Politiks As Usual: In The News 3/24/14

Source: Flight 370's Altitude Dropped After Sharp Turn

Mary Landrieu Is Paying—and Getting Paid Big—for Her Stance on Global Warming

Obama's Destruction Of The Military Is By Design

Dad Who Fathered 98 Kids Offers Free Sex 

Cruz: GOP Should ‘Continue to Defend Life’ and ‘Defend Traditional Marriage’ 
 
Giuliani: de Blasio Turning New York City in Wrong Direction
 
If It's Sunday, The Washington Post Is Promoting Fellatio In the Movie 'Nymphomaniac'
 
Nate Silver: GOP Has 60 Percent Chance to Take Senate in 2014

Colorado House To Consider Controversial Vaccination Law 

Jimmy Carter Thinks The NSA Monitors His Emails
 
Drudge, White House in Twitter Spat over Obamacare Mandate Payment

Politiks As Usual: In The News 3/16/14

Iraq Law Would Allow 9-Year-Old Girls To Marry

Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 Search Grows As Pilots Face Increased Scrutiny

'19 Kids and Counting' Stars: We Won't Kiss Until Marriage

What Kind of God Do You Believe In?

Cardinal Dolan ‘Fully Supportive’ of Teaching That Homosexual Activity is Immoral

Priebus: Jolly Election Spotlights Republicans' 'Positive Vision'

Sen. Rand Paul Wins Presidential Survey

50 Years Later, We Know That the NYT Distorted the Kitty Genovese Story to Drive an Agenda

Networks Minimize Bad News For Dems, Tout Obama Shopping at the Gap

Air Force: Christians' Religious Speech Not Legally Protected Right

Maine Hospital Facing $27 Million In Costs Due To Obamacare

Why Some Christians' Kids Blow Off God – and Why Mine Didn't

Jan Brewer Vetos Religious Freedom SB1062 Bill and Caves To Godless, White Liberals

Is it any wonder so many social conservatives in this country have lost faith in the Republican party? With losers like John McCain, Mitt Romney, Newt Gingrich and the 3 Arizona Republican members who caved to liberal lies and hyperbole on SB1062 and changed their mind, who needs the GOP?

Arizona Governor Jan Brewer made a statement Wednesday night declaring she already vetoed the controversial SB1062 bill that would permit state businesses to discriminate against LGBT individuals, confirming an earlier report that she was planning to veto the bill.

Advocates of the bill have argued that the bill was meant to protect people’s religious liberty, while opponents insisted it’s just the government adding on another layer of discrimination that gay people have to face in their lives.

Brewer previously pledged she would “do the right thing for Arizona,” and deferred questions by saying she had until Friday to make her decision. The Arizona Chamber of Commerce came out against the bill, as did many businesses (Apple and Marriott among them), and a number of high-profile Republicans, including both of Arizona’s GOP senators, called on Brewer to veto the bill.

RELATED:  7 Myths About Arizona's Religious Freedom Law

The Media’s Chris Christie Hysteria

NationalReview.com:

What a bizarre spectacle. Assuming he did not lie during his marathon news conference last week, the feeding frenzy surrounding New Jersey governor Chris Christie will be remembered as one of those incredibly odd moments of elite journalistic hysteria that are difficult to explain to people who weren’t there or didn’t get it. 

I’m not referring to the scandal itself; that’s easy enough to understand. What Christie’s team did was outrageous and deserves as much foofaraw and brouhaha as the New Jersey media can muster. 

What’s harder to grok is the hysteria at the national level. 

For starters, there have been countless greater outrages at the state level that have received far less national coverage. (Indeed, there have been national scandals under President Obama that have received less intense national coverage.) Since 1961, four Illinois governors have ended up in jail, and with the exception of Rod Blagojevich, few have received comparable media attention. 

Meet the Press dedicated 33 minutes to the New Jersey scandal, including a grilling of Reince Priebus, head of the Republican National Committee, as if Christie were Nixon during Watergate (a comparison ostensibly serious people have made). 

Many conservatives see liberal media bias in all this. But that diagnosis misses the fact that this was the 50th anniversary of the War on Poverty, giving producers ample opportunity to advance a liberal agenda. Moreover, Christie is actually quite popular in establishment media circles — the sort of politician Sunday-show liberals insist America needs more of. He’s also quite unpopular in many quarters of the Right. 

If there is a secret left-wing cabal interested solely in advancing the liberal cause through the media, the Christie auto-da-fé was a missed opportunity. 

A more plausible partial explanation is partisan bias, which can be hard to distinguish from liberal bias in many outlets since it tends to favor Democrats. The key difference is that partisan bias focuses more on the political interests of specific politicians or a party generally. 

Feeding-frenzy defenders insist the closure of lanes on the George Washington Bridge is special because innocent constituents were deliberately inconvenienced for partisan purposes. That’s surely what makes this scandalous, but it hardly makes it unique. The Obama administration employed similar tactics during the sequester and the government shutdown. Closing the open-air World War II Memorial, furloughing air-traffic controllers, and other efforts were deliberate attempts to maximize the pain of innocents for political benefit. The tactic worked, but that’s not a justification for it, is it? 

