Anthony's losing them one by one....and when you lost Mark Shields????
Sunday, June 5, 2011
More Proof that Anthony Weiner is Guilty!
More proof that Anthony Weiner is lying and he is guilty as sin.....another Democrat sleazeball in Congress....Where's Nancy Pelosi cleaning up the sesspool???
WEINER'S TALE UNRAVELING
By Daniel Libit Sunday, June 5, 2011
As the world has attempted to make sense of Rep. Anthony Weiner’s claim that his Twitter account was hacked, a key clue has been missing: exactly how the notorious groin pic was posted online.
But according to data provided exclusively to The Daily from TweetCongress.org, a nonprofit website that captures each member of Congress’s Twitter feeds in real time, the shot seen round the world was transmitted using TweetDeck — a popular Adobe desktop application that links up with social networking sites. A review of Weiner’s Twitter stream from May 27, the day of the crotch pic, shows that Weiner had been posting only from TweetDeck — one of many ways to post messages to Twitter — that entire night.
Chet Wisniewski, a senior security adviser at security software company SophosLabs, said the TweetDeck stamp “does make it more plausible that it did come from him.”
Weiner used TweetDeck frequently, but he often also posted from the Web directly or from his BlackBerry. A widely circulated explanation for how Weiner’s Twitter account could have been hacked by email would also seem to be incompatible with the fact that the message in question originated on TweetDeck. If email had been used, the message probably would have originated via the photosharing site Yfrog, where the infamous picture was posted.
However, this information doesn’t rule out the possibility that the congressman’s Twitter account was infiltrated — as Weiner has publicly suggested. But experts say it adds another hurdle for an alibi that has come under increasing fire.
“The complexity goes up,” said Chris McCroskey, the Texas software developer who founded TweetCongress.org. The site, which has advocated the increased participation from congressmen on Twitter, aggregates and archives all the feeds of the 112th Congress from Twitter’s application programming interface. It is the only known database to do this other than the Library of Congress, which does not publicly share its data.
Robert Stribley, a senior information architect at Razorfish, a social media strategy agency, reasoned that if Weiner used the TweetDeck app, “it would probably make it less likely his account was hacked.”
When reached by The Daily, TweetDeck’s community manager, Richard Barley, declined to comment.
Experts caution that there are several scenarios in which the congressman’s Twitter account could have been compromised. Wisniewski cautioned that a savvy hacker may have intentionally noted Weiner’s posting platform the night of the offending tweet, and intentionally matched it.
“If I had his password, I could add his account into my TweetDeck and start sending tweets, and it would all say ‘TweetDeck,’” Wisniewski explained.
On the other hand, Matthew Green, chief technology officer at Independent Security Evaluators, said that if the offensive tweet had been transmitted through something other than TweetDeck that night, it might have gone a long way to exonerate Weiner.
“You have to keep in mind that if the person’s goal was really to frame this guy and really embarrass him … they know all the previous posts,” Green said. “They’re going out of their way to make sure it looks like it came from him.”
TweetDeck is not hacker-proof, said Jason Falls, and there still is the possibility that someone with authorized access to his Twitter account intentionally or inadvertently logged onto Weiner’s account and sent the picture.
In a case that has grabbed headlines recently, a woman who worked for the Red Cross accidentally tweeted about getting drunk on the organization’s Twitter account, thinking that she had posted it on her personal one.
As for Weiner, the TweetDeck stamp won’t solve the case itself. But McCroskey knows what can.
“Here’s the thing that solves it all,” said McCroskey, “for him to call for a criminal investigation. All they have to do is look at his TweetDeck and see if it came from there, see what IP address [it had]. The local police department or Capitol Police could probably figure this out in 15 minutes.”
— With Ashley Kindergan and Karen Keller
WEINER'S TALE UNRAVELING
By Daniel Libit Sunday, June 5, 2011
As the world has attempted to make sense of Rep. Anthony Weiner’s claim that his Twitter account was hacked, a key clue has been missing: exactly how the notorious groin pic was posted online.
