Rep. Flake: We Need Enforcable Spending Caps What if the debt limit isn’t increased Andrea Tantaros on Fox News America’s Newsroom 04-11-11 Cantor: U.S. Will Hit Its Debt Ceiling | TPMDC House Majority Leader Eric Cantor suggested Tuesday that Congress will allow the country to hit its debt ceiling , and continue to hold out for dramatic spending cuts while the nation approaches a genuine default. Obama Open To Deal On Debt Ceiling White House officials have opened the door to a deal with Republicans that would allow the U.S. to increase its ability to borrow, potentially easing worries in financial markets that the country might default on its debt. Daily Kos: WSJ rewrites Plouffe comment about raising debt ceiling I’m a little surprised at the extent to which folks are overreacting to the Wall Street Journal article on the White House and the debt ceiling . The article is incredibly thin, cites no sources at all, and comes from a Murdoch-owned … RealClearPolitics – Apocalypse Not: Debt Ceiling Will Be Raised Kay Bailey Hutchison, a Texas Republican, warned Friday on CNN, “The debt ceiling is going to be Armageddon.” White House spokesman Jay Carney chose similar eschatological terms on Monday. “The consequences,” Carney said, “of failure to … Debt Ceiling | Senator to filibuster raising debt ceiling unless … Anonymous senate staffer tells Mark Levin to expect filibuster on ‘any attempt to raise the debt ceiling ‘ without conditions met. ThinkCenter1968 says: Why should we be afraid of a debt ceiling when we created it to control ourselves? As long as we keep making payments & don't default!
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The ominous threat of a government shutdown dominated the news last week. The media weren’t wrong to cover it as a dramatic debate, but all of the hype and horror looked a little bizarre by the weekend – like wide-eyed, screaming hurricane warnings on the Weather Channel followed by a sunny calm. When the deal was struck, the TV pundits quickly moved on to how there were sharper, harsher battles ahead over much larger chunks of federal spending. That’s true. But in hindsight, the entire shutdown fight looks by comparison like a war over who was splitting the pizza delivery bill….tip. The $38 billion in spending cuts is a bit of an achievement when Obama didn’t want to cut anything – but it’s still the drop in the proverbial $3.7 trillion bucket. Instead of fighting over who’s the “winner” in this small skirmish, let’s just focus on a few obnoxious shutdown spins. 1. Obama the adult vs. Tea Party brats. CBS reporter Chip Reid summed this up helpfully: “One thing the White House is hoping to do is have the President appear like an adult breaking up a childish battle.” CNN analyst Gloria Borger “Politically, what he’s trying to do is be the grown-up.” This is the media trying to help the president triangulate out of owning any of this deficit mess. This is about spending for the fiscal year that began last October , more than six months ago when the Democrats controlled everything. Back then, the supposed “grown-up” Obama didn’t lift a finger to stop kicking the can with continuing resolutions. He was too busy blaming Republicans for driving the country into a “ditch.” Then after the GOP took over the House in January, Obama refused to participate in negotiations. In the closing days, the Reids and Borgers pretended Obama was not a partisan leader who would stand with the Democrats. The media didn’t want him to be an architect of
Continue reading …Progressive Group To Supporters: Withhold Donations To Obama If He Cuts Medicare, Medicaid
April 12, 2011 1 Comment
WASHINGTON — One of the thorniest progressive groups in the side of the Obama administration is launching a new campaign against the president on Tuesday, this time targeting the president’s vaunted grassroots donor base. One day before President Obama is slated to outline his blueprint for deficit reduction, the Progressive Change Campaign Committee (PCCC) put out a preemptive warning shot, of sorts. In an email to its list, the group asks members to withhold money from the Obama re-election campaign should the president endorse cuts to Medicare and Medicaid. The pledge reads as follows: “President Obama: If you cut Medicare and Medicaid benefits for me, my parents, my grandparents, or families like mine, don’t ask for a penny of my money or an hour of my time in 2012. I’m going to focus on electing bold progressive candidates — not Democrats who help Republicans make harmful cuts.” Click here to sign. [snip] Many people still want to believe in President Obama. But the White House needs to understand that their actions now will have real consequences for 2012. The level of grassroots enthusiasm will be determined by whether the President fights for bold progressive change — and takes cuts that hurt grandparents, the disabled, and kids firmly off the table. Progressive angst with the president is hardly unique to the deficit debate. On Tuesday, Senator Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) announced that he would oppose the budget deal coordinated by the White House, Senate Democrats and House Republicans, on grounds that the cuts were “Robin Hood in reverse.” In that respect, the PCCC’s latest campaign fits its institutional niche — the group has done wonders raising funds, building its email list, and raising its profile off demands that Obama be a more principled Democrat. What stands out about this effort is the targeting of small donors, whose money remains (despite all the high-profile fundraising events) mother’s milk for the Obama campaign. UPDATE: A Democratic source sends over the following poll data showing that, despite PCCC campaigns and boycotts in the past, the president’s standing with progressives remains quite strong. From the most recent Daily Kos/SEIU/PPP poll (March 31-April 3, 2011): 86% of Liberals Have a Favorable Opinion of Pres. Obama 80% of Liberals Approve of Pres. Obama’s Job Performance When Asked Whether Pres. Obama Is Too Liberal, Too Conservative or About Right, 67% of Liberals Said “About Right” The most recent CNN/Opinion Research poll (April 9-10, 2011) has this: 78% of Liberals Approve of Pres. Obama’s Job Performance
Continue reading …Washington (CNN) — White House Press Secretary Jay Carney said Tuesday that the fiscal year 2012 blueprint put forward by House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan, R-Wisconsin, “fails the test of balance, and balance is essential.
