Monday, November 25, 2013

Senator John Cornyn R-TX - Iran Peace Deal Just "Distraction" from Obamacare

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From CNN
. . . on Sunday, diplomats made history when Iran and six world powers came together on an agreement over Iran's nuclear program.
The deal dials back Iran's ability to work toward a nuclear weapon and at the same time loosens the choke hold of international sanctions on Iran's economy.
. . . That the diplomats came to any accord at all represents a momentous budge in a nearly 35-year deadlock marked by distrust, suspicion and open animosity between the United States and Iran, which broke off diplomatic relations after Iran's revolution in 1979.
It was the first such agreement in 10 years of attempts to negotiate over Iran's nuclear program.

Senator John Cornyn, R-Texas tweeted that President Obama made the historic and ground-breaking Peace Deal with Iran just to deliberately "distract attention from Obamacare." Then after most people on Twitter responded in disbelief, he doubled down instead of backing down.












































Friday, November 22, 2013

Mitch McConnell Sad Over Filibuster Loss

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Previous Related Post:
GOP Cries Tyranny as Harry Reid Nukes Filibuster

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It’s a sad day in the history of the Senate.
~ Senator Minority Leader Mitch McConnell R-Kentucky, via Fox News




























GOP Cries "Tyranny!" as Reid Nukes the Filibuster

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Harry Reid is giving them hell in the Senate! But Honey Badger Don't Care!

The change we propose today would ensure executive and judicial nominees get an up-or-down vote on confirmation – yes or no. This rule change will make cloture for all nominations other than Supreme Court nominees a majority threshold vote – yes or no.
The Senate is a living thing. And to survive, it must change. To the average American, adapting the rules to make Congress work again is just common sense. This is not about Democrats versus Republicans. This is about making Washington work – regardless of who’s in the White House or who controls the Senate. To remain relevant and effective as an institution, The Senate must evolve to meet the challenges of a modern era.
~ Senator Harry Reid, D-Nevada, Asking for Filibuster Reform on Floor of the Senate, 11-21-13





From Huffington Post
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) pulled the trigger Thursday, deploying a parliamentary procedure dubbed the "nuclear option" to change Senate rules to pass most executive and judicial nominees by a simple majority vote.
The Senate voted 52 to 48 for the move, with just three Democrats declining to go along with the rarely used maneuver.

From now until the Senate passes a new rule, executive branch nominees and judges nominated for all courts except the Supreme Court will be able to pass off the floor and take their seats on the bench with the approval of a simple majority of senators. They will no longer have to jump the traditional hurdle of 60 votes, which has increasingly proven a barrier to confirmation during the Obama administration.

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I realize that neither party has been blameless for these tactics. They developed over the years. But today’s pattern of obstruction, it just isn’t normal. It’s not what our founders envisioned. A deliberate and determined effort to obstruct everything, no matter what the merits, just to refight the results of an election is not normal, and for the sake of future generations we can’t let it become normal.
~ President Obama in remarks after the Filibuster Change





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Neither a Democratic president or a Republican president should face this level of obstructionism in exercising their Constitutional responsibility. They have a right to get an up or down vote on staffing the administration and on judges. Now a Republican president of the future will not face this unacceptable obstacle, either.
. . . The filibuster has been used to wage continuous warfare on the presidency. The Senate said today that’s not acceptable. A huge thank you to the leadership team.
~ Senator Jeff Merkley, D-Oregon, to Greg Sargent on The Plum Line, WaPo

. . . Reid never would have used the “nuclear option” without the lemming-like behavior of Senate Republicans. Less ideological GOP members could have voted more frequently to break cloture and force an up-or-down vote, as members of both parties have done, even as filibuster use has increased. They could have stopped the unprecedented number of filibusters of presidential nominations, given that the president has a clearly defined constitutional responsibility to appoint people. They could have stopped blocking duly passed laws. But they didn’t.
So Republicans decrying filibuster reform as “dictatorial” or “a day to be sad” or other hyperbolic claims should look in the mirror. No one forced them to turn filibusters from a rarity to an oft-used tool for nullification and unprecedented obstruction. They have only themselves to blame.
~ James Downe on Washington Post










































