Shutdown Showdown Friday; Update: Deal Announced, No Shutdown (for now)
**Written by Doug Powers
Note: Scroll down for updates
“Cut it or shut it” Friday has arrived, and there’s still no deal:
WASHINGTON (AP) — Uncomfortably close to a deadline, President Barack Obama and top congressional leaders have only hours to avert a Friday midnight government shutdown that all sides say would inconvenience millions of people and damage a still fragile economy.
Obama said he still hoped to announce an agreement on Friday but did not have “wild optimism.”
Will the road to a leaner more responsible government begin today, or will the Friends-N-Fat Cats Protection Plan™ get an extension? (“a little of both” won’t be an acceptable answer)
It’s nice to know that the left isn’t losing perspective or trying to scare people with wild tales of misery:
–Jesse Jackson says the budget battle is the Civil War all over again (only if the Gettysburg Address began, “Four score and seven billion-dollar earmarks ago…”)
–Rep. Louise Slaughter (if there’s a better name for a NARAL and Planned Parenthood crony I have yet to see it) claims Republicans came to Washington to kill women.
–Nancy Pelosi: The Republican plan will starve the elderly! Ironically enough, the woman whose 111th Congress single-handedly strapped each and every American with over $10,000 in new debt also called the GOP budget a “path to poverty.”
–Eleanor Holmes Norton said a government shutdown would be the “functional equivalent of bombing innocent civilians.”
But if all else fails, there’s always the last resort of dumping trash at Boehner’s house.
We’ll have updates as the day goes on, provided there some to bring.
Update: Reuters is reporting that budget negotiators differ by $6.5 billion.
Update II: Until a budget is agreed upon, Rep. Barbara Lee is doing a water-only fast with the SEIU — insert your own joke here.
Update III: It’s looking like one of the final sticking points is Planned Parenthood funding, but I’ve also heard Republicans say that the sticking point is the overall level of the cuts.
Update IV: John Boehner just delivered a very short statement that doesn’t make it sound like the two sides are as close to a deal as is being reported. You be the judge…
Video from Right Scoop (h/t Ed Morrissey). Thankfully, no tears:
Update… whatever Roman numeral we’re up to now: The collective MSM must sit around a big table every morning to get their talking points straight. In this case, it’s the “adult Obama vs. the childish Tea Party”:
Well, you know what they say: When the going gets tough, the adults go to Colonial Williamsburg.
Update VI: Harry Reid said Republicans want a shutdown because they want to close Planned Parenthood clinics. Republicans don’t want women to get cancer screenings, according to Reid (wasn’t Obamacare supposed to handle all this?).
To back Harry up, here’s a clip from a 1957 interview with Planned Parenthood founder Margaret Sanger in which Sanger says that the greatest sin in the world is denying women cancer screenings… or maybe not. (h/t Weasel Zippers):
Update VII: The vacuous Hollywood limo-libs have been slow to react this week, but one is speaking out: Gwyneth Paltrow stands with Planned Parenthood.
Meanwhile, Sarah Palin stands for our troops.
Update VIII: Harry Reid is like a diamond-tipped drill when it comes to effortlessly plunging to new depths. This afternoon, Reid said that because Republicans want to harm women, the cherry blossom festival might not happen:
“This is Virginia’s big weekend. It’s the cherry blossom, the cherry blossom festival. People plan to come here all year, and one of the things they want to do when they come here is take a walk down the Mall, go to the National Art Gallery, go to one of the great Smithsonian museums. Won’t do that, they’ll close at 12:00 tonight. All of this to stop women from getting the regular tests and preventative services that they need,” Sen. Harry Reid (D-NV) said at a press conference with a large number of Democratic caucus members this afternoon.
Republicans want to harm women? Planned Parenthood performed 332,278 abortions in 2009. We’ll assume half of those were females. You probably know where I’m going with this.
Update IX:: “Keep your Boehner out of my vagina!” If you keep your hands out of our wallets, you’ve got a deal.
