Month: September 2013

Sun Sets on Summers’ Fed Nomination

Buck Banks

I have reluctantly concluded that any possible confirmation process for me would be acrimonious and would not serve the interest of the Federal Reserve, the Administration or, ultimately, the interests of the nation’s ongoing economic recovery.

— Former Treasury Secretary Lawrence Summers, pulling out of the contest to succeed Ben Bernanke as chairman of the Federal Reserve, the Wall Street Journal reports.

Majority Now Opposes Obamacare — Because They Don’t Understand It

Buck Banks

53%

Of Americans disapprove of President Obama’s health care law while 42% approve, a new USA Today/Pew Research survey finds. Key findings: “The 53% of the public who disapprove of the law are divided over what they would like elected officials who oppose the law to do now that the law has begun to take effect. About half of disapprovers (27% of the public overall) say these lawmakers ‘should do what they can to make the law work as well as possible,’ but nearly as many (23% of the public) say these officials ‘should do what they can to make the law fail.'”

Congressional Rank-and-File Resistance Bodes Ill for the Fall

Buck Banks

It’s almost as though it was the end of traditional power. I’ve been here for 20 years, and I’ve never seen so much of a repudiation of the conventional sources of power in the legislative or executive branch. It portends for a much more chaotic fall.

— Rep. James Moran (D-VA), quoted by the Washington Post, on the rank-and-file resistance to both President Obama and Speaker John Boehner on Capitol Hill.

Ted Cruz Calls for Electing a Senate of 100 Jim Crow Racists and Homophobes Like the Late Jesse Helms

Jon Ponder

Visit NBCNews.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Back in the Bush era, GOP Sen. Trent Lott of Mississippi lost his job as Senate majority leader after he remarked that the United States “wouldn’t have had all these problems” with African Americans if only S.C. Sen. Strom Thurmond had been elected president when Thurmond ran on the segregationist Dixiecrat Party ticket in 1948.

But Thurmond, who had turned 100 years old at the time Lott made that career-killing remark — had long ago swung decidedly to the left on civil rights, in part because he needed African-American votes to get elected and possibly because at least one of his children was black.

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House Republicans Call Out Senate Republicans Over Government Shutdown Plan

Trish

Does Ted Cruz have a plan to get 41 votes? Does he have a strategy he’s executing on to get 41 votes? Not that I’m aware of. Has he ever come to the House leadership and said, ‘Here’s my plan to get 41 votes in the Senate, to hold the line so we can defund Obamacare?’ Never. No. He’s just on his twitter account attacking House Republicans.

A frustrated but anonymous “GOP leadership aide” to NBC News, criticizing tea party Republicans vying for the 2016 presidential race, like Texas Sen. Ted Cruz and Florida Sen. Marco Rubio, who want to shut down the government (or at least pretend their goal isn’t to gain political advantage) in yet another attempt to derail the Affordable Care Act.