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"Do the Republican and Democratic parties do an adequate job of representing the American people, or do they do such a poor job that a third major party is required?" A record 60% of Americans now yearn for a third major party, according to Gallup. Independents, unsurprisingly, are most likely to favor a third party, but a majority of self-described Republicans say yes, too. But what do they mean by that "yes"? (snip) But here's a caution about third parties in American history: They are much more likely to arise on the fringes of the political system, not the center....

1) We can contribute to the Lonegan campaign HERE. ( https://loneganforsenate.com/secure-contribution.php ) 2) Anyone living in or close to New Jersey can GET INVOLVED HERE. ( http://www.loneganforsenate.com/volunteer-sign-up/ ) 3) Anyone with a telephone can volunteer to make calls from home HERE. ( https://www.loneganforsenate.com/phonefromhome/ ) Sarah wrote on Facebook today: The momentum is on Steve Lonegan’s side coming into next Wednesday’s election in New Jersey! Please visit Steve’s website to find ways to help out. It was such an honor to rally for Steve yesterday in NJ. Thank you again to everyone who came to join us – including “The Great...

The key bit comes at the very end, in response to a question about who’s responsible for the temporary suspension of death benefits to families of fallen troops. McCain’s answer: Everyone in Congress — but, implicitly, especially the “defund” caucus. You can tell how eager Maverick was to make that point by how quickly he turns a segment about the administration giving short shrift to the military — normally an easy lay-up for a Republican against a Democratic president — into a lament about Cruz et al. I’m not sure a guy who’s positioned himself as the lead Republican opponent...

Via RCP. Wait, wait, wait — before you start shaking your first at him, isn’t his point here oddly simpatico with what tea partiers say every day about Beltway squishes like King himself? It all depends on what benchmark you use to define “Republican.” The Republican establishment of the past 10 years has been fiercely interventionist, willing to bend on civil liberties in the name of fighting terrorism, and happy to back new entitlement programs like Medicare Part D so long as their guy’s in the White House. Rand Paul, by contrast, tilts towards isolationism, wants to sue the NSA...

Senator John McCain has been one of the strongest Republican voices in Congress opposing the conservative efforts to repeal, defund, or delay Obamacare. He took to the Senate floor on Tuesday to continue pressing that point, as well as scolding Congress and saying they should all be “ashamed” for allowing the government shutdown to keep going. McCain was set off by the news that during the shutdown, military benefits are being held up. He said Congress is so unpopular that “we’re down to blood relatives and paid staffers” at this point, asking his colleagues, “Shouldn’t we be embarrassed about this?...

A Johnson County Republican and second cousin of President Barack Obama is expected to move ahead Tuesday with planning for a primary challenge to U.S. Sen. Pat Roberts, of Kansas. Milton Wolf, who advocates for a divinely inspired return to limited government and individual liberty, invited supporters to a "major announcement" regarding the 2014 Senate campaign at an Overland Park hotel. The event will feature a performance by “American Idol” singer Krista Branch. Wolf, a 42-year-old physician and a political novice, could highlight in Kansas the division playing out nationally among tea party conservatives and others in the Republican Party....

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid should do the job he was elected to do and quit lecturing Republicans, says former Florida GOP Rep. Joe Scarborough. "Harry Reid should really be quiet and go back and do the job that he was hired to do, and, at least, pass one appropriation bill. And then come out lecturing us," Scarborough, the host of MSNBC's "Morning Joe," said on his program Tuesday. "I hear Harry Reid lecturing [House Speaker] John Boehner every day about getting things done. And Harry Reid's Senate that Harry Reid runs, first of all, went four or five years...

Who's to blame for the government shutdown?-- View Results

Morning Joe co-host Mika Brzezinski told fellow panelists Monday she thought that Sen. Ted Cruz (R., Texas) and Republicans like him don’t love the country because of their battles to defund Obamacare that she believes led to the government shutdown, drawing the ire of host Joe Scarborough. “That shows just how much they hate him and don’t love the country, and that’s what’s scary about this,” she said. “If they actually go through with this, this is about something else.” “Are you saying they don’t love the country?” Scarborough asked. “Are you saying they do? Ted Cruz and his group...