Why is the National Abortion and Reproductive Rights Action League (NARAL) involved in any of this? Why would they be freaking out about defunding something they point out PP gets no funding for in the first place? It couldn’t be because taxpayers contributing to PP’s bottom line on one side of the business frees up resources for another side of their business, could it?
On a different note: Obama has canceled his Colonial Williamsburg weekend vacation. A possible indicator that nothing’s going to be solved today.
Update X: Maybe the Williamsburg vacation can be quickly re-scheduled — a deal has been reached to avoid a shutdown. Details are still, as they say, sketchy:
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – President Barack Obama and congressional leaders reached a last-minute budget deal on Friday, averting a government shutdown, Republican lawmakers said.
With a midnight deadline looming for a government closure, the compromise between Obama’s Democrats and opposition Republicans requires lawmakers to approve stopgap funding to keep federal agencies running into next week until the budget agreement can be formally enacted.
Republican Congressman Devin Nunes told Reuters that “the deal” — a plan for $39 billion in spending cuts — was presented to House Republicans at a closed-door meeting and that most members would vote for it. There was no immediate comment from the White House or congressional Democrats.
**Written by Doug Powers
Twitter @ThePowersThatBe
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Sister Toldjah
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When Lankford won the primary, I said his rhetoric was hot air, and we should have nominated Calvy. I hate being right so often.
Cavuto and Levin are talking right now about how this budget is smoke and mirrors and isn’t as it seems. It looks like we have been had. News at 9.
I guess Boehner accomplished his two main goals: no government shutdown and he proved to his “friends across the aisle” that he is not going to knuckle under to the 48% of Americans who agree with the Tea Party.
Heckuva job Weepy. Heckuva job.
We’re still speeding towards that financial cliff. Slowing down a little is all we can expect from the Washington Generals. They have been snatching defeat from the jaws of victory for so long, it’s all they know. They will keep running at that football knowing that Lucy will pull it away.
Or, they are just as invested in maintaining Fedzilla and don’t really want to cut it down to size. It’s all kabuki to keep the masses at bay.
Either way, we need to recognize that fiscal sanity will have to be imposed from outside the District of Corruption because the two-headed monster that wears R and D jerseys built Fedzilla and want to keep expanding it.
We are broke and going broker by the minute.
Well, at least the Cherry Blossom Parade can go on as scheduled. Whew!! They had flown in some cowboy poets to make a float and it would have been a travesty to miss it! Priorities, folks, priorities! It is a shame, though, that Obama and his entourage had to cancel another Marie Antoinnette-style vacation for nothing.
I hear that Glenn Beck is moviing to Texas. Since he usually knows things that we don’t know…maybe Texas is leaving the Union. If so, I’m with them! It could actually come to that. States rights have been destroyed. The Federal Government is burning the Constitution and suing states. They are forcing socialized medicine on us. How many states will leave the Union? I suspect this is a distinct possibility. California already belongs to Mexico and DC belongs to elite pigs. What do we have to lose?
Going to make some TEA now…very strong!!
At least there is some good news. The Chairman of the powerful, conservative, 171-man Republican Study Committee, Jim Jordan, is already voicing his dismay.
Not only couldn’t the GOP leadership deliver on the watered-down version of the $100B pledge, the $49B is only HALF of what Obama himself had requested.
I am hoping that this leads to an effort to replace the entire GOP leadership.
Correction:
Not only couldn’t the GOP leadership deliver on the watered-down version of the $100B pledge, the $
49B$39B is only HALF of what Obama himself had requested.Texas has almost as many Mexicans living in it as CA. The only border state that is resisting the invasion is AZ. And they’re being sued by Fedzilla.
Soros and the rest are opposite-worldview holders.
They don’t believe that there is a God, that there is a soul, nor that they (their soul) will ultimately have to be accountable.
But, to paraphrase Atlas Shrugs:
Soros and his fellow civilization-destroyers can avoid belief in a final Judgment; but, they cannot avoid the consequences of avoiding belief in a final Judgment.
