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Rush Limbaugh: GOP ‘so irrelevant’ By: Mackenzie Weinger October 16, 2013 02:25 PM EDT Rush Limbaugh on Wednesday blasted the Republican Party as “irrelevant” and responsible for “creating one of the greatest political disasters” he’s ever seen. “I was trying to think earlier today, if ever in my life I could remember any major political party being so irrelevant,” the conservative radio host said on his show, according to a transcript. “I have never seen it. I have never seen a major political party simply occupy placeholders, as the Republican Party is doing.” Limbaugh slammed the Republican Party for consistently...

Damn those extreme Republicans. President Obama and White House press secretary Jay Carney have found Republicans guilty of extortion and blackmail. Joe Biden, per a report in Politico, once christened Republicans as terrorists. Liberals have led a media assault, calling the GOP anarchists, jihadists, "gun to head" hostage takers, and the political equivalent of the Taliban. White House advisor Dan Pfeiffer has likened Republicans to suicide bombers "with a bomb strapped to their chest." What could be more extreme? The Democratic Party. True, the Ted Cruz wing in the House of Representatives is relentless, uncompromising and unmoved by practicality. As...

Republican Senator John McCain ripped conservative Senator Ted Cruz tonight before the final senate vote to approve a budget plan. McCain was on with Greta Van Susteren. McCain has a long history of bashing his fellow Republican. [video]

Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Tex.) didn’t defund Obamacare. He drove a government shutdown. His party is tanking in the polls. But he couldn’t be happier. At a press conference on Wednesday, Cruz called the House’s actions a “remarkable victory” and a “profile in courage.” Cruz has emerged as the latest celebrity politician who doesn’t need big policy achievements to build his cred, but a following on the far right of his party.

WHAT AN ASS!!!!!!!!!!!

Buried inside the new stopgap spending bill are several pork project goodies, including nearly quadrupling the maximum price of a dam project on the Ohio River that is turning into a boondoggle — up to nearly $3 billion. The bill also includes $174,000 of taxpayer money being sent to the widow of the late Sen. Frank Lautenberg. The death gratuity, which has been paid to widows of other lawmakers in the past, raised hackles since Mr. Lautenberg was a multimillionaire, while the government is $16.7 trillion in debt. But lawmakers did nix one provision that was in an early draft...

Senate Republicans huddled Tuesday to discuss the latest on the fiscal crisis engulfing the Capitol, but two key members of their conference were missing from the lunch: Ted Cruz of Texas and Mike Lee of Utah. Multiple senators confirmed the absence of the two senators, who have led the crusade in the Senate to shred the president’s health care law. “I don’t account for their schedules,” Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) quipped when asked about Cruz and Lee’s absence. Cruz and Lee could become an obstacle to moving quickly on a fiscal deal in the Senate, where consent from all 100...

The US Senate has passed a bill to reopen the government and raise the federal debt limit, with hours to spare before the nation risks default. The Democratic-controlled Senate's bipartisan compromise won swift approval by 81 votes to 18. It will now be sent to the House of Representatives, whose Republican leadership has begrudgingly said it will support the measure. It comes hours before the deadline to raise the $16.7tn (£10.5tn) limit. President Barack Obama is set to speak shortly at the White House. The deal would extend the federal borrowing limit until 7 February and fund the government to...

Capitol Hill talk regarding the Senate deal apparently includes a provision that would take away the Congress’ power to increase the debt ceiling. According to Politico, it looks like the buzz appears to be true.: The plan includes a proposal offered by McConnell in the 2011 debt ceiling crisis that allows Congress to disapprove of the debt ceiling increase, which means lawmakers will formally vote on whether to reject a debt ceiling increase until Feb. 7. Obama can veto that legislation if it passes. If Congress fails as expected to gather a two-thirds majority to override the veto, the debt...

A proposal to end the government shutdown and avoid default orchestrated by Republican Leader Mitch McConnell and Democratic Leader Harry Reid includes a $2 billion earmark for a Kentucky project. Language in a draft of the McConnell-Reid deal (see page 13, section 123) provided to WFPL News shows a provision that increases funding for the massive Olmsted Dam Lock in Louisville from $775 million to nearly $2. 9 billion.