Obstructionism may play well for House Republicans in safely red districts, but a poll done this week suggests that the government shutdown may actually hurt Representatives in competitive districts. In a poll conducted in 24 House districts over Wednesday, Thursday and Friday by Public Policy Polling, registered voters in 17 of those districts favored a generic Democratic challenger over the incumbent Republican. The Democrats would need to win 17 seats in the 2014 midterm elections to take control of the House. Republicans have felt the brunt of the public’s anger for the standoff over the government shutdown. Polls released last...

Simple and unadulterated hatred for Obama has driven the party to alienate the electorate by shutting the government down over their opposition to Obamacare.As I watched the deadlock over the approval of government expenditure finally lead to a partial shutdown of the US government, I could not help thinking how unfortunate it is that US lawmakers are behaving in ways unbecoming of their great and dynamic democracy. At stake in this incomprehensible showdown between Republicans and Democrats is the much-needed Congressional approval to government expenditure. The Republicans, under the sway of a minority of right-wing diehards, decided to use blackmail...

The vision of democracy is that the federal budget—and all activities of the federal government—reflects the values of a majority of Americans. Yet most people feel that the federal budget does not currently reflect their values and that the budgeting process is too complex to understand. It is indeed a complicated process. Many forces shape the federal budget, some of them are forces written into law—like the president’s role in drafting the budget—while other forces stem from the realities of our political system.

The tea party senator and his allies campaigned on the promise to revolutionize Washington — so why is everyone so surprised they’re trying to do it? And on the third day, Ted Cruz looked upon his creation, and he saw that it was good. Yes, Congressional negotiations had devolved into a manic game of finger-pointing that centered on cancer-patient gaffes and pitched battles over war memorials; hundreds of thousands of federal workers had been sent home without paychecks; and Republicans were continuing to cling stubbornly to a list of extraordinary demands that Democrats flatly refuse to entertain. With the country...

Dear Ms. xxxx: Thank you for contacting me regarding the Continuing Resolution (CR) and defunding of Obamacare. I know how passionately Texans feel about this issue, and I appreciate the benefit of your comments. All Americans should be exempt from the onerous and costly provisions of Obamacare and the best way to do this is to repeal and defund the law in its entirety. Texans continue to share with me real-life examples of how this law is hurting businesses, killing jobs, and burdening individuals with costlier premiums. All Americans should receive relief from this law, so I was pleased when...

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell tells Newsmax TV in an exclusive interview that Democrats are feverishly raising money to defeat his re-election bid because "I'm a thorn in the side of the president," especially when it comes to trying to defund Obamacare. "I'm sure they'd like to defeat me," the Kentucky Republican tells Newsmax. "I'm frankly proud of my enemies." Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid is among several prominent Democrats and their supporters who are raising millions to stop the five-term McConnell in his election next year against Democratic Senate candidate Alison Lundergan Grimes.

A striking aspect of the new Pew survey on Jewish Americans is how liberal Jews are. Is it good for the Democrats? You bet.Why do people vote the way to do? For swing voters, the answer is usually the state of the economy. For most, however, voting patterns are surprisingly fixed. People tend to vote for one party consistently over time. For Jewish American voters, the party of choice has been the Democratic party. Conservatives have been trying to crack the code for a number of years on how to get Jewish voters over to their side. Based on the...

Sarah Palin, former Republican vice presidential candidate and a prominent voice of the right, has endorsed New Jersey U.S. Senate candidate Steve Lonegan, his campaign announced Wednesday night. Palin's endorsement took aim at Newark Mayor Cory Booker, the Democratic candidate, who leads in polls. She said unemployment, taxes, and violent crime all have grown during Booker's term in office. "In fairness, [he] may not have noticed these facts between his constant tweeting and trips to Hollywood," Palin said in a statement released by the Lonegan campaign. She praised Lonegan for cutting taxes as mayor of Bogota and his work as...

A House minority from white districts want to destroy the first black president, and the GOP majority abets them. On the day the Affordable Care Act takes effect, the U.S. government is shut down, and it may be permanently broken. You’ll read lots of explanations for the dysfunction, but the simple truth is this: It’s the culmination of 50 years of evolving yet consistent Republican strategy to depict government as the enemy, an oppressor that works primarily as the protector of and provider for African-Americans, to the detriment of everyone else. The fact that everything came apart under our first...

