Tag Archives: Lindsey Graham

Coulter: Boston suspect’s widow ‘ought to be in prison for wearing a hijab’

Republican columnist Ann Coulter expresses her dislike of immigrants on Fox News’s “Hannity.” Photo: Screenshot via FoxNews.com.

Why did she crawl from under her bug infested rock…?

The Raw Story

Appearing on Fox News Republican talk show “Hannity” Monday night, right-wing columnist Ann Coulter said she’s sad that not only does she think the Boston bombing should shut down the nation’s immigration reform debate, she would like to see the alleged bomber’s widow in jail too, not for committing a crime but for “wearing a hijab.”

“I don’t care if she knew about this,” Coulter said. “She ought to be in prison for wearing a hijab. This immigration policy of us, you know, assimilating immigrants into our culture isn’t really working. They’re assimilating us into their culture. Did she get a clitorectomy too?”

Hannity seemed momentarily puzzled at the sudden citation of female genital mutilation, stammering his reply. “I, uh, I don’t know the answer to that,” he said before confidently adding: “But your point is well taken.”

Hannity went on to say that he believes people who immigrated “from countries where perhaps they grew up under Sharia law” are definitely a threat and “I think we can make a safe assumption that they have been radicalized.” He added that even foreign students should be subjected to greater scrutiny, lest they too pose a threat.

“Our immigration policy has nothing to do with helping America,” Coulter insisted. “It has to do with solving the internal problems of other countries. We’ll take Russia’s radicals. We’ll take the illiterate, unskilled, low-skill workers from all these countries. We’ll take their old people and put them on our supplemental security and Medicare. No, immigration policies are supposed to make your country better, not to make it worse and to create all these problems.”

“Lindsey Graham was on some show this week saying this shows we need better tracking,” she continued. “I’m thinking this means we need better immigrants.”

Coulter and Hannity are just the latest conservatives to jump on the idea that because the Boston bombing suspects were born overseas, the nation’s whole immigration reform debate must shift gears into more regressive policy proposals, or just shut down in Congress altogether, as it did on Monday.

Fellow Republican talker Laura Ingraham said as much on Monday afternoon, suggesting that the U.S. shut down all immigration from majority Muslim nations. “I would submit that people shouldn’t be coming here as tourists from Chechnya after 9/11,” she said. “Dagistan, Checnya, Kergystan, uh-uh. As George Bush would say, ‘None of them stans.’”

Both Boston bombing suspects came to the U.S. legally as children. Authorities say there is not yet any evidence linking them to any foreign terrorist organizations, but an investigation is still ongoing.

Additionally, the Partnership for a New American Economy said last year that about one in 10 Americans worked for an immigrant-owned business in 2012, which contributed more than $775 billion to the U.S. economy and over $125 billion in payroll.

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Filed under Ann Coulter, Fox News

Top Republican: Conservatives Are Too Scared To Debate Popular Gun Safety Bill

No surprise there…

Think Progress

Sen. Johnny Isakson (R-GA) joined the growing chorus of lawmakers calling for conservative to allow a vote on gun safety legislation, telling CBS’ This Morning on Tuesday, “we have not seen the final draft of the legislation that was produced…I think it deserves an vote up or down.”

But 14 Republicans — including Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (KY) — have pledged to filibuster any comprehensive gun safety legislation, though all refused to appear on CBS to discuss their opposition, Norah O’Donnell reported. Gun advocates are running online campaigns calling on lawmakers to prevent the package from ever being considered, though a vote on the motion to proceed to the legislation could occur on Tuesday or Wednesday.

Rep. Peter King (R-NY) — one of the only Republicans in the House to support the gun package — added that the filibuster effort is “wrong” and “makes it seem like they’re afraid of something.” “I don’t know what they’re afraid of, but if they’re so sure of their position, let it come to a debate,” King said on CNN.

Sens. John McCain (R-AZ), Tom Coburn (R-OK) and Lindsey Graham (R-SC) have also condemned the obstruction, arguing that the measure should come to a vote since Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) will allow senators to offer amendments to the legislation. The bill will expand restrictions against gun trafficking, invest in school safety and provide for universal background checks of all gun purchases, though the final version of that provision is still being negotiated. Polls indicate that more than 90 percent of Americans support background checks on all gun purchases.

“They’re not just saying they’ll vote no on ideas that almost all Americans support,” Obama said Monday of the filibuster threat during a speech in Connecticut. “They’re saying they’ll do everything they can to even prevent any votes on these provisions. They’re saying your opinion doesn’t matter, and that’s not right.” Some pundits are making a similar case, arguing that the party is undermining its rebranding effort and siding with “rapists” and criminals in the gun debate.

