The President’s Pivot

By CHARLES M. BLOW

  “Thus it is that in war the victorious strategist only seeks battle after the victory has been won, whereas he who is destined to defeat first fights and afterwards looks for victory.”

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Damon Winter/The New York Times

Charles M. Blow

That quote, from Sun Tzu’s ancient Chinese treatise “The Art of War,” perfectly captures President Obama’s strategic victory over Tea Party members of Congress on the government shutdown and the debt ceiling debate. It also explains his immediate pivot to another topic that Tea Partyers hate and over which their obstinacy is likely to get the party hammered again: comprehensive immigration reform.

This is a brilliant tactical move on the president’s part. And Republicans know it.

As the G.O.P. was nearing its moment of collapse on the shutdown and debt ceiling, Representative Raúl Labrador, Republican of Idaho, said, “I think it’d be crazy for the House Republican leadership to enter into negotiations with him on immigration.” He continued: “And I’m a proponent of immigration reform. So I think what he’s done over the last two and a half weeks — he’s trying to destroy the Republican Party. And I think that anything we do right now with this president on immigration will be with that same goal in mind: which is to try to destroy the Republican Party and not to get good policies.”

The conservative columnist Charles Krauthammer laid out the president’s calculus more bluntly on Fox News: “With immigration, he wins either way. I’m not sure he thinks he can get it passed, seeing the resistance among the Republicans to the deal over the budget. I think he knows he’s not going to have a good chance of getting immigration through, but he thinks — and he’s probably right — that he can exploit this for the midterm election as a way to gin up support, for the Democrats to portray the Republicans as anti-immigrant, anti-Hispanic, etc.”

Republicans have a tough choice.

They can ride shotgun once again with the politically suicidal Tea Party faction, a group that the Pew Research Center for the People and the Press found this week to be “less popular than ever.” They can allow the most strident voices on the far right that oppose comprehensive immigration reform — Rush Limbaugh has likened it to the Republican Party’s “authoring its demise” — to direct their path and further alienate Hispanic voters, who are increasingly coming to see the party as an unwelcoming place. Mitt Romney lost the Hispanic vote by 44 points last year, and the Republican National Committee’s own autopsy on that loss surmised:

“If Hispanic Americans perceive that a G.O.P. nominee or candidate does not want them in the United States (i.e., self-deportation), they will not pay attention to our next sentence. It does not matter what we say about education, jobs or the economy; if Hispanics think we do not want them here, they will close their ears to our policies.”

Or Republicans can take the less likely path and demonstrate that they’ve been cowed enough to move ahead on a major piece of legislation that is supported by the majority of the American people — a July Gallup poll found that 71 percent of Americans believe that passing immigration reform is important. And that would be good not just for the president’s legacy but for the health of the country as a whole.

In a 2012 paper published by the Cato Institute, Raúl Hinojosa Ojeda, director of the North American Integration and Development Center at the University of California, Los Angeles, used computing models to estimate the following:

“Comprehensive immigration reform generates an annual increase in U.S. G.D.P. of at least 0.84 percent. This amounts to $1.5 trillion in additional G.D.P. over 10 years. It also boosts wages for both native-born and newly legalized immigrant workers.”

Comprehensive immigration reform is the right thing and the thing that Americans want. But the far right is hardly concerned with what’s right and has little appetite for agreeing with the will of the majority of the American people (despite talking ad nauseam about standing up for the American people).

The far right is angry at the government and the man at the top of it. According to a Pew Research report released Friday: “Anger at the federal government is most pronounced among Tea Party Republicans. Fully 55 percent of Republicans and Republican-leaning independents who agree with the Tea Party say they are angry with the federal government — about double the percentage among non-Tea Party Republicans (27 percent) and Democrats and Democratic leaners (25 percent).”

They have been blinded by that anger. The president knows that. And he knows that blind soldiers don’t often win battles. In choosing to pivot to immigration reform, he has created a win-win scenario for himself and the Democrats. Clever, clever.

Why Dummies Shut Down Government New!!!

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Obama Derangement Syndrome

Oh yes,"Obama Derangement Syndrome"MT @Mwforhr: & this: pic.twitter.com/z8ijx6ePnB @OneLadyLibra @AngryBraveHeart @SheikhKhalifaPM @NaderHasan63
— Penny (@Penny_G) October 19, 2013

Michele Bachmann: Government Reopening Is 'A Very Sad Day' 

 The Huffington Post  |  By Paige Lavender

 

Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-Minn.) called Thursday, the day the government reopened after a shutdown that lasted almost two weeks, "a very sad day."

In an interview with Fox News, Bachmann said President Barack Obama "got 100 percent of what he wanted" in the shutdown deal that passed late Wednesday, and said he made "a very bad bargain."
MinnPost reports Bachmann criticized the president for taking an "immediate victory lap."
“To me, it’s a very sad day, because his agenda is going to go forward and he gets an immediate victory lap," Bachmann said, according to MinnPost.
The end of the shutdown meant thousands of furloughed workers could return to their jobs, national parks could reopen and desperately ill patients could continue clinical trials, among other things. Obama signed the bill to reopen the government early Thursday morning.

The Theology of Government Shutdown: Christian Dominionism

Morgan Guyton Associate Pastor, Burke United Methodist Church

 

On the eve of our government shutdown, I wanted to do some research into the theological roots of Senator Ted Cruz, the standard-bearer of the Tea Party Republicans behind the shutdown. I'm interested in understanding what account of Christianity creates the "no compromise" crusade that the Tea Party has become known for. It turns out that Ted's father, Rafael Cruz, is a pastor with Texas charismatic ministry Purifying Fire International who has been campaigning against Obamacare the last several months. He has a distinct theological vision for what America is supposed to look like: Christian dominionism.
In the months building up to the present showdown, Cruz has been giving speeches at Tea Party rallies and other religious right gatherings as part of a campaign to defund Obamacare. In watching the speeches, I can see how his status as a Cuban American refugee fits the ethos of the far right culture warrior movement perfectly. He is able to shift seamlessly from stories about the oppression of the Castro regime to talking about the Obama administration.
A good example comes from a speech at the Iowa Family Leadership Summit on August 12th where Cruz said that the government's "attack on religion" is part of a longer-term plan to establish socialism:

When you hear this attack on religion, it's not really an attack on religion. The fundamental basis is this. Socialism requires that government becomes your God. That's why they have to destroy your concept of God. They have to destroy all your loyalties except loyalty to the government. That's what's behind homosexual marriage. It's really more about the destruction of the traditional family than about homosexuality, because you need also to destroy loyalty to the family.