Continue reading …Washington (CNN) — White House Press Secretary Jay Carney said Tuesday that the fiscal year 2012 blueprint put forward by House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan, R-Wisconsin, “fails the test of balance, and balance is essential.
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Police have found the vehicle belonging to a missing Georgia mother of five, but they’re not any closer to discovering why she went missing last Friday night. (April 12)
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White House spokesman Jay Carney declined Tuesday to provide specifics about the speech President Barack Obama will give Wednesday on his plan to reduce the nation’s deficit. (April 12)
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White House spokesman Jay Carney declined Tuesday to provide specifics about the speech President Barack Obama will give Wednesday on his plan to reduce the nation’s deficit. (April 12)
Continue reading …Trump ties with Huck for lead in CNN poll of GOP voters: Must suck to be Romney
April 12, 2011 No Comment
Click here to view this media It must kinda suck to be Mitt Romney today. I mean, you go ahead take the first preliminary steps for running for president by announcing you’re running for president. You kick off with a speech that includes lotsa de rigeur trash talk directed at President Obama, and vow that he will be a one-term president. It’s supposed to be your big day, right? And then CNN comes out with a poll showing you in fourth place — trailing far behind a hairpiece, a preacher, and the Shrilla From Wasilla: Donald Trump is now tied with Mike Huckabee for first place when Republicans are asked who they support for the GOP presidential nomination in 2012, according to a new national poll. But while a CNN/Opinion Research Corporation survey released Tuesday indicates that the real estate mogul and reality TV star has nearly doubled his support since mid-March, it doesn’t mean he has smooth sailing ahead. “More than four in ten Republicans say they would not like to see Trump toss his hat in the ring,” says CNN Polling Director Keating Holland. Nineteen percent of Republicans and Republican-leaning independents questioned in the poll say that as of now, they’d be most likely to support Trump for next year’s GOP presidential nomination. Trump says he’ll decide by June whether he runs for the White House. An equal amount say they’d back Huckabee. The former Arkansas governor and 2008 Republican presidential candidate says he’ll decide by later this year if he’ll make another bid for the White House. Twelve percent say they’d support former Gov. Sarah Palin of Alaska, who was the party’s 2008 vice presidential nominee, with 11 percent backing former Massachusetts Gov. and 2008 White House hopeful Mitt Romney and the same amount supporting former House Speaker Newt Gingrich. Seven percent say they are backing Rep. Ron Paul of Texas, another 2008 presidential candidate, with five percent supporting Rep. Michele Bachmann of Minnesota, who enjoys strong backing from many in the Tea Party movement. Everyone else registers in the low single digits. The funniest part of this is seeing Trump rise steadily in the polls even as he sinks ever deeper into Birtherism. You’d think this would just make the other Republican candidates look sane and intelligent by comparison, but apparently in the Planet Bizarro Universe that is “reality” for Republican voters, it works just the other way around! Mark Blumenthal points out that Trump’s numbers are pretty ephemeral, though — especially when you start getting into the general public, which largely finds Donald Trump a despicable and repellent creature : 47 percent of the adults in Gallup’s polling have a highly unfavorable view of Trump, compared to only 43 percent who view him positively. As Blumenthal explains: So while Trump begins with a level of visibility and name recognition that many of the other Republicans lack, he also retains significant negatives that will likely limit his appeal in the all-important early primaries. Gallup has tracked Trump’s favorable rating four times in the last ten years, and as they report, “Trump’s public image is roughly the same now as it was in September 1999,” just before he formed a committee to explore running for president as a Reform Party candidate. But it’s clear where the impetus for this is coming from: the Tea Partiers of the Republican base — who, not so coincidentally, have an extremely high rate of Birtherism . Per Blumenthal: That shift is likely spurred by Tea Party Republicans. The NBC/Wall Street Journal poll found that Trump does better among Tea Party supporters than among other Republicans, winning slightly more support (20 percent) than Romney (17 percent), Huckabee (14 percent), Palin (12 percent) or Gingrich (9 percent). It only makes sense, after all: Trump embodies all the Tea Partiers’ right-wing populist myths about Producers. He may also come to embody the Tea Partiers’ limited influence on the upcoming GOP primary.
Continue reading …ABC’s Bill Weir Is Smitten by ‘Fashionable,’ ‘Vivacious,’ ‘Telegenic’ Desiree Rogers
April 12, 2011 No Comment
Nightline co-anchor Bill Weir on Monday couldn't help but fawn over former Obama White House social Secretary Desiree Rogers, lauding her as a ” fashionable, vivacious, interesting, telegenic person in a town with not a lot of that, frankly. ” The journalist failed to offer much in the way of tough questions. Regarding the 2009 fiasco of having Michaele and Tareq Salahi crash a state dinner with the President, Weir gently wondered, “…What are your thoughts now that that night won't be remembered for [being a success]?”
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