Senate leaders reached agreement Wednesday to avert a threatened Treasury default and reopen the government after a partial, 16-day shutdown, according to a Republican senator who also said the House might vote first on the plan to speed its approval. The New York Stock Exchange soared on the news that the threat of default was easing in, rising nearly 200 points by late morning. "I understand they've come to an agreement but I'm going to let the leader announce that," Sen. Kelly Ayotte, R-N.H........

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell are finalizing a deal to avert a debt default and reopen the government, capping a frantic day that had Washington bracing for an economic crisis of its own making. The deal is essentially done, sources say, as aides for the two leaders finish drafting the legislative language Tuesday night.

RUSH: I want to go back to the lady on the phone who says this doesn’t feel right. What’s happening here to the country just doesn’t feel right. You know what’s happened here? You know what this feels like, folks? I’ll tell you exactly what it feels like to me. You tell me if this isn’t close. It feels like we’ve lost a war to a communist country. It’s almost like there’s been a coup. There’s been a peaceful coup. The media has led this coup, and the Democrats have taken over with popular support. We’re getting policies and implementations...

Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee (D-Texas) on Wednesday morning said members of Congress are like the parents of everyone in the country and said these "parents" need to act quickly to protect their toddlers from the possible fallout of a debt default. "We, as custodians of this great nation, members of the United States Congress, are like parents," she said on the House floor. "And therefore I ask any parent that is listening: How long do they wait before they see a toddler fall, or do they leap toward that toddler so that they know the strength of that parent is...

In a 2003 speech, then Speaker Denny Hastert (R-Ill.) discussed his House management guidelines that became known as “The Hastert Rule.” The rule calls for a leader not to send legislation to the House floor for a vote unless it has the support of the majority of the majority. On Wednesday, with just hours left to raise the debt ceiling or risk default, House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio)–who has been holding fast to the Hastert Rule–has to decide whether to break it.

Sens. Cruz, Lee say they won't block deal By Mike Lillis - 10/16/13 12:38 PM ET Sens. Ted Cruz and Mike Lee said Wednesday that they won't try to block the bipartisan deal to reopen the government and raise the debt ceiling. "The timing of the vote will make no difference to the outcome," Cruz (R-Texas) said. "I have no intention of delaying the vote." Cruz and Lee (R-Utah) had spearheaded the campaign to attach ObamaCare language to any new budget bills, and had pushed their colleagues to take a hard-line stance. But the pair emerged from a meeting of...

Despite no evidence in financial markets of a default, House Speaker John Boehner (RINO-OH) will bring the Senate clean Continuing Resolution (CR) to The House floor for a vote. The endless spending and debt growth in Washington DC will continue now that the Senate has turned over the power of pursestrings to The President (once House Republicans agree). Obamacare was already a tremendous transfer of power and control to the Executive Branch, and now capitulating to President Obama gives the Executive Branch overwhelming power and control. In order to honor our career politicians in Congress and the Administration, the Washington...

Referring to his plan to preemptively send the Senate a House-passed bill, Speaker John Boehner told his conference this morning that he’d “rather throw a grenade than catch a grenade.” But with his right-wing troops abandoning him again, it was the speaker who was left holding the bomb. After a day of furious negotiating with fellow Republicans over how to tweak a bill he had unveiled in the morning, it was left to stunned members of his leadership team to confirm to reporters that the vote had been canceled. “They’re trying to work it out,” said Representative Greg Walden, the...

According to multiple reports, Senators Harry Reid and Mitch McConnell are close to a deal to reopen the federal government and lift the debt ceiling. The deal would fund the federal government through January 15, and lift the debt ceiling until February 15. Attached to that would be a pair of minor provisions. Republicans would get some kind of assurance that people can't lie about their income to get Obamacare, and Democrats would get the delay of a small "reinsurance tax" that was intended to expire after three years anyway (and which unions hated). This is a huge win for...

Aetna's CEO gave a harshly critical review Monday of the federal government's Obamacare marketplace, saying, "There's so much wrong, you just don't know what's broken until you get a lot more of it fixed." Asked on CNBC's "Squawk Box" if he knew that the rollout of Healthcare.gov would be problematic, the insurer's CEO, Mark Bertolini, said his giant company's role as an alpha tester for the system gave it a sense of how many problems the health insurance marketplace faced on the eve of its launch. "We were pretty nervous as we got further along," Bertolini said. "As they started...

