Tag Archives: Mitch McConnell
Senate Republicans block veterans’ jobs bill?
As only the Republican Tea Party (GOTP) members of the U.S. Senate could do, they blocked legislation establishing a $1 billion jobs program putting veterans back to work tending to the country’s federal lands and bolstering local police and fire departments claiming the spending authorized in the bill violated limits that Congress agreed to last year. Democrats fell two votes shy of the 60-vote majority needed to waive the objection, forcing the legislation back to committee.
The legislation was reportedly based after President Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s Civilian Conservation Corps used during the Great Depression to put people to work planting trees, building parks and constructing dams. Democrats said the latest monthly jobs report, showing a nearly 11 percent unemployment rate for veterans of Iraq and Afghanistan, merited action from Congress.
“(With) a need so great as unemployed veterans, this is not the time to draw a technical line on the budget,” said Democratic Sen. Bill Nelson.
Republicans said the effort to help veterans was noble, but the bill was flawed nevertheless.
Sen. Tom Coburn of Oklahoma said the federal government already has six job-training programs for veterans and there is no way to know how well they are working. He argued making progress on the country’s debt was the best way to help veterans in the long-term, meaning somewhere in a mystical future when Republicans have magically regained the White House – so, obviously somewhere outside of four years.
“We ought to do nothing now that makes the problem worse for our kids and grandkids,” Coburn said.
Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash., said much would depend upon the number of applicants. She noted that more than 720,000 veterans are unemployed across the nation, including 220,000 veterans who have served since Sept. 11. She said putting veterans back to work was the cost of war.
“Instead of meeting us halfway, we have been met with resistance. Instead of saying yes to the nearly 1 million unemployed veterans, it seems some on the other side have spent the last week and a half seeking any way to say no,” Murray said.
Reportedly, a handful of Republicans joined with Democrats in voting to waive the objection to the bill: Sen. Scott Brown of Massachusetts, Dean Heller of Nevada, Lisa Murkowski of Alaska and Maine’s Susan Collins and Olympia Snowe.
“After everything our veterans have done for us, the least we can do is make sure they are afforded every opportunity to thrive here at home,” Heller said.
And the senator is right, unfortunately Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell has vowed to do nothing that might help re-elect the president, so screw the veterans. This program was 100% paid for and the GOTP senators ignored that, and ignored our nation’s veterans (once again). Thanks for defending us, so sorry you’re unemployed, pick yourselves up and stop being part of the 47% Romney was talking about.
Wall Street Journal Editorial Rips Boehner and McConnell?
The Huffington Post’s reporting that the Wall Street Journal’s editorial page has attacked congressional Republican Tea Party (GOTP) members for possibly losing the payroll tax cut standoff to President Barack Obama.
The Editorial began recounting how GOTP Senate leader Mitch McConnell “famously said a year ago his main task in the 112th Congress was to make sure President Obama would not be re-elected. Given how he and House Speaker John Boehner have handled the payroll tax debate, we wonder if they might end up re-electing the President before the 2012 campaign even begins in earnest.”
Earlier this week GOTP House members killed the two-month extension of the payroll tax cut, unemployment benefits and a provision avoiding Medicare payment cuts to doctors by a 229-193 vote. The Senate had voted by an 89-10 margin to extend all three for two months. All three provisions expire on 1 Jan 12. GOTP House members want the Senate to return and negotiate over a compromise plan but Democratic Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid said he won’t negotiate until the House approves the Senate’s package.
Finally Senator Reid has shown some back bone against the Tea Party conservatives across the aisle; what’s even better about this situation is McConnell had clearly struck a deal with Reid, and Boehner has to have been part of it as well but then his Tea Party compatriots cut his knees out from under him led by Eric Cantor.
The conservative editorial board wrote that the GOTP has “thoroughly botched the politics.” The board also added that Obama’s in a “stronger re-election position today than he was a year ago.”
After 1 Jan 12, the payroll tax paid by workers will rise from 4.2 percent to 6.2 percent and benefits for the long-term unemployed will expire if Congress doesn’t pull its head out of its collective fourth point of contact. Doctors will also face a 27 percent cut in Medicare reimbursements scheduled to take effect on 18 Jan 12.
The icing on the cake for the President is that 2008 Republican Presidential candidate Senator John McCain of Arizona showed his approval of the editorial tweeting, “WSJ is right on the mark here.”