The allegation that the Obama administration used the IRS to target political opponents is far more explosive (similar tactics were at the core of the Nixon impeachment effort). And, unlike Christie’s claims of what he knew and when, similar White House denials haven’t held up. 

And in the same week the media succumbed to St. Vitus’s dance over Christie’s alleged “cover-up,” it was revealed that the Department of Justice had appointed an Obama donor from the civil-rights division, instead of the public-integrity division, to investigate the IRS scandal. The department now says it would be unlawful to remove her from the assignment because of her political views. That’s untrue. No hysteria there. 

Christie is widely seen as a threat to whomever the Democratic nominee will be. Unlike some recent GOP nominees, who struggled to be merely lifelike, Christie has an authenticity and charisma most national Republicans lack. As ABC’s Jonathan Karl put it on This Week, Christie is “the most intriguing and colorful person” in American politics. 

That probably explains the overkill as much as anything. Christie is new, exciting, and interesting in ways Obama once was. The difference is that when Obama was new and exciting, the media were biased in every regard and heroically skeptical of any Obama wrongdoing. “We thought he was going to be . . . the next messiah,” Barbara Walters recently said. The cult of personality has diminished but the partisan skepticism remains. 

Christie, like most Republicans, never benefited from such skepticism, and never will.

RELATED:How Chris Christie Lost His Way

Supreme Court to Hear Case on Obama's Disputed NLRB Appointments

WashingtonExaminer.com:

The Supreme Court on Monday is set to hear a bitter dispute between Republicans and the White House over whether President Obama exceeded his authority when appointing members to the National Labor Relations Board during a congressional recess. 

The justices' decision could cast a legal cloud over hundreds of rulings by the board, which resolves complaints of unfair labor practices and conducts elections for labor union representation. 

The case, NLRB v. Noel Canning, centers around recess appointments Obama made to the labor board. In January 2012, Obama appointed three members to the board when the Senate was on break. Presidents can circumvent required Senate approval if the chamber is on recess, a move Obama deemed necessary because of repeated GOP blocks of his nominations to the panel. 

Republicans worried the Obama appointees had a pro-union bias. But the White House said the GOP block was done solely for political reasons. 

Then in February 2012 the NLRB ruled against Noel Canning (part of Noel Corp.), of Yakima, Wash., in a dispute with the Teamsters union. The company, aided by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, challenged the decision, arguing that the president's January appointments to the NLRB were invalid and thus the board didn't have the necessary quorum to resolve its dispute. 

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit ruled in favor of Canning, saying Obama violated the law when he bypassed the Senate. The court said recess appointments are constitutional only if the vacancies and appointments occur in between official sessions of Congress. 

The NLRB appealed, and the Supreme Court took up the case. 

If the high court rules against the labor board, a minimum of 100 NRLB decisions -- and possibly more -- made by the recess-appointed members could be deemed invalid.

RELATED: Supreme Court justices call into question Obama's recess appointment power

MSNBC Hypocrite Chris Matthews Hilariously Takes Issue with Someone Else Using Hyperbolic Rhetoric

Mediaite.com:

On Monday’s Hardball, Chris Matthews took issue with someone engaging in hyperbolic rhetoric. 

Specifically, a Republican state senator who said that Obamacare “has done more damage to the USA then [sic] the swords of the Nazis, Soviets & terrorists combined.” This state senator has not backed down, and Matthews had some fun taking him down, saying that “Ted Cruz has a formidable challenger in the hyperbole department,” but it’s not as if Matthews himself has been immune from making over-the-top statements of his own.

I mean, I really don’t even have to go that far back to find an example to make this point. It was just last week that Matthews declared that conservative radio hosts are just as crazy as Kim Jong-Un (meaning that every uncle in the country should watch out for Glenn Beck now).

Saying Obamacare’s worse than the Nazis? To the nuthouse! Comparing political opponents to the uncle-killing leader of North Korea? To the prompter!

And he also recently followed up a softball interview with President Obama by saying Obama’s critics are less patriotic than the apartheid leaders in Nelson Mandela‘s South Africa.

Matthews has always professed to be above the fray and has rejected the label “media critic” on more than one occasion (though it didn’t stop him from going after Beck and Mark Levin last week). But this is getting tiresome. This is not the first time Matthews has said something patently outrageous only to move on the next day and say, “Hey, why can’t the other side be more civil?”

RELATED: Chris Matthews: GOP as ‘Crazy’ as Kim Jong-un Executing His Own Uncle

The Liberal Media’s Corrosive Excuse for Not Covering Controversies: Republicans Cared

Mediaite.com:

A once unspoken rule within mainstream reporting outlets has recently been exposed and, lacking any other recourse, acknowledged by an honest handful. 2013 has been a year characterized by one scandalous revelation after the other – each had been brewing for months, even years, before they were uncovered. Too often, journalists are consoling themselves and exculpating their dereliction with the fantasy that some allegations deserved to be dismissed outright only because Republicans displayed a conspicuous level of interest in them.


The latest example of this phenomenon is positively amazing and more than a little bit depressing. 

Appearing on The Steve Malzberg Show, TIME Magazine senior political analyst Mark Halperin conceded without a hint of reluctance that conservatives’ warnings about “death panels” within the Affordable Care Act was without merit. 

