Well, we’re entering some dangerous territory here, alright. Obama is using his and his supporters’ contempt for the Republican party to allow him to send the economy into a tailspin. He wants this – not only because he thinks he can blame the Republicans….he just wants this.
Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) said Monday that President Obama is putting the economy at risk by refusing to negotiate with Republicans over spending and the debt ceiling.
“The president’s refusal to negotiate is hurting our economy and putting our country at risk,” Boehner said on the House floor.
Boehner expressed disbelief at reports that Obama would rather see a debt default than talk to Republicans.
“This morning, a senior White House official this morning said that the president would rather default than to sit down and negotiate,” he said. “Really?”
“The American people expect when their leaders have differences, and we’re in a time of crisis, that we’ll sit down and at least have a conversation,” he added. “Really, Mr. President, it’s time to have that conversation before our economy is put further at risk.”Boehner rarely speaks on the House floor, but this was his third appearance in the last week. It also follows a Sunday appearance on ABC’s “This Week” in which he insisted he would not agree to bring a “clean” debt ceiling hike to the floor, and argued it would not pass.
UPDATE:
Here is Boehner’s speech on the House floor: POTUS Would Rather Default Than Negotiate:
The GOP conference released this video to illustrate the unreasonable position of the White House.
Today, Jay Carney lashed out at ABC’s Jonathan Karl for asking a question about the debt ceiling:
Please note that when the people’s representatives actually represent their constituents, the majority of whom want nothing to do with the wretched and wretchedly mis-named Affordable Care Act, it is the people who must be punished. Can you believe that men who conquered Nazi Germany’s barricades on the beach at Normandy 69 years ago actually faced barricades from their own damned government? Can you believe that Vietnam vets, many of whom were rebuked for their service, were removed from their memorial by the police? Do the men and women who are ordered to move against law abiding veterans have no soul?
The federal government has shut down some 17 times previously, and at no time were these memorials closed. Is our Sovereign so besotted with power, has his impudent leftism so robbed him of reason that he fails to understand what is so obvious: That in barricading Americans from memorials and icons that stand as testimony to an exceptional culture founded precisely on liberty from oppressive government, he perfectly validates the arguments of the right?
As one member on Ricochet commented, this is no longer about Ted Cruz. It’s no longer about the animadversions of establishment Republicans who have only to see their political shadow before becoming alarmed and settling in for six more months of concessions to the statist. This is about an arrangement the President and his party mean to consummate with the American people; an illusory promise to take care of us in exchange for our abject obedience and subservience. But as the examples cited above show, it is only the subservience that is achieved.
You strike me as the sort of man who spends a lot of time staring at his own reflection. I wonder, what do you see when you gaze so admiringly at yourself? What image do you find in that mirror of yours? Let me guess: a graceful Greek god with a golden crown, draped in luxurious robes, perched on a giant, magnificent throne atop a mountain in the sky? You see a throng of angels singing your praises and masses of subservient peasants prostrated before you, trembling with fear and awe? You see a man who is more than a man, and a president who transcends the presidency; you see a historic figure of immortal importance?
Yeah, that’s what I thought, and I can’t blame you, Mr. President. By all accounts, you’ve always been an arrogant, haughty narcissist — and that was before you became president. Your supporters and your enemies may argue over whether you descended from heaven on the back of a Pegasus, or were birthed from the bowels of Hell to bring about a Biblical apocalypse, but they both agree on one thing: you are a figure of great significance and immense power. You are either the anti-Christ or the Second Coming, with no room for anything in-between. Surely, this talk might cause even a humble man to slip into a state of vanity and pride, so I can only imagine what it must do to a man such as yourself, already so aloof and so conceited.
