Hat tip: New Line Cinema and Lincoln Paradox, Ph.D.
News4 anchor Jim Vance sat down Thursday for a one-on-one interview with President Barack Obama at the White House.
Vance was the only local TV anchor-reporter to interview Obama on this crucial day of talks between Democrats and Republicans as they try to agree to terms on the debt ceiling.
Vance asked the president a series of questions, include on on voting rights for D.C. residents.
“I’ve said before and I’ll say again: I’m fully supportive of voting rights for D.C. citizens,” Obama said. “I’m fully supportive of home rule. I’m fully supportive of making sure that Washington, D.C., government has its own budget authority. I’m supportive of folks in D.C. being treated like people everywhere else in the country — in Maryland or Virginia. We have not gotten a lot of support from the other side on the issue, but I will continue to stand by those in D.C. who believe they should not be paying taxes like everyone else, serving in the military like everyone else, and doing everything that is expected of citizens and yet not have the same voting rights as everybody else in America.
“I’ve been pretty public in my belief on this thing,” he added. “It requires action by Congress, and Congress has a tendency to move slowly on things, even when they’re the right thing to do.”
View the Jim Vance interview here:
@The Washington Post:Read Boehner’s letter to House Republicans on breakdown of talks with White House: “In the end, we couldn’t connect.” http://t.co/HGUhJcZ
Can you believe this ish? Boehner break off debt ceiling talks! I’ll be got d*mn! The GOP = The American Taliban!
The President is highly pissed. He called Congress irresponsible!
The Associated Press:
BREAKING: Obama: Debt deal offered Republicans was `extraordinarily fair’ yet they’re walking away.
Hoyer: Dems United Against Entitlement Benefit Cuts In Debt Fight
http://tpmdc.talkingpointsmemo.com/2011/07/hoyer-dems-united-against-entitlement-benefit-cuts-in-debt-fight.php
House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) has been clear for weeks that entitlement benefit cuts — reducing the guarantees promised to Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid beneficiaries — are off the table in high-stakes negotiations to raise the national debt limit and avoid a catastrophic default.
But several Democrats have been on the record for years saying they’d consider or accept certain benefit cuts as part of a broad, balanced package to address long-term deficits. And that’s raised the question of whether Pelosi would be able to hold the line if President Obama throws his weight behind cutting entitlement benefits as part of a “grand bargain” to reduce deficits by up to $4 trillion this decade.
Pelosi’s lieutenant, Whip Steny Hoyer (D-MD), is one of the Dems who in the past has called for benefit cuts to be on the table — alongside tax revenues, and savings — as part of a bipartisan plan to bring the budget into balance. Today, though, he said he’s with Pelosi 100 percent in the current fight, even if Republicans agree to a “grand bargain” that includes new tax revenue.
“We have made it very clear that we have no intention of supporting cuts in beneficiaries’ benefits,” Hoyer said at his Tuesday press briefing, in response to a question from TPM.
This is, at the very least, a smart negotiating position for House Democrats. But it sets them apart from President Obama, who’s prepared to impose further means testing on Medicare beneficiaries, and perhaps to raise the retirement age by a couple years over time to garner significant House Republican support for a big budget deal that includes higher tax revenues. So if Hoyer and Pelosi hold the line here, then a “grand bargain” may be impossible — the votes wouldn’t be there.
That would widen the rift between Obama and the House, but make progressive advocates and seniors very happy.
Alternatively, this could move Republicans closer to the Democratic position on Medicare and Medicaid — to look for savings from health care providers and manufacturers first, not directly from beneficiaries — at which point Dems might soften their demands.
In any case, Hoyer’s firm line on this suggests Dems aren’t as divided in this debt fight as you might assume they’d be.
That’s the way to bring it Sten & Co. Tell the GOP to keep their FILTHY hands off our HARD-EARNED SOCIAL SECURTIY AND MEDICARE BENEFITS.
WE FUCKING WORKED FOR THESE BENEFITS. THEY ARE RIGHTFULLY OURS AND WE WANT THEM!!!!
I love this pic…thanks!!