Republicans have plenty of reasons to dislike Obamacare already, but they haven’t focused on one that could affect them in 2014 and beyond: anyone signing up for insurance under the Affordable Care Act will also have a chance to register to vote. Before folks start accusing Democrats of engaging in a vast left-wing conspiracy, it’s worth noting this quirk stems from the National Voter Registration Act of 1993 (better known as the “Motor Voter” law, because it allowed all Americans to register to vote while renewing their driver’s license). According to Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services spokesman Brian Cook,...

The other voices. Members of the Flagler County Democratic Club will gather at noon Tuesday in front of the Flagler County Health Department on Dr. Carter Boulevard in Bunnell to celebrate the first day of the enactment of the Affordable Care Act—and to protest Florida’s many obstructions against the health law known as Obamacare. The health department at 301 Dr. Carter Boulevard is not a visible place: it’s at the end of a little-trafficked side street, and the noon demonstration is scheduled for only an hour. But Democrats chose the health department because state Department of Health ordered all...

Writing from her new home in New York, Louise Mensch argues that Britain needs more politicians like Chris Christie and Arnold Schwarzenegger.It’s strange watching the parallels develop between British and American politics. After the disaster of the 2008 McCain-Palin campaign (think William Hague as Conservative leader), the Republicans were at least respectable under Mitt Romney (think Michael Howard). But they now have no hope of victory, with no light in sight down a long, dark tunnel and a clear need for major reform. The Grand Old Party needs to learn the lessons of Nate Silver and actually read the polls....

On Friday, MSNBC host Ed Schultz insisted that Republicans threatening to pass a budget which defuneds Obamacare, which could possibly result in a government shutdown, is motivated by the fact that President Barack Obama is “other.” Schultz said that the GOP is moved by “hate” and that an “element of serious racism” was clearly evident. “This is all about one thing: obstructing this president,” Schultz said. “To come to the conclusion and to have a big summary to the American people that this president is not legitimate. He is other. We’re not going to let him succeed.” Schultz said that...

“If you like your health care plan, you can keep your health care plan. If you like your doctor, you can keep your doctor.” - Two of the biggest lies so far in Barack Obama’s mendacity-filled presidency On Halloween Day, 2008 — appropriately enough, since his tenure as president has been a nightmare that makes Freddy Kruger look like Santa Claus — candidate Barack Obama told the American people, “We are five days away from fundamentally transforming the United States of America.” Well, guess what. He meant it. As I write this column, we are now five days away from...

(VIDEO-AT-LINK) Former Vice President Al Gore accused Republicans Friday of engaging in "political terrorism" by using a government shutdown as leverage to defund ObamaCare. "The only phrase that describes it is political terrorism,” Gore said at the Brookings Institution, according to ABC News. “Why does partisanship have anything to do with such a despicable and dishonorable threat to the integrity of the United States of America?” The former vice president also criticized Republicans for threats to link defunding ObamaCare to the debt ceiling, which is set to expire Oct. 17. "Now you want to threaten to not only shut down...

Mitt Romney thinks Obamacare is a bad law that will hurt the country, but disagrees with how conservatives in Washington are trying to get rid of it. In an exclusive interview with CNN’s Jake Tapper, the 2012 Republican presidential nominee said using the politically charged Affordable Care Act as a wedge in Washington’s fiscal wars is counterproductive. "We're more effective tactically not to use a shutdown of some kind to pursue the ... anti-Obamacare objective. I don't think that will be as effective," Romney said in the interview conducted on Friday in Boston. "The tactic of using a government shutdown...

•Fresh (95%): Rush Limbaugh — "Ted Cruz is fighting for freedom in the greatest tradition of American freedom fighters." •Fresh: (90%) Sarah Palin — "Maybe if Ted had worn pretty pink running shoes he'd have gotten more respect from the same leftwing media that gushed over the Texan state senator who filibustered in the Texas legislature." •Fresh (85%): David French — "While the leftist outlets (and, sadly, some Republicans) spew forth their vitriol, I can’t help but think that moments like this and Senator Rand Paul’s “Stand with Rand” filibuster represent key turning points for the conservative movement." •Fresh (82%):...

