other things:
- House Republicans reportedly caving in, and agreeing to two month extension with conference committee to be appointed. This whole thing is a big mess, and Tina Korbe at HotAir has a good explanation of where it went wrong.
- Did you watch Obama’s press statement? It really was awful. The panderer in chief did not once mention that the pizza night out money was coming from money that was supposed to go to the social security trust fund. Even the Editors of USA Today were able to figure it out.
- Tweet of the Day, from moi: “How many pizza nights out could one buy 4 cost of $4 million Hawaii vacation?”
- U.N. gets something done, holds minute of silence in honor of mass murderer and enslaver of an entire people (I know, there are so many possibilities, but I think you can guess who).
- Joe Biden may get his wish and see Iraq split into pieces.
- How’s that Arab Spring working out? “The latest news coming out of Egypt reveals that the country is experiencing nothing short of a catastrophe.”
- Great news for Israel. Turkey’s PM Erdogan has a new worst enemy … wait for it … France.
- More to follow.
- Oh, Yes. Thank you to everyone who has been using the Amazon link for shopping and the donations and subscriptions.
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Comments
Wow, am I tired of the words… Repblicans cave!
OK, I watched the vid … I didn’t want to, but I had to. Now, I’ve got a question. 00:42-“Every place is Barak Obama country once Barak Obama’s been there.” This could simply be the most egotistical, narcissistic, megalomaniac who has paraded himself across the USAmerican conscience … or is this someone who has embraced in himself a specific religio-governmental philosophy which has claimed every place it has stepped foot on as its own?
Iraq is not going to split into separate countries. Here’s why. All the parties know that if it should do so:
– Eastern Iraq would become a satellite of Iran (which it de facto already is);
-the Kurdish North would be “Kurdistan” for about 10 minutes before being absolutely CRUSHED by Turkey’s military lest the southern part of Turkey also rebel and secede; and
-South-Western Iraq (incidentally where most of the oil is) would become a satellite of Saudi Arabia.
All of this would set up a direct border conflict between Saudi Arabia and Iran, with the battle-lines drawn from Basra on the Iranian border to Hadithah West of Baghdad as both parties fight over the Iraq Strategic Pipeline and the Iraq-Syria-Lebanon Pipeline.
The North, for all their clamoring for separate statehood or autonomy knows that without the rest of Iraq to protect it, it will be Subsumed by Turkey due to the regular attacks upon Turkey by the Kurdish minority that flow through Turkey’s porous border.
It is going to get worse though. Expect it to get MUCH worse next summer. The Republican task will be to be hammering Obama on his pullout and highlighting the continued deterioration of Iraq.
I’m really getting tired of the RINOs in the Senate undercutting the Conservatives in the House. Did you notice how fast Brown, Snowe, Collins et al got out there and started saying “it’s the Conservative’s fault if you don’t get your tax break” instead of hammering the Senate Democrat members for holding up the spending bill instead.
The McConnell SHOULD have told Reid “No.” “No vote on the Payroll tax until we finish the Megabus, and then an up-or-down vote on the House bill, and if doesn’t pass, we’re going to vote AGAINST any extension. You Democrat Senators can take the fall for denying the American People a tax break.”
Now, because the RINOs in the Senate caved, we get to wait 50 days and have this WHOLE conversation over again, and have Obama thumbing his nose at us about the XL Pipeline (because you KNOW the State Dept is either going to deny it, or out-wait the 60 day timeline to get on the other side of the issue.
If the Republicans are smart here, they’ll spend the next 60 days hammering Obama on the fact that he’s undercutting Social Security’s “trust fund” (I know it doesn’t exist), and that by pushing for a short term jump to “negotiate” all he’s done is make sure businesses DON’T hire workers due to the uncertainty. But I have no confidence in the Republican Leadership that they even have AVERAGE intelligence anymore, let alone that they’re smart.
Republicans need to get their message back on track: Democrat caused uncertainty, Kicking the can down the road, Democrats forcing short term fixes instead of real solutions, Democrats playing games for political benefit, Class warfare, etc…. It needs to be RELENTLESS.
