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McConnell Tells Reid He Will Not Negotiate With Him and Will Allow Filibuster on Reid Bill

Click here to view this media Well, it looks at though we’re in for a weekend of political theater. As Lawrence O’Donnell noted when talking to Sen. Kent Conrad about the latest coming out of the Senate tonight, it appears Minority Leader Mitch McConnell is not done pulling political stunts. Apparently McConnell just told Leader Reid that he will not negotiate directly with him, and will only negotiate with President Obama. McConnell also told Reid that he would not allow Reid’s bill to pass with a simple majority vote, so in other words, he’s going to allow the Senate to filibuster. This means that the Senate would not be allowed to vote on Reid’s bill until Sunday at 1am and in the mean time, the House would be voting on Reid’s bill sometime tomorrow. If McConnell wants to filibuster Reid’s bill, I say it’s time for them to break out the cots, but it doesn’t look like that’s going to happen since the Senate already adjourned tonight. It would be nice to see a clean bill pass that simply raises the debt ceiling instead of these bills they’ve been negotiating passing. I guess we’ll find out shortly if that’s too much to hope for or not. In the mean time, they’re taking this dangerous game of chicken with our economy right up to the wire with more stalling from Republicans.

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CNN's American Morning co-hosts tried to lecture those opposed to voting to raise the debt ceiling on the error of their ways on Friday morning. When a guest GOP congressman tried to explain why he was voting no, and complained of being “vilified” for his stance, Romans showed him no mercy. The American Morning co-host accused the dissenting Republicans who voted “no” to Boehner's plan Thursday night of holding the debt ceiling “hostage” to enacting bigger spending cuts. She made sure to emphasize that Tea Partiers and Republicans could be blamed if the economy dives. [Video below the break.] “I'll tell you why they're vilified,” Romans spat back at her guest, Rep. Trey Gowdy (R-S.C.). “They're vilified because there are two different things here.” “There's the debt ceiling, which is paying for what Congress has already passed and already agreed on, and then there's getting the budget deficit and our debt and deficits under control, which is something else. And you guys are using the debt ceiling as leverage to work on that bigger long-term unsustainable debt story.” Later in the next hour, Romans actually asked guest Stephen Moore of the Wall Street Journal to explain to dissenting Republicans why not raising the debt ceiling would be a bad idea. In her interview with Rep. Gowdy, Romans baited the congressman to admit that the terms of the debate at the present were favorable to Republicans and that the Tea Party members should have accepted. “Isn't that enough?” she said of the spending cuts and absence of tax increases. A transcript of the segments, which aired on July 29 at 7:31 a.m. EDT and 8:34 a.m. EDT respectively, is as follows: CNN AMERICAN MORNING 7/29/11 7:31 a.m. EDT Rep. TREY GOWDY (R-S.C.): Our job is to – or at least I view my job as the congressman for the fourth congressional district in South Carolina, is to vote the collective conscience of my constituents, which is this – we have a $14 trillion problem. The notion of giving the president a clean debt increase was never going to happen, so the issue then becomes what's the best thing you can get in exchange for raising the debt ceiling. Many of us who are labeled or vilified or whatever the proper word is, as “extremists” and “radicals” have already voted twice to raise the debt ceiling. Once in Paul Ryan's budget. CHRISTINE ROMANS: I'll tell you why they're vilified. They're vilified because there are two different things here. There's the debt ceiling, which is paying for what Congress has already passed and already agreed on, and then there's getting the budget deficit and our debt and deficits under control, which is something else. And you guys are using the debt ceiling as leverage to work on that bigger long-term unsustainable debt story. You've made a lot of progress. You have got the president on board, with even talking about entitlement reforms. You've got him up to what, three or four trillion dollars in cuts, and you've got a national conversation about living beyond our means. Isn't that enough? GOWDY: It's progress in the right direction, but I would respectfully say to you if more Congresses has used raising the debt ceiling as a leverage point, then you and I may not be having this conversation. I think it's instructive that five years ago, the president, the vice president, voted no on raising the debt ceiling. So the notion that it is all of a sudden calamitous or that calamitous has a different definition because Republicans are running the House is balder dash. I am happy to raise the debt ceiling. I have voted to do it twice, but I want the 75th time to be the last time. ROMANS: So you said if you think calamitous is balder dash, I just want to give you a couple, okay, so Credit Suisse says stocks may fall 30 percent if the U.S. defaults. 