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But Republican Bill McInturff and Democrat Peter Hart, the pollsters who conducted the investigation, said the research raises red flags for anyone to offer discounts for the three main rights programs, including Medicaid, including offering health benefits and pensions for the elderly and the poor. The programs, which constitute 41% of federal spending is expected to balloon in coming years.

Rep "But Social Security is not the place to cut the budget.." "We're spending into oblivion, we have not seen a level of spending since the days of Roosevelt," he said. Kevin McCarthy of California, the House Republican whip, said his party must "have a conversation with people" before making changes to the plumbing of the federal law programs.Don Dunlap, a writer for 82 years and Republicans in Sunnyvale, California, is one of the many voters who need convincing.

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Should the unthinkable occur on some coming budget D-Day — or perhaps when the deadline to raise the federal debt ceiling arrives this spring — the G.O.P. is cocksure that it can pin the debacle on the Democrats. NO one remembers anything in America, especially in Washington, so the history of the Great Government Shutdown of 1995 is being rewritten with impunity by Republicans flirting with a Great Government Shutdown of 2011. The bottom line of the revisionist spin is this: that 2011 is no 1995.

Phone trees don’t demand pensions. Who needs coddled government workers to deal with those minutiae anyway? As Mike Huckabee has cheerfully pointed out, many more federal services are automated now than in the olden days of the late 20th century. In the right’s echo chamber, voters are seen as so fed up with deficits that they’ll put principle over temporary inconveniences — like, say, a halt in processing new Social Security applicants or veterans’ benefit checks.

Remarkably (or not) much of the Beltway press has bought the line that comparisons between then and now are superficial. But after that, we’re instructed, the narratives diverge. John Boehner is no bomb-throwing diva like Newt Gingrich, whose petulant behavior inspired the famous headline “Cry Baby” in The Daily News. Obama, prone to hanging back from Congressional donnybrooks, bears scant resemblance to the hands-on Clinton, who clamored to get into the ring with Newt. A crier — well, yes — but Boehner’s too conventional a conservative to foment a reckless shutdown. Sure, Bill Clinton, like Barack Obama, was bruised by his first midterms, with his party losing the House to right-wing revolutionaries hawking the Contract With America, a Tea Party ur-text demanding balanced budgets.

In the new Congress’s short history, the new speaker has already had trouble controlling his caucus. On Friday Gingrich made Boehner’s task harder by writing a Washington Post op-ed plea that the G.O.P. insurgents from bringing down the government they want to bring down. Those propagating the 2011-is-not-1995 line also assume that somehow Boehner will prevent the new G.O.P. stick to its guns. But if Gingrich couldn’t control his hard-line freshman class of 73 members in 1995 — he jokingly referred to them then as “a third party” — it’s hard to imagine how the kinder, gentler Boehner will control his 87 freshmen, many of them lacking government or legislative experience, let alone the gene for compromise.

They seem to believe that if they repeat this locution often enough it will inoculate them from blame should a shutdown happen anyway — when, presumably, they are not looking. Stressing the goal of saving Medicare won’t.” But the G.O.P. Rather hilariously, the Republicans’ political gurus still believe that Gingrich’s ruse can work. In a manifesto titled “How the G.O.P. Current House leaders, mindful that their ’95 counterparts’ bravado backfired, constantly reiterate that they are “not looking for a government shutdown,” as Paul Ryan puts it. is trotting out one new political strategy this time. Can Win the Budget Battle” published in The Wall Street Journal last week, Fred Barnes of Fox News put it this way: “Bragging about painful but necessary cuts to Medicare scares people.

Maybe, but no less an authority than Dick Armey, these days a leading Tea Party operative, thinks otherwise. I argued that it is counterintuitive to the average American to think that the Democrat wants to shut down the government. It is perfectly logical to them that Republicans would shut it down, because we’re seen as antithetical to government.”. They’re the advocates of the government. My position was, Republicans get blamed for shutdowns. But in 2006, Armey told a different story when reminiscing to an interviewer, Ryan Sager: “Newt’s position was, presidents get blamed for shutdowns, and he cited Ronald Reagan. Back in ’95, as a Gingrich deputy, he had been more bellicose than most in threatening a shutdown, as Bill Clinton recounts in his memoirs.