Friday, November 15, 2013

Obamacare Equals Hurricane Katrina - Because IDIOTS

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Health Law Rollout’s Stumbles Draw Parallels to Bush’s Hurricane Response
. . . The disastrous rollout of his health care law not only threatens the rest of his agenda but also raises questions about his competence in the same way that the Bush administration’s botched response to Hurricane Katrina undermined any semblance of Republican efficiency.
~ Michael D. Shear on New York Times

Just like Katrina, when the big problem President Bush had was diminishing the significance of what was happening, saying ‘Hey, way to go, Brownie,’—you had the president yesterday talking about glitches and kinks. This is bigger than glitches and kinks. The one difference was Katrina was a storm, the health care law was Obama’s creation.
. . . Maybe the Iraq War is a better analogy.
~ Conservative pundit Ron Fournier on MSNBC

There are moments in a presidency where everything is different afterward and I believe this is that moment. For us, it was Hurricane Katrina because while public support had been dropping for the war in Iraq, after Katrina, after many members of the public and every member of the Democratic Party viewed us as incompetent and it transcended to everything else we did. You know, you can't look in a crystal ball but I believe this is a moment after which everything will be different for the President. And if you look at the problems he's facing in the world, with Iran and other issues, he's going to miss his credibility very much.
~ Former Bush Communications Adviser Nicolle Wallace on MSNBC's Morning Joe, via Esquire

President's struggle so much in their second term. Everybody remembers what happened to Bush after Katrina. All those questions about his competence took hold. His second term never really recovered. Is President Obama in that kind of a position right now?
~ George Stephanopoulos on Good Morning America
































Tuesday, November 12, 2013

Lara Logan and the Bogus Benghazi Report

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Media Matters for America, 11-03-13
On October 27, CBS' 60 Minutes featured "Morgan Jones," -- The Washington Post later revealed his real name, Dylan Davies -- a supposed "eyewitness" of the September 2012 attack on U.S. diplomatic facilities, who claimed that during the attack he scaled a wall of the compound, personally struck a terrorist in the face with his rifle butt, and later went to the Benghazi hospital to see Ambassador Chris Stevens' body.
The story he told CBS wildly diverged from the account he gave his superiors in an incident report that was obtained by The Washington Post.

New York Times
Ms. Logan said that Dylan Davies, one of the main sources for a two-week-old piece about the attack on the American diplomatic mission in Benghazi, Libya, had misled the program’s staff when he gave an account of rushing to the compound the night the attack took place. “It was a mistake to include him in our report. For that, we are very sorry,” Ms. Logan said.
The apology lasted only 90 seconds and revealed nothing new about why CBS had trusted Mr. Davies, who appeared on the program under the pseudonym Morgan Jones. Off-camera, CBS executives were left to wonder how viewers would react to the exceptionally rare correction.

From Lara Logan, 60 Minutes Reporter in charge of Fake Benghazi Story
LOGAN: We end our broadcast tonight with a correction on a story we reported October 27 about the attack on the American special mission compound in Benghazi, in which Ambassador Chris Stevens and three other Americans were killed. In the story, a security officer working for the State Department, Dylan Davies, told us he went to the compound during the attack and detailed his role that night.
After our report aired, questions arose about whether his account was true, when an incident report surfaced. It told a different story about what he did the night of the attack. Davies denied having anything to do with that incident report and insisted the story he told us was not only accurate, it was the same story told the FBI when they interviewed him.
On Thursday night, when we discovered the account he gave the FBI was different than what he told us, we realized we had been misled, and it was a mistake to include him in our report. For that, we are very sorry. The most important thing to every person at 60 Minutes is the truth, and the truth is, we made a mistake.



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It took two weeks to have that apology on 60 Minute. The piece aired at the end of October and there were questions raised almost immediately about it. So I think the question is now and the thing that media writers will be writing about this week are, what took so long and what is 60 Minutes doing to make sure this doesn’t happen again?
. . . This wasn’t a story that was breaking news, this was a story that they worked on for a year. And that’s why I think people wonder, did they come in with an agenda?
~ NY Times writer Brian Stelter on CNN via Raw Story

This evening's 60 Minutes response was wholly inadequate and entirely self-serving. The network must come clean by appointing an independent commission to determine exactly how and why it fell prey so easily to an obvious hoax.
~ David Brock, founder of Media Matters for America

