House Speaker John Boehner

Boehner is a weak cry baby, that will ended up selling out the Republicans. He has in the past and he'll do it again on this issue of Obamacare. People like him are bringing down the Republican Party. He should step down and let a real man or woman take over.
 

Obama just as responsible for government 'slimdown' as Republicans

President Obama, as much as House Republicans, shut down the government. He is not willing to compromise on just about any issue, leaving the GOP with no other options.
In 2008, Obama won 53 percent of the popular vote and commanding Democratic majorities in congress.
Faced with an economic crisis and carrying a mandate to accomplish universal access to health insurance, Obama was justified to take bold actions. However, as the leader of a democracy, he had the obligation to weight the views of the 47 percent who voted for Senator McCain and forge consensus where possible.

The president’s refusal to accept any changes in the ACA and special treatment for politicians is tyranny.

Yet, over Republican objections, the president abused a fund established to aid troubled banks to bail out GM and Chrysler. To reward autoworkers for campaign support, he confiscated private property by awarding 55 percent of the stock to the union health care trust instead of Chrysler’s creditors as U.S. bankruptcy law requires.
He rewarded Wall Street bankers who supported his campaign with new lending regulations that help them acquire regional banks.
Now, more than half of the nation’s deposits are concentrated among a handful of Manhattan casinos, middle class Americans can’t get decent rates on savings, and small businesses can’t get adequate credit.
Obama imposed other regulations in manufacturing and energy production that reward his constituents, punishing his opponents and slowing growth in an economy increasingly challenged to create enough well-paying jobs.
Prior to the Affordable Care Act, every major piece of social legislation was accomplished by seeking a bipartisan consensus.
Instead, Democratic leaders Pelosi and Reid wholly excluded Republicans from deliberations, and created an unpopular system that compels businesses to purchase health insurance for employees, and individuals lacking employer polices to purchase plans through government-run exchanges.
Through town meetings, polls and a senate election in Massachusetts, Americans expressed opposition. Yet, Democratic leaders packaged the final legislation into a budget reconciliation bill, avoiding the need to win any GOP votes in the Senate—an unprecedented maneuver for such a major piece of legislation.
The individual mandate also raised serious constitutional challenges, but Obama proceeded to warn Chief Justice Roberts not to mess with his law at the 2012 State of the Union Address. Caving to pressure, Roberts wrote a decision whose legal reasoning few ideologically neutral legal scholars could approve.
Micromanaging one-sixth of the U.S. economy is proving to be a nightmare. Facing huge rate increases and burdensome regulations, businesses are dropping insurance coverage Obama promised ordinary Americans they would be able to keep.
In 2010, Republicans won control of the House on a platform to curb spending and repeal ACA. Obama’s 2012 reelection was hardly a mandate to implement the law without substantial changes, because Republicans again won the House on promises to repeal the law.
Congressional Republicans behaved badly—demanding wholesale repeal of the law, when they simply don’t have the votes in the Senate and Obama is still president.
However, in the more recent effort to craft a continuing resolution to keep the government funded, they have indicated significant willingness to deliver what Americans expect—compromise.
Asking the president to postpone the individual mandate one year, as he has done for the employer mandate, and requiring the Congress to obtain their health insurance on the same terms the ACA requires for ordinary Americans are quite reasonable. The president’s refusal to accept any changes in the ACA and special treatment for politicians is tyranny.
Terms Republicans have laid down for raising the debt ceiling—more development of offshore oil, rethinking financial reform and changes to other regulatory policies—are broadly consistent with the public sentiment for a focus on jobs creation.
If the debt ceiling is not raised by October 17, the United States need not default on its debt as the president threatens.
The Treasury continues to collect taxes, and the president will simply have to prioritize what bills he pays, what services he suspends, and place interest payments ahead of other items.
Realizing presidents shape the public dialogue in crises, he is pressuring House Republicans to deny their obligations to constituents lest he put on them the blame for a government shutdown and perhaps a default.