Halperin began by chastising the press, as an institution, for doing “nothing like an adequate job in flyspecking and scrutinizing the whole law.” 

“Part of the issue,” he said, “is that Governor [Mitt] Romney did not make healthcare the issue in the campaign because he had his own political problems.”

Halperin added that a thorough scrutiny of the ACA in the press would have been beneficial to liberals and President Barack Obama because it would have muted the sense of shock many are experiencing today. Hindsight is 20/20, I suppose. 

Moving on to the issue of end-of-life cost controls contained within the ACA, Halperin conceded that those provisions are and always were part of the law. “It’s built into the plan,” Halperin insisted. “It’s not like a guess or like a judgment. That’s going to be part of how costs are controlled.”

“There should have been more scrutiny by all the press, including the conservative press, of the specifics,” Halperin added. “There’s going to be a lot of journalism done, across the board coming up, on this issue, just as there has been now on the issue of whether people with individual plans could keep them. There’s going to be a lot of scrutiny. It should start now.”

This is a noble admission that cuts against interest and Halperin should be lauded for it. But there are no laurels in store for any member of the journalistic establishment. What Halperin is exhibiting is a pervasive and insidious instinct within the East Coast political media complex to abandon their roles as neutral arbiters of competing claims whenever Republicans become too enthusiastic about any given issue. 

Journalism professor Richard Benedetto displayed this dubious instinct in May, 2013, in the wake of a stream of embarrassing revelations about the White House’s incompetence leading up to the deadly attack on an American consulate in Benghazi. By displaying his concern about the attack in 2012, Benedetto claimed, Romney had quashed any investigative reporting. 

“The former Massachusetts governor made the colossal blunder of jumping out ahead of the president in responding to the attacks,” Benedetto wrote. “By doing that, he made himself a key player in the first news stories about the tragedy.”

He says that Obama escaped culpability in the press for pre-Benghazi blunders because Romney had made himself the focus of the story. “Several reporter questions that followed focused on whether the speed, tone and tenor of Romney’s tough criticisms were appropriate when the crisis was still unfolding and all the facts were not known,” Benedetto observed. 

RELATED:  Rothman to Hugh Hewitt: Halperin ‘In Good Company’ Not Blowing Whistle on Obamacare in 2012

House Republicans Introduce Resolution to Impeach Attorney General Eric Holder

About freaking time:

A group of congressional Republicans introduced a resolution Thursday to call for the impeachment of Attorney General Eric Holder, alleging Holder had committed “high crimes and misdemeanors” during his tenure as head of the Justice Department.

The resolution was introduced by Rep. Pete Olson, R-Texas, who claims Holder has committed “the offenses of lying to Congress, refusing to comply with a subpoena, and failing to fulfill his oath of office.”

Olson cites Holder’s unwillingness to cooperate during the investigation into the botched Operation “Fast and Furious, his refusal to prosecute those involved IRS targeting of conservative groups, his failure to enforce laws including the Defense of Marriage Act, and his “false testimony” about the DOJ’s monitoring of Fox News journalist James Rosen as articles that are grounds for impeachment.

“For nearly five years, Attorney General Holder has systematically deceived Congress and destroyed the credibility of the Justice Department in the eyes of the American people,” Olson said in a statement.

Olson was joined by 19 other Republican representatives in the resolution.

One House Democrat spoke out against the resolution before it was introduced Thursday, calling it “the most fundamental abuse of the impeachment power.”

Rep. Adam Schiff, D-Calif., a former federal prosecutor who led the Senate in the impeachment of a federal judge in 2010, said the articles of impeachment in the resolution are simply a list of “debunked conspiracy theories.”

RELATED:  AG Holder asks for appeal in Fast and Furious case holding him in contempt

Ann Coulter Rips The View Hosts Claiming Women Govern Better: 'Bitchy' and 'Hysteria' Are Female Traits

 

RELATED: Ann Coulter to Her ‘Love’ Ted Cruz: Stop the GOP From Primarying Itself to Death

AP’s Dismal Outlook for GOP Masks Democratic Party’s Looming Catastrophes

Mediaite.com:

On Monday, the Associated Press’ Charles Babington published a rather grim assessment of the state of the Republican Party roughly one year after the GOP’s poor showing in the 2012 elections. Babington accurately observes that congressional Republicans are both faltering and factional. He correctly notices that many Republicans are actively forgetting the lessons that 2012 taught them about the minority vote and how conservative social policy positions are unpalatable to the broader presidential electorate. But Babington’s analysis might leave partisan Democrats with the imprudent belief that their party’s political prospects are as bright as the rising sun. In fact, Democrats have their own political troubles brewing. Some in fact, are far more intractable than those with which Republicans are currently wrestling.


“A year after losing a presidential race many Republicans thought was winnable, the party arguably is in worse shape than before,” Babington opens. This observation is undeniably accurate.

“It’s almost quaint to recall that soon after Mitt Romney lost to President Barack Obama, the Republican National Committee recommended only one policy change: endorsing an immigration overhaul, in hopes of attracting Hispanic voters,” he continues. “That immigration bill is now struggling for life and attention in the Republican-run House. 