But according to data provided exclusively to The Daily from TweetCongress.org, a nonprofit website that captures each member of Congress’s Twitter feeds in real time, the shot seen round the world was transmitted using TweetDeck — a popular Adobe desktop application that links up with social networking sites. A review of Weiner’s Twitter stream from May 27, the day of the crotch pic, shows that Weiner had been posting only from TweetDeck — one of many ways to post messages to Twitter — that entire night.
Chet Wisniewski, a senior security adviser at security software company SophosLabs, said the TweetDeck stamp “does make it more plausible that it did come from him.”
Weiner used TweetDeck frequently, but he often also posted from the Web directly or from his BlackBerry. A widely circulated explanation for how Weiner’s Twitter account could have been hacked by email would also seem to be incompatible with the fact that the message in question originated on TweetDeck. If email had been used, the message probably would have originated via the photosharing site Yfrog, where the infamous picture was posted.
However, this information doesn’t rule out the possibility that the congressman’s Twitter account was infiltrated — as Weiner has publicly suggested. But experts say it adds another hurdle for an alibi that has come under increasing fire.
“The complexity goes up,” said Chris McCroskey, the Texas software developer who founded TweetCongress.org. The site, which has advocated the increased participation from congressmen on Twitter, aggregates and archives all the feeds of the 112th Congress from Twitter’s application programming interface. It is the only known database to do this other than the Library of Congress, which does not publicly share its data.
Robert Stribley, a senior information architect at Razorfish, a social media strategy agency, reasoned that if Weiner used the TweetDeck app, “it would probably make it less likely his account was hacked.”
When reached by The Daily, TweetDeck’s community manager, Richard Barley, declined to comment.
Experts caution that there are several scenarios in which the congressman’s Twitter account could have been compromised. Wisniewski cautioned that a savvy hacker may have intentionally noted Weiner’s posting platform the night of the offending tweet, and intentionally matched it.
“If I had his password, I could add his account into my TweetDeck and start sending tweets, and it would all say ‘TweetDeck,’” Wisniewski explained.
On the other hand, Matthew Green, chief technology officer at Independent Security Evaluators, said that if the offensive tweet had been transmitted through something other than TweetDeck that night, it might have gone a long way to exonerate Weiner.
“You have to keep in mind that if the person’s goal was really to frame this guy and really embarrass him … they know all the previous posts,” Green said. “They’re going out of their way to make sure it looks like it came from him.”
TweetDeck is not hacker-proof, said Jason Falls, and there still is the possibility that someone with authorized access to his Twitter account intentionally or inadvertently logged onto Weiner’s account and sent the picture.
In a case that has grabbed headlines recently, a woman who worked for the Red Cross accidentally tweeted about getting drunk on the organization’s Twitter account, thinking that she had posted it on her personal one.
As for Weiner, the TweetDeck stamp won’t solve the case itself. But McCroskey knows what can.
“Here’s the thing that solves it all,” said McCroskey, “for him to call for a criminal investigation. All they have to do is look at his TweetDeck and see if it came from there, see what IP address [it had]. The local police department or Capitol Police could probably figure this out in 15 minutes.”
— With Ashley Kindergan and Karen Keller
Saturday, June 4, 2011
Obama IS the bump on the road to America's Recovery!!!
The BUMP on the road to recovery is Obama and his Administration and nothing else. He has done nothing to create an environment where private business can thrive....in fact to the contrary he's made it much more difficult to succeed....He's got to go in 2012!
President Obama: Economy on bumpy 'road to recovery'
By ABBY PHILLIP | 6/3/11 2:58 PM EDT
President Barack Obama on Friday told workers at a Chrysler plant in Toledo, Ohio, that the economy is on a bumpy “road to recovery,” hours after the release of a lackluster jobs report.
“This economy took a big hit,” Obama said. “Just like if you have a bad illness … it’s going to take a while for you to mend, and that’s what’s happening to our economy.”
