Not that anyone really cares what Charles Barkley has to say about politics, but someone did ask and Barkley of course, offered his opinion.
“I am paying close attention to the political situation,” Barkley said, when Sports Illustrated’s Richard Deitsch asked him in a new interview for his thoughts about the 2016 presidential election . “I have always voted Democratic. But I like some of the Republicans this time around. I like Chris Christie. I like Jeb Bush. I like those guys.”
Asked about Hillary Clinton, Barkley laughed and said, “Well, I just told you I was thinking about voting Republican.”
“But I was very disappointed in Chris Christie the other day on the measles thing,” he said, referring to the New Jersey governor’s comments about vaccinations. “It is a shame that these guys are afraid of just answering the question and trying to make everyone agree with you.”
Barkley said he did vaccinate his daughter but did not appreciate how Christie started to change his position once he received “blowback” from the media. “I’m like, dude, your opinion is just your fucking opinion,” he said. “I don’t understand why you answer a question and think everyone is going to agree with you. You can’t live your life like that.”
It took them a few days to figure this out. After showing a picture of President Obama in a story about an alleged rape, Fox finally decided to issue a correction and an “apology” to their story.
At 10:31 p.m. Sunday, two days after the original “mistake” was made, Fox 5 anchor Misha DiBono read this statement:
“And we have an apology now. Friday night at 10 o’clock, we inadvertently used a photo of President Obama while reporting on a story about charges being dropped in a local case. We regret the error.”
And rightly so. Republican House Speaker John Boehner went on Fox News over the weekend and screamed down Fox host, Chris Wallace, telling him that the blame for any Department of Homeland Security shutdown would be placed on Senate Democrats. Boehner was quick to point out that the House of Representatives already passed a bill to keep DHS going past the February 28th deadline, but he failed to admit that the bill contained language specifically geared to shutting down President Obama’s immigration order.
Senate Democrats have said that they would not entertain any DHS funding bill that degrades the President’s immigration order, so we stand at a standstill with the February 28th deadline quickly approaching.
But who should be blamed if the deadline passes and Homeland Security funding stops?
A recent poll conducted by CNN puts that blame in the lap of Congressional Republicans.
Republicans in Congress would shoulder the blame for a shutdown at the Department of Homeland Security if they are unable to enact a new spending bill to keep the agency running, according to a new CNN/ORC poll. The survey finds 53% of Americans would blame the Republicans in Congress if the department must shut down, while 30% would blame President Barack Obama. Another 13% say both deserve the blame.
If a spending bill is not passed by Feb. 28, the agency’s funding will run out.
A majority says a shutdown at DHS, even if it’s just for a few days, would be a crisis or a major problem. Republicans are less likely to see a shutdown as a big problem, 46% say so compared with 66% among Democrats. Among all adults, slightly fewer see a DHS shutdown as a problem or crisis than said so in November when asked about a possible shutdown of the whole government, 55% now vs. 59% in that poll.
As in November, this shutdown threat has more to do with immigration policy than with budgetary concerns.
House Republicans have been sparring with their Senate counterparts over whether a bill to continue the agency’s funding should also reverse Obama’s executive actions on immigration, which shielded millions of undocumented immigrants from deportation. The House has already passed a bill to fund DHS which includes a provision to undo Obama’s actions, but Senate Democrats have blocked attempts to bring the bill to a vote and some Senate Republicans have spoken out against dealing with both issues in one bill.
You got to face it. No one would be talking about Republican joker Mike Huckabee if it weren’t for his constant whippings on Beyoncé. The 2016 potential Republican presidential candidate even dedicated a part of his new book to the singer, insinuating that she is a prostitute and her husband, Jay Z, her pimp!
Well now, it seems that running on the Beyoncé platform is doing good for Huckabee. In a new NBC News-Marist poll, Huckabee is leading all potential Republicans in Iowa with 17 percentage points. Second is George Bush’s brother, Jeb Bush, with 16 and union bashing Scott Walker comes in third with 15.
Rick Perry, Ted Cruz and Lindsey Graham scrapes the bottom of the barrel with 4,2 and 1 percentage points respectively.
On the Democratic side, Hillary Clinton leads all potential candidates with 68 percentage points. Vice President Joe Biden is a far second with 12 followed by Bernie Sanders with 7.
A federal judge in South Texas on Monday temporarily blocked President Barack Obama’s executive action on immigration, giving a coalition of 26 states time to pursue a lawsuit that aims to permanently stop the orders, the Associated Press reports.
