In An Unprecedented Move Harry Reid Puts The Screws To John Boehner’s Obstruction

Sen. Harry Reid (D-NV) took the virtually unprecedented step of nailing John Boehner’s obstruction by announcing that Senate Democrats will not support any deal to fund Homeland Security unless Boehner caves first.

In an extraordinary sequence of events, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell offered Democrats exactly what they have been asking for Tuesday — “clean” full-year funding for the Department of Homeland Security. And Minority Leader Harry Reid said “no” — or at least, “not yet.”

McConnell’s offer of such a bill shorn of provisions blocking President Barack Obama’s recent immigration executive orders — which he said could happen quickly with Democratic cooperation — was put on hold by Reid, who said he was waiting to hear Speaker John A. Boehner agree to pass it through the House first.

“We have to make sure that we get a bill to the president,” Reid said. “Unless Boehner’s in on the deal, it won’t happen.”

In other words, Democrats aren’t going to agree to anything until Boehner makes the House vote on it first. Harry Reid learned for years of broken Boehner promises to know that the Speaker’s word is worthless. (Speaker Boehner promised that Homeland Security wouldn’t shut down, but the nation is just days away from exactly what Boehner said would not happen.) Reid is going make sure that the House Republicans can’t back out of any deal that is made.


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Obama’s Move To The Left Is The Beginning Of A Nightmare For Republicans

President Obama statement on net neutrality and climate change agreement with China are two strong signals that the president is building a unified front with congressional Democrats that will be a nightmare for the new Republican majority.

http://www.politicususa.com/2014/11/13/obamas-move-left-beginning-republican-nightmare.html

Obama Drops The Reality Hammer On Republicans, “Nobody’s Stopping You From Passing Bills”

President Obama is turning up the heat on the incoming Republican congressional majority by bluntly telling that nobody is stopping them from passing bills on issues like immigration.

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Republicans Are Shocked That Obama Refuses To Cave and Give Them Everything They Want

He should give them NOTHING - just like they did to him!  Time for Dems to 'man up'!  Why do they think their constituents didn't show up to vote?


Aides to Sen. Mitch McConnell are frustrated because President Obama has made it known that he is not going to back down and give the Republican controlled Congress what they want.

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Democrats Lost Because Republicans Hid Their Agenda

Boehner’s ‘Bipartisan’ Bunk

House Speaker John Boehner exaggerates when he says “almost all” of the 46 “jobs bills” awaiting action in the Senate “passed the House on a bipartisan basis.” Exactly half of those bills got less than 20 Democratic votes, including two that got no votes and 12 others that got 10 or fewer votes. That’s out of 201 House Democrats.

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Why Republicans Always Get Away With It, MSNBC Edition

Our current political media's largest failure has been their well-practiced ability to not only excuse Republicans' bad behavior, but to conveniently forget about it, too. This is why we have midterms where everyone is shrugging and exclaiming that they've never seen an election like this where everything is so...tied.

Here's why that happens. Chris Christie goes out and bullies a constituent, making the fatuous claim that Christie, and Christie alone, was taking care of Sandy victims after the cameras left, unlike that rude man with the sign who just wants to heckle him.

We now know from Chris Hayes that the gentleman holding the sign took a month off work without pay to go and help with the Sandy cleanup. And yet Andrea pronounces the entire episode some "great TV." Cillizza nods and agrees wisely, as if he knows exactly what she means while both of them gabble about whether it's "presidential."

The other side of that coin

Now I want you to imagine a different episode of this particular show. In this one, Obama is giving a speech somewhere and gets heckled, as has been the case at most of his events this year. Instead of tossing his "Don't get mad, vote!" line at the hecklers, he goes off. Loses his temper, tells the hecklers to shut up and sit down because no one -- NO ONE -- has worked harder to (fill in the blank here) than he has, and that person heckling him has no damn idea so they should just shut the hell up and sit their asses down.

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Maher: Democrats Need To Start 'Out-Luntzing' Republicans On All The Issues

Real Time's Bill Maher with some suggestions for Democrats on how to beat the Republicans and Frank Luntz at their own game.

Elizabeth Warren Wins the "Which Side Are You On?" Debate

An overbearing and at times ridiculously aggressive Massachusetts Senator Scott Brown came across as a desperate man Thursday night, as he attempted to gain the upper hand in the first debate of this year’s most closely watched US Senate race and, by extension, in a re-election contest that seems to be slipping away from him.

Brown attacked Elizabeth Warren, his surging Democratic challenger, from start to finish.

Warren, unruffled and showing the confidence of a woman who has moved ahead of Brown in most recent polls, sometimes rolled her eyes or shook her head in disappointment. She made her points about Wall Street wrongdoing and holding corporations to account, about ending the war on women and making sure Mitt Romney and a Republican Senate do not fill the next vacancies on the US Supreme Court. Brown could attack all he wanted, but the senator who joined fellow Republicans in trying to block President Obama’s nomination of Elena Kagan to the High Court could not change the reality that Warren was right when she said, “This really may be the race for the control of the Senate and the Supreme Court may hang in the balance.”

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Elizabeth Warren: First Ad: "Who I Am"

Democrats Explicitly Call Out GOP For Sabotaging The Economic Recovery

About damn time!

They've made it explicit. Democrats are accusing Republicans of trying to sabotage the recovery -- or at least stall it -- by blocking all short-term measures to boost the economy, even ones they previously supported.

In a Capitol press conference Wednesday, the Senate's top Democrats argued that Republicans don't want to pass measures like a temporary payroll tax holiday for employers because they'll improve President Obama's re-election chances.

"Our Republican colleagues in the House and Senate are driven by putting one man out of work: President Obama," said Senate Majority Whip Dick Durbin (D-IL).

The harshest denunciation came from Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY), the man who crafted the Dems' new "jobs first" message.

"We are also open to hiring incentives, perhaps in the form of a payroll tax cut for employers that was floated by the administration.... [T]hat might not be our first choice, that shows how willing we are to work with the Republicans to create jobs. It's pro-business, it's a tax cut, and many Republicans have been for it in the past. But now all of a sudden they're coming out against it," Schumer said.

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DNC: No More Contributions from Federal Lobbyists

It's been less than two days since he crossed the delegate threshold to become the Democratic presidential nominee and Sen. Barack Obama's mark on the party is already being felt.

On Good Morning America Thursday, ABC News' Chief Washington Correspondent George Stephanopoulos reported "the Democratic National Committee will no longer accept contributions from federal lobbyists, will no longer take contributions from PACs" in keeping with Obama's well-publicized policy.

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Republicans and Democrats diverge on health care

Americans' views of the U.S. health care system differ widely based on political party preferences, with Republicans far more likely than Democrats to call it the world's best, a poll released on Thursday showed.

Cheney Impeachment Not Off the Table

The path to impeachment is clear. Democrats just need to show a little courage.

Wexler on Iraq: Five Years of Lies