When the smoke clears from this latest GOTP catastrophe, the President will once again come out on top, John Boehner may find himself stepping down as Speaker, and the Tea Party will come out as having attempted one bridge too far; come 2012 the bill will come due and local Congressional Districts will likely toss the riff raff out turning the House back to a Democratic majority. The Tea Party’s angry white guy shtick only plays so far and they’ve been on stage well past their collective curtain call.
GOTP blocks money for teachers, firefighters in Senate?
And so, Republican Tea Party (GOTP) Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell has once again shown he means it when he says his “number one priority is to make sure Barrack Obama is a one term president”; just barely over a week since the President’s $447 billion jobs package was blocked in the U.S. Senate by the GOTP, one of the plan’s key components — which would’ve provided $35 billion to states and local governments to hire teachers and first responders — has suffered the same fate.
That’s right folks, the uber-conservative white bread GOTP senate members have decided we don’t need teachers and first responders; all you need is to home school your kids and a shot gun in your closet.
President Obama and his allies in the Senate promised to press ahead with separate votes on pieces of his failed $447 billion jobs measure, despite unanimous opposition from Republican Tea Party puppets, showing just how petty the GOTP members of the Congress are, and forcing them to each go on record opposing job creation; opposing teachers, firefighters and cops. Each senator who votes against the bills will have to eventually answer for their votes including one third of the Senate as early as November 2012 – that number includes the likes of Joe Lieberman (the famous turn coat liberal), Richard Lugar, Olympia Snowe, Scott Brown, Roger Wicker, Dean Heller, Ben Nelson (the moronic Democrat from Nebraska who somehow thinks he will escape unscathed), Bob Corker, Orrin Hatch (who clearly needs to retire) and John Barrasso.
Now granted, most of the GOTP types are smug in the confidence they’re almost untouchable, but some are not; certainly Corker, who barely beat Harold Ford Jr. for the seat, is very vulnerable; Dean Heller, who replaced John Ensign after he resigned, has to tell his fellow Nevadans who are hard pressed by the economy why he opposes job creation; Scott Brown, who narrowly won the former late Sen. Ted Kennedy’s seat in a special election is probably the most likely to go down as he will be facing tough opposition from Elizabeth Warren. Certainly the Democratic Party should withdraw all support from Nelson, and should go hunting for a strong Democratic candidate to challenge him; one thing the country doesn’t need right now are DINOs (Democrats in name only) in the Senate.
So, why did all 47 GOTP, one brain damaged Independent and two obtuse Democratic senators vote against allowing the bill to proceed to a full debate? Why, they argued that temporary stimulus dollars for state and local government would do little to bolster the private sector, and so we’ll just screw those no good teachers, fire fighters and police officers who everyone knows are overpaid.
But the biggest reason for opposing the bill is because the uber-conservatives are against imposing a 0.5 percent surtax on million-dollar incomes to pay for the aid. They contended that inclusion of a tax increase signaled that the vote was intended as a campaign tool and was not a serious effort to find bipartisan agreement on spurring job growth.
So, the whole charade of needing to pay for any funding is now out the window? Or was it really because you can’t stand to see any tax increases on those poor job creators?
President Obama told fire fighters at a rally in Chesterfield, Va., “If they vote against these proposals, if they say no to steps we know that will put people back to work right now, they’re not going to have to answer to me. They’re going to have to answer to you.”
Now what needs to happen is for the Democratic Party to flood markets with commercials of burning homes and overcrowded classrooms and then place the blame for both squarely on the shoulders of the GOTP senators who voted against the bill.The Party needs to hit the conservative candidates just as hard – if not harder – then they hit Democratic candidates. Hit them hard, and then hit them continually until they are beaten.
Democratic Party leaders are planning to hold votes on other elements of the American Jobs Act in coming weeks, including money for building roads and schools, tax credits for businesses that hire veterans and the long-term unemployed, an extension of benefits for unemployed workers and an extension of a payroll tax holiday.
Let the Republican Tea Party senators be hoisted on their own petards!
Reagan would have supported President’s jobs bill?
CBS News is reporting that President Obama has said that former President Ronald Reagan would have supported his plan to raise taxes on Americans who make more than $1 million per year, known as the “Buffett rule,” and to back up his statement he quoted the Gipper from a 1985 statement saying, “Some of those loopholes were understandable, but in practice they sometimes made it possible for millionaires to pay nothing, while a bus driver was paying 10 percent of his salary, and that’s crazy. It’s time we stopped it.”
And, oh surprise, just as the President Obama noted, Republicans never accused Reagan of being a “socialist” for wanting a bus driver to pay lower tax rates than a millionaire.
