Congress ended the week by passing a continuing resolution keeping the government funded for one more week. This stopgap funding bill is designed to give Congress and the White House more time to negotiate a long-term spending bill. Passage of a long-term spending bill has been delayed over objections to Republican efforts to preserve Obamcare's... Read More

The political class breathed a sigh of relief Saturday when the US Senate averted a government shutdown by passing the $1.1 trillion omnibus spending bill. This year’s omnibus resembles omnibuses of Christmas past in that it was drafted in secret, was full of special interest deals and disguised spending increases, and was voted on before... Read More

Here is a quick pop quiz. Which presented more harm to human life and personal freedom: the four-week partial shutdown of the federal government last month or the rollout of Obamacare this month? Obamacare is the greatest single expansion of federal regulatory authority in American history. In one stroke, it puts 16 percent of American... Read More

"We told you you would lose!" wail the Beltway bundlers of the Republican establishment. "We told you you would lose!" moan neoconservative columnists from their privileged perches on the op-ed pages of the Beltway press. "Look at what Ted Cruz and this Tea Party people did to us," wails the GOP establishment. "Look what has... Read More

While this country's creditor nations twitched, the global bankers were worried, too, and in campaign mode. In Washington for the annual meeting of the International Monetary Fund, a number of them were predicting that a congressional unwillingness to raise the debt ceiling could take down what global “recovery� there had been since the Great Recession.... Read More

"History does not repeat itself, but it does rhyme." Mark Twain's insight comes to mind as one observes the panic of Beltway Republicans over the latest polls in the battle of Obamacare. According to Gallup, approval of the Republican Party has sunk 10 points in two weeks to 28 percent, an all-time low. In the... Read More

In less than 2 days, if the Treasury secretary can be believed, the Treasury will not have enough money to pay all its bills and will have to prioritize. This doesn’t mean default, as interest on Treasury bonds, notes, and bills will be right up there with the military and NSA. If Washington defaults on... Read More

In a speech to the Commonwealth Club, San Francisco, November 23, 2010, Peter Dale Scott gave a history of the various directives concerned with government continuity during a state of emergency. He showed that these directives could be used to supersede the Constitution. The ease with which both the Bush and Obama regimes were able... Read More

One way or another, the battle of the budget and the debt ceiling will be over by All Hallows' Eve. Yet, as one looks deeper, at the irreconcilable conflict behind the present clash, only a roaring optimist would imagine we shall ever know again the tranquility and unity of the Eisenhower-Kennedy years. Consider the bile... Read More

In the showdown over the shutdown of the U.S. government, the Obamaites tipped their hand yesterday as what their strategy is. Taking a page out of Saul Alinsky's "Rules for Radicals," the plan is to maximize the people's pain -- to maximize the political damage to the enemy, the Republican Party. What else explains it?... Read More

The United States is the world’s biggest pest. It doesn’t matter where you live or what you do, the US will find some excuse to poke its nose in your business and make your life miserable. That’s why the US has so many enemies, because its the world’s biggest budinski. The people in Washington just... Read More

The inability of the media and politicians to focus on the real issues never ceases to amaze. The real crisis is not the “debt ceiling crisis.� The government shutdown is merely a result of the Republicans using the debt limit ceiling to attempt to block the implementation of Obamacare. If the shutdown persists and becomes... Read More

"In wartime, truth is so precious that she should always be attended by a bodyguard of lies," said Winston Churchill. What is the truth behind the Beltway lies about these crazy Republicans crashing our government? Twice in the last week House Republicans have voted unanimously to fund the U.S. government. If national polls are to... Read More

As I write this, it appears that the federal government is about to shut down because the House and Senate cannot agree on whether to add language defunding or delaying Obamacare to the “Continuing Resolution�. Despite all the hand-wringing heard in DC, a short-term government shut down (which doesn’t actually shut down the government) will... Read More