The bigger worry for many party leaders is the growing rift between business-oriented Republicans and the GOP’s more ideological wing. Each accuses the other of bungling the debt ceiling and government shutdown dramas, widely seen as a major Republican embarrassment.

All true. He continues, noting that Republicans are set to lose a gubernatorial race in Virginia. Republicans would be well-advised to not dismiss seemingly inevitable electoral loss as an aberration isolated to the Old Dominion which cannot possibly inform political observers about the GOP’s political future. In a state with an electorate that increasingly mirrors the nation, where Republicans have historically won the governorship in off-years in which the White House is occupied by a Democrat, Virginia Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli’s pending loss is just the kind of dead canary that should scare Republicans (particularly those of the tea party brand). 

Further still, a conservative faction within the Republican Party continues to attempt to force the party further to the right by mounting primary challenges against successful GOP officeholders. Successful primary challenges against entrenched Republican lawmakers are as likely to result in unlikely Democratic victories as they are the ascension of more conservative politicians to national office. 

For some conservative political observers, the Republican Party’s internecine skirmishes are indicative of a form of vitality that Democrats do not enjoy. Indeed, there are vibrant policy debates ongoing within the GOP, but one man’s vitality is another’s civil war. For the untrained observer, the violent, spasmodic death throes of a mortally wounded animal could just as easily be mistaken for signs that the withering creature is demonstrating renewed vigor. The GOP’s internal struggles could easily and rapidly evolve from a healthy exercise to something quite different. 

And yet, even though Republicans struggle with all these issues and more, Democrats would be wise to focus on their own house. There are indications that the party’s future is not as rosy as the Republican autopsy would lead many to believe. 

The 2014 generic congressional ballot appears increasingly favorable to Democrats. The Republicans’ misguided government shutdown has resulted in the electorate directing their inchoate rage at Republicans. But there is more than a year between today and the midterm elections, and a series of events – both foreseen and unexpected – will intervene in the interim to alter public opinion. Further, Democrats are doing all they can to rehabilitate the shutdown by vindicating its impetus – the Affordable Care Act and all its myriad issues. Increasingly, Congressional Democrats are admitting, after just one week of sustained media coverage of the ACA’s roll-out, that the nearly four-year-old law is still not ready for prime time. It may never be.

The technical failures associated with the ACA mask its larger problems: too many who need coverage are signing up and those who do not need coverage are not contributing to the risk pool. This was always the law’s structural Achilles’ heel. Some observers believe that what more Democrats are calling for, a delay in either the individual mandate to purchase health insurance or the penalty phase should an individual fail to comply before next April, is functionally impossible. It would require the federal government consider bailing out the overextended insurers who have taken on a number of sick, elderly, and infirmed uninsured over the course of the open enrollment period. Populists on both the right and the left would revolt over the prospect of another federal bailout for a troubled industry. 

The government shutdown and the ACA’s miserable debut have rescued President Obama from the political consequences of his inaction in Syria, but foreign policy issues are always just one news cycle away from returning to the forefront of the national debate. A report in USA Today last week revealed that Iran is nearly ready for a nuclear breakout – something most observers believe will precipitate a political (and potentially military) crisis in the region. Indeed, a political crisis is already underway as Saudi Arabia and Egypt – two of the regions strongest players – drift away from the American sphere of influence in conspicuously dramatic fashions. 

Add to this the background radiation of the Obama administration’s drone warfare program and liberal Democrats’ increasing discomfort with this tactic and you have the makings of an internal struggle within the Democratic Party set to explode as liberal voters prepare to select President Obama’s successor.
Republican structural advantages in the 2014 midterms suggest that, outside of a historic Democratic wave – a virtually unprecedented occurrence given the fact that the Oval Office remains in Democratic hands – the GOP will retain the House in 2015. Furthermore, anti-incumbent anger may fall unevenly on the Senate where a number of Democrats are seeking reelection in states Romney carried by substantial margins.

Even if Democrats retain control of the Senate, increasingly restless liberal constituency within the party may again assert its primacy over Democratic moderates in the coming presidential primary. Recall that in 2005, the party’s presumed nominee, Hillary Clinton, was preparing herself and her allies for a coronation rather than a primary election. Pollsters were not even testing Barack Obama’s name before December of that year, in spite of his keynote address to the Democratic nominating convention the year before. Few envisioned a scenario in which the Iraq War would go so far south that it would motivate the left to jettison Clinton. In the same way, few foresee a political future in which liberal Democrats who believe they were robbed of a universal, single payer health care system might elevate another champion over the more moderate Clinton. At the least, a competitive Democratic primary that will force Clinton to the left of the electorate appears likely. 

RELATED:  The Point of No Return

House Approves Legislation To End Shutdown, Reopen Government

CNN.com:

The House of Representatives late Wednesday night passed a Senate-brokered bill to fully reopen the government and raise the federal government's debt ceiling.

Weeks of bitter stalemate gave way to a frenetic few hours of legislative action Wednesday to address the federal government's latest budgetary crisis -- an episode marked by rare bipartisanship, but also the very real prospect of more fights to come.

The relatively rapid movement, by congressional standards, came on the 16th day of the partial government shutdown and one day before the Treasury Department had warned the nation could run out of money to pay its bills unless it raises its borrowing limit.