30 percent for stocks. That means your constituents would see their 401(k)s go down. You have bank presidents, bank CEOs saying raise the debt ceiling this week, please, or we will suffer grave consequences and you have strains already showing up, sir, in the short-term lending markets. The short-term credit markets, companies pulling out billions of dollars because they want to wait and see what's going to happen next. We're already seeing the strains. GOWDY: Well do this for me, read the quotes of what will happen if our bond rating is downgraded, which is going to happen if we don't bend the spending arc in this country. The dichotomy – ROMANS: Well I think we all agree on that. So here's the thing, there's two things happening — GOWDY: Well if we agree on it, then let's fix it. ROMANS: Well exactly, but fix it in a responsible way. If you don't raise the debt ceiling and suddenly you have a 40 percent cut in government spending, a 40 percent slam-on-the-brakes quickly in the economy. That would have calamitous effects on jobs. I mean, that's not an opinion. That's not editorializing. That is a fact, Congressman. So how do we do it in a responsible way without holding the debt ceiling hostage to it? GOWDY: Well, here's another fact. The House Republicans have voted twice to raise the debt ceiling. One was voted down in the Senate, the other was not even given the luxury of a vote. It was tabled. So we've done it twice. If the Senate has a plan, they certainly haven't shared it with us. And if the president has a plan, he certainly hasn't shared it with us. What we'll do today, and I predict it will be done today, is for the third time, send a plan that raises the debt ceiling in a responsible way. The Senate hasn't done it. The White House hasn't done it. I just respectfully disagree with you. Nobody wants a default. I have not met a soul that wants a default. Nor do we want a downgrade, which is coming if we do not bend the spending arc in this country. I happen to think we can do both. We can avert a default and bend the spending arc and avoid a downgrade, and let's don't kid ourselves, a downgrade is just as insidious as a default over the long term. ROMANS: Yes. I mean, it absolutely is. And we know that the – our deficits and debts are unsustainable. We know that. But the concern here is, and you must be concerned, that you and your – and the Tea Party part of your party and your party, could be blamed if this whole thing goes south because there isn't a political solution in Washington. (…) ROMANS: And Congressman, I'll get you there. Even, you know, Ali and I and others have been reporting for years on the unsustainable debt situation. Only this time if it comes down to a downgrade, technical default or real default on our bonds and it ends up costing us more in the end, when fixing our spending actually costs us more because of the way we've gone about fixing our spending then that would just hurt everyone. (…) CNN AMERICAN MORNING 7/29/11 8:34 a.m. EDT ROMANS: Stephen, I want you to sort of use this moment since you are ideologically aligned with the people who are holding this back to tell them – because many of them are not believing us or anyone else that there are ramifications in global markets if we don't raise the debt ceiling. Could you just try to tell them here in this venue what happens if we don't raise the debt ceiling, what message that sends to capital markets and securities markets around the world? STEPHEN MOORE, senior economics writer, Wall Street Journal editorial page: I don't think it's the end of the world. I think – here is my opinion on this. I think a bigger danger right now that you all and the press are not focusing enough on, is if we do get a debt deal done and the financial markets say, you know what, this isn't serious, this isn't a serious plan to deal with the debt, that could also spark a financial crisis because people would then say the American political system is not capable of dealing this for – do you know what I mean? Ali, you got to admit that's a risk too. VELSHI: Sure, but let's clarify for our viewers, because this is something you understand that we didn't, we're not getting clear from a lot of these congressional Republicans who keep on saying we are likely to get a downgrade anyway. The downgrade that we may get because we've been unable to deal with this is a small downgrade from AAA. The downgrade you get by defaulting on a loan – we all agree we're not likely to go down that road – it's a very different kind of downgrade. That is a serious one. MOORE: I think both scenarios are serious, quite frankly. My preferred solution is to get the biggest cuts in spending that we can with enforceable caps, whether we get there or not. Look, we're going to get two or three trillion dollars of savings over ten years. That's a start but over the next ten years we're going to spend $40 trillion. So, you know, we've got a big debt crisis on our hand and this is only the first step. And don't forget, once we get this resolved we'll be talking – then we're going to be talking about the spending bills that come down in September. So this is like Groundhog's Day, right? This debate over the budget just never seems to end.