This time we are still digging out of the worst financial disaster since the Great Depression, with an unemployment rate of 9 percent and oil prices on the rise. Last time around, America was more or less humming along with an unemployment rate of 5.6 percent. Otherwise, the Tea Party radicals might have figured out the single biggest difference between 1995 and 2011 — the state of the economy. Armey’s logic is perfect indeed, but logic is not the rage among his ideological compatriots this year. To even toy with shutting down the government in this uncertain climate is to risk destabilizing the nascent recovery, with those in need of the government safety net (including 43 million Americans on food stamps) doing most of the suffering.

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Ronald Reagan was pivotal in causing the Soviet Union to finally collapse. He kept the financial pressure on them by rebuilding America’s post Vietnam military, increased the pressure to intolerable levels by advocating SDI and the final touch was supporting the Mujahideen which drove the Soviets out of Afghanistan.

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He said he feared that their children are suffering from an inflammation of the national debt and criticized Congress for its recent agreement on the Bush tax cuts. Virginia Senate after the first tea party agreement, which has an estimated population of Richmond in October 2800. I had considered for the State Senate but has passed the U.S.

I think many find it to George Allen to moderate a sad commentary on the folly of the Republican Party has become during the last 4 years. And they have a history of electoral nut case. Chesapeake Beach and swing an election by Repub. Faith can be a terrible thing. True, but being a former resident of Norfolk, you should consider that there are enough right wing nutbags in suburban Virginia "

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Instead, the Wikileaks revelations and the pathetic aftermath demonstrate that far from being the omnipotent cadre of high-tech avengers, our leaders have apparently been reduced to hoping that the Swedes bizarre sex crime lawswill do the dirty work for us. Capping this twerp be a bit harsh, but its not unreasonable to expect that webe able to come up with some better options for dealing with Wikileaks than cancelling his credit cards and leaving the rest up to Sven and Inga.

For decades, Hollywood has depicted the US intelligence establishment as some sort of all-seeing, all-powerful collection of high-tech killers in expensive suits hunting down those who interfere with Americas imperialist designs. Hollywood haspushed the notion thatour government officials are able to implement conspiracies of such ridiculous scope and audacity that they would embarrass a Truther well, maybe not Hollywood Truther Charlie Sheen, who apparently doesnt possess a shame gene.And the lefties seem to buy that image a preeminent lefty sight has revealed that the Swedish sex charges were trumped up by a Uppsula University feminist gender equity officer in cahoots with Cuban freedom fighters and the CIA. The role of the Trilateral Commission is left unclear.

Where was the ruthlessly effective CIA the movies have been showing us since the 70s when Assange was tossing around SECRET cables like confetti on New Years? Its odd that instead of having his butt get , homeboy was off savoring the acclaim of every commie, lefty and pinko with an ISP until he got jammed up by the bobbies for violating Stockholm sex ordinances that sound like they were formulated by the Feminist Womyms Collective of Antioch College..

Theguy who stole the stuff while pretending to listen to Lady Gaga you would think that a soldier cranking such unambitious, derivative crap would have drawn some attention by security officers and/or people with musical taste will spend about the next half century sitting in Leavenworth reminiscing about his 15 minutes of fame back in 10, assuming hes found guilty. The flaws that led to him getting access to all those documents will be fixed. Now, the Wikileakd stuff is embarrassing, but well live. Its no real revelation that the potentates of the Middle East are soiling their over the notion of a Persian Bomb, and the insight that North Korea is making mischief is about as newsworthy as a Lindsay Lohan relapse.

Moreover, the documents tend to show that American diplomats are actually doing their job, gathering information, analyzing current events in their areas of responsibility, and reporting them up the chain. These are good things. The Wikileakers and their moronic supporters are stunned by the hypocrisy of our emissaries saying one thing in public and other things privately. What a shock our diplomats are actually diplomatic. If there is anything positive about this mess, its that it puts the spotlight on Americans who do the tough job handling our foreign relations, and who often do it without any recognition..