Fact Check: Obama's ObamaCare claims

WASHINGTON –  As the Obama administration scrambles to roll out the health care exchanges for their Tuesday debut, it's worth a look back on the conflicting claims the White House has made on how the exchanges help, who they benefit and what they promise.
The following are some of President Obama's better-known claims, and how they stack up to the facts.
STAYING PUT?
When stumping for the health care overhaul, Obama repeatedly told people that “if you like your plan, you can keep it.” It’s even on the White House web site. So is this true? Not quite.
While the Affordable Care Act doesn’t force insured Americans to pick new plans or doctors, it also doesn’t ensure that your employer won’t decide to switch plans.
If that happens, the insured individual will have to go with what the employer decides. Similarly, if someone gets a new job, there is no guarantee that the new coverage will offer the same doctor as an in-network provider.
A shake-up of providers is likely, experts say. The National Association of Insurance Commissioners says it’s hearing that many carriers will cancel policies and issue new ones because it would be administratively easier to do so than changing existing plans.
PAYING LESS?
Obama has claimed that the uninsured will pay less on the government exchanges than they would on the individual market. So is it true?
Depends.
During an Aug. 9 press conference, the president said that the 15 percent of the country’s population that’s uninsured would be able to “sign up for affordable quality health insurance at a significantly cheaper rate than what they can get right now on the individual market.” He noted they'll get additional tax credits if "even with lower premiums they still can’t afford it."
But even his own team admits to some fuzzy math on that one.
Health and Human Services Kathleen Sebelius has acknowledged that younger people will likely pay more and older people will pay less on the insurance exchanges. The cost of premiums will also be based on geography and other determining factors like smoking.
Economist Jonathan Gruber of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, who was a paid adviser on the Obama administration’s health care plans, goes so far as saying that a small share of the uninsured would actually pay higher premiums on the exchanges.
ALL COVERED?
When ObamaCare was initially presented to the public in 2009, it was said that the new law would provide health insurance for every man, woman and child in America. So is it true? The law will cover many more, but not everyone.
While ObamaCare is expected to extend coverage to 25 million Americans over the next 10 years, it will leave a projected 31 million people without insurance by 2023, according to the Congressional Budget Office. Though the law requires individuals to buy health insurance, many are expected to buck that mandate and risk the possibility of a fine. Most of the 31 million will be people living below the poverty line in the 21 states that have decided against expanding Medicaid under ObamaCare.
SAVING JOBS?
Part of the president’s push with ObamaCare has been that it will create new jobs. But Obama scaled back his promise of job creation during a speech in Largo, Md., on Thursday. Instead, he said his health care overhaul wouldn’t hurt jobs.
“There's no widespread evidence that the Affordable Care Act is hurting jobs,” he said.
But critics have sharply challenged that claim.
A recent report in Investor’s Business Daily shows that as a direct result of ObamaCare, more than 300 companies have either eliminated jobs or reduced full-time jobs to part-time jobs. The administration describes this evidence as anecdotal.
But it’s not just the administration that’s been caught stretching the truth when it comes to the Affordable Care Act.
Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, has repeatedly claimed that Obama let lawmakers off the hook by allowing them to opt out of using the exchanges.
“Look, the wheels are coming off this,” Cruz said during a conservative summit in Iowa on Aug. 10. “The teamsters are abandoning it. President Obama just granted all of Congress an exception. And he did it because Harry Reid and the Senate Democrats who passed this thing came begging and said, ‘Please, please, please let us out of ObamaCare.’ This thing ain’t working.”
Again, not quite.
The truth is that the new law requires lawmakers to use marketplaces set up through ObamaCare. They aren’t exempt from participating -- however, the administration did issue a change allowing Congress and their staff to continue to receive employer subsidies to pay for insurance.