Regarding your last comment, AZ, I agree the treason trials for these America-destroyers cannot come soon enough.
Mark Levin was predicting yesterday on his show that the GOP would cave in the end. I can’t wait to hear what he says next.
It will also be interesting to see if Hannity caves to Rove. He looked shaky yesterday.
Doy! Why didn’t I think of that. Just turn on Fox News.
Boehnor and Can’tor/won’t need to be replaced as leadership by the caucus. I tried last election to dump Can’tor/won’t.
The Republican Party of VA won’t allow a challenge and the independent candidate last time got 7%. Unless people learn to vote without holding their noses, we’re screwed in VA-7.
Wrong! CA has the only effective border fence and is by far the most trafficked border entry/exit point for LEGAL border crossings.
TX and especially AZ have the advantage of not having major cities and economic centers just across the border but mostly hostile desert. Yet, illegals are choosing to cross wide-open TX. Why would anyone choose to cross one of the harshest deserts in the world to enter through AZ if it was “the only state resisting the invasion”?
Most illegals are now coming in through TX with t\he drug problem mainly AZ. Most of CA’s illegal invasion could be stopped by building a wall at the CA/AZ border.
I don’t know why even YOU can’t see how anti-illegals California is. We defied our politicians to build that wall. Most of the problem lies with the sanctuary cities.
There may be more illegals entering VA these days than are entering CA.
See, Phil…you do need me!
Exactly. This battle was a GOP win.
They could have easily snatched defeat from the jaws of victory by following the advice of most of the commenters here.
AZ is the only state passing state laws to make life harder for illegal aliens. TX, NM and CA have made life easier for illegal aliens even providing them benefits. LA has stopped towing illegal aliens cars, but will tow a citizen’s car for the same violation.
Everyone should have a fence like CA has. Everyone should have laws like AZ has.
I like it. Weepy, the 8th Dwarf
Just what the heck did we “win”? We got nothing.
This might have been a GOP victory, but it sure as heck wasn’t a conservative or American victory.
This process has resulted in a lot of material to choose from when election ads are made to show the dems true colors.
The Dems won. The status quo can now crow about the “courage” of politicians to make the “biggest budget cuts in history” but the 2011 budget is still hugely bigger than the 2010 and 2009 budgets. This was a major loss for the GOP. They didn’t even succeed in holding the line at $100B, $61B or even $41B, the $39B fell short of the $78B Obama requested. And then there are Planned Parenthood, NPR and other riders that were taken out.
This was a “compromise” in full retreat by the GOP, a rout for the Dems. God help us.
We have at least a half million already Phil. It’s been like pulling teeth to get VA legislators and local authorities to address it. Prince William County has had impressive results with their initiatives. Almost all the county sherriffs are now alerting ICE when they book an illegal alien into a jail. One of them was then let go by ICE and ended up killing someone driving drunk. Holder and company are stonewalling VA on why he was released.
Until we have a President who wants the laws enforced it won’t happen. The Usurper has said he doesn’t want illegal aliens deported.
If we win the Senate and the Presidency in 2012, we can and will defund the EPA, NEA, NPR, PBS, PP, etc. So, we must apparently play the waiting game. Less than two short years, folks and we can get rid of all of those alphabet organizations, or at least not force the taxpayers to fund them! I know that is a hard consolation prize to swallow right now…but it WILL happen. In the meantime, we need to concentrate on the obamacare mess and get rid of it NOW. Everything else is toast if we can’t repeal that mess.
Depends on who you mean by “we”. “We” didn’t even get control of the House in 2010. Republicans got control of the House, but not conservatives.
Of course it was.
What did you really expect the House to accomplish against the Senate, the Presidency, the entrenched federal bureaucracy, the corrupted judicial system and the entire MSM?
When a battle improves your position, that’s a win. This was a big win.
Every time I remember when the Republicans held the House, the Senate and the Presidency and DID NOTHING ABOUT ANYTHING, I see red!! How could they have been so reckless and apathetic with our Country? This will never be allowed to happen again, thanks to Michelle Malkin, Glenn Beck, Rush Limbaugh and the Tea Party!