All great empires – from the Greek, to the Roman, the Spanish and the British - have at their heart a dominant means of exchange which is very much part of their political and social hegemony. Once upon a time, it was Roman coinage which was the world's pre-eminent currency. In more recent times it was the British pound. Today, it's the US dollar to which international investors flock as a safe haven for their money. Highly liquid and apparently reliable – until recently at least – nothing else comes even remotely close to the greenback's dominant position in the...

Video: What is the Tea Party really trying to get out of slimdown?

Americans who want to honor and reflect upon the memory of the crew and passengers who perished aboard United Flight 93 on Sept. 11, 2001 will find that the federal government has blocked the road four miles down from the open-air memorial near Shanksville, Pa. CNSNews.com photographed the spot of the road closure this past weekend. The steel barrier blocking vehicles from passing says: “Because of the federal government shutdown, this National Park Service facility is closed.” …

The healthcare.gov website has been online for two weeks. But folks are having trouble signing up. One person who says she's been trying for two weeks straight to sign up is CNN senior medical correspondent Elizabeth Cohen. ..... Snip .....

Secession is not just for unreconstructed Confederates anymore. On both the right and the left, Americans increasingly see Washington as the problem and local autonomy as the solution. Despite all the talk, the federal government shutdown hasn’t greatly affected daily life for most Americans so far. Some have been hit hard, especially federal employees, those receiving certain benefit payments, and tourists planning to visit the Smithsonian or a national park. But as apocalypses go, a couple weeks without “non-essential” federal services has been underwhelming for most American families. Things could get worse if the closure were to extend from weeks...

A growing consensus of IT experts, outside and inside the government, have figured out a principal reason why the website for Obamacare’s federally-sponsored insurance exchange is crashing. Healthcare.gov forces you to create an account and enter detailed personal information before you can start shopping. This, in turn, creates a massive traffic bottleneck, as the government verifies your information and decides whether or not you’re eligible for subsidies. HHS bureaucrats knew this would make the website run more slowly. But they were more afraid that letting people see the underlying cost of Obamacare’s insurance plans would scare people away.

U.S. President Barack Obama speaks as he lends a hand during a visit to Martha's Table, a kitchen that provides meals for the needy, in Washington October 14, 2013. With Obama are furloughed workers Dolly Garcia (L) who works at the U.S. Census Bureau and Chantelle Britton who works at Health and Human Services. Obama said on Monday it appears there has been progress in Senate fiscal impasse negotiations but that there is a good chance the United States will default on its debts if Republicans are unwilling to set aside some partisan concerns. Where's HIS hair net? Why is...

President Barack Obama is demanding a $1.1 trillion "ransom"--or else he will not allow the debt ceiling to be raised. That's the effective offer on the table from the president and Senate Democrats. They have now refused to pass a "clean" short-term debt ceiling hike unless Republicans agree to reverse the "sequester" spending cuts in the 2011 Budget Control Act that were enacted--at Obama's suggestion--to end the last debt ceiling crisis. The president, who has invited congressional leaders to conduct talks at the White House Monday afternoon, still continues to insist that he "will not pay a ransom for Congress...

BEGIN TRANSCRIPT RUSH: And greetings to you, music lovers, thrill-seekers, conversationalists all across the fruited plain. Rush Limbaugh and the EIB Network, and the Limbaugh Institute For Advanced Conservative Studies. Great to be with you, folks. We are coming to you today from Los Angeles. We're here all week long, came out over the weekend. It's just a nice little change of pace, a couple super secret meetings and so forth and some people to see that we haven't seen in a while. We'll be out here in our secret basement confines for the balance of the busy broadcast week....

The White House official who exchanged confidential taxpayer information with the IRS is a longtime Obama advisor and progressive activist who is currently the most powerful official on Obamacare implementation within the White House. Jeanne Lambrew, deputy assistant to the president for health policy, entered Obama-world in 2008 as a health-policy adviser to then-Senator Obama’s presidential campaign. She was subsequently named deputy director and then director of the Department of Health and Human Services’ (HHS) now-defunct Office of Health Reform, where she reported directly to Kathleen Sebelius. Lambrew’s current “deputy assistant to the president” position, while modest-sounding, gives her extensive...

Can someone direct me to a factual article that says who exactly is control of what is 'shut down'. Does Obama decide or not?