IT’S OFFICIAL: The Whole World Thinks Republicans Are Dangerous Maniacs Threatening Everyone
http://www.businessinsider.com/its-official-the-whole-world-thinks-republicans-are-dangerous-maniacs-2011-7
Yes, the rest of the world is watching this embarrassing debt ceiling nonsense, and it is growing dismayed.
Der Spiegel has a roundup of commentary in German newspapers about the fight, and the universal message is this:
The US is holding the entire world hostage, and it’s the Republicans that are playing with fire.
Hard to accuse the Germans (who are no fans of fiscal profligacy) of being motivated by politics, or of having some inherent reason to attack Republicans. This is just the reality of what they’re doing.
Here’s the passage from Bild, the newspaper of the masses:
“Playing poker is part of politics, as is theatrical posturing. That’s fair enough. But what America is currently exhibiting is the worst kind of absurd theatrics. And the whole world is being held hostage.
“Irrespective of what the correct fiscal and economic policy should be for the most powerful country on earth, it’s simply not possible to stop taking on new debt overnight. Most importantly, the Republicans have turned a dispute over a technicality into a religious war, which no longer has any relation to a reasonable dispute between the elected government and the opposition.”
“If it continues like this, the US will be bankrupt within a few days. It would cause a global shockwave like the one which followed the Lehman bankruptcy in 2008, which triggered the worst economic crisis since the war. Except it would be much worse than the Lehman bankruptcy. The political climate in the US has been poisoned to a degree that is hard for us (Germans) to imagine. But we should all fear the consequences.”
US President Barack Obama makes his way into the Brady Briefing Room July 15, 2011 for a press conference on the debt ceiling at the White House in Washington, DC.
SWAGGER!
Watch yourself. Some hater has already accused me of having steaming panty fantasies about the President because I said his Swagger was turned up to 100.
________________________FLATLINES________________
oh.no.he.didn’t. To him, I’d say: JEALOUS, MUCH!
LOL
Let’s just be honest. He is brilliant, kind, hard working, loves his family, works so hard to improve our country, but Damn. That man is HOT.
Happenin’, Dorothy? Like I said, SWAGGER! LOL
US President Barack Obama speaks during a press conference on July 15, 2011 in the Brady Press Briefing Room at the White House on the status of efforts to find a balanced approach to deficit reduction.
Eric Cantor, Brutus
http://thehill.com/blogs/pundits-blog/lawmaker-news/171511-eric-cantor-brutus
House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) tried to make a bipartisan budget deal with President Obama. House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-Va.) stabbed Boehner in the back in an act of leadership disloyalty that I literally cannot remember happening with congressional leaders of either party in my lifetime.
I have worked for the House leadership under several Democratic Speakers and have never seen anything like this. Harry Reid took Cantor to the woodshed today, and was right. I would go even further than Reid:
Eric Cantor is the Republican leadership Brutus. Cantor is willing to risk, and Republicans would be blamed for, a global economic crash because Cantor is a poodle for millionaires and conglomerates that pay no taxes and will risk the economic future of the nation to pursue his ambition as he plunges the knife into the back of John Boehner.
Eric Cantor’s tea party terrorism threatens America
http://www.capitolhillblue.com/node/41431/comment-page-1#comment-166124
To the tea party terrorists who put their extremist agenda ahead of the best interests of the nation, bombastic Virginia Republican Congressman Eric Cantor is a hero of monumental proportions.
To opponents, however, Cantor is a political Osama bin Laden, a political bomb thrower who threatens send the financial skyscrapers of the nation’s economy crashing to the ground in a dust cloud of chaos and discord.
Even Republicans complain private about Cantor’s antics and leaders of the party gather in small, closed-door groups to discuss how to stop their own majority leader from destroying the party and the nation.
Democrats, meanwhile, zero in on Cantor’s extremism and use it to claim Republicans don’t give a damn about the nation, the economy and the future.
But the party’s problems go far beyond Cantor and the nation’s ills go back to the 2010 elections when voters — fed up with the status quo — put too many tea party extremists into office and gave them a voice they did not deserve.
