Showing posts with label Defund ObamaCare. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Defund ObamaCare. Show all posts

Wednesday, October 30, 2013

Action Figure - Heritage Action’s Mike Needham is just getting started.

Heritage Action, the conservative group that orchestrated the defund-Obamacare campaign, emerged from the recent shutdown with few legislative victories. But it didn’t walk away empty-handed; it won influence, especially among activists, who view the group as the operational muscle behind Senator Ted Cruz.

How Heritage Action wields its newfound authority (and its Cruz ties) in the coming months will say much about its place in the conservative firmament — and its ability to shape the GOP’s strategy.

To get a better sense of its agenda, National Review sat down with Mike Needham, Heritage Action’s 31-year-old CEO, at a Capitol Hill coffee shop. He remains disappointed about the way his defund strategy fizzled, but he’s convinced he can win the brewing conservative debate over best practices during divided government.

When I mention how some Republicans think Cruz and his group were damaged by the showdown, Needham tells me, “They haven’t been more than five miles outside D.C. if they think that.”

At the top of Needham’s to-do list: encouraging House Republicans to take the lead on both tactics and policy, regardless of resistance from their Senate counterparts. “Speaker John Boehner and Eric Cantor fought during the shutdown,” Needham says. “They fought to keep the message on Obamacare. But they were kneecapped constantly by the Republicans in the Senate.”

Saturday, October 26, 2013

Unabashed Cruz in Iowa defends self on ObamaCare fight, against GOP establishment

Texas Republican Sen. Ted Cruz is charging ahead with his argument that attempts to dismantle ObamaCare needed to be part of the recent Washington budget negotiations and is firing back at the GOP establishment and others who say his tactics led to an unnecessary, partial government shutdown.
Cruz, who appears poised for a president bid, told hundreds at a GOP fundraiser in Iowa on Friday that efforts he led to “defund” ObamaCare will carry the fight through the 2014 congressional and 2016 White House races.
"One of the things we accomplished in the fight over ObamaCare is we elevated the national debate over what a disaster, what a train wreck, how much ObamaCare is hurting millions of Americans across this country," Cruz said at the Iowa GOP's annual fundraising dinner in Des Moines. “Senate Republicans didn't stand together. Had we stuck together, the outcome might be very different. The House does now, but I'm confident that the U.S. senate will in time listen to the American people.”
The Tea Party-backed, first-term senator appeared to further define his political future, saying he will continue to focus on grassroots efforts, like the town hall-style meetings he helped lead this summer to garner support to defund ObamaCare.
“For everyone who says we need to think about winning elections in 2014, nothing energizes [voters] more than a grassroots election,” he said. “We got our clock cleaned in ’06, ’08 and ’12. But we had grassroots in [2010.] Republican strategist say let's go back to ’06, ’08 and ’12. They say keep your head down. That's how you win -- what complete poppycock.

Saturday, September 21, 2013

Republicans ‘trying to mess with me,’ Obama tells crowd at Missouri auto plant

LIBERTY, Mo. — With Washington facing a potential government shutdown, President Obama traveled to the heartland Friday and delivered a combative rebuke of congressional Republicans for “trying to mess with me” instead of governing responsibly.
Obama railed at length against Republican lawmakers, whom he accused of “holding the economy hostage” by threatening not to fund the government and not to raise the government’s debt limit.
“Unfortunately right now, the debate going on in Congress is not meeting the test of helping middle class families,” Obama said. “They’re not focused on you. They’re focused on politics. They’re focused on trying to mess with me. They’re not focused on you.”
Obama’s rousing speech at a growing Ford manufacturing plant here on the outskirts of Kansas City amounted to an opening salvo against House Republicans heading into another intense skirmish over federal spending.
Obama spoke a couple of hours after the House passed a short-term budget bill that would pay for government operations through mid-December but withhold funding for Obama’s signature health-care law.
Obama at times sought to belittle GOP lawmakers. “The most basic constitutional duty Congress has is to pass a budget,” said the president, a former constitutional law lecturer. “That’s Congress 101.”

