Shake!

Charlie Rangel (D-New York) survived an ethics scandal. But could he survive his next term?

Before I go into the real issue, I wanted to get this issue of my chest. This ridiculous Operation Fast & Furious scandal is still an annoying thing to the president and his attorney general. The Republican witch hunt led to Attorney General Eric Holder being held in contempt of Congress. The U.S. Justice Department has found no evidence of criminal misconduct in the withholding of information to House Oversight Committee chairman Congressman Darrell Issa (R-California). The president invoking executive privilege in the matter infuriating the Republicans.


In Washington, a small group of conservative activists went to the White House to protest. The protest is mainly their frustration with the controversial Operation Fast & Furious scandal. 


Republicans enraged at the president and Attorney General Eric Holder over the ATF's mishandling of firearms leading to the death of U.S. Border Agent Brian Terry. The Republicans are playing political gamesmanship with this issue. They claim a ridiculous conspiracy about the operation being a way to enact legislation to restrict assault rifles. President Barack Obama hasn't signed any legislation that restricts the ownership of firearms. But to the Republicans and the gun lobbyist organization the National Rifle Association, they will rile up white voters with this nonsense of the president taking guns and taxing the American people.

I would say that anything done by the president, isn't going to satisfy the white working class male.

Conservative white men are stuck in their ways. They will never understand the president's policies gave them a tax cut. They will never understand that this Operation Fast & Furious scandal is a distraction. No member of the U.S. Justice Department wants to see a fellow law enforcement officer killed. Yet the Republicans claim that the president and Holder have blood on their hands because they refuse to release documents that could indict members of the ATF or expose tactics to curb drug smuggling.


This protest is one of the many the Tea Party is planning on doing this Fourth of July week.


The Secret Service shut down the protest after an undetermined package was found close to the White House. So you know it will have the kookspiracy nuts raging online about the government finding a way to shut down dissent.


The Tea Party is still upset over the Supreme Court ruling. The ruling upholds the controversial American Health Care Reform Act (Obamacare). The Republican governors and lawmakers are going to boycott the decision.

These are the ones who claim the president is stomping on the U.S. Constitution. But yet there's going against the Constitution by denying the court ruling. Talk about stomping on the Constitution?


Okay, now we'll move on!

Congressman Charles (Charlie) Rangel (D-New York) has been longstanding representative of the Harlem and Bronx district. But trouble amid the 82 year old politician could really unseat him. After declaring victory in a brutal Democratic primary race, Rangel thought he could breathe a sigh of relief. Not so fast, Mr. Rangel.

Rangel was initially declared the winner over State Senator Adriano Espaillat. After reports were made about several precincts’ votes in the district being left out, a recount has ensued. Rangel’s margin of victory is down to 802 votes. The Politicker reports

The race between veteran Congressman Charlie Rangel and State Senator Adriano Espaillat for the 13th Congressional District in Upper Manhattan will come down to paper ballots. Mr. Rangel was initially declared the winner by the Associated Press based on initial results provided by the New York City Board of Elections, but it was subsequently revealed those results did not include votes from many of the precincts in the district. After a re-examination of the votes, the BOE released unofficial results tonight including votes cast in all of the district’s 506 precincts that show Mr. Rangel defeating Mr. Espaillat by a margin of just 802 votes. According to the BOE, Mr. Rangel received 18,075 votes, or 44.29 percent of the total cast, compared to Mr. Espaillat’s 17,273, 42.33 percent of the votes cast.

These unofficial results do not include paper ballots cast by absentee voters and affidavit ballots submitted by those whose name is not on the voter rolls when they arrive at the polling place. Those paper ballots, which include votes for both candidates, will be counted by the BOE next Thursday and will be the deciding factor in this tight race.

On Thursday, Mr. Espaillat’s supporters held a press conference in front of Mr. Rangel’s office where they called for a federal monitor to oversee the counting of votes after the issues with the initial results. 

It seems likely that if the recount goes in the favor of the challenger, Rangel could be unseated. According to Wikipedia, the first causalities of the 112th Congress are incumbents in the primaries.


Democrats

Five Democrats lost renomination: three in redistricting; two to a challenger.

