President Obama, First Lady Michelle Obama and and former U.S. Army Captain William Swenson arrive for the Medal of Honor ceremony
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Medal of Honor recipient Army Capt. William Swenson applauds as the family members of his fallen fellow soldiers are acknowledged
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President Barack Obama applauds after awarding William Swenson, a former active duty Army Captain, the Medal of Honor for conspicuous gallantry. Swenson received the honor for his courageous actions during combat operations in Kunar Province, Afghanistan on September 8, 2009.
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White House.gov
Me?
Congrats, LL
Yes you! Honorable Librarian!
Congrats LL on # 1:)
Congrats on 1st LL.
Absolutely!
Hi Judith! Did you see my message in earlier post (I forget which post)
I think I have this correct. Boehner is bringing his awful bill to the floor. So he threw in ‘conscience’ clause that denies women their health care in order to make it even more death-panel-y to attract the rabid sociopaths.
That sound about right to you guys?
I can hear the calls to progressive radio: “We passed all kinds of bills to open the government. It’s Democrats and PBO who won’t open the government.”
And we default.
We’re not going to default, 57.
#TrustBarack
Had posted this to theo in the previous thread and then noticed a new thread had appeared so am repeating it here:
“Theo, the kind of message he is very likely going to have to deliver will get the entire world’s attention. Of that, I have zero doubt. He is not going to allow the United States of America to default or to be ruled by a minority. To do otherwise would be abdication to a coup d’etat and the end of US Constitutional Government and the Democracy it enables.”
That is not in any way a hyperbolic assessment of the gravity of the moment we and the the global community are now confronting.
In the same thread that Theo posted I also responded to Ralph:
“Well Ralph, I’m just saying that this is the first time since the beginning of the Civil War that an American President has had to inform the nation that a Coup d’Etat is underway and he is going to stop it.”
Make no mistake, if they hadn’t had ACA as their boogie man they’d have used the Consumer Finance Protection Bureau or whatever as their excuse to attempt to destroy not merely the Obama Presidency but our Government. They’ve been telling us that is their objective for several decades - obviously they meant it.
Now, they have to be stopped no different than Jeff Davis and the Confederates or any other sworn enemy of the United States of America.
#TrustBarack
before we get too worked up over Tan Man having the votes to pass his awful bill:
Greetings TOD faithful
I would encourage everyone to call members of Congress form moderate districts and ask them to vote for a clean CR.
the Tea Party will be the tA Party but moderates will feel the pressure.
This page has a partial list of names and local numbers including zip codes.
http://www.whatisworking.com/2013/10/members-of-congress-who-will-vote-for-cr.html
post names of folks you want me to add if I have missed folks
Thank you! We need to get the word out that we will not be held hostage to the Tea Party fanatics!
Just called Meehan’s office (PA-07).
This takes more than audacity. This takes twisted wickedness.
http://petitions.moveon.org/sign/to-impeach-the-speaker?source=c.tw&r_by=3867884
Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) said he was “proud” of Boehner’s handling of the crisis. Then within moments he pleaded with Democrats to bail out the GOP, which he admitted has “screwed up” and “really did go too far” in the shutdown and debt limit standoffs.
“We won’t be the last political party to overplay our hand,” he said. “It might happen one day on the Democratic side. And if it did, would Republicans, for the good of the country, kinda give a little? We really did go too far. We screwed up. But their response is making things worse, not better.”
In answer to his question, no the Republicans wouldn’t give a little. They would push the Dems fully underwater and hold them there until the bubbles stopped.
And to add, real adults would come oout and say, we screwed up, we went too far and we will accept that responsibility and admit we were wrong and pass a clean CR and debt ceiling raise.
It has been their demonization of this president and their constant lack of integrity where truth telling is concerned that is the Main problem.
Only poor people on food stamps are supposed to take responsibility. Not fat-cat, overpaid, entitled traitors. No responsibility for them, oh no.
This is just beyond a royal CF at this point. OMG, I can’t even imagine what’s next……
Which is what happened last time. There wasn’t a downgrade because we defaulted, but because it was apparent GOP would continue to play these games.
Goodbye decent interest rates. So long 401K. Forget buying a house now. Better hope your car stays in working condition for another couple of years.
via Boehner spokesman Michael Steel (by way of WaPo):
“The House will vote tonight to reopen the government and avoid default. After listening to members at conference this morning, House Republican leaders will bring a plan to the floor which will end the Obamacare subsidies for elected officials and staff in Washington, D.C., and pressure Senate Democrats to accept more sensible dates for the CR and the debt limit.”
If I hear one more time the regular employer contribution called “Obamacare subsidy” I’m going to scream. Right here in my Republican boss’ office. I. Am. Going. To. SCREAM.
Thank you. Me too 57andf! Arrrrrgh!!!!