Congress misses deadline, sending government into partial shutdown

Congress blew by a midnight deadline to pass a crucial spending bill, triggering the beginning of a partial government shutdown – the first in 17 years.
Lawmakers missed the deadline after being unable to resolve their stand-off over ObamaCare, despite a volley of 11th-hour counterproposals from the House. Each time, Senate Democrats refused to consider any changes to ObamaCare as part of the budget bill.
House Republicans, for their part, refused to back off their demand that the budget bill include some measures to rein in the health care law – a large part of which, the so-called insurance “exchanges,” goes into effect on Tuesday.
As House Republicans endorsed one more counterproposal in the early morning hours, lawmakers spent the final minutes before midnight trying to assign blame to the other side of the aisle. Republicans are no doubt wary of the blowback their party felt during the Clinton-era shutdown, while Democrats were almost eager to pile the blame on the GOP.
“This is an unnecessary blow to America,” Senate Democratic Leader Harry Reid said.
House Speaker John Boehner claimed that Republicans are the ones trying to keep the government open but “the Senate has continued to reject our offers.”
Ahead of the deadline, the White House budget office ordered agency heads to execute an “orderly shutdown” of their operations due to lack of funds. Americans will begin to feel the effects of a shutdown by Tuesday morning, as national parks close, federal home loan officers scale back their caseload, and hundreds of thousands of federal workers face furlough.
The question now is how long the stand-off will last. Congress is fast-approaching another deadline, in mid-October, to raise the debt limit or face a U.S. government default. Lawmakers presumably want to resolve the status of the government swiftly in order to shift to that debate.
Throughout the day Monday, lawmakers engaged in a day-long bout of legislative hot potato.
The House repeatedly passed different versions of a bill that would fund the government while paring down the federal health care overhaul. Each time, the Senate said no and sent it back.
As a last-ditch effort, House Republicans early Tuesday morning endorsed taking their disagreement to what’s known as a conference committee – a bicameral committee where lawmakers from both chambers would meet to resolve the differences between the warring pieces of legislation.
The latest House bill, which the Senate shot down late Monday, would delay the law's individual mandate while prohibiting lawmakers, their staff and top administration officials from getting government subsidies for their health care.
The House voted again to endorse that approach early Tuesday and send the bill to conference committee.
“It means we're the reasonable, responsible actors trying to keep the process alive as the clock ticks past midnight, despite Washington Democrats refusal - thus far - to negotiate,” a GOP leadership aide said.
Reid, though, said the Senate would not agree to the approach unless and until the House approves a “clean” budget bill.
The rhetoric got more heated as the deadline neared.
“They’ve lost their minds,” Reid said of Republicans, in rejecting the latest proposal.
“Senate Democrats have made it perfectly clear that they’d rather shut down the federal government than accept even the most reasonable changes to ObamaCare,” Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell countered.
Amid the drama, President Obama said he was holding out hope that Congress would come together "in the 11th hour."
Such a deal did not come to pass.
A prior Republican effort to include a provision defunding ObamaCare in the budget bill failed. House Republicans then voted, early Sunday, to add amendments delaying the health care law by one year and repealing an unpopular medical device tax.
The Senate, in a 54-46 vote, rejected those proposals on Monday afternoon.
At this stage, congressional leaders are hard at work trying to assign blame.
Democrats have already labeled this a "Republican government shutdown." But Republicans on Sunday hammered Reid and his colleagues for not coming back to work immediately after the House passed a bill Sunday morning. Bailey Comment: "Big deal, who really cares about this government shutdown except all of the leeches sucking off the tax payers".