The President also mocked Republican Tea Party (GOTP) claims that his effort to pass the Buffett Rule — which would establish a minimum tax rate for those making more than $1 million per year in order to ensure they pay as much in taxes as lower-income individuals — amounted to “class warfare.”
“I know a lot of folks have short memories, but I don’t remember Republicans accusing Ronald Reagan of being a socialist or engaging in class warfare because he thought everybody should do their fair share. Things have just gotten out of whack,” he said.
Isn’t it amazing how it’s not class warfare when we lower the tax brackets for the wealthiest 2% while advocating cuts to the poor and needy?
The President quoted Reagan once again during remarks at Eastfield College later in the day in which he called on Republicans to pass his $447 billion jobs bill, which he sent to Congress last month. He noted in that speech that Republican House majority leader Eric Cantor has vowed not to let the jobs bill come up for a vote.
“Well I’d like Mr. Cantor to come down here to Dallas and explain what exactly in this jobs bill does he not believe in,” he said. “…Does he not believe in rebuilding America’s roads and bridges? Does he not believe in tax breaks for small businesses, or efforts to help our veterans?”
He went on to urge Cantor to “put this jobs bill up for a vote so that the entire country knows exactly where every Member of Congress stands.”
“Do your job, Congress!” he added.
Cantor spokesman Brad Dayspring responded to the comments by saying that “President Obama needs to understand that his ‘my way or the highway’ approach simply isn’t going to work in the House or the Democratic Senate, especially in light of his abysmal record on jobs.”
Ah yes, of course, the “my way or highway” tactic is the expressed copyrighted property of the GOTP House and the President isn’t allowed to use it. Well Brad, he just did, and the GOTP is going to have to put up or shut up. Vote it down and stand by it if you think it’s that bad of a bill; oh, and if I were a spokesman for a GOTP member of Congress right now, mentioning abysmal job performance is probably not the way to go, especially when you schmucks ran on the promise of creating jobs in 2010.
GOTP Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell has reportedly called for an immediate vote on the bill in an effort to show it doesn’t have the unified support of Democrats, but Democratic Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid objected to bringing up the proposal, offering Republicans the chance to formally move to a debate on the bill; they declined the offer.
Well sure they declined the offer; they don’t want to go on record for actually opposing the creation of jobs.
The President’s bill would reduce payroll taxes on both workers and employers, extend long-term unemployment benefits and invest in public works and teachers, police officers and other public servants. It would be paid for through the tax increase on high earners and the closing of some corporate tax loopholes.
And what’s to argue here? Ah yes, I forgot, Darth McConnell has sworn an oath to the Dark Lord to make sure President Obama only has one term, and Cantor is a frightened little rabbit who likes to make a loud noise from his hutch but lacks the courage of his convictions to go on the record voting against it. Guess what boys? You’re already on the record opposing jobs, and it will come back to bite you in the butt come November 2012.
President goes on offense?
Original photo official White House photo
President Barack Obama using the strength of the bully pulpit took the battle into the enemy’s home turf today pitching his $447 billion jobs program of tax cuts and new spending in Richmond, VA, the home District of the Republican Tea Party (GOTP) whiny boy – House Majority “Leader” Eric Cantor.
“I know that folks sometimes think they’ve used up the benefit of the doubt but I’m an eternal optimist,” the President told more than 8,000 people at the University of Richmond. “I’m an optimistic person. I believe if you just stay at it long enough, after they’ve exhausted all the other options, folks do the right thing.”
Thus far, the GOTP has remained “noncommittal”, which is much better than remaining “diametrically opposed”.
“The proposals the president outlined tonight merit consideration,” GOTP House Speaker John Boehner, said after the president’s speech. “We hope he gives serious consideration to our ideas as well.
“It’s my hope that we can work together,” Boehner added.
You hope the President gives serious considerations to what ideas? The ideas the GOTP voted for in lock step to dismantle Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security and Veteran’s benefits? The so-called “plan” put forth by Paul Ryan? Is that what passes as ideas today in Boehner’s world?
“You should pass it right away,” the President told GOTP lawmakers more than once, and he pledged to campaign for its enactment “in every corner of this country.”
The President masterfully made his point about where he would take the fight when he identified the need fix a certain bridge; “There’s a bridge that needs repair between Ohio and Kentucky,” he said. Coincidently the two states represented by the Speaker and Senate GOTP leader Mitch McConnell.
