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Sebelius the 'laughingstock of America,' says senator By Elise Viebeck - 10/27/13 11:02 AM ET A Republican senator called Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Kathleen Sebelius the "laughingstock of America" after she was lampooned on "Saturday Night Live." The sketch, which aired Saturday, poked fun at Sebelius's attempts to downplay serious problems with ObamaCare's enrollment website. Sen. John Barrasso (R-Wyo.) referred to the skit Sunday during an appearance on ABC's "This Week." "She's lost considerable credibility," Barrasso said of Sebelius. "She's the laughingstock of America." Sebelius has experienced a wave of scrutiny since HealthCare.gov debuted with major problems on...

White House Press Secretary Jay Carney was dismissive Thursday of comments by Sen. Joe Manchin endorsing a one-year delay of the new health care law's individual mandate. "The fact is you have to make the system work," Carney told reporters during the White House press briefing. The argument, by Manchin and others, is that such a delay would be only fair to the American people after the Obama administration granted a similar delay to large businesses in their reporting requirement for providing health insurance to their employees. To that, Carney and other Obamacare supporters argue that the individual mandate is...

Full Title:********************************************************************** Here we go: HHS official hints at extending ObamaCare enrollment period as Joe Manchin drafts bill to delay mandate; Update: WH wants six-week extension? The ice is starting to crack. First, Manchin: Republican Marco Rubio of Florida is working on legislation to delay the mandate indefinitely — which Manchin’s office says the senator does not support — and it’s entirely possible the GOP could push for a delay provision to be included as an amendment vote to the next moving vehicle, using Manchin’s effort as leverage inside the Dome and as political fodder outside it, from entities such...

Sen. Joe Manchin III said Tuesday that Democrats should negotiate a debt deal as part of the debt limit increase — a break from Democratic leaders and President Barack Obama. The West Virginia Democrat said he personally is “looking for a bigger plan” to reduce the debt as part of the discussion to authorize payment of the government’s bills. Manchin talked to a group of reporters before Democrats’ weekly luncheon Tuesday and said he supports using the debt limit debate as a vehicle to attach deficit reduction, such as the Bowles-Simpson plan — Democratic leaders and the president have vowed...

Those of you who are supposedly outraged or indignant over the partial government shutdown, or have friends or neighbors who are outraged or indignant, I can tell you all how YOU can fix it. All you have to do is tell pollsters who call that you think Obama and the Democrats are responsible for the shutdown. As soon as that hits the papers, the shutdown will be over before the end of the day. That is because it is Obama and the Democrats who shut down the government, because they are so certain that the Republicans will be blamed for...

A defunding of the mandate for Big Business has taken place, per Obama, yet hasn't Obama done so in defiance of "the law of the land"? The same goes for the susbsidies/exemptions that Congress, congressional staffers and all federal employess will get. The law of the land is being defied! In the spirit of bipartisanship, and so that Republicans will do the same that Obama is doing - and that which Harry Reid and Pelousy so vehemently support - we need additional defunding: defund the individual mandate! If it's "the law" (ObamaCare, that is), yet Dems support the law being...

BEGIN TRANSCRIPT RUSH: I have received e-mails today from people who have heard about West Virginia Senator Joe Manchin. What Joe Manchin has said today is that he might break ranks from the Democrats and vote for a funding measure that delays the individual mandate. Now, the employer mandate has been delayed until 2015, but the individual mandate has not been. The employers got a one-year waiver from being required to provide insurance for their employees. But the individual citizen is still required, mandated to have insurance, or pay a fine. And Manchin has said that he is willing to...

Two words, my friends: “Bipartisan support.” U.S. Senator Joe Manchin of West Virginia broke ranks with fellow Democrats and said he’d support a stopgap spending plan that delays the individual mandate in President Barack Obama’s health-care law.“There’s no way I could not vote for it,” Manchin said at a Bloomberg Government breakfast today. “It’s very reasonable and sensible.”…Manchin, 66, said he’d be willing to delay the individual mandate as part of the budget negotiations because the Obama administration in July gave businesses an extra year to provide their workers with health insurance.“Don’t put the mandate on the American public right...

The Talk Shows September 15==22nd, 2013 Guests to be interviewed today on major television talk shows: FOX NEWS SUNDAY (Fox Network): Sens. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, and Claire McCaskill, D-Mo.MEET THE PRESS (NBC): Wayne LaPierre, executive vice president of the National Rifle Association.FACE THE NATION (CBS): Sens. Joe Manchin, D-W.Va., and Tom Coburn, R-Okla.; Rep. Matt Salmon, R-Ariz.THIS WEEK (ABC): Reps. Chris Van Hollen, D-Md., and Tom Graves, R-Ga.STATE OF THE UNION (CNN): Rep. Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif.