If legislation brokered by Democratic and Republican leaders in the Senate gets to his desk, President Barack Obama has vowed to get things back up and running as soon as possible.

"I will sign it immediately," the President said. "We'll begin reopening our government immediately."

RELATED: Ted Cruz Takes One Last Stand Against ‘Terrible Deal’ Before Senate Vote

Frequent MSNBC Guest Roger Simon Wishes Death on Ted Cruz, Accuses Him of Waging a 'War Against Babies'

NewsBusters.org:

In his Monday column Politico's Roger Simon unleashed an anti-GOP rant where he accused the Republican Party of letting "racism out of the closet," accused it of waging "a war against babies" and wished death on two of its leaders Ted Cruz and John Boehner.

In his column headlined "Government shutdown unleashes racism" Simon wasted no time in attacking Republicans by putting his twist on old anti-lawyer joke: "Question: If Ted Cruz and John Boehner were both on a sinking ship, who would be saved? Answer: America." Simon then went on to accuse Cruz of "making a war against babies," as seen in the following excerpt:

Harsh? Look around you at what is happening to America and you will see harsh. I am not talking about closed parks and monuments. I am talking about the funds cut to nearly 9 million mothers and young children for food, breastfeeding support and infant formula.

That is harsh. Making a war against babies is harsh. And for what? Because Cruz, Republican senator from Texas, has grown so drunk on the sound of his own voice and so besotted with illusions of his own grandeur that he believes halting government today will propel him into the White House tomorrow?

After railing against the GOP's "Kamikaze Caucus", Simon then used one Confederate Flag waving protestor to paint an entire movement as racist:

This weekend, racism came out of the closet. (Which assumes it has ever been in the closet.)Protesters marched through the streets of Washington on Sunday with a Confederate flag and then a protester lounged against the White House fence with one. Displaying the Confederate flag in front of a home occupied by a black family was meant to send a particular, and particularly repellent, message.

RELATED: Chris Matthews: ‘It’s Hatred,’ Not Politics Motivating GOP Opposition to Obama

Harlem Pastors Join Forces To Oust Al Sharpton

Tired of powerful ambulance-chaser, hypocrite, fraudster, criminal, sellout, serial liar, white liberal agenda advocate, racial huckster, Obamabot, MSNBC host and "gay rights" supporter Al Sharpton garnering all the local attention from the mainstream press, while ignoring the real plights plaguing the black community, some Harlem pastors have come together to speak truth to "Reverend" Al Sharpton's ignorane and end his long run as 'Speaker of the Black Community':

Four pastors lobbying for change in the Harlem community of Manhattan, N.Y., have gone on the warpath with civil rights leader and religious minister the Rev. Al Sharpton and have invited more than 100 churches to join them in dethroning him from his political seat for his failure to lead on local issues.

"While (Sharpton) is jet-setting around the country, people are going to our churches saying they don't have money to eat," Pastor Johnnie Green, 51, of Mount Neboh Baptist Church on Adam Clayton Powell Boulevard told the New York Daily News. "People need somebody to fight for them."

As a result of the situation, Greene and several other pastors in the community have banded together to create a coalition of black ministers called Speak Out Say It Loud, which seeks to build a united African American power base with citywide influence.

The coalition, which includes Carl Washington of New Mount Zion Baptist Church on W. 140th Street, Kris Erskine of Bethany Baptist Church on W. 153rd Street and Patrick Young of First Baptist Church of East Elmhurst, Queens, will be pushing their gospel of rebellion at a rally slated for Oct. 24, according to a Facebook event page.

"We are the church and our voice shall be heard to the benefit of our community. Join more than 100 pastors and congregations assembling at the Mount Neboh Baptist Church to Speak Out about the deplorable conditions of our community and the injustice against our people. The church is still the church and with God we have miraculous power," read the announcement on the page.

The ministers, who expect about 1,500 people to show up for the event, said Sharpton is nothing more than a personality who has been spending more time promoting his new book, The Rejected Stone and his show on MSNBC.

"Sharpton isn't a community organizer. He's a personality," Raymond Blanchette, head bishop of the United Churches for Kingdom Building told the New York Daily News.

But the seasoned political minister charged that there was no need for a fight: "We need to attack the issues, not each other," Sharpton told the News. "If you want to be the big guy, be the big guy, be that. Don't act like I'm not doing anything local. I am."

"I run a civil rights organization," Sharpton added. "They're not going to do what I do. ... I don't run a church organization."

RELATED:  During Heated Interview, Sharpton Explodes on GOP Rep. Over Shutdown: ‘You’re in Denial!’

Peter King’s Lonely Fight vs. ‘Ted Cruz Wing’

Politico.com:

If Peter King’s brand of Republicanism seems to be on the wane these days, the Long Island congressman isn’t letting it go quietly.

King, 69, has long been one of the Hill’s most quotable and irascible troublemakers, a frequent presence on cable television with an apparently boundless capacity for outrage. He has fumed over topics as serious as Hurricane Sandy relief and aid for Sept. 11 responders, and as comparatively trivial as the White House party crashers and the death of Michael Jackson (whom he called a “lowlife” and a “pervert.”) King broke with Newt Gingrich over the government shutdowns of the mid-1990s and earned the gratitude of the Clinton clan when he rebuked his own party for impeaching a president for sexual indiscretions.