Without mentioning the Labor Department’s May jobs report that showed the unemployment rate increasing from 9 percent to 9.1 percent, Obama said the economy has faced “headwinds” in recent months, including rising gas prices, the earthquake in Japan and instability in the Middle East.
“We’re going to pass through some rough terrain that even a Wrangler would have a tough time with,” Obama said, in reference to the Jeep truck produced at the Toledo plant. The quip was met with boos from the otherwise supportive employees in the audience.
Obama’s visit to the Chrysler plant was supposed to hammer home the point that his administration’s bold rescue of the auto industry prevented the loss of millions of jobs.
Amid a rising unemployment rate and a tepid 54,000 jobs created in May, though, Obama also sought to ease fears that the country could be slipping back into recession.
“We’ve got to rebuild this whole economy for a new age so that the middle class doesn’t just survive, but it thrives,” Obama said.
In Toledo, where manufacturing job losses have accelerated during the economic downturn, Chrysler employs more than 1,700 workers producing Jeep and Dodge vehicles.
Obama said that because the government stepped in to stabilize the auto industry, thousands of Chrysler jobs and employees of local businesses were saved — including local restaurant Rudy’s Hot Dog, where Obama stopped for a quick meal en route to the plant.
“We had a few options: we could have followed the status quo and kept the automakers on life support … but that would have just kicked the problem down the road,” Obama said. “Or we could have done what lots of folks in Washington thought we should do, and that is nothing. That would have triggered a cascade of damage across the country.”
On Thursday night, just ahead of Obama’s visit to Ohio, the Treasury Department took final steps to divest itself of Chrysler stock, selling its remaining stake to Italian automotive and finance company Fiat. The U.S. government will recoup more than $11.2 billion in federal dollars committed as part of the Troubled Asset Relief Program’s automotive financing initiative. Treasury expects to collect an additional $560 million in proceeds from the transaction with Fiat.
Obama praised Chrysler for repaying “every dime and more of what it owes the American taxpayer” six years ahead of schedule. And with Treasury’s sale of its stock, Obama said the company soon will be 100 percent privately owned.
The controversial auto bailout provided more than $81 billion to save General Motors and Chrysler. Since then, GM repaid its outstanding federal loans five years sooner than expected, and the initial offering of its public stock in November became one of the largest in U.S. history.
Now, the president said, the industry is thriving.
“This industry is back on its feet, repaying its debts, gaining ground,” Obama said. “I placed my bet on you. I put my faith in the American worker. And I’ll tell you what, I’m going to do that every day of the week.”
President Obama: Economy on bumpy 'road to recovery'
By ABBY PHILLIP | 6/3/11 2:58 PM EDT
President Barack Obama on Friday told workers at a Chrysler plant in Toledo, Ohio, that the economy is on a bumpy “road to recovery,” hours after the release of a lackluster jobs report.
“This economy took a big hit,” Obama said. “Just like if you have a bad illness … it’s going to take a while for you to mend, and that’s what’s happening to our economy.”
Without mentioning the Labor Department’s May jobs report that showed the unemployment rate increasing from 9 percent to 9.1 percent, Obama said the economy has faced “headwinds” in recent months, including rising gas prices, the earthquake in Japan and instability in the Middle East.
“We’re going to pass through some rough terrain that even a Wrangler would have a tough time with,” Obama said, in reference to the Jeep truck produced at the Toledo plant. The quip was met with boos from the otherwise supportive employees in the audience.
Obama’s visit to the Chrysler plant was supposed to hammer home the point that his administration’s bold rescue of the auto industry prevented the loss of millions of jobs.
Amid a rising unemployment rate and a tepid 54,000 jobs created in May, though, Obama also sought to ease fears that the country could be slipping back into recession.
“We’ve got to rebuild this whole economy for a new age so that the middle class doesn’t just survive, but it thrives,” Obama said.
In Toledo, where manufacturing job losses have accelerated during the economic downturn, Chrysler employs more than 1,700 workers producing Jeep and Dodge vehicles.
