President Obama on Tuesday said he’s willing to sit down and talk with Republicans over anything they wish to negotiate after they re-open the government and drop the threat of letting the nation default on its loans, if only for a few weeks.
“I will not eliminate any topic of conversation, and I’ve shown myself willing to engage all the parties involved, any leader on the issue,” Mr. Obama said from the White House press briefing room. “The only thing I will say is that we’re not going to pay a ransom for America paying its bills. That’s something that should be non-negotiable.”
After eight days of a government shutdown, with the deadline to raise the nation’s debt limit less than two weeks away, Washington has found itself incapable of overcoming their partisan disagreements. The stalemate stems from the Republican Party’s insistence on dismantling or delaying parts of the Affordable Care Act as part of these fiscal policy matters.
On Friday, Jack Lamar Robersonwas shot dead by police inside his own home after overdosing on his diabetes medication. His 8-year-old daughter was in the home at the time.
Now, the family of the Georgia man is claiming that the cops weren’t within their rights and instead of offering assistance, they killed Roberson without asking any questions.
The case is dredging up the same sentiments as the killing of an unarmed Jonathan Ferrell, the young man who was shot to death by North Carolina police after he crashed his vehicle.
Roberson’s story began when his fianceé, Alicia Herron, called 911 because she noticed Roberson acting erratically after taking pills to control his blood sugar. But instead of sending paramedics, the dispatcher sent police officers to their home.
Officers with the Waycross Police Department said that upon entering the home, Roberson started toward them “aggressively armed with two items used as weapons.” But Herron disputes that claim, saying that the scene played out like a “silent movie.”
“They just came in and shot him. He didn’t say nothing, the police didn’t say nothing, anything, it was like a silent movie. You couldn’t hear anything, all you could hear were the gun shots go off and I seen them going into his body and he just fell down.”
She and Roberson’s mother also said that he was not carrying a weapon, despite the police report.
“We had no weapons in this house whatsoever,” Roberson’s mother, Diane Roberson, said to the Florida Times Union. “My gentle lamb … He kissed me every morning, made me breakfast in bed, and they said he had two weapons.”
Herron denied he was armed too: “He didn’t have nothing in his hands at any time or period at all before they came, any time while they were here, anything,” she said to First Coast News.
(Left to right) Pfc. Cody J. Patterson, Sgt. Patrick C. Hawkins, 1st Lt. Jennifer M. Moreno and Special Agent Joseph M. Peters were killed by an improvised explosive device in Afghanistan on Sunday.
In what veterans call an outrageous slight after the ultimate sacrifice, the shuttered federal government is withholding a $100,000 payment normally wired to relatives of fallen soldiers — including the families of five killed in Afghanistan over the weekend.
The payment, known as the death gratuity, is typically sent to families of the fallen within three days to help them cover funeral costs or travel to meet the flag-draped coffins of their loved ones.
The families of five American service members killed over the weekend in Afghanistan have been notified that they will not receive the payment. A relative of one of the five called it “devastating.”
The families of five U.S. troops killed overseas this weekend will not receive the usual “death gratuity” due to the government shutdown. A typical $100,000 compensation is wired to families within 36 hours to help with funeral and other expenses.
“Impacting grieving families when they are at their absolute weakest point is just disgusting,” said Joe Davis, a spokesman for the Veterans of Foreign Wars, the largest organization of combat veterans in the United States.
“Veterans, military personnel and now their families are not to be used as leverage in this political game of blame,” he said. He called on leaders in Congress to “put the country ahead of their politics.”
Congress passed a law last week to pay the military during the shutdown. Pentagon officials studied it to assess whether it might cover the death gratuity and determined that it was not possible, a defense official told NBC News on Tuesday.
Republican aides in Congress said that they were drafting legislation to restore the death gratuity, and that it could be put to a vote as early as Wednesday. The aides also said that they believed that last week’s law had covered the payment.
But for now, the $100,000 payment, meant to tide families over until military survivor benefits kick in, is being withheld for relatives of the killed over the weekend in Afghanistan, four from the Army and one from the Marines.
The ad by the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee is being played mainly in John Boehner’s district in Ohio. John Boehner has been adamant over the last few days about not bringing a clean Continuing Resolution to the House floor for an up or down vote, because as he sees it, the votes are not there to pass such a bill.
Democrats on the other hand and even some Republicans say there are more than enough votes in the House pass the clean CR which will bring the Government back to full operation, but John Boehner is insisting everyone is wrong.
“Tell John Boehner to grow a spine,” the ad says.
President Obama has urged Boehner to bring the clean CR for a vote, stating if he is right about there not being enough votes to pass the Resolution, then he should prove it with the vote!
