Reid, Democrats Go ‘Nuclear’; Eliminate Most Filibusters on Nominees

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Photo Credit: APBy Paul Kane.

Senate Democrats took the dramatic step Thursday of eliminating filibusters for most nominations by presidents, a power play they said was necessary to fix a broken system but one that Republicans said will only rupture it further.

Democrats used a rare parliamentary move to change the rules so that federal judicial nominees and executive-office appointments can advance to confirmation votes by a simple majority of senators, rather than the 60-vote supermajority that has been the standard for nearly four decades.

The immediate rationale for the move was to allow the confirmation of three picks by President Obama to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit — the most recent examples of what Democrats have long considered unreasonably partisan obstruction by Republicans.

In the long term, the rule change represents a substantial power shift in a chamber that for more than two centuries has prided itself on affording more rights to the minority party than any other legislative body in the world. Now, a president whose party holds the majority in the Senate is virtually assured of having his nominees approved, with far less opportunity for political obstruction.

The main combatants Thursday were the chamber’s two chiefs, Majority Leader Harry M. Reid (D-Nev.) and Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), who have clashed for several years over Republican filibusters of Obama’s agenda and nominees.

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Photo Credit: APSenate Dems weaken GOP power with major filibuster rule change By Foxnews.com

Senate Democrats bowled over Republicans on Thursday to win approval for a highly controversial rule change which would limit the GOP’s ability to block nominees, in a move Republicans called a “raw power grab.”

“It’s a sad day in the history of the Senate,” Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., said after the vote. Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., moving quickly following days of speculation, used the so-called “nuclear option” to pass the change. Typically, major changes like this take 67 votes, but he did it with just a simple majority.

With Republicans fuming, the change weakens the power of the minority to stall nominations for top positions. Instead of needing 60 votes to break a filibuster, the change means Democrats will now need just 51.

President Obama, speaking Thursday from the White House briefing room, said the change was needed to deal with Republicans’ “unprecedented pattern of obstruction.”

He cited, among other stand-offs, the bid by Republicans to filibuster his nomination of Chuck Hagel, a former GOP senator, for Defense secretary. “For the sake of future generations, we can’t let it become normal,” he said.

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Photo Credit: REUTERS/GARY CAMERON Democrats ditch historic U.S. Senate rule blamed for gridlock

By Thomas Ferraro and Richard Cowan

The Democratic-controlled U.S. Senate, in a historic and bitterly fought rule change, stripped Republicans on Thursday of their ability to block President Barack Obama’s judicial and executive branch nominees.

The action fundamentally altered the way Congress’ upper chamber has worked since the mid-19th century by making it impossible for a minority party, on its own, to block presidential appointments, except those to the U.S. Supreme Court.

The change in the so-called “filibuster” rule does not apply to legislation, which can still be held up by a handful of senators.

The now-defunct rule, a symbol of Washington gridlock, has survived dozens of attacks over the years largely because both major political parties like to use it.

The action will undoubtedly come back to haunt Democrats the next time they lose the Senate and the White House simultaneously. Getting rid of it was considered so momentous and divisive that it was dubbed the “nuclear option” in the Senate.

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Obama’s Control of White House Press Corps Likened to Russian News Agency ‘Tass’

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Photo Credit: AP/Evan VucciNew York Times photographer Doug Mills strode into Jay Carney’s office Oct. 29 with a pile of pictures taken exclusively by President Obama’s official photographer at events the White House press corps was forbidden to cover. “This one,” Mills said, sliding one picture after another off his stack and onto the press secretary’s desk. “This one, too – and this one and this one and … .”

The red-faced photographer, joined by colleagues on the White House Correspondents’ Association board, finished his 10-minute presentation with a flourish that made Carney, a former Moscow correspondent for Time, wince.

“You guys,” Mills said, “are just like Tass.”

Comparing the White House to the Russian news agency is a hyperbole, of course, but less so with each new administration. Obama’s image-makers are taking advantage of new technologies that democratized the media, subverting independent news organizations that hold the president accountable. A generation ago, a few mainstream media organizations held a monopoly on public information about the White House. Today, the White House itself is behaving monopolistic.

The fast-moving trend is hampering reporters and videographers who cover the White House, but Mills’ profession has probably been hardest hit. “As surely as if they were placing a hand over a journalist’s camera lens, officials in this administration are blocking the public from having an independent view of important functions of the Executive Branch of government,” reads a letter delivered today to Carney by the WHCA and several member news organizations including The Associated Press and The New York Times.

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Democrat Hill Staffers Shocked by Obamacare Prices They Must Pay

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Photo Credit: AP Veteran House Democratic aides are sick over the insurance prices they’ll pay under Obamacare, and they’re scrambling to find a cure.