How did it improve conservatives or Americans position? $38 million is nothing. And remember, the Democrats claimed to want cuts too, just not the “radical” cuts we wanted.
What did I expect the House to accomplish? $100 billion in cuts, defunding of abortionists in DC, or shutting down the government.
none of that happened. Yeah, you leftists keep touting “you can’t get everything you want” but we got nothing we wanted. Republicans compromised and compromised. What’d the Democrats compromise on?
Republican: Okay, I’ll put on the clown suit and let you pump me up the butt
Democrat: Okay, I’ll use lubrication.
That’s the leftist idea of “compromise.”
Exactly.
The thinking here that the House standing alone was supposed to somehow save America right here right now in this battle is a bit bizarre.
Republicans compromise with Democrats
I do agree with that assessment, Roland. They were fighting HUGE odds. I think we may have been too hard on them. I know we expect them to get everything we demand, but that is not possible in politics…especially in the current environment. They may have done everything that WAS possible. Not being privie to all the meetings and other things going on behind closed doors, we are being very judgemental. I heard that the Republicans got 2/3 of what they were asking. I know we didn’t get some of the biggies. I didn’t expect the dems to roll over and allow PP to be defunded. That is a huge fight and will probably not happen until after the next election.
If some of you think “our side” wasn’t fighting with all they had, I have to disagree.
You’re right. If we define winning as “what did you expect?” and not worth fighting for, this is a win. It’s like I once told my discouraged little league team one year when we had the worst team in the league, “If you show up thinking you can’t win, you are half-way to losing already.”
Losing is not winning unless you define it to be. If you are not willing to fight for what you believe in, what exactly is it that you value? “Winning”?
On my team, you play hard no matter what. It doesn’t take talent to hustle and do your best. You’re benched son. Have your father give me a call.
Here is how:
I suppose you think Lee lost Gettysburg because he didn’t take Washington DC?
If they don’t stand firm on this battle, and lose this small battle, how the heck are they supposed to hold firm on the big battle, cutting 6 trillion in 10 years? How’re they supposed to get Obamacare defunded?
In those fights, they’ll still be 1/2 of 1/3 of the government, they’ll still be standing alone.
So, no, we must hold the line here
Excellent point! I agree. And that was well put. We sometimes forget the formidable odds we are fighting. And to expect to get absolutely everything we “demand” is totally unrealistic. Especially right now, so early in the game. We haven’t even given them a chance to get their chairs warmed up. I am going to try not to be so judgemental until I know ALL the facts. Obama and his cronie crooks do hold most of the cards right now…face it!
Anyone who knows how to read a balance sheet knows we are operating in zombie mode inside Alice in Wonderland.
Judge this GOP “victory” against the backdrop of a 15 T national debt and unfunded liabilites of 75T and against a dollar that is skidding fast.
And above all, don’t forget to take into consideration the fact gold is trading near 1,500 and silver at 40 with inflation revving its engines.
Now lets talk about this drop in the bucket.
Will swapping Obamacare for Romneycare be a big win?
They failed in a very important area: they failed to embrace the Tea Party.
They also failed to hold the line after going into retreat before even starting to negotiate with the Dems and then accepted a number that was half of the cuts Obama himself demanded.
This was a complete rout. The GOP compromised in full retreat. They should have forced the issue at $100B, at least at $61B. But with these guys, it’s just like youth soccer: nobody wins and nobody loses. Everyone wins because everyone “tried”.
This was a catastrophe.
This, I believe, is how I and many Americans feel right now. We’ve compromised too much and too often for the sake of “comity”. We’ve sacrificed basic principles in order to kneel at the altar of compromise. We bend knee and smile, hoping for some shred of decency and compassion from the enemies of humanity, when that decency doesn’t exist (or they wouldn’t be socialists).
No more.