Anyone old enough to remember Viet Nam can remember how the country felt toward the man and women who were sent to Southeast Asia to prosecute that war. They were treated like [as this is a family column] garbage. We have discussed before how, in the National Guard during those days, it was suggested that we wear civilian clothes to and from drills. Of all the dumb things the federal government has done during this partial shut down was to have shut down national parks, and national monuments. Some of the national monuments that have been shut down are the...

WASHINGTON — Several Republican senators said Sunday a Democratic request to increase government spending is hurting chances of a deal to end the 13-day-old shutdown. Leaders of the Democratic-led Senate were dismissive of a proposal Saturday, in part, because it kept in place for too long the automatic spending cuts that went into effect earlier this year. Another round of those decade-long cuts -- dubbed the sequester and approved by Congress and the White House in 2011 -- is expected in January. The Republican complaints came as Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., and Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., spoke...

Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) says he's disappointed that a plan negotiated by six Republicans and six Democrats was "squashed" by Democrat leaders on Saturday, just as the 12 were ready to announce it.He said Democrats "moved the goalpost in light of the polling data."Speaking on CBS's "Face the Nation" Sunday, McCain said, "We were ready to go to the press gallery, OK? The Democrat leadership said no. He joked that "maybe we need to get Joe Biden out of the witness protection program because he has good relationships with (the Democratic leadership)."Biden has not taken part in negotiations to fund...

Will the initiative remain with aggressive Southern reactionaries, as their fellow Americans try to appease them or react on a case-by-case basis against a feint here or a diversion there? Or will an aroused national majority, tired of being pushed around by a selfish Southern minority of the shrinking American white majority, finally fight back?When I have described the well-considered, coherent political and economic strategies of the conservative white South, as I have done here, here and here, I am sometimes been accused of being a “conspiracy theorist.” But one need not believe that white-hooded Dragons and Wizards are secretly...

Reports are that the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) is engaged in a massive, covert military buildup. An article in the Associated Press in February confirmed an open purchase order by DHS for 1.6 billion rounds of ammunition. According to an op-ed in Forbes, that’s enough to sustain an Iraq-sized war for over 20 years. DHS has also acquired heavily armored tanks, which have been seen roaming the streets. Evidently somebody in government is expecting some serious civil unrest. The question is, why? Recently revealed statements by former UK prime minister Gordon Brown at the height of the banking crisis...

Idaho GOP Rep. Raul Labrador was back in front of the TV cameras this morning, this time appearing on ABC's This Week With George Stephanopoulos. "We're four days away from reaching the debt ceiling. We gave the president an offer where we would extend the debt ceiling without any requirements ... and I don't see why the president is not accepting that or working with us," said Labrador. "I think it's been very difficult to work with [Obama]. He wouldn't even come to the table to negotiate." And Labrador wasted no time to bring the debate surrounding the federal government...

Face the Nation host Bob Schieffer interrogated Representative Tim Huelskamp (R-KA) on the House Republicans’ tactics to shutdown the government and test the breaching of the debt ceiling, challenging Huelskamp to name what, if anything, such measures had accomplished or were intended to accomplish. “At the end of the day, what we have accomplished?” Huelskamp said. “Not much yet. But we have to focus on Obamacare, and we have to focus on the underlying problem that’s been ignored for years, and that’s too much spending.” “But congressman, don’t you have to focus on keeping the government running?” Schieffer asked. When...

ST. PAUL, Minn. — With just a few days left before the federal government's supply of cash runs dangerously low, Minnesota's U.S. Senators remained in Washington for the weekend. In a speech on the Senate floor, DFL Sen. Al Franken said the government shutdown and debt ceiling showdown have distracted lawmakers from vital issues such as education and job training. "Every day that government stays shut down, every day we wake up under the threat of default, every day we spend focused on something that isn't spent working together to create jobs and rebuild the middle class is, in my...

WASHINGTON — Next year was supposed to be a prime opportunity for Republicans to retake the Senate. And for a while, everything seemed to be breaking their way: a wave of Democratic retirements, a fluke in the electoral map that put a large number of races in states that President Obama lost, a strong farm team of conservative Senate hopefuls from the House. Then the government shut down. Now, instead of sharpening their attacks on Democrats, Republicans on Capitol Hill are being forced to explain why they are not to blame and why Americans should trust them to govern both...