This paragraph is a textbook example of postmodern "truthiness," in which any narrative of reality "works" as long as it's structurally logical. Cruz start with asserting the socialist conspiracy as a fundamental given and then show how it works as an explanation for everything else that's going on. It's so fascinating when the same people who declare themselves to be defenders of "absolute truth" are absolutely relativistic about truth in practice. A more disturbing element of Cruz's speeches were his repeated calls for a "black robe regiment," a concept promoted by Christian revisionist historian David Barton who claims that clergy were the main backbone of the American Revolutionary War. Here's what Cruz had to say to the August 29th gathering of Heritage Action, the main lobbyist group behind shutting down the federal government:

It was pastors who were the backbone of the Revolution. Did you know where Paul Revere was going when he was saying the British are coming? He was going to the home of a pastor by the name of Jonas Clark... [who] was one of many that were called the black robe regiment. These were pastors that wore long black robes. Many of them had the continental army uniform under the black robe. They would preach in church on Sunday and then go out and fight with half their congregation for our independence. I want to encourage our pastors today not to hide behind their pulpits but take the spirit of the black robe regiment.

The theological ethos of Rafael Cruz's vision is in Christian dominionism; he talks about preaching a "message of dominion" that all Christians have received an "anointing as kings." I watched a sermon he preached on August 26, 2012 at the New Beginnings megachurch in Irving, Texas, led by Christian Zionist charismatic pastor Larry Huch. Huch incidentally had a very interesting prophecy to share when he introduced Cruz to preach:

We've been doing this series here that God laid on my heart: Getting to the top and staying there. A message for us as individuals, the kingdom of God, but also for America. It's not enough to get there. We need to stay there. It's not a coincidence that in a few weeks, we go into what's called in the Bible Rosh Hashanad [sic]... It will be the beginning of the spiritual year 2012. The number 12 means divine government. That God will begin to rule and reign. Not Wall Street, not Washington, God's people and His kingdom will begin to rule and reign. I know that's why God got Rafael's son elected, Ted Cruz the next senator. But here's the exciting thing... The rabbinical teaching is... that in a few weeks begins that year 2012 and that this will begin what we call the end-time transfer of wealth. And that when these Gentiles begin to receive this blessing, they will never go back financially through the valley again. They will grow and grow and grow. It's said this way: that God is looking at the church and everyone in it and deciding in the next three and a half years who will be his bankers. And the ones that say here I am Lord, you can trust me, we will become so blessed that we will usher in the coming of the messiah.

So it sounds like we're entering into the age where the Christians (who give faithfully) are going to get all the money through the "end-time transfer of wealth." Isn't the title of that sermon series just awesome? Getting to the Top and Staying There! It was a packed house. I wonder how many other apocalyptic prosperity gospel megachurches are packing their houses by preaching sermon series about getting to the top and staying there. Cruz's primary text for his sermon was Revelation 1:5-6, which says, "To him who loves us and has freed us from our sins by his blood, and has made us to be a kingdom and priests to serve his God and Father--to him be glory and power for ever and ever!" In Rafael's translation of the Bible, it says "kings and priests" instead of "a kingdom and priests." In the Greek, the word is basileian (accusative singular) and no manuscript variants are indicated, but never mind that.
Cruz shares that two types of people were anointed in the Old Testament, kings and priests:

Priests were anointed primarily to minister the glory of God. They were anointed to pray for the people, to offer sacrifices, to care for the temple, to be God's representatives before the people... Kings were anointed to take dominion. Kings were anointed to go to war, win the war, and bring the spoils of war to priests so the work of the kingdom of God could be accomplished. The king needed the blessing of the priest in order to be successful in battle... The priest also needed for the king to be successful in battle because the priest needed the spoils of war in order to repair the temple, in order to carry out the ministry that God had entrusted him.

What is so remarkable about this rendering of the relationship between kings and priests in the Old Testament is that God expressly forbade the Israelites from going to war for spoils. It is "truthiness" applied to Biblical interpretation. Well, the priests had expenses to pay in the temple, and the kings went to war. God anointed both of them. That must mean that the kings went to war to pay for the expenses in the temple. The seamless move that Cruz makes without any justification is to say that because kings and priests were anointed in the Old Testament, that means there are two kinds of Christians today: kings and priests. Forget about the body of Christ and all the spiritual gifts identified in 1 Corinthians 12. Forget Jesus' exhortation in Mark 10 not to be like the Gentile princes but to be servants instead of kings. Cruz decries the way that churches have neglected their members' kingly anointing:

Our churches unfortunately are very focused on only one of these anointings and that is on the priestly anointing... Those of you who think you don't have the anointing to teach the word of God, to be teaching Sunday school, you're second class citizens. And so you begin to lead frustrated lives... The majority of you... your anointing... is an anointing as king. God has given you an anointing to go to the battlefield. And what's the battlefield? The marketplace. To go to the marketplace and occupy the land. To go to the marketplace and take dominion.

So to pull all this logic together, God anoints priests to work in the church directly and kings to go out into the marketplace to conquer, plunder, and bring back the spoils to the church. The reason governmental regulation has to disappear from the marketplace is to make it completely available to the plunder of Christian "kings" who will accomplish the "end time transfer of wealth." Then "God's bankers" will usher in the "coming of the messiah." The government is being shut down so that God's bankers can bring Jesus back. And here's the thing. When you get a lot of people together in a megachurch, you can do some pretty impressive things with your mission projects. You can feed thousands of people and host ESL classes and job training programs and medical clinics. And I imagine that seeing your accomplishments could give you the hubris of thinking we don't need a government at all to make our society run; our church can be the new government.