U.S. District Judge Andrew Hanen’s decision comes after a hearing in Brownsville in January and puts on hold Obama’s orders that could spare as many as five million people who are in the U.S. illegally from deportation.
Hanen wrote in a memorandum accompanying his order that the lawsuit should go forward and that without a preliminary injunction the states will “suffer irreparable harm in this case.”
“The genie would be impossible to put back into the bottle,” he wrote, adding that he agreed with the plaintiffs’ argument that legalizing the presence of millions of people is a “virtually irreversible” action.
The White House in a statement early Tuesday defended the executive orders issued in November as within the president’s legal authority, saying that the U.S. Supreme Court and Congress have said federal officials can set priorities in enforcing immigration laws.
“The district court’s decision wrongly prevents these lawful, commonsense policies from taking effect and the Department of Justice has indicated that it will appeal that decision,” the statement said. An appeal would be heard by the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in New Orleans.
Is this how we handle terrorism these days, to have everyone run back to their homeland? Isn’t that what the terrorists want… segregation?
In a speech on Sunday, Netanyahu, while talking about a Jewish man who was killed in an attack outside Copenhagen’s main synagogue. suggested the separatist way as the way to stop terrorism – segregation.
“Jews have been murdered again on European soil only because they were Jews,” Netanyahu said. “Of course, Jews deserve protection in every country, but we say to Jews, to our brothers and sisters: Israel is your home.”
Denmark’s chief rabbi Jiar Melchior said he was “disappointed” by Netanyahu’s invitation. “If the way we deal with terror is to run somewhere else, we should all run to a deserted island.”
Separately, Netanyahu also announced $45 million to encourage the immigration of Jews from France, Belgium and Ukraine in a government initiative planned before the Copenhagen attacks.
It’s getting a bit too easy finding contradictions and hypocritical statements in what Governor Chris Christie is saying these days. That must mean he’s running for president.
On his signature issue, pension and benefit reform, the governor went back on his promise to make a full payment for 2014, and his administration even argued in court that the 2011 reform bill is unconstitutional. These are both odd turns, but they are simply a matter of doing business under a man who shamelessly switches policy positions, excoriates those who disagree with him, and simply does what is politically expedient with no central philosophy or plan to guide him.
And through all of this hypocrisy, Christie has the nerve to say that he “tells it like it is.” As a keen observer of national and state politics, I can say with 100% confidence that people who rely on that phrase do not tell it anything near what it is and are, in fact, blowhards who like to hear themselves talk.
The latest example of Christie’s flip-flop road show occurred this week on the issue of the Common Core educational standards. Two years ago, the governor was all for the national standards and agreed with President Obama that the country would be better off with benchmarks on which all states could be evaluated. He even said that this issue should not be politicized.
“I have grave concerns about the way this has been done, especially the way the Obama administration has tried to implement it through tying federal funding to these things. And that changes the entire nature of it, from what was initially supposed to be voluntary type system and states could decide on their own to now having federal money tied to it in ways that really, really give me grave concerns. “So we’re in the midst of re-examination of it in New Jersey….It is something I’m very concerned about, because in the end education needs to be a local issue.”
Yes, he even used the word “grave” twice. This is a man who is definitely running for president.
The problem is that he is mistrusted among the conservatives who will decide two of the first three Republican popularity tests, Iowa and South Carolina, and is mistrusted in New Hampshire, the third test, because he has no record to run on. In fact, he’s running fourth among the early names being bandied about for the GOP nod, which wouldn’t be terrible, except that two of the four ahead of him, Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker and former Florida Governor Jeb Bush, are competing for the same voters as Christie is. He’s going to have to muscle past those two, and they don’t have the scandals and YouTube rantings that he does. I would never count Christie out, but pandering to the right is not the road that “tell it like it is” Chris wants to navigate.
This also comes on the heels of a poll in New Jersey that shows the governor’s popularity and approval ratings at their four year lows. That’s not the political environment in which you’d like to start a national run, but that’s what the man has done since being reelected rather emphatically in November 2013. For a politician who says he knows how to safeguard public money, he sure has spent and wasted a great deal of political capital.
If Christie really wanted to reverse himself, I’d rather it be that he decides next week to build the third rail tunnel under the Hudson River. Or by fully funding public education. Those would definitely show that he knows how to tell it like it is. I’m not holding my breath, though.