McConnell was not fazed, and retorted in typical obstructionist fashion, “For months, we’ve been engaged in a national debate about spending and debt, about the need to get our nation’s fiscal house in order, about the need to rein in government. … Yet here we are, tonight, being asked by this same president to support even more government spending with the assurance that he’ll figure out a way to pay for it later.”
Yes, that’s right Mitch always with the negative ways. But what is to be expected from a Senator who declared his number one priority is to make sure President Obama only has one term? Not to put Americans back to work; not to defeat Al Qaeda; but to make sure President Obama only has one term. Wow, what a sterling example of unselfish service to our country. Kind of makes you want to run right out and add Mitch’s likeness to Mount Rushmore doesn’t it?
Meanwhile, getting back to meaningful, adult, conversation on the country’s troubles, the President said the tax cuts he’s recommending would mean $1,500 a year for the typical working family and $80,000 for businesses with 50 employees of average pay, and he said he would outline legislation in coming days to offset the bill’s $447 billion price tag so it wouldn’t add to federal deficits.
All-in-all, the President’s asking for $253 billion in tax cuts, with an additional $194 billion in new spending to fund highway and other construction projects, modernize schools, stabilize blighted neighborhoods and help states hire teachers and first responders.
Of course McConnell wasn’t the only GOTP dinosaur to oppose the President’s challenge, soon to retire – thankfully – Senator Jon Kyl whined, “Rather than offer a new road map for recovery and reform, he merely dusted off a tired agenda of old ideas wrapped in freshly partisan rhetoric.”
Very insightful offering from Kyl, who’s serving on the newly formed uber-committee responsible for finding ways to cut the nation’s debt and has threatened to walk out if anyone suggests further cuts in defense spending. If I were a Democratic Senator I would suggest it every time the committee met just to push his buttons and see if he would be true to his treat, or to just see if his head would explode.
Meanwhile, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, Democrat, was as hopeful as ever saying he hoped the proposals would “present a litmus test to Republicans. I hope they will show the American people that they are more interested in creating jobs than defeating President Obama.”
Yeah, you hold on to that happy thought Senator, that and some fairy dust and one day you may just fly. Are you kidding me? Do you really believe the GOTP members of Congress are going to do anything to willingly help this President get the economy going? Most of them want things to stay as bad as possible in hopes of defeating him in 2012; and no, that is no exaggeration.
Democratic House Minority Leader, Nancy Pelosi is coming out swinging at her GOTP counterparts, “Republicans have a choice to either work with Democrats on the immediate need to create jobs or waste more time when American families are demanding action.”
Personally Congresswoman, I predict they’ll do nothing. They’ll hope to stall as long as possible. From a political point of view it’s a disaster either way for the GOTP. If they help the President the rabid Tea Party members of the far-right will eat them alive; but if they do nothing, the President and any Democratic opponents will be able to truthfully paint them as the do nothing party they’ve become. It’s a win-win for the President, and a masterful play.
If his GOTP presidential opponents come out against the plan then they have to defend why. Again, a masterful play by the President; he’s put them in an indefensible position. They can stall, or oppose, and be portrayed as being anti-recovery and friends to the wealthy, or they can come out in support and be devoured by the Tea Partiers.
In going on the offense the President looks Presidential, while the GOTP presidential crazy 8’s in comparison look like fools.
Ralph Nader looking for Democrat to challenge President Obama?
Ralph Nader, the self-proclaimed consumer advocate and perennial “third-party” presidential candidate/nut-job, has reportedly announced that he would personally work to find a Democrat to challenge President Barack Obama in 2012. He is claiming that a primary challenge is a near certainty.
“What [President Obama] did this week is just going to energize that effort,” Nader promised in an interview with The Daily Caller. “I would guess that the chances of there being a challenge to Obama in the primary are almost 100 percent.”
The only question, he said, is the stature of that opponent and whether it will be either “an ex-senator or an ex-governor” or “an intellectual leader or an environmental leader.”
Or maybe it will be someone from the realm of Nader’s own imagination maybe?
According to the Associated Press (AP), the Public Citizen founder said he disapproved of how Obama handled recent debt ceiling negotiations, and claimed the deal’s failings prompted this week’s dramatic stock market drop.
“He made a deal that did not provide for a public works project to create jobs all over the country. All he did was he agreed to cut spending,” Nader said. “And that’s what the market is reacting to.”
President Obama “shouldn’t have even had that problem,” Nader said. “When he surrendered the continuation of tax cuts for the rich last December, the least he could have gotten was the debt ceiling increased. He didn’t even do that. So he set himself up for this hostage situation by the Republicans and it’s his own fault. And the country and the workers are paying the price.”