That’s why I’m writing this letter. My impression of you is quite different, and it has only been solidified by your performance during this shutdown/Obamacare debate. I find you to be a very small man, Mr. President. Far from larger than life, you are petty, frivolous, pathetic; sneering and pompous but also trifling and narrow. I don’t mean to dismiss or underestimate the damage you have done to this nation — it has certainly been profound and lasting — but I want you to know that your legacy will not be one of grandeur and brilliance; it will be the legacy of a shameless, desperate bully. Both your opponents and your proponents hoist you up as a world leader with a grand vision, whether benevolent or malevolent. I, on the other hand, believe you have the vision of a temperamental two year old. You simply want to feel like you’re in control; you want to “win,” you want everybody in the room to pay attention to you, and you’ll stomp your feet and whine until you get your way. You govern like a coddled toddler; it’s inappropriate to pejoratively refer to you as a “dictator,” but only because it lends you a certain unwarranted credibility. I think you wish to be a dictator, but instead you’re just a bumbling bureaucrat; easily replaced and even more easily forgotten. You have the ethics of Genghis Khan, but the leadership skills of Michael Scott. This is why we are forced to witness the spectacle of, for instance, our president brazenly threatening to invade another nation for no reason, only to clumsily abandon the idea after being publicly spanked by Putin.
Many Americans crossed the barriers that were set this weekend by President Barack Obama’s deputies to block public access to the Potomac River from Virginia’s George Washington Memorial Parkway.
In many quiet acts of civil disobedience, Americans removed car barriers and cut police tape, or walked across barriers after parking on grass verges or in adjacent suburbs.
Once past the federal barriers, they were able to enjoy the bike paths, parkland and overlooks — on what singer Woody Guthrie described as “your land” — during the sunny, 80-degree weekend.
Still, the Obama administration blocked easy access to the river for many Americans, except for boat club members or property owners in the 22308 zip code, where riverside homes sell for at least $1.5 million.
The federal barriers were set along 20 miles of the parkway, starting at a government-built parking lot at President George Washington’s Mount Vernon home and continuing northwards to scenic overlooks in McLean, Va.
“I’ll take my chances,” said one man as he unloaded his two children on a grassy verge beside Roosevelt Island, just across from Washington’s Georgetown district.
OCTOBER 6, 2013 — Cars driving past barricades on the Washington Memorial Parkway (Neil Munro/TheDC)
A group of 20 Missouri Patriots attended an Occupy Mingo event today at 1:30pm at the Mingo National Wildlife Refuge near Puxico, MO. I was proud to be among them. The event was quickly put together by various folks from several groups — including Cape County Tea Party and SEMO10 — although it was not officially sponsored.
Senator Ted Cruz: This is Harry Reid and President Obama’s Shutdown:
On Friday, Senator Cruz went to the World War II Memorial to welcome Texas veterans and talked to Greta Van Susteren.
One of the areas shut down is the popular Cades Cove – an old community that was donated by local residents to the federal government some 75 years ago, the mayor said.
“Hundreds of families gave up that land, packed up their stuff and moved out to give the country that park,” he said. ‘Now, they’re watching the government shut the gate on it.”
Even more insulting is the National Park Service won’t allow family members to visit old grave sites.
“Some of them have family members buried there,” the mayor said. “And they go and visit every week at the churches still in the cove. They are not able to do that.”
It’s gotten to the point where Mayor Mitchell said Americans are ready to start fighting back.
“It’s almost like they are pushing to see how far they can push before the American people say enough is enough,” he said.
They almost crossed that line in Blount County.
The mayor sent a letter to the Department of Interior and copied the area’s congressional delegation. The letter detailed a plan that would allow the local government to take control of the park until the federal shutdown ended.
“We were willing to open that park up at no cost to the federal government,” he said. “We worked out a plan. That park could be running today just as efficiently as if the federal government had it up and running.”
He never heard back from the feds or his state’s congressional delegation.
World War II veterans from Ohio are the next wave of war-worn warriors vowing to defy orders and storm barricades at a memorial built in their honor in Washington, D.C.
An outpouring of support from across the country — and the willingness of guests and volunteers to risk arrest — helped Honor Flight of Northwest Ohio proceed with its scheduled trip Wednesday to the World War II Memorial in Washington, D.C.
