Nancy Pelosi en Cuba con delegación demócrata de la cámara baja

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cubanosporelmundo.com

La líder demócrata Nancy Pelosi encabeza una delegación de nueve congresistas de la Cámara de Representantes que llega hoy a Cuba para reunirse con funcionarios del Gobierno de la isla y otras autoridades, según anunció hoy la oficina de la legisladora.

Se trata del primer viaje oficial a Cuba de una delegación de la cámara baja de Estados Unidos desde el inicio del histórico proceso para reanudar las relaciones diplomáticas bilaterales anunciado en diciembre por el presidente Barack Obama y el gobernante Raúl Castro. "Esta delegación trabajará para avanzar en las relación entre Estados Unidos y Cuba, y se basará en el trabajo realizado por muchos en el Congreso durante años, especialmente con respecto a la agricultura y el comercio", indicó Pelosi, líder de la minoría demócrata en la cámara baja, en el comunicado.

Los nueve congresistas prevén reunirse en La Habana con funcionarios del Gobierno cubano, así como con el cardenal Jaime Ortega, máxima autoridad católica en la isla, líderes locales y miembros de la Sección de Intereses de Estados Unidos. El resto de los legisladores que acompañan a Pelosi, todos del Partido Demócrata, son Eliot Engel, Rosa DeLauro, Collin Peterson, Anna Eshoo, Nydia Velázquez, Jim McGovern, Steve Israel y David Cicilline.

Precisamente hoy, tres senadores de Estados Unidos cerraron una visita oficial a Cuba en la que exploraron las posibilidades de negocio en áreas como la agricultura y el turismo. Los senadores Claire McCaskill, de Misuri; Amy Klobuchar, de Minesota; y Mark Warner de Virginia –también todos demócratas– llegaron a Cuba el pasado sábado, tan sólo un día después de que Estados Unidos autorizara las importaciones de algunos bienes del sector privado, aunque con importantes excepciones.

Aunque no está definida la convocatoria para la próxima ronda de negociaciones bilaterales, el senador Warner se refirió a la "próxima semana" como la fecha en la que los equipos de Cuba y Estados Unidos se reunirán en Washington, aunque preguntado por los días exactos no quiso dar más detalles.

En enero, Estados Unidos anunció la relajación de las sanciones que limitaban los viajes de estadounidenses y prohibían intercambios de bienes y capital con Cuba, lo que permite, entre otras cosas, el uso de tarjetas de crédito norteamericanas en ese país. No obstante, el levantamiento completo del embargo comercial que pesa sobre la isla requiere una acción del Congreso, donde un grupo bipartidista de senadores presentó la semana pasada un proyecto de ley que acabaría con esa política y abriría las puertas a las exportaciones estadounidenses. 

Llega a Cuba una delegación de congresistas demócratas

DW.DE

Se trata de la primera visita de legisladores estadounidenses a la isla, desde que se produjo el 17 de diciembre pasado el histórico anuncio del restablecimiento de relaciones entre La Habana y Washington. El senador demócrata Patrick Leahy, uno de los legisladores más activos en los temas de política exterior con Cuba, lidera la comisión.

Leahy ya ha visitado la isla en varias ocasiones. La última fue hace justo un mes, cuando acudió a recoger al contratista estadounidense Alan Gross, liberado el día 17 de diciembre, el mismo día que se anunció el restablecimiento de relaciones entre Cuba y Estados Unidos. Precisamente, Leahy ya estuvo al frente de otro grupo de congresistas en febrero de 2013 para pedir la liberación de Gross.

Expectativas de ambos países

El objetivo de los congresistas en esta ocasión es intercambiar información sobre las expectativas estadounidenses como las cubanas en lo concerniente al nuevo cambio de política. Con ello, se pretende definir de forma concreta lo que ambos países están dispuestos a hacer para lograr una relación constructiva. Está previsto que el lunes, la comitiva estadounidense se reúna con funcionarios del Gobierno cubano, con la Sección de Intereses de Estados Unidos en la isla, así como con otras delegaciones internacionales en suelo cubano, como las de España, México, Noruega y Colombia.