So while it’s not a surprise that King would be one of the Republican Party’s most prominent internal critics these days, even the congressman’s friends say there’s a new intensity and urgency to the lawmaker’s indignation.

King has thundered away in recent months against what he calls the “Ted Cruz wing” of the Republican Party, criticizing the GOP’s libertarian drift on issues such as domestic surveillance and assailing what he views as the utter pointlessness of the House’s effort to defund Obamacare at the cost of a government shutdown. He has floated the idea of a 2016 presidential campaign largely out of opposition to the tea party crowd.

His frustration, friends say, reflects a deepening conviction that Republicans have lost touch with the working-class, middle-of-the-road voters who sent King to Congress in the first place, and who used to make Republican candidates for the Senate and the presidency competitive in downstate New York.

For a veteran pol like King, the plain reality is, there has never been a lonelier time on the Hill to be a blue-collar Republican from Nassau County. When he tried to trigger a revolt against the shutdown this week, only one moderate-leaning Republican – Pennsylvania’s Charlie Dent – joined the effort.

Speaking to POLITICO in his Capitol Hill office, King rejected the notion that he, rather than the great majority of his colleagues who have supported the shutdown, is out of step with the national Republican electorate.

“I don’t consider these guys conservatives. I think the party is going in an isolationist trend. It’s appealing to the lowest common denominator in many ways. And this whole threat of defunding the government, to me, is not conservative at all,” said King, who added later: “Maybe we do live in different worlds. These guys from the Ted Cruz wing live in their own echo chamber.”

The vast cultural gulf that separates King from many of his Republican colleagues is evident from a quick glance around the walls of his office. In a heavily Southern-inflected GOP conference, King is an Irish policeman’s son; he is surely the only member with photos of Sinn Fein leader Gerry Adams and former Brooklyn Dodgers pitcher Ralph Branca on his wall, and a piece of the destroyed Secret Service office at 7 World Trade Center on his desk.

Yet King insists he is not the outlier in the Republican-held House. On the contrary, he argues, his district has a mix of voters that more closely approximates a winning national electorate than those of most of his GOP colleagues.

“It basically would be right-of-center Republicans and Reagan Democrats, people who belong to building trade unions, cops, firefighters, middle-class families who are fighting to get ahead, but also realize that life isn’t that simple,” King said. “There’s a big building trade constituency in Ohio and Pennsylvania, for instance. I think a blue-collar conservative could carry Pennsylvania for president, could carry Ohio, for instance, but we alienate those groups.”

RELATED: Megyn Kelly Kicks Off in Primetime with Cruz: ‘What’s It Like To Be The Most Hated Man in America?’

Don't Believe Liberal Media, Democrats To Blame For Shutdown

NYDailyNews.com:

The Obamacare/shutdown battle has spawned myriad myths. The most egregious concern the substance of the fight, the identity of the perpetrators and the origins of the current eruption.

(1) Substance

President Obama indignantly insists that GOP attempts to abolish or amend Obamacare are unseemly because it is “settled” law, having passed both houses of Congress, obtained his signature and passed muster with the Supreme Court.

Yes, settledness makes for a strong argument — except from a President whose administration has unilaterally changed Obamacare five times after its passage, including, most brazenly, a year-long suspension of the employer mandate.

Article 1 of the Constitution grants the legislative power entirely to Congress. Under what constitutional principle has Obama unilaterally amended the law? Yet when the House of Representatives undertakes a constitutionally correct, i.e., legislative, procedure for suspending the other mandate — the individual mandate — this is portrayed as some extra-constitutional sabotage of the rule of law. Why is tying that amendment to a generalized spending bill an outrage, while unilateral amendment by the executive (with a Valerie Jarrett blog item for spin) is perfectly fine?

(2) Perpetrators

The mainstream media have been fairly unanimous in blaming the government shutdown on the GOP. Accordingly, House Republicans presented three bills to restore funding to national parks, veterans and the District of Columbia government. Democrats voted down all three. (For procedural reasons, the measures required a two-thirds majority.)

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid won’t even consider these refunding measures. And the White House has promised a presidential veto.

The reason is obvious: to prolong the pain and thus add to the political advantage gained from a shutdown blamed on the GOP. They are confident the media will do a “GOP makes little Johnny weep at the closed gates of Yellowstone, film at 11” despite Republicans having just offered legislation to open them.

(3) Origins

The most ubiquitous conventional wisdom is that the ultimate cause of these troubles is out-of-control tea party anarchists.

But is this really where the causal chain ends?

From Social Security to civil rights to Medicaid to Medicare, never in the modern history of the country has major social legislation been enacted on a straight party-line vote. Yet Obamacare — which revolutionizes one-sixth of the economy, regulates every aspect of medical practice and intimately affects just about every citizen — passed without a single GOP vote.

The Democrats insist they welcomed contributing ideas from Republicans. Rubbish. Republicans proposed that insurance be purchasable across state lines. They got nothing. They sought serious tort reform. They got nothing. Why? Because, admitted Howard Dean, Democrats didn’t want to offend the trial lawyers.