“Rather than seeing this as a negative, we need to rejoice, Maranatha, come Lord Jesus, His day is at hand…” ~ Michele Bachmann, praying for Armegeddon
Rep. Michele Bachmann believes that we’re living in the End Times. Truth be told, so do I, but I’m not about to blame the President. She claims to have proof.
On Saturday she spread the “Gospel According to Michele Bachmann” on a Christian radio program called ‘Understanding The Times’. On the show she said,
“President Obama waived a ban on arming terrorists in order to allow weapons to go to the Syrian opposition. Your listeners, U.S. taxpayers, are now paying to give arms to terrorists including al Qaeda.”
Honestly, if selling arms to the enemy was a prerequisite to the coming of End Times, America would have been Armageddon Central tens of presidential administrations ago. Weapons making and selling is big business around here Michele.
Right Wing Watch’s Brian Tashman points out though, that Bachmann — who on several occasions during her presidential campaign, has spoken of the second coming of Christ — may have been stretching the truth just a bit in her accusations against Obama.
“The Minnesota congresswoman referred to a decision by the Obama administration to allow vetted Syrian rebels not affiliated with terrorist organizations to help them resist chemical weapons attacks, which was spurred by the Syrian regime’s use of chemical weapons on civilians,” Tashman wrote. “While the administration’s move is only related to non-lethal, defensive and protective aid, Bachmann falsely claimed that ‘President Obama waived a ban on selling arms to terrorists.'”
Indeed, it was only a matter of time before Bachmann would come this close to calling the President The Anti-Christ. And no doubt there are many on the Christian far right and left who will believe her. But Bachmann and others have not come to this far gone conclusion all by themselves.
Hollywood assists a great deal in prophesying the End of The World coming just about around the time America’s has a Black man as President:
Tom Beck (Morgan Freeman) the calm, authoritative President who orders the use of nuclear weapons to destroy a comet on collision course with Earth in 1998’s Deep Impact.
Thomas Wilson (Danny Glover), tasked with the minor job of saving humanity from annihilation in 2012.
Elias Martinez (Blair Underwood), the newly elected president who finds himself saved from assassination by extra-terrestrial means in the show The Event.
And how about President Lindberg (Tom Lister Jr), the World President in Luc Besson’s 1997 movie The Fifth Element who was working against the clock to solve a riddle that would save earth from total destruction.
Truth be told these Black fictional Presidents fared pretty well in the face of pending “end-of-world” scenarios. If you can believe in the wisdom and prophetic abilities of Hollywood producers, than I’d say to Michele and the rest of the world, “Don’t worry. We’re in pretty good hands after all.
He’s winning and he will win, but in the meantime he’s not running a stellar campaign and there’s something about Steve Lonegan that makes you want to watch him for a while. Like a really bad car accident or a singer who’s so off key you smile while listening to them or someone who reminds you of a character out of 1984. After a time, though, you realize that he wants to be taken seriously and that’s when you disengage. That will happen next week.
Lonegan probably isn’t saying it now, but he’s got to be unhappy with Chris Christie’s choice to schedule this election separately from the gubernatorial election in November. Christie’s original argument was that having the Senate election on the same date would pull in more Democrats, who would support Booker, to also vote for Barbara Buono. The real loser, though, will be Lonegan, who would otherwise gain some supporters who are showing up to vote for the governor. Or maybe Christie really doesn’t like Lonegan and cares not whether he wins. In any case, this openly helps Christie, who has made a Trenton career by making sure that his needs are taken care of.
This will be the last election that Christie will win, so in the end, he and Lonegan will end their elective political careers the same way. Meanwhile, Cory Booker will have six years to sharpen his running skills before he too considers a national campaign.
“Keep Calm and Carry On” was a propaganda poster produced by the Ministry of Information for the British government in 1939 during the beginning of the Second World War. The intention was to raise the morale of the British public in the aftermath of a widely predicted mass air attack on major cities. However the poster was never publicized and little was known of it.
The “Keep Calm” poster was the third in a series of three. The other two, “Freedom Is In Peril. Defend It With All Your Might” and “Your Courage, Your Cheerfulness, Your Resolution Will Bring Us Victory”, were issued and used across Britain during the first weeks of the war. They were designed and reproduced to be ready and in place within 24 hours of the outbreak.
The posters were designed with an icon of a “Tudor” crown on top (a widely used symbol of government authority) and the slogans were created by civil servants, emphasizing the duty of the individual Brit citizen and doubling as a rallying war-cry.
In 2000, a British shopkeeper, rummaging through a box of used books bought at an auction, uncovered one of the original limited edition posters…
…and the rest, as they say, is history.
Much of the warlike-ness behind the design of the poster has been removed now that modern media has gotten hold of it and you can see many variations on the original idea up and down the online social media ladder ranging from the idiotic to the sublime. There’s even a site where you can create your own “Keep Calm” poster.
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