That is the issue for which we battle. And there will be no mercy if we are the loser. And if we are the winner, and offer mercy, we will not be the winner for long.
You are living in a fantasy world if you think Obamacare is going to get defunded while Obama is President and holds the veto pen.
But we were holding a gun.
“A derringer and a pair of twos beats a full house every time” – unknown
Last November during the lame duck Congress, the GOP allowed a $105B rider to fund Obamacare without blinking. Yet, they offered no comeback to the Dem criticism that the GOP was holding up a deal because of riders. Couldn’t even one of these $h!t-for-brains spineless weasels point that out?
These guys didn’t do their best… by far. Their heart isn’t in it. They are representing the wrong side. We need new leadership.
It can happen, but it will take men in government with marbles, men who recognize that compromising with evil is a victory for evil, men who would rather see the nation perish then live a socialist zombie existence.
Embrace the Tea Party? Who are you kidding? You expect them to EMBRACE the Tea Party? Believe me when I tell you, they RESENT the Tea Party. It is going to take TIME to get more true Conservatives in there and change the thinking. I do believe a lot of folks on here expect instant results. Real life isn’t like that. I’m sure you are realistic enough to understand that. I know we are in dire straits right now. But we STILL can’t change things as quickly as we want…or even NEED to! Frustrating, but reality sucks.
Oh, Jesus Christ, Phil. You know better than to believe anything Obama says.
I like your positive attitude happyscrapper! We have to be patient, which of course is very difficult when our country is going to he!!, but God is on our side. He is in control, and I really believe things will get better if we can get more conservatives elected in 2012. The dems have shown how radical they are, and we just need to be sure we don’t let anyone forget that. We also need to point out the policies they implement which have been tried and have failed elsewhere. Most of all we need to pray.
You hit on the crux of the problem: when you’re dealing with people on the other side whose principles — if they can be called that — and priorities are so malignly warped, and you control only one of the three legs of the budget triad, how much can you hope to accomplish by fiat?
All of the talking head discussions that I have read and listened to concerning the budet negotiations share one commonalty: the tacit acceptance that it is only the Republicans who have to struggle with their fiscal principles, because everybody takes it as a given that the donks are only interested in playing stupid little games and scoring cheap political points.
For all the gnashing of teeth and rending of garments about how the Republicans “caved,” it begs two questions:
1. How, given that they control only the House, were the Republicans supposed to dictate terms on the final amount to be cut? Does anyone really believe that the donks were going to just look down at their shoes and say, “Aw shucks, we surrender”? Anyone?
It’s hard to gain leverage when you don’t have a lever. It’s hard to threaten somebody with dire consequences when the only gun in evidence is the one being pointed at your head.
2. And if the answer to 1 above is, “Shut it all down” — presumably counting on public pressure to somehow shame the donks into capitulating to the tea party demands — how is that supposed to work when the donks have shown over and over that they are incapable of shame, embarassment, or sense of guilt or remorse?
Remember, it was the donks who were praying for a shutdown, counting on a coordinated campaign with their media arm to repeat what happened in 1995. And while it’s not certain that they would be successful, it’s also not certain that they wouldn’t be. Why walk striaght into the obvious trap that the enemy is preparing right in front of you?
What just took place was skirmishing about water under the bridge — 2010′s post-mortem budget. The real battle is coming up with the next debt ceiling vote and the 2011 budget.
The best-case outcome if we are to have any hope of real roll-back in the deficit is for the R’s to retake the Senate and White House in 2012, and then holding their feet to the fire until they scream. Otherwise, as long as the donks control any leg of the triad, there’s no hope of pushing through what really needs to be done.
Too bad that life isn’t a Star Trek movie (or whatever that was). Then maybe we could just change the plot and make it turn out our way.
BTW, the Cherry Blossom parade is funded by US taxpayers? Here in Pasadena, we put on one of the world’s greatest parades together with a vast schedule of many other events without a dime of taxpayer money. In fact, we put a lot of money in the city’s bank account.
Why are we funding this? Why didn’t the Republicans stomp on this argument for not holding up the budget?