Esta visita servirá para preparar el terreno ante la primera reunión que celebrarán la próxima semana en La Habana representantes de los gobiernos de Cuba y Estados Unidos para tratar sobre el restablecimiento de relaciones diplomáticas. Será el jueves 22 de enero cuando ambas partes comenzarán a discutir sobre los pasos para la normalización de relaciones entre los dos países.

Entre los anuncios realizados en torno a esta reunión, está la confirmación por parte del Gobierno cubano de que abrirá una embajada en Washington, tal y como hará la Casa Blanca en La Habana.

America Faces Most Dangerous Two Years in 150 Years

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By Charles Hurt

If President Obama suffered a "shellacking" in the 2010 elections, then what he endured Tuesday night was nothing short of a vicious gangland beatdown the likes of which have rarely been seen before in the history of electoral politics.

This, of course, is a wonderful and well-deserved outcome. But beware: America now enters the two most dangerous years of her existence — or certainly the most dangerous since the Great Depression and possibly going all the way back to the Civil War.

Not to dismiss the promising results of Tuesday's election.

Voters clearly and forcefully rejected the party, politics and policies of President Obama. They slapped his socialist agenda back into the days of Soviet gulags, where it belongs.

His grand visions of mighty government ruling unchecked over desperate ghettos have been snuffed out.

Gone, too, were the so-called "low-information voters" who have been coaxed to the polls since 2008 on lies and false promises that the federal government would solve all their problems.

They are used up and wrung out.

Even the onslaught of threats and desperate accusations in endless emails to their Obamaphones couldn't motivate those people to the polls one more time.

Voters rejected the craven, crass and mafioso tactics of Senate Leader Harry Reid.

Voters stripped him of his baldly partisan use of the United States Senate as a graveyard for all House legislation in order to protect his Democrats from tough votes and insulate the President from reality.

The little man with giant fists got staggered by a nasty uppercut from voters even though Reid saw it coming for weeks. Now, the ex-boxer stumbles on the canvas all tangled in the ropes, waiting for the bell.

And voters also rejected the loony-toon delusions of House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi. Honestly, the woman should be running a hat and wig shop in Haight-Ashbury, selling weed and prescription pills on the side. How it is that Democrats in Congress have taken her so seriously for so long will baffle historians for decades.

The silver lining for Democrats today is now they now have the perfect excuse to bounce both of them out of leadership forever.

And this is where things get very, very dangerous for America. President Obama still has two more years left in his final term.

Already, he has demonstrated again and again that he has no regard for the constitution or the legitimacy of laws when they do not suit his agenda. He flaunts his disregard for the constitutional process, dismisses laws he doesn't like and rewrites others.

He mocks the powers of Congress. The Supreme Court has slapped him down more than any president in recent times. All of this as he tells us he is an expert on constitutional law.

Now come his very explicit threats to pass more illegal and unconstitutional presidential edicts to grant amnesty to illegal aliens already in the United States. This, in turn, will issue invitations for millions more illegals to come streaming across the border.

It will not end at immigration. Unchecked power is addictive.

Disowned by Democrats and made to feel irrelevant in this election, President Obama's enormous and unjustified ego is deeply wounded. He is frustrated and feels caged, cornered. This is when people like him are most dangerous.

Buoyant Republicans will make an effort to engage him.

But President Obama is not a listener. He is not a negotiator. He is not a learner. He will just take what he wants. It is easier that way.

Franklin D. Roosevelt's court-packing scheme during the Great Depression was nothing like the strains this president has put on Constitution. Indeed, not since the Civil War has America faced such a dire threat to her existence as a lawful, constitutional republic.

The difference in leadership between then and now could not be more striking.

To bind the union, Abraham Lincoln took an economic and political war and elevated it into something higher. He made it about emancipating slaves and won. And saved the Republic.

This president does the opposite. He got elected promising to elevate politics but instead finds unity and sows discord, often inciting racial divisions.

America's only hope today is that President Obama finally turns to the bust of Lincoln he keeps in the Oval Office and listens.

Will the Republicans take the Senate in 2014?

