WASHINGTON (AP) — “Obamacare” escaped unharmed from the government shutdown Republicans hoped would stop it, but just as quickly they have opened a new line of attack — one handed to them by the administration itself. While Congress was arguing, President Barack Obama’s plan to expand coverage for the uninsured suffered a self-inflicted wound. A […]
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Posted inLetters
P. Caron: Republican troublemakers
I saw on a news program a while ago that Gov. Paul LePage is worried more about putting money in government officials’ pockets and getting them back to work than he is about all the people who are out of work and out of money. Boy, if that doesn’t tell it all. And U.S. Speaker […]
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Posted inNation / World, sj-web
Government reopens after 16-day shutdown; Obama accuses Republicans of damaging U.S. economy
WASHINGTON (AP) — In withering day-after criticism, President Barack Obama declared Thursday that the 16-day partial government shutdown was a Republican-provoked spectacle that “encouraged our enemies” around the world. Elsewhere in Washington, and around the country, federal employees simply streamed back to their jobs. National parks reopened. The popular panda cam at the National Zoo […]
Posted inNation / World, sj-web
Talks to end shutdown stall as McConnell urges Collins-brokered option
WASHINGTON (AP) — Senate Republicans and Democrats hit an impasse Sunday over spending in their last-ditch struggle to avoid an economy-jarring default in just four days and end a partial government shutdown that’s entering its third week. After inconclusive talks between President Barack Obama and House Republicans, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., and Minority […]
Posted inLetters
M. Moize: History of being unreasonable
This is in response to Rich Lowry’s column (Oct. 7). There is more than enough blame to go around for Congress’ amazing ineptitude. However, Lowry missed the more important issue. More important than shutdown is a default of national debt, which Republicans seem happy to cause unless Democrats succumb to Republicans’ demand to defund Obamacare. […]
Posted inOp-Eds
Froma Harrop: GOP ruled by tea party extremists
Fans of representative democracy know that there are ways to advocate one’s beliefs short of threatening and delivering harm to the larger society. It used to be that one could blame the parade of manufactured crises not on the whole Republican Party but on its unruly tea party faction. That’s becoming less and less so […]
Posted inNation / World, sj-web
Still shut down: Obama, GOP try to negotiate way out of impasse without appearing to negotiate
WASHINGTON (AP) — With time running short, President Barack Obama and House Speaker John Boehner accelerated efforts Friday to prevent the U.S. Treasury from default and end a partial government shutdown that stretched into an 11th day. The latest impacts: New aircraft grounded, military chaplains silenced and a crab harvest jeopardized in the Bering Sea. […]
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Leonard Pitts: Obstructionism has consequences
Welcome to America Held Hostage. The reference is not just to the ongoing government shutdown that theoretically could be — but in all likelihood won’t be — over by the time you read this. Rather, it is also to the intransigence and extremism of the Republican Party, a brand of government-by-crisis political thuggery that made […]
Posted inNation / World, sj-web
First shutdown in 17 years: Senate and House rejected each other’s plans as deadline neared
WASHINGTON (AP) — For the first time in nearly two decades, the federal government staggered into a partial shutdown Monday at midnight after congressional Republicans stubbornly demanded changes in the nation’s health care law as the price for essential federal funding and President Barack Obama and Democrats adamantly refused. As Congress gridlocked, Obama said a […]
Posted inNation / World, sj-web
Strategy by Sens. Cruz, Lee to starve ‘Obamacare’ of money infuriates some fellow Republicans
WASHINGTON (AP) — Ted Cruz and Mike Lee stand as the Senate’s dynamic duo for conservatives, crusading against President Barack Obama’s health care law while infuriating many congressional Republicans with a tactic they consider futile, self-serving and detrimental to the party’s political hopes in 2014. Cruz, the Texan who’s been anything but a wait-your-turn freshman, […]