The (Really) Do-Nothing Congress

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Photo Credit: ReutersSen. Tom Carper had been wavering over the “nuclear option” for days — until one of his colleagues issued a blunt judgment of Congress.

“My colleague said, ‘It’s hard to imagine it getting much worse because we’re not getting anything done,’” the veteran Delaware Democrat said. “If there was an a-ha moment, that was probably it.”

Indeed, the 113th Congress is on track to go down as the least productive in history — a legacy that may be cemented after Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid gutted the filibuster on presidential nominees by deploying the “nuclear option.” Republicans say the unprecedented move will make them even less likely to cooperate with Democrats — not that there’s much collaboration to begin with.

So far, this Congress has only enacted 49 laws, the fewest since at least 1947, when the Congressional Record began tallying legislative activity on a yearly basis. In fact, the 80th Congress — famously dubbed the “do nothing” Congress by President Harry Truman — enacted 388 public laws by July 1947.

In the last 66 years, there are just four occasions in which fewer than 100 laws were enacted by a similar point in the legislative calendar. And two of those instances were in the last two Congresses, with the previous Congress making just 62 laws through November 2011.

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Who Killed the Kennedys? Ronald Reagan’s Answer

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This year marks not only the 50th anniversary of the shooting of John F. Kennedy but also the 45th anniversary of the shooting of Robert F. Kennedy, which occurred in June 1968. Was there a common source motivating the assassins of both Kennedys—that is, Lee Harvey Oswald and Sirhan Sirhan?…

On June 5, 1968, Reagan was full of nothing but sympathy for RFK. He appeared on the popular television show of Joey Bishop, one of the extended members of Frank Sinatra’s Rat Pack. Bishop and Reagan were old Hollywood friends, and Bishop extended the governor a platform to address the shooting. A transcript of Reagan’s appearance on that show was grabbed by his young chief of staff, Bill Clark, who died just a few months ago. Clark shoved it in a box that ended up in the tack barn at his ranch in central California. It lay there until I, as Clark’s biographer, dug it out three decades later.

That rare surviving transcript reveals a Reagan who spoke movingly about RFK and the entire Kennedy family. Condemning the “savage act,” Reagan pleaded: “I am sure that all of us are praying not only for him but for his family and for those others who were so senselessly struck down also in the fusillade of bullets….I believe we should go on praying, to the best of our ability.”

But particularly interesting was how Reagan unflinchingly pointed a finger of blame in the direction of Moscow. Reagan noted that Kennedy’s killer, Sirhan Sirhan, a Palestinian Arab and also a communist, had shot Kennedy because of his support of Israel during the Six Day War that had occurred exactly one year earlier. On that, we now know beyond dispute what Reagan knew then: That war had been shamelessly provoked by the Kremlin. RFK supported Israel in that war. Sirhan Sirhan never forgave him for that. He killed him for that…Moscow had precipitated the Six Day War in June 1967, which, in turn, had prompted RFK’s assassin in June 1968.

But Reagan wasn’t finished positioning blame where it deserved to be placed. Eight days later, on July 13, 1968, Reagan delivered a forgotten speech in Indianapolis. Both the Indianapolis News and Indianapolis Star reported on Reagan’s remarks, but the only full transcript I’ve seen was likewise located in Bill Clark’s private papers. In that speech, Reagan leveled this charge at international communism, with an earlier Kennedy assassination in mind: “Five years ago, a president was murdered by one who renounced his American citizenship to embrace the godless philosophy of communism, and it was communist violence he brought to our land. The shattering sound of his shots were still ringing in our ears when a policy decision was made to play down his communist attachment lest we provoke the Soviet Union.”…

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Pope Francis: ‘We Won’t Resign Ourselves to a Middle East Without Christians’

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Photo Credit: AP/ Karim KadimPope Francis expressed new concern Thursday for the situation faced by “Christians who suffer in a particularly severe way the consequences of tensions and conflicts in many parts of the Middle East.”

“Syria, Iraq, Egypt and other areas of the Holy Land sometimes overflow with tears,” he told a gathering at the Vatican of leaders from Eastern rite churches that have links with the Roman Catholic Church.

“We won’t resign ourselves to a Middle East without Christians who for two thousand years confess the name of Jesus, as full citizens in social, cultural and religious life of the nations to which they belong,” he said.

The pope appealed for “everyone’s right to a dignified life and to freely profess their faith [to] be respected.”

He also said he would “not rest as long as there are men and women, of any religion, affected in their dignity, deprived of life’s basic necessities, robbed of a future, forced to the status of refugees and asylum-seekers.”

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Hobby Lobby President Proposes Public School Bible Course

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Photo Credit: The Christian Post/Napp NazworthThe head of a major Christian retailer presently suing the federal government has proposed a Bible class elective for an Oklahoma high school.

Steve Green, president of the Oklahoma-based retail giant Hobby Lobby Inc., has proposed a class for Mustang High School with a curriculum focused on various aspects of the Holy Bible.

“There’s still some fine-tuning, but the curriculum breakdown would include an intro course covering the Old and New Testaments and the Bible’s impact on society. Three advanced courses would focus on deeper history and cultural influence,” reported KOCO 5 News.

At present, Mustang Public Schools Superintendent Sean McDaniel has expressed an interest in the idea and the proposed course will get official consideration next month.

Green’s proposal for a Bible course comes as his family-owned craft retail company may go before the United States Supreme Court regarding a lawsuit against the federal government.