“In a shock to the system, the older staff in my office (folks over 59) have now found out their personal health insurance costs (even with the government contribution) have gone up 3-4 times what they were paying before,” Minh Ta, chief of staff to Rep. Gwen Moore (D-Wis.), wrote to fellow Democratic chiefs of staff in an email message obtained by POLITICO. “Simply unacceptable.”

In the email, Ta noted that older congressional staffs may leave their jobs because of the change to their health insurance.

Under the Affordable Care Act, and federal regulations, many congressional staffers — designated as “official” aides — were forced to move out of the old heavily subsidized Federal Employees Health Benefits program and into the District of Columbia’s health insurance marketplace exchange. Others designated as “unofficial” were allowed to stay in the FEHB program. Managers had to choose whether aides were “official” or “unofficial” by Oct. 31, and Ta said that wasn’t enough time to make an informed decision about who would benefit and who would lose out by going into the new system.

Moore’s office was one of those in which all staff were designated as “official” and pushed into the exchanges. That ended up being a problem for older staff, who weren’t accustomed to paying higher premiums because of their age.

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‘Dozens’ of Terrorists May Be in US as Refugees

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Photo Credit: FBI Several dozen suspected terrorist bombmakers, including some believed to have targeted American troops, may have mistakenly been allowed to move to the United States as war refugees, according to FBI agents investigating the remnants of roadside bombs recovered from Iraq and Afghanistan.

The discovery in 2009 of two al Qaeda-Iraq terrorists living as refugees in Bowling Green, Kentucky — who later admitted in court that they’d attacked U.S. soldiers in Iraq — prompted the bureau to assign hundreds of specialists to an around-the-clock effort aimed at checking its archive of 100,000 improvised explosive devices collected in the war zones, known as IEDs, for other suspected terrorists’ fingerprints.

“We are currently supporting dozens of current counter-terrorism investigations like that,” FBI Agent Gregory Carl, director of the Terrorist Explosive Device Analytical Center (TEDAC), said in an ABC News interview to be broadcast tonight on ABC News’ “World News with Diane Sawyer” and “Nightline”.

“I wouldn’t be surprised if there were many more than that,” said House Committee on Homeland Security Chairman Michael McCaul. “And these are trained terrorists in the art of bombmaking that are inside the United States; and quite frankly, from a homeland security perspective, that really concerns me.”

As a result of the Kentucky case, the State Department stopped processing Iraq refugees for six months in 2011, federal officials told ABC News – even for many who had heroically helped U.S. forces as interpreters and intelligence assets. One Iraqi who had aided American troops was assassinated before his refugee application could be processed, because of the immigration delays, two U.S. officials said. In 2011, fewer than 10,000 Iraqis were resettled as refugees in the U.S., half the number from the year before, State Department statistics show.

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Obama Agent Foresees ‘Health-Care Apocalypse’

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Photo Credit: WND Because President Obama and his staff seem to care more about “good intentions” and political posturing than sound policy and have little respect for the constraints of executive power, the Obamacare disaster is about to get much worse for Americans, a former Secret Service agent who once protected Obama believes.

Dan Bongino, who resigned from the elite Presidential Protective Division in 2011 and now is running for Congress, told WND in an interview that Obama doesn’t seem to understand the level of outrage among the populace toward his health care law.

“It’s obvious right now to just about all of America that this thing has been an abysmal failure,” he said of Obamacare. But Obama “cares more about political successes than he does policy successes.”

Bongino, author of the newly released book “Life Inside the Bubble: Why a Top-Ranked Secret Service Agent Walked Away from It All,” learned first-hand how Obamacare is affecting the nation when he lost his own health insurance plan and was faced with a premium spike along with worse coverage, as WND reported.

“For as bad as you think this is, we haven’t even seen the health-care apocalypse coming once the employer mandate kicks in and that website actually works, and people start to see the pricing for real,” he said.

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Agent Warns of Ongoing Threat of “Nearly Unguarded Northern Border”

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Photo Credit: Townhall Where does the greatest threat from terrorists trying to enter the U.S. come from? If you guessed the Southwest Border you’d be wrong. According to National Border Patrol Council President Brandon Judd, it’s the U.S.-Canada border.

“For the most part, when discussions on border security arise, the conversation tends to focus on the Southwest border,” he said before a House committee hearing on Wednesday. “In no way do I want to detract from the importance of securing the Southwest Border, but I would be remiss if I didn’t mention the ongoing threat of the nearly unguarded Northern border to the safety of the American public.”

For example, the border crossing at Angle Inlet, Minnesota is based on the honor system. There are no permanent customs or immigration officials here. Instead, the government asks people who cross over from Canada to report themselves over a videophone (see this and this).

