1.) Boehner late than never? — No sleep till crooks win! Or lose, depending on your perspective. TheDC’s Amanda Carey reports: “First scheduled for 6 p.m. Thursday, a vote on House Speaker John Boehner’s Budget Control Act was delayed long into the night. At the point it was canceled, a Hill source told The Daily Caller that Boehner was two votes short of securing passage. Shortly after 10:30, House Majority Whip Kevin McCarthy informed reporters the vote was being delayed until Friday. At 11 p.m., an amended version of the bill went back to the Rules Committee so it could implement a ‘Same Day Rule’ in order to take up the bill without delay on Friday. But in the preceding hours, things were tense as Boehner and McCarthy tried desperately to change the whip count in their favor, while House members diligently debated measures on the floor on name changes for post offices… Thursday’s late-night collapse means Congress has only five more days to pass legislation to raise the debt limit before the August 2 deadline. A House Republican Conference meeting is scheduled for 10 Friday morning.” Boehner should just tell the holdouts that they need to pass it to find out what’s in it. Naw, that’d be dumb. Meanwhile, the White House doesn’t have any better ideas, besides accusing the Republicans of stealing Christmas. BTW, if you need a visual reference to understand the mind-boggling sums of money the government is spending and how little of a difference any of this is going to make, check out this slideshow.
2.) How’s Obama doing? — Just fine, as long as he doesn’t care what anybody else thinks. (Which he says he doesn’t, but you know he so does.) TheDC’s Neil Munro reports: “A new poll shows President Barack Obama’s disapproval rate among political independents has broken above 50 percent, even while he is using the debt ceiling debate to seek approval from those critical swing voters. Support for Obama among independents has fallen from 42 percent in May to 31 percent, and disapproval has risen to 54 percent, according to a late July poll of 1,500 registered voters by the Pew Research Center for the People & the Press. The drop in support among independents is critical because both parties have a roughly similar number of die-hard supporters. The 2012 election prize will go to the candidate who draws more independent voters, and Obama’s decline in that crucial demographic has dragged his ratings down among registered voters, according to the Pew poll… To win the independents, Obama has reversed his support for high-spending policies, and now says he wants curbs on spending and cuts to entitlement programs. He has also publicly portrayed himself as the even-handed arbiter between Democrats and Republicans, and as a White House consensus builder in a gridlocked Washington. That’s a difficult task, partly because he has refused to reveal the details of his budget preferences, and partly because those details would cost him support among his left-wing supporters.” Yeah, but on the other hand: Shhhhhhhhhh!
3.) Tiger Wu will land on his feet — If your favorite congressman gets caught doing stuff he’s not supposed to do and has to go bye-bye, don’t worry. He’ll be fine. TheDC’s Steven Nelson reports: “Oregon Democratic Rep. David Wu is leaving Congress without his dignity — after donning a tiger costume and allegedly sexually assaulting an 18-year-old woman — but he will have a generous congressional pension to ease the pain. According to the National Taxpayers Union, Wu stands to benefit from nearly $1 million in pension payments. And his case is far from unique. In fact, congressmen convicted of crimes — including former Reps. James Traficant of Ohio, William Jefferson of Louisiana and Duke Cunningham of California — can retire comfortably on the taxpayer’s dime after leaving the slammer. Former New York Democratic Rep. Anthony Weiner can also count on a hefty pension. He stands to collect over $1.2 million in pension payments if he retires after age 62. ‘Other Members of Congress with ethical troubles or even outright convictions can and do collect pensions,’ National Taxpayers Union Executive Vice President Pete Sepp told The Daily Caller.” A golden parachute, made with the gold from your pocket. So apparently, the only incentive our fine members of Congress have to avoid being complete maniacs is their sense of shame. Ha ha, just kidding. If they had a sense of shame, they wouldn’t be in Congress.
4.) Climate-change climate changes? — Yesterday we heard the news that the guy who found four dead polar bears — therefore proving that THE POLAR BEARS ARE GONNA DIE — is updating his resume. Now Forbes reports on another interesting development: “NASA satellite data from the years 2000 through 2011 show the Earth’s atmosphere is allowing far more heat to be released into space than alarmist computer models have predicted, reports a new study in the peer-reviewed science journal Remote Sensing. The study indicates far less future global warming will occur than United Nations computer models have predicted, and supports prior studies indicating increases in atmospheric carbon dioxide trap far less heat than alarmists have claimed… In addition to finding that far less heat is being trapped than alarmist computer models have predicted, the NASA satellite data show the atmosphere begins shedding heat into space long before United Nations computer models predicted.” Why does NASA hate science? Not to worry, global warming true believers. The end of the world really is nigh, which is why it’s okay to spend all the money now. Why worry about paying off the credit card if you’re going to be dead anyway?
5.) Blonde bombshell destroys Marine’s dreams — It’s the same old story: Marine makes YouTube video asking movie star to big dance, movie star issues polite statement telling Marine to get lost. TheDC’s Laura Donovan reports: “Unlike Mila Kunis and Justin Timberlake, sexpot actress Scarlett Johansson declined an invitation to the Marine Corps Ball. Johansson, who was asked to the major event by Sgt. Dustin L. Williams, wrote in a statement to Zap2it that she was moved by the military man’s gesture but unable to accept due to some other plans she’d made.” Hey, that luxurious mane of flaxen hair isn’t going to wash itself! To her publicist’s credit, Johansson instead sent a case of champagne and said, “In my absence, I raise a glass to you and all the men and women of the U.S. Marine Corps, past and present, in thanks for your continued commitment to preserving the safety of our nation.” Thankfully, Sean Penn didn’t rub off on her. Well, at least not figuratively.
6.) Today’s words of wisdom from Adam Baldwin’s Twitter feed — “Originalist Constitutional Americanism IS centrist, here in America. Don’t let any liars tell you different.”
VIDEO: Hey, it didn’t hurt to try, Sgt. Dustin L. Williams
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