American Enterprise Institute

'Chicagoland' Emails: CNN, Emanuel Aides Coordinated to Showcase Mayor as 'Star'

breitbart

By John Nolte

 

The Chicago Tribune gained access to over 700 emails between Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel's office and CNN. The emails detail a cozy relationship between the Democrat's office and the cable news network during the production of "Chicagoland," a low-rated eight-part cable series pitched to viewers as an unvarnished look at the city. [The emails are posted here.]

The emails tell the story of a cable news network coordinating with the mayor of a failing city who is also a rising Democrat star. The apparent goal of "Chicagoland" was for CNN to use its resources as a way to portray the "mayor in a positive light" at a national level and showcase Emanuel "as the star he really is."

According to the Tribune, details were coordinated down to camera angles:

If it seemed as though some scenes of CNN's documentary series "Chicagoland" were coordinated by Mayor Rahm Emanuel's City Hall and the show's producers, that's because they were.

More than 700 emails reviewed by the Tribune reveal that the production team worked hand in hand with the mayor's advisers to develop storylines, arrange specific camera shots and review news releases officially announcing the show.

Producers asked the mayor's office to help them set up key interactions in what the cable network has billed as a nonscripted eight-part series, including Emanuel's visits with the school principal who emerged as a star of the show, emails show. …

The production team for the series, whose final episode aired Thursday night, told Emanuel's staff that particular scenes would present the mayor in a positive light, with one of the producers expressing a desire to showcase the mayor "as the star that he really is."

"Chicagoland's" executive producer is Robert Redford.

CNN has yet to comment on the scandal, but this is yet another black eye for Jeff Zucker, who has been in charge of CNN for just a little over a year. Under his leadership, CNN has become a laughingstock, even among its left-wing colleagues in the mainstream media, for its bungled attempts to cover serious news and bizarre obsessions with whales, missing planes, and ferry disasters.

Just last year, CNN was caught using its network to push anti-gun legislation.

CNN presents itself as an objective cable news outlet.

UPDATE: CNN issues non-denial-denial. 

Woman Convicted of Voter Fraud Honored by Ohio Democrats

breitbart

By Nick Mascari 

Ohio Democrats, still pushing their phony “voter suppression” meme, kicked off a campaign tonight to put a constitutional amendment on the November ballot. They even brought in Al Sharpton for support.

Sharon Coolidge of the Cincinnati Enquirer tweeted coverage of the event, and it seemed to be the same tired arguments that have been repeated endlessly, until she reported this:

Melowese Richardson, convicted of voter fraud and then released early from prison, called to stage for a "welcome home."
— Sharon Coolidge (@SharonCoolidge) marzo 20, 2014

Remember Melowese Richardson? 

She was a poll worker who used her position to vote for Obama multiple times. She is one of the few who ever gets caught for voter fraud and was sentenced to five years in prison.

CINCINNATI - A long-time poll worker who admitted to illegal voting was sentenced to five years in prison Wednesday and received a rebuke from the judge, who cited her criminal past. Melowese Richardson, 58, pleaded no contest to four counts of illegal voting in 2009, 2011 and 2012. One count charged her with voting for her sister, who is in a coma. Four other counts were dropped in exchange for Richardson's plea. During a passionate sentencing speech, Hamilton County Judge Robert P. Ruehlman laid out a laundry list of past charges against Richardson - from witness harassment to theft to assault - as Richardson stood before him. "I'm Melowese Richardson. I take the law into my own hands. I do what I want," Ruehlman said. "It's about criminal activity. You are a criminal."

That was only eight months ago. For some reason, she has already been released. At an event that was all about voting law, Ohio Democrats invited a person guilty of multiple counts of voter fraud to speak – to "welcome her back" and applaud her. They invited her up to the stage, like some sort of hero. 

Democrats seem to oppose any changes in the law that make it harder to cheat. Their embrace of Melowese Richardson shows where their intentions actually lie.

Harry Reid Allows Staff to Exempt Themselves from Obamacare

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While millions of Americans struggle with the pitfalls of Obamacare and are frustrated by bungled government health care exchanges, Obamacare co-architect and cheerleader Harry Reid has exempted many of his staff from buying insurance through the exchanges. 

In September, Democratic Senate Majority Leader Reid told reporters, "Let's stop these really juvenile political games -- the one dealing with health care for Senators and House members and our staff. We are going to be part of exchanges, that's what the law says and we'll be part of that."

