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When the people fear the government, there is tyranny; When the government fears the people, there is liberty.  ~ Thomas Jefferson

 

Entries Tagged as 'Change of Power'

Military thwarted president seeking choice in Afghanistan

September 27th, 2010 · Accountability, Change of Power, Deception, Defense, Economy, Federal Spending, Foreign Policy, National Security, Non-Transparency, Obama's Scheme, Selling Out the US, Tax Dollars, Terrorism from Within, War on Terrorism

By Bob WoodwardWashington Post Staff Writer
Monday, September 27, 2010; 12:34 AM

President Obama was on edge.

For two exhausting months, he had been asking military advisers to give him a range of options for the war in Afghanistan. Instead, he felt that they were steering him toward one outcome and thwarting his search for an exit plan. He would later tell his White House aides that military leaders were “really cooking this thing in the direction they wanted.”

He was looking for choices that would limit U.S. involvement and provide a way out. His top three military advisers were unrelenting advocates for 40,000 more troops and an expanded mission that seemed to have no clear end. When his national security team gathered in the White House Situation Room on Veterans Day, Nov. 11, 2009, for its eighth strategy review session, the president erupted.

“So what’s my option? You have given me one option,” Obama said, directly challenging the military leadership at the table, including Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates, Joint Chiefs Chairman Adm. Mike Mullen and Army Gen. David H. Petraeus, then head of U.S. Central Command.

“We were going to meet here today to talk about three options,” Obama said sternly. “You agreed to go back and work those up.”

Mullen protested. “I think what we’ve tried to do here is present a range of options.”

Obama begged to differ. Two weren’t even close to feasible, they all had acknowledged; the other two were variations on the 40,000.

Silence descended on the room. Finally, Mullen said, “Well, yes, sir.”

Mullen later explained, “I didn’t see any other path.”

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Unions work to defend federal pay from politicians’ proposals

September 26th, 2010 · Accountability, Change of Power, Deception, Democrats, Economy, Federal Spending, Non-Transparency, Tax Dollars, Taxes, Unemployment

By Joe Davidson Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, September 22, 2010; 10:44 PM

If federal employees, in particular their pay and number, become a political football this election season, their unions plan to play strong defense.

Already, there’s been a vigorous preseason, with politicians, mostly Republicans, getting in shape for the campaign by making numerous attempts to freeze or cut federal compensation or the workforce.

“I think this is going to be a major issue,” said John Gage, president of the American Federation of Government Employees.

The issue got a good workout several weeks ago when repeated attempts to block a 1.4 percent pay increase, hardly extravagant, were stopped.

But the efforts continue.

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House Republicans to make a conservative ‘Pledge to America’

September 23rd, 2010 · Change of Power, Economy, Obama Exposed, Republicans

By Paul Kane and Perry Bacon Jr. Washington Post Staff Writers
Thursday, September 23, 2010; 2:36 AM

House Republicans will announce an expansive agenda on Thursday called a “A Pledge to America” that proposes to shrink the size of government and reform Congress, offering a conservative plan of action they will pursue if they win a majority in the midterm elections.

Republicans would slash $100 billion in government spending on non-military agencies and replace President Obama‘s landmark health-care legislation with a scaled-back version. Small businesses would be able to deduct from taxes up to 20 percent of their annual income, and the Pentagon would receive increased funding to more quickly implement a ballistic missile defense system.

The plan would also eliminate any unspent money from last year’s $814 billion stimulus package and from legislation that authorized hundreds of billions of dollars to prop up failing Wall Street firms.

There are no specifics about how the spending cuts would be carried out, and the agenda does not outline how Republicans would deal with Social Security and other expensive federal entitlement programs, saying only that lawmakers “will make the decisions that are necessary” to cut costs.

The agenda is designed to give voters a broad outline of what proposals House Republicans will push if they regain the majority and to give their candidates specifics to cite on the campaign trail. It also aims to answer a favorite attack line of Democrats: that Republicans have no new ideas and are merely the “Party of No.”

“The need for urgent action to repair our economy and reclaim our government for the people cannot be overstated,” Republicans write in the Pledge, according to a draft document released Wednesday night.

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Two of Obama’s closest advisers among those likely to leave in White House shuffle

September 23rd, 2010 · Accountability, Change of Power, Dissention, Obama Exposed, Obama Nominees

By Anne E. Kornblut and Scott Wilson Washington Post Staff Writers
Thursday, September 23, 2010; 2:36 AM

In his nearly two years in office, President Obama has relied on a very small clique of advisers that serves as his most trusted sounding board on politics and policy.