 

Watch Megyn Kelly Desperately Try To Rein In Screaming Meth Monkey Sarah Palin

Watch Megyn Kelly Desperately Try To Rein In Sarah Palin

The Huffington Post  |  By Jack Mirkinson  

 

Megyn Kelly had Sarah Palin on her new show on Thursday night, and the interview went about as you would expect it to go. Our favorite part came in the first couple of minutes.
Kelly set Palin up nicely, asking her to comment on President Obama's suggestion that the government shutdown had hurt American credibility in the world.
In response, Palin went on a free-association diatribe, an almost jazz-like improvisatory rant, riffing on just about everything under the sun. Here's a sample:

"...And then locking up pipelines and resources that will result in us being more reliant on foreign imports for energy, and then of course he, having left behind, his administration having left behind our brave men in Benghazi to be murdered, and then of course there's Syria, where he promised to bomb Syria because in that civil war, Syria was going to bomb Syria, and then we never heard another word again about his threat to bomb in a foreign civil war, and then of course..."

Kelly sat there, lips pursed and expressionless, until she could apparently take no more.
"Listen, let me jump in!" she said. Palin kept talking. "Let me jump in!" Palin kept talking. "But I want to ask you a question governor!"
Palin stopped talking. Kelly pointed out that Republicans have become more unpopular thanks to the shutdown.

When it comes to the #Truth, #Republicans and #Democrats are on different Planets

When it comes to the #Truth, #Republicans and #Democrats are on different Planets pic.twitter.com/aNfEmHGGzt
— Def Jeff (@eqracer) October 19, 2013

Go as a Republican for Holloween

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Craziest Government Shutdown Quotes

 Craziest Government Shutdown Quotes

The 10 Most Ridiculous and Outrageous Quotes about the Government Shutdown

By Daniel Kurtzman

1. "We're not going to be disrespected. We have to get something out of this. And I don't know what that even is." –Rep. Marlin Stutzman (R-IN) on the government shutdown, Oct. 1, 2013

2. "We're very excited. It's exactly what we wanted, and we got it." –Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-MN) on the government shutdown, as quoted by the Washington Post, Sept. 29, 2013

3. "This is my idea of fun." –Rep. David Schweikert (R-AZ) on the government shutdown

4. "I said, like 9/11, 'let's roll!'" –Rep. John Culberson, describing his reaction at a meeting of Republican lawmakers planning to shut down the government, invoking the famous phrase used to fight 9/11 hijackers on Sept. 11

5. "Thing thing is...I need my paycheck. That's the bottom line." --Rep. Renee Ellmers (R-NC) when asked if she would keep her government paycheck during the shutdown. (After she was criticized for her remarks, she later announced she would ask to have her pay withheld until after the shutdown.)

6. "We are winning...It doesn't really matter to us" how long the shutdown lasts "because what matters is the end result." –a senior Obama administration official, quoted anonymously in the Wall Street Journal, Oct. 4, 2013

7. "The Park Service should be ashamed of themselves." –Rep. Randy Neugebauer (R-TX), scolding a park ranger for closing the World War II Memorial, after he voted to close the memorial as part of the Republican government shutdown

8. "Some idiot in the government sent goons out there to set up barricades so they couldn't see the monument. People had to spend hours setting up barricades where there are never barricades, to prevent people from seeing the World War II monument, because they're trying to play a charade. They're doing it because they just aren't serious about this… They like the shutdown.'" –Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) on the closing of the World War II Memorial in Washington

9. "Democrats are voting to kill clean, no-strings-attached funding for veterans care because Obama told them to. That's sick … Democrats just curb-stomped veterans. Because Obama told them to.'" –Rep. Steve Stockman (R-TX) on a bill that Congress failed to pass which would have funded only veterans' benefits and nothing else

10. "If you go to the 1940s, Nazi Germany. Look, we saw in Britain, Neville Chamberlain, who told the British people, 'Accept the Nazis. Yes, they'll dominate the continent of Europe but that's not our problem. Let's appease them. Why? Because it can't be done. We can't possibly stand against them.'" –Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX), arguing during his 21-hour faux filibuster that funding Obamacare is like appeasing Hitler, Sept. 24, 2013

What you can buy with the $24 billion lost because of the U.S. federal shutdown

Perspective: What you can buy with the $24 billion lost because of the U.S. federal shutdown http://t.co/cSIKHt9Xsj pic.twitter.com/86dorCD5MW
— PolicyMic (@PolicyMic) October 18, 2013

Terminology is important: Election Fraud v Voter Fraud

 

Terminology is important: Election Fraud v Voter Fraud

LaFeministaFollowRSS

Daily Kos member

I'm not going to point fingers at anyone but just to try and clarify why this is important.
Election Fraud is the illegal interference with the process of an election.
Voter fraud is a popular, if vague phrase, which in general seems to mean that individual voters misrepresenting who they are. When organized, this becomes electoral fraud.
Voter fraud has been proved to be extremely rare in the US, no matter how much the right wing scream about it, but when they actually act upon this mistaken belief it can result in:

Moreover, these claims of voter fraud are frequently used to justify policies that do not solve the alleged wrongs, but that could well disenfranchise legitimate voters.

Which becomes Election fraud and a far more serious and real threat than individual voter fraud. It is less about what happens in the polling booth and more about removing the right to vote. The general methodologies used in election fraud
1] Disenfranchisement: Making it difficult or impossible for certain groups of people to vote when they have the right to vote.
2] Intimidate: To render full of fear.
3] Vote buying: Paying people to vote.
4] Misinformation: Lying to gain votes
5] Misleading or confusing ballot papers.
6] Destruction or loss of ballot papers.
It doesn't have to be all of the above, just one of the above is enough.
Rather than preaching to the choir I will just state
Which groups of people are trying to commit election fraud?
1] By trying to make your right to vote harder
2] By scaring people witless with lies.
3] By pumping unlimited money into the campaigns?
4] By repeating debunked lies as if they were facts.
5] By making ballot papers incomprehensible.
6] By historically losing cast ballots.
Once you have answered these question then you have a duty to vote for the other side no matter what your political views happen to be, it is after all a threat to our democratic process.
You could argue that lying in politics is all part of the process, myself, I regard it as election fraud.

Originally posted to LaFeminista on Fri Sep 28, 2012 at 01:06 AM PDT.

Also republished by Community Manifesto Initiative.