Obama said that because the government stepped in to stabilize the auto industry, thousands of Chrysler jobs and employees of local businesses were saved — including local restaurant Rudy’s Hot Dog, where Obama stopped for a quick meal en route to the plant.
“We had a few options: we could have followed the status quo and kept the automakers on life support … but that would have just kicked the problem down the road,” Obama said. “Or we could have done what lots of folks in Washington thought we should do, and that is nothing. That would have triggered a cascade of damage across the country.”
On Thursday night, just ahead of Obama’s visit to Ohio, the Treasury Department took final steps to divest itself of Chrysler stock, selling its remaining stake to Italian automotive and finance company Fiat. The U.S. government will recoup more than $11.2 billion in federal dollars committed as part of the Troubled Asset Relief Program’s automotive financing initiative. Treasury expects to collect an additional $560 million in proceeds from the transaction with Fiat.
Obama praised Chrysler for repaying “every dime and more of what it owes the American taxpayer” six years ahead of schedule. And with Treasury’s sale of its stock, Obama said the company soon will be 100 percent privately owned.
The controversial auto bailout provided more than $81 billion to save General Motors and Chrysler. Since then, GM repaid its outstanding federal loans five years sooner than expected, and the initial offering of its public stock in November became one of the largest in U.S. history.
Now, the president said, the industry is thriving.
“This industry is back on its feet, repaying its debts, gaining ground,” Obama said. “I placed my bet on you. I put my faith in the American worker. And I’ll tell you what, I’m going to do that every day of the week.”
Wednesday, June 1, 2011
Obama and the Democrats Just Don't Get It....They would rather ignore the problem than fix it....

Obama and the Democrats are working hard to get us in more trouble than we've ever been in before.....by ignoring the problems of entitlements and Medicare they are going to deny them to those that are in midlife today...If I were in my 40's today I would be doing everything I could to get real Medicare reform now so there would be a chance that there would be something there for me in my old age....
Again....Anthony Weiner is an Idiot!
As I have Said Many Times Before.....Anthony Weiner is an Idiot and he deserves all the attention he's getting for this terrible behavior...
Cut Him Some Slack - June 1, 2011 2:01 P.M. By Jonah Goldberg
Hey look, Rep. Weiner’s a busy guy. Who can possibly expect him to keep track of every picture of his own crotch he’s ever taken? Sure, it could be his junk. But how can he possibly know with any certainty? I mean it’s not like he has an elaborate filing and labeling system for his penile photography. He’s not some weirdo. This looks like one of his many, many bulge shots, it might even be one of them. But how can he be expected to be definitive?
Cut Him Some Slack - June 1, 2011 2:01 P.M. By Jonah Goldberg
Hey look, Rep. Weiner’s a busy guy. Who can possibly expect him to keep track of every picture of his own crotch he’s ever taken? Sure, it could be his junk. But how can he possibly know with any certainty? I mean it’s not like he has an elaborate filing and labeling system for his penile photography. He’s not some weirdo. This looks like one of his many, many bulge shots, it might even be one of them. But how can he be expected to be definitive?
You are Doing a Great Job Barack! Another Deal that Turned to Crap!
Govt to lose $14B of auto bailout funds
WASHINGTON – The Obama administration said Wednesday that the government will lose about $14 billion in taxpayer funds from the bailout of the U.S. auto industry.
In a report from the president's National Economic Council, officials said that figure is down from the 60 percent the Treasury Department originally estimated the government would lose following its $80 billion bailout of Chrysler and General Motors in 2009.
The report's release coincides with the administration's efforts to tout the bailout's role in the revitalization of the U.S. auto industry after last week's announcement that Chrysler is repaying $5.9 billion in U.S. loans and a $1.7 billion loan from the Canadian government. Those payments cover most of the federal bailout money that saved the company after it nearly ran out of cash in and went through a government-led bankruptcy.
GM previously announced that it had repaid a little more than half of the $50 billion it received in federal aid.
Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner said U.S. auto companies are now at the forefront of a comeback in American manufacturing.