Correct.
Tactically, as well as strategically, it was merely a smaller loss; a slowing down of – not a stop to, or reversal of – the America-destroying process; which, unfortunately, continues unchecked….
With all the debt we have, the feds are spending 20M on a remake of sesame street to go to pakistan of all places. My head hurts with all the stupidity going on in dc.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-south-asia-13015768
L
Remove the pen from his ineligible hand. Congress can investigate The Usurpation.
GOOD POST! I agree. We are dealing with corruption here, folks and they know how to win BY ANY MEANS NECESSARY. It is highly likely that the Republicans and even Tea Party Republicans are realizing the nasty evil they are dealing with. We weren’t there, were we? So we might want to step back just a bit and think about the pure evil they have to deal with on a daily basis. They are all we have as a buffer against these cockroaches. Can’t we stand with them for a bit and allow them a chance to sharpen the fight? Look at what the 2012 budget is going to do, and help them fight for that one. This one is over. Or would you rather jump all over them and make everyone ON OUR SIDE feeling frustrated, discouraged and alone? This all or nothing attitude isn’t going to work. Not in today’s world.
Gag me. You are one arguing that Boehner only represents 1/2 of 1/3 of the government as an excuse that this struggle is hopeless, a typically RINO argument.
Well, this is the very same GOP leadership that controlled ALL of government for six years only to destroy the economy. The issue is not about believing or not believing Obama. This is a one-party system and you choose to believe the GOP liars. I don’t believe any of them.
That is the point here. If we couldn’t trust this GOP to deliver when they controlled everything, why are we willing to let them off of the hook today?
We get the government we deserve and right now, you deserve this government.
Thank you. And I agree…God is on the side of His people. The regressives will lose in the end. To some of the posters here, that may sound naive. But I believe it. I still get really really angry, but deep down, I know God is in charge.
Even the 300 bought time for Greece to prepare. Even the Alamo bought time for Houston to assemble and train the army, and both at least gave a rallying cry for patriots.
That is the question for us now; will this miserable defeat be the battle cry that brings the citizens to rally and oppose the enemy? Somehow, I doubt it.
Maybe the Pakistanis will keep Big Bird. He is eating us out of house and home. And Michelle Obama wants to get rid of Cookie Monster anyway. My head just exploded. Excuse me for a while. I have to go and find all the pieces.
The only good thing we have to hope for near term is that the House GOP members (and maybe a few scared Blue Dogs) make it a close vote next week. Boehner wanted 100% support for this deal. We need to make sure that the “no” votes are double the last CR.
Oh dear, here it comes. Get ready for a tidal wave of vicious demagoguery attacking the Tea Party for almost forcing a catastrophic shutdown.
Thank you happy, I forget that sometimes.
Don’t feel too comforted. Remember, God believes in free-will, too.
Where have I said this struggle is hopeless?
No, it is not “the very same.”
Yes, it is. That was precisely what my response to you was about, and that is all it was about. Your trying to make it something else instead of just sheepishly recognizing you were saying something a bit foolish shows something about you.
No, it is not a one party system, and anyone who did not figure that out when they voted on Obamacare has got at least one screw a bit loose.
Because a politcal party is not a monolith. It is not a person. And nobody is “letting them off of the hook.”
Riiight.
Y’know, Phil, you really are a jackass.
We’re being pushed back foot by foot every day. When Reid and his ilk can effectively use the women’s rights issue to get the GOP to cave, we’ve not held the line. That this was never an issue of women not getting health care during the so-called shut down was not and will never be covered by the State-run Media.
The dishonesty of both parties makes my blood boil. And there are no consequences.
The American Sheeple continue to swallow the lies hole…and ask for more.
Resorting to ad-hominem is an admission of defeat.
When the GOP had the House, Senate and White House, they added to Fedzilla a very expensive new entitlement, Medicare Part D. At the time I opposed it and I oppose it still. Let’s talk about repealing that.