• Ohio's 9th congressional district: Dennis Kucinich (first elected in 1996): redistricted and defeated March 6, 2012 by fellow incumbent Marcy Kaptur
• Pennsylvania's 12th congressional district: Jason Altmire (first elected in 2006): redistricted and defeated April 24, 2012 by fellow incumbent Mark Critz
• Pennsylvania's 17th congressional district: Tim Holden (first elected in 1992): defeated April 24, 2012 by challenger Matt Cartwright
• Texas's 16th congressional district: Silvestre Reyes (first elected in 1996): defeated May 29, 2012 by challenger Beto O'Rourke
• New Jersey's 9th congressional district: Steve Rothman (first elected in 1996): redistricted and defeated June 5, 2012 by fellow incumbent Bill Pascrell

Republicans

Three Republicans lost renomination: one in redistricting; two to a challenger:

• Ohio's 2nd congressional district: Jean Schmidt (first elected in 2005): defeated March 6, 2012 by challenger Brad Wenstrup
• Illinois's 16th congressional district: Don Manzullo (first elected in 1992): redistricted and defeated March 20, 2012 by fellow incumbent Adam Kinzinger
• Oklahoma's 1st congressional district: John A. Sullivan (first elected in 2002) : defeated June 26, 2012 by challenger Jim Bridenstine.

Courtesy of Fox News Channel.

Obama To CBC: Stop Complaining! Fight For Your Share!

WASHINGTON — In a fiery summons to an important voting bloc, President Barack Obama told blacks on Saturday to quit crying and complaining and "put on your marching shoes" to follow him into battle for jobs and opportunity.

And though he didn't say it directly, for a second term, too.

Obama's speech to the annual awards dinner of the Congressional Black Caucus was his answer to increasingly vocal griping from black leaders that he's been giving away too much in talks with Republicans -- and not doing enough to fight black unemployment, which is nearly double the national average at 16.7 percent.

"It gets folks discouraged. I know. I listen to some of y'all," Obama told an audience of some 3,000 in a darkened Washington convention center.

But he said blacks need to have faith in the future -- and understand that the fight won't be won if they don't rally to his side.

"I need your help," Obama said.

The president will need black turnout to match its historic 2008 levels if he's to have a shot at winning a second term, and Saturday's speech was a chance to speak directly to inner-city concerns.

He acknowledged blacks have suffered mightily because of the recession, and are frustrated that the downturn is taking so long to reverse. "So many people are still hurting. So many people are barely hanging on," he said, then added: "And so many people in this city are fighting us every step of the way."

But Obama said blacks know all too well from the civil rights struggle that the fight for what is right is never easy.

"Take off your bedroom slippers. Put on your marching shoes," he said, his voice rising as applause and cheers mounted. "Shake it off. Stop complainin'. Stop grumblin'. Stop cryin'. We are going to press on. We have work to do."

Topping the to-do list, he said, is getting Congress to the pass jobs bill he sent to Capitol Hill two weeks ago.

Obama said the package of payroll tax cuts, business tax breaks and infrastructure spending will benefit 100,000 black-owned businesses and 20 million African-American workers. Republicans have indicated they're open to some of the tax measures -- but oppose his means of paying for it: hiking taxes on top income-earners and big business.

But at times, Obama also sounded like he was discussing his own embattled tenure.

"The future rewards those who press on," He said. "I don't have time to feel sorry for myself. I don't have time to complain. I'm going to press on."

Caucus leaders remain fiercely protective of the nation's first African-American president, but in recent weeks they've been increasingly vocal in their discontent -- especially over black joblessness.

"If Bill Clinton had been in the White House and had failed to address this problem, we probably would be marching on the White House," the caucus chairman, Rep. Emanuel Cleaver of Missouri, recently told McClatchy Newspapers.

Like many Democratic lawmakers, caucus members were dismayed by Obama's concessions to the GOP during the summer's talks on raising the government's borrowing limit.

Cleaver famously called the compromise deal a "sugar-coated Satan sandwich."

But Cleaver said his members also are keeping their gripes in check because "nobody wants to do anything that would empower the people who hate the president."

Still, Rep. Maxine Waters, D-Calif., caused a stir last month by complaining that Obama's Midwest bus tour had bypassed black districts. She told a largely black audience in Detroit that the caucus is "supportive of the president, but we're getting tired."

Last year, Obama addressed the same dinner and implored blacks to get out the vote in the midterm elections because Republicans were preparing to "turn back the clock."

What followed was a Democratic rout that Obama acknowledged as a "shellacking."

Where blacks had turned out in droves to help elect him in 2008, there was a sharp drop-off two years later.

Some 65 percent of eligible blacks voted in 2008, compared with a 2010 level that polls estimate at between 37 percent and 40 percent. Final census figures for 2010 are not yet available, and it's worth noting off-year elections typically draw far fewer voters.

This year's caucus speech came as Obama began cranking up grass-roots efforts across the Democratic spectrum.

It also fell on the eve of a trip to the West Coast that will combine salesmanship for the jobs plan he sent to Congress this month and re-election fundraising.

Obama was leaving Sunday morning for Seattle, where two money receptions were planned, with two more to follow in the San Francisco area.

On Monday, Obama is holding a town meeting at the California headquarters of LinkedIn, the business networking website, before going on to fundraisers in San Diego and Los Angeles and a visit Tuesday to a Denver-area high school to highlight the school renovation component of the jobs package.