If that’s all Boehner has, he won’t even get a majority of his caucus to vote for it. Not draconian enough.
I am astounded that they can still shock me.
That’s what DeMint and the Heritage Foundation are saying. If it doesn’t obliterate Obamacare, then vote against it. All the harm Obamacare is going to do….. Couldn’t believe I subjected myself to that paragraph chock-ful of lies.
But they are telling the rabid sociopaths to vote ‘no’.
It’s still extortion for the sake of extortion
BY JONATHAN BERNSTEIN
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/post-partisan/wp/2013/10/15/its-still-extortion-for-the-sake-of-extortion/
Deleted that. ‘xcuse my protanity in the replacement, but I believe it’s more than warranted…
Now Ed Schultz is pretending that the current GOP bill which funds the government until Dec 15 is a good bill. He’s subtly trying to put pressure on the Democrats to accept this piece of crap.
Please Ed…you know damn well that:
Funding the government until 10 days before Christmas is a recipe for DISASTER!
Ed spouts without knowing what he’s spouting about. Typical.
I am Not sure that Ed understands the complexity of what is currently happening. he doesn’t want the Dems to negociate. So if he said that…..then Big Ed is confused again.
Ed is a dim bulb. With a big, albeit passionate, mouth. I wish there was a blue collar progressive radio host who had a few brain cells,. Ed has none.
I cannot stand Ed
Fitch is ready to downgrade our asses.
Thanks a lot boner!
Ed Schultz’s Republican roots are showing. You can see he desperately wants to save Boehner right now - trying to make the current GOP bill seem more reasonable than it is.
PBO is NOT going to sign a bill that simply kicks the debt ceiling can down the road only to resurface right before Christmas where the Republicans can use the leverage of busy holiday season to extract all kinds of outrageous demands. No WAY!!!
http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/fitch-warns-u-s-on-debt-limit-brinkmanship
USA has money and is a wealthy nation…..but looking from the outside, One would NEVER know it as we have IDIOTS in the House TBGOPers caucus.
Barbara Starr interviewed Captain William Swenson and he told her that the first time he saw that video was just a couple months ago.
The person who took it had forgotten about it and recently found it on his computer called the Captain who went to California to view it. He said that he remember the entire fight except the part on the video. He was operating on automatic…..
boom! no face-saving possible-he’s cemented his feet into this one.
DD4O, that’s beautiful and so very true.
Perfect!
RT x1000000000
X21,778,550
I’m trying to understand this. So Repubs want Congress and staffers ‘forced onto the exchanges’. How, exactly, does that work? Does D.C. have its own exchanges?
But then - of all the people in America who will use the exchanges, it will only be Congress and its staffers who CANNOT get subsidies if their income is low enough (which, apparently, it is for many of them)? Let me get this straight:
They will lose their regular employer -provided health care choices that are being offered by every large employer in America; AND
they are the only ones who cannot get ‘subsidies’ that would normally be called the ‘employer contribution’ in a sane world.
They shouldn’t be allowed around a hot stove, much less the US government. Wow. Just wow.
if it were just for the politicians, this scam wouldn’t bother me. but, now, they’re fucking with all the people on the staffs, who don’t make near the 174k that they make
They start on a shoestring. There are many staffers who make very little money. I also saw a tweet that said there were ‘caseworkers’ in that group (not sure what that means) who will be devastated.
Aren’t these the real “boots on the ground” in the Congressional office?
Constituent services staff probably make a tad over minimum wage.
All politics to protect their Billionaire overlords.
This country is on the verge of complete anarchy.
To paraphrase Star Wars:
Save us, Barack Obama, you’re our only hope!
Honestly, I absolutely do not understand how this makes any sense or what it proves. It’s just really stupid.
Meta of all their demands this has got to be the most senseless of all. I’ve given up trying to understand these nuts.
:-)
amen
That sounds like a Key & Peele translation :D
Truly! :-D
I think Boehner is despicable and weak-willed and lacking any sense of decency and is the poorest excuse for a Speaker and a human being—-but I don’t think anyone could control that tea party contingent. They look to be on a suicide mission to me—-they want the President to fail, they want the country to fail, that is the point, and they don’t seem to give a damn about anyone or anything other than their own warped view of things and are acting out some extreme bitterness at being on the losing side of the last 2 presidential elections and of changing America, and this is the childish and destructive way they are acting out. It’s sickening and unbelievable.
Sorry but the Republican Party (including John Boehner) CREATED the Tea Party. They built that! Back in 2009/10 when they thought that it was Barack Obama who stood to suffer from the Tea Party, they were busy encouraging and instigating the most extremist elements in that party - with the media’s approval. Neither they nor the MSM realized that this “Tea Party” that they created was going to come back and destroy them.
