for Hitler' comment at http://www.thedailyshow.com/watch/tue-september-24-2013/fifty-shades-of-no-way---obamacare---government-shutdown ), and comments]
--
Don Lemon: Republicans 'Lied' About Obamacare
By Jack Mirkinson
Posted: 09/25/2013 7:59 am EDT | Updated: 09/25/2013 8:22 am EDT
Don Lemon tore into Republicans on Monday for what he called their "lies" about Obamacare.
Speaking [ http://blackamericaweb.com/168655/check-your-facts-what-you-need-to-know-about-the-affordable-care-act/ ] on his regular slot on the Tom Joyner Morning show, the CNN host said that "some" Republicans had "lied themselves into a corner and threatened to shut down the government unless Obamacare is no longer funded."
"Talk about selfish," he added.
Lemon proceeded to debunk what he called the three biggest "whoppers" Republicans were telling about Obamacare, ending with another shot at the leaders of the push to defund the law and shut down the government.
"If they were really, if they really wanted to do the right thing they would tell the American people the truth," he said. "They would tell the American people that it's not a job stealer, but it's easier for them to give rhetoric and try to save their own hide than to tell the American people the truth."
(h/t Newsbusters [ http://newsbusters.org/blogs/matt-hadro/2013/09/24/cnn-anchor-says-obamacare-defunders-lied-are-holding-american-people-hos ])
Copyright © 2013 TheHuffingtonPost.com, Inc.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/09/25/don-lemon-republicans-lied-obamacare_n_3987747.html [with comments]
--
Obamacare Premiums Report Shows Low Prices For Uninsured With Wide Variation
09/25/2013
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/09/25/obamacare-premiums_n_3984979.html [with embedded video report, and (over 40,000) comments]
--
What Will You Pay For Obamacare? Depends On Where You Live
09/25/13
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/09/25/obamacare-map-_n_3990491.html [with comments]
--
Health Insurance 101: A Starter Course on the Affordable Care Act
09/25/2013
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/veer-gidwaney/affordable-care-act_b_3964250.html [with comments]
--
House GOP Debt Ceiling Offer To Include Pro-Wall Street Provisions, Health Care Cuts
House Majority Leader Eric Cantor of Va., left, and House Speaker John Boehner of Ohio, right, the leaders of the Republican-controlled House of Representatives, stand together at a news conference following a GOP caucus on Capitol Hill, Sept. 10, 2013.
(AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)
By Zach Carter and Luke Johnson
Posted: 09/25/2013 11:21 am EDT
WASHINGTON -- House Republicans plan to demand major perks for coal companies and Wall Street banks, alongside healthcare and social service cuts and a one-year delay in the implementation of Obamacare, in exchange for raising the debt ceiling until the end of 2014, according to a source close to the House GOP leadership.
President Barack Obama and congressional Democrats have repeatedly stated that they will not negotiate over raising the debt limit, saying they will not make a political football of the U.S. government's creditworthiness.
The Republican plan, which would also constitute a significant overhaul of the environmental and financial regulatory system, would cut pensions for Federal employees and raise taxes on immigrant families with parents who do not have a Social Security number. The document claims $7 billion in savings from restricting the child tax credit to immigrants who do have a number, and up to $84 billion from "reform" to the Federal Employee Retirement System.
The plan would increase Medicare means testing, and would eliminate social service block grants and a fund for preventative healthcare in the Affordable Care Act that conservatives have characterized as a "slush fund." Block grants are a capped entitlement program given to states to help fund services like daycare, transportation and home-delivered meals. The Prevention and Public Health Fund has included funds for training primary care doctors and supporting healthy corner stores [ http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2013/04/19/the-incredible-shrinking-prevention-fund/ ].
Coal and oil companies would benefit from provisions to expand offshore drilling and drilling on federal lands. The proposal blocks the federal government from regulating greenhouse gas emissions and coal ash, and would give Congress the power to veto any "major" regulation issued by a federal agency (because an affirmative vote would be required, Congress could void new rules simply through inaction).
In addition, the document claims $23 billion in budget savings from a provision to "Eliminate Dodd-Frank Bailout Fund." The money, however, is not legally permitted to support collapsing banks. Dodd-Frank established the fund to allow regulators to pay some creditors of large banks when they fail, in order to prevent a domino of failures akin to what occurred in 2008 when Lehman Brothers filed for bankruptcy. Absent the fund, the government would have no effective way of limiting the economic damage from a bank's failure, increasing the likelihood that a bailout would be necessary.
A total of 91 Republicans, including House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) and current Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-Va.), voted for the 2008 bank bailout.
Wall Street banks would benefit from an item that gives Congress the authority to slash funding for the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau [ http://www.thenation.com/blog/168954/cfpb-demonstrates-why-banks-fought-its-creation-tooth-and-nail ] -- a signature achievement of the 2010 Dodd-Frank financial reform law. The CFPB is funded through the Federal Reserve, which currently prevents Congress from weighing in on its budget requests. The document claims $5 billion in "budget savings" from a CFPB overhaul; and because the CFPB's annual budget is currently about $450 million, to achieve that figure, the agency would have to be entirely defunded.