(Media Matters) has been right about Benghazi for 13 months now. We have been fact-checking this story to death. And when CBS decided 'we want a piece of that pie, we want a piece of that right-wing narrative,' saying there are lingering questions when there are none . . . when they decided they wanted to key into that buzz machine . . . the next day on Fox News a Senator spent two hours talking about it. How do you know you hit a home run? When a senator's talking about your story. They couldn't resist it. But the story didn't add up.
There were no lingering questions. The conflict of interest should have stopped them. The discrepencies in the narrative should have stopped them. They should have apologized a week ago! This whole thing is a train wreck!
~ Eric Boehlert on MSNBC's All In with Chris Hayes

Journalism 101: You have a single source, and you have a self-interested source because he is trying to sell books. And then you have a story that is a political hot potato that can be red meat to certainly one side of the argument. And it seems to me that raises the bar and makes it even more crucial to do your due diligence. And I didn't hear anything in the explanation of 'what we did to vet' that lends credibility to the argument that 'we were fooled.' You shouldn't have been fooled.
Steven Reiner, former 60 Minutes Producer and now Professor of Journalism at Stony Brook

In a narrow sense, Lara Logan did say she was "sorry." But the entire 90 seconds was aimed at obfuscating what happened.
Logan said 60 Minutes had found out Thursday that they had been "misled and it was a mistake to include him in our report."
Include him in their report? He was the report. And even in conceding that her team had been "misled", Logan tiptoed around the real news, which is that it seems clear that Davies' entire story was a fabrication.
He wasn't there. So none of the stuff he did could have happened and he cannot have witnessed any of what he claimed to describe.
. . . There was yet another red flag that Davies book (the publication of which has now been canceled) was published by the publisher best known for publishing Glenn Beck, Mark Levin and Jerome Corsi.
I don't know the players involved enough to know whether this happened because of bias, indifference, arrogance or wild sloppiness. But you can't screw up much bigger than this. At a minimum there needs to be some detailed explanation of how this big a screw could have happened.
~ Josh Marshall of Media Matters












































Thursday, November 7, 2013

#GOP Heads Explode On Election Night as Cuccinelli Loses, Christie Wins

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Via Time Swampland
Democrat Terry McAuliffe edged out Virginia attorney general Ken Cuccinelli in the race to be the state’s next governor on Tuesday, riding a significant financial advantage and voter distaste over the Republican’s staunchly conservative stances on social issues to victory in the key swing state.
The contest was close late into Tuesday night after polls had indicated McAuliffe, a former Democratic National Committee chairman and close Clinton confidante, could win by high single digits. But with 96% of precincts reporting, McAuliffe led Cuccinelli 47.1% to 46.3%, and the Associated Press called the race for McAuliffe at about 10 p.m. E.T. A third candidate, libertarian Robert Sarvis, ended up winning a critical 6.7%.
It’s the first time the party occupying the White House has won the state’s off-year gubernatorial election since 1973.

From Politico
The Republican Governors Association took umbrage Wednesday at anonymous griping that it abandoned Ken Cuccinelli’s gubernatorial bid, highlighting the $8.5 million it spent to help the Republican state attorney general against Democrat Terry McAuliffe.
The tit-for-tat played out a day after Cuccinelli lost by less than three percentage points, a margin that was much narrower than expected and triggered second-guessing and finger-pointing about what might have been.

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Blame Women, RINOs, Libertarians and Benghaziiiiii!!!

WE COULD HAVE WON THIS RACE. FOR THE REASONS I HAVE EXPLAINED HERE AND ON THE AIR, GOP ESTABLISHMENT AND DONORS LEFT THE FIELD. NOW, NOT ONLY THE LIBERALS BUT THE RINO MOUTHPIECES CONTINUE WITH THEIR MANTRA ABOUT THE DEAD TEA PARTY AND THE RINO FUTURE. ABSOLUTELY APPALLING! (And they did not spend even $3 million, that was a phony number.)
~ Conservative Radio Pundit Mark Levin on his website

2014 is vitally important and we all know why. Instead of 8 years of HELL for America it will be 16 FRIGGIN' YEARS OF HELL!!!
We've got to make SURE Hillary is held to account for Benghazi and MB support in Egypt!!
~ Obama is Sabotaging America on Free Republic