Moreover, the administration was clearly warned. Republican Scott Brown ran in the most inhospitable of states, Massachusetts, on the explicit promise to cast the deciding vote blocking Obamacare. It was January 2010, the height of the debate. He won. Reid ignored this unmistakable message of popular opposition and conjured a parliamentary maneuver — reconciliation — to get around Brown.

Nothing illegal about that. Nothing illegal about ramming it through without a single opposition vote. Just totally contrary to the modern American tradition — and the constitutional decency — of undertaking major social revolutions only with bipartisan majorities. Having stuffed Obamacare down the throats of the GOP and the country, Democrats are now paying the price.

I thought the Republicans’ defunding demand impossible and, therefore, foolish. I thought that if, nonetheless, they insisted on making a stand, it should not be on shutting down the government, which voters oppose 5-to-1, but on the debt ceiling, which Americans favor 2-to-1 as a vehicle for restraining government.

Tactics are one thing, but substance is another. It’s the Democrats who have mocked the very notion of settled law. It’s the Democrats who voted down the reopening of substantial parts of the government. It’s the Democrats who gave life to a spontaneous, authentic, small-government opposition — aka the Tea Party — with their unilateral imposition of a transformational agenda during the brief interval when they held a monopoly of power.

That interval is over. The current unrest is the residue of that hubris.

RELATED: Where Ted Cruz Is Coming From

Ann Coulter Gives GOP a Pass for Shutdown on Hannity: ‘This Is 100% the Democrats’

Mediaite.com:

Ann Coulter joined Sean Hannity Thursday night to take on what she views as a politically-motivated government shutdown, on the part of President Obama. Lamenting the closure of the World War II memorial and other “privately-run” sights, Coulter said, “This is absolutely 100% political.”

“He’s doing this to punish people so he can blame Republicans when it is 100% the Democrats,” Coulter continued. Picking up where Hannity left off in his previous segment, she said “the entire fight has come down to” whether Democrats will agree to “live under Obamacare” like the rest of America. 

Coulter explained why she was for a government shutdown to achieve this goal in 2013 when she was against it back when Newt Gingrich was leading the charge against President Bill Clinton. Most importantly, she said, conservative now own part of the media landscape. 

“There was no Fox News in 1995,” she said. “Nobody was on the internet. Talk radio wasn’t as big as it is now. If you look at the polls, even with 100% of the non-Fox media pushing the idea that it’s Republicans’” fault, the gap between those who blame Democrats and those who blame Republicans is far smaller than it was in 18 years ago.

And on Republicans who Hannity described as “giving in to the bullying” of President Obama and showing signs of compromise, Coulter asked, “Were they in a coma during the launch of the Obamacare exchanges? Have they seen what’s happening?”

RELATED:  Shutdowns have been frequent tools of policy. Just ask Reagan.

For Almost All in Congress, Government Shutdown Won’t Mean Losing Power in 2014

Mediaite.com:

Congress is less popular than car salesmen (the used variety). 

They are less popular than canals (the root variety). 

And less popular than colonoscopies (it’s assumed they’re referring to the prep portion). 

In the end, Congress’ approval rating currently stands at about 10 percent, according to a September 30th CNN poll. The government shutdown will drop that number even further. As a result, we keep hearing the same question asked on cable news this week: Why would a body so unpopular not try to do something, anything…to make themselves more likable? 

On the shutdown front, reports say there is no sense of urgency from either side of the aisle for a resolution.

Sure, the President just shortened a trip to Asia, but since declaring he isn’t willing to negotiate on anything, what’s the point in sticking around if meaningful dialogue (within these borders, anyway) is off the table? 

Back to the main point: So really, why would Congress risk sinking even further in the polls by allowing this shutdown to happen on its watch? 

Simple. 

There is no risk. 

Despite all the horrific poll numbers, did you know that 91 percent of members of the House get re-elected? The Senate is only slightly more of a ballgame, with 80 percent of its members getting another six years in power. In fact, in the past few election cycles, more incumbents have died in office than lost bids for reelection.

So when people ask why nothing changes inside the beltway, you now have your answer. Not unlike weathermen, they can be wrong more often than right and still get to keep their jobs. As noted in my last column that focused on the general public apathy around the shutdown, only 1/3 of Americans can name their member of Congress. 

Ah, but it’s better on the Senate side, right? Higher profiles and only two big names to remember for an entire state must be as easy to recall as the last two Super Bowl winners. 

OK, you saw this coming: Only 27 percent of the public can pass that test, according to a survey conducted by the New American Democracy last year. 

So while the public loathes Congress and the Senate, respectively, they aren’t particularly compelled enough–or inspired enough–or perhaps are too distracted–to actually do anything about it. 

As you know, branding is everything in this country: It’s what makes the Hillary Clinton machine so formidable (nearly 25 years in the national spotlight as First Lady, Senator, Presidential Candidate and Secretary of State). On the state and local level, it’s why an unknown has such a tough time knocking an incumbent out when trying to unseat him or her in the House or Senate. Very few folks vote in Congressional and Senate primaries (about 15 percent), making the wave of support needed to win almost impossible to form. 

Many in the media continue to ask how Congress can allow a shutdown to happen (and to a lesser extent, the President), who’s to blame, and most notably, who will pay the price at the polls come next year’s midterms. 