Conservative DeMint Group Endorses McConnell Primary Challenger

Conservative DeMint Group Endorses McConnell Primary Challenger http://t.co/BEt1P3inWC via @TIMEPolitics
— Doc Hamrick (@mch7576) October 18, 2013

Eric Cantor, Kevin McCarthy & Jim DeMint: Plot To Sabotage US Economy in Secret Meeting

Eric Cantor, Kevin McCarthy & Jim DeMint: Plot To Sabotage US Economy in Secret Meeting

keepemhonest  At Daily KOS

Koch brother's employee Jim DeMint ... ah ... has been plotting to sabatoge the US Economy since January 20, 2009 along with House GOP Leaders: Eric Cantor, Paul Ryan and Kevin McCarthy.

     That's right, on January 20, 2009 Republican Leaders in Congress literally plotted to sabotage and undermine U.S. Economy during President Obama's Inauguration.  At that time, Koch brother's employee, Jim DeMint, was a US Senator from South Carolina.
     Let's get something straight from the giddy-up, a Continuing Resolution (CR) legally relates only to Discretionary spending, just government agency budgets and nothing else.  CR's do not affect non-descretionary spending.  The Affordable Care Act is mandatory spending so anyone with even half a brain would know that the GOP threat to shut down government or delay, defund, rip-up or rip-out the ACA by way of the Continuing Resolution is legally, the wrong place to have that type of legislation.
    Therefore, since delaying, defunding, or ripping up the ACA Law is prohibited language in a Continuing Resolution, this GOP led Shutdown Government Plan clearly is not really about Obamacare -- because Obamacare will be law regardless.
     Rather, the GOP led Government Shutdown Plan is really about the GOP's desire to continue with their plot to sabotage the US Economy.
     In Robert Draper's book, "Do Not Ask What Good We Do: Inside the U.S. House of Representatives" Draper wrote that during a four hour, "invitation only" meeting with GOP Hate-Propaganda Minister, Frank Luntz, the below listed Senior GOP Law Writers literally plotted to sabotage, undermine and destroy America's Economy.

The Guest List:
Frank Luntz - GOP Minister of Propaganda
Rep. Paul Ryan(R-WI)
Rep. Eric Cantor (R-VA)
Rep. Kevin McCarthy (R-CA),
Rep. Pete Sessions (R-TX),
Rep. Jeb Hensarling (R-TX),
Rep. Pete Hoekstra (R-MI)
Rep. Dan Lungren (R-CA),
Sen. Jim DeMint (SC-R),
Sen. Jon Kyl (AZ-R),
Sen. Tom Coburn (OK-R),
Sen. John Ensign (NV-R) and
Sen. Bob Corker (TN-R). Non-lawmakers present Newt Gingrich

    During the four hour meeting:
     The senior GOP members plotted to bring Congress to a standstill regardless how much it would hurt the American Economy by pledging to obstruct and block President Obama on all legislation.     These Republican members of Congress were not simply airing their complaints regarding the other party's political platform for four long hours.  No, these Republican Congressional Policymakers, who were elected to do 'the People's work' were literally plotting to sabotage, undermine and destroy the U.S. Economy.  
Fast forward to July 2013,
     Koch brothers paid Jim DeMint to cook up an elaborate "Defund" Fundraising Gimmick with lemmings: Mike Lee and Ted Cruz where they plotted to shut down the government unless President Obama turned white ... err ... no, that's not right, they plotted to shut down the US Government unless President Obama defunded and got rid of the Affordable Care Act.
     Part of DeMint, Cruz, Lee Fundraising Gimmick involved asking their Tea Party brethren to go to Koch brother's "DontfundObamacare" website and donate money to Koch brother's founded: Senate Conservative Fund (which is a non-profit fundraising organization the Koch brothers paid Jim DeMint to set up.)
     Naturally, Kevin McCarthy and Eric Cantor were excited to go along with Koch brother's scheme to shut down the US Government unless President Obama agreed to deny the People with pre-existing conditions health insurance -- after all -- they know shutting down the US Government is, in and of itself, a means to sabotage the US Economy.
US Economic damage caused by GOP led Government Shutdown:
     The 1995 GOP led Government shutdown cost local businesses $14 million per day.  The Congressional Research Services calculated the 1995 GOP led Government shutdown as costing $1.4 Billion.

“According to the Department of the Interior, the last government shutdown in 1995-1996 cost local businesses $14 million per day. Our analysis indicates the actual impact on businesses now could be closer to $30 million per day,” the National Parks Conservation Association said.

    Economists say a GOP led Government shutdown will mean 800,000 federal workers will be furloughed and will hurt the already fragile US Economy.      So, did Kevin McCarthy and Eric Cantor get a major TeaParty "here's our chance to really sabotage the US Economy" hard-on when they realized a 2013 GOP-led Government Shutdown would cost $30 Million per day?

      It appears as though Kevin McCarthy is totally drooling at the prospect of sabotaging the US Economy with threats of government shutdown as he told Chris Wallace of Fox News that the House will never, ever send a clean CR to the Senate.

WALLACE: Assuming that the senators do what they say they're going to do and they reject this issue, will you have a clean C.R. with Democratic votes and send it back to the Senate to avoid a shutdown? MCCARTHY: This is not a place to negotiate, but I promise you this -- we will pass the bill if the Senate does what you think they will do, that will keep the government open, that will reflect the House that I believe the Senate can accept, that will have fundamental changes in ObamaCare that can protect the economy for America.

    What the f'ck?!?      House GOP Whip, Kevin McCarthy said that the GOP will include "fundamental changes in ObamaCare" ... I ask, the feeble Kevin McCarthy, what part of CR's are for discretionary funding only does he, McCarthy, not understand in his Tea Party brain?
     Oh, then I remember, the GOP led government shutdown is not about "Obamacare" it is all about the GOP plot to sabotage the US Economy that was conceived in the secret meeting held back in January 2009.
     And that fact, explains why the GOP House also included a "Conscience Clause" provision that also has nothing at all to do with discretionary spending. Typically, the Conscience Clause is written to allow employers to deny women and men contraceptive coverage, including, but not limited to denying men and women the right to sterilization such as: No vasectomy coverage, no hysterectomy coverage.
     Rightwinged Zealot Tim Huelskamp (R-KS) said:

Also, I am excited that conscience protections have been added to the CR. This provision is a victory for our religious liberty as guaranteed by the First Amendment.