“As far as I am aware, all recent threat assessments have pointed to the Northern Border as the most likely point of entry into our country for terrorists,” Judd said before reminding the committee of our recent history…

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U.N. Disabilities Treaty Would Not Help Veterans; It Would Hurt What They Fought For

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Photo Credit: St Petersburg Times, ZUMAPRESS, NewscomHeritage expert Steve Groves writes in RealClearPolicy today:

Perhaps the American people have come to expect less than straight talk from the White House. But blowing smoke that misleads Americans with disabilities—including U.S. veterans badly wounded in combat—crosses a red line even by today’s standards.

The Obama Administration claims this treaty will help Americans with disabilities, including veterans, when they travel abroad. But having the U.S. sign on to this treaty simply would not do this. As Groves says, the treaty’s supporters “would have us believe that human-rights treaties like the [Disabilities Treaty] act as a sort of magic wand—if a treaty says that all signatories must do something good, then presto-chango, it shall be so. But in the real world, human-rights treaties simply don’t work like that.”

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Judge Rules Pittsburgh Catholic Church Doesn’t Have to Comply With HHS Mandate

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Photo Credit: Life News In yet another pro-life victory against the HHS mandate that forces churches and religious groups to pay for birth control and drugs that may cause abortions for their employees, a federal judge has ruled that the Catholic Church in Pittsburgh doesn’t have to comply.

Bishop David Zubik of Pittsburgh made such a stink when he testified in court recently that he received national attention. He said would rather pay fines, no matter how much they might be that be forced to follow the directives of the abortion mandate.

“I would not be able to live with myself knowing that we’re contradicting what we believe,” he said during a hearing before U.S. District Judge Arthur Schwab.

Under the law’s penalties, Catholic Charities would be subject to a daily fine of $100 per employee if Zubik doesn’t sign, said Susan Rauscher, the nonprofit’s executive director. That would total $2 million to $4 million a year for an organization with a $10 million operating budget, she said. As a result, the Pittsburgh and Erie diocese are suing the government, claiming that the requirement violates their rights under the Religious Freedom Restoration Act. They’re asking Schwab to temporarily block enforcement of the mandate on their nonprofits while the dioceses pursue the lawsuits.

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Army PR Push: Use ‘Average-Looking Women’

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Photo Credit: US ARMYThe Army should use photos of “average-looking women” when it needs to illustrate stories about female soldiers, a specialist recommends — images of women who are too pretty undermine the communications strategy about introducing them into combat roles.

That’s the gist of an internal Army e-mail an Army source shared with POLITICO.

“In general, ugly women are perceived as competent while pretty women are perceived as having used their looks to get ahead,” wrote Col. Lynette Arnhart, who is leading a team of analysts studying how best to integrate women into combat roles that have previously been closed off to them. She sent her message to give guidance to Army spokesmen and spokeswomen about how they should tell the press and public about the Army’s integration of women.

“There is a general tendency to select nice looking women when we select a photo to go with an article (where the article does not reference a specific person). It might behoove us to select more average looking women for our comms strategy. For example, the attached article shows a pretty woman, wearing make-up while on deployed duty. Such photos undermine the rest of the message (and may even make people ask if breaking a nail is considered hazardous duty),” Arnhart said.

She wrote that a photo of a female soldier with mud on her face that news agencies used last spring “sends a much different message—one of women willing to do the dirty work necessary in order to get the job done.”

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Second Massive Wave of Health Plan Cancellations Looms

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A new and independent analysis of ObamaCare warns of a ticking time bomb, predicting a second wave of 50 million to 100 million insurance policy cancellations next fall — right before the mid-term elections.

The next round of cancellations and premium hikes is expected to hit employees, particularly of small businesses. While the administration has tried to downplay the cancellation notices hitting policyholders on the individual market by noting they represent a relatively small fraction of the population, the swath of people who will be affected by the shakeup in employer-sponsored coverage will be much broader.

An analysis by the American Enterprise Institute, a conservative think tank, shows the administration anticipates half to two-thirds of small businesses would have policies canceled or be compelled to send workers onto the ObamaCare exchanges. They predict up to 100 million small and large business policies could be canceled next year.

“The impact I’m mostly worried about is on small young, entrepreneurial firms that will suddenly face much higher health insurance premiums if they want to offer health insurance to their employees,” said AEI resident scholar Stan Veuger. “I think for a lot of other businesses … they can just send their employees to the exchanges or offer them a fixed subsidy every month to buy health insurance themselves.”

Under the health care law, businesses with fewer than 50 workers do not have to provide health coverage. But if they do, the policies will still have to meet the benefit standards set by ObamaCare.

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