Oh, wait, our diplomats and our intelligence folks get recognized by one bunch the Hollywood crowd that paints them as cowards, connivers, murderers or worse (unless they are Valerie Plame, of course). The only thing that Hollywood enjoys vilifying more than a Christian or an employeris an American government official who actually tries to defend and protect our country. While Hollywoods vision of Americas activities around the world are orders of magnitude more exciting than the mundane reality of the Wikileaks disclosures, at heart Hollywood and Assange share the same contempt for our country and those who serve it.

The fact that Julian Assange can sleep soundly in his cell knowing to a certainty that hell see the next dawn is a tribute both to the fact that he didnt choose to screw with the Israelis who dont take his kind of crap and to the fact that Americas defenders are nothing like the brutal clowns Hollywood loves to portray. If they were, Julian Assange wouldnt be headed back to Sweden but to a shallow grave somewhere in little pieces.

They still refuse to see the blatantly obvious, he is alive because of two reasons, America isn't as 'The Great Satan' that lefties have been talking about for years and he didn't release any secrets from either Russian, China or Israel (mores the shame). If either one of those were changed, he would be dead. Well said Kurt, I've been arguing the same type of point (though not expressed as well) with idiots for days.

what say you 9/11 deniers? did i forget to mention the documents backing up the government trying to bolster the false claim of global warming, offering bribes and kickback for others to follow thier lead?. we found out about north korea, saudi arabia, iran, libya, and even hugo's cuban help. but no documents about a 9/11 coverup, or inside job stuff. this is true, truthers, where are the wikileaks documents to backup any part of your conspiracy? we can backup all kinds of other things we were thinking about, but notably missing are the 9/11 inside job documents, or even references to it.

If they wanted to kill Assange they would. And they still have the Special Activities Division whose directives include assasination. But in all seriousness the CIA is most certainly able to have people whacked without much of a fuss if they really wanted to. Same went for Nixon otherwise he would have had Ellsberg shot along with Woodward and Bernstein. In Vietnam alone under the Phoenix Program they assasinated about 30,000 NVA, Viet Cong and Communist party chiefs. He is simply too high profile and this administration would in no way want to deal with the political fallout of knocking him off.

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Tea Party Express is certainly not non-partisan. TPE is a political action committee that has been campaigning for specific candidates. E 'was also an ardent defender of Sarah Palin, a candidate for the presidency itself speculation and a possible participant in the debate. Sharron Angle said in Nevada, Christine O'Donnell, Delaware, Alaska, and Joe Miller (all lost). He has taken positions in favor or against GOP candidates on the basis of their adherence to dogma Tea Party and helped to defeat the Republican Party officials. How can you be impartial in the Republican primary debate TPE?. Normally, when a media outlet decides to co-host an event of the primary campaign, go with the party apparatus or a nonpartisan group, like the League of Women Voters.

This statement should outrage members of the Tea Party, who insist we are not affiliated with any other party. It is a statement that reduces their views should not be that "prospects in the Republican Party." Although TPE can not object to that characterization, I think many other Partiers tea.

TPE former spokesman, Mark Williams, was forced to resign after publishing a racist article on its website. Tea Party rival groups have been harshly criticized the leaders of almost half of the money raised by supporters of citizens in the Russian society. It was a particularly embarrassing episode like the Tea Party has been fighting the persistent allegations of racism at the time. On the other hand, a predominantly white organization not seriously be presented as individual or as a "core strength." E "was created by Sal Russo and his Republican public relations firm Russo Marsh and its short history is full of scandal.

The day after the announcement of Williams CNN issued a statement praising CNN for its decision to embrace Tea Party Express. In the statement he said was justified, noting that the CNN report was proof that the accusations of racism against the tea party were unfounded.

Poll after poll shows that this is an important segment of the population and that their opinions are violently with mainstream America and even the Republican Party. But if CNN are committed to working with Tea Party group should at least try to find fault, without the burden of TPE (very difficult). The influence of the tea party has been exaggerated by the media.