According to Reid spokesman Adam Jentleson, under the Affordable Care Act a Senator can allow that their committee and leadership staffers keep their attractive federal employee insurance plans. Reid has exercised that option. Jentleson said, “We are just following the law." 

Republicans will be targeting Reid for his hypocrisy, with one Republican senate aide remarking, "I'm sure that regular Americans who just lost their insurance will feel comforted to know that Senator Reid's staff gets to keep their government plan.”

Reid is alone among top congressional leaders to grant such privilege to his staff. Congressional aides for GOP House Speaker John Boehner, House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi, and Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell all encouraged their staff to get their insurance from the exchanges.

Glenn Beck on the state of the GOP

Soros and Hillary Take on America

By Matthew Vadum

mypetjawa.mu.nu

Radical anti-American billionaire George Soros is going all-in for Hillary Clinton’s yet to be officially declared run for the presidency in 2016.

And because Soros’s wealthy leftist friends often follow his lead, a tsunami of early money may be poised to swamp the former U.S. secretary of state’s zygotic campaign.

Soros is lending his name to the “Ready for Hillary” super PAC, giving $25,000 to snag a co-chair post on the organization’s National Finance Committee. Soros’s political director Michael Vachon confirmed Soros’s involvement with the super PAC.

“George Soros is delighted to join more than one million Americans in supporting Ready for Hillary,” Vachon said. “His support for Ready for Hillary is an extension of his long held belief in the power of grassroots organizing.” (Soros also gave $2,300 to Hillary Clinton’s 2008 presidential campaign.)

After pledging for the umpteenth time to abandon electoral politics, Soros keeps allowing himself to be pulled back in. A currency speculator and convicted inside-trader, Soros is a practiced hand-wringer who frequently tells gullible reporters he is getting out of electoral politics altogether. This is his mantra between elections even though he never actually follows through on the threat.

Keep reading on FrontPage Magazine >>

Obama Balks at Boehner's Debt Ceiling Offer

breitbart

By Matthew Boyle

After House Republicans gave a little breathing room on the debt ceiling, offering a “clean” six-week increase with nothing in return, President Barack Obama rejected their plan.

Obama’s and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid’s decision to completely reject any offer of a compromise from House Republicans confirms what most conservatives already know: Obama will not negotiate on anything (he has said as much numerous times over the past couple of weeks) unless he faces consequences for failing to do so.

The whole point of this fight, as most congressional Republicans including House Speaker John Boehner have said, has been to expose how President Obama has never compromised on anything, always gets his way or the highway, and will not negotiate with Congress—though he will try to make deals with American rivals or enemies like Russian President Vladimir Putin and Iran’s new leaders. In the process, conservatives hoped that Republicans would use their negotiating power to shred Obamacare, or at least burn parts of it.

While Obama says he would not negotiate under the circumstances of a government shutdown, or under the threat of a potential default, he has shown time and again that he will never negotiate outside of those circumstances. So, what are congressional Republicans to do? As Tea Party Patriots co-founder Jenny Beth Martin laid out in an op-ed for Breitbart News on Thursday morning, the only way to know whether President Obama will ever negotiate with Congress on anything is if the GOP in Congress stands it ground.

Obama was slipping in the government shutdown battle. His approval rating had been plummeting, down to 37 percent. Obamacare was becoming ever more unpopular, as its early implementation continued failing. Conservatives were winning the shutdown fight much more so than anyone in the establishment expected; polling data showed voters were blaming President Barack Obama and congressional Democrats as much as they are Republicans for it.

What has happened, instead? Congressional Republicans, led by Boehner and Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI), have blinked. They attempted to decouple the debt ceiling battle from the CR battle against Obamacare, instead of using all the leverage they have available to keep their figurative boot on the president’s throat.

They offered a six-week “clean,” no-strings-attached debt ceiling increase. On paper, and in the policy wonk world of conservatism, that negotiating tactic might have seemed like a solid strategy. Sure, Republicans would have been able to reorganize the order in which they fight their fiscal fights over the last few months of 2013, keep Wall Street from having a meltdown aimed at them and likely splitting the party as the ongoing government shutdown continues and, most importantly, they would have been able to keep the focus on Obamacare. In the process, the government would remain shut down and the song and dance of the Obama administration’s shutdown theater would continue.

