Here is your Morning Brief for the morning of August 2, 2013. Give me your feedback below and tune in to The Chad Hasty Show for these and many more topics from 8:30 to 11am. Remember, you can listen online at KFYO.com or on your iPhone/Android with the radioPup App.

Steve Pope, Getty Images
Steve Pope, Getty Images
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1. Rubio Takes On Republicans (link)

Can you say you're against ObamaCare if you vote for the continuing resolution? Not according to Senator Marco Rubio. Rubio has joined with other conservatives in trying to rally support for their idea.

Florida Sen. Marco Rubio and other conservative lawmakers sent a clear message to their fellow Republicans on Thursday: get on board with their strategy for defunding Obamacare or lose your conservative credibility.

“I don’t think you can say you are against Obamacare if you vote for a budget that funds it,” Rubio said in an afternoon press conference outside the Capitol. “And I think it’s outrageous that the president and his allies are threatening to shutdown the American government if it doesn’t fund the Obamacare law.”

Rubio made the comments alongside other senators — including Ted Cruz of Texas and Mike Lee of Utah — who have pledged not to support any resolution that continues funding the federal government if President Obama’s health-care law remains funded.

Under current law, the government is funded until Sept. 30, meaning a continuing resolution needs to be passed to keep the government from shutting down.

“So those of us who say we are against Obamacare, September will give us the last best chance to actually do something about it,” Rubio said. “The fact of the matter is if this thing goes into effect beginning Oct. 1, with the exchanges and all the mandates that start kicking in, it will be do irreparable damage to our economy and to our country.”

Other Republicans in the Senate have come out against the strategy, saying it gives false hope to conservatives because it simply won’t work. Without having control of the Senate or the presidency, such legislation would be impossible to pass.

“The worst thing is being dishonest with your base about what you can accomplish, ginning everybody up and then creating disappointment,” Oklahoma Sen. Tom Coburn said last week. “It’s a terribly dangerous and not successful strategy.”

But lawmakers like Cruz dispute that it’s a futile effort.

“This is a fight we can win,” Cruz arguing this plan is different that others that have come before it.

“We’ve heard lots of speeches about Obamacare, we’ve had lots of votes about Obamacare, not of which had any chance of passing,” he said.

Cruz laid out the plan, saying the House of Representatives should pass a continuing resolution that funds the government except for the programs in President Obama’s health-care law.

Good to see Senator Rubio on the right side of this issue.

2. The Perfect Obama Nominee (link)

Ian Tuttle at National Review has a great story out about the crazy lady from Texas, Rep. Shelia Jackson Lee.

Sheila Jackson Lee is many things. “Voice of reason” is not among them.

During the 2011 hearings on Islamic terrorism, held by Representative Peter King (R., N.Y.), Jackson Lee railed against them as “an effort to demonize and to castigate a whole broad base of human beings.” She then lamented that the committee was not spending its time on genuine terroristic threats: “the cold cases of the civil-rights movement,” for example. She encouraged the committee to hold hearings to determine “whether Klansmen still roam today and terrorize individuals in parts of this country.”

And she also quoted herself. In the third person.

In Jackson Lee’s ideal world, September 11 was caused by a group of white-nationalist southerners in hoods. Or, perhaps, by embittered former plantation owners — by whom she has, apparently, been personally victimized. Jackson Lee declared on the House floor earlier this year, “I stand here as a freed slave because this Congress came together.” No, that is not out of context. And there is no context in which that quote would make sense.

It is, though, representative of Jackson Lee’s style: Make sweeping and unfounded accusations of racism first; ask questions . . . well, never.

In 2011, Jackson Lee insinuated on the House floor that Republicans opposed raising the debt ceiling because of racism: “I am particularly sensitive to the fact that only this president,” she said, “only this one, only this one has received the kind of attacks and disagreements and inability to work. Only this one. Read between the lines. What is different about this president?” It is “because we elected the first African American president” that some states are now pushing for voter ID.

The House floor was apparently the proper platform from which to berate a Pepsi commercial that aired during the 2011 Super Bowl. In the ad for Pepsi Max, a black woman throws her soda can at her boyfriend or husband for glancing at an attractive white jogger; when he ducks, the can hits the jogger, and the couple scurries away. The ad “showed a demeaning role for African American women,” said Jackson Lee.

She even complained that devastating natural disasters are used to promote racism, telling the Hill in 2003 that hurricane names are too “lily white” and that “all racial groups should be represented.” She suggested more hurricanes named “Keisha, Jamal, and Deshawn.”

Seriously Houston, why the hell do you keep sending this nutcase back to Washington? Is it to keep her out of Houston?

3. Texas Mother Petitions to Change Gun Law (link)

Another idiot who thinks stand your ground laws are just an excuse to kill.

Jennifer Smith, a mother of three, said the stand-your-ground laws are an excuse to kill and she wants to make a change in Texas.

“It leaves it open to interpretation to what’s standing your ground,” Smith said.

She recently launched a petition at change.org which calls for changes in Texas.

Currently people can use lethal force to protect themselves and their property; not just at home, but anywhere they have a right to be.

“What you shouldn’t be able to do is be the person instigating the situation and then after the fact say ‘I was standing my ground,’” Smith said. “Well, why did you instigate the situation?”

Smith’s petition was inspired by the George Zimmerman verdict.

“If you feel there are loopholes, you should work to change them,” Smith said.

Elsewhere in Katy, others said the laws should stay the way they are.

“I don’t think they should be changed,” Anthony Ndua said Wednesday at George Bush Park. “I want to be able to protect myself if that, you know, specific moment came into hand.”

Smith hopes to eventually take the signed petitions to Governor Perry.

“I’ll go wherever it requires going,” Smith said. “I just need support and enough people saying we agree.”

She stressed she is not against gun ownership, protecting herself or protecting her property. She just does not want to see stand-your-ground laws abused as a legal loophole in the future.

Other Top Stories:

These and many more topics coming up on today’s edition of The Chad Hasty Show. Tune in mornings 8:30-11am on News/Talk 790 KFYO, streaming online at kfyo.com, and now on your iPhone and Android device with the radioPup App. All guest interviews can be heard online in our podcast section after the show at kfyo.com.

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