That a newspaper will be forced to make this type of a correction, shows the level to which we have plunged to in “news” reporting in America.
The North Carolina newspaper reportedly published the following correction — which the Houston Chronicle called “one of the nuttiest corrections of the year” — last week:
Do you think this was a mistake? If you do, I have a bridge to sell you.
Fox5 San Diego showed the graphic on its Friday night news broadcast, while talking about a rape suspect who was cleared for lack of evidence.
At 10:04 p.m., viewers heard anchor Kathleen Bade say: “The only suspect in a sex assault at SDSU will not be charged.” At the same time, a picture of Obama appeared with the legend “NO CHARGES.”
The Obama shot lasted about 5 seconds, but it was noticed immediately in the newsroom, said Mike Wille, an assignment editor.
“Yeah, there was an accident when they had an over-the-shoulder” display, Wille told Times of San Diego. “It wasn’t on purpose.”
The news continued for 56 minutes, ending at 11 p.m.
Asked why there was no on-air acknowledgment or apology for the error, Wille said: “They really don’t do that when it’s a small thing like that.”
It’s all about the politics. It’s never about what’s best for the America people or what’s best for the country the pledged allegiance to. For Republicans, it’s all about politics and what’s best for their re-election and if it means disrespecting the president, then they’re all in.
Take this current issue surrounding the upcoming Netanyahu Congressional speech for example. Congressional Republicans are using this speech to not only divide the country with many Americans calling the move a huge mistake and a slap in the face of the Obama administration, but they are also driving a wedge between America and Israel. And this fact was brought up in a recent interview between Chris Wallace of Fox News and Republican House Speaker, John Boehner.
“Haven’t you taken one of the few bipartisan issues in this country — support for Israel — and turned it into a political football?” Wallace asked.
“I have not. The fact is that we had every right to do what we did,” Boehner responded. “I wanted the prime minister to come here. There’s a serious threat facing the world. And radical Islamic terrorists are not going to go away.”
“And then when it comes to the threat of Iran having a nuclear weapon, these are important messages that the Congress needs to here and the American people need to hear,” the speaker continued. “And I believe that Prime Minister Netanyahu is the perfect person to deliver the message of how serious this threat is.”
Wallace then pointed out that Boehner asked Ron Dermer, Israel’s ambassador to the U.S., not to tell the White House about the joint meeting with Netanyahu.
“Why would you do that?” Wallace asked.
“Because I wanted to make sure that there was no interference. There’s no secret here in Washington about the animosity that this White House has for Prime Minister Netanyahu. I frankly didn’t want that getting in the way, quashing what I thought was a real opportunity,” Boehner responded.
Wallace challenged Boehner, commenting that the invitation created controversy.
“Shouldn’t the relationship between the U.S. and Israel be outside of politics?” he asked.
“It’s an important message that the American people need to hear. I’m glad that he’s coming, and I’m looking forward to what he has to say,” Boehner responded.
In this week’s Weekly Address, President Obama spoke about education and replacing No Child Left Behind with a more modern, smarter policy that guarantees a better education for our children.
“I want to work with both parties in Congress to replace No Child Left Behind with a smarter law,” the president said. A law “that addresses the overuse of standardized tests, makes a real investment in preschool, and gives every kid a fair shot in the new economy.”
Now you already knew that Republicans have pushed for the construction of the Keystone pipeline that would bring dirty oil-sands from Canada to refineries here in America, despite the environmental challenges and the minimum amount of jobs the project might create.
But here is the real issue of the Keystone pipeline, it pays each ‘yes’ vote in Congress $250,000. That’s $250,000 to every Congress member who voted to approve the pipeline.
The oil and gas industry gave nearly $250,000 to each of the 62 senators who voted in favor of the controversial Keystone XL pipeline project late last month, according to MapLight, a nonpartisan research organization that tracks the influence of money in politics. The revelations come as the House of Representatives is set to vote on and expected to pass the Senate legislation Wednesday that would approve the pipeline and start transferring oil in western Canada to refineries on the Gulf Coast. President Barack Obama has threatened to veto the project on a number of grounds, including environmental concerns.
The oil and gas industry, which stands to benefit from the Keystone XL pipeline, gave $236,544 on average to the senators who voted yes on Keystone, or about 10 times more than the senators who voted no. The 36 senators against the pipeline received about $22,882 apiece in campaign contributions from the oil and gas industry. There was no data on contributions to House members.
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