But here is the problem with that logic: we do not live in a perfect world. We live in a world where, as we have already established, President Obama does not negotiate. Obama is no Bill Clinton; he is not interested in a mere deal. President Obama and Harry Reid want to fry the Republican Party and literally took the government into a shutdown—threatening a default to do so. They now refuse to take up a House-passed bill that would provide paychecks to the 3 million government employees (many of whom live paycheck to paycheck in the Obama economy) who will not be getting paid on Monday, the first scheduled payday for government employees during shutdown.

Obama is a man whose administration put barricades up to keep World War II veterans out of their open-air memorial, preventing the brave men who put their lives on the line for America from entering a memorial to their military service perhaps for the first or last time in their lives, while allowing illegal immigrants to protest across the street on the supposedly-closed National Mall. To win against someone like this, you must fight fire with fire. 

Obama actually has to believe House Republicans when they visit him to “talk.” Right now, Obama has no reason to believe Republicans will stand strong. Why should he? They have caved every other time they “negotiated” with him over the past three years since the Tea Party movement gave Boehner the speakership.

In response to Boehner’s Paul-Ryan-driven blink, what happened? That same man rejected the plan he had been saying he wanted for weeks, then added preconditions to raising the debt ceiling. Obama has stated for weeks he thinks a debt ceiling increase should not have any conditions; well, after Boehner blinked, Obama added a condition: open the government with the debt ceiling increase.

Martin sums it best in her piece on Breitbart News: “Leave it to establishment Republicans to sacrifice policy on the altar of tactics. As the partial government shutdown rolls into its second week and the so-called debt ceiling deadline draws nearer, we're beginning to see cracks in a previously unified GOP front against the Affordable Care Act.”

Now Obama knows: Republicans are willing to cave.

O'Reilly: A collapse of leadership in America

O'Reilly: The brawl continuing over ObamaCare and the gov't shutdown

O'Really: Some straight talk about the ObamaCare mess

Pro-Castro aspirante democrata a alcalde de Nueva York

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Chirlane McCray and Bill de Blasio/ www.nydailynews.com

Diarios neoyorquinos pusieron de relieve el fin de semana la filiación izquierdista y los escarceos con los sandinistas nicaragüenses y con Cuba del candidato demócrata a la alcaldía de Nueva York, Bill de Blasio, quien el 5 de noviembre próximo se medirá en las urnas con el republicano Joe Lhota.

Un comentario publicado en The New York Times dice que “de Blasio, el defensor público de la ciudad, ha mencionado solo ocasionalmente el tiempo que fue un joven idealista que se opuso a las guerras en el extranjero (…) a fines de 1980 y principios de 1990” y su activismo ha sido “omitido en el sitio web de la campaña”.

Pero una revisión de cientos de páginas de archivos y “más de una docena de entrevistas sugieren—señalan—que su época de joven activista fue más influyente en dar forma a su ideología de lo que se conocía, y con mucho fue más política que un trabajo típicamente humanitario”.

El Times destaca que De Blasio se convirtió en un ardiente simpatizante de los revolucionarios nicaragüenses. “Ayudó a recaudar fondos para los sandinistas en Nueva York y se suscribió al periódico del partido, Barricada”, y cuando se le preguntó en 1990 sobre sus metas sociales dijo que “era un defensor del socialismo democrático”.

Tras apuntar que el político demócrata se declara ahora “progresista” y que en su época de activista hasta dio publicidad a fiestas parta celebrar la revolución cubana, destaca que incluso pasó su luna de miel en la isla en 1991 “en violación de la prohibición de viajes establecida por EE.UU.” y hasta hoy habla “con admiración” de los sandinistas.

Un artículo difundido por el periódico New York Post, apunta que de acuerdo con la visión que tiene De Blasio de “combatir la desigualdad y la injusticia económica” podría mirarse a lo que sucede en Cuba, donde las cifras “reflejan el paraíso” que describe el político.

