Biden: GOP Like "Terrorists"

Joe Biden

Politico - Vice President Joe Biden joined House Democrats in lashing tea party Republicans Monday, accusing them of having “acted like terrorists” in the fight over raising the nation’s debt limit. Biden was agreeing with a line of argument made by Rep. Mike Doyle (D-Pa.) at a two-hour, closed-door Democratic Caucus meeting.

“We have negotiated with terrorists,” an angry Doyle said, according to sources in the room. “This small group of terrorists have made it impossible to spend any money.”

Biden, driven by his Democratic allies’ misgivings about the debt-limit deal, responded: “They have acted like terrorists,” according to several sources in the room. Biden’s office declined to comment about what the vice president said inside the closed-door session. Earlier in the day, Biden told Senate Democrats that Republican leaders have “guns to their heads” in trying to negotiate deals.

The vice president’s hot rhetoric about tea party Republicans underscored the tense moment on Capitol Hill as four party leaders in both chambers work to round up the needed votes in an abbreviated time frame.

The bill would raise the debt limit by as much as $2.4 trillion through the end of next year and reduce the deficit by an equal amount over the next decade. Democrats had no shortage of colorful phrases in wake of the deal. Rep. Emanuel Cleaver (D-Mo.) called it a “Satan sandwich,” and Rep. Luis Gutierrez (D-Ill.) called seemed to enjoy the heat analogy, saying: “the Tea Partiers and the GOP have made their slash and burn lunacy clear, and while I do not love this compromise, my vote is a hose to stop the burning. The arsonists must be stopped. Read full story here: News New Mexico

Biden: GOP Like "Terrorists"

The TRUTH About "Cuts"

Ron Paul

The Hill - One might think that the recent drama over the debt ceiling involves one side wanting to increase or maintain spending with the other side wanting to drastically cut spending, but that is far from the truth. In spite of the rhetoric being thrown around, the real debate is over how much government spending will increase. No plan under serious consideration cuts spending in the way you and I think about it. Instead, the "cuts" being discussed are illusory, and are not cuts from current amounts being spent, but cuts in projected spending increases. This is akin to a family "saving" $100,000 in expenses by deciding not to buy a Lamborghini, and instead getting a fully loaded Mercedes, when really their budget dictates that they need to stick with their perfectly serviceable Honda. But this is the type of math Washington uses to mask the incriminating truth about their unrepentant plundering of the American people. Read full column here: News New Mexico

The TRUTH About "Cuts"

Guilty Plea From Corrections Dept. Facilities Manager

NM Watchdog - A former Corrections Department facilities manager must forfeit $237,080 and could face as much as 10 years in prison after she pleaded guilty on Thursday to accepting bribes in exchange for state contracts. The company that paid the bribes is still contracting with the state. The Santa-Fe based Omni Development Corporation so far this year has landed state contracts totaling more than $1.6 million. Omni netted nearly $2.2 million in state contracts last year, and more than $4 million in Corrections Dept. business alone in the three years during which Chapman collected bribes. Former corrections facility manager Lauri Chapman pleaded guilty to 30 various federal counts based on charges that she took bribes from Omni between February, 2007 and April, 2009. A price agreement procedure Chapman first implemented in 2007 let her select contractors without soliciting competitive bids. Omni became the sole provider of roofing service for the department. An audit of contracts Chapman oversaw revealed extensive irregularities, including $3.7 million in insufficiently documented or disallowed costs charged by Omni and two other companies. Omni was paid nearly $1.3 million for costs that were not supported by state purchasing procedures. Read full story here: News New Mexico

Guilty Plea From Corrections Dept. Facilities Manager

What's Happened in 13 Months

Today we passed a milestone. We are now thirteen months into the News New Mexico project. On day one of News New Mexico (July 1, 2010) we decided to document the amount of debt each taxpaying couple in America has been accumulating since that day. The totals are staggering. In thirteen months, the federal government has borrowed $22,848 for every couple paying income taxes in the U.S. ($11,424 for each individual taxpayer). And since the government actually spends an additional 1.5 times what it borrows, the government is actually spending $57,120 for every taxpaying married couple in the nation ($28,560 for every individual taxpayer). Now some people scoff at those who think about these numbers and suggest government is too big. And with 51% of all American households sitting out the taxpaying and debt service efforts, we can only wonder why those who think we CAN'T keep borrowing and spending like this are branded as nothing but a bunch of crazy social terrorists and racist extremists that don’t care about the “middle class.”