Sen. Joe Manchin broke ranks with the Democrats on Wednesday, saying he would vote against President Barack Obama’s pick to lead the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, Ron Binz, a move that could sink the nomination. The surprise decision by the coal-state Democrat is the latest twist in power struggle over the chairmanship of the agency that typically draws attention only from power sector and pipeline wonks. But the Binz nomination has recently jumped to the editorial pages of The Wall Street Journal as conservatives attacked a regulator they view as hostile to fossil fuels. Manchin’s move crimps the Democrats’ 12-10...

We already know Manachin, a Democrat, sold out West Virginia with his gun-control antics and sucking up to Obozo. Is the Republican party that stupid.

To say that Mika Brzezinski was "moved" by Joe Manchin's ad, responding to one by the NRA criticizing the Dem senator from West Virginia for supporting new gun-control measures, is a decided understatement. Have a look at the ad, which Manchin debuted on Morning Joe today, then have a go at describing Mika's emotional reaction. View the video here.

The National Rifle Association is targeting Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) with new ads urging him not to help President Obama and New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg (I) pass new gun restrictions. The NRA is spending $100,000 on TV ads set to air for two weeks in West Virginia on local broadcasts. One of the new NRA ads begins with a clip of a 2010 Manchin Senate campaign ad where he says "as your senator I'll protect your second amendment rights." "That was Joe Manchin's commitment," a voiceover in one of the ads says.  "But now, Manchin is working with President...

On the third-to-last day that Senator Frank Lautenberg ever voted in the Senate, he joined with 53 of his colleagues to support a compromise on new gun regulations. His vote wasn't enough. Now, Lautenberg's death makes the prospect of revisiting that issue — and a number of other Democratic priorities — substantially trickier. Take the gun legislation. The compromise proposal, which would have expanded background checks to include gun show and online sales, was part of a package that was postponed by Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid after the failed vote. It's expected to come back before the Senate at...

Democratic leaders are wooing staunchly pro-gun candidates to run in pivotal Senate races at the same time they are discussing a strategy for bringing gun control legislation back up for debate. The two-pronged effort has prompted Republicans to accuse the Senate Democratic leadership of hypocrisy, but Democrats say it is simply smart politics. The question is whether two of the Democrats’ most promising potential candidates in Montana and South Dakota will pay a price for the leadership’s political maneuverings in Washington. Or will recruiting candidates who do not support President Obama’s gun control agenda have any effect on Democratic fundraising...

The Senate's proposed gun-control bill crashed and burned earlier this month, and Majority Leader Harry Reid signaled that he was going to put the issue on the political shelf where it would presumably start to gather dust — but that might not be the case after all. Senator Manchin and Toomey revealed last week that they're going to keep looking for ways to strengthen Senate support for the measures, and Machin confirmed that he's optimistc that he can fix their mistakes from the last go-around and introduce a background check-centric, cleaner version of the bill:CLICK ABOVE LINK FOR THE VIDEO...

His gun-control bill may have fizzled, but Senator Joe Manchin, Democrat of West Virginia, isn’t giving up hope. “I was with Pat [Toomey] last night, and Pat’s totally committed to this bill. And I believe that with all my heart,” he said on Fox News Sunday. Manchin predicted that their legislation to expand background checks will “absolutely” come up for another vote. ”We’re going to work this bill,” he said. “I truly believe that if we have time to sell the bill,” it can pass, he said. In an interview last week with NR, Toomey shared Manchin’s perspective. “If we...

Posted from an Android. The fight is not over.

President Barack Obama delivered an impassioned speech Thursday at the memorial service for victims of the Boston Marathon bombing. But that was to be expected. We all know Obama can give a stem-winder. What wasn’t expected was that this would be by far the toughest week of the Obama presidency—the first time I can remember the president being dealt an unequivocal policy defeat. Only the “shellacking” of the 2010 midterm comes close, and even there a case can be made that achieving the decades-old progressive dream of universal health care was worth losing the House of Representatives and a filibuster-proof...

As the Senate debated the merits of an assault-weapons ban, an emotional Dianne Feinstein urged her colleagues to “show some guts” and vote in favor of the measure. “I am really chagrined and concerned. If anybody cares, vote at least to prospectively ban the manufacture, the sale, the importation of military-style assault weapons,” she said in remarks on the Senate floor. Feinstein is the author of the assault-weapons ban, which was defeated earlier today by a margin of 60 to 40. The compromise on background checks introduced by GOP senator Pat Toomey and Democratic senator Joe Manchin was also defeated,...