El Post subraya que luego de 54 años en los que Fidel y Raúl Castro han sacado adelante el sueño socialista “todo el mundo es igualmente pobre, con salarios promedios al mes de $19 dólares, mientras un par de zapatos de niño cuesta casi esa cantidad”.

Según el periódico, el alboroto armado con el sistema de salud cubano es “un chiste”, porque cada cual debe llevar sus propias sábanas, orinales y comida a los hospitales, y “rezar para no morir de una infección o por negligencia”.

El autor del artículo narra sus propias experiencias de un viaje a Cuba y dice haberse quedado pasmado por la “total ruina” de todo excepto de la policía. “La una vez gloriosa arquitectura de La Habana se derrumba, y hay pollos y puercos en una buena parte del centro de la ciudad, pero no agua corriente”, añade.

Dice que la mitad de los carros son propiedad del gobierno, que las pequeñas ciudades dan la impresión de haberse quedado detenidas “en el Siglo XIX”, y que el transporte público “consiste en un hombre conduciendo una carreta halada por un caballo”.

También destaca que la TV e Internet son escasas y “fuertemente controladas” y que cualquiera que se queje de eso “puede terminar en una celda”. 

Conservatives, Liberals and Government - Study

BrighterLife.ca

Fundamental to our understanding of democratic politics across the developed world is that conservative parties stand for relatively low levels of government spending, while those on the left of the political spectrum are prone to higher spending. A new study, released yesterday by the Montreal Economic Institute (MEI), blows a hole through that conventional wisdom.

“When you look at the behaviours of various parties over long periods of time in different governments, the pattern is that there is no pattern,” said MEI’s president and chief executive officer, Michel Kelly-Gagnon in an interview with me yesterday. “The parties that are supposed to be more in favour of big government end up spending less than we might expect. And the parties that are supposed to be fiscally conservative sometimes end up being spendthrifts.”

MEI’s study examined government spending in Canada, Quebec and the U.S., dating back to the Pierre Trudeau, Robert Bourassa and Richard Nixon administrations respectively. “In all three cases,” reads the report, “it is actually left-wing governments that most reduced the relative size of government.”

MEI reports government size as the ratio of public spending to gross domestic product.

Under Liberal Prime Ministers Jean Chrétien and Paul Martin, that ratio fell by 32.5%. The current government, under the leadership of Conservative Prime Minister Stephen Harper, drove the ratio up after the financial crisis. It has since reduced the size of government to roughly where it was when the Conservatives took office in 2006.

In the U.S., Republican President George Bush grew the ratio more than any other, by 39%. Democratic President Bill Clinton shrank it by 14.3%.

Is this simply a matter of parties running for office from the left or right, as the cliché goes, and then governing from the centre? Partly, said Kelly-Gagnon. “Parties, when they form governments, regardless of their declared ideology, have to be responsive to the economic environment.”

Context matters, Kelly-Gagnon told me. Clinton’s numbers look great because he enjoyed strong gross domestic product growth during his presidency. Harper had a financial crisis to deal with, and he therefore had to implement a level of stimulus spending that ran contrary to his party’s small government plans.

The report draws two conclusions. First, our perceptions about left- and right-wing political ideology don’t reflect the realities of the last four decades. The data tell a far more nuanced story. Second, we’re far better positioned to debate the role (and size) of government in a non-partisan fashion than we might have expected. The fact that actual decision-making hasn’t been as tied down by ideology as we may have thought means we can be more pragmatic about, for example, the austerity-stimulus debate that continues to rage around the developed world.

It’s worth a try, anyway.

House Dems Want 45% Taxes on $1M Incomes

breitbart

By Ben Shapiro 

On Thursday, House Democrats proposed a new bill that would create a minimum 45 percent tax rate on income more than $1 million, and a rate of 49 percent on income more than $1 billion. Rep. Jan Schakowsky (D-IL) is the mastermind behind this notion; she calls it the Fairness in Taxation Act. “Our country faces an inequality crisis,” she said. “While the amount of earned income – and accumulated wealth – by the top one percent of earners continues its dramatic rise, most Americans have seen little or no gain in take-home pay for decades. We need increased revenue to eliminate the sequester.” Other sponsors of the bill include the most liberal members of the Congress: John Conyers (D-MI), Donna Edwards (D-MD), Luis Guttierez (D-IL), Barbara Lee (D-CA), Betty McCollum (D-MN), and John Yarmuth (D-KY).