Members of his staff describe Obama as wary of outsiders and reluctant to widen his inner circle. As one of his advisers bluntly put it, the president “doesn’t like new people.”

Like it or not, he will soon be surrounded by them as an expected staff shuffle will deprive Obama of two of his closest aides and an influx of replacements will take their places within the West Wing.

The inner circle – Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel, senior advisers David Axelrod and Valerie Jarrett, press secretary Robert Gibbs and Vice President Biden – is breaking up, or at least breaking open. Emanuel is widely expected to run for mayor of Chicago, and Axelrod is likely to leave this spring to prepare for Obama’s 2012 reelection effort.

Obama will soon lose other top advisers. His chief economic adviser, Lawrence H. Summers, announced that he will return to Harvard, where he is a professor; Deputy Chief of Staff Jim Messina is expected to join Axelrod in Chicago; and national security adviser James L. Jones is said to want out by the end of the year.

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Fate of tax cuts is key issue as Congress returns

September 14th, 2010 · Accountability, Change of Power, Federal Spending, Government Control, Non-Transparency, Politics, Social Security, Tax Dollars, Taxes, War on Terrorism

By Shailagh Murray and Lori Montgomery – Washington Post Staff Writers
Monday, September 13, 2010; 8:02 AM

Congress is returning for a final pre-election legislative session on Monday to confront the thorny issue of potentially raising taxes during an economic downturn, with neither party showing clear consensus on a solution.

The main order of business in the coming weeks will be debating the fate of income tax cuts approved under the George W. Bush administration in 2001 and 2003 that are scheduled to expire at the end of this year. House Minority Leader John A. Boehner (R-Ohio) surprised Democrats on Sunday when he said he might not oppose President Obama‘s plan to extend the cuts for all but the wealthiest households, although he reiterated his preference for keeping the lower rates in place for all income groups.

Boehner’s comments, made on the CBS program “Face the Nation,” altered the landscape of the tax debate by suggesting that Republicans might not obstruct Democratic efforts to raise taxes on the top earners – a move advocated by Obama and many other Democrats as necessary to lowering the record deficit.

But the leader’s assertion also makes the Republican position on the issue all the murkier. Numerous GOP lawmakers, including Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (Ky.), have been unyielding in their demand that all cuts be extended.

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A Republican stimulus that just might work

September 12th, 2010 · Accountability, Change of Power, Obama Exposed, Small Business

By Ezra Klein – Sunday, September 12, 2010

It’s been a long week of stimulus proposals here in Washington. Our anti-business White House proposed hundreds of billions in tax cuts for businesses, reiterated its support for $30 billion to support lending to small businesses, and proposed $50 billion in new infrastructure investment — money that would go, ultimately, to pay private businesses to build things. Marx would be so proud.

But the more interesting action was on the Republican side of the aisle. On Thursday, House Minority Leader John A. Boehner released a “two-point plan for immediate, bipartisan action on jobs and spending.” Boehner’s proposal? Extend the Bush tax cuts and pass a budget holding spending at 2008 levels. That’s a bit back to the future — or at least back to the Aughts. The worst economic crisis since the 1930s, and all we need to do is extend some tax cuts from 2001 and 2003 and hold down spending a bit? This doesn’t require any new thinking at all?

The most stinging counterpoint didn’t come from Nancy Pelosi, though. It came, quite inadvertently, from Indiana Gov. Mitch Daniels, a wonkish Republican who led George W. Bush’s Office of Management and Budget from 2001 to 2003, and who, that same Thursday morning, published a plan that put to shame the proposals from both the administration and the House Republicans.

“A stagnant, impoverished America will not be a greener or safer or fairer place,” Daniels warned. “Grown-ups make trade-offs. Pass the brandy, then let’s get busy.” And get busy he did: Daniels proposed a one-year suspension in the Social Security payroll tax for workers. In an interview, he estimated that this would raise about $350 billion. He also envisioned a tax break allowing businesses to fully expense their capital investments for the next year. As it happened, the administration proposed exactly that this week, though Daniels noted that there was no word of it two weeks ago, when he first drafted his op-ed. “If they’re there,” he told me, “that’s good.”

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The Obama Heyday Is Over

September 10th, 2010 · Accountability, Change of Power, Democrats, Dissention, Obama Exposed

With so many Democrats running against the president’s agenda in the midterm, change will come in the next Congress, regardless of which party is in control.

