In the middle of his tirade against House Republicans’ “mean-spirited” budget bill on the Senate floor Tuesday, the Senate Majority Leader lamented that the GOP’s proposed budget cuts would eliminate the annual “cowboy poetry festival” in his home state of Nevada. (See also: Reid’s prostitution lecture bombs.)

Reid clearly has a soft spot for the Baxter Blacks of the poetry world and thinks Republicans don’t.

“The mean-spirited bill, H.R. 1 … eliminates the National Endowment of the Humanities, National Endowment of the Arts,” said Reid. “These programs create jobs. The National Endowment of the Humanities is the reason we have in northern Nevada every January a cowboy poetry festival. Had that program not been around, the tens of thousands of people who come there every year would not exist.”

Reid was attempting, of course, to criticize the spending proposal crafted by House Republicans that would cut $61 billion from the budget before he began praising the annual festival in his home state. The Senate majority leader also insisted Tuesday that he would do everything he could to schedule an up-or-down vote on H.R. 1 in order to force his GOP colleagues to take a position on the budget bill that Democrats argue includes “draconian” cuts.

For the record, the National Cowboy Poetry Gathering is in Elko, Nev., next January. The 28th annual festival, a “week-long celebration of life in the rural West, featuring the contemporary and traditional arts of western ranching culture,” is expected to draw thousands of people, according to the festival’s website.

http://www.politico.com/blogs/glennthrush/0311/Reid_Save_federal_funding_for_the_cowboy_poets.html

Face Forward Comments:

I have nothing against Cowboy Poetry in fact I enjoy the images of the west and the simple life that their words evoke.  However, I don’t know if I would ever pay to go see a cowboy poetry competition (or any other poetry competition).  But guess what readers?  I have been paying for it all along.

That is the problem with Federal funding for the Arts.  We, the individual tax payer, end up paying for “Art” that we don’t like and in some instances, find offensive.  If an “Artist” wants to put picture of Mohammed, Jesus and The Buddha in a toilet bowl and call it art, that is his/her business.  When he/she wants me to pay for it, I have a problem.

Mary Katharine Ham notes that President Obama tells ABC:

“Let’s just clarify. I didn’t make a bunch of deals [on health care]. … There is a legislative process that is taking place in Congress and I am happy to own up to the fact that I have not changed Congress and how it operates the way I would have liked.”

But the Washington Post reported on December 20 that Obama’s top aides were involved in the negotiations with Nelson:

Schumer, who spent more than 13 hours in Reid’s office Friday, said the Medicaid issue was settled around lunchtime, and the final eight hours of the talks focused on the abortion language. Boxer estimated she spent seven hours in Reid’s offices — without ever once sitting in the same room, even though they were all of 25 steps apart.

Reid and Schumer kept up the “shuttle negotiation” between the leader’s conference room and his top aide’s office, Boxer said. Keenly aware how tense the talks were, the White House dispatched two aides who together have decades of experience in the Senate — Jim Messina and Peter Rouse — to work with Nelson. They relayed their intelligence to White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel, who monitored the talks from a dinner in Georgetown.

Perhaps Messina and Rouse just showed up to provide the “Christmas cookies” that Reid and Schumer chowed down to sustain themselves during the tense negotiations, but it’s hard to believe that Obama’s aides didn’t sign off on both the abortion and Medicaid backroom deals.

Michelle Malkin sums it up:

The unmitigated chutzpah here is so blinding that I don’t just need sunglasses to protect my eyes. I need blackout curtains. Watch President Obama blame Congress for Demcare bribery and sabotage of transparency. As if Rahm and all the senior goons in the White House weren’t twisting arms and cracking heads to ensure that the deal met their boss’s timeline. As if the Cadillac tax break for unions hadn’t been hashed out at 1600 Pennsylvania.

For more on this story:

http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/blogs/beltway-confidential/Obama-pretends-he-didnt-sign-off-on-the-shady-health-care-deals-82699357.html

“Let’s just clarify. I didn’t make a bunch of deals [on health care]. … There is a legislative process that is taking place in Congress and I am happy to own up to the fact that I have not changed Congress and how it operates the way I would have liked.”  But the Washington Post reported on December 20 that Obama’s top aides were involved in the negotiations with Nelson.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid took his GOP-blasting rhetoric to a new level Monday, comparing Republicans who oppose health care reform to lawmakers who clung to the institution of slavery more than a century ago.