I hope people understand that this is one of the reasons that PBO NEVER, ever gives in to the extremist factions on the left - no matter how tempting it might be, no matter how many derogatory names they call him (spineless, wimp, Barry, ball-less, drone president, Bush-lite, etc). Because he knows that extremism of any kind is a recipe for disaster - and the establishment GOP ought to have known that. But they were so short-sighted and focused singularly on “sticking it to Obama” that they forgot that the world is round, not flat….and what goes around is bound to come around.
Brava!
IMHO, should be front-paged, along with BobFR’s observations about this time being Reconstruction Part II, 150 years later.
It is clear that the TP congresscritter toddlers who are idiots as well, are beholden to their corporate KOCH/ALEC masters only.
They are fine with this nation tumbling into an apocalyptic, uncivilized state, cause “Hey, I’ve got mine, Jack, plus a few AR-15s in my arsenal.”
Their policy agenda is anarchy.
Brilliant. I am with Arapaho415. This comment is front page material.
Heritage Action ✔ @Heritage_Action
Key Vote: “NO” on House Spending and Debt Deal http://heritageaction.com/key-votes/key-vote-no-on-house-spending-and-debt-deal/ … #Obamacare #Shutdown
5:13 PM - 15 Oct 2025
Well..looks like their master has spoken..
Which means what? Clean bill or that’s the go ahead for a default?
I think it because of No Obamacare Blood.
yes. The Heritage Foundation says unequivocably that unless the CR and debt ceiling bills contain complete obliteration of Obamacare, then Republicans should vote against it.
yes. They need a bill that enough Democrats and enough Republicans will vote on. IF Boehner will bring it to the floor.
DeMint and the Koch Bros are pulling ALL the strings.
But the Kochs wrote that nice, reasonable letter…
http://talkingpointsmemo.com/dc/senate-republicans-we-have-to-save-john-boehner
“The best thing for the country is for John Boehner to deliver,” Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) told reporters. “He would establish himself as the leader of the House, which is good for the country.”
And if Boehner can’t find the votes for a plan in his caucus, which seemed to be the case with his original proposal Tuesday morning?
“If they don’t, that will be a big disappointment. That means that the Senate will have to go,” Graham said. “That means that what we get out of the Senate is going to be less palatable, less good government, and it probably will pass mostly with Democratic votes, which I think puts Speaker Boehner in a compromised situation.”
Best President Ever!
From Slate, earlier today: “One concern, several said, was that House Republicans were proposing to eliminate employer health-care contributions for White House staff and members of Congress,but not Congressional staffers. Some conservatives believed it would be more fair to apply the measure to Congressional staffers.”
They actually floated the notion that only WH staff would go without any employer contribution to health care, and yes - themselves. Because they know it won’t be a burden for them.
Sanity check.
For real. Drives me crazy!
Yay, I’ve blocked two people today! One opined that basically we shouldn’t have a federal government; that’s the only takeaway I have since his point was that states shouldn’t send money to DC. The one just now had a screeching tweet that both parties are to blame and equally in corporations’ pockets.
My Distinguished Senator from California, Barbara Boxer is speaking now on the Floor and she’s amazing. CoveredCA has had 1.5 mil visitors to-date, currently 1:55 wait time to speak to someone. 100,000 applications to-date.
Why, she asks, do you want to say that Obamacare is no good?
She just said that being a woman was once a pre-existing condition - she went there - HAHAHA!!!
My true inner thoughts.
I believe that the reason that the Stock Market has Not been Gyrating has a lot to do with the demeanor of POTUS and his Administration.
I remembered the 9-11-01 and how rattled GW was.
Then the Financial meltdown…..GW, Paulson, Weeper Boehner, CNBC crowd, John McCain, etc.
So as Our Very own TOD Doc, Bobfr would say:
Trust Barack
Indeed.
Know nothing about this, but that’s not what happened in 2011 (the markets took a beating), and this time the TP caucus is truly insane, greedy, and unpredictable.
A lot can happen between tomorrow and Thursday (aka financial D-day).
Heritage speaks and Boehner bows.
They serve Heritage, Cruz and KOCHRoaches…….and the media would report that Both sides are to blame? This twisted.
House vote postponed after Heritage Action message to vote NO.
Postponed for how long?
Until the ” Call of the Chair ”
Rep Crowley just said they still may vote..maybe
The latest I heard is that they are debating whether or not to kill it altogether.
Did you read the pile of lies DeMint spouted?
About the Heritage health care plan?!?!?!?!
It is getting even clearer. Coup d’etat.
Some historical contest that may clarify what’s what for anyone still baffled.
Early in President Obama’s first term there was a military coup in Honduras. The Military came to the Presidential Palace in the middle of the night and President Zelaya was taken, in his pajamas, to Costa Rica.
