Predictable does not begin to explain what began today. Write down the date, it’s almost as significant as May 11th 2014 .

Chris Wallace had the last two weeks off. He returns today, March 1st, carrying a remarkable reinvigoration for the progressive ideology.  Governor Scott Walker has become the primary roadblock to Rupert Murdoch’s chosen candidate, Jeb Bush.  And Walker just finished 2nd to Rand Paul in the CPAC straw poll….

Toward that end, Walker must be removed; subtly, so as not to openly isolate the audience (revenue stream) for FOX News. [In 2012 Matt Drudge did the same thing for his guy Mitt Romney  – it’s not so subtle when you know the objective and motivation$]

How do you do the bidding of the Murdoch? Simple, you do the same thing the progressive leftists do when trying to remove the impediment to “your guy”.

Watch Chris Wallace focus on… wait for it… the hot button issues of the time, the social issues, the issues that no-one actually gives a flip about. (more…)

I’ve spent some time going back through the post election -yet pre-holiday- white house briefings, and comparing them to recent pre-SOU leaks.
What strikes me as odd is how people are discussing the Obama “Legislative Proposals“, ie. “free college” and “tax the rich”, as if he actually means it. I’m sure people reading this understand that: ♦ the legislative branch passes laws; ♦ the executive branch enforces laws; and ♦ the judicial branch interprets laws.
So why is so much attention being paid to President Obama’s “legislative proposals”?
Why doesn’t everyone in congress just ignore him. Elections have consequences, he lost.
Let President Obama banter on listening to his own voice at yet another grand State of The Union speech, filled with so much rhetoric and nonsense, that no-one can ever remember from year to year. And then ignore it. I certainly hope the “GOP response” which customarily follows the SOU doesn’t give the “legislative proposals” any mention, because there is simply no need to.
Republicans control the House and the Senate chambers with majorities in both legislative houses – they don’t need to engage in a futile discussion about legislation they will never bring forward, so why talk about it. (more…)

The last federal budget was signed into law September 2007 by President Bush. Since then the past 7 fiscal years have been funded under continuing resolution bills.
In a sane world the Republicans would have only funded Fiscal Year 2015 through April, and taken the position of waiting to see President Obama’s budget proposal for FY 2016 which is due in February. (President Obama has never met a statutorily required budget submission deadline). Alas, another year funded by CR.
Via Politico – In a big win for House Republicans and President Barack Obama, the House passed a $1 trillion-plus funding bill Thursday night that will keep the government open into next year.
The final vote, which came after a high drama day of behind the scenes arm twisting and vote counting, was 219 to 206.
The Senate passed a two-day funding bill following the House vote, avoiding a government shutdown starting at midnight Thursday. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.), however, warned that the “cromnibus,” as the massive spending package has come to be called on Capitol Hill, may not pass the Senate until Monday. (more…)

 …F.D.R. in Hell (@FDRinHell)

Gov. Dannel Malloy has signed an executive order effectively enabling the indefinite suspension of civil rights in the state of Connecticut.  He’s given his Commissioner of the Department of public Health the ability to quarantine, or otherwise detain, any person or group suspected of being infected with the Ebola virus. 

Note…all this has been done “preemptively”, because no specific case has yet to be identified.

Checks  = None

Balances = None

All done for your own good… without due process…. on behalf of the State.

(more…)

“Don’t expect anything good for America until this guy is gone …….”

h/t to Doug Ross aka Director Blue

Doug Ross @ Journal has published a first hand account of a conversation a docent at the Bush Center Library had with former Senator Alan Simpson (R), co-author of the Simpson-Bowles commission report recommending fiscal reform legislation, on the outspoken former Senator’s impressions based on first-hand dealings with Barack Hussein Obama.

“….I spent the next 15 minutes (just the two of us) listening to him expound on his view of our future. His first answer was that with this president we will never make progress. He then related a story that when Bowles and Simpson requested time with the president to urge him to seriously consider their report, he was stunned by the response (as was Bowles).

