During a press conference on Monday, President Obama rejected the notion of minting a platinum coin and the possibility of invoking the 14th Amendment, referring to these ideas as “magic tricks” and “loopholes”. He also explained the debt ceiling process, as well as the constitutional roles of the president, and the Congress in the process:
“And there are no magic tricks here. There are no loopholes. There are no easy outs. This is a matter of congress authorizes spending. They order me to spend. They tell me you need to fund our defense department at such an such a level. You need to send out social security checks. You need to make sure that you’re paying to care for our veterans. They lay all this out for me, because they have the spending power. And so I am required by law to go ahead and pay these bills. Separately, they also have to authorize a raising of the debt ceiling in order to make sure those bills are paid.
So what congress can’t do is tell me to spend X and then say we’re not going to give you the authority to go ahead and pay the bills.”
Evidently, the NRA is unhappy with Vice President Joe Biden’s task force, emphasis mine:
“The National Rifle Association of America is made up of over 4 million moms and dads, daughters and sons, who are involved in the national conversation about how to prevent a tragedy like Newtown from ever happening again. We attended today’s White House meeting to discuss how to keep our children safe and were prepared to have a meaningful conversation about school safety, mental health issues, the marketing of violence to our kids and the collapse of federal prosecutions of violent criminals.
We were disappointed with how little this meeting had to do with keeping our children safe and how much it had to do with an agenda to attack the Second Amendment. While claiming that no policy proposals would be “prejudged,” this Task Force spent most of its time on proposed restrictions on lawful firearms owners – honest, taxpaying, hardworking Americans. It is unfortunate that this Administration continues to insist on pushing failed solutions to our nation’s most pressing problems. We will not allow law-abiding gun owners to be blamed for the acts of criminals and madmen. Instead, we will now take our commitment and meaningful contributions to members of congress of both parties who are interested in having an honest conversation about what works – and what does not.”
Note the only slightly veiled threat to fight efforts at gun control with bribes to Congress. As if they haven’t been doing this all along.
On the House floor yesterday, House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Ca) ripped into Tea Party Caucus member Pete Sessions (R-Tx) over middle class tax cuts:
“Do I detect your smirk to mean that you don’t think Republicans will vote for middle income tax cuts, Mr. Sessions, should I take it to mean that you will continue to hold middle income tax cuts hostage, giving tax cuts to the wealthiest people in our country?
The unfairness of it is appalling, the fact that it increases the deficit is disgraceful, and that it does not create jobs is a big mistake for us to make.”
During an interview yesterday on Bloomberg Television, President Obama said that Republican math doesn’t add up:
“It's not me being stubborn; it's not me being partisan. It's just a matter of math.”
If you decide to watch the interview, let me just note that it seems to me that the interviewer, Julianna Goldman, is sympathetic to John Boehner’s recalcitrant, do-nothing Republican House.
We knew that the current (112th) Congress was a do-nothing sort, but now, thanks to Steve Benen’s handy dandy chart, we know that the 112th Congress is actually the do-nothingest Congress since…..the House Clerk began keeping records in 1947.
Keep in mind that it wasn’t Democrats who held things up. It was Republicans who were set on defeating Obama. And many of these Republicans/Tea Party people were reelected on November 6 by their obviously know-nothing constituents.
Public approval of the U.S. Congress’s performance fell to 10 percent, tying a record low set in February, according to a Gallup poll. The poll, released today, found that 83 percent of Americans disapprove of the way Congress is doing its job, the latest in a string of poor marks that the legislative branch of government has received. The 10 percent approval rating, down from 16 percent in July and 17 percent in June, ties the lowest ranking registered for Congress since Gallup began measuring congressional approval 38 years ago.
House Republicans have done little in the way of actual governing in the past two years. Just ask Paul Ryan, who is a pitiful excuse for a leader in the Republican led 112th Congress
You’ve probably either seen the news clips on television, or read something about Congress’ vote to hold U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder in contempt for supposedly withholding information in the investigation of “Fast and Furious”. And, if you have, there is a very good possibility that you’re confused considering how ridiculous and outrageous this whole mess is.