By Kimberley A. Strassel

Barack Obama hit the campaign trail this week to resurrect some of that hopey-changey stuff and to complain that his critics talk about him “like a dog.” Turns out the president wasn’t, in fact, referring to his own party.

Voters might be forgiven the confusion. It isn’t as if Democrats have been showing Mr. Obama much love. Quite the opposite. Seven weeks from Election Day, the vulnerable wing of the majority has finally found itself a campaign issue: blunt opposition to Mr. Obama and his agenda.

Has it only been 20 months? Candidate Obama swelled into office with an ambitiously liberal plan. He promised his party that his legislative items would be more than policy triumphs; they’d be political triumphs. Stick with me, he said, and we’ll get credit for leadership. Voters will come to love this stuff. Polls will improve. I’ll campaign in your district.

It was bunk, as many Democrats knew even back then. Witness the threats and bribes necessary to coax a bare majority for every vote. But enough went along. And now that the ambitious Obama experiment in liberal governance is going kaboom, his members—even those who voted with him—are running for cover.

Health care? A total of 279 House and Senate Democrats voted for ObamaCare. Not one is running an ad touting that vote. How can they, given headlines about Medicare cuts and premium hikes? You will, however, find a growing catalogue of ads such as this one from Maryland Rep. Frank Kratovil: “As a career prosecutor, I made decisions on facts, not politics,” and that’s why “I voted against . . . the health-care bill.”

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Obama at it again: Spend more money before Dems no longer control Congress

September 8th, 2010 · Change of Power, Deception, Democrats, Economy, Ethics, Federal Spending, Greed, Money Lost, Non-Transparency, Obama's Scheme, Selling Out the US, Stimulus, Tax Dollars, Taxes, Terrorism from Within

Obama to unveil more stimulus, tax breaks for business

By Lori Montgomery Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, September 8, 2010; 3:04 AM

President Obama will argue personally Wednesday against extending the Bush-era income tax cuts for the nation’s wealthiest families even for a year or two, White House officials said Tuesday – a message aimed at wavering Democrats who have been swayed by arguments that the economy is too weak to raise anyone’s taxes.

In a speech scheduled for delivery Wednesday afternoon in Cleveland, Obama will restate his long-held position that the nation cannot afford to extend tax cuts for the wealthiest 2 percent of families, White House officials said.

The officials added that Obama would not threaten to veto any compromise which extends the upper-bracket cuts, a position that has gained ground in recent weeks among moderates in both the House and Senate. But congressional sources said they were told to expect the president to try to stiffen Democratic spines in expectation of a showdown over income tax rates before the November midterm elections.

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Obama has kept his promise to the American People: A promis of change.

September 7th, 2010 · Accountability, Change of Power, Selling Out the US, Treason

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Delusional Harry Reid Still Making Crazy Comments

September 7th, 2010 · Change of Power, Corruption, Deception, Democrats, Dissention, Economy, Ethics, Federal Spending, Greed, Money Lost, Non-Transparency, Obama's Scheme, Stimulus, Tax Dollars, Taxes, Terrorism from Within, Unemployment

By Sharron Angle – Sep 07

In national interviews with both CNN and ABC News, Harry Reid once again appeared completely delusional in making claims that he had nothing to do with the economic downturn, despite being the most powerful Senator in Washington D.C.

With ABC News, Reid said: “You know that I had nothing to do with the massive foreclosures here. You know that I had nothing to do with these unemployment figures.”

Reid went on to say, “I think it is my job to create jobs and I’ve done my best.”

Remember, this is the same Harry Reid whose campaign slogan is, “No one can do more for Nevada.”

Harry Reid’s “best” has resulted in Nevada having the highest unemployment in the nation with a 14.3 percent jobless rate statewide and a 14.8 unemployment rate in Las Vegas.

That leads us to yet another outrageous claim from Majority Leader Reid. There are 194,943 people out of work in Nevada, and yet Harry Reid is making the claim that he’s created 3.5 million jobs. But the question is where, Sen. Reid? These jobs certainly are not in Nevada.

“Harry Reid is making crazy statements while claiming absolutely no responsibility for the economy and the jobless rate in his own state. Yet, by the same token, he wants credit for creating 3.5 million jobs somewhere else,” said Jarrod Agen, Communications Director for Sharron Angle. “Harry Reid needs to stop running from his failed record and start taking responsibility for what he’s done to destroy the Nevada economy. If the Senate Majority Leader has absolutely nothing to do with unemployment or the economy, why is Harry Reid always asking for credit for doing ‘more for Nevada?’”

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