McCauliffe was probably put over the top by stupid white women who wanted someone else to pay for their abortions and birth control. Like their boyfriend Obama. And from everything I have hear, the GOP did as little as possible to help Cucinelli. I am more upset at the GOP than anyone else.
~ Hacksaw on Free Republic

Next Libertarian you see, give him a hearty middle finger “Thank You!” salute.
Seven percent to Sarvis is what sank Cuccinelli.
~ Nervous Tick on Free Republic









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"Eclair" Christie and the Bubble Boys

(The Cuccinelli Campaign in Virginia) begged Christie, and you can make an argument that to bring a Chris Christie to Northern Virginia might have helped. But Chris Christie is worried about his own brand.
~ MSNBC's Chuck Todd on Morning Joe, quoted by Breitbart

Christie's current brand might endear him to the Morning Joe bubble-boys, but they will turn on him, just as they did Romney, the moment he is a threat to a Democrat's quest for the Oval Office. In a presidential campaign, in both the primary and general elections, Christie needs the base to stand in long lines for him.
That is the brand Christie needs to worry about.
Had Christie taken just a half-day to stump for Cuccinelli, not only would that have helped wash the Sandy stain away; it might have actually made him a hero to the base for both defying the Morning Joe crowd and helping to drag Cuccinelli over the finish line.
~ John Nolte on Breitbart

Screw Christie!!!! He won because the DEMS didn't lift a finger (or a dollar) to fight him. They wrote that whole race off...Don't think that will be the case in 2016. On the other hand, the cooch man had to fight the Dems AND the freaking GOP establishment AND the media!!! and he almost WON! He would be a much better candidate in 2016 than freaking Christie!!
~ colinthemurph on Red State

The Cuccinelli campaign asked Christie to help them out in VA, but Hindenburg Jr. was too busy cleaning out all the donut shops all over NJ. He only slobbers over and embraces his commie pal, didn't you know. He is a phony scumbag who can never be trusted. He says he's "gonna get things done". Mr. Reach Across The Isle. That's the LAST thing we need is more capitulation from New Jersey's most famous hot air balloon. How America ended up with so many losers is hard to figure out. No vote from me for Eclair Boy.
~ USMC on Breitbart

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No more Money for RNC

Open letter to the RNC- Sirs, I am not and have never been a member of the Tea Party. That said, I respectfully inform you that you can no longer count on my financial support and no longer will I man the phone bank as I have in the past. For the RNC to abandon Cooch, even though he was the duly elected nominee, was low down. I see no difference between the Rep. "establishment" and the Dems. It was fun while it lasted. Good luck.
~ Victor Seal on The Daily Caller

FreedomWorks YES! Senate Conservatives Fund YES! Tea Party candidates YES! Republican Party NOT A RED CENT!
~ Black Crow on The Blaze

. . . This is absolutely disgusting!!!!! I am absolutely beyond mad. Furious doesn't begin to describe me. WE ARE BEING DEFEATED BY OUR ALLEGED ALLIES.
This is going to be used to put us down. They are going to say that real social conservative cannot win, but we can. It was close and if those #$%##$$## so called leaders of the Republican Party had stood with us, we would have made it. They are going to tell us that Christie's win indicates that we just need to be more LIBERAL and we can win. That's total b#$#%%#.
I am ready to go. Someone tell me what we should do. I cannot stand this anymore. We could have had a God-fearing man in the VA Governor's mansion (again).
I am officially no longer a Republican. I may indeed vote for Republicans but I will not let my name be included in their rolls. And then again, I may not vote for them. They need to EARN my vote. They can no longer take it for granted. They will no longer get any of my money. True Tea Party, conservative (socially conservative) candidates can count on my support. I will listen carefully to the Republican candidates and if they are true conservatives, I will vote for them. Otherwise, I will not.
~ alphacon1963 on Red State

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What if?

