Kentucky-Bribed Statesman: Mitch McConnell Unmasked

/7 Comments/in , /by

Anthony Weiner recently lamented that “if the internet didn’t exist,” he’d be the mayor of New York.  In other words, if John Q. Public weren’t so privy to the facts, and so readily able to investigate those facts and exchange opinions about them online, politicians could more easily manipulate their political images and determine the outcome of elections.

Likewise, Kentucky Senator Mitch McConnell is now feeling the stinging disapproval of an informed public that he may not have felt twenty years ago.  Like the grand reveal at the end a Scooby-Doo episode, McConnell the “fiscally conservative” Senate leader has been unmasked in the last month’s proceedings and identified as what he really is — a career politician who’d sell his constituents and American taxpayers down the river for a buck (or in this case, a couple billion bucks).  And he would have gotten away with it, too, if it weren’t for meddling Matt Drudge and the like.

In late September, Mitch McConnell used his lofty position in the Republican minority to stand against Senate conservatives like Ted Cruz and fellow Kentucky Senator Rand Paul.  He made and underhanded effort to block a House bill which would fund the government and raise the debt ceiling in exchange for defunding ObamaCare.  Knowing that the Senate would not have the 60 votes necessary to amend the House bill to fund ObamaCare, he and fellow collaborators voted in favor of a cloture vote which would allow Harry Reid and Senate Democrats to amend the bill with an easily attainable straight majority vote.  Then, having cleared the Senate Democrats’ path to funding ObamaCare, he cast a show vote against the amended spending bill, which included the funding of ObamaCare, hoping it would absolve him of any blame.

We noticed it.  In fact, it was insulting and infuriating that McConnell took such care to conceal the betrayal of his stated conviction to oppose ObamaCare.  Now, his efforts to fund ObamaCare have culminated in what’s being described as the “Kentucky Kickback” by the Senate Conservatives Fund.  “In exchange for funding ObamaCare and raising the debt limit,” the group says, “Mitch McConnell has secured a $2 billion earmark” to a pet project in his home state of Kentucky.

Of course, in a further insult to our intelligence, McConnell is again trying to shirk any responsibility for billions in new taxpayer liability which will uniquely benefit his state.  The language, his office reminds reporters, was introduced by Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) and Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.), and the provision will raise the spending limit of Kentucky’s Olmsted Lock and Dam project from $775 million to $2.9 billion. 

Read more from this story HERE.

U.S. Debt Jumps a Record $328 Billion — Tops $17 Trillion for First Time

/1 Comment/in , /by

Photo Credit: Jacquelyn MartinU.S. debt jumped a record $328 billion on Thursday, the first day the federal government was able to borrow money under the deal President Obama and Congress sealed this week.

The debt now equals $17.075 trillion, according to figures the Treasury Department posted online on Friday.

The $328 billion increase shattered the previous high of $238 billion set two years ago.

The giant jump comes because the government was replenishing its stock of “extraordinary measures” — the federal funds it borrowed from over the last five months as it tried to avoid bumping into the debt ceiling.

Under the law, that replenishing happens as soon as there is new debt space.

Read more from this story HERE.

The Great Eclipse: Rubio or Cruz?

/16 Comments/in , /by

Photo Credit: National Review Senator Marco Rubio began this year amid buzz that he was the logical choice to win the Republican presidential nomination in 2016. He is likely to finish it on a decidedly lower note, partly removed from the national spotlight, eclipsed by the rising star from Texas, Ted Cruz.

Last week, attendees at the conservative Values Voter Summit in Washington, D.C., overwhelmingly chose Cruz as their preferred GOP candidate for 2016. The freshman senator blew away the competition with 42 percent of the vote. Rubio, meanwhile, placed fifth, behind Senator Rand Paul, political novice Dr. Ben Carson, and unsuccessful 2012 candidate Rick Santorum. Granted, fewer than 1,000 people took part in the survey, but the results reinforce what has become obvious to political observers: Ted Cruz is the undisputed darling of the Right, and Rubio’s stock has fallen considerably.

Rubio had been making all the moves one might expect of a leading 2016 candidate. He delivered a major speech in Iowa just days after the 2012 election, accepted the Jack Kemp Foundation’s Leadership Award in December, and gave the Republican response to the State of the Union address in February.

“Everyone wants to see him succeed,” a senior GOP aide told National Review Online in January, which was right around the time that Rubio joined the so-called Gang of Eight, which led the effort in the Senate to pass a comprehensive immigration-reform bill.

Rubio’s credibility with the conservative base proved critical to the legislation’s eventual passage. His status as a rising star within the GOP — and conventional wisdom about the GOP’s demoralizing defeat in the 2012 presidential race — earned the Gang of Eight a fair hearing from right-wing heavyweights such as Rush Limbaugh, Mark Levin, and Sean Hannity. Rubio’s “ideological pause,” in the words of one aide, helped the bill gather steam by blunting the early opposition from the right.