    Yeah, that's nice, ole Tim Huelskamp is excited to add a Conscience Clause to a CR which legally is only supposed to include discretionary funding ... but wtf ... the CR is not legally supposed to have any legislation regarding Obamacare so naturally Speaker Boehner, Kevin McCarthy and Eric Cantor let Huelskamp put his BS language in the CR. Back to the 2009 GOP Secret Meeting to Sabotage US Economy:
     Remember, for months prior to January 20, 2009, America had been losing over 750,000 jobs per month because of policies these same elected Republican lawmakers had enacted and their goal, their goal that night, was to plot ways to sabotage and undermine any and all legislation that would pull American families up and out of the economic calamity they [lawmakers] had helped create.
     Two months after their covert meeting where Kevin McCarthy, Eric Cantor, Jim DeMint and other Republican lawmakers -- lawmakers -- plotted to sabotage the US Economy, Rep. Pete Sessions said Republicans should follow the model of the Taliban in its battles against President Obama.
     In the March 2009 interview with National Journal Rep Sessions said:

    "Taliban Insurgency, we understand perhaps a little bit more because of the Taliban.  Insurgency is the way they went about systematically understanding how to disrupt and change a person's entire processes. And these Taliban -- is an example of how you go about to change a person from their messaging to their operations to their frontline message. And we need to understand that Insurgency may be required when [dealing with] the other side" ~Rep Pete Sessions, March 2009 to National Journal

    Yes, I see ... just like trying to include defunding, delaying, ripping-out the ACA Law is not discretionary funding so ...  the GOP-Taliban are disrupting the entire government workforce and entire US economy by shutting down the US Government unless they can include mandatory spending legislation in the discretionary spending CR.      In that March 2009 interview, Rep Pete Sessions went on to say:

    "If they [democrats] do not give us those options or opportunities then we will then become Insurgency ... I think Insurgency is a mindset and an attitude that we're going to have to search for and find ways to get our message out and to be prepared to see things for what they are, rather than trying to do something about them"

    Yes, the GOP-Taliban have, indeed, adopted the Taliban Insurgency mind-set which is a mind-set geared to destroy a country and what better way to destroy a country than through its economy.      Currently, Pete Sessions supports shutting down the government unless President Obama gets rid of the ACA Law. Over the weekend, Pete Sessions said this on the House floor:

The law is an "attack and an assault on the free enterprise and the free economy," said Rep. Pete Sessions of Texas.

     Yeah, um - ok, so what does that have to do with passing the discretionary funding CR bill?   Kevin McCarthy's active role in sabotaging the US economy:
     At their secret meeting they plotted to suddenly stop supporting any Stimulus Legislation, even though, they all supported Bush/Cheney Stimulus legislation.

    At the meeting, Rep Kevin McCarthy said,
"We've gotta challenge them on every single bill." "Show united and unyielding opposition to the president’s economic policies."

    Like I said, this whole GOP 'defund or shutdown government' bs is a Fundraising Gimmick whereby the Koch Brothers will rake in millions and at the same time will sabotage the US Economy.      Remember, these same Republican members of Congress supported the very Bush/Cheney policies that caused America to teeter on the brink of the 2nd Great Depression and caused the 2007 US Economic Meltdown.

Here's how they all voted:
-- "Yes" to Bush/Cheney January 2008 Stimulus
-- "Yes" to Bush/Cheney bailing out Bear Stern
-- "Yes" to Bush/Cheney bailing out AIG
-- "Yes" to Bush/Cheney TARP (sept 2008)
-- "Yes" to Bush/Cheney TARP (oct 2008)

   And these same Republican members of Congress:

Supported Bush/Cheney keeping cost of two wars out of the Budget. Supported Bush/Cheney spending $4Trillion while giving Top 1% Tax Cuts; ignoring the fact that taxes pay for wars.

     Not only did these Senior members of Congress plot to destroy the American Economy more than it already was destroyed? They actually carried out their mission:  

    Every one of these Senior members of Congress have threatened Government Shutdown over things like: - Funding planned parenthood,
- Raising the Debt Ceiling which, in-and-of-itself, would cause US Economic turmoil.

   In January 2011, John Boehner was sworn in as Speaker of the House, the House and in 2011, the House GOP threatened to shutdown government roughly every 3 months.

April 2011: House GOP threaten to shutdown government unless Planned Parenthood is defunded.

July 2011: House GOP threaten to shutdown government and default on US loans.

September 2011: House GOP threaten to shut down government unless we cut spending on things like food-stamps to offset FEMA spending.

    In 2011, during the Debt Ceiling negotiations, Eric Cantor and Sen. Jon Kyl abruptly walked out of negotiations and refused to renew discussions with Democrats. As a result, America's credit rating was lowered which put a smile on Republican's faces.

As Senator, Jim DeMint along with: Jon Kyl, Tom Coburn, John Ensign, and Bob Corker have: - Filibustered more Bills (over 300) than any Congress combined in US History.
- Voted NO on every single piece of Legislation brought to the Floor including:
NO on Al Franken's Anti-Rape Amendment,
NO on Lilly Ledbetter,
NO on Fair Pay Act,
NO on Anti-Outsourcing Bill (2010)

     How in the hell could any thinking American be against those Bills?  Seriously?!?

    Representatives: Paul Ryan, Eric Cantor, Kevin McCarthy, Rep. Pete Sessions, Jeb Hensarling, Pete Hoekstra and Dan Lungren have voted NO on every single piece of Legislation including:  NO on increasing FEMA during natural disasters.

