I'm just tired of the lies and nonsense coming from the GOP, so this is my little contribution to combat the nonsense!
President Obama said he took action this week to launch new manufacturing hubs and expand a competition to fund transformative infrastructure projects. Both are policies aimed at expanding economic opportunity for all by creating jobs and ensuring the long-term strength of the American economy. Congress can boost this effort by passing a bipartisan proposal to create a nationwide network of high-tech manufacturing hubs and taking steps to invest in our nation’s infrastructure.
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – President Barack Obama warned Russia on Friday that military intervention in Ukraine would lead to “costs,” as tension with old foe President Vladimir Putin rose in a Cold War-style crisis.
“We are now deeply concerned by reports of military movements taken by the Russian Federation inside of Ukraine,” he told reporters.
Obama and European leaders would consider skipping a G8 summit this summer in the Russian city of Sochi if Moscow intervenes militarily in Ukraine, a senior U.S. official said.
“The United States will stand with the international community in affirming that there will be costs for any military intervention in Ukraine,” Obama said in the White House briefing room.
Facing yet another confrontation with Putin after butting heads with him over Syria, Obama said any violation of Ukraine’s sovereignty and territorial integrity would be “deeply destabilizing.”
Obama did not spell out what he meant by Russian military intervention.
Russia has a huge naval base in Ukraine’s Crimea Peninsula and says it has the right to move troops in Ukraine under an agreement between the two former Soviet neighbors.
U.S. officials said they saw indications of Russian troop movements into Crimea but that their numbers and intentions were unclear.
The crisis has presented Obama with a difficult challenge days after pro-Western protesters prompted Ukraine’s pro-Moscow President Viktor Yanukovich to flee to Russia.
Armed men took control of two airports in the Crimea region in what the new Ukrainian leadership described as an invasion by Moscow’s forces, and Yanukovich surfaced in Russia a week after he fled Kiev.
Ukraine fell into political crisis last year when Yanukovich spurned a broad trade deal with the European Union and accepted a $15 billion Russian bailout that is now in question.
A U.S. response to any Russian intervention in Ukraine could include avoiding deeper trade and commerce ties that Moscow is seeking, the senior U.S. official said.
The federal budget deficit fell more sharply than in any year since the end of World War II, the Treasury Department reported on Thursday that the deficit for 2013 dropped to $680 billion, from about $1.1 trillion the previous year.
In nominal terms, that is the smallest deficit since 2008, and signals the end of a five-year stretch beginning with the onset of the recession when the country’s fiscal gap came in at more than $1 trillion each year. As a share of the nation’s economy, the budget deficit fell to about 4.1 percent, from a high of more than 10 percent during the depths of the Great Recession.
The report comes days before the White House is scheduled to release a new budget for the fiscal year beginning Oct. 1 that avoids cuts in spending and focuses on ways to help spur the still-tepid recovery through additional government investment.
No one is safe from the GOP obstruction
Senate Republicans used a filibuster to prevent a vote on expanded veterans benefits after Democrats blocked efforts to add an amendment on Iran sanctions.
The vote Thursday was 56-41 in favor of a bill by Sen. Bernie Sanders, Ind-Vt., to — among other things — expand healthcare programs and provide breaks on college tuition for veterans. Sixty votes were required to overcome the filibuster, the Hill reported. Two Republican senators, Dean Heller of Nevada and Jerry Moran of Kansas, voted with the Democrats, the Capitol Hill publication said.
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., refused to allow an up-or-down vote on a Republican amendment that included provision for further sanctions on Iran over that country’s nuclear program.
“I hope all the veterans groups have witnessed all the contortions the Republicans have done to defeat this bill,” he said. “Shame on Republicans for bringing base politics into a bill to help veterans.”
As more and more Americans fall in love with finally being able to buy their own private healthcare through the Affordable Care Act or Obamacare, Republicans, led by the Texas Senator from Canada are determined to repeal the entire bill, kicking millions of people off their healthcare and putting Insurance companies back in the driver’s seat when determining who to insure and who to deny.
Ted Cruz, speaking on behalf of his Teaparty colleagues and congressional Republicans, continued their promise to take away your health care.
“I am absolutely convinced we are going to repeal every single word of Obamacare,” Cruz told a group of Teaparty members as they celebrated their 5th year of obstruction and regression.
“If you listen to the media, if you listen to Democrats — although I repeat myself — they will say the fight to stop Obamacare did not succeed,” Cruz said. “Really? Well, I’m a big believer the proof is in the pudding. Last fall, millions of Americans rose up and said, ‘Stop the disaster that is Obamacare.’”
Of course, Cruz cannot point to any documented proof showing the “million of Americans” who want to stop Obamacare. But it’s a good talking point and his brainless believers – some of them on government insurance – eat up his nonsense.