Read more from this story HERE.

Republicans Must Get Wise to Obama’s Hard-Line Fiscal Strategy

/5 Comments/in , /by

Photo Credit: Getty ImagesJudging from the speech Obama gave following the deal to end the government shutdown, Republicans better get wise to the president’s next fiscal gambit when the three-month stop-gap budget and debt measures come due. As was the case with his hard-line defense of Obamacare, the president likely will be inflexible on ending sequestration budget caps, pushing for massive tax hikes, and permitting only the most inconsequential entitlement reforms.

Obama is interested in busting the GOP in 2014. He’s not interested in true budget restraint or other economic-growth measures.

Example: This week, instead of a conciliatory work-together message for the negotiations ahead, President Obama gave us another Republican scold speech: “All of us need to stop focusing on lobbyists and bloggers and talking heads on radio, and professional activists who profit from conflict.”

But of course, it was Obama who wouldn’t negotiate. And it was Obama and his followers who demonized the GOP with words like “hostage,” “ransom,” and “terrorists.”

Another example: Out of nowhere in his post-shutdown speech, the president pledged to “close these corporate-tax loopholes that don’t help create jobs, and freeze up resources for the things that do help us grow, like education and infrastructure and research.”

Read more from this story HERE.

Soft on Iran, Hard on Israel

/0 Comments/in , /by

Photo Credit: adam jonesThe New York Times has been quick to gush over the new round of negotiations in Geneva between major world powers and Iran. Reading the Times one would think that Iran suddenly has become quite reasonable about a possible deal to rein in its nuclear ambitions. The pro-Iran slant pops up in both the news pages of the Times and in its editorial page.

Let’s start with Mark Landler’s lengthy report about Iran’s supposedly new and more forthcoming positions in the negotiations, which in his view should hold off a new batch of sanctions on Iran (“White House Weighs Easing Iran Sanctions’ Bite With Slow Release of Assets” page A10, Oct. 18)

According to Landler, there now has been a “promising first round of nuclear diplomacy and the White House quite rightly is weighing ways to “ease the pain of sanctions.” Landler assures Times readers that “Iranian officials were more candid and substantive than in previous diplomatic encounters.” So naturally they deserve to have Congress “hold off on voting on a new bill to strangle Iran’s oil exports further.”

The entire slant of Landler’s piece is to pump up Iran’s new “positive” bona fides while depicting additional sanctions as the worst possible medicine at this juncture.

In short, Landler and the Times are enthralled by Tehran’s charm offensive. Completely overlooked is the fact that there already has been a sharply negative response in Tehran — from the Supreme Leader on down — against any serious compromises or concessions on the nuclear front.

Read more from this story HERE.

Business Groups Preparing to Fight Conservatives Over Immigration

/4 Comments/in , /by

Photo Credit: Reuters Business groups that want Republicans to compromise more with Democrats and Washington’s permanent political class on comprehensive immigration reform may declare war on Tea Party candidates by putting money behind moderate and centrist candidates in Republican primaries.

According to the Wall Street Journal, groups like the Chamber of Commerce and the Business Roundtable are thinking about “backing challengers to tea-party conservatives in GOP primaries, increasing political engagement with centrist Republicans.” The Chamber of Commerce is reportedly “researching” what races they can influence in GOP primaries “in hopes of replacing tea-party conservatives with more business-friendly pragmatists” who would include support for comprehensive immigration reform.

Even before the government shutdown and the fight over defunding Obamacare, business groups “pressing for an immigration overhaul were venting frustration that the full House has been unwilling to consider any immigration legislation.” Reportedly, “several business executives said they were counting on establishment GOP leaders, including House Speaker John Boehner of Ohio and House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan of Wisconsin, to move immigration and future fiscal legislation.”

Read more from this story HERE.

Rand Paul: Another Shutdown Stickup

/1 Comment/in , /by

Photo Credit: Jose Luis MaganaDuring the shutdown, 85 percent of government stayed open despite the hoopla reported in the media. Government is now 100 percent open. Debt-ceiling deadlines have been averted, but the real problem remains: a $17 trillion debt and a president who continues to pile on new debt at a rate of $1 million a minute.

The government shutdown occurred because Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid allows the Senate to lurch from deadline to deadline without passing a single appropriations bill. Had he done his job and passed each of the 12 appropriations bills, the government could have stayed open.

Opening government has not resolved the big picture — a debt problem so large that it dwarfs all deadlines and threatens the very fabric of the nation. What remains is an unsustainable debt, precisely the problem that motivated me to run for office.