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China Tests First Stealth Combat Drone

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Photo Credit: AFP/Mark RalstonChina has tested its first stealth combat drone, state media said Friday, citing online photos of an aircraft resembling a shrunken US B2 bomber and hailing the advance toward Western-level technology.

The test flight of the “Sharp Sword” unmanned aircraft is another step in China’s years-long military build-up, with its defence spending now the second highest in the world and growing by double-digit percentages each year.

It comes weeks after Tokyo said a drone had flown near East China Sea islands claimed by both it and Beijing, ratcheting tensions between the rivals up another notch.

“The successful flight shows the nation has again narrowed the air-power disparity between itself and Western nations,” the China Daily newspaper said, adding the flight made China the “fourth power… capable of putting a stealth drone into the sky”.

Images posted online showed a sleek grey delta-wing aircraft apparently powered by a jet engine and resembling an American combat drone.

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Price of Electricity Hit Record for October; Up 42% in Decade

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Photo Credit: APThe price of electricity hit a record for the month of October, according to data released Wednesday by the Bureau of Labor Statistics. That made October the eleventh straight month when the average price of electricity hit or matched the record level for that month.

The average price of electricity in October was 13.2 cents per kilowatt hour (KWH), up from 12.8 cents per KWH in October 2012—and up from 9.3 cents per KWH in October 2003.

Americans now pay 42 percent more for electricity than they did a decade ago.

In November 2012, electricity was 12.7 cents per KWH, which was down from the 12.8 cents per KWH price of November 2011. But, in December 2012, the price of electricity stayed at 12.7 cents per KWH, matching the record monthly price of 12.7 cents per KWH that had been reached in December 2011.

In each of the ten months since then (January through October 2013), the price of electricity has hit a record level for that month.

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Hero Pakistani Doc Who Helped Get bin Laden Hit with Dubious Murder Charge

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Photo Credit: APShakil Afridi, the hero Pakistani doctor who helped the CIA pinpoint Usama bin Laden’s compound ahead of the Navy SEAL raid that killed the Al Qaeda leader, has been charged with murder — for trying to save a little boy stricken with appendicitis six years ago, according to his attorney.

The bizarre charge comes as international pressure mounts on Pakistan to free Afridi, who was sentenced last year to 33 years in prison for “conspiring against the state,” a sanction western observers believe was a pretext to punish him for helping the U.S. Afridi executed a vaccination ruse that helped establish bin Laden’s presence in an Abbottabad compound, a development seen as embarrassing for Pakistan, which claimed not to know the world’s most wanted man was living openly a stone’s throw away from a military complex.

Attorney Samiullah Afridi said Friday that Shakil Afridi was charged with murder in the case of the unnamed boy, who after the doctor operated on him n 2007 in Pakistan’s Khyber tribal area. The boy’s mother filed a complaint against the doctor, saying he was not authorized to carry out the surgery because he was a physician, not a surgeon, according to The Associated Press.

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Subcontractor Working on Obamacare Site Under FBI Investigation

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Photo Credit: REUTERS/Mike SegarOne of the subcontractors working on the Obamacare website is currently under investigation by the Federal Bureau of Investigation.

Client Network Services Incorporated (CNSI) became a sub-contractor on the Obamacare website in 2012, working hand in hand with QSSI, according to its website. QSSI was one of several contractors hauled before Congress to address the sites troubled rollout in October.

According to Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) “war room” notes released in October, CNSI was responsible for assisting with electronic data interchange (EDI) — defined as a system to transfer data between computer systems without human interaction.

Among the plethora of problems with the website rollout, insurance companies have complained that data received on their computers has often been inaccurate, suggesting a problem with the EDI.

CNSI is currently under investigation by the FBI, which has alleged that then-Louisiana Health and Hospitals Secretary Bruce Greenstein, a former CNSI employee, exerted undue influence in steering the Medicaid contract to Louisiana.

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‘The Definition of Bullying’: Church vs. State Threat Leads School to Cut Ties with ‘Operation Christmas Child’ (+video)

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Photo Credit: ShutterStock.comJust days after a South Carolina charter school came under fire and subsequently dropped support for Operation Christmas Child, an annual outreach to poor children that is operated by Samaritan’s Purse, an evangelical Christian organization, another public school in Colorado has done the same.

But while SkyView Academy, an elementary school in Highlands Ranch, Colo., officially cut ties with the group, parents are fighting back with an effort of their own to make sure that the outreach goes on as planned.

The school announced last week that it will be severing its relationship with Operation Christmas Child, ending two years of participation in the outreach, The Christian Post reported.

Students at the school had been raising funds and were preparing to put shoe boxes together for children in need. This was halted, however, when the American Humanist Association recently wrote a letter threatening a lawsuit if the charter school didn’t stop working with Operation Christmas Child.

The letter warned that the school is violating the separation of church and state by facilitating student participation in a Christian outreach — one that shares the Bible’s central message along with items for kids in need.

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Iran Talks at ‘Final Moment,’ Says China

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Photo Credit: State Department/TwitterNegotiations in Geneva over Iran’s nuclear program have “reached the final moment,” Chinese Foreign Ministry Hong Lei said Saturday.

Lei’s comment, communicated by Xinhua, came as Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi left Beijing to attend the talks.

Earlier Saturday, German Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle announced he would also fly to Geneva to attend the negotiations, on the heels of a US State Department announcement that US Secretary of State John Kerry would attend the talks.

Kerry’s wish to attend raised expectations that a deal to curb Tehran’s nuclear program could be in the works.

British Foreign Secretary William Hague announced late Friday that he was also flying to Geneva, and French diplomatic sources said Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius would join them.

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