That’s what you get when you [not you you] have political hacks as the majority/minority leaders. Should have been Ryan in the House and Rubio in the Senate. So, figure out who voted for these two asshats and send the message out.
The only upside may come in two months when Boehner gets to say to everyone: “We told you the two month extension was a mistake. Now we’re back in the same mess. How long are we going to continue with a Senate and President who can’t plan longer than a couple of months into the future?”
Though my own position is the same as Korbe’s. This is not really a tax cut. Social Security is not supposed to be a “tax” program but a retirement program where people pay in during working years so they can draw out during retirement years. It’s a cut in making social security solvent.
That is nonsense. Korbe is full of it, and so are you. FICA is a second income tax, and that is all it is. It has no connection whatsoever to social security. Social security is a welfare program and always has been. There is no money in the “trust fund” and everybody knows it; the FICA that has come in over the years has gone directly into the general fund and been spent, and the social security payments now are coming from the general fund. There is no guarantee that you will ever get anything from it. Congress could cut it off tomorrow, or limit who gets it.
Your claim that “Social Security is not supposed to be a ‘tax’ program but a retirement program where people pay in during working years so they can draw out during retirement years” is a blatant lie, and you know it, or if you don’t then it’s your own fault. Nobody working today has ever had any grounds for supposing that SocSec is a retirement fund. The government never told you such a thing, and the Supreme Court put you on notice long before you ever paid your first $1 of FICA that you were not building up an entitlement to anything.
The “lock box” is jam packed with IOU’s backed by the full faith and credit of the US government. Personally, I would rather have IOU’s from China. At least we could pay ourselves rather than the Chinese.
And if we drilled here and used our other oil sources here, we would not be sending money to the people who want to kill us. It’s a non-sequitor, I know, but I felt like venting. I feel better now. Or not.
Isn’t this Obama’s way of giving a wet sloppy kiss to those who work, but don’t pay income tax? You can’t give tax breaks to someone who doesn’t pay taxes, so this is the next best thing. This is always the problem with “tax holidays” – people got used to the lower amount, and now “something is being taken away”.
It’s not even folks’ worst complaint about Obama, but his administration has purposefully acted in such a way that is literally killing people – his administration is directly responsible for the death of over 200 and rising Mexican citizens and US Border Patrol agent Brian Terry. Fast and Furious. This, plus a half dozen other major goofs and screwups, as Obama begins his reelection. It would seem the GOP could nominate one of Hot Air’s Lawn Gnomes and beat this guy. And yet, my best assessment allows for the real possibility that the GOP is going to screw this up. I can feel it coming sometimes, hear the distant whining wafting in with the evening wind….
Why is it when the Republicans are actually winning an argument and the Democrats show themselves as the blathering idiots they are the Republican leadership pulls out the rug of victory so they can face plant themselves onto the floor of defeat?
How hard is it to contrast a measly $40 with a $4 MILLION dollar extravaganza?!!!
How hard is it to promote the TRUTH that a 2 month extension is impossible to implement?!!!
I suppose it doesn’t help when the annointed smartest person who is supposedly on our side (*cough*Krauthammer*) throws the Republican House under the bus with stupid leftist talking points!!!
A tax cut is a tax cut is a tax cut. The Republican Party should be for tax cuts, always and for as long as possible. The only grounds for opposing this particular cut is that it’s accompanied by a tax increase on mortgages.
It is NOT a tax cut, Milhouse. It’s a 30% reduction in the 6% of your pay that the feds take out for Social Security. It is a *funding*, not a tax, an entirely different payroll accounting category. It is paid for by simply diverting Social Security funding. Social Security will be paid for in myriad other ways (mortgage tax, for one) from taxpayer money, so there is no saving, just money shuffled around to look like a ‘tax cut’. It is a puppet/strawman trick constructed solely for political purposes.
Even if it was a true tax cut, where the money remains in the economy, it isn’t nearly enough to have any stimulative effect on the economy whatsoever. Even if was a true tax cut, it is very poor legislation.