Friday, September 20, 2013

GOP-Controlled House Votes To Defund ‘Obamacare,’ Keep Government Funded

House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, speaks to members of the press during a news conference on Sept. 12, 2013 on Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C. (credit: Alex Wong/Getty Images)WASHINGTON (CBSDC/AP) — The Republican-controlled House of Representatives have passed a bill that would defund President Barack Obama’s health care law and which funds the federal government through Dec. 15.
The House voted 230-189 in favor to defund “Obamacare” in order to avert a government shutdown. This sets up a confrontation with the Democratic-led Senate that promises to strip the “defund Obamacare” provision from the bill next week.
The White House has stated that Obama would veto the measure in case it reached his desk.
“They actually did it: The House just passed a resolution that risks a government shutdown to defund Obamacare. (hashtag) EnoughAlready,” the president’s Twitter account, run by Organizing for Action, posted.
House Speaker John Boehner called the vote a “victory for common sense.”
“This is hurting our constituents, it’s hurting the American people,” Boehner said.
Before the vote, Nancy Pelosi called the House “a mess.”
“I come to the floor, in many ways, as a mother,” the House minority leader stated. “This place is a mess. Let’s get our House in order.”

What’s the Plan in the Senate?

With Speaker John Boehner embracing the push to defund Obamacare in the House bill to fund the government, the battle will soon be moving to the Senate, which is controlled by Democratic majority leader Harry Reid.

It’s hostile territory for the effort, and since the initial calls to push for defunding Obamacare came from Senate Republicans, there’s added pressure on the strategy’s architects to make it a major fight.

Senator Mike Lee is organizing a messaging push to pressure Reid to hold an “up or down” vote. Lee and other Senate Republicans who devised the strategy will “fight like hell” to push it through the Senate, Lee’s spokesman Brian Phillips says.
Heritage Action, I’m told, is looking at a “major” paid-media campaign to put the spotlight on Reid.

Senator Ted Cruz, meanwhile, is in hot water with a good number of House GOP leadership types for a statement he issued about Boehner’s decision to include defunding Obamacare in the continuing resolution (CR) bill.

In the statement, Cruz called the decision “terrific news” and offered his praise for House leadership. But, he said, Reid will quickly move to defeat the bill in the Senate, at which point the House Republicans will need to stay firm.



Thursday, September 19, 2013

Reid May Bypass 60-Vote Threshold to Strip Obamacare Provision from CR

With the government-funding bill headed to the Senate following tomorrow’s House vote, the expectation among Senate Republicans is that Democratic majority leader Harry Reid will be able to strip its provision defunding Obamacare with only a majority vote.

Reid would rely on an arcane Senate procedure called the “motion to strike” that allows him to amend the bill with a bare majority after cloture has been invoked to shut down debate on the bill.

In other words, Reid would invoke cloture with the bill still intact — meaning Republicans, who support defunding Obamacare, would vote for cloture. After cloture had been invoked, Reid could then move remove the language defunding Obamacare with only a bare majority.

The strategy would put Democrats in something of an odd position because they would be voting for cloture on a bill that defunds Obamacare. But given Republicans will vote for cloture, and that it’s according to Reid’s plan, that’s unlikely to be reason enough that the necessary votes wouldn’t be there.

Senator Ted Cruz told reporters earlier today that he and Senator Mike Lee “will use every procedural means available to fight for the American people to defund Obamacare.”

Scott Walker opposes government shutdown over Obamacare

In this June 28, 2013 file photo, Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker speaks in his Capitol office in Madison, Wis.  (AP Photo/Scott Bauer, File)Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker (R) has been an outspoken opponent of Obamacare, challenging its constitutionality in court and rejecting federal funds to expand Medicaid under the program. But that doesn't mean he backs the current House GOP strategy to risk shutting down the government over the issue.
In an interview Friday, Walker said he has proven his commitment to standing in the way of the Affordable Care Act's implementation, having "done just about anything possible to alter that course."
"I believe the Affordable Care Act is anything but affordable, and will have a negative impact on the economy of my state," he said, adding that he would have preferred for it to have been blocked by the Supreme Court. "But I don’t extend that to the point that we should shut down the government over it."
"I support limited government," he added. "But I want the government left to work."
There is a straightforward solution to address the current predicament, Walker suggested: put the question before the voters next year.
"The way to resolve this is through candidates making the case in the 2014 election," he said. "They can make a case they’re going to come on in and put the power back in the hands of the people, not in the government."
Will congressional Republicans heed Walker's advice, or will they continue to pursue their collision course with President Obama and Senate Democrats? Only the next couple of weeks will answer that question.