So, the Market is reacting to cuts? It really wanted increased spending and tax increases? OK, sure it did. Ralph needs to spend a little less time on the mushroom with the Caterpillar, and a little more time in the “real” world. Which Party does he think the Market is tied to? It isn’t the President’s.
The Market is reacting to the “hostage situation” the Tea Partistas put the country through and the razors edge escape from the same. While we no doubt need more spending in the form of an enhanced stimulus package to help the economy continue to expand, that was not the time, nor place, for such a fight.
Nader ran for president in 1996, 2000, 2004 and 2008 as a left-wing alternative to the Democratic nominee, but has decided another campaign is “very unlikely.”
“I’ve done my rounds,” he said.
So, now the country will wait with baited breath to see what fringe liberal Ralph can dig up to run as his sacrificial lamb to the slaughter.
OK, enough of this nonsense! It’s time for Democrats to stop whining about how the President hasn’t done enough and grow up and come to the realization of just what he has accomplished. For his first two years in office there were more than 200 bills passed by the Democratic House which never saw the light of day because of a record number of filibusters by Republicans like Jim DeMint and Mitch McConnell in the Senate, and since this past January the House has been held hostage by the wild fringe Republican Tea Partistas.
We now have the beginnings of national health care in this country. Does it go far enough? No, but it can be expanded, and that will only happen with a Democrat in the White House and the House of Representatives flipped back to Democratic control and the Democratic seats in the Senate expanded. Then you can see the program expand as it needs to, so every American can stop worrying about how they’ll pay for health care.
Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell is history, and civil rights have taken a giant step forward. Would this be possible with Romney/Bachmann in the White House? No, it wouldn’t.
Wake up progressives! The current crop of Tea Partista Republicans is dangerous. They will gut Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid and Veteran’s benefits, and will turn back the clock on federal regulation on any host of issues protecting Americans from the new generation of Robber Barons.
So stop your whining and get up and get energized; become involved and help keep things rolling, and help flip the House back to a Democratic majority, and help expand the Democratic majority in the Senate. The Republican Tea Partistas have overreached, and 2012 is the time to chop their political hand off clear up to the elbow.
President should raise debt ceiling under 14th Amendment
As the debt ceiling lunacy continues, and the rabid Tea Party factions continue to become more and more unhinged, placing the United States’ full faith and credit in danger, and the economic stability of the country at risk, all this while American servicemen and women continue to fight and die in Iraq and Afghanistan, the President should give the Republican Tea Party (GOTP) controlled House until midnight on 1 August to grow up and pass a spotlessly clean raise in the debt ceiling or he should instruct the Secretary of the Treasury to do so under the 14th Amendment of the Constitution.
This is not something that should be considered at any other time, but our country is still at war. 278 Americans have given their last full measure of devotion while the morons on the right have postured and paraded around. 46 have died in recent weeks while Speaker John Boehner pontificates and loses his grip of control. Leadership requires leading and right now he doesn’t have it.
If the President raises the debt ceiling, without the approval of Congress, the GOTP will scream bloody murder and some will cry out for impeachment, while the talking heads (Limbaugh, Hannity, et al) will absolutely come unglued screaming that it’s a takeover, that the socialist dictator has finally made his move, blah, blah, blah; but if the President does this stating to not extend the debt ceiling, while the country is still at war, would be unacceptable and would weaken the nation’s economy when it can ill afford to be weakened he paints the GOTP as unpatriotic, as not caring for either the welfare of the nation or for its military; he comes across as a strong President and as a strong Commander-in-Chief.
Boehner has no control of his caucus, and Majority Leader Cantor has only an illusion of power, because who can lead a rabble? As for the good old boy from Kentucky, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell has already openly declared his top priority is to defeat the President and prevent him from having a second term, so he’s proven where his loyalties are, and they’re not to the nation, they’re to his party.
The President has time to let the GOTP come to its senses, but he needs to back away and tell them flat out they have until 1 August and then he acts. Let them stew in their own juices, and let them fail, while saving the credit of the country. They can scream and rent their clothes, but they will have proven to the vast majority of Americans that they’re loyalties are to puppet masters holding pledges and not to the Constitution they’ve sworn to uphold, and not to the young troops defending the same; they will have proven they’re unfit to hold office. It’s a win/win for the President, but more importantly it’s a win/win for the country.
The Liberty Tree 