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Raw Video: House Passes GOP Debt Limit Bill

Republicans have passed a House bill to extend the government’s borrowing authority and cut spending over solid Democratic opposition. The vote was 218-210, but Democrats say the measure will die in the Senate.

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Raw Video: House Passes GOP Debt Limit Bill

Republicans have passed a House bill to extend the government’s borrowing authority and cut spending over solid Democratic opposition. The vote was 218-210, but Democrats say the measure will die in the Senate.

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Jon Stewart took a shot at the House Republicans for what their logic might have been when deciding to use a scene from The Town to inspire their members to vote for John Boehner’s debt ceiling bill.

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Appearing on MSNBC this afternoon, Time Magazine's Michael Scherer set out to debunk a non-existent Republican red herring on the debt ceiling debate on Friday's News Nation. “The President has been negotiating behind the scenes, has put forward a number of proposals and he's gone public with the outlines of a proposal he is willing to accept,” said Scherer. Scherer also seems to think that saying good things about other plans constitutes having a plan. “He's also endorsed the Reid plan, he's said good things about the Gang of Six plan, but Republicans because they are the legislative body here in the House complain that the president doesn't have a plan, there is no plan, he's put nothing on the table and it's just misleading at this point,” said Sherer. Scherer did not mention that the White House has not yet backed an actual legislative plan on paper to resolve the debt ceiling fight. In fairness to Scherer, he also did take apart a common media narrative that Republicans aren't interested in compromise. “It is true that Republicans don't like that word compromise, and Democrats love it, and that's because they're appealing to different voters,” said Scherer. “Both parties are working towards compromise, it's just rhetorically Democrats have been beating the Republicans over the head with the word compromise, because Republicans don't like to use the word.” The relevant transcript follows: MSNBC “NewsNation” July 29, 2011 2:33 p.m. EDT THOMAS ROBERTS, substitute host: Joining me now is Michael Scherer, White House correspondent for Time magazine and he writes today about the top four red herrings of the debt debate which says poorly reflect political realities. All right, so it's good to have you on with me Michael, I love talking about this stuff because I think there are a lot of red herrings going on in Washington DC right now when we get to this. So let's go over the number one you talk about is that President Obama doesn't have a plan. Explain. MICHAEL SCHERER: Well, this harks back to the Paul Ryan budget. Paul Ryan put through a budget earlier this spring that would have reduced drastically the cost of Medicare and turned it into a voucher program. Republicans complained that the President didn't respond with his own counter-proposal and that was true at the time, and they've sort of continued that criticism now

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Tulane professor Melissa Harris-Perry, guest hosting on Rachel Maddow's MSNBC show last night, could hardly contain her mirth at the specter of an elected official actually praying for guidance while Congress struggles over the debt ceiling. Here's Harris-Perry describing tea party Republicans facing the wrath of House Speaker John Boehner for not supporting his debt plan (video after page break) — After leaving Speaker Boehner's office, Republican congressman Louie Gohmert of Texas informed reporters that he was still 'a bloodied and beaten no.' And according to NBC's Luke Russert, Republican congressman Mick Mulvaney of South Carolina, who also plans to vote no, exited Speaker Boehner's office and then headed straight to a small chapel in the Capitol, telling reporters he was going to (pause for effect) pray for his leadership. And Republican congressman Steve Southerland also told reporters that he was a no and when asked if anything could change his mind, he said, 'If the Lord takes me home right now.' Speaking with Harris-Perry minutes later, NBC reporter Luke Russert showed how he also gets a kick out of these unevolved conservatives and their anachronistic worship of a sky god — A few other interesting things that have occurred here on what is turning into quite a chaotic night. You mentioned the prayer off to the side. (Harris-Perry chuckles in response) Also, we actually had an altercation between reporters and police officers trying to clear out the hallway in front of Speaker Boehner's office 'cause there were so many reporters wanting to ask so many questions. … Yet another example of violence linked to Republicans … Praying an example of chaos? Its antithesis would be more accurate. Something tells me Harris-Perry and Russert would have been a tad more respectful had it been President Obama going to the chapel, or Congressman Keith Ellison, Democrat of Minnesota, the first Muslim elected to Congress.