Rolling back the automatic budget cuts known as the "sequester" has emerged as a critical sticking point in the negotiations to reopen the government and avoid default. Democrats don't want to lock in 2014 government funding at the reduced level required by the sequester, but Republicans refuse to increase spending and say Democrats are overplaying their hand. “The dispute has been how to undo the sequester,” Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) said on "Face the Nation" on CBS on Sunday, explaining that Democrats want a mix of entitlement reforms and revenue increases. But Republican lawmakers on the Sunday talk shows vowed...

Veterans from every branch of the military have a message for our government. The message will be delivered in person at 9 a.m. on Sunday, Oct. 13, in Washington, D.C. and at war memorials all across the nation. The Million Vet March on the Memorials is a grassroots movement started by five military brats, a term used to describe children of military members, to honor the nation's veterans.

With the federal government shut down, air traffic controllers learned Friday that they'll be working without a paycheck until lawmakers start paying the bills again. “We have a stressful job, this just adds to it,” said 26 year veteran air traffic controller Greg Colyer. Colyer says after working an 80 hour pay period was stunned to see on his statement Friday that he had only been paid for 56 hours; right up until midnight October 1st. He's worried what will happen if the shutdown stretches through the next pay period. “In 2 weeks if congress doesn't pass a budget we're...

My heart is just sick over this. The Pentagon just admitted that those heart-rending “arrival ceremonies” at Joint Base Pearl Harbor-Hickam in Hawaii, wherein an honor guard carries off a cargo plane the flag-draped coffins supposedly containing the remains of soldiers killed in battle ARE ALL STAGED. The coffins are empty. Even the cargo planes are fake — they don’t fly. ~Eowyn (Just phony theater: An honor detail comprised of joint military members prepares to escort the remains of fallen servicemembers who died during World War II and the Vietnam War during an arrival ceremony April 26, 2013, hosted by...

If Washington Post writer, Sarah Kliff, of the WonkBlog had been the music director aboard the Titanic, the last tune played on the deck of the sinking ship would probably have been Happy Days Are Here Again. I make that claim because Ms Kliff has taken upon herself the role as pollyannish cheerleader for the "train wreck" known as ObamaCare. In her latest desperate search for a nonexistent silver lining, Kliff has conjured up what she imagines to be an indication that young people might, could be, maybe, possibly are interested in signing up for ObamaCare. Here is Kliff imagining...

Inspired by Chris Cox, a South Carolina native who has been cleaning up the National Mall amid the partial government shutdown — mowing the lawns, taking out the trash, and keeping it from falling into a disgraceful state — Beck told his listeners on Friday: “This is not a political rally, this is a workday … Grab your garbage bags and let’s go. And we’ll just help this guy keep the Mall clean.” Beck is scheduled to speak at the event at 10:45, directly following Senator Mike Lee (R-Utah). But Beck explained on radio Friday that the speeches will be...

House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan lashed out at Senate Republicans for interfering with the House GOP’s talks with the White House to reopen the government and lift the debt ceiling, suggesting his colleagues on the other side of the Capitol were betraying Speaker John Boehner. “They’re trying to cut the House out, and trying to jam us with the Senate. We’re not going to roll over and take that,” Ryan told reporters. When asked if he felt “double crossed,” Ryan said “you look at the facts and draw your own conclusions.” Senate Republicans, led by Senator Susan Collins of...

"...................But perhaps the most extraordinary story to emerge from the NPS is that of the tour group of foreign seniors whose bus was trapped in Yellowstone Park on the day the shutdown began. They were pulled over photographing a herd of bison when an armed ranger informed them, with the insouciant ad-hoc unilateral lawmaking to which the armed bureaucrat is distressingly prone, that taking photographs counts as illegal “recreation.” “Sir, you are recreating,” the ranger informed the tour guide. And we can’t have that, can we? They were ordered back to the Old Faithful Inn, next to the geyser of...

A group of truckers left Doswell, Virginia Friday morning to take part in the ‘Ride for the Constitution’ in Washington, D.C. They planned to join truckers from across the country slowing down traffic around the nation’s capital. Virginia State Police, who beefed up patrols ahead of the planned demonstration, pulled over at least one group of truckers, according to WTOP.com. “Four commercial vehicles began driving side-by-side across all four northbound lanes of I-495 on the Inner Loop slowing traffic to 15 mph. Virginia State Police stopped the four tractor-trailers at the 53 mile marker (Fairfax County) and warned them not...