If there had been late spending for Cuccinelli, or if there hadn't been a government shutdown, right, which is not Ken Cuccinelli's fault, if there hadn't been, you think of the Northern Virginia vote, where there are a huge number of huge number of government workers in Northern Virginia, where Terry McAuliffe found his margin of victory.
If there hadn't been for the shutdown, Ken Cuccinelli might have won this race also for all of his problems, a little bit more money, and a little bit less government shutdown, you might be looking at Ken Cuccinelli as bad as he was, and as out of step with so much of Virginia, he probably would be in the statehouse.
~ Conservative Pundit John Heilemann on MSNBC's Last Word, via Newsbusters


Virginia Squeaker Sends Shivers Through Dems

It looks like if Cuccinelli had another week to tag McAuliffe for his unflinching support of President Obama’s unpopular new entitlement, the race might have ended differently. What if he would have had another year? That’s the reality facing vulnerable Democrats on the 2014 election cycle.
~ Chris Stirewalt on Fox News

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Denial, Carpetbaggers, Scary Blacks and Voter Fraud

Virginia is not liberal; NORTHERN Virginia is. Arlington, Fairfax and Prince William Counties alone gave McAuliffe the nod by a margin of 107,000; STATEWIDE, it was only 55,000. Most of these hacks only reside there due to the fact that they are part of the "political-industrial complex." Bigger government, whether it be state or federal, gives these hacks (so they think) more job security. Apparently, it's a bunch of transplants, as opposed to native Virginians, who now decide the future of the Old Dominion. Thomas Jefferson would be rolling over (and vomiting) in his grave.
~ Bruce on Twitchy

The Virginia gubernatorial race should have been a landslide for democrats. They outspent by wide margins. They were so desperate that they had to cheat to win. They had to revert to sleazy tactics, unable to honorably win on the issues. Democrats recently had a gargantuan lead, and they lost it, largely because of Obamacare.
~ Matthew Berk on Tea Party News Network

Courtland Virginia had a large gang of blacks out front of polling place.
~ Tonya on National Report

Who the hell votes for their state’s AG but not their governor? WHO?!?! Supposedly, 125,000 Virginians do according to the election results. Something’s fishy in VA.
~ Don D. on National Report

The Tea Party, despite almost no help from the GOP, while having a so-called "Libertarian" splitting the ticket, in the state most affected by the evil "shutdown" got so freakin close and that is a gigantic win for them and loss for RINOs, no matter what they want to say.
As far as Obamacare... well, I guarantee Dem Senators up for reelection are panicking a bit after this showing by the "dead" Tea Party flying nearly completely solo
~ SOB on Twitchy












Tuesday, November 5, 2013

Rand Paul Throws Down Gauntlet Over Plagiarism ~ Updated with Detention

 
 
Previous Related Posts:
Rand Paul is Confused about Plagiarism
Rand Paul's Gattaca Moment

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Rand Paul keeps taking a new helping of words even while challenging Rachel Maddow of MSNBC to a Duel (as in, shooting her) over her reports about him. Blame the Haters!!!

Senator Rand Paul R-Kentucky via Maddow Blog
“[U]nder thousands of things I’ve written, yeah, there are times when they’ve been sloppy or not correct or we’ve made an error. But the difference is I take it as an insult, and I will not lie down and say people can call me dishonest, misleading or misrepresenting. I have never intentionally done so.
“And like I say, if – you know, if dueling were legal in Kentucky, if they keep it up, you know, it’d be a duel challenge. But I can’t do that because I can’t hold office in Kentucky then.”
. . . I think I’m being unfairly targeted by a bunch of hacks and haters.”

There is nothing wrong with the reporting. . . . You can try to make this about me, but how about addressing the substance?
And now Rand Paul wants to shoot at me or stab me with a sword or something for reporting something true that he has done wrong as a politician. Responding to the person rather than to the charge is a time tested tactic. Honestly, it is a symptom of immaturity in our political discourse that it's expected that this is part of the way he'll respond.
~ Rachel Maddow of MSNBC via Huffington Post

UPDATE!

It annoys the hell out of me. I feel like if I could just go to detention after school for a couple days, then everything would be okay. But do I have to be in detention for the rest of my career?
~ Rand Paul in National Review

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Meanwhile . . . people are digging up more examples of Plagiarism while his handlers start trying to erase his mistakes (that's cheating too and doesn't work too well on the Internet).
































































Saturday, November 2, 2013

GOP Food Stamp Cuts Affect Millions

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Under the program, known formally as the Supplemental Nutrition and Assistance Program, or SNAP, a family of four that gets $668 per month in benefits will find that amount cut by $36.
SNAP, which benefits one in seven Americans, is administered by the Department of Agriculture and is authorized in a five-year omnibus farm bill covering all agricultural programs.
~ USA Today