Conservatives: Defund Obamacare or shut down the government

This Law Is No Fund: The new conservative plan to beatObamacare

WASHINGTON — Conservatives on Capitol Hill are drawing a line in the sand: they will not vote to stop the government from shutting down if Obamacare is not defunded.

Led by Utah Republican Sen. Mike Lee, a dozen senators sent a letter Thursday saying they will not support any resolution to continue funding the federal government if President Obama’s health-care law remains funded.

Under current law, the government is funded until Sept. 30, meaning a continuing resolution needs to be passed to keep the government from shutting down.

“The Obama Administration’s recent decision to delay Obamacare’s employer mandate and eligibility verification for the individual exchanges is further proof the law is a failure that will inevitably hurt businesses, American families, and the economy,” Lee said.

“In light of this admission, I and several of my colleagues will be informing Sen. Reid that we will not vote for a continuing resolution that funds Obamacare,” he added.

Among those who signed onto the letter: Florida Sen. Marco Rubio, Texas Sen. Ted Cruz and Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul.

Over in the House, a large contingent of House Republicans are pushing a similar strategy, led by Rep. Mark Meadows of North Carolina.

“Congressman Meadows is leading a letter, currently co-signed by 66 Members, encouraging House leadership to defund Obamacare through the appropriations process,” spokeswoman Emily Miller told The Daily Caller on Thursday.

Via: Daily Caller

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BENGHAZI: Documents show Stevens worried about security threats, al-Qaeda

Across 166 pages of internal State Department documents – released today by a pair of Republican congressmen pressing the Obama administration for more answers on the Benghazi terrorist attack – slain U.S. Ambassador to Libya Chris Stevens and the security officers assigned to protect him repeatedly sounded alarms to their superiors in Washington about the intensifying lawlessness and violence in Eastern Libya, where Stevens ultimately died.
 
On September 11 – the day Stevens and three other Americans were killed – the ambassador signed a three-page cable, labeled “sensitive,” in which he noted “growing problems with security” in Benghazi and “growing frustration” on the part of local residents with Libyan police and security forces.  These forces the ambassador characterized as “too weak to keep the country secure.” 
 
In the document, Stevens also cited a meeting he had held two days earlier with local militia commanders.  These men boasted to Stevens of exercising “control” over the Libyan Armed Forces, and threatened that if the U.S.-backed candidate for prime minister were to prevail in Libya’s internal political jockeying, “they would not continue to guarantee security in Benghazi.” 
 
Roughly a month earlier, Stevens had signed a two-page cable, also labeled “sensitive,” that he entitled “The Guns of August: Security in Eastern Libya.” Writing on August 8, the ambassador noted that in just a few months’ time, “Benghazi has moved from trepidation to euphoria and back as a series of violent incidents has dominated the political landscape…The individual incidents have been organized,” he added, a function of “the security vacuum that a diverse group of independent actors are exploiting for their own purposes.”

Via: The Daily Brett Blog

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