The GOP just wants to replace Obamacare with Romneycare.
Prove it.
How bout we give it a try for once and find out? The results cannot possibly be any worse than what is already happening.
We compromised and got nothing
Yes, He does. Evil may seem to thrive.
Good always wins in the end.
You called me a leftist, and Phil called me a RINO. So you know what you can do with it, Hiraghm.
Roland, Phil is a very opinionated, stubborn, my way or the highway kind of guy. I found that out from practically the first day on this site when I asked an innocent question and he went off on me and called me a RINO, and later a troll. So yes, Phil can be a jerk. On the other hand, Phil is a principled Conservative, a true patriot, and we need people like him in the fight.
Phil…go take a chill pill and stop yelling at people who are on the same side as you are.
Exactly. This was another big kabuki. The 2011 budget is monstrously bigger than the 2010 and the Bush 2009 and 2008 monstrosities. Didn’t we win last November?
Republicans accept defeat as victory and turn victory into defeat. That is the hallmark of the Stupid Party and why we must put it out of its misery.
Oh, and btw, one of the most offensive things you can say to me is that I deserve this government, as Phil just did. I was being as polite as I could when I just called him a jackass.
It is clueless jerks like Phil (and maybe you) who fail to even vote to defeat the likes of Barbara Boxer who deserve the government the leftists give us.
It has already been proven over and over. Unless you are talking about a Civil War. Are you?
Sorry, HS.
We tend to agree fully on most every thread.
But, I gotta disagree with you here.
Only an all or nothing attitude, following Dick Morris’s suggestions for maneuvering so that a shutdown hurts the socialists badly, will work here.
We are in a mortal, existential struggle for the soul, for the very existence, of our America.
Losing only partially – which is nothing more than dying a bit more slowly – is what is not going to work in today’s world.
The socialists bring guns to knife fights.
We’d all better wake up to that fact.
I’m not at all sure you are right, Scrappy. He wouldn’t even vote to defeat Boxer, one of the very most vile and damaging US Senators.
It would be nice if he would actually join the fight instead of just mouthing off on the internet, always bashing the Republicans and rarely slinging arrows at the Democrats.
He could easily be a troll.
I am trying to understand these comments about how they only got half of the $78 billion that Obama asked for himself. Is that the $78 billion that was coming directly out of the DOD budget? So if they would have went with the Obama $78 billion and then found another $22 billion to get to the righteous $100 billion, all would be right with the world? Well, allrighty then.
I know we are in BIG trouble here. Maybe it is just my age or something. But I DON’T WANT A CIVIL WAR! I fear that is what is coming and it makes me weep. My children and grandchildren don’t deserve this. And my ancestors who fought in the American Revolution don’t either. I know in my heart that we have to be stubborn and not give in on a lot of these things. My only point is…we have no way of winning in Congress right now. NONE. We are outnumbered by the regressives until the next election and anything we pass will get vetoed by the jackass-in-chief. WHAT CAN WE DO???
CA is a lost cause politically and largely the fault of the CA GOP. They surrendered statewide for a few safe seats in Congress.
So, Roland, you think Phil could be a troll? Hmmm…sometimes he does sound like one. And I do agree that he is dead wrong to vote for a third party when there is no chance of a win. I think that is dangerously stupid. Nasty, yes, but a troll?? I don’t really think so.
Happy, Roland is NOT on the same side that “we” are on. He is a “Republican Uber Alles” apologist. It’s all about Republicans winning, even when they are Democrats.
Of course, I’m opinionated. So are you. I can be persuaded but persuading others does not seem to be the idea on these threads. If people don’t like my opinions, fine. Persuade me that I am wrong. But I have heard the RINO loser rhetoric for most of my life and I don’t have any patience for it.
We are in a struggle to hold on to constitutional law and because of the out of control size of government, we are also struggling to hold on to our personal freedoms. People argue that “well, we did our best” following one defeat after another are worse than Democrats.