“We’d been watching the issue for several weeks,” said Lee Armstrong, the group’s president. “We planned the flight back in May, but knowing they were talking about a government shutdown on Oct. 1, we kept watching and told our volunteers to be ready.”
Honor Flight is a national nonprofit that gives veterans free transportation so they can see war memorials. More than 3,500 veterans from across the country are scheduled to visit the memorials this month.
Armstrong was told Tuesday by a woman at the National Park Service who refused to give her name that if his Honor Flight group crossed the barricades that had been set up, they were going to be arrested.
The House passed a bill on Saturday to let military chaplains hold services during the shutdown, as Catholic priests under government contract were not allowed to offer communion and other religious services on military bases. Priests could even get arrested for volunteering.
The House voted 400-1 to reinstate furloughed chaplains on a volunteer basis on Saturday afternoon. The one House member who was against the resolution is Rep. William Enyart, a Democrat from Illinois, according to NPR.
The bill was sponsored by Rep. Doug Collins, a Republican from Georgia and a U.S. Air Force Reserve chaplain.
House Republicans were outraged by the fact that chaplains could be barred from offering services due to the shutdown. “Is it really the policy of this administration to make church services illegal? To threaten Catholic priests with jail?” asked Rep. Tim Huelskamp, a Republican from Kansas, during a debate on the measure.
“The constitutional rights of those who put their lives on the line for this nation do not end with a government slowdown,” Kansas Rep. Mike Pompeo said in a statement Friday. “It is completely irresponsible for the president to turn his back on every American’s First Amendment rights by furloughing military contract clergy.”
Pompeo added that President Barack Obama’s strategy during the slowdown, just as during the sequestration, “is to create as much pain as possible.” “However, this action crosses a constitutional line of obstructing every U.S. service member’s ability to practice his or her religion.”
The House on Friday passed two more narrow appropriations bills to fund parts of the government during the government shutdown. The Senate, which Democrats lead, has rejected five previous bills that were similar.
According to The Hill, the House “passed resolutions to fund the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) and the Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants and Children (WIC).”
Though most Democrats oppose funding the government with piecemeal bills, 23 Democrats joined with House Republicans to fund FEMA and 22 Democrats voted with Republicans to fund the programs. Senate Democrats have rejected the piecemeal bills in order to put pressure on the House to adopt a so-called “clean” short-term resolution with no attachments.
After Republicans in the House of Representatives passed a funding bill for the National Institutes of Health, NBC Nightly News has run two feature stories about children and other patients who could not enroll in a cancer clinical trial at NIH because of the “shutdown.”
In neither story was the Republican funding bill or Democratic rejection of funding mentioned.
Where oh where is the GOP media machine? Now that Obama and the NPS has given them so much damn ammunition to win the PR battle why is it all we hear and see is crickets?
When Obama Barrycaded Tot Lots to protect them from toddlers – where were the camera, ads and sound overs? Note: this was reported (but buried in the middle of the story) by the Washington Post so it has a great source!
***
When Obama Barrycaded the WWII Memorial, where is the 30 second ad of disgust? There is some amazing home-grown political art out there to tap! Why the silence?
Folks on Twitter yesterday were scratching their heads at the fact that Republicans on the Sunday talk shows weren’t hammering this. Another opportunity lost for the GOP.
This is what happens when you can’t win an argument intellectually. Burleston Star reported:
U.S. Rep. Roger Williams, R-Austin, reported anti-Tea Party and anti-Republican protestors vandalized the entry to his district office in Cleburne this week.
Tea bags were hung from the door, along with signs, which Williams’ staff claim are the property of Moveon.org. The signs deliver a variety of messages. Among those are, “It’s time for your recall,” “You’re fired,” and “It’s time to vote you out.”
Williams is serving the first year of his first two-year term in Texas’ 25th District.
Other signs call Williams an “anti-American racist” and “D___bag Republican.”