Regulators at other banking agencies have complained that GOP budget cuts have limited their ability to police financial excess. In recent years, banks have been repeatedly fined for abuses against consumers, including illegal foreclosures on active-duty military families [ http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/12/business/12military.html ]. Earlier this month, the CFPB required JPMorgan Chase to refund $309 million to 2.1 million customers [ http://www.consumerfinance.gov/newsroom/cfpb-orders-chase-and-jpmorgan-chase-to-pay-309-million-refund-for-illegal-credit-card-practices/ ] over illegal credit card practices.
Despite the Wall Street-friendly provisions, markets are likely to react negatively if the debt ceiling is not raised, or negotiations are protracted. Stocks have have already fallen in recent days [ http://www.marketwatch.com/story/us-stocks-mostly-down-amid-fed-talk-2013-09-23 ] despite a favorable Federal Reserve announcement on monetary policy made in part to allay worries over the debt ceiling.
Former Office of Management and Budget Director Jim Nussle, a Republican, said on CNBC [ http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/09/24/jim-nussle-debt-ceiling_n_3981639.html ] Tuesday, "There'll be repercussions that our economy right now doesn't need, doesn't deserve at a time when it's just trying to get back on its feet."
Treasury Secretary Jack Lew wrote in a letter [ http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/09/25/jack-lew-debt-limit_n_3988025.html ] to Boehner that the debt ceiling would be reached on Oct. 17, and that the Treasury Department would have less cash on hand than expected to meet existing obligations.
The planned legislation will raise the debt ceiling through Dec. 31, 2014. The legislation is also expected to include language backing the Keystone XL pipeline, principles for tax reform and a one-year delay to the individual mandate of the Affordable Care Act.
A Boehner spokesman declined to comment on the proposal.
Copyright © 2013 TheHuffingtonPost.com, Inc.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/09/25/house-gop-debt-ceiling_n_3988783.html [with comments]
--
You Really Ought to Be More Terrified of the Debt Ceiling
REUTERS
The truly scary thing about blowing through the debt limit isn't what we think will happen. It's that we actually have no idea what will happen.
Derek Thompson
Sep 25 2013, 2:20 PM ET
Sen. Ted Cruz's 21-hour soliloquy was rightly criticized (or, characterized) as theater, but at least it classified as comedy. The debt ceiling fight is the less exciting, but more tragic, drama in repertoire in Washington, D.C. After all, we're dealing with two different beasts here: government shutdown and government default. The U.S. government has shut down before, in 1996. It was inconvenient. It was silly. But life carried on, and the ploy eventually backfired on Republicans
[ http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/8/87/Nydailynews_newt.jpg ] intent on embarrassing the White House. But there is no historical precedent for a rich country choosing to default on its debt. None.
The truly scary thing about going over the debt cliff isn't what we think will happen—a scramble to prioritize payments, delayed checks to groups like veterans and senior citizens, and angry, confused investors.
The truly scary thing is that we actually have no idea what will happen. We don't know if it's even possible for the government to prioritize payments to millions of different clients. Households, businesses, and investors don't know how long they'll have to wait for their money, whether it's a defense contract deal, a doctor's reimbursement, or a Social Security check. And nobody will know how long the nightmare will go on. Our international economic reputation—reflected in our low interest rates, the safe haven status of Treasuries (when everything goes haywire, investors clamor for U.S. debt), and our status as global reserve currency—rests on the assumption that Washington isn't completely insane.
That assumption will be proved wrong if we make it past October 17 without increasing the debt limit. That was the drop-dead date announced this morning, when Treasury Secretary Jack Lew sent House Speaker John Boehner a note detailing the dangers of breaking through the debt ceiling.
Here's the end of the letter:
Besides Denmark, no other country I know of asks legislators to vote to pay for something they've already voted to pay for. The debt ceiling should not exist. But now that it does exist, it must be said again and again that it does not create new laws. It just affirms that we will pay for old laws. It's not a smart scalpel for shaving the deficit, it's a guillotine hanging over the head of the head of the country.
Even when the blade doesn't fall, it can still have consequences. The Summer 2011 showdown that nearly resulted in default cost taxpayers $19 billion this decade in elevated interest rates as investor panic began to build. That's the price of playing with the full faith and credit of the United States.
Just imagine what the "largest self-imposed financial disaster in history [ http://www.nytimes.com/2013/09/15/magazine/our-debt-to-society.html?pagewanted=all ]" would cost us.
Copyright © 2013 by The Atlantic Monthly Group (emphasis in original)
http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2013/09/you-really-ought-to-be-more-terrified-of-the-debt-ceiling/279993/ [with comments]
--
Nancy Pelosi Resurrects 14th Amendment Option In Debt Ceiling Fight
By Jennifer Bendery
Posted: 09/25/2013 5:36 pm EDT | Updated: 09/25/2013 5:45 pm EDT
WASHINGTON -- House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) is breathing new life into a previously floated idea for resolving risky congressional fights over raising the government's borrowing limit: the 14th Amendment.