Other Legislation Republicans used to sabotage US Economy
Republicans Used the Transportation Bill to Sabotage the US Economy:
     The 2011 Transportation Bill - no funding for transportation projects and 1.9 million construction workers would lose their jobs.  Eric Cantor and Republicans in the House are refused to act because Republicans were overjoyed if almost two million Americans were added to the unemployment rolls this summer before the election.
    Obama's American Jobs Act - Republicans in Congress refused to negotiate or even discuss passing President Obama's American Jobs Act that independent economists claim would create 1.3 million new jobs.  God forbid Eric Cantor, Paul Ryan or Kevin McCarthy support an actual Bill that would put people to work building needed infrastructure and provide funds to pay to rehire hundreds of thousands of teachers, firefighters, police officers and other public service workers that have been laid off in droves by cash-starved states.
     President Obama's 2012 Anti-Outsourcing Bill - which is a Bill to discourage the outsourcing of American jobs, which is due to come to the Senate floor around the fourth of July.
     In June 2012, The Washington Post reported that Republicans have made it clear that the Federal Reserve would face fierce Republican criticism if it takes further actions to stimulate the economy before the election. The Washington Post wrote that,

   Republicans... have expressed deep concern about measures taken by the Fed to support the economy -- and could be doubly upset if new efforts goose the stock market and are perceived to work in favor of President Obama's re-election.

   Yes, it is true, the House Republican Leaders: Eric Cantor, Paul Ryan and Kevin McCarthy met in secret and plotted to sabotage and undermine the US Economy ... I call them Traitors to America.      So, the next time you hear the GOP say "Obama wants to destroy the economy" or "Government Shutdown" ... remember ... as Newt Gingrich said after their four hour dinner on January 20, 2009 "You’ll remember this as the day the seeds of 2012 were sown."

   To Translate GINGRICH:
 "You'll remember this day as they day we became Traitors to the United States."

    My hope is that Americans and all members of Congress are reminded via twitter, facebook and all other forms of media over and over and over:
Republican Leaders in Congress who are involved in attempts to shutdown government on Oct 1, 2013, literally plotted to sabotage the US Economy on January 20, 2009 and the current GOP 'defund or shutdown government' bs is a Fundraising Gimmick whereby the Koch Brothers will rake in millions and at the same time will sabotage the US Economy.

Republicans have a point but they hide it well

MoveOn.org Petition Calls For Arrest Of Republican Leaders For Sedition

MoveOn.org Petition Calls For Arrest Of Republican Leaders For Sedition

The Huffington Post  |  By Shadee Ashtar

The 16-day shutdown of the federal government has finally come to an end, but many Americans are still furious about what they perceive as a GOP-sponsored gambit to defund the Affordable Care Act.
One outlet for that fury is a petition from the progressive MoveOn.org that calls for the U.S. Department of Justice to arrest and try Republican leaders, including House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (Va.) and House Speaker John Boehner (Ohio), for "the crime of seditious conspiracy against the United States of America."
The petition argues that "the House GOP leadership's use of the Hastert Rule and H. Res 368 to shut down the government and threaten the US economy with default is an attempt to extort the United States government into altering or abolishing the Affordable Care Act, and thus, is self-evidently a seditious conspiracy." (The U.S. Code defines "seditious conspiracy" in part as any conspiracy "to oppose by force the authority [of the U.S. government], or by force to prevent, hinder, or delay the execution of any law of the United States.")
With more than 21,000 signatures to date, the petition reflects a wider revulsion over the government's costly political meltdown -- which, among other consequences, resulted in furloughs for 800,000 federal workers, the shuttering of some Head Start programs, the suspension of federal health and safety inspections, and the loss of $24 billion in economic activity.
At the end of the standoff, Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) was among those still angered by the shutdown, although not so angry as to accuse anyone of being an enemy of the state.
"I'm glad that the government shutdown has ended, and I'm relieved that we didn't default on our debt. But I want to be clear: I am NOT celebrating tonight," the senator wrote in an email Wednesday night. "So I'm relieved, but I'm also pretty angry."

What Just Happend to the GOP

#LibCrib /@Goatyeah: Dedicated to All #TCOT followers from the kind folks at #UNITEBLUE HAHAHAHA HAHAHA #Hillary2016 pic.twitter.com/7m7QeBbzP3
— Russ Hayden (@CribBoss) October 17, 2013

How To Effectively with The Drug problem

#cannabis Judging by every metric drug decrim in Portugal a resounding success http://t.co/HNRsMYAHhJ #CDNpoli pic.twitter.com/kgNTU5WKWI

— Political Porn (@Political_Porn) October 17, 2013

The Only Confederate Flag that matters

Tea Partiers are reportedly flying Confederate flags outside the White House again. pic.twitter.com/n6Uq1g7eWO
— Grand Old Parody (@GrandOldParody1) October 17, 2013

You use my name but not my teachings

TeaTeaTardedRepubliCANTS...this is for YOU.... pic.twitter.com/b8t4YqxOco
— TheObamaCRAT™ (@MrMilitantNegro) October 17, 2013

Inside the Fox News lie machine: Salon contributor Eric Stern fact-checks Sean Hannity on Obamacare

 Great article. Stern fact-checked Hannity by personally contacting three couples Hannity claimed had been harmed by Obamacare, and finding out how baseless those claims were. 

 

Inside the Fox News lie machine: I fact-checked Sean Hannity on Obamacare 

re-reported a Fox News segment on Obamacare -- and it was appallingly easy to catch him misleading his audience 

 

I happened to turn on the Hannity show on Fox News last Friday evening. “Average Americans are feeling the pain of Obamacare and the healthcare overhaul train wreck,” Hannity announced, “and six of them are here tonight to tell us their stories.”  Three married couples were neatly arranged in his studio, the wives seated and the men standing behind them, like game show contestants.
As Hannity called on each of them, the guests recounted their “Obamacare” horror stories: canceled policies, premium hikes, restrictions on the freedom to see a doctor of their choice, financial burdens upon their small businesses and so on.
“These are the stories that the media refuses to cover,” Hannity interjected.
But none of it smelled right to me. Nothing these folks were saying jibed with the basic facts of the Affordable Care Act as I understand them. I understand them fairly well; I have worked as a senior adviser to a governor and helped him deal with the new federal rules.