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WASHINGTON DC – While members of Congress ended 2013 congratulating themselves for passing a budget, the media missed the fact that the agreement doesn’t actually avoid a government shutdown. The deal reached by Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI) and Sen. Patty Murray (D-WA) provides simply a blueprint for government spending. Congress must still pass legislation detailing specific spending before January 15, when government’s spending authority expires. Government still faces a potential shutdown in a little over a week.
The budget agreement passed by Congress in the closing days of last year provides what is called the “top-Line” number, setting the overall level of discretionary spending. Congress still has to pass appropriations bills authorizing specific spending for thousands of government agencies, departments and programs. While there is agreement on the total amount of discretionary spending, there is far less agreement on how this spending is allocated. These agreements will have to be reached by the 15th, of the government would shut down again. (read more)
I am reminded of a previous conversation point we discussed in 2011.

Obama and the Magic Monkey Routine

(more…)

The 2010 and 2012 class of Tea Party House Congressional members have done an outstanding job of holding the line amid attacks from both Democrats and Republicans.  Can you just imagine what legislative life would be like without their fight?
Ted Cruz appears on ABC This Week and discusses his meeting with them during the shutdown.   Jonathan Karl is just aghast at their united patriotic perspectives.

The chatter amongst the Inside-the-Beltway C&CCS* set is the recent flare up in the barely simmering ideological flame war between the Establishment “Main Street Republican” Decepticons and grassroots Tea Party activists leading into the 2014 election cycle for the very soul and future direction of “Conservatism” in America.
In addition to not-so-subtle chats with martial industry lobbyists, at a fundraiser held in early November McConnell personally demanded Defense contractors pony up to stop the Tea Party assault or face a defense contract spending drought in the next Congress.

Sources close to the discussions state McConnell is looking for deep pockets to fund his “one issue” campaign to “teach” those who seek to primary “approved” Establishment Republicans a “lesson” as some type of ill conceived anodynic salve that will simultaneously heal the internecine rupture and rally the troops while affirmatively castigating the wayward “wild eyed” Tea Party patriots and extinguishing any lingering questions about his impoverished ability to lead fence sitting middle America into rallying behind a resurgent majority Republican Congress. Overall support from the defense industries has tapered significantly since the 2008 cycle, and McConnell is demanding they open the spigot – wide.

(more…)

“government shutdown”?   Oh, it’s only terrorism when the other side does it.
Paul Ryan and Patty Murray have been trying for weeks to come to a budget agreement.  They are talking and working but the sticking points are what they have always been.  Democrats want the sequester caps removed and spending increased.  
If Ryan and Murray can’t come to a deal Boehner has a backup plan to just advance the Continuing Resolution at current fiscal spending levels.  Senate Dems are FREAKING.
WASHINGTON DC – House Minority Whip Steny Hoyer would oppose a continuing resolution to keep government funded beyond Jan. 15 if it doesn’t address the sequestration cuts.
“I believe that hurts our national security, it hurts our economy and it undermines our responsibility of running government at a level that is productive for our people,” Hoyer said. (more…)

Chuck Schumer has lived up to his word.  He promised he would introduce a new bill in the Senate called the “McConnell Rule”.    The “rule” would grant the president, and subsequently the Treasury Secretary, unlimited capability to raise the debt ceiling as they needed.    Congress could only vote to STOP the debt ceiling from being raised, and it would take a super majority, 66 votes, (2/3rds) to block it.
Called the McConnell Rule because unbelievably it was the brainchild idea of Republican Kentucky Senator Mitch McConnell.    
However, because McConnell is in a highly contested primary, Chuck Schumer and Barbara Boxer (yes you read that right) are sponsoring the measure on McConnell’s behalf.  They are calling it the “Pay Our Bills Act”.
WASHINGTON DC – Democratic senators have introduced legislation that would grant President Barack Obama, and subsequent presidents, the authority to increase the legal limit on the federal government’s debt unless Congress subsequently voted to disapprove the increase. (more…)