Amid the lowlights of the media coverage of Texas Sen. Ted Cruz’s speech (actual Politico.com headline: “Experts: Dr. Seuss Would Be ‘Offended’ ”), it’s easy to skip how the press was overlooking the obvious accomplishment happening before their eyes: Cruz was winning. No, Cruz wasn’t winning the vote count in the U.S. Senate to defund Obamacare. That was never going to happen. And even if the John McCain surrender caucus had stood strong, bringing five red-state Democrats with them, Cruz still would have lost. President Obama would have vetoed, and the bar in the Senate would have risen to 67 “no”...

MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” host Joe Scarborough is waking up to the fact that despite all the hype that accompanied President Barack Obama when he made his 2008 presidential run, he wasn’t ready for primetime. “Barack Obama has proven over the past five years that he wasn’t ready to be president of the United States,” Scarborough said on his show Tuesday, according to Newsmax. “And he proves it still today.” Scarborough said Obama “came out of nowhere” as a freshman senator, and “a couple years later, people elected him president of the United States.” Obama served less than a decade in...

<p>Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) heard Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) argue last night that his critics remind him of Nazi appeasers, and to his credit, the Arizona Republican criticized his right-wing colleague this afternoon, calling Cruz's comments "a great disservice."</p> <p>But that's not all McCain said (thanks to my colleague Mike Yarvitz for the heads-up).</p>

The many hours Ted Cruz & friends spent in their overnight talkathon (not really a filibuster) in the Senate has thrilled conservatives who feel the GOP establishment consists of careerist sell-outs.Is Ted Cruz now the leader of US conservatives? That’s a fair question in the wake of his lengthy overnight talkathon against Obamacare on the Senate floor. As of mid-morning on Wednesday, Texas Senator Cruz, along with Sen. Mike Lee (R) of Utah and assorted allies, had spoken for some 20 hours. That constitutes one of the longest Senate speeches since record-keeping began in 1900, and it has thrilled those...

The Republican base must not require its representatives in Congress to run off a cliff and commit suicide as the price of avoiding a primary challenge in 2014. The Tea Party must not eat its young. Polling shows that there are nowhere near the pre-conditions in place that would be necessary for a government shutdown over defunding ObamaCare. Americans oppose defunding it by 44 percent to 38 percent, according to a recent CNBC All-America Economic Survey — and when it comes to shutting down the government to force its defunding, opposition swells to 19-59. To force Republican congressmen to side...

Ronald Brownstein argues that Republicans need to win over a larger share of nonwhite voters if they are to remain competitive in future presidential elections. Brownstein suggests “comprehensive immigration reform” as the kind of policy Republicans need to make gains among nonwhites. The victory of Tony Abbott in Australia indicates that Republicans can grow their party without obeying the wishes of liberal journalists. Republicans don’t need to move left on immigration or abortion. Republicans need to shift their focus from high-earners to the middle-class and people who are struggling to join the middle-class. Brownstein argues that winning over the “missing...

Former John McCain strategist Steve Schmidt criticized former running mate Sarah Palin for throwing her hat into the "defund Obamacare" campaign. Schmidt, McCain’s 2008 campaign strategist, told “Hardball” host Chris Matthews that Republicans need to rid themselves of the "asininity" of both Sarah Palin and Sen. Ted Cruz, the Texas Tea Partier carrying the banner for defunding the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act. Sarah Palin wrote an op-ed for Breitbart in which she claimed that if Cruz is unsuccessful in his fight against Obamacare it will be failure on the part of the GOP “because there weren’t enough principled...

The truth: Hillary has a long, checkered career full of scandals and lies. She's all the Democrats have right now, but let's hope she's not the unstoppable political machine they make her out to be. - Tabitha In light of all the Hillary buzz and the Clinton 2016 infomercials in the form of miniseries and movies to be produced by “Inconvenient Truth” producer Courtney Sexton, it’s worth a look at what we’re actually dealing with. Is Hillary an unstoppable political force and inevitable first female president or scandal-ridden wannabe with a ton of baggage? Here are a few reasons to...