The answer to the last question—if history is any indication—is quite simple:

Hardly anyone. 

RELATED:  Shutdown crisis ignores the real problems

Obamacare Supporter Jon Stewart Lies About Government Shutdown, Typically Blames GOP For Everything

It's so easy to lie back and listen to a liberal celebrity lie and get their facts incorrect, esp. when the only reason you can't stand Republicans is because what the liberal press has told you about them:

Comedy Central funnyman Jon Stewart joined the legion of Democrats blaming the government shutdown on Republicans during “The Daily Show” on Monday evening. But while the host lambasted GOP lawmakers, he failed to get his facts straight.

Stewart discussed efforts by House Republicans to defund the Affordable Care Act and highlighted the GOP’s infatuation with the Constitution, noting Obamacare was enacted ‘literally by the book.’ But Stewart continued, ridiculing Republicans for blaming a potential shutdown on Democrats’ unwillingness to negotiate, when, according to him, it’s really the GOP’s fault.

“The government is going to shut down in 57 of your Earth minutes because House Republicans are refusing to fund the government unless the rest of Congress delays implementation of the Affordable Care Act otherwise known as Obamacare also known as the end of America as we know it for reasons no one is able to clearly explain,” Stewart said.

He then went on to note, despite news reports, that Republicans’ efforts are far from playing a game of chicken, but rather like “when someone is driving to work and there’s a car coming directly toward them in their lane.”

“That’s not a game of chicken,” Stewart said. “That’s an a**hole causing a head-on collision.”

The Comedy Central host also discussed President Obama’s willingness to negotiate with Iranian President Hassan Rouhani, but not House Republicans.

“If President Obama can make a deal with the most intransigent mullahs in the world but not House Republicans, maybe he’s not the problem,” Stewart said.

But Stewart failed to note that as the countdown to a government shutdown inched closer to zero, it was Senate Democrats who stymied any hope of negotiations. While the House worked into the early hours Sunday morning debating another continuing resolution that was passed to the Senate, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) refused to call his chamber into session early and convened the body Monday at 2 p.m. — with 10 hours left to a shutdown.

Additionally, as House Republicans moved to send the resolution before a conference committee late Monday night, Reid refused to send conferees and adjourned the Senate until 9:30 a.m. Tuesday.

And President Obama has said numerous times in prepared remarks he would not negotiate with House Republicans at all.

Additionally, House Republicans attempted to negotiate on Obamacare, calling for members of Congress to receive coverage under the law and looking for a one-year delay. Democrats, though, would not allow for it.

RELATED: Jon Stewart Shreds GOP Over Obamacare: ‘Utter Insanity,’ ‘It’s a F*cking Law!’

Democrat Official Allan Brauer Wishes ‘Debilitating, Painful, Incurable Diseases,’ on Kids of Ted Cruz Advisor

Mediaite.com:

Allan Brauer, the elected communications chair of the Democratic Party of Sacramento County, California, is not a fan of Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX). When speechwriter and advisor to Cruz, Amanda Carpenter, took to Twitter to rally Republicans in the Senate to support a bill which would defund the Affordable Care Act, Brauer expressed his frustration with this sentiment in no uncertain terms. 

“May your children all die from debilitating, painful and incurable diseases,” Brauer wrote. 

This sentiment ignited a firestorm on Twitter and many attacked Brauer for the inappropriateness of his comment. 

Rather than retract or apologize, Brauer proceeded to justify his actions in a subsequent tweet. 

Other organizations have highlighted Brauer’s propensity for making incendiary statements and using offensive language on Twitter to attack his political adversaries in the past. 

On Friday, the House passed a resolution to fund the government which would defund “Obamacare” by 230-189 votes. The bill will now head to the Senate where it is not expected to pass in its present form. 

UPDATE: After a number of tweets attacking the individuals who lashed out at Brauer for his offensive language, the Sacramento County Democratic official issued an apology to Carpenter. 

RELATED:  House passes GOP spending plan that defunds Obamacare

Democrats Losing Advantage Over GOP in Three Key Areas

Breitbart.com:

Today Gallup highlighted the results of three ongoing polls which showed that Democrats have lost their advantage over the GOP in three key areas.

First and most importantly the question of who can maintain American prosperity. Democrats held a big advantage on this measure in 2012 while Republicans in 2010-2011. Currently, having lost 9 points on this question, Democrats are at 42 percent while Republicans are holding steady at 43 percent.

Second, on the issue of security, Democrats had tied the GOP in 2012 but now trail. Gallup notes that the GOP traditionally does better on this issue and that the tie last year may have been the result of the timing of the poll which coincided with the Democratic convention. Nevertheless, the GOP now holds a 6 point lead on this issue.

The third question is which party is better able to address the "most important issue" whatever the respondent thinks that may be. Democrats held a significant advantage on this question last year but their numbers have plummeted 10 points since the election, from 49 to 39 percent. That said, they still hold a slight advantage over the GOP which is at 34 percent.

Gallup concludes by saying that the Democrats loss has not been the GOP's gain. Instead, more people have moved into a mushy middle positions saying there is no difference between the parties. Nevertheless, the Democrats have lost their 2012 advantages on key issues heading into next year's midterms. This has to be of concern to the DNC. 

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