"We cannot guarantee their success, and at some point they may stumble. But we've given them a better shot," Geithner wrote in an opinion piece in Wednesday's edition of The Washington Post.
"While we will not get back all of our investments in the industry, we will recover much more than most predicted, and far sooner," he wrote.
Obama will visit a Chrysler plant in Ohio Friday to tout highlight the company's success.
GM and Chrysler were on the verge of collapse in the final days of the Bush administration after Congress failed to approve an emergency loan package. The Bush administration gave the companies $17.4 billion in loans and required them to develop a restructuring plan by mid-February 2009.
Obama's administration pumped billions more into the carmakers later that spring but won concessions from industry stakeholders, allowing it to push GM and Chrysler through bankruptcy court in the summer of 2009.
WASHINGTON – The Obama administration said Wednesday that the government will lose about $14 billion in taxpayer funds from the bailout of the U.S. auto industry.
In a report from the president's National Economic Council, officials said that figure is down from the 60 percent the Treasury Department originally estimated the government would lose following its $80 billion bailout of Chrysler and General Motors in 2009.
The report's release coincides with the administration's efforts to tout the bailout's role in the revitalization of the U.S. auto industry after last week's announcement that Chrysler is repaying $5.9 billion in U.S. loans and a $1.7 billion loan from the Canadian government. Those payments cover most of the federal bailout money that saved the company after it nearly ran out of cash in and went through a government-led bankruptcy.
GM previously announced that it had repaid a little more than half of the $50 billion it received in federal aid.
Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner said U.S. auto companies are now at the forefront of a comeback in American manufacturing.
"We cannot guarantee their success, and at some point they may stumble. But we've given them a better shot," Geithner wrote in an opinion piece in Wednesday's edition of The Washington Post.
"While we will not get back all of our investments in the industry, we will recover much more than most predicted, and far sooner," he wrote.
Obama will visit a Chrysler plant in Ohio Friday to tout highlight the company's success.
GM and Chrysler were on the verge of collapse in the final days of the Bush administration after Congress failed to approve an emergency loan package. The Bush administration gave the companies $17.4 billion in loans and required them to develop a restructuring plan by mid-February 2009.
Obama's administration pumped billions more into the carmakers later that spring but won concessions from industry stakeholders, allowing it to push GM and Chrysler through bankruptcy court in the summer of 2009.
Obama/Democrats Don't Want to Address the Debt...
Obama and the Democrats are simply NOT at all interested in addressing the massive debt issues that will drive this nation into bankruptsy....they again would rather spend money, pretend there is no problem and play politics to get Obama reelected in 2012...It's more about their own survival than the survival of the nation and actually fixing the problems we face today......Obama's GOT TO GO in 2012 as do the democrat senators in office now...
House Republicans Voice Frustration Over Debt During Meeting With Obama
Published June 01, 2011 | FoxNews.com
House Republicans gave President Obama an earful Wednesday on their concerns regarding unemployment, the national debt and government regulation, a day after the House's decisive vote against raising the debt ceiling.
Their White House meeting marked the latest development in budget negotiations that for months have failed to yield a compromise. Without a deal to cut spending, House Republicans say they cannot approve an increase in the nation's $14.3 trillion debt ceiling.
Emerging from the meeting, House Speaker John Boehner described the discussion Wednesday as "frank" and "very productive."
But there was no suggestion the meeting had produced any concrete progress. Others expressed concern that the White House was not giving them a solid proposal and accused the president of playing politics.
"Unfortunately, what we did not hear from the president is a specific plan of his to deal with the debt crisis," Rep. Jeb Hensarling, R-Texas, said.
Sources told Fox News that Rep. Paul Ryan, R-Wis., took time during the meeting to defend his Medicare proposal, which has been hammered by Democratic political leaders. He suggested the president was egging on Democrats to attack the plan, and he accused Obama of failing to show leadership, according to sources.
The sources said Ryan got a standing ovation for his remarks during the meeting. Speaking to reporters, Ryan said lawmakers should not "demagogue" the issue. "We've got to deal with this," he said.