What's Happened in 13 Months

The Hill Whip Count: Pearce, Lujan, Heinrich All Undecided

The Hill - The debt-limit deal announced on Sunday night is expected to attract more than 60 votes in the Senate, but its outlook in the House is much more cloudy. Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) will need Democratic votes to clear the bill through the lower chamber. How many remains unclear. A total of 216 lawmakers must vote in favor of the package for it to clear the House, and Boehner will need to rely on members from both parties. The following is a rundown of The Hill’s constantly updated whip count. Read full story here: News New Mexico

The Hill Whip Count: Pearce, Lujan, Heinrich All Undecided

Faces of Immigration

Martinez Gives Inaugural Address 

Newsnm note - We ran across this well written feature by Sandra B. Martinez - Santa Fe New Mexican - Susana Martinez has been scaling walls since she was a kid. At 11 and of a mind to ignore her mother's warning, she couldn't stop herself from trying to conquer the garden wall bordering her family's three-bedroom, 1,400-square-foot Thomas Manor brick home in El Paso. "Don't run on that wall, Susana," her mother, Paula Aguirre, would tell her. "You're going to fall." Little Susana would climb the cinder-block wall anyway and start racing with a friend along the narrow, rounded top of the wall. "I fell and cut my thigh," Martinez said. "I didn't cry. I just remember thinking, 'Oh no!' I was more afraid of my mom."

Martinez with husband Chuck Franco

Martinez's father, Jacobo Martinez, was a boxer, so her mother had experience caring for wounds. When Aguirre poured peroxide onto her wound, Susana clenched her teeth. The peroxide foam gurgling from the bloody gash caused her to throw up the cherry Icee in her tummy.  But she did not cry. Read full feature here: News New Mexico

Faces of Immigration

Status Quo Preserved: No Change in Direction

Wall Street Journal - WASHINGTON—After weeks of partisan wrangling, President Barack Obama and congressional leaders reached a deal Sunday night to raise the government's debt ceiling while cutting spending by about $2.4 trillion, avoiding a government default but setting the stage for months more of stormy debates over how Washington taxes and spends. President Barack Obama and the bipartisan leadership of Congress reached a deal to lift the ceiling on the federal debt and reduce future budget deficit just days before a default deadline.

WSJ's Peter Stein and Economics Editor David Wessel discuss the details. The Senate and House are expected to vote on the deal Monday, so the agreement still needs the support of many House Republicans, who have proven a restless, independent group in recent days. But if it passes both chambers, it culminates an extraordinary display of political and economic brinksmanship, coming just days before the government could have been unable to fully pay its bills. Read full story here: News New Mexico

Status Quo Preserved: No Change in Direction

President is Not Polling Well

Rasmussen - The Rasmussen Reports daily Presidential Tracking Poll for Sunday shows that 23% of the nation's voters Strongly Approve of the way that Barack Obama is performing his role as president. Forty-two percent (42%) Strongly Disapprove, giving Obama a Presidential Approval Index rating of -19. Read full story here: News New Mexico

President is Not Polling Well

St. Vincent Nurses Vote to Approve Contract

KOB - TV - Late Sunday night, members of the union representing nurses and technicians at Christus St. Vincent hospital in Santa Fe narrowly voted to accept a contract with the hospital's administration. The vote began after 8 p.m., with a looming midnight deadline before their contract expired. Word of the approval of the contract came just after 11 a.m. Union officials say the vote was split. The exact vote count was not immediately available late Sunday. The union and hospital had been in a contentious fight over nurse-to-patient ratio at the hospital. Union officials say they gave up nearly $5 million in pay over the right to have a say in staffing levels. Read full story here: News New Mexico

St. Vincent Nurses Vote to Approve Contract

Biden "Rents" Cottage to Secret Service

Joe Biden

Washington Times - The U.S. Secret Service does more than protect Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. — the agency also pays him rent. Since April, Mr. Biden has collected more than $13,000 from the agency charged with protecting him and his family for use of a rental cottage adjacent to the waterfront home he owns in a Wilmington, Del., suburb. Mr. Biden, listed not as vice president in federal purchasing documents but as a “vendor,” is eligible for up to $66,000 by the time the government contract expires in the fall of 2013, the records show. Officials say the arrangement came about when a previous tenant moved out of the cottage and the Secret Service moved in. Read full story here: News New Mexico

Biden "Rents" Cottage to Secret Service