Speaking to reporters Wednesday, Pelosi said President Barack Obama may not like the idea, but she thinks it's within his constitutional authority to raise the debt ceiling himself, in the event Congress fails to do so. Her pitch comes as House Republicans seem to be preparing for a fight over the matter in the coming days.
"I think the 14th Amendment covers it," said Pelosi. "The president and I have a disagreement in that regard, I guess. I guess!"
She added, "I would never have taken that off the table."
The federal government is on track to run out of money on Oct. 17. Instead of putting forward a clean bill to raise its borrowing limit, House Republicans are signaling they plan [ http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/09/25/house-gop-debt-ceiling_n_3988783.html (item second above)] to load up their bill with unrelated measures that Democrats oppose -- including delaying the implementation of health care reform. The debt limit, or the total amount of money the government is authorized to borrow to meet its existing obligations, currently stands at $16.7 trillion.
If Congress fails to reach a deal in time, the government will default on its debt obligations to other countries. Such a default could trigger another financial crisis in the U.S., with likely repercussions abroad.
In past fights over raising the debt ceiling -- when things got to the 11th hour -- Pelosi and other Democrats urged Obama [ http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/07/27/house-democratic-leaders-urge-obama-to-use-14th-amendment_n_910878.html ] to bypass Congress and raise the limit on his own. They point to Section 4 of the 14th Amendment, which states: “The validity of the public debt of the United States, authorized by law, including debts incurred for payments of pensions and bounties for services in suppressing insurrection or rebellion, shall not be questioned.”
Essentially, Democrats are arguing that since the "public debt" cannot be questioned, then the debt ceiling itself is unconstitutional.
Obama routinely brushes off the idea [ http://tv.msnbc.com/2013/01/14/president-obama-backs-away-from-invoking-14th-amendment-on-debt-ceiling/ ] and says it's up to Congress to address the matter. Asked for a response to Pelosi's latest call, a White House aide pointed HuffPost to comments made earlier this year by White House Press Secretary Jay Carney reiterating that the president wouldn't take that route.
"Our position on the 14th Amendment has not changed," Carney said in January. "And let's be very clear -- Congress has the responsibility and the sole authority to raise the debt ceiling. And Congress must do its job."
Copyright © 2013 TheHuffingtonPost.com, Inc.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/09/25/nancy-pelosi-14th-amendment-debt_n_3991148.html [with comments]
--
Robert Reich To Bill O'Reilly: 'Be A Man, Have The Courage, Let's Debate'
Posted: 09/25/2013 3:42 pm EDT | Updated: 09/25/2013 4:01 pm EDT
Robert Reich challenged Bill O'Reilly on Wednesday to a debate on HuffPost Live, telling the Fox News host, "Be a man, have the courage, let's debate."
It was the latest shot lobbed in the conflict unfolding between the two. Reich, an economist and the former Secretary of Labor under President Clinton, was responding to O'Reilly's criticism of Reich's recent op-ed in the New York Times [ http://video.foxnews.com/v/2687098541001/robert-reich-attacking-the-factor/ ]. In it, Reich said that O'Reilly has called him a communist [ http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/09/21/american-bile/ (the fourteenth item in the post to which this is a reply)].
Reich renewed his call to debate O'Reilly [ http://www.huffingtonpost.com/robert-reich/bill-oreilly-debate_b_3982014.html ] in a piece for The Huffington Post on Tuesday, and during his HuffPost Live on Wednesday.
"I have said to Bill O'Reilly repeatedly, 'Will you please have me on your show so we can debate this... Let's have a civil discussion," Reich said. "He will not do that." He later challenged O'Reilly to a "civil debate."
Copyright © 2013 TheHuffingtonPost.com, Inc.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/09/25/bill-oreilly-robert-reich-debate_n_3990762.html [with embedded video, and comments]
--
Kyle Abraham, MacArthur Fellow, On Government Help: 'You Don't Want To Need It'
MacArthur Fellow Kyle Abraham said he received food stamps for less than a year.
09/25/2013
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/09/25/kyle-abraham_n_3990850.html [with comments]
--
in addition to (linked in) the post to which this is a reply and preceding and (other) following, see also (linked in):
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=64989749 and preceding and following
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=83641599 and preceding and following
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=83473879 and preceding and following
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=92374284 (and any future following)
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=92383893 and following
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=92388556 and following
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=92389582 (and any future following)
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=92392083 (and any future following)
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=92392293 (and any future following)
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=92392316 (and any future following)
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=92392390 (and any future following)
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=92393092 and preceding (and any future following)
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=92393256 (and any future following)
Greensburg, KS - 5/4/07
"Eternal vigilance is the price of Liberty."
from John Philpot Curran, Speech
upon the Right of Election, 1790
F6
Discover What Traders Are Watching
Explore small cap ideas before they hit the headlines.