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U3LEhQIhtN0&feature=youtube_gdata

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• CNN teams up with Tea Party in debate – Los Angeles Times
• CNN Tries to Outfox Fox With Tea Party Deal – AlterNet
• The Grinches Who Tried to Steal the Lame Duck – Huffingtonpost.com

E 'was also an ardent defender of Sarah Palin, a candidate for the presidency itself speculation and a possible participant in the debate. He has taken positions in favor or against GOP candidates on the basis of their adherence to dogma Tea Party and helped to defeat the Republican Party officials. Tea Party Express is certainly not non-partisan. TPE is a political action committee that has been campaigning for specific candidates. Sharron Angle said in Nevada, Christine O'Donnell, Delaware, Alaska, and Joe Miller (all lost). How can you be impartial in the Republican primary debate TPE?. Normally, when a media outlet decides to co-host an event of the primary campaign, go with the party apparatus or a nonpartisan group, like the League of Women Voters.

It is a statement that reduces their views should not be that "prospects in the Republican Party." Although TPE can not object to that characterization, I think many other Partiers tea. This statement should outrage members of the Tea Party, who insist we are not affiliated with any other party.

On the other hand, a predominantly white organization not seriously be presented as individual or as a "core strength." E "was created by Sal Russo and his Republican public relations firm Russo Marsh and its short history is full of scandal. Tea Party rival groups have been harshly criticized the leaders of almost half of the money raised by supporters of Russian citizens in society. It was a particularly disturbing episode, like the Tea Party has been fighting the persistent allegations of racism at that time. TPE former spokesman, Mark Williams, was forced to resign after publishing a racist article on its website.

The day after the announcement of Williams CNN issued a statement praising CNN for its decision to embrace Tea Party Express. In the statement he said was justified, noting that the CNN report was proof that the accusations of racism against the tea party were unfounded.

But if CNN are committed to working with Tea Party group should at least try to find fault, without the burden of TPE (very difficult). Poll after poll shows that this is an important segment of the population and that their opinions are violently with mainstream America and even the Republican Party. The influence of the tea party has been exaggerated by the media.

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U3LEhQIhtN0&feature=youtube_gdata

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• CNN teams up with Tea Party in debate – Los Angeles Times
• CNN Tries to Outfox Fox With Tea Party Deal – AlterNet
• The Grinches Who Tried to Steal the Lame Duck – Huffingtonpost.com

How can you be impartial in the Republican primary debate TPE?. E 'was also an ardent defender of Sarah Palin, a candidate for the presidency itself speculation and a possible participant in the debate. He has taken positions in favor or against GOP candidates on the basis of their adherence to dogma Tea Party and helped to defeat the Republican Party officials. Normally, when a media outlet decides to co-host an event of the primary campaign, go with the party apparatus or a nonpartisan group, like the League of Women Voters. Sharron Angle said in Nevada, Christine O'Donnell, Delaware, Alaska, and Joe Miller (all lost). Tea Party Express is certainly not non-partisan. TPE is a political action committee that has been campaigning for specific candidates.

This statement should outrage members of the Tea Party, who insist we are not affiliated with any other party. It is a statement that reduces their views should not be that "prospects in the Republican Party." Although TPE can not object to that characterization, I think many other Partiers tea.

It was a particularly embarrassing episode like the Tea Party has been fighting the persistent allegations of racism at the time. Tea Party rival groups have been harshly criticized the leaders of almost half of the money raised by supporters of citizens in the Russian society. TPE former spokesman, Mark Williams, was forced to resign after publishing a racist article on its website. On the other hand, a predominantly white organization not seriously be presented as individual or as a "core strength." E "was created by Sal Russo and his Republican public relations firm Russo Marsh and its short history is full of scandal.

The day after the announcement of Williams CNN issued a statement praising CNN for its decision to embrace Tea Party Express. In the statement he said was justified, noting that the CNN report was proof that the accusations of racism against the tea party were unfounded.

The influence of the tea party has been exaggerated by the media. But if CNN are committed to working with Tea Party group should at least try to find fault, without the burden of TPE (very difficult). Poll after poll shows that this is an important segment of the population and that their opinions are violently with mainstream America and even the Republican Party.