Not to worry, Rachel Maddow to the rescue, during 2 segments of her show. Watch this video/segment first in order to learn the basis of the latest wingnut conspiracy theory which got Holder in trouble with the congressional Frothing-at-the-Mouth-Republicans:
The second video talks about the congressional action on Holder yesterday, along with some discussion of the gun control issue. Watch:
Now, Holder’s contempt citation isn’t the end of it by any means, and in fact, the President asserted executive authority in this matter yesterday, and while conservatives would like you believe that this means he was somehow directly involved in the idiocy, it does not necessarily mean that. Steve Benen:
A spokesperson for House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) said the decision "implies" that White House officials were involved in the operation. Fox News' Andrew Napolitano made the same argument on the air: "Executive privilege protects communications with the president, the human being of the president, not with people that work for him and the Justice Department."
No matter what one thinks of the underlying controversy -- and for the record, I think the right's interest in the matter is kind of silly -- it's worth pausing to clarify that executive privilege doesn't necessarily involve communications with the president. Josh Israel noted there are actually "two types executive privilege: the robust 'presidential communications privilege' and the more limited 'deliberative process privilege.'"
The White House may invoke the latter to apply to executive branch officials outside of the president's inner circle, as long as they were involved with the government's decision-making process. Presidents Ronald Reagan, George H.W. Bush, and George W. Bush all asserted executive privilege in matters not involving presidential communications.
And Bush Administration Attorney General Michael Mukasey invoked the same "deliberative process privilege" as recently as 2008, rejecting congressional subpoenas for reports of Department of Justice interviews with the White House staff regarding the Valerie Plame Wilson identify leak investigation.
Republicans, including House Oversight Committee Chairman Darrell Issa (R-Calif.), are well aware of this -- they endorsed the distinction during the Bush/Cheney era -- and have acknowledged that executive privilege is not limited to the president's direct communications.
But they're playing a political game today, hoping you aren't well aware of this.
Now that you’re reasonably well informed you might be tempted to think that since this mess all hinges on both a George W. Bush policy, and a seriously crazy/whacko conspiracy theory by a ridiculous little man wingnut who counts for, well, nothing, that this will all go away soon.
You would be wrong. The contempt vote against Holder is just a step on the way to holding the president in contempt, then going for impeachment proceedings in his second term. They were always gonna do this. They made plans to “lynch them a Negro” ™ back when President Obama was elected or maybe even during the run-up to the election. After all, there was no way the good old boys with power were ever going to be alright with a black man as the president. If you thought otherwise, you were, like myself, deluded.
And, just as it will be a modern form of lynching, so too will it be a modern coup d’etat.
“ "Let's call bulls--- bulls---. This election is about jobs, jobs, jobs. ”
Yes. And House and Senate Republicans have done everything they possibly could to prevent a greater upsurge in the economy by refusing to deal with anything except for far right social issues, and ending Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security.
Referring to the fact that almost all (literally) Republicans have signed Grover Norquist’s pledge not to raise taxes, Harry Reid called the 112th Congress the ‘Grover Norquist Congress’ on the Senate floor today:
“John Boehner could never go against Grover. Grover Norquist. This is the 'Grover Norquist Congress,' because Republicans shake in their boots.”
And don’t be fooled when you land on the page Norquist calls ‘What is the Taxpayer Protection Pledge?’. The only people Norquist is interested in protecting from taxes are the millionaires and billionaires.
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) on Wednesday criticized Republicans in a 20-minute floor speech for blocking any bipartisan agreement on deficit reduction for the last several years, which he said was due in large part to their allegiance to Grover Norquist.
Reid and other Democrats have routinely complained about the pledge — taken by most Republicans — through Norquist's group, Americans for Tax Reform, not to support proposals that raise taxes. That GOP position prevented a bipartisan agreement to cut the deficit that includes the Democratic proposal to raise new tax revenues.
“Strengthen Social Security” is the best damn video I’ve seen regarding the actual facts about what’s really going on with Social Security, as opposed to the Republican lies, damn lies, and more damn lies!
Watch it, and then let’s do our part to send this baby viral!
Rep. Tim Griffin (R-Ak)to Politico, a beneficiary of 2010 losses by Democrats in Congress, on the ongoing extinction of the Blue Dogs:
“ I think if you look all across the country, the so-called Blue Dogs are all gone to kennel. There are no more Blue Dogs, they’re called Republicans.”
We Democrats were wild to rid ourselves of the Blue Dogs in 2010, thinking we could elect Progressives in their place. Remember Blanche Lincoln?
The Blue Dogs' bark in Congress is sounding more and more like a whimper.