On Monday, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) compared Tea Party Republicans to Thelma and Louise for their "foolhardy plan to drive the economy off the cliff" by risking a government shutdown over ObamaCare. In this drama, Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) is Louise, foot on the accelerator. The more moderate members of his party are like Harvey Keitel, watching in horror from a distance. From a certain standpoint, there would appear to be no method to Cruz's madness. First, there is no scenario in which Senate Democrats and Obama accept a budget that defunds ObamaCare. Second, a government shutdown would...

Huma Abedin, a top staffer for Hillary Clinton and the wife of beleaguered and scandalized Anthony Weiner, was told to give her husband the boot — or leave the Clinton camp. “Huma has a choice to make,” an unnamed source said, to New York magazine. “Does she go with Anthony or does she go with Hillary?” This is the “biggest question among Hillary’s circle,” the magazine said, as the former first lady takes the stage as the Democratic Party’s most likely White House candidate for 2016. Ms. Abedin has been a close aide for years — but her husband’s sexting...

Political analyst and Democratic pollster Doug Schoen tells Newsmax that Hillary Clinton is "the front-runner on both sides" if she decides to run for president in 2016. He also opines that Republicans are making a "political mistake" in backing a bill to defund Obamacare. Schoen is the author of the book "Hopelessly Divided: The New Crisis in American Politics and What It Means for 2012 and Beyond."Story continues below video. (VIDEO-AT-LINK)In an exclusive interview with Newsmax TV at the Clinton Global Initiative in New York on Monday, Schoen assesses a potential White House run by Clinton. "First, there is legitimate...

In a week that will be dominated by the debt ceiling and Republican efforts to defund Obamacare, there will be an irresistible desire to view the outcome as having real political consequences for 2014 and the next presidential race. Let me offer a different view: nothing that happens this week will have much impact come Election Day next year or beyond. Why? Little of this week’s melodrama is likely to affect the quality of life of most Americans. As Sen. Rand Paul observed, Obamacare is overwhelmingly likely to continue. The debt ceiling will be raised. Some politicians will have a...

(VIDEO-AT-LINK)Sarah Palin for Senate might be back on the table. The former Alaska governor and 2008 GOP vice presidential nominee could be inching closer to running for US Senate against incumbent Democrat Mark Begich. Palin appeared on the Fox News Channel today and expressed strong support for Sen. Ted Cruz (R – Tex.) who is leading an effort to remove funding for Obamacare through the legislative process. In July, Palin noted that Cruz, Sen. Mike Lee (R – Utah) and others on Capitol Hill (perhaps including Sen. Rand Paul) need reinforcements to limit the growth of government and cut federal...

Sarah Palin ✔ @SarahPalinUSA We have your backs @SenTedCruz @SenMikeLee http://shar.es/K0pv8 Please RT to #DefundObamacare & support these good senators. 6:23 PM - 21 Sep 2013 729 Retweets 133 favorites Sarah Palin is back to the “violent rhetoric” today, writing at Breitbart.com that the battle to defund Obamacare is headed to the Senate. Palin even offers to compare “shiv marks” with Sen. Ted “Wacko Bird” Cruz to see who’s more often been the victim of what she calls the “anonymous sources” backstabbing game. Cruz and Sen. Mike Lee have her full support in their push to hold off the Obamacare...

Deepak Bhargava, a former ACORN lobbyist has been hired by President Obama to run a contest promoting Obamacare through videos. Bhargava was the manager in charge of advancing ACORN's legislative agenda until he resigned in 2002. He faces the daunting task of convincing huge numbers of young Americans to purchase health insurance, they will probably never use, instead of paying the $95 dollar tax. Bhargava is currently the executive director of the Washington, D.C.-based Center for Community Change, a left leaning partisan group, which is funded by George Soros. They are especially interested in immigration reform and support open borders....

