Cash Money

Carolyn Maloney

Carolyn Maloney: ‘Right Now, We’re Marching Towards Sequestration’

New York City Congresswoman Carolyn Maloney was quite pleased with President Barack Obama’s State of the Union address last night, but she’s not optimistic about Congress heeding the president’s call to to avoid the $85 billion in automatic spending cuts known as the “sequester” that are scheduled to go into effect March 1.

“I love his speech he came out swinging,” Ms. Maloney told Politicker about the president’s speech last night.  Read More

Preemptive Strikes

(Photo: YouTube)

Karl Rove’s Super PAC Goes After Ashley Judd

American Crossroads, the Karl Rove-backed “super PAC” that invested millions of dollars in last year’s elections, has a new target–actress Ashley Judd.

Ms. Judd is reportedly considering a run against Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell in Kentucky, but American Crossroads might prefer if the actress never moved forward with her campaign. Accordingly, the group released a YouTube ad unloading a barrage of hits against Ms. Judd and arguing that she’s “an Obama-following, radical, Hollywood liberal” who’s out of step with Kentucky’s conservative politics. Read More

dealmaking

(Photo: Getty)

Obama and Congressional Leaders Powwow in Attempt to Avoid Fiscal Cliff

Earlier today, President Barack Obama gathered with the majority and minority leaders of both houses of Congress to move forward in avoiding automatic spending cuts and tax hikes set to occur at the end of the year. Although Democrats and Republicans have, at times, seemed to have irreconcilable differences in the process, the various elected officials walked out of the Roosevelt Room with an optimistic outlook that a compromise would be reached.

“I can only echo the observations of the other leaders that it was a constructive meeting. We all understand where we are….We are prepared to put revenue on the table provided we fix the real problem,” Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell told reporters, according to a White House pool report. “Most of my members, I think without exception, believe that we’re in the dilemma we’re in not because we taxed too little but because we spent too much.” Read More

Foreign Affairs

(Photo: Getty)

Senator Suggests Obama Administration Hid True Cause of Libya Attack to Protect Re-Election Campaign

Earlier today, State Department officials testifying before a congressional hearing investigating the attack on the U.S. Consulate in Libya last month admitted they felt there was a terrorist threat in the region. While making the media rounds tonight ahead of the vice presidential debate Mitch McConnell, the leader of the U.S. Senate Republicans, said this new information creates the “suspicion” that the White House’s initial attempts to tie the attack  to a video mocking the Muslim prophet Muhammad rather than terrorism may have been a dishonest and politically-motivated coverup.

“Well, we’re finally getting the right story from the professionals down at the State Department who’ve been saying, apparently from the beginning, that it’s a terrorist attack,” Mr. McConnell said. “I don’t know where this notion that this thing was video-inspired came from in the first place. It leaves you with the suspicion that, since the president was in the campaign, going around, reminding everybody that bin Laden was gone and that we’re out of Iraq and we’d soon be out of Afghanistan, and implying that the War on Terror was over, the campaign just felt it was inconvenient that we had a terrorist attack that had killed four Americans, as I say, inconveniently within a month of the election.” Read More

Cries For Help

Attorney General Eric Schneiderman (Getty)

New York Attorney General Begs Senators to Oppose Gun Bill

New York State Attorney General Eric Schneiderman asked top Senators to help defeat a bill that he said would compromise his ability to fight crime. Mr. Schneiderman wrote a letter to Democratic Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and Republican Minority Leader Mitch McConnell in which he urged them “to oppose the National Right-to-Carry Reciprocity Act” because it would increase violence and make it easier for gun traffickers to do business in the Empire State. Read More