Cantor and those of his ilk represent a cancer that is spreading throughout Congress, the American political system and the nation at large — a notion that compromise is bad, cooperation is unthinkable and coalitions are evil.
What’s good for America is secondary to the extremists like Cantor and those who embrace him: The only thing that matters is an extreme, right-wing agenda driven not by the the claimed “grassroots,” but by two power-mad billionaire brothers named Koch.
Cantor is their weapon of mass detraction who — like them — substitutes service to country with ego.
Cantor is a madman but he is one with a well-funded, private-agenda-driven power base that will stop at nothing to seize power and subvert what little is left of the democratic process in this country.
He — and those who follow him — represent a clear and present danger to the United States of America and they must be stopped before it is too late.
BAM! Remembering PBO mentioned extending UNEMPLOYMENT BENEFITS too.
NOTHING NEW HERE FOLKS POTUS just repeated what he’s always said about this so-called crisis
1. Not a crisis here; manufactured by GOP
2. Debt ceilings been passed since forever
3. Political posturing
4. CONGRESS DO YOUR JOBS
5. Social security/medicare benefit will not be altered
6. We need revenue
7. Americans can’t continue paying taxes while the 1-2% wealthy Americans don’t pay any taxes
8. I have faith and hope in American people, that’s what I ran on as POTUS candidate
9. Can NOT serve America with attitude of ‘MY WAY or HIGHWAY= GOP
10. Toug choices all around- EVERYONE sacrifices- make the choice & Face your base
….And there you have it!
BWA HA HA PBO: “I generally don’t watch what is said about me on cable.”
LOL Remember the ideolouges, my way, or the highway, when you go the polls in 2012.
make sure you’re on the right side of this impression. NO posturing, soundbites, DO YOUR JOBS!
**looking at that rat, ERIC CANTOR*** POSTURING
….PuNk
Boeher had some problems in his caucus> ERIC CAN’T -OR
Soundbites = …… >>>>>>>Chuck Todd
DRAMA= >>>>>>>>>>>MSM, fake progressives, DINOs, et.al.
BWA HA HA HA He said I WILL NOT YEILD! Now as far as the rest of the Dems……
Harry Reid and the Dems had better hold it together WITH this PRESIDENT!
Keep HOPE alive, Mr. President!
President Obama @ Lori fm WaPo: I always have hope. Don’t you remember my campaign?
PBO has hope in American People; Congress? HA HA HA I don’t watch what’s said about me on cable. I got a thick skin.
We don’t need any more studies; just make the tough choices and face your base.
We don’t need a constitutional amendment to do our jobs. DO YOUR EFFING JOBS, CONGRESS.
That got damn Chuck Todd is always trying to become the news! I could smack him
POTUS= there is no crisis, except for the crisis these mofos are manufacturing, instead of doing the real work.
THE AMERICAN PEOPLE ARE SOLD, CHUCK
80% Americans want a balanced budget!!!!!
What did Chuck Todd ask? I missed it.
The American people aren’t sold on the debt ceiling… WTF, Chuck? It’s always about this toad and drama. Go back to school, fool.
Chuck is out of his league. Sticks to the numbers, Chuck. At reporting…you suck!
LOL yes, Chuck; go back to stroking the electronic election boards.
President Obama: We need to look at what we can do years out.
Visionary.. Long term, no BANDAIDS. Folks want everything yesterday, but don’t want to plan and work for it.
Jake Tapper’s an asshole. THE.END
He has always been an a-hole.
OMG! Chuck Toad is another ASSHOLE. Nothing but a fucking drama queen.
Tell’em PBO. No reality tv. This is serious buisness!
President Obama: If they show me a serious plan, I’m ready to move.
I’d like to see the tax cuts CUT for the wealthy!
Social Security and Medicare are the most important safety nets. Modifications are needed without destroying the intergrity of these entitlements. I don’t like the use of this word.
We’ll need to examine these plans that are on the table. I’m not clear on these yet. Anyone else know about the plans?
The POTUS is speaking now.