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U3LEhQIhtN0&feature=youtube_gdata

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• CNN teams up with Tea Party in debate – Los Angeles Times
• CNN Tries to Outfox Fox With Tea Party Deal – AlterNet
• Congressional GOP accomplished a great deal too – Washington Post

“This is not a time for celebration,” minority leader John Boehner admonished a GOP crowd during election-night festivities. 2, party leaders tried their best to tamp down the sense of triumph. “If we blow it again, we will be in the wilderness for a very long time.”. After Republicans recaptured the House on Nov. “This is a second chance for us,” Boehner’s deputy, Eric Cantor, told CNN the next day.

In the House, key committee chairmanships were doled out to veteran Republicans whose records clash with the Tea Party policy pillars of smaller government, fiscal responsibility and free markets. The GOP Steering Committee awarded the Energy and Commerce gavel to Representative Fred Upton, a Michigan moderate whose candidacy sparked condemnations from Glenn Beck and Rush Limbaugh, as well as a “Down with Upton” Internet petition that cited offenses ranging from his support of the Wall Street and auto-industry bailouts to his opposition to incandescent lightbulbs. To chair the powerful Appropriations Committee, GOP leaders tapped Kentucky lawmaker Hal Rogers, whose earmarking prowess led to his christening as the “Prince of Pork.” Meanwhile, the ink was barely dry on the GOP’s much touted earmark moratorium before members reportedly began probing for loopholes.

After chanting Tea Party mantras for months, congressional Republicans appear poised to back a bill characterized by many as a second stimulus — one that piles hundreds of billions of dollars in debt, including a slate of deal sweeteners tucked into the package to appease special interests, onto an already bulging federal budget gap. If that’s true, one might expect that the tax plan hammered out by the White House and GOP leaders feels like a haymaker to the jaw. Ned Ryun, the president of American Majority, a Virginia-based group that trains Tea Party activists, called the committee-chairmanship choices “a slap in the face” for the movement.

Other conservative organizations, from the Heritage Foundation to the antitax Club for Growth, came out against the plan. Senator Jim DeMint of South Carolina, the firebrand of the GOP’s conservative wing, told TIME last week that the plan’s inclusion of deficit spending is “going to give a lot of Republicans who just ran for office heartburn.” Apart from DeMint, however, few Republicans — retiring Ohio Senator George Voinovich is one, along with Michele Bachmann of Minnesota and Jeff Flake of Arizona in the House — have announced they will vote against the deal. The Tea Party Patriots, the movement’s largest umbrella organization, recently circulated a petition urging members to oppose the pact, calling the framework a violation of first principles.

“But we need the 10-year-old tax rates to remain in place.”. Like Kibbe, and many Democrats as well, other Tea Party leaders were critical of the deal’s components but willing to grudgingly accept the compromise. “I’m holding my nose, gritting my teeth, turning red and not real happy with the deal,” David Crow, a member of the Faulkner County Tea Party in Arkansas, wrote in an e-mail to TIME.

Tea Party leaders are frustrated at the restoration of the estate tax, the unemployment-benefits extension and the GOP’s inability to garner more than a temporary tax-rate extension, which they claim won’t provide enough business certainty to spark a round of fresh hiring. “The question I’m hearing from the grass roots is, ‘What’s the big rush?’” says Ken Emanuelson, a member of the Dallas Tea Party, who suggested Republicans may have committed a tactical blunder by cutting a deal during the lame-duck session, weeks before their bargaining position would be strengthened by the arrival of new lawmakers. Just as some Democrats have criticized President Obama for folding too soon, their Tea Party counterparts questioned the timing of the agreement.

The timing isn’t much better for conservative Republicans, who were forced to weigh in on a polarizing pact just weeks before reinforcements arrived and at a juncture when the conference is trying its best to paper over the cracks in its facade. Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell has said he expects the vast majority of his troops to line up in favor of the bill; on Monday just five Republicans — South Carolina’s DeMint, Nevada’s John Ensign, Jeff Sessions of Alabama, Tom Coburn of Oklahoma and Ohio’s Voinovich — voted against ending debate and bringing the bill to the floor. After months of Tea Party vows to hold the GOP’s feet to the fire, there may be enough blame to go around that no one actually gets burned.

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