Meet Tom Waschura, Californian, father of two – oh, and right: Obama supporter. Just got a letter from his healthcare provider telling him that his private health insurance just went up by ten grand a year:
“I was laughing at Boehner — until the mail came today,” Waschura said, referring to House Speaker John Boehner, who is leading the Republican charge to defund Obamacare.
“I really don’t like the Republican tactics, but at least now I can understand why they are so pissed about this. When you take $10,000 out of my family’s pocket each year, that’s otherwise disposable income or retirement savings that will not be going into our local economy.”
Let me tell you a secret: we don’t need people like Mr. Waschura to love us. We just need people like him to vote their class interests, to quote the Marxists who unaccountably confidently expect this rotating disaster of a health care rationing system to fuel public outcry for socialized medicine. They don’t have to vote Republican forever, you know. We’ll be happy if they vote Republican just enough to allow the party to kill this thing.
Department of Health and Human Services officials announced late Friday that during “off peak” times over the weekend it would would be taking down the federal website meant to enroll Americans in President Obama’s health care program to perform site maintenance.
“We expect that Monday, less than a week after the Marketplace opening, there will be significant improvements in the online consumer experience,” HHS spokeswoman Joanne Peters promised in the release.
But when I attempted to visit Healthcare.gov this morning, I experienced the same problems I did before the maintenance.
RepublicanCalifornia Rep. Darrell Issa, the GOP’s top government watchdog, warns that we have entered a time to “love my country, fear my government.”
“Right now, there’s a reason to fear the IRS and other agencies, including the EPA, who are loaded with people who feel empowered to bend the rules against those they disagree with,” the California Republican explained.
Issa has been investigating the Internal Revenue Service since Lois Lerner’s May 2013 admission that the agency treated conservative groups differently, and his Sept. 17 committee report details the committee’s progress and findings to date.
For three years, I’ve been investigating fraud in the Pigford black farmers settlement. In my long work on the story with Andrew Breitbart and others, I’ve exposed how easy it was to collect a $50,000 check if you filled out the paperwork right. But there were things we never knew the specifics on.
But just how greedy were people?
How many claims were so outrageous that they screamed for some kind of fraud investigation?
The public had no way of knowing and they gave billions of tax dollars to Pigford Claimants. We knew the outlines. We knew the big picture. We didn’t have the fine, minute details.
Until now.
This link is to a legal document that contains the list of 10s of thousands of ‘late filers’; the Pigford II plaintiffs that President Barack Obama sponsored.
“Hello Bob, I’m going to need some of your best men, women and trans-confused things on this.
“We’ve got a top Al-Qaeda terrorist in custody and we need some top notch fellows to read him his rights beforehe spills his guts. That’s right. We sent in men to risk their lives capturing him, but we don’t want him to talk. We want to make sure he never talks again by giving him a bunch of lawyers and putting him on trial.
“It’s a dangerous mission. He’s a known spitter. And biter. But I know your boys, girls, trans-things can handle it.”
While Democratic leaders in Congress continue to obstruct budget negotiations and force a government shutdown, their party’s rhetoric has grown increasingly intransigent and angry. This video holds a mirror up to the rhetoric from today’s Democratic Party – the Coalition of the Wild-Eyed.
JoshuaPundit: I have no problem discussing issues with anyone, although I rarely do in every day life unless it’s someone I know can handle it. And that’s rare to non-existent these days.
Having both friends and family with very opposite views to mine, I’ve yet to find any of them capable of having a decent give and take discussion of the issues. Either they’re not well informed at all, or they’re simply incapable of talking to anyone whom disagrees with them without resorting to invective or simply repeating the same Leftist catechism. I use that term advisedly because for many of them Leftism is a religion, and for me to criticize their religion makes me not merely wrong, but evil in their eyes.
So we have a tacit agreement that we simply don’t talk politics.