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John McCain And Lindsey Graham Just Ripped Into Rand Paul On The Senate Floor

McCain Senate

Looks like there’s a battle brewing in Congress between the old guard and the new guard.

Business Insider

U.S. Sen. John McCain blasted fellow Republican Rand Paul on the Senate floor this morning for his 13-hour filibuster to block John Brennan‘s confirmation as CIA Director.

“Calm down, Senator,” McCain said, in an apostrophe to Paul. “The U.S. government cannot randomly target U.S. citizens.”

In his filibuster Wednesday, Paul criticized the White House over its drone policies, and for refusing to rule out military strikes against U.S. citizens on American soil.

McCain, a staunch foreign policy hawk, said Thursday that Paul’s warnings that the U.S. could target “Jane Fonda” or “people in cafes” bring the debate into the “realm of the ridiculous.”

“If Mr. Paul wants to be taken seriously he needs to do more than pull political stunts that fire up impressionable libertarian kids,” McCain said, adding: “I don’t think what happened yesterday is helpful to the American people.”

Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) echoed these criticisms, adding that he was “disappointed” in the 13 Republican Senators who supported Paul’s filibuster last night.

Graham later told reporters that he will vote to confirm Brennan as a result of the filibuster.

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Obama Circumventing Republican Leaders To Revive Sequester Talks

09020_graham_barr

Well, I say Bravo!  Nothing wrong with trying something different.  GOP “leaders” are hog-tied by the Tea Party.  Good luck Mr. President!

Alan Colmes’ Liberaland

With the Republican leadership not engaging with the president, Obama is reaching out to a dozen Republicans to revive talks.

Mr. Obama has invited about a dozen Republican senators out to dinner on Wednesday night, after speaking with several of them by phone in recent days, according to people familiar with the invitation. And next week, according to those people and others who did not want to be identified, he will make a rare foray to Capitol Hill to meet separately with the Republican and Democratic caucuses in both the Democratic-controlled Senate and the Republican-controlled House.

Since the weekend, the president has called at least a half-dozen Republican lawmakers, mostly senators, in a bid to revive talks toward a long-term deficit-reduction agreement and to press for action on other issues, including immigration, gun safety and climate measures.

“Maybe because of sequestration and frustration with the public, the time is right to act, and what I see from the president is probably the most encouraging engagement on a big issue since the early days of his presidency,” said Senator Lindsey Graham, Republican of South Carolina, who received a call from Mr. Obama on Tuesday.

Speaking of the deficit reduction impasse, Mr. Graham added, “He wants to do the big deal.”

Mr. Obama’s call to Mr. Graham followed other conversations with Senators Susan Collins of Maine, Tom Coburn of Oklahoma, Rob Portman of Ohio and Bob Corker of Tennessee, all Republicans. Mr. Corker called his conversation with the president “constructive.”

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Blog Roundup – 2-11-2013

 

Yep, It’s a Problem
We all know Chris Christie is a bit of a hothead. I mean, it’s a bit like saying a h.

 

The Tea Party Fades
Ezra Klein : “The Republican establishment is reasserting control. It’s purging some..

 

The World After Hillary
She changed the game irrevocably, and now she’s about to transform it again—by walkin..

Don’t fall for GOP’s sequester bluff
John Boehner’s office is circulating Charles Krauthammer’s column today, ..

 

L.A. manhunt reminiscent of D.C. sniper case
For those who worked the Beltway sniper case in Washington a little more than a decad..

 

Wife drops gun at McDonald’s, accidentally shoots husband
Guns in schools. What could possibly go wrong? .

Obama weighing executive actions on housing, gays and other issues
President Obama is considering a series of new executive actions aimed at working ar..

 

Marco Rubio emerges as GOP’s star. But is he the answer for Republican..
Lately, it seems just about everyone is fascinated by the junior senator from Florid..

 

Video: GOP ritualizes penitent post-election outreach to African-Ameri..
Melissa Harris-Perry reports on the latest Republican outreach to African-Americans ..

 

Lindsey Graham To Place Hold On National Security Nominees Over Bengha..
Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) is threatening to place a hold on key administration nati..

 

 

 

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Why President Obama is picking fights with Congress

President Obama is pictured. | AP Photo

It would be a mistake to attribute all of Obama’s actions to dispassionate tactics. | AP Photo

  • Because revenge is a dish best served cold?
  • He hates them for making him look weak these past four years?
  • Because he can?
  • All of the above?

Politico

Barack Obama is looking for a few good fights.