Reid vows to reject House spending bill

With what would be the first government shutdown in 17 years due to take effect at midnight Tuesday, the Senate will return to business Monday afternoon to consider the Republican House’s weekend spending-bill offer, which the chamber's ranking Democrat has vowed to reject.
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., had made his feelings on the the bill, which includes an amendment providing for a one-year delay in the implementation of ObamaCare, known even before the House approved the measure early Sunday morning. Throughout the day Sunday, House Republican leaders chided Reid and others in the Democrat-led chamber for not hustling back to Capitol Hill to negotiate a compromise.
“O Senate, where art thou,” said Tennessee Rep. Marsha Blackburn, riffing on the movie “O Brother, Where Art Thou.”
In a package of weekend votes, the House also agreed to an amendment to repeal the health care law’s medical-device tax and voted in favor of a bill to pay the military on time should a shutdown occur.
Just hours after House Republicans announced their plan Saturday afternoon, the White House vowed President Obama would veto it and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid made clear it was unacceptable.
“To be absolutely clear, the Senate will reject both the one-year delay of the Affordable Care Act and the repeal of the medical device tax," Reid said. "After weeks of futile political games from Republicans, we are still at square one."
On Sunday, Reid spokesman Adam Jentleson called the House votes “empty political stunts” and said, “Tomorrow, the Senate will do exactly what we said we would do and reject these measures.”
The Senate is scheduled to convene at 2 p.m. Monday and Reid is expected to move quickly against the House legislation. Reid is not subject to a filibuster while doing so, and the bill is likely to be voted down with the support of the Senate's Democratic majority. The House is due to convene at 10 a.m. Monday, but it is believed that GOP leaders will wait on Senate action before sending any alternate proposals to the upper chamber.
Blackburn made her comments along with other members of the House Republican Conference at an informal press conference on the steps of Capitol Hill.
“That the senators are not here … is all that everyone needs to know,” said Arkansas Republican Rep. Tim Griffin. “Democrats want to shutdown the government. … That’s a scorched earth policy.”
Grifffin and others tried to recast the blame for a possible shutdown on Democrats who have argued Republicans’ insistence on tying a spending bill to ObamaCare is intended to force a shutdown.
“Today we see where the Senate doors are shut,” said conference Chairwoman and Washington Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers. “Harry Reid says that a shutdown is inevitable.”
House Speaker John Boehner was among the first to put the burden of responsibility back on the Senate.
“Now that the House has again acted, it’s up to the Senate to pass this bill without delay to stop a government shutdown,” the Ohio Republican said after the weekend votes. “Let’s get this done.”
The government would technically run out of money Monday night should Congress fail to pass a spending bill -- resulting in a partial government shutdown that would begin with hundreds of thousands of government workers likely being sent home from work without pay.
The government would still keep open operations and agencies that protect “life and limb,” but national parks would likely close right away and other non-essential programs would also be temporarily shut down.
There have been 17 government shutdowns, the most recent lasting from Dec. 16, 1995, to Jan. 6, 1996 -- the longest in U.S. history.
House Majority Whip Kevin McCarthy said Sunday morning the chamber has several last-minute options to avoid a government shutdown should the Senate reject the most recent House plan.
The California Republican insisted the proposal can indeed pass in the Senate but acknowledged having an alternative plan.
“You assume they won’t vote for it. Let’s have that debate,” he told “Fox News Sunday.” But “we have other options for the Senate to look at.”
Earlier this month, the Senate rejected a House spending bill to defund ObamaCare, despite a filibuster-style effort by Tea Party-backed, Texas GOP Sen. Ted Cruz.
McCarthy declined to tell Fox News whether one of the proposals would be passing a so-called “clean” spending bill, or continuing resolution, which would keep open the government for a few days until Congress agrees on a longer-term plan. But he insisted the House will not be responsible for a shutdown and that it will offer a proposal with Democratic support.
“We are not shutting the government down,” he said. “While the president was out playing golf [Saturday], we were here until 1 a.m. We will pass a bill that reflects this House. … I think there'll be additions that Democrats can support.”
Right now, the House bill covers government spending through Dec. 15, while the Senate bill goes through Nov. 15.

House backs ObamaCare delay as Congress nears shutdown deadline

The House of Representatives approves a temporary spending bill that includes a one-year delay for ObamaCare, increasing the chance of a government shutdown as the White House says President Obama would veto such a proposal.

Professors chide University of Kansas for sanctions over tweet

University of Kansas anthropology professors are accusing school officials of violating the constitutional rights of a fellow professor by placing him on leave because of a post on Twitter.
Journalism professor David Guth got into hot water for a tweet aimed at the National Rifle Association after the Sept. 16 shootings at the Navy Yard in Washington, D.C., that left 13 dead.
"The blood is on the hands of the (hash)NRA. Next time, let it be YOUR sons and daughters. Shame on you. May God damn you," Guth posted. Bailey Comment: "Someone who is teaching our kids is putting out this crap, and other teachers are taking up for him"? Are you frigging kidding me!
The backlash was swift, with many accusing Guth of wishing death on the children of NRA members. Some Kansas legislative leaders have called on the university's Chancellor Bernadette Gray-Little to fire Guth, with a few saying they will not support funding for the university if he isn't fired.
Guth said he wasn't advocating violence but was trying to make gun-rights advocates look at shootings from the point of view of the victims' families.
In a statement issued Friday, 14 professors and anthropology department chairwoman Jane Gibson said the university's actions against Guth have a chilling effect on academic freedom, The Lawrence Journal-World reported.
"While we take no position on the content of what he said, David Guth spoke as a private person and exercised his right to free speech that is protected by the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution and the Faculty Code of Rights, Responsibilities, and Conduct," the statement said.
Gray-Little has said Guth was placed on indefinite leave to avoid disrupting classes, "not because of the nature of the professor's comments, regardless of how controversial they may be."
Tenured faculty members in the journalism school also have issued a statement supporting Guth's First Amendment rights to free speech, though they said they disagreed with his statement.