There was never any reason to shut down government. If both sides were willing to compromise, we could have found amicable solutions to these severe problems. But let the record state clearly, no significant spending restraint was accomplished because President Obama steadfastly refused to negotiate. Let us also remember his promise that he will negotiate as long as the compromises are outside of any budgetary deadlines.

We’ve heard this before, and I, for one, am skeptical.

Read more from this story HERE.

Drone Strikes by US May Violate International Law, Says UN

/1 Comment/in , /by

Photo Credit: Massoud HossainiAFP/GettyA United Nations investigation has so far identified 33 drone strikes around the world that have resulted in civilian casualties and may have violated international humanitarian law.

The report by the UN’s special rapporteur on human rights and counter-terrorism, Ben Emmerson QC, calls on the US to declassify information about operations co-ordinated by the CIA and clarify its positon on the legality of unmanned aerial attacks.

Published ahead of a debate on the use of remotely piloted aircraft, at the UN general assembly in New York next Friday, the 22-page document examines incidents in Afghanistan, Yemen, Iraq, Libya, Somalia, Pakistan and Gaza.

It has been published to coincide with a related report released earlier on Thursday by Professor Christof Heyns, the UN’s special rapporteur on extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions, which warned that the technology was being misused as a form of “global policing”.

Emmerson, who travelled to Islamabad for his investigation, said the Pakistan ministry of foreign affairs has records of as many as 330 drone strikes in the country’s north-western tribal areas since 2004. Up to 2,200 people have been killed – of whom at least 400 were civilians – according to the Pakistan government.

Read more from this story HERE.

Bad to Worse: Obamacare Website Slammed by Critics

/0 Comments/in , /by

Photo Credit: Getty ImagesBy Dan Mangan.

The federal Obamacare insurance marketplace is being pummeled by a damning series of new disclosures, expert criticism, Republican demands that the Health and Human Services chief resign and presidential displeasure as the tech-troubled website stumbles into its third week of operation.

And even as officials repeatedly claim there is plenty of time to fix the problems at HealthCare.gov, speculation has risen that the Obama administration could fall well short of its goal of enrolling 7 million people in new insurance plans by 2014 because of a crippling set of technical potholes the venture has encountered.

President Barack Obama is “not happy” with the problems, his spokesman Jay Carney said Thursday. Carney also said the president wants “accountability” from the federal workers overseeing the rollout of his signature health-reform law.

Obama also said HealthCare.gov, which is offering insurance plans to residents of 36 states, has “way more glitches than I think are acceptable.”

The federal and individual state health exchanges are a key part of Obamacare, offering what is supposed to be a menu of affordable insurance options to uninsured or underinsured people so that they can comply with a law that takes effect in 2014 requiring nearly all Americans to have health insurance or pay a tax penalty.

Read more from this story HERE.

____________________________________________________

Photo Credit: ReutersObamacare wins? See you in 2014

By David Nather.

Obamacare wins!

Now, let’s talk about that website.

President Barack Obama’s signature health care law is now turning into a 2014 election issue, rather than the disastrous defunding fight that led the government to close for three weeks. With the shutdown out of the way, the health care law’s problems will take center stage in a way that they didn’t while Republicans were stepping on their own message.

Obamacare was always going to be a major issue in the mid-term elections, since so many of its major pieces — the new health coverage, the online marketplaces where the coverage is available, the expansion of Medicaid, and the hated individual mandate — become real in January.

But now, Democrats will also have to talk about a federal health insurance website that barely anyone can use. Even White House spokesman Jay Carney was reduced to arguing Thursday that Obamacare isn’t just a website — after Obama has been saying it would be as easy as shopping for flat-screen TVs online.

Read more from this story HERE.

Government Watchdog Warns about Menu Police

/0 Comments/in , /by

Photo Credit: WNDA government watchdog organization on Thursday warned about the new menu police that could soon sweep the nation – and the legal liabilities that could be presented to food service operations from public schools to college cafeterias and others.

Under the resolution of a dispute that involved Lesley University in Massachusetts, according to a report from officials at the Washington watchdog Judicial Watch, food allergies have to be treated as a disability, and provisions made to accommodate those with that “disability.”

According to a settlement document cited by Judicial Watch, “Food allergies may constitute a disability under the [Americans with Disabilities Act]. .. Individuals with food allergies may have an autoimmune response to certain foods, the symptoms of which may include difficulty swallowing and breathing, asthma and anaphylaxis.”

Commented Judicial Watch, “Sounds pretty dramatic, but the food industry is now fearful of the widespread consequences of this decree. In fact, it leaves all facilities that serve food – schools and restaurants – exposed to legal challenges if they don’t accommodate people with food allergies.”

The fight over the college’s food services actually happened late in 2012.

Read more from this story HERE.