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US disarray hits global stock markets

• President Obama pins hopes on Senate leaders • Spain calls snap general election • Italian bond yields hit 5.89% Barack Obama cleared his diary for the weekend last night to try to find a deal on the US debt crisis as Congress prepared to stay in session ready to vote on any last-gasp compromise. Speaking after dismal figures for US growth increased the pressure on lawmakers to prevent a fresh meltdown in global markets, Obama said: “I am confident we can solve this problem. I am confident we will solve this problem. “For all the intrigue and all the drama that’s taking place on Capitol Hill right now, I’m confident that common sense and cooler heads will prevail.” But Congress remained in disarray Friday with the Republican leader in the House, John Boehner, wounded and in a dangerous mood after failing to quell a humiliating revolt by the Tea Party wing of the party. Boehner scheduled a vote on Thursday on a Republican bill to raise the debt ceiling and cut spending, but hard-core conservatives refused to back it and the vote had to be temporarily abandoned. The febrile mood in Washington was matched on Wall Street and the City, where news that the US grew at an annual rate of just 1.3% in the three months to June prompted renewed concern that the world’s biggest economy could lapse back into recession should it have its credit worthiness downgraded by the ratings agencies. Speculation that the Federal Reserve might need to embark on a third round of quantitative easing – the creation of electronic money – intensified after revisions to past figures for US gross domestic product showed the recession was deeper than originally believed and the subsequent recovery weaker. America’s peak-to-trough drop in output between 2007 and 2009 is now put at 5.1% rather than the 4.1% originally estimated. With the International Monetary Fund warning the US that a continued impasse risks reigniting Europe’s debt crisis, bond yields in Italy and Spain rose. The interest rate on 10-year Italian bonds rose to 5.89%, while that for Spain – where the government called a general election – climbed to 6.09%. Shares in London closed down 1% lower, a drop of 58.02 at 5815.19, while the Dow Jones industrial average was on course to complete a week of daily falls with a loss of 60 points by lunchtime in New York. Sources close to George Osborne said the new figures from the US showed that the American and British experience during and after the global downturn had been similar, weakening the argument for the coalition government to revisit its tough austerity plans. Obama used the growth figures to urge Congress to come to a compromise on raising the US debt ceiling from $14.3tn (£8.7tn) by Tuesday’s deadline. The White House is pinning its hopes for a deal on the Senate, where Obama hopes the Democratic leader Harry Reid and his Republican counterpart Mitch McConnell, a mainstream conservative, can reach a deal. Obama, in a short statement at the White House, said there were multiple ways to resolve the debt stand-off by the Tuesday deadline. If the US does not raise its debt ceiling by 2 August, it risks being unable to continue borrowing and unable to pay its bills. Obama has said that default is not an option so the US treasury would prioritise keeping up interest payments, which could mean cuts elsewhere. The president reiterated that the victims could be people expecting federal cheques for welfare, and payments to military veterans and government contractors. “This is not a situation where the two parties are miles apart,” Obama said. He added: “There are a lot of crises in the world that we can’t always predict or avoid: hurricanes, earthquakes, tornadoes, terrorist attacks. This isn’t one of those crises. The power to solve this is in our hands.” One scenario would be for the Senate to pass a compromise bill over the weekend that would raise the debt ceiling until the end of next year, after the White House election, and make deep cuts in spending. It could then be passed to the House for a vote in the hope that a combination of mainstream Republicans and Democrats would get it through. Tea Party Republicans could vote against, able to return to their districts and tell activists they remained faithful to the cause. Boehner, in an attempt to recover ground after Thursday’s debacle, rewrote his bill to make it more appealing to the Tea Party wing of his party. But even if the House was to pass that version, the Senate would vote it down. The White House, too, promised to veto it because it would only be a stop-gap measure, lasting only through to February or March with the prospect of another crisis then. Reid, speaking on Friday morning in the Senate, described Thursday as a wasted day because of the Republican fiasco in the House and the blamed the crisis on “extremists in the Tea Party”. He called for mainstream Republicans to back a compromise. “Will the Republicans back away from the shrill voice of the Tea Party and return to the Republican party of Ronald Reagan?” he said. He urged McConnell to meet him to resolve the stalemate. “I will listen to any idea to get this done in a way that prevents a default and a dangerous downgrade to America’s credit rating. Time is short, and too much is at stake, to waste even one more minute,” Reid said. He will push to a vote his plan to raise the debt ceiling and to cut about $2.5tn in spending over the next decade. McConnell also took to the floor of the Senate and did not sound encouraging about a deal, though he may be saying something different in private. “Lawmakers should be working a solution to this crisis, not a blocking strategy. Our Democrat friends here in the Senate have offered no solutions to this crisis that could pass either chamber,” McConnell said. He blamed Obama too, accusing him of having blown up a bipartisan compromise last week. US economy Economics Stock markets US politics United States European debt crisis Spain Italy Europe Ewen MacAskill Larry Elliott guardian.co.uk