The once-powerful coalition of conservative Democrats suffered two more casualties on Tuesday as Rep. Jason Altmire, D-Pa., lost to fellow Democratic Rep. Mark Critz, and Rep. Tim Holden, D-Pa., was ousted by political newcomer Matt Cartwright.
Congressional elections are just underway in 2012 but the Blue Dog losses are already starting to pile up, as several senior members have opted to retire, others face more challenging districts and those who've confronted the voters -- Altmire and Holden -- have been involuntarily sent packing.
Only two short years ago, the Blue Dog Coalition numbered 54 as Democrats controlled the House. But they were decimated by the 2010 elections, as many of the GOP victories came at the expense of moderate Democrats who had previously held those swing districts.
By the swearing-in of the 112th Congress, the Blue Dogs' numbers had been cut in half. Now, they are flirting with slipping into the teens.
In an interview with Fox News that will air today, House Majority Leader, John Boehner (R-Oh), said that he believes Republicans have a 1 in 3 chance of losing the House in the November elections:
“I would say that there is a two in three chance that we win control of the House again but there's a one in three chance that we could lose and I'm being myself, frank. We've got a big challenge and we've got work to do.”
I haven’t looked at a poll in a couple of weeks, but my guess is that the chance of Republicans losing the House is greater than that. At least one would hope Americans have been paying attention to the lunacy running amuck in that branch of our government.
Adding....in January, Boehner said Republicans "would rule the House for years".
The 112th majority Republican Congress now has at least two birthers to call its very own. The latest lawmaker to claim birther status is Rep. Vicky Hartzler (R-MO). Think Progress:
Another Republican member of Congress has stepped forward as a birther, calling into question President Obama’s birth certificate at a town hall meeting. Rep. Vicky Hartzler (R-MO) told a crowd of her constituents that she is no more convinced of President Obama’s birth place as anyone asking the question:
I don’t know, I haven’t seen it. I’m just at the same place you are on that. You read this, you read that. But I don’t understand why he didn’t show that right away. I mean, if someone asked for my birth certificate, I’d get my baby book and hand it out and say ‘Here it is,’ so I don’t know.
The questioner asked Hartzler if she believed the certificate of live birth that President Obama released last year was a forgery, citing Maricopa County, Arizona Sheriff Joe Arpaio’s comical news conference from last month as evidence of a conspiracy. To her credit, Rep. Hartzler appeared to dismiss Arpaio’s investigation, saying “I have a lot if doubts about all that.”
But in case there was any question of her birther bona fides, Hartzler doubled down on her skepticism at a press availability after the event:
I have doubts that it is really his real birth certificate, and I think a lot of Americans do, but they claim it is, so we are just going to go with that.
Vicky Hartzler was not the first member of Congress to out herself as a birther. Yes, indeed, we have at least two known crazies in Congress, people! The first was Rep. Cliff Stearns (R-FL) back in March, who outed himself at at town hall:
New video of a February town hall shows Rep. Cliff Stearns (R-FL) pandering to birthers and raising questions about the legitimacy of President Obama’s birth certificate.
When Stearns met with constituents on February 25 in Belleview, one of the first questions came from an elderly gentleman who insisted that Obama was not born in the United States and ought to be impeached. Rather than correcting the man and informing him that the president is indeed a natural-born American citizen, Stearns coddled the conspiracy theory by implying that Obama’s birth certificate may be a forgery — “is it legitimate?” Stearns wondered aloud.
Adding.......Apparently, Vicky Hartzler is also the most virulently anti-gay member of Congress.
Yesterday, at a news conference with the leaders of Canada and Mexico, President Obama expressed confidence that the Supreme Court will uphold the healthcare law:
“Ultimately, I am confident that the Supreme Court will not take what would be an unprecedented, extraordinary step of overturning a law that was passed by a strong majority of a democratically elected Congress.”
In addition, President Obama pointed out that in accordance with precedent, the ACA mandate is constitutional.
The president then issued what some may consider a warning (and damn it, good for him, because the Conservative members of the Court obviously need to be reminded of what their job actually is!) to the Court (or a forerunner of a major campaign talking point if SCOTUS overturns the ACA):
“And I'd just remind conservative commentators that, for years, what we have heard is, the biggest problem on the bench was judicial activism, or a lack of judicial restraint, that an unelected group of people would somehow overturn a duly constituted and passed law.