Of course, the Obama administration rammed through a tax increase at the beginning of 2013, and focused largely on measures designed to redistribute income to low-income earners throughout President Obama’s first term. The result: the weakest and most lopsided recovery in American history. In California, where taxes have been consistently increased for years, more and more businesses and high-income earners are leaving the state for greener pastures.

Our country does not face an inequality crisis. It faces a growth crisis. Cuba has no inequality crisis, but the people are still miserable. The same holds true of most socialized societies, where income gaps are smaller but growth is similarly minute.

Get 'off your ass': Boehner blasts Senate Democrats

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

firstread

By Carrie Dann, NBC News

House Speaker John Boehner addresses the ongoing sequester standoff on Capitol Hill.

Echoing the frustration of lawmakers throughout Washington hoping for a last-minute swerve to avoid impending budget cuts, House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, used some PG-13 phraseology Tuesday to urge the Senate to action. "We have moved a bill in the House twice," Boehner said at a press conference Tuesday. "We should not have to move a third bill before the Senate gets off their ass and begins to do something." The refrain of urging Senate action comes from Boehner just four days before the sequestration cuts are slated to kick in. President Barack Obama will travel to Newport News, Va. this afternoon to highlight the cuts' effect on the region's shipbuilding community. He will be joined by the area's Rep. Scott Rigell, a Republican. The White House's road trips to warn of the sequester's impact have drawn criticism from foes. "He has traveled over 5000 miles the last two weeks, and we challenge him travel a mile and half and come to Capitol Hill," said Rep. Cathy McMorris Rogers of Washington on Tuesday. "Sit down with Harry Reid and urge the Senate Democrats to take action."

Boehner said Obama's event this afternoon will reduce the nation's military to a campaign "prop."
"I don't think the president is focused on finding a solution to the sequester," he said. "The president has been traveling all over the country, today by going down to Newport News in order to use our military men and women as a prop in yet another campaign rally to support his tax hikes."

Washington's sequester standoff drags on: 'Mr. President, you got your tax increase'

By Michael O'Brien, Political Reporter, NBC News

The nation’s capital was enveloped in a familiar kind of gridlock late Monday, as Republicans again demanded that President Barack Obama and Senate Democrats act first to put off $85 billion in automatic cuts slated to take effect on Friday.

“The president says we have to have another tax increase to avoid the sequester,” House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, said of the hefty and indiscriminate spending cuts. “Well, Mr. President, you got your tax increase. It's time to cut spending.”

Related: Obama to govs: Push Congress to avert cuts

As Congress returned to work following a weeklong recess, the Obama administration and lawmakers appeared no closer to resolving the automatic spending cuts before their Friday deadline. While both Democrats and Republicans bemoan the cuts as potentially catastrophic for the economy and the national defense, both sides have been locked in a virtual staring match over the sequester.

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

More on firstread >>

O'Really: The Democratic Party: A very lucky crew

Corporate Socialism

By Laika 

www.cosmosmith.com

Well, who would've imagined... now we have Republicans and Democrats joining hands in a great demonstration of bipartisanship and amazingly quick action by the usually gridlocked Congress... for what? Corporate Socialism in America! Working folks lose their jobs (outsourced abroad), can't pay their mortgages, lose their homes, and its tough luck. Big creditors on Wall Street get a $700 billion bail-out courtesy of the taxpayers. I thought capitalism was supposed to be about natural market forces, smart businessmen making sound investments and being rewarded with profits that trickle down... creating jobs, paying wages, stimulating consumer spending.... Now we have the federal government subsidizing failed financial institutions. With this $700 billion bail-out on top of the Iraq war debt, my children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren will all be paying for it with their taxes (if the whole house of cards does not come tumbling down soon). Why the sudden urgency, you might ask? Hmmm... the election in six weeks might have something to do with it, maybe?  At last we have something liberals and conservatives can agree on.  Bye bye Free Market Capitalism; hello Corporate Socialism.