The USA, protecting its own interests, decided to support Zelaya verbally but not to do anything else.
Jim De Mint, on the other hand, went to Honduras ON HIS OWN—against the wishes of the US gov’t especially against John Kerry his fellow senator and Chairman of the Foreign relations Committee.
He went to Honduras to stand with the RW Military. That is who he is.
De Mint and his fellow travelers revere RW dictators like Pol Pot mainly for those dictators relentless cruelty in imposing their will on their populations.
They believe in gaining power by any means necessary.
President Obama knows all this and in some measure has probably expected this day to come.
Our President is one very smart and tough guy. I love my President. I trust him and stand with him whatever he decides is the best way forward for our country.
Is the US the only country in the world that votes as requested by external organizations - I know there are lobbyists in my world - but when parliament is in session - they do not interrupt the legislative process. It seems that it is outside influences that have killed bipartisanship - as much as republicans.
The world is watching in stunned silence while democracy has a vacation in the USA.
Help! I’m in dire need of some TLC! I just wasted 10-15mins of my life listening to two American ‘experts’ ‘analyze’ what’s happening in the United States government. They actually looked (yes, I made myself watch them, for a part of the time anyway) and sounded like they seriously knew what they were talking about - one of them anyway, and not the one you might think. If you weren’t a resident of TODvillage, you might have gobbled up all they said as gospel. After all, they are professional news reporters and they are (?) in Washington (I think- I missed that part).. BTW I am referring to David Frum and Roland Martin. :roll: I’ve got to find something here in the village to wash the ‘taste’ of them from my mind.
Ohhh vc!!!! You may be in need of some serious pressure washing!!!!!! lol
Layla, I confess, as soon as I got into the village and breathed deeply I started to feel a gradual cleansing, so I’m hopeful a pressure washing won’t be necessary. ;)
Here, quick! Watch this:
You’re a good friend, Dudette. I’m almost fully recovered now. :grin:
I believe forcing myself to listen and watch will help me have more patience to listen to my friends who swear they know what is happening because they watch the news every night, yada, yada. If I’m truthful, Frum came across in a more professional manner than Martin, and I really did not like the way Martin described the president’s actions. Anyway, I’ve swallowed my medicine, the taste has practically worn off, and I don’t plan to take any more anytime soon.
Roland Martin is an “expert” on nothing, except maybe ascot ties. I see him sitting in a “pundit” chair and… CLICK!
Funny, he brings out the same reaction in me normally. ;)
Dudette, you are totally correct. Does he still have that weekly show? I watched it one time because it was to much like the other shows. He brought nothing to the table.
I remember the good old days when we’d spend at least half a TOD thread discussing Michelle’s fabulous dress.
LOL! :-D
You’re right! FLOTUS is looks as stunning as ever. I noticed her dress, but was too distracting by the damned shenanigans going on down the street from the WH. :-D
[Sigh!] … FLOTUS looks stunning… but I was too distracted… :roll:
:) Dudette, I agree, I miss seeing her.
Yes! I wanted to post something on that order today, but I felt embarassed about my shallowness.
This is the official POTUS & FLOTUS fan club. You can compliment them here all you like. :-)
I thought we needed a little light in our lives. Yup, I’m that shallow. We used to celebrate how awesome she is, and I won’t let the rabid sociopaths rob me of that!
LMAO! Plouffe and Favreau are having a chuckle off the GOP’s ridiculous ‘plans’
LOL!
By the way, the Georgia Public Service Commission (all Republicans) just voted 3-2 to charge poor people in the federal lifeline phone program $5 per month to (get this)… prevent fraud.
EVERY election matters. EVERY elected office matters.
Decided to tweet it anyway…
let’s see…he is a drunk, a liar, has a mental illness..etc…I would say he is also probably an adulterer but I am certain he can no longer reach his ‘pee-pee’! Oh and a crook! Anything I missed….
Got him pegged pretty well. But everybody knew he was all those things before he got in the Speaker’s chair. So I doubt that’s it.
“he is a drunk, a liar, has a mental illness”
I would wager it’s something FAR more damaging than any of these things. Something involving egregious criminal activity
It’s official, the House vote is dead.
Our enemies are just laughing at our dysfunction and idiocy.
With friends like that who needs enemies works in this case. Think of the phrase applying to the USA with the GOP being the questionable friends while the foreign terrorists were the enemies. As most of you have been saying the GOP has been more successful in destroying our government and Country than our world enemies.
New post.
http://theobamadiary.com/2013/10/15/a-meeting-of-adults/
Greenwald must be in tears - he has been discarded by the Guardian (not before time) and the US media has something else it would rather talk about. The Guardian sure knew the right time to drop him from their line-up. Almost makes me believe there is always some good news just around the corner.
There is FLOTUS. I miss not seeing her. :)