Republican sources in the room also said Boehner and other Republicans pushed Obama on how he planned to mitigate the debt crisis. They urged him to come to the table with a concrete proposal, rather than a speech. The sources said Obama deferred to talks being led by Vice President Biden, pointing to other reforms he's put forward through the federal health care overhaul. GOP leaders said those changes are not sufficient.
Asked about the disagreements, White House Press Secretary Jay Carney said the large meeting -- with most House Republicans in attendance -- "was not the forum for specific advances in the negotiations." He said the next round of the Biden-led talks, with a smaller bipartisan group, would be held June 9. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner is also expected to meet with House freshmen Thursday on Capitol Hill.
Still, Carney said Obama found Wednesday's meeting "productive."
"Obviously there are long-term disagreements. ... All of those disagreements will not be resolved in the next several weeks," Carney said. "But there is common ground and more common ground can be found to significantly reduce our deficits."
On the evening before the meeting, a proposal to raise the nation's debt ceiling by another $2.4 trillion failed by a wide margin. The vote was lopsided, with just 97 lawmakers in favor of the measure and 318 against. Eighty-two Democrats joined Republicans in opposing the increase.
House Republican leaders claimed the vote was an explicit endorsement of their call to extract significant spending cuts before increasing the government's borrowing limit.
Ryan said the vote should prove to the president that his call to cleave the debt limit vote from spending cuts "won't fly" in the House.
"We couldn't pass it even if we wanted to. You've got to cut spending," Ryan told Fox News.
Boehner and others have called for spending cuts exceeding the amount by which the debt cap would be increased -- the speaker on Wednesday released a statement from 150 economists backing that demand.
Few details, though, have emerged from negotiations among congressional leaders and Biden, though Biden said recently the negotiators had made progress. He expressed confidence they would be able to agree on specific cuts in excess of $1 trillion over the next decade, and then look to procedural mechanisms known as "triggers" to force further automatic deficit cuts adding up to another $3 trillion or so.
At least one Republican declared he would be sitting out the meeting with Obama. Freshman Rep. Jeff Landry, R-La., said: "I don't intend to spend my morning being lectured to by a president whose failed policies have put our children and grandchildren in a huge burden of debt."
House Democrats, meanwhile, accused the GOP of political demagoguery with the failed debt ceiling vote, while the Obama administration maneuvered to avoid taking sides.
Rep. Sander Levin, D-Mich., accused Republicans of a "ploy so egregious that (they) have had to spend the last week pleading with Wall Street not to take it seriously and risk our economic recovery."
He and other Democrats added that Republicans were attempting to draw attention away from their controversial plan to turn Medicare into a program in which seniors purchase subsidized private insurance coverage.
The proceedings occurred roughly two months before the date Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner has said the debt limit must be raised. If no action is taken by Aug. 2, he has warned, the government could default on its obligations and risk turmoil that might plunge the nation into another recession or even an economic depression.
Republicans signaled in advance that the debt limit vote did not portend a final refusal to grant an increase.
But Rep. Steny Hoyer of Maryland, the second-ranking Democrat, accused the GOP of staging a "demagogic vote" at a time lawmakers should work together to avoid a financial default.
For its part, the administration appeared eager to avoid criticizing Republicans.
"It's fine, it's fine," Carney said Tuesday when asked about the Republican decision to tie spending cuts with more borrowing.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
House Republicans Voice Frustration Over Debt During Meeting With Obama
Published June 01, 2011 | FoxNews.com
House Republicans gave President Obama an earful Wednesday on their concerns regarding unemployment, the national debt and government regulation, a day after the House's decisive vote against raising the debt ceiling.
Their White House meeting marked the latest development in budget negotiations that for months have failed to yield a compromise. Without a deal to cut spending, House Republicans say they cannot approve an increase in the nation's $14.3 trillion debt ceiling.
Emerging from the meeting, House Speaker John Boehner described the discussion Wednesday as "frank" and "very productive."
But there was no suggestion the meeting had produced any concrete progress. Others expressed concern that the White House was not giving them a solid proposal and accused the president of playing politics.
