By Barrington M. Salmon
President Donald Trump and Congressional leaders announced the $2 trillion economic stimulus package—the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security (CARES) Act...
WASHINGTON — President Barack Obama[1] (pictured far right) laid the blame for the government’s partial shutdown at the feet of House Speaker John Boehner (pictured), escalating a government-shutdown confrontation that was leading headlong into a potentially more damaging clash over the nation’s borrowing authority. RELATED: What Is A Government Shutdown, How Does It Affect You?[2] Speaking at a construction company in Washington’s Maryland suburbs Thursday, Obama cast Boehner as a captive of a small band of conservative Republicans who want to extract concessions in exchange for passing a short term spending bill that would restart the partially shuttered government. “The only thing preventing people from going back to work and basic research starting back up and farmers and small business owners getting their loans, the only thing that is preventing all that from happening right now, today, in the next five minutes is that Speaker John Boehner won’t even let the bill get a yes or no vot ...
WASHINGTON — Overloaded websites and jammed phone lines frustrated consumers for a second day as they tried to sign up for health insurance under the nation’s historic health care overhaul. That was putting pressure on the federal government and the states that are running their own insurance exchanges to fix the problems amid strong demand for the private insurance plans. RELATED: Need Health Insurance? Here’s How You Can Get Affordable Coverage Starting Oct. 1[1] “I think I’m through with Hawaii Health Connector,” said Richard Gamberg, 61, of Honolulu, after tweeting messages to officials and complaining to state lawmakers on Wednesday. “They’ve got ads in the newspaper, they’ve got ads on the TV – it just flabbergasts me.” He was among the would-be customers in Hawaii who were still unable to buy insurance policies online Wednesday, forcing them to turn directly to insurance companies to examine their options. In Oregon, officials said a faulty online calculator would not be fixed ...
Earlier this morning, the usually well meaning Chris Matthews made an interesting observation about Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX), one of the key players in the now-official government shutdown[1]. Matthews said on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe,” “Ted Cruz is brilliant. I think President Obama[2] may have met his match.” I immediately had to flip to something more mentally stimulating: last night’s edition of “The Real Housewives of Miami.” Ted Cruz is a lot of things — most of which I cannot repeat in this space — but brilliant is a stretch by far. Last week, another MSNBC host, Lawrence O’Donnell, spoke of members of the media being “blinded” by Ted Cruz’s resume. O’Donnell explained[3]: “Ted Cruz says things that are profoundly wrong all day long, and the Washington media does not hold it against him because they all believe that he is smart enough to know the truth and understand the truth but that he is simply lying about it. And the Washington media actually respects lying, respects political l ...
Should the government shutdown strike at the stroke of midnight, a new poll shows that Americans know exactly which side of the political aisle bears the greater share of the blame. In a new CNN poll[1], 69 percent of Americans — including 52 percent of self-identified Tea Party supporters — believe that Congressional Republicans are “acting like spoiled children.” As a result, 46 percent say they would blame GOP members of the House for a shutdown. Additionally, 68 percent say a shutdown of a few days would be a bad thing for the country. That figure rises to nearly 80 percent when asked what if the government shutdown lasted a few weeks. RELATED: Need Health Insurance? Here’s How You Can Get Affordable Coverage Starting Oct. 1[2] As it relates to what’s driving the cause of the now likely government shut down, Republican’s lingering yearning to repeal Obamacare, 60 percent say it is more important for Congress to avoid a shutdown than to make major changes to the new healthcare law. In ...