Mark Levin’s EPIC Monologue on Republicans Being Forced to Defund ObamaCare

Mark Levin delivered a fantastic monologue coming out of the gate today on Obamacare and the fact that Republicans have finally been forced by the American people to try and defund it.



Via: Fox News


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Why a Defund-ObamaCare Strategy Would Succeed

We are less than one and a half weeks from the Showdown at the CR (Continuing Resolution) Corral, and establishment politicians, of both parties, are panicking.  The latest turn of the screw came last week, when opposition from 43 apparently non-establishment Republicans forced Speaker Boehner to cancel a vote on a CR because that CR would have continued to fund Obamacare.
Fox News Senior Political Analyst Brit Hume concisely captured one source of GOP panic over the weekend, on Fox News Sunday:
[T]he axiom in Washington that when the government shuts down, it doesn't matter who causes it, Republicans get blamed, is still in effect.  This is a very risky proposition.
So it would seem, as pundits -- again, of both parties -- agree that President Obama and the Democrats not only would accept, but actually would welcome a so-called government shutdown -- hoping to ride the public's anticipated anger all the way to a takeover of the House in 2014:
I think [President Obama's] gamble is to take back the House in 2014, which is why I think he may want a shutdown, [Wall Street Journal editorial page editor Paul] Gigot said on ABC's This Week panel.  Because that's the way he can blame it on the Republicans, blame any economic fallout on the House Republicans, and say, 'You've got to give me the majority for the next two years.'
Via: American Thinker

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House Republicans accuse Senate colleagues of caving on push to de-fund ObamaCare

House Republicans, in an unusually caustic intra-party squabble, are ripping their conservative colleagues in the Senate for what they see as an abrupt cave-in on the push to de-fund ObamaCare.

“They're waving the white flag already,"one House GOP lawmaker said Wednesday.

The squabble started after House Speaker John Boehner earlier in the day announced he would agree to the demands of Tea Party-aligned lawmakers to tie a vote on de-funding the health care law to a vote on a must-pass budget bill.

The move would effectively condition the approval of the spending bill on ObamaCare being de-funded, or else risk a government shutdown when funding runs out at the end of the month.

But Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, one of the most vocal supporters of the “de-fund ObamaCare” push, startled his House colleagues when he released a written statement Wednesday afternoon that appeared to acknowledge the bill will probably fail in the Senate.

“Today's announcement that the House will vote to defund ObamaCare is terrific news,” Cruz said, in a press release from him, Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., and Sen. Mike Lee, R-Utah.

Via: Fox News

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Wednesday, September 18, 2013

White House: Republicans engaged in an 'all-out civil war'

The White House said Wednesday that the GOP was engaged in "essentially an all-out civil war" and accused Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) of bending to "the will" of a small group of House conservatives after deciding to press forward with a government funding bill that would strip funds for ObamaCare. 

"What has become more and more apparent is the leaders of the Republican Party in Congress may want to avoid a shutdown ... but there are members of that party, especially in the House, who seem to embrace the prospect," press secretary Jay Carney said.



Earlier Wednesday, Boehner said the House would vote on a continuing resolution that would keep the government open — if the Affordable Care act was defunded.

The move was an about-face for House leadership, which initially recommended a plan that would have forced the Senate to take a vote on defunding Obamacare but did not link that requirement to a spending bill. But conservative backbenchers in the party revolted at the symbolic gesture, demanding leadership marry ObamaCare funding directly to funding.

The White House used that shift Wednesday to argue that Republicans needed to assert their leadership to avoid a financial crisis.

"Republicans in the Congress need to make a decision about what outcomes they really desire here," Carney said.

Via: The Hill


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[VIDEO] DeMint on Obamacare: “We Have to Stop It While There’s Still Time”

Unfair. Unworkable. Unaffordable.
Those are the words Heritage President Jim DeMint used to describe Obamacare during a conversation with Andrew Wilkow on The Blaze this week.
“We have to stop it while there’s still time,” DeMint said. “If there has ever been something to take a political risk for, this is it.”
DeMint appeared on Wilkow! to discuss why Heritage bought a billboard in Times Square with the message: “Warning: Obamacare may be hazardous to your health.” He also discussed his letter to Russian leader Vladimir Putin.