The perfect companion vid to Jay Cost’s analysis this morning of how unusually, relentlessly partisan The One’s rhetoric has been as president, especially in his weekly YouTube messages. Oh, and also to Politico’s round-up of Democrats wondering why someone who’s so often touted as a brilliantly eloquent orator can’t seem to sell the public on anything except his own personal awesomeness. (Headline: “The ‘meh’ of a salesman.”) As usual, Nancy is eye-to-eye with reality. Silver lining: A reporter asking a big-name Democrat why righties dislike Obama is almost always bait to accuse them of racism. She doesn’t take it. Second...

Harry Alford, the president of the Black Chamber of Commerce, says that he failed to properly vet Obama before he voted for him in 2008. Alford says that his growing disappointment and growing suspicion of President Obama is based on his secretiveness and placing politics over policy. “I didn’t analyze him. I read his book and he’s talking about using cocaine and all the drugs he could find and I kind of brushed through that. That should have caught my eye.”

Harvard Journal of Law and Public Policy has just released a study of the relative effects of stringent gun laws. They found that a country like Luxenbourg, which bans all guns has a murder rate that is 9 times higher than Germany, where there are 30,000 guns per 100,000 people. They also cited a study by the U.S.National Academy of Sciences, which studied 253 journal articles, 99 books, 43 government publications, and it failed to find one gun control initiative that worked. In fact, in many cases it found that violence is very often lower, where guns are more readily...

The gang of seven immigration bill in the House is dead, at least for this year. Dem Rep. Luis Gutierrez, a key player on immigration as a member of the gang told Greg Sargeant of the Washington Post, that the bill is stalled and not expected to go anywhere soon. Certainly not this fall and unlikely this winter session. That throws it into an election year, which could effectively kill the bill altogether. Two reasons the bill has failed is that the republican leadership has refused to support any immigration bill and while on August vacation, many republicans heard from...

The Council on the American Islamic Relations (CAIR) excoriated many of its critics in their "Islamophobia" report, but the group also had a "Best List Inductees" which included New Jersey Governor Chris Christie. CAIR says the list was compiled as a way to recognize those who "deserve recognition for their outstanding contributions to pushing back against Islamophobic trends in 2011 and 2012." The report says Christie is receiving the accolade primarily for his nomination of a Muslim judge and statements in the ensuing controversy: Following Islamophobic criticism of his nomination of Sohail Mohammed as a New Jersey Superior Court judge,...

My assertion that there’s a 70% chance that the GOP controls White House, Senate, and House in 2017 has attracted a lot of pushback. And it’s certainly possible that I’m wrong! Here’s my thinking, for what it’s worth: Since the Civil War, only two Democratic presidents have been succeeded by another Democrat. Both of them–FDR and JFK–accomplished this by dying in office. Since World War II, only four presidents have been succeeded by a member of their party. As I mentioned above, two of them accomplished this by dying in office. One of them accomplished this by resigning in disgrace...

Ladies and gentlemen, I present to you the Communications Director (!) of the Sacramento, CA Democratic Party, responding to an anti-Obamacare tweet from Ted Cruz staffer Amanda Carpenter (content warning): @amandacarpenter May your children all die from debilitating, painful and incurable diseases. — allanbrauer (@allanbrauer) September 20, 2013 Busy blocking the tapeworms that have slithered out of hellspawn @amandacarpenter‘s asshole. How’s your day so far? — allanbrauer (@allanbrauer) September 20, 2013 After doubling-down on hate, Brauer performed an abrupt about-face and apologized: Hi @amandacarpenter I am truly sorry for my tweet. I was very upset and lashed out. Your kids...

Illegal immigrants have staged a protest in front of a prominent Chicago hospital, demanding free organ transplants. According to Judicial Watch, all the protesters are from Mexico. This demand is joined by other demands from illegal aliens such as, driver's licenses, discounted college tuition, welfare, and the same civil rights as legal US citizens get. Marchers paraded back and forth in front of the hospital carrying signs with sayings like, “we are also human!” They used bullhorns to lead the chanting of the protesters. In 2007, the cost of a heart transplant was $658,000. The cost of a heart and...

Due to the new regulations and lower reimbursement rates, many healthcare providers are laying off massive amounts of workers to offset the costs of Obamacare. In 2009, Obama visited the Cleveland Clinics and touted that the example they provide would be what Obamacare would provide nationwide. Technically, he's right, just not for the better.