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Lefty Paul Krugman Urges More Bias, Wants Journalists to Denounce G.O.P Extremism

Liberal New York Times columnist Paul Krugman on Friday denounced the “centrist cop-out” of balance. Krugman specifically singled out the Associated Press for not exclusively blaming the ongoing debt ceiling impasse on the Republican Party. Complaining about too much fairness, he derided his journalistic colleagues, “But making nebulous calls for centrism, like writing news reports that always place equal blame on both parties, is a big cop-out — a cop-out that only encourages more bad behavior. The problem with American politics right now is Republican extremism , and if you’re not willing to say that, you’re helping make that problem worse .”

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Radical Muslim jailed for calling for jihad against MPs

Judge describes Bilal Zaheer Ahmad as a viper in our midst before jailing him for 12 years for threats on websites An IT graduate who wrote messages on an Islamic extremist website calling on Muslims to “raise the knife of jihad” and attack and kill British MPs who voted in favour of the war in Iraq has been jailed for 12 years. Bilal Zaheer Ahmad, 24, posted the threats on the US-based RevolutionMuslim.com website with a full list of all MPs who had voted in the House of Commons in favour of the war and links providing personal contact details. He called on them to emulate Roshonara Choudhry , who had attempted to murder the Labour MP Stephen Timms with a knife at his East Ham constituency surgery six months previously, Bristol crown court heard. Ahmad, who worked for an insurance company in Telford, Shropshire, also posted a link to the Tesco website listing cheap knives, urging would-be fanatics to use them to carry out attacks. Jailing him for 12 years, with an additional five years’ extended period on licence, Mr Justice Royce said: “You became a viper in our midst willing to go as far as possible to strike at the heart of our system.” Ahmad, who holds British and Pakistani passports, had purported to be a British citizen, said Royce. “But what you stand for is totally alien to what we stand for in our country.” He added that his views were “corrosively dangerous”. “It’s important MPs can hold constituency surgeries without the threat of someone pulling out a knife and trying to kill them. You were intent on striking at the heart of our democracy and if our politicians are to be at risk from those like you, then the message must go out loud and clear that this country will not tolerate such threats to its democratic processes.” Ahmad posted his threat on 3 November, the day after Choudhry, a 21-year-old university student, was jailed for life for the knife attack on Timms in May last year. She stabbed him twice with a six-inch knife, damaging his liver and perforating his stomach. She later said she had been influenced by the radical sermons of Anwar al-Awlaki, a Yemen-based preacher and al-Qaida leader. Police arrested Ahmad, at the time living in Dunstall, Wolverhampton, on 10

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