Well, this is a good example, and I'm pretty confident that this court will recognize that and not take that step.”
And, with predictable timing, the right wing has now begun making these comments into a BFD, as in, you know, “How dare this [black man] president challenge our Supreme Court? They are non-partisan. Even if the five Conservative members of the court consistently rule in accordance with GOP wishes. So what? Obama and the left must be stopped!”
Robert Parry on the Conservative justices, in an enlightening article on “a judicial war on democracy”:
These five Republican justices – John Roberts, Antonin Scalia, Clarence Thomas, Anthony Kennedy and Samuel Alito – appear poised to effectively rewrite the Constitution’s Commerce Clause in order to justify thwarting the judgment of elected officials who enacted the Affordable Care Act in 2010.
If the GOP Five continue on this presumed course toward striking down “Obamacare,” it also would become the latest front in what looks to be a right-wing judicial war on democracy – with the Supreme Court’s Republicans serving not as fair-minded arbiters of the Constitution but as a black-robed rear-guard of an ideological army.
This brouhaha just began, and my educated guess is that it will continue to grow. It may even become a central tenet of the Obama re-election campaign; after all, this court has made three very partisan decisions in recent years, beginning with Bush v. Gore in 2000. And this, they are charged by our Constitution, not to do.
The Senate on Thursday thwarted Democratic plans to strip billions of dollars in tax breaks from the largest oil companies, just an hour or so after President Obama urged the chamber to kill off the deductions.
Lawmakers voted 51-47 to block Sen. Robert Menendez’s (D-N.J.) bill. Sixty votes were needed to advance the measure.
Two Republicans — Sens. Susan Collins and Olympia Snow, both from Maine — crossed party lines and voted to repeal the tax breaks. Four Democrats — Sens. Mark Begich (Alaska), Mary Landrieu (La.), Ben Nelson (Neb.) and Jim Webb (Va.) — voted against the bill.
Today, we found out that the 47 senators who voted against the bill have received almost $24 million in contributions from oil and gas. The 51 senators who voted to repeal the big oil subsidies received only $5+ million.
In a 51-47 vote, 43 Senate Republicans and four Democrats filibustered to protect $24 billion in tax breaks for Big Oil. Although a majority voted for Sen. Robert Menendez’s (D-NJ) bill, it fell short of the 60 needed. The only two Republicans to break rank were Sen. Susan Collins (R-ME) and retiring Sen. Olympia Snowe (R-ME).
A Think Progress Green analysis shows how oil and gas companies have funneled cash to the same senators who protected its handouts:
– The 47 senators voting against the bill have received $23,582,500 in career contributions from oil and gas. The 51 senators voting to repeal oil tax breaks have received $5,873,600.
– The senators who voted for Big Oil’s handouts received on average over four times as much career oil cash as those who voted to end them.
– Overall, Senate Republicans have taken $23.2 million in oil and gas contributions. Democrats received $6.66 million.
– Since 2011, Senate Republicans have voted seven times for pro-Big Oil interests and against clean energy three times.
Democrats who joined the Republicans in defeating the bill include Sens. Mary Landrieu (D-LA), Ben Nelson (D-NE), Mark Begich (D-AK), and Jim Webb (D-VA). Sen. Susan Collins (R-ME) and retiring Sen. Olympia Snowe (R-ME) broke ranks and voted to cut the tax breaks. Two senators, Sen. Mark Kirk (R-IL) and Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-UT) didn’t vote.
Republicans have taken an overwhelming 88 percent of oil and gas contributions this election cycle. While showering politicans with cash, the oil industry also spent over $146,000,000 on lobbying last year.
Although 55 percent of Americans want to see Big Oil welfare end, the GOP once again largely acted in-line with their Big Oil donors.
For a full list of names and dollar amounts of oil and gas contributions to the Senate, visit Think Progress.
Liberal blogger, Bob Cesca, on oil subsidies and the character of Republicans in the Senate:
“Oil subsidies will continue thanks to the Senate Republicans and several conservadems[...]
But they’ll slash the hell out of social programs because it’s “fiscally responsible.” $4 billion in oil subsidies every year for companies earning record profits that could go towards reducing the budget or making sure people have healthcare. Good people.”