Dems fight for every inch at all times and everywhere. How many times do we have to hear a “conservative” state that CA or some other blue (formerly red) state is hopeless and not worth fighting for? We TALK like losers and so we lose.
Finally, I don’t post comments here intending to engage in debate as my first objective. I don’t see this as a chat room. I usually post and move on. Sometimes I challenge certain posts because the thread is being hijacked with defeatist thinking.
I mostly post comments hoping someone, especially the host blogger, reads them and that I might say something in a way that makes a difference. I have seen my comments posted elsewhere from time to time. I want the serious players to steal my material. I just throw it out there. I am not interested in getting credit if someone takes it and runs with it without attribution.
None of us want a civil war, we know the next one will not be as civil as the last one.
If we don’t draw a hard line in the sand now, stop the spending before the crash, it may be inevitable.
Ed Morrissey at Hot Air said:
… but Republicans have achieved one major accomplishment. Not only did they force the first actual reductions in government spending in ages, but they have changed the political paradigm from whether to cut to how much and where to cut. That’s a pretty impressive victory for a party that only controls one chamber of Congress.
Update: One last point along these lines. Democrats have spent the last four months arguing that Republicans were too radical to govern and wanted to destroy government. Instead, Republicans fashioned a deal on their own terms and passed a budget deal — something Democrats couldn’t or wouldn’t do when they had all the power in DC. This gives the GOP a lot of credibility on leadership and governance, and all of it at the expense of Harry Reid and Barack Obama.
Full article at http://hotair.com/archives/2011/04/09/who-won-the-budget-fight/
You got that right! It already isn’t!
I am moving to the new thread.
As I have said many, many times before, it is never about electing Republicans.
It is always about defeating Democrats with the most conservative candidate with any chance to do it.
You know that is my view, Phil. You know I supported Hoffman in NY23. So you are just lying about me.
Take this to the new thread, guys! It is interesting and I don’t want to go back and forth!
I see Doug posted the Hot Air article I referenced in my comment in the new thread. Moving on.
You’re kidding right? This country is filled with a bunch of vacuous sheeple that are more worried about American Idol or Dancing with the Stars than the state of their country.
Face it for the most part the citizens have been dumbed down so much they don’t even have the sense to know what is going on. The honest truth is that this country will have to crash before some amongst us get it and maybe not even then will they.
And if you are hanging your hat on the repubs rescuing you, you are in trouble. The repubs and the dims are nothing more than two heads of the same snake. The worst thing is that the dims don’t hide the destruction they are trying to cause whereas the gutless repubs stab you in the back every chance they get while promising they’ll do better next time.
We need a viable third party option or we are damned it is as simple as that.
We’ve never had a civil war in the United States. We’ve never had a successful revolution. The War of Independence was just that. The Secession War was fought with another sovereign nation.
Our fate was sealed when we allowed The Usurper to usurp the office.
None of those sworn to defend the Constitution would do so.
March 4, 1789 – January 20, 2009
RIP
DB. Yes. Certainly all true. But with no disrespect intended, taking away anything positive in this fiasco is like a Football Giants fan from the late 70′s saying “Hey, we lost by 38 points… But ya know…….. Dave Jennings had some really great punts!!!”
this is a sickening surrender by the old GOP Cryer-Man and his two lackeys, Cantor and McCarthy.
we got nothing, and gave up almost everything. see Doug Ross’s blog for how much the deficit went up in the 8 days prior to this asinine little chip they “cut”.
please.
I want Boehner the Cryer OUT.
I want Cantor OUT.
I want McCarthy OUT.
if it take having to overwhelm the old-guard sissy GOP with Constitutional conservatives to kick them out then that’s what we will do in 2012.
heads on a stick!!!
I want Can’tor/won’t out, too, he’s my congressman, I’ll try again next election!
Let’s make it stick:
Boehner’s new nickname:
Weepy, the 8th Dwarf
happyscrapper said:
I have MY BIRTH CERTIFICATE and COLB that shows I was born in Texas. I can always come back “home” when it comes to secession. I’ll go with Texas anytime.