I decided to hit the pavement. I tracked down Hannity’s guests, one by one, and did my own telephone interviews with them.
First I spoke with Paul Cox of Leicester, N.C.  He and his wife Michelle had lamented to Hannity that because of Obamacare, they can’t grow their construction business and they have kept their employees below a certain number of hours, so that they are part-timers.
Obamacare has no effect on businesses with 49 employees or less. But in our brief conversation on the phone, Paul revealed that he has only four employees. Why the cutback on his workforce? “Well,” he said, “I haven’t been forced to do so, it’s just that I’ve chosen to do so. I have to deal with increased costs.” What costs? And how, I asked him, is any of it due to Obamacare? There was a long pause, after which he said he’d call me back. He never did.
There is only one Obamacare requirement that applies to a company of this size: workers must be notified of the existence of the “healthcare.gov” website, the insurance exchange. That’s all.

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Next I called Allison Denijs.  She’d told Hannity that she pays over $13,000 a year in premiums. Like the other guests, she said she had recently gotten a letter from Blue Cross saying that her policy was being terminated and a new, ACA-compliant policy would take its place. She says this shows that Obama lied when he promised Americans that we could keep our existing policies.
Allison’s husband left his job a few years ago, one with benefits at a big company, to start his own business. Since then they’ve been buying insurance on the open market, and are now paying around $1,100 a month for a policy with a $2,500 deductible per family member, with hefty annual premium hikes.  One of their two children is not covered under the policy. She has a preexisting condition that would require purchasing additional coverage for $800 a month, which would bring the family’s grand total to $19,000 a year.
I asked Allison if she’d shopped on the exchange, to see what a plan might cost under the new law. She said she hadn’t done so because she’d heard the website was not working. Would she try it out when it’s up and running? Perhaps, she said. She told me she has long opposed Obamacare, and that the president should have focused on tort reform as a solution to bringing down the price of healthcare.
I tried an experiment and shopped on the exchange for Allison and Kurt. Assuming they don’t smoke and have a household income too high to be eligible for subsidies, I found that they would be able to get a plan for around $7,600, which would include coverage for their uninsured daughter. This would be about a 60 percent reduction from what they would have to pay on the pre-Obamacare market.
Allison also told me that the letter she received from Blue Cross said that in addition to the policy change for ACA compliance, in the new policy her physician network size might be reduced.  That’s something insurance companies do to save money, with or without Obamacare on the horizon, just as they raise premiums with or without Obamacare coming.
If Allison’s choice of doctor was denied her through Obamacare then, yes, she could have a claim that Obamacare has hurt her. But she’d also have thousands of dollars in her pocket that she didn’t have before.
Finally, I called Robbie and Tina Robison from Franklin, Tenn.  Robbie is self-employed as a Christian youth motivational speaker. (You can see his work here.) On Hannity, the couple said that they, too, were recently notified that their Blue Cross policy would be expiring for lack of ACA compliance. They told Hannity that the replacement plans Blue Cross was offering would come with a rate increase of 50 percent or even 75 percent, and that the new offerings would contain all sorts of benefits they don’t need, like maternity care, pediatric care, prenatal care and so forth.  Their kids are grown and moved out, so why should they be forced to pay extra for a health plan with superfluous features?
When I spoke to Robbie, he said he and Tina have been paying a little over $800 a month for their plan, about $10,000 a year. And the ACA-compliant policy will cost 50-75 percent more? They said this information was related to them by their insurance agent.
Had they shopped on the exchange yet, I asked? No, Tina said, nor would they. They oppose Obamacare and want nothing to do with it. Fair enough, but they should know that I found a plan for them for, at most, $3,700 a year, a 63 percent less than their current bill.  It might cover things that they don’t need, but so does every insurance policy.
It’s true that we don’t know for sure whether certain ills conservatives have warned about will occur once Obamacare is fully enacted. For example, will we truly have the same freedom to choose a physician that we have now? Will a surplus of insured patients require a scaling back (or “rationing,” as some call it) of provided healthcare services?  Will doctors be able to spend as much time with patients? These are all valid, unanswered questions. The problem is that people like Sean Hannity have decided to answer them now, without evidence. Or worse, with fake evidence.
I don’t doubt that these six individuals believe that Obamacare is a disaster; but none of them had even visited the insurance exchange. And some of them appear to have taken actions (Paul Cox, for example) based on a general pessimistic belief about Obamacare. He’s certainly entitled to do so, but Hannity is not entitled to point to Paul’s behavior as an “Obamacare train wreck story” and maintain any credibility that he might have as a journalist.
Strangely, the recent shutdown was based almost entirely on a small percentage of Congress’s belief that Obamacare, as Ted Cruz puts it, “is destroying America.”  Cruz has rarely given us an example of what he’s talking about.  That’s because the best he can do is what Hannity did—exploit people’s ignorance and falsely point to imaginary boogeymen.

Eric Stern lives in Helena, Montana. He was senior counsel to Brian Schweitzer, former Governor. Follow him on Twitter at @_ericstern. More Eric Stern.

Ted Cruz sure was an asshole during the shutdown. Behold:

Ted Cruz sure was an asshole during the shutdown. Behold: http://t.co/TH2gNbJQKs
— Some Asshole (@assholeofday) October 17, 2013

OutFOXedNEWS Stupid Palin Special Ed Edition

OutFOXedNEWS: Watch Veterans Scold Sarah Palin: ‘Republicans Closed the Gov’t!’, ‘You’re an Idiot!’
http://outfoxednews.blogspot.com/2013/10/watch-veterans-scold-sarah-palin.html


OutFOXedNEWS: Oh The Stupidity: Sarah Palin Wants Obama Impeached For Both Solving/Not Solving The Debt Crisis
http://outfoxednews.blogspot.com/2013/10/oh-stupidity-sarah-palin-wants-obama.html


OutFOXedNEWS: Constitutional scholar Sarah Palin explains complicated Constitutional law words to you
http://outfoxednews.blogspot.com/2013/10/constitutional-scholar-sarah-palin.html

Disbelief to relief: World greets US budget deal

Disbelief to relief: World greets US budget deal

Everyone take a breath: Worldwide relief greets US budget deal as default fears ease