During a speech at the White House today, President Obama was very clear in what he expected from Congress regarding the subsidies currently enjoyed by highly profitable big oil companies. Not that Congressional Republicans paid any attention. Watch:
Text Transcript of Remarks by the President on Oil and Gas Subsidies March 29, 2012
THE PRESIDENT: Thank you very much. (Applause.) Everybody, please have a seat. Sorry we’re running just a little bit behind, but I figured it’s a great day to enjoy the Rose Garden.
Today, members of Congress have a simple choice to make: They can stand with the big oil companies, or they can stand with the American people.
Let illegal female immigrants be raped, that is. Tim Murphy, emphasis mine:
On Wednesday, as most of official Washington was fixing its gaze squarely on the Supreme Court, the House Committee on the Judiciary convened a hearing on another issue: the supposedly posh conditions at the Department of Homeland Security's immigrant detention centers. The hearing, dubbed "Holiday on ICE" by chairman Lamar Smith (R-Texas), focused on the idea that Obama administration rules intended to prevent sexual abuse and inhumane conditions at Immigrations and Customs Enforcement facilities made detention too fancy. "War on Women," meet "War on Immigrant Women.
On Wednesday morning, Rep. Bobby Rush (D-IL), spoke on the House floor in protest of the killing of Florida teenager, Trayvon Martin:
“Racial profiling has to stop. Just because someone wears a hoodie does not make them a hoodlum.”
According to The Hill, the presiding Republican, Gregg Harper, ordered Rush removed from the chamber, stating that they are not allowed to wear hats:
Rush quoted the Bible while presiding officer Gregg Harper (R-Miss.) repeatedly interrupted him, then asked the Sergeant at Arms to enforce the House prohibition on hats in the chamber.
Yes, good going Republicans! By all means, lets not address the substance of Rep. Rush’s minor protest, lets just fall back on the good old status quo.
“Governor Romney supports cut, cap and balance1and which is yet another demonstration that there is no daylight between Gov. Romney and Republican leaders on the most important issues facing this country. And not even Romney's Etch A Sketch can change that. He is not going to be able to do that. He may buy a new one, but he can't do it.”
And Joe Biden again, on Republican plans for ending Medicare:
“Make no mistake about it. If the Republicans in Congress and their amen corner of Romney, Santorum and Gingrich – if any of them get their hands on the White House, the keys to the White House I promise you, you will see Medicare ended as we know it.”
Watch:
1CNN: “"Cut, cap and balance" is a Republican-backed proposal that passed the House of Representatives in July 2011. Those who signed the pledge vowed to oppose any debt limit increases unless they included cuts and caps on spending, as well as the passage of a Balanced Budget Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. Romney has said he supports the pledge as a first step toward reforming government.”
“We got 435 members. It's just a slice of America, it really is. We got some of the smartest people in the country who serve here, and some of the dumbest. We got some of the best people you'd ever meet, and some of the raunchiest. We've got 'em all.”
- Speaker of the House, John Boehner, describes the membership of the House during an interview with Peggy Noonan.
Among other things, Boehner needs a lesson in grammar.
Steve Benen gives us some of the gory details on the Boehner-Cantor disasters in the making:
About a month ago, we learned that "behind-the-scenes fighting" between the offices of House Majority Leader Eric Cantor and House Speaker John Boehner had grown so intense, senior aides had to organize a "truce."
The fact that such a step was even necessary seems rather bizarre -- the Speaker's office and Majority Leader's office, as a rule, should not be at war with one another -- and reinforces the perception that House Republicans aren't exactly ready for prime time when it comes to governing in the midst of trying times.
As it turns out, however, Cantor aides haven't just been engaged in an ongoing conflict with Boehner aides; they've also been clashing with one another.
The sudden departure of trusted House Majority Leader Eric Cantor aide Brad Dayspring late last week followed a heated, nearly physical confrontation with another senior Cantor staffer over the unveiling of a major GOP initiative.
The dramatic exit of Dayspring -- one of the House Republican Conference's savviest and most controversial operatives -- came after a clash with another top Cantor aide, Mike Ference, over the rollout of a jobs bill that's set to hit the floor this week.
Watch:
Maybe the two opposing Republican teams, Boehner v. Cantor, will annihilate one and other....we can dream.
- Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) spoke with TPM about the possibility of Newt Gingrich as the GOP’s nominee, and didn’t hide Democratic delight at the idea of running against Newt Gingrich:
“I like Barney Frank’s quote the best, where he said ‘I never thought I’d live such a good life that I would see Newt Gingrich be the nominee of the Republican party.’ That quote I think spoke for a lot of us.