"Unfortunately, what we did not hear from the president is a specific plan of his to deal with the debt crisis," Rep. Jeb Hensarling, R-Texas, said.
Sources told Fox News that Rep. Paul Ryan, R-Wis., took time during the meeting to defend his Medicare proposal, which has been hammered by Democratic political leaders. He suggested the president was egging on Democrats to attack the plan, and he accused Obama of failing to show leadership, according to sources.
The sources said Ryan got a standing ovation for his remarks during the meeting. Speaking to reporters, Ryan said lawmakers should not "demagogue" the issue. "We've got to deal with this," he said.
Republican sources in the room also said Boehner and other Republicans pushed Obama on how he planned to mitigate the debt crisis. They urged him to come to the table with a concrete proposal, rather than a speech. The sources said Obama deferred to talks being led by Vice President Biden, pointing to other reforms he's put forward through the federal health care overhaul. GOP leaders said those changes are not sufficient.
Asked about the disagreements, White House Press Secretary Jay Carney said the large meeting -- with most House Republicans in attendance -- "was not the forum for specific advances in the negotiations." He said the next round of the Biden-led talks, with a smaller bipartisan group, would be held June 9. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner is also expected to meet with House freshmen Thursday on Capitol Hill.
Still, Carney said Obama found Wednesday's meeting "productive."
"Obviously there are long-term disagreements. ... All of those disagreements will not be resolved in the next several weeks," Carney said. "But there is common ground and more common ground can be found to significantly reduce our deficits."
On the evening before the meeting, a proposal to raise the nation's debt ceiling by another $2.4 trillion failed by a wide margin. The vote was lopsided, with just 97 lawmakers in favor of the measure and 318 against. Eighty-two Democrats joined Republicans in opposing the increase.
House Republican leaders claimed the vote was an explicit endorsement of their call to extract significant spending cuts before increasing the government's borrowing limit.
Ryan said the vote should prove to the president that his call to cleave the debt limit vote from spending cuts "won't fly" in the House.
"We couldn't pass it even if we wanted to. You've got to cut spending," Ryan told Fox News.
Boehner and others have called for spending cuts exceeding the amount by which the debt cap would be increased -- the speaker on Wednesday released a statement from 150 economists backing that demand.
Few details, though, have emerged from negotiations among congressional leaders and Biden, though Biden said recently the negotiators had made progress. He expressed confidence they would be able to agree on specific cuts in excess of $1 trillion over the next decade, and then look to procedural mechanisms known as "triggers" to force further automatic deficit cuts adding up to another $3 trillion or so.
At least one Republican declared he would be sitting out the meeting with Obama. Freshman Rep. Jeff Landry, R-La., said: "I don't intend to spend my morning being lectured to by a president whose failed policies have put our children and grandchildren in a huge burden of debt."
House Democrats, meanwhile, accused the GOP of political demagoguery with the failed debt ceiling vote, while the Obama administration maneuvered to avoid taking sides.
Rep. Sander Levin, D-Mich., accused Republicans of a "ploy so egregious that (they) have had to spend the last week pleading with Wall Street not to take it seriously and risk our economic recovery."
He and other Democrats added that Republicans were attempting to draw attention away from their controversial plan to turn Medicare into a program in which seniors purchase subsidized private insurance coverage.
The proceedings occurred roughly two months before the date Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner has said the debt limit must be raised. If no action is taken by Aug. 2, he has warned, the government could default on its obligations and risk turmoil that might plunge the nation into another recession or even an economic depression.
Republicans signaled in advance that the debt limit vote did not portend a final refusal to grant an increase.
But Rep. Steny Hoyer of Maryland, the second-ranking Democrat, accused the GOP of staging a "demagogic vote" at a time lawmakers should work together to avoid a financial default.
For its part, the administration appeared eager to avoid criticizing Republicans.
"It's fine, it's fine," Carney said Tuesday when asked about the Republican decision to tie spending cuts with more borrowing.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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