 By Gregory Katz, Associated Press

LONDON (AP) -- The world's disbelief at the political impasse in the U.S. turned to relief Thursday as the country stepped back from the brink of default. But experts and foreign officials warned that Washington's credibility had been damaged — a point President Barack Obama echoed.
The deal may assure only a few months of financial order, and the prospect of another possible crisis early next year when the agreement lapses leaves many wondering about the stability of U.S. global leadership.
Nicholas Kitchen, a political scientist at the London School of Economics, said the shutdown had tarnished the reputation of the U.S.
"In showing itself to be unable to even run its own affairs competently the U.S. in some sense surrenders claims to global leadership," he said. "It's difficult to tell other people how to run their affairs when you can't keep your own house in order."
He said that when countries look successful, other countries look to follow their lead.
"The U.S. is not doing a very good job at the moment in showing itself to be a model of good governance," he said.
Still, he said the crisis isn't likely to have a long-term impact on U.S. influence, despite the embarrassment of Obama having to cancel a long-planned trip to Asia to deal with the impasse at home.
British Labour Party legislator Ann Clwyd said she and other members of the Foreign Affairs Select Committee were watching closely because of a planned official trip to Washington in two weeks' time — they wouldn't be traveling if the government remained shuttered.
She said her time in the European Parliament, where budget shutdowns have happened more than once, convinced her that a last-minute settlement was likely. But she feared that Obama's health care plan might be gutted as part of a deal with the Republicans.
"The fact that that didn't happen is very positive," she said. "I very much hoped that would survive."
Clwyd said the credibility of the U.S. was only slightly damaged by the prolonged shutdown, since it was resolved in time to avert financial disaster. But she said the U.S. has in recent months been failing to provide leadership on difficult Middle East issues, including Syria and the Arab-Israeli conflict.
There was also relief in Brussels at the heart of the European Union as the U.S. stepped back from the brink.
Simon O'Connor, spokesman for the EU's economic and monetary affairs commissioner Olli Rehn, said a "serious large shadow" that threatened both the global economy and the nascent recovery in Europe has been lifted with the resolution of the debt ceiling crisis.
"That's very good news which we strongly welcome," he said.
Many in Europe enjoyed poking fun at the apparently broken U.S. political system, but the pleasure of laughing at America's troubles seemed to fade as default neared.
The Tea Party movement got short shrift in many quarters, with the Sueddeutsche Zeitung newspaper in Munich, Germany suggesting that Obama was lucky to have such feeble adversaries.
"It is easy to remain the reasonable, serene statesman if you are dealing with concrete-headed , self-righteous nihilists like the Tea Party lawmakers," the influential newspaper said in a commentary. "It is easy to reject all negotiations if the other side acts like a crazy extortionist gang. Obama played the PR -game of guilt and innocence very cleverly. According to the polls, he wins hands down. But that is not the primary task of the president."
The newspaper said Obama had not handled his responsibility as president well despite his apparent victory over the Tea Party.
Xenia Dormandy, director of the Americas program at London's Chatham House, said the U.S. image had suffered a double blow, with both its economic and political credentials called into question
"There is a sense that the U.S. as a reliable ally is not necessarily the case anymore," she said, warning that both American allies and adversaries have reached this conclusion. But she, like others, said the damage is most likely short term.
Politics aside, there were individual signs of relief in many parts of the globe. In the South Korean capital, Seoul, 26-year-old college senior Lee Boo-gun said he thought the U.S. economy had been about to collapse — an event he believed would shortly be felt at his door.
"I thought it would affect Korea's economy," he said. "The U.S. would hit Europe and then it would affect Asia."
He expressed relief that reason had prevailed.
In Israel, a key American ally in the Middle East, commentators said the fight hurt America's overall image even though a deal had been reached before it was too late.
"There is no doubt that damage was done here to the image of American economic stability," Israel's economic envoy to Washington, Eli Groner, told Israel's Army Radio. "It's not good for the financial markets, not in the United States and not around the world."
In Brazil, a large holder of U.S. debt, there was certainly relief, but also concerns that it's just a temporary fix and more turbulence is ahead. Finance Minister Guido Mantega said the U.S. must come to a lasting answer to the "temporary solution" that was found. He added that as long as the threat of another shutdown exists, there will be "a sensation of insecurity, distrust and therefore damage to business in general."
Brazil's biggest newspapers carried headlines like O Globo's "Temporary Relief" and leading economic columnist Miriam Leitao summed up the mood in the daily.
"Nobody won. Everybody lost. The Obama government was held prisoner by blackmail. The Republican party allowed itself to be controlled by a radical minority and no longer represents the average American's way of thinking," Leitao wrote. "The government as a whole lost credibility and today there is more uncertainty surrounding the world economy."
___
AP Business Writers Joe McDonald in Beijing, Kelvin Chan in Hong Kong, Youkyung Lee in Seoul and Kay Johnson in Mumbai and AP Writers Robert Reid in Berlin, Peter Enav in Taipei, Tim Sullivan in New Delhi, Tia Goldenberg in Jerusalem, Bradley Brooks in Sao Paulo and Cassandra Vinograd and Sylvia Hui in London contributed to this report.

 

ObamaScare tactics

Histry shows we beleve factually incorrect info bc irrational fear eg Red Scare of the 50s Obamolitionists #p2 #tcot pic.twitter.com/FpgdYPsbjU

— Lil' Msgs (@lilmsgs) October 17, 2013

Virginia defies Democratic Party lawsuit and purges 40,000 voters before election

By David Edwards

The Virginia Board of Elections said this week that it had purged nearly 40,000 names from the voter rolls before a U.S. District judge could rule on a lawsuit filed by the Democratic Party.

Earlier this month, the Democratic Party of Virginia had filed the lawsuit after learning that the state planned to purge 57,923 names from the voter rolls, according to The Associated Press.

But before a judge could rule on the injunction on Friday, the Board of Elections said in a Tuesday court filing that it had already purged 38,870 names. Another 11,138 were left on the rolls based on the recommendations of county registrars.

The Washington Post reported that the state would designate 7,300 names as “inactive,” forcing those voters to cast a provisional ballot on election day in November.

Virginia Democratic Party spokesperson Brian Coy told the Post that red flags were raised by the fact that Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli (R) was serving as a the Board of Elections’ legal adviser and was also on the ballot as the Republican Party’s nominee for governor.

Chesterfield County Registrar Lawrence C. Haake III said that he had defied the state and refused to purge any voters because he determined that nearly 10 percent of the names being removed from the rolls were eligible to vote.