One of these days we’ll have a conversation about Newt Gingrich. I know a lot about him. I served on the investigative committee that investigated him, four of us locked in a room in an undisclosed location for a year. A thousand pages of his stuff.”
“I would like to thank Speaker Pelosi for what I regard as an early Christmas gift.
That’s a fundamental violation of the rules of the House and I would hope that members would immediately file charges against her the second she does it.”
Pelosi To Newt: I Don't Need Secret Documents To Embarrass You
When it comes to the Newt Gingrich v Nancy Pelosi war of words that erupted today, Pelosi’s office told Brian Beutler that Pelosi wasn’t talking about dinging Gingrich with some secret cache of documents, but rather the ethics report from the 1990s that’s already available online.
“Leader Pelosi was clearly referring to the extensive amount of information that is in the public record, including the comprehensive committee report with which the public may not be fully aware,” Pelosi’s spokesperson said.
“Let me just put it this way: There will be no Christmas for Congress unless there is an extension of the unemployment insurance benefits. Believe me, we have a number of us on the Senate side. We’re not going home. We’re not going to have Christmas for Congress until you get an extension of unemployment benefits.
I hate to inform my Republican colleagues, but Wall Street did not build America. But when it comes to handing out hundreds of millions of dollars, Wall Street is up front. It’s time for middle-class America to be up front.”
- Sen. Tom Harkin (D-IA) leads Democrats in a pledge to keep Congress in session over the holidays if an extension to unemployment insurance benefits is not passed.
“It consists half of people who think like Michele Bachmann and half of people who are afraid of losing a primary to people who think like Michele Bachmann, and that leaves very little room to work things out.”
- Liberal icon, Rep. Barney Frank (D-MA), in a very succinct statement on the current state of the Republican majority House, a primary factor in his decision not to run again.
“It is one thing to bail out the banks because it is in our own interests to do so, however painful. It is another to ask the middle class to bear the entire burden, while the bankers take home their massive bonuses, double-down on lobbying to keep re-regulation at bay, and have the Congress so wrapped around their fingers financially that the core trust required to make market capitalism - and liberal democracy - work evaporates.”
“There are some in Congress right now who would rather see their opponents lose than America win. And that's got to stop. We're supposed to all be on the same team. Especially during tough times.”
President Obama in Holland, Michigan yesterday (as heard live on an ABC affiliate):
“There is nothing wrong with our country. There is something wrong with our politics.”
President Obama also weighed in on calling Congress back from their recess paid vacation:
“The last thing we need is Congress spending more time arguing in D.C.. What I figure is they need to spend more time out here listening to you and hearing how fed up you are. That's why I'm here.”
It is, on the virtual eve of a U.S. debt default (midnight of August 2), important to link all current and future discussions of the debt, and the debt ceiling, to the cause of our very large deficit. To the party and the administration responsible for that deficit. This chart says it all.
It's based on data from the Congressional Budget Office and the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities. Its significance is not partisan (who's "to blame" for the deficit) but intellectual. It demonstrates the utter incoherence of being very concerned about a structural federal deficit but ruling out of consideration the policy that was largest single contributor to that deficit, namely the Bush-era tax cuts.
In a Fox Business Network interview last night, the ever lying, always ridiculous and mean-spirited Right wingnut extraordinaire, Sarah Palin, went off on President Obama for his call to increase taxes on the wealthy, and implied (for what may be the 50th time) that he doesn’t understand American ideals because he is a foreigner:
“The White House and many liberals in Congress are so addicted to that OPM, other people’s money, that it’s much easier to spend other people’s money than their own.
…..The President is not capable of giving the right message to deal with the problem we are facing with the bankruptcy that’s facing America if we don’t start living within our means. The right message is that growing more debt won’t get us out of debt, and raising taxes in a time of economic woes in a bad economy is a bad idea.
A lot of this has to do with his background, him having not been a part of the private sector and running a business or having to rely on making profit. That seems to be foreign to our President. His background and those he’s appointing don’t understand what America was built upon. His ideas are the antithesis of those things that created the prosperity in America. ”
Why is it that Republicans chant their mantras never alluding to nor stating the inalterable fact that raising the debt limit is not about new spending; it is only about paying for debts that were already appropriated?
Well, of course, we know the answer to that. The greater question may be if when they have destroyed this president, will they also have destroyed this country.
