Day: July 13, 2011

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Medicare Mitch McConnell Politics Republican South Carolina United States

Lindsey Graham Blames His Fellow Congressional Republicans

Republican Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina has a message for his Republican friends in Congress. Don’t blame the President or even the Democrats. Don’t blame anyone else for the mess over raising the debt ceiling, blame yourself.

“Our problem is we made a big deal about this for three months. How many Republicans have been on TV saying, ‘I’m not going to raise the debt limit.’ You know, Mitch [McConnell] says, ‘I’m not going to raise the debt limit unless we talk about Medicare.’ And I’ve said I’m not going to raise the debt limit until we do something about spending and entitlements.’ So we’ve got nobody to blame but ourselves.

“We shouldn’t have said that if we didn’t mean it.”

The Republicans are beginning to break.

With the President holding his ground in the negotiations over raising the debt ceiling, and with Americans looking at the Republicans as obstructionists whose only goal is protecting the rich while the rest of the country slides into default, Republicans are beginning to wonder out loud why they intentionally mislead the American people over a very routine matter – raising the debt ceiling. On Tuesday, Senate Republican minority leader Mitch McConnell proposed a feeble detour to get the debt ceiling raised, and now this from Lindsey Graham.

The American people are keeping track of what’s going on, and the Republicans are beginning to see the writing on the wall… in the form of a political suicide note that is.

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Politics United States

Moody’s Place America’s Triple A Ratings On Notice For Downgrade

And so it begins. The triple A(Aaa) ratings that America has enjoyed since 1917 was put on notice for a downgrade today by Moody’s Investors Service.

Bloomberg reports that Moody’s took this initial move to lower America’s credit ratings over “concern(s) the debt threshold will not be raised in time to prevent a missed payment of interest or principal on outstanding bonds and notes even though the risk remains low”.  Additionally, the report stated that Moody’s  “…rating would likely be reduced to the Aa range…”  and  that ” …that there is no assurance that Moody’s would return its top rating even if a default is quickly cured.”

Meanwhile, Republicans continue protecting the tax loopholes for the rich.

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Barack Obama Democratic Party Mitch McConnell Politics United States

Mitch McConnell – “I Refuse To Help Barack Obama Get Re-Elected!”

For the 3 people in the entire world, who think Mitch McConnell is sincerely trying to work with the President to set America on solid economic ground, this one’s for you. Today, the Republican Senate minority leader clearly stated his reasoning for coming up with a “solution” to the debt ceiling, saying, ” I refuse to help Barack Obama get reelected by marching Republicans into a position where we have co-ownership of a bad economy.”

“We knew shutting down the government in 1995 was not going to work for us. It helped Bill Clinton get reelected. I refuse to help Barack Obama get reelected by marching Republicans into a position where we have co-ownership of a bad economy. It didn’t work in 1995. What will happen is the administration will send out to 80 million Social Security recipients and to military families and they will all start attacking members of Congress. That is not a useful place to take us. And the president will have the bully pulpit to blame Republicans for all this disruption.

“If we go into default he will say Republicans are making the economy worse. And all of a sudden we have co-ownership of a bad economy. That is a very bad position going into an election. My first choice was to do something important for the country. But my second obligation is to my party and my conference to prevent them from being sucked into a horrible position politically that would allow the president, probably, to get reelected because we didn’t handle this difficult situation correctly.”

Meanwhile, America’s economy moves closer to the brink of a second Great Depression. But no surprise here. This is the same Republican leader who said his number one priority was making sure the  President is a one-term president.

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Barack Obama Mitch McConnell Politics Republican

Mitch McConnell Raised The White Flag On The Debt Ceiling…Or Did He?

When President Obama earlier stated that “nothing is agreed upon until everything is agreed upon”, no one really understood where the President was going in terms of the negotiations concerning raising the debt ceiling. Later when he put forth his plan for a massive $4 trillion dollars in spending cuts – if Republicans agreed to ending the tax loopholes for the wealthy – the connection between his statement and his plan still wasn’t realized.

However, when the Republican Senate minority leader Mitch McConnell yesterday told the press, that he is willing to “authorize” the President to submit a request to congress to raise the debt ceiling, a light bulb went off in the Host of MSNBC’s The Last Word – Lawrence O’ Donnell‘s head. The President’s statement on a $4 trillion spending cut proposal finally began making sense.

The way O’Donnell explains the connection is like this: President Obama is winning the debt ceiling argument with Republicans. By making the statement, “nothing is agreed upon until everything is agreed upon,” the President put Republicans on notice, that to have a deal, both parties would have to agree to major sacrifices. He then announced a huge spending cut proposal, with the knowledge that Republicans were too much against imposing any taxes or ending the loopholes on the wealthy. With this in mind, the President essentially called the Republican’s bluff. If they were really serious about deficit reduction, they would have jumped on the opportunity to cut spending by ending the tax loopholes.

Then yesterday, Mitch McConnell came out and basically handed the President the win. What Mitch wants is a resolution to allow the President to raise the debt ceiling all by himself. The President would request congress to raise the debt ceiling. Congress would then vote to “disapprove” the request, which the President would then veto. With that veto, the debt ceiling would automatically be raised on the President’s terms.

This move by McConnell, basically giving up the fight and allowing President Obama to make the decision, brought it all home for Lawrence.

Of course, we are talking about Mitch McConnell – the same Republican who said his primary goal is to see Obama fail. It is therefore wise to look at this “plan” by McConnell from that perspective and realize the politics behind it. McConnell realizes that the Republicans have taken a dangerous position. Any default by the United States government by not raising the debt ceiling would be political assassination for the GOP. With this move, McConnell removes the Republicans from the decision-making process, that way, the President makes the decision and avoids America going into default.  McConnell can tell his Teaparty constituents that he voted against raising the debt ceiling.

The punk’s way out if you ask me.

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Barack Obama Iowa marriage Politics Republican Rick Santorum United States

Michele Bachmann’s Expertise Is Slavery… Apparently!

We all remember Bachmann’s recent signing of a pledge which claimed that children born under slavery were better off than those born after President Obama became President! Well, Steven Colbert picked up on another very interesting piece of info about her and Rick Santorum – the other Republican Presidential candidate who immediately signed the document.

For Santorum, Colbert explains that he signed the pledge, even after being “taken aback” by the strong language it contained. Colbert’s re-enactment of Santorum reading the pledge is right on the mark.

And for Bachmann, Colbert picks on the many instances where she saw the need to equate something to slavery, you know, where her expertise lies…

Categories
Barack Obama Politics Republican Party (United States) presidential candidates 2008 White House

Obama Raises Twice As Much As All G.O.P. Candidates Combined

President Obama just set another record, shattering the White House record for presidential election fund-raising in the first 3 months of his re-election campaign. The Obama 2012 Campaign Manager, Jim Messina, made the announcement earlier today stating that in the first quarter of fund-raising, $86 million dollars was collected. Obama’s record also beat the efforts of all the Republican candidates combined.

In his 2004 re-election, former President Bush raised $50 million.

 Politico reports;

The total amount Obama raised in the first three months of 2011 also amounted to more than twice the $35 million raised collectively by the announced field of Republican presidential candidates.

“It’s a monumental achievement,” Messina said.

In order to compete against the special interests groups and secret corporate funds expected to drive the Republican nominee’s campaign, the president would have to raise an estimated  $1 billion dollars for his re-election.

Only $914 million dollars to go!

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