I have a theory anyway that many people on the Left don’t do debate well,but function best in an echo chamber or an arena where what they say isn’t easily questioned, like a college classroom or a media platform surrounded by the Faithful. That’s why Air America was such a miserable failure. The normal tactic is the old Alinksky trick of personalizing the target and demonizing them…but it can be dealt with by simply staying on point, not swallowing the bait, and simply turning the Alinsky trick right back on them with a smile…as Ted Cruz superbly demonstrates here with CNN’s ‘journalist’ Candy Crowley.
An unarmed 34-year-old woman suffering from postpartum depression is surrounded by the authorities while sitting in her car, and gunned down in cold blood. She is blocked in. She cannot move. And yet she is killed by heavily armed security officers. Her one-year old child witnesses this from the back seat. Why is this not a national tragedy?
Miriam Carey was a young African-American woman who wanted to better herself. She went to college and graduated with a BA degree in health and nutrition science. She became a dental hygienist. One of her neighbors noted that it was obvious she was educated. She gave birth to her daughter a year ago and began to suffer from postpartum depression. She displayed some irrational behavior and was put on medication.
Thus far it’s not an uncommon story. About 50% of women who give birth suffer from postpartum depression. A friend of mine was on medication for more than 8 years after her daughter was born. This might conceivably happen to my daughter. Or to one of Obama’s daughters, come to think of it.
Then, on October 3, Miriam crashed her car into a security barrier near the White House. She was surrounded by security men shouting at her and pointing high-power guns. Was it so irrational to try to escape, to protect her daughter from men pointing pistols at her? A chase ensued, and she then crashed her car into a median somewhere in the vicinity of the Congress. She was blocked by security forces from several agencies. She could not move. She was unarmed, and alone save for her daughter. In her car, unprotected. And then she was killed.
On September 26—a day that just happened to be the 27th anniversary of his swearing-in as associate justice—Antonin Scalia entered the Supreme Court’s enormous East Conference Room so casually that one might easily have missed him. He is smaller than his king-size persona suggests, and his manner more puckish than formal. Washingtonians may know Scalia as charming and disarming, but most outsiders tend to regard him as either a demigod on stilts or a menace to democracy, depending on which side of the aisle they sit. A singularity on the Court and an icon on the right, Scalia is perhaps more responsible than any American alive for the mainstreaming of conservative ideas about jurisprudence—in particular the principles of originalism (interpreting the Constitution as the framers intended it rather than as an evolving document) and textualism (that statutes must be interpreted based on their words alone). And he has got to be the only justice to ever use the phrase “argle-bargle” in a dissent.
You came to Washington as a lawyer during the Nixon administration, just before Watergate. What on Earth was that like?
It was a sad time. It was very depressing. Every day, the Washington Post would come out with something new—it trickled out bit by bit. Originally, you thought, It couldn’t be, but it obviously was. As a young man, you’re dazzled by the power of the White House and all that. But power tends to corrupt.
Then you served in the Ford administration. That must have been an awfully lonely time to be a young conservative.
It was a terrible time, not for the Republican Party, but for the presidency. It was such a wounded and enfeebled presidency, and Congress was just eating us alive. I mean, we had a president who had never been elected to anything except … what? A district in Michigan? Everything was in chaos.
It was a time when people were talking about “the imperial presidency.” I knew very well that the 900-pound gorilla in Washington is not the presidency. It’s Congress. If Congress can get its act together, it can roll over the president. That’s what the framers thought. They said you have to enlist your jealousy against the legislature in a democracy—that will be the source of tyranny.
But weren’t you just saying that you learned from Watergate that presidents aren’t incorruptible?
What, and Congress is? I mean, they’re all human beings. Power tends to corrupt. But the power in Washington resides in Congress, if it wants to use it. It can do anything—it can stop the Vietnam War, it can make its will felt, if it can ever get its act together to do anything.
Had you already arrived at originalism as a philosophy?
I don’t know when I came to that view. I’ve always had it, as far as I know. Words have meaning. And their meaning doesn’t change. I mean, the notion that the Constitution should simply, by decree of the Court, mean something that it didn’t mean when the people voted for it—frankly, you should ask the other side the question! How did they ever get there?
Nice Deb 