Obama, the same president who campaigned twice on breaking the cycle of conflict in Washington, sees the utility — even the necessity — of rattling Republican cages as he plunges into a succession of upcoming battles over the nomination of Chuck Hagel as secretary of defense, the debt ceiling, $1 trillion in automatic budget cuts, immigration reform and gun control.

(Also on POLITICO: Senate vs. President Obama over Cabinet)

Obama’s willingness to take a more overtly adversarial stance is, in part, a nod to the reality that he’s about to start his second term with solid approval numbers — “Hit now, as hard as you can, because your power starts to die in six, eight months,” according to a top aide to a Senate Republican who has often locked horns with the White House.

That entails taking a tough line with the Hill GOP on Hagel — who has vowed to battle “distortions” of his record on Iran and Israel — and stiff-arming the GOP at the start of negotiations over the debt ceiling and across-the-board spending cuts. It’s less clear whether Obama will be quite as bellicose on issues that require a more subtle approach, like immigration, guns and climate change, although his aides are talking tough.

(Also on POLITICO: Why Obama picked Hagel)

Picking a few choice fights “is a very good strategy if you know that applying all that pressure gets you the result you are looking for,” said former White House press secretary Robert Gibbs, an adviser to Obama’s 2012 campaign. “But if you pick a fight, you have to be sure the tactic helps ensure the result you want rather than making it harder to achieve.”

There’s also a long-term strategy: Two months after a decisive presidential win, Obama and his party already are eyeing the 2014 midterms. Highlighting the contrasts between the White House and congressional Republicans could flip the House back to Democrats, giving Obama a final two-year governing majority that bookends the one he enjoyed during his first two years in office.

But it would be a mistake to attribute all of Obama’s actions to dispassionate tactics. After four-plus years of embittered partisan combat, he views his GOP bargaining partners with more than a little contempt, and he momentarily vanquished enemies who just can’t say “yes” to him.

His apparent conclusion, after watching the implosion of the House GOP’s effort to pass a modest tax increase before the final fiscal cliff deal, is that the best way to deal with the Capitol is to throw rocks at it — then send Vice President Joe Biden in to clean up the glass.

(PHOTOS: What they’re saying about Chuck Hagel)

“There are 536 people who will be negotiating deals — the House, the Senate and the president,” an Obama aide said. “Only one of them isn’t running for reelection again. That gives us leverage.”

Republicans see parallels between Obama’s recent tough-guy stance — he practically dared the GOP to shoot down Hagel, one of their own, during an East Room ceremony Monday — and his aggressive push for the stimulus and health reform bills early in his first term.

Continue on to page 2…

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Lindsay Graham: I Will Destroy America’s Solvency Unless The Social Security Retirement Age Is Raised

How much clearer can the GOP get with their extortion threats to American citizens?  Graham is a Senator with enough clout to back up his threat.  This is shameful…

Think Progress

Although official Washington is currently fixated on the so-called “Fiscal Cliff,” the biggest threat to American prosperity is the debt ceiling, which must be raised in February to prevent economic catastrophe. If Republicans refuse to reach a deal on the so-called cliff, the Congressional Budget Office predicts that they will spark a new recession in 2013. But if Republicans block action on the debt ceiling, they will make that potential recession look quaint. Without raising the debt ceiling, the United States will be forced to embrace austerity so severe it will lead to “a bigger GDP drop than that experienced during the Great Recession of 2008.”

But in an interview on Fox News Sunday this morning, Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) threatened to oppose this must-pass bill unless Social Security benefits are taken away from millions of future retirees:

I’m not going to raise the debt ceiling unless we get serious about keeping the country from becoming Greece, saving Social Security and Medicare [sic]. So here’s what i would like: meaningful entitlement reform — not to turn Social Security into private accounts, not to take a voucher approach to Medicare — but, adjust the age for Social Security, CPI changes and means testing and look beyond the ten-year window. I cannot in good conscience raise the debt ceiling without addressing the long term debt problems of this country and I will not.

Watch it:

This is extortion, plain and simple. It is the budgetary equivalent of threatening to break America’s legs unless Congress agrees to break the backs of millions poised on the edge of retirement. Graham’s position is that seniors should have to wait longer for their retirement benefits — even if they work in physically demanding jobs that literally tear the body apart by the time a worker reaches age 65 — and that those benefits should be reduced in the future.

And if Congress won’t agree to this deal, then Graham is prepared to thrust the nation into an economic calamity unheard of since the Great Depression.

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On debt ceiling, Graham vows to ‘play that game’

Why is Senator Lindsay Graham and other knucklehead Republicans in Congress so damned myopic?

The Maddow Blog

With memories of last year’s brutal debt-ceiling crisis very much on his mind, President Obama said last week, “We can’t afford to go there again.” He added, “The only thing the debt ceiling is good as a weapon for is destroying your credit rating…. I will not play that game.”