Josh Marshall on the debt ceiling mess, emphasis mine:
“Yes, at some level it's a game of chicken. Something we can all understand pretty intuitively in human nature and game theory terms. But to really get what's going on you've got to understand one key point: one of the two cars doesn't have a driver in it. Which changes everything.”
To further make Marshall’s point, there’s this declaration from a coalition of Tea Party chapters, which has now said that a vote by lawmakers for Boehner’s plan would be a violation of the pledge which 51 Republican lawmakers signed:
Clarification of the CCB Coalition Stance on the Speaker's Proposal
The greatest concern to the Cut, Cap and Balance Coalition is the integrity of the Cut, Cap and Balance Pledge that was signed by 39 House Members and 12 Senators, and whether voting for the proposed deal constitutes a Pledge violation.
We hold that is does violate the pledge, on several grounds.
Vince Cable, the Minister for Business (Coalition government- Britain) on the threat to the global financial system posed by American wingnuts:
“The irony of the situation at the moment, with markets opening tomorrow morning, is that the biggest threat to the world financial system comes from a few right-wing nutters in the American congress rather than the euro zone.”
I disagree with New York’s Mayor Michael Bloomberg as to what it is that’s wrong in Washington, but he is right on target with this comment:
“That the United States of America has come this close to defaulting on its debts -- a failure that would have potentially disastrous economic consequences for us all -- ought to be all the evidence anyone needs that there's something profoundly wrong in Washington.”
After Republicans once again walked out on debt ceiling negotiations yesterday, Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) ignores the polls and the press, and lies like the scourge that he is during his subsequent press conference:
“The American people will not tolerate a clean increase in the debt limit.”
Watch the video:
Adding........ Bob Cesca rightly points out "Oh yes they will. We’ve tolerated it dozens of times — even all those times John Boehner voted for clean increases in the debt limit.".
FLASHBACK: Think Progress’ Ian Millhiser, on the GOP’s contempt for the Constitution they claim to revere, or, why do Republicans hate the Constitution, emphasis mine:
At his weekly news conference in Washington, House Majority Leader, Eric Cantor (R-VA), responded to President Obama’s demand for tax increases via closing tax loopholes for the wealthy:
“If the president wants to talk loopholes, we will be glad to talk loopholes [but they must be] coupled with offsetting tax cuts somewhere else.”
In other words, no net gain in revenues, absolutely no tax increases on the wealthy, according to Republican Majority Leader Eric Cantor.
Wondering if the ever whiny, billionaire kowtowing Cantor is still betting his money on the collapse of the American economy.
“If Congress fails to increase the debt limit, the government would default on its legal obligations – an event unprecedented in American history. This would cause investors here and around the world to doubt, for the first time, whether the United States will meet its commitments. That would precipitate a self-inflicted financial crisis potentially more severe than the one from which we are now recovering.”
“By August 2nd, we run out of tools to make sure that all our bills are paid. So that is a hard deadline. And I want everybody to understand that this is a jobs issue. This is not an abstraction. If the United States government, for the first time, cannot pay its bills, if it defaults, then the consequences for the U.S. economy will be significant and unpredictable.”
Defacto Tea Party leader, Sen. Jim DeMint (R-SC) June 26, on State of the Union (CNN):
“If we never raise the debt ceiling again, we're going to pay our bills, we're going to pay Social Security. …We won't default. We'll be going back to budget levels of about eight years ago.”
Founder and Leader of the Tea Party Caucus in the 112th Congress, Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-MN), June 26, on Face the Nation (CBS):
“It isn't true that the government would default on its debt because, very simply, the treasury secretary can pay the interest on the debt first and then, from there, we have to just prioritize our spending…. It is scare tactics because, Bob, the interest on the debt isn't any more than 10 percent of what we're taking in. In fact, it's less than that. And so the treasury secretary can very simply pay the interest on the debt first, then we're not in default.”
Republicans are running a con on the American people.
Contact your senators and representatives and tell them that they must raise the debt ceiling with out further delay. Everything else can come after that.
The 112th majority Republican Congress now has at least two birthers to call its very own. The latest lawmaker to claim birther status is Rep. Vicky Hartzler (R-MO). 
New video of a February town hall shows Rep. Cliff Stearns (R-FL) pandering to birthers and raising questions about the legitimacy of President Obama’s birth certificate.
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