GOP goes all-in on ‘de-fund ObamaCare,’ as shutdown looms

House Speaker John Boehner, in an abrupt turnaround, plans to let Tea Party lawmakers have a vote on de-funding ObamaCare as part of a politically risky strategy which Democrats warn could result in a government shutdown. 

GOP leaders unveiled their plan to members on Wednesday morning, teeing up a vote for Friday -- the proposed bill would tie the vote to de-fund the health care law to a vote on a stopgap spending bill. Current funding for the government is set to expire at the end of the month, and lawmakers must approve the stopgap bill in order to keep Washington open; conservatives see this as leverage to force a suspension of ObamaCare. 

"The law's a trainwreck," Boehner said of the Affordable Care Act. "It's time to protect American families from this unworkable law." 

Effectively, Boehner and his deputies have backed off a compromise approach they earlier tried to sell to rank-and-file conservatives. Under that plan, the House would have sent two bills to the Senate -- one to de-fund ObamaCare, the other to fund the government. The Senate, then, would have been able to easily bypass the ObamaCare bill and send the spending measure straight to the White House, in turn averting a government shutdown. 

But House conservatives revolted, and Boehner now plans to tie the two votes together. Under the plan, funding the government would be conditional on de-funding ObamaCare. It is a concession to House conservatives as well as senators like Ted Cruz, R-Texas, and outside groups like the Heritage Foundation that have demanded Congress use the must-pass budget bill as leverage to derail the health care law. 

Via: Fox News


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Keep Americans' personal data safe -- delay ObamaCare exchanges - By Orrin Hatch

010113_ff_obamacare_640.jpgJust about every week Americans learn about another problem with ObamaCare.  

Employer mandate? Delayed. 

Small business health insurance market? Delayed. 

Automatic enrollment? That’s right, delayed.  

Study after study and expert after expert has sounded the alarm on ObamaCare’s failings and the monumental implementation challenges that go with it. 

This shouldn’t come as much surprise given the size, scope and nature of the new law, which marks the largest expansion of government in generations.

On October 1st, ObamaCare’s health insurance exchanges --  the online marketplace where the uninsured are mandated to shop for healthcare coverage  -- will go live.

Via Fox News


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About That Other Debacle For ObamaCare, it's only the end of the beginning.

If you're the kind of driver who can't help but gawk at the wreckage when you pass an accident--and honestly, who isn't?--you'll enjoy today's lengthy account in The Wall Street Journal of the runup to last week's Putin-Assad triumph.
Right off the bat we learn, which is to say our suspicion is confirmed, that this was a case of a willful president with atrocious political instincts. When Obama consulted his cabinet and top staffers about the idea of seeking congressional approval for a strike in Syria, "senior adviser Dan Pfeiffer pegged the chances of Congress balking at 40%. . . . Mr. Obama took the gamble anyway and set aside the impending strikes to try to build domestic and international support for such action."
In retrospect, it seems clear that while Pfeiffer was on the right track in warning that Congress might scuttle the plan, he underestimated the probability of that outcome. Given the political obstacles that stood in the way of the president's call for authorization to use force--Republican control of the House, Democratic misgivings about military intervention, and, most important, crosspartisan public misgivings--it seems absurd to suggest Obama was ever likelier than not to win a vote.
In fact, one could make a case that the probability of gaining congressional assent was already so low as to be indistinguishable from zero on Aug. 31, when the president announced his request. The best counterargument is that in the ensuing days, Obama and Secretary of State John Kerry did such an inept job making their case that they worsened the odds. That would imply they had at least a slim chance of success to begin with.
"Leadership as we experience it in life is usually more declarative," observes the Washington Post's David Ignatius with considerable understatement; "Leaders take action, and people follow. But Obama's style is different. As we've learned after nearly five years, he's more cautious and deliberative." We don't think we take any substantive liberties when we rephrase Ignatius's statement more bluntly: What he is saying is that Obama's manner of executing his official duties, in this instance for sure, is unrecognizable as leadership by any ordinary understanding of the term.

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