This morning on Fox News, Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) responded, “Yes, we will play that game.”

For those who can’t watch clips online, Graham’s on-air comments about the “rude awakening” awaiting the White House were pretty remarkable.

“In February or March you have to raise the debt ceiling. And I can tell you this, there is a hardening on the Republican side. We’re not going to raise the debt ceiling. We’re not going to let Obama borrow any more money or any American Congress borrow any more money until we fix this country from becoming Greece. And that requires significant entitlement reform to save Social Security and Medicare from bankruptcy. Social Security is going bankrupt in about 20, 25 years. Medicare is going bankrupt in 15 or 20 years. [...]

“Yes, we will play that game, Mr. President, because it’s not a game. The game you’re playing is small ball. You’re talking about raising rates on the top 2% that would run the government for 11 days. You just got re-elected. How about doing something big that’s not liberal? How about doing something big that really is bipartisan? Every big idea he has is a liberal idea that drowns us in debt. How about manning up here, Mr. President and use your mandate to bring this country together to stop us from becoming Greece.”

It’s rare for a prominent public official to put this much nonsense into a 90-second television appearance. Graham’s comments make absolutely no sense, and his threat to hurt the nation on purpose is, for lack of a better word, nuts.

“We’re not going to let Obama borrow any more money”? Actually, as Graham should know, raising the debt ceiling is about paying the bills for spending that’s already happened.

“Social Security and Medicare” are going bankrupt? No, actually they’re not.

The United States is at risk of “becoming Greece”?  That’s just plainly stupid.

Continue reading here…

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It’s immoral to cut Medicare to pay for George Bush’s lies

I couldn’t agree more with John Aravosis of America Blog.

The following article is spot on in it’s condemnation of the Obama administration considering possible Medicare cuts to help pay for the deficit which in fact, was brought on by two unpaid wars and an unpaid prescription program during the George W. Bush administration.

Aravosis correctly attributes George W. Bush’s lies in the lead up to the Iraq war and the subsequent neglect of the Afghanistan initiative, to the approximate 3 trillion dollar cost of both wars which ultimately led to a soaring deficit.  Not to mention the ten year, unpaid for Bush Tax Cuts, all of which got us into this deficit mess in the first place…

America Blog

I cannot believe that Democrats are even considering raising the eligibility age for Medicare as part of the “fiscal cliff” negotiations.

First off, $15bn a year is hardly significant savings, and that’s what you save (at a maximum – some argue it’s significantly less) when you raise the Medicare eligibility age from 65 to 67: a whopping $15bn a year.

Bush tax cuts and Iraq, Afghanistan are causing the deficitBush tax cuts and Iraq, Afghanistan are causing the deficit.

You know how much George Bush’s little venture in Iraq has been costing us per year? In FY 2011, $46 billion.  That’s three times the savings from cutting Medicare.

And overall, the damn war is going to cost us $3 trillion,  according to Joe Stiglitz. $3 trillion for George Bush’s lie. But let’s cut all of our Medicare coverage for two years in order to pay for the Republican party’s lie of the decade, along with their other lie of the decade, Bush’s tax cuts, that supposedly were going to pay for themselves.

The tax cuts and the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan combined eat up the lion’s share of the deficit over the coming years.  (See the chart to the right.) So let’s cuts Medicare instead!

Just to be clear, those tax cuts and Bush’s little wars are going to be paid for by cutting your and my Medicare coverage.

Nice.

You don’t see John McCain and Lindsey Graham calling for any hearings on why were lied to about any of those subjects, do you?

Continue reading here…

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Filed under George W. Bush Wars, Medicare

Norquist Issues Tea Party Threat In Warning To Obama

Oh, Mr. President.  Be afraid, be very afraid.  Not…

The Huffington Post

As elected officials from both sides of the partisan aisle embed themselves in fiscal cliff negotiations, Americans for Tax Reform President Grover Norquist remains at the center of the conversation.

In a Sunday roundtable discussion on NBC’s “Meet The Press,” Norquist issued a warning to President Barack Obama.

“Tea party two is going to dwarf tea party one if Obama pushes us off the cliff,” Norquist said. “Let’s not pretend who’s pushing us over the cliff.”

Thanks to his anti-tax pledge, Norquist has been a prime target since fiscal cliff discussions picked up steam in November. Democrats have gone so far as to create an online petition against Norquist.

Several Republicans, headed by Sens. Saxby Chambliss (R-Ga.) and Lindsey Graham(R-S.C.) have broken away from Norquist’s pledge. Despite those movements,Norquist vowed last Monday that “nobody is turning on me.”

 

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