Dec. 6: Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid talks to the media after the Senate Democratic caucus that President Obama attended on Capitol Hill in Washington. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid took his GOP-blasting rhetoric to a new level Monday, comparing Republicans who oppose health care reform to lawmakers who clung to the institution of slavery more than a century ago.

The Nevada Democrat, in a sweeping set of accusations on the Senate floor, also compared health care foes to those who opposed women’s suffrage and the civil rights movement – even though it was Sen. Strom Thurmond, then a Democrat, who unsuccessfully tried to filibuster the Civil Rights Act of 1957 and it was Republicans who led the charge against slavery.

Senate Republicans on Monday called Reid’s comments “offensive” and “unbelievable.”

But Reid argued that Republicans are using the same stalling tactics employed in the pre-Civil War era.

“Instead of joining us on the right side of history, all the Republicans can come up with is, ‘slow down, stop everything, let’s start over.’ If you think you’ve heard these same excuses before, you’re right,” Reid said Monday. “When this country belatedly recognized the wrongs of slavery, there were those who dug in their heels and said ‘slow down, it’s too early, things aren’t bad enough.’”

He continued: “When women spoke up for the right to speak up, they wanted to vote, some insisted they simply, slow down, there will be a better day to do that, today isn’t quite right.

For the rest of this article please go here:

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2009/12/07/reid-compares-health-care-reform-foes-slavery-supporters/

Face Forward Comments:

I long ago gave up hope that politicians would hit the bottom of the mud pit and not fall any further into mire.  Once again, I can sleep in the knowledge that our political leadership will, when all else fails, resort to name calling and slinging mud.  I will have to give Harry Reid a thumbs up though, I would have never thought it possible that Opposing government owned health care could be equated to slavery.  Nice one, Harry.

I also find it amazing that the Democrats can point fingers at the Republicans with the words slavery on their lips.  As it was the democrats that tried to keep millions enslaved by trying to block civil rights legislation.  Welcome to American politics.

WASHINGTON — Digging in for a long struggle, Republican senators and governors assailed the majority Democrats’ newly minted health care legislation Thursday as a collection of tax increases, cuts in services for the elderly and heavy new burdens for deficit-ridden states.

Despite the criticism, indications were growing that Democrats would prevail on an initial Senate showdown set for Saturday night, and Majority Leader Harry Reid, the top Democrat, crisply rebutted the Republican charges. He said the bill “will save lives, save money and save Medicare,” the main health program for the elderly.

The legislation is designed to answer President Barack Obama’s demand to expand coverage, end insurance industry practices such as denying coverage on the basis of pre-existing medical conditions, and restrain the growth of health care spending.

Still, Republicans saw little to like Reid’s legislation awaiting the Saturday night Senate vote.

“It makes no sense at all and affronts common sense,” said Sen. Judd Gregg, one of several Republicans to criticize the measure. He added that a plan to expand Medicaid, the state-federal program for the poor, was a “bait and switch” with states as the victims.

Republican governors, meeting in Texas, agreed. “We all know a sucker play when we see one,” said Gov. Mitch Daniels of Indiana. The bill would expand the Medicaid program, which provides health care for the poor, and leave the states with part of the additional cost beginning after three years. Medicaid is administered by the states.

In the Capitol, Reid answered Republican delaying tactics with an initial vote set for Saturday evening to determine whether he has the 60 votes needed to move the legislation forward. That so-called “supermajority” in the 100-member Senate is required to advance the bill toward full debate, expected to begin after Thanksgiving.

For the rest of the article please go here:

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2009/11/20/republicans-blast-bait-switch-health/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%253A+foxnews%252Fpolitics+%2528FOXNews.com+-+Politics%2529

Face Forward Comments:

The health care bill vote is coming.   There are so many back door deals being cut it hard to keep track.  You can bet as each person that once opposed the bill now comes out in favor or you find out they have voted yes on it, they were bought and paid for. 

When Pelosi was pushing her version through the House, Rep. Dan Maffei (D-N.Y.) was among a group of lawmakers that got a package included in the bill to reduce a 2.5 percent tax on medical device manufacturers in his state. And remember the famous Blue Dog Democrats that were supposed to be so conservative?  Rep. Dennis Cardoza (D-CA) was loud in his vocal opposition however,  Democratic leaders knew how to lock in his vote. They’d add a last-minute provision authorizing up to $500 million to create medical centers that could benefit a college in Cardoza’s California district. Dig deep enough and every person in the House that voted yes got something.