“I am hopeful, I am optimistic, I am filled with the promise that we’re going to turn this country around,” the Canadian born leader of the Teaparty said, “because there is a grass-roots revolution sweeping this country.”
Again, Cruz cannot show this so-called “grass-roots revolution,” because it doesn’t exist. In fact, new polling states that 64% of Americans are against the Teaparty. But this small fact never stopped this fella from lying before, so he continued. And the 300 or so in attendance loved every moment of it!
And I must say that I agree with the vice president. Most of the times, Democrats are on the ropes, taking punches from a completely dead Republican party.
Democrats are considered the underdogs in this year’s elections, but Vice President Biden is urging the party to stay positive.
“I am so tired about hearing about the demise of the Democratic Party — give me a break!” Biden told members of the Democratic National Committee on Thursday.
“My central message to you is, look: I think we should not apologize for a single thing,” said the vice president.
That includes the new health care law, expected to be a central issue in the November congressional elections.
Democrats are battling to maintain control of the Senate in this year’s elections; they are not expected to be able to re-take control of the House of Representatives.
President Obama gets his turn before the Democratic National Committee on Friday afternoon.
Former third-party presidential candidate Ralph Nader doesn’t think much of Sen. Ted Cruz, calling him a “train wreck” in a new interview.
“Ted Cruz you know, he’s a train wreck,” Nader said on Larry King’s “Politicking” on Ora TV on Thursday night. “He’s willing to shut down government, willing to tie up the Senate. He doesn’t seem to be able to have a two-way conversation.”
Nader also slammed the Texas Republican for his ties to Big Business, a criticism the activist has also leveled at politicians including President Barack Obama.
“I don’t think he’s really all that libertarian,” Nader said of the tea party favorite. “I think he has corporatist tendencies, Big Business tendencies, regardless of his rhetoric, but he’s not accomplishing much. If he was really serious, he would push a movement to get all government contracts online. … He’s not achieving anything.”
If your wife is planning a run for the presidency and the opposition has an in your face effort to suppress the vote, you would do whatever you can – legally of course – to make sure that she gets a fair shot at winning. And you wouldn’t wait until she announce her intention to run.
You’ll get on the ball as soon as possible, explaining to all that what the opposition is trying to do is wrong. You’ll go on the offense. You’ll fight!
Bill Clinton has began the fight. Realizing that his wife would need a supportive Congress, the former president has already been on the campaign trail, supporting other like minded Democratic candidates, and now this – an ad painting out how the opposition is trying to suppress the vote.
For all those wondering if Hillary was going to run for president, wonder no more.
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It’s perfect…
This is a sad and unfortunate story, and it is fully representative of the road we are traveling as a society
It was supposed to be a family night out at the movies. A father, a mother and their 19-year-old daughter.
There was an argument between the mother and her daughter that caused the mother to hit her daughter. Someone witnessed the confrontation and called the cops and that’s where all hell broke loose.
The police arrived and went straight to the family. The singled out the father asking him for his identification. What happened next is sketchy, but the police ended up pepper-spraying the husband. At this point the mother started recording the encounter on her cellphone.
We see the man lying on his stomach handcuffed with police officers kneeling on his back. We hear the mother calling out to her husband multiple times asking if he’s okay.
No response.
The man stayed on the ground, still on his stomach, still handcuffed, still surrounded by cops, his wife now frantically calling out his name asking anyone, everyone, if her husband is okay.
No response.
The recording ended when it finally dawned on the mother and the daughter that something terrible had happened. Her husband, her father was dead. Pepper sprayed, faced down on the ground, handcuffed, with multiple officers subduing him.
He was dead.
This nation is quickly becoming a police state. The shoot first ask questions never mentality abounds, and innocent people are dying in the process.
Three officers were suspended with pay for the killing of this innocent man. A daughter is left fatherless and a wife is left with a video that she filmed, showing the killing of her husband.
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“Time for some traffic problems in Fort Lee” – the now infamous quote by Bridget Kelly that closed down lanes on the busiest bridge in the world – was not the first time Christie’s people spoke about willfully causing problems for the constituents of New Jersey.
Documents released by Wildstein to a state legislative committee probing the incident, in which lanes were shut near the busy George Washington Bridge, causing a huge traffic jam, reveal that on August 19 he and Kelly discussed another traffic scheme.
“We cannot cause traffic problems in front of his house, can we?” Kelly wrote in a message to Wildstein.
“Flights to Tel Aviv all mysteriously delayed,” Wildstein wrote in reply.
Kelly and Wildstein appear to be joking.
“This is part of the drip, drip, drip of bad news for Christie,” said Lee Miringoff, a political observer and a pollster with Marist College.
The Star-Ledger newspaper has identified the rabbi as Mendy Carlebach of the Chabad of North and South Brunswick who was also a chaplain for the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey Police Department.
“He has officially pissed me off,” Wildstein wrote.
Carlebach did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Attorneys for Wildstein and Kelly also did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
