Meet Republican-Independent-Democrat Charlie Crist: 2010 NRSC Pick for US Senate Switches Parties … Again

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TALLAHASSEE, Fla.— Former Florida Gov. Charlie Crist, who was elected the state’s chief executive as a Republican and then ran unsuccessfully for the U.S. Senate as an independent, announced on Twitter on Friday night that he’s switching to the Democratic Party.

The announcement fanned speculation that Crist would seek to regain his old job from Republican Gov. Rick Scott in 2014.

Crist sent out a tweet that said, “Proud and honored to join the Democratic Party in the home of President (at)Barack Obama!”

The tweet included a photo of a smiling Crist and his wife Carole as he held up a Florida voter registration application. The Tampa Bay Times reports that Crist signed the papers changing his affiliation from independent to Democrat at a Christmas reception at the White House. President Barack Obama greeted the news with a fist bump.

“I’ve had friends for years tell me, ‘You know Charlie, you’re a Democrat and you don’t know it,’” Crist told the newspaper Friday night.

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Efforts to Appoint “Watergate Committee” for Benghazi Gaining Steam in House

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As hearings on the Benghazi murders continue on Capitol Hill, House Republicans are hopeful they have the support to establish a select committee–the kind used to probe the Watergate and Iran Contra scandals–to get to the bottom of what happened.

Republican Sens. John McCain (Ariz.), Lindsey Graham (S.C.), and Kelly Ayotte (N.H.) fought late last month to set up a special select committee in the Senate. But efforts to create the committee fizzled as Senate colleagues, including Republican minority leader Mitch McConnell (Nev.), called the effort unnecessary and duplicative of ongoing efforts.

But Rep. Frank Wolf (R-Va.) said the effort he’s leading in the House has legs, with 14 co-sponsors on a just-introduced resolution and new research from the Heritage Foundation that backs up calls for a select committee on Benghazi.

“This isn’t going to be an attempt,” Wolf said. “We’re really working to do this.”

A new Heritage web posting published on Wednesday argues that precedent supports the creation of such a committee, noting that Watergate and the Iran-Contra affair, while massive political scandals, were bloodless while Benghazi was not. The committees were also employed to elicit information following the 1941 Pearl Harbor attacks and the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks.

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DeMint Takes Parting Shot at Boehner (+video)

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Sen. Jim DeMint (R-S.C.), who shocked Washington on Thursday with the announcement that he would resign his Senate seat in January to become president of the the Heritage Foundation, sent a parting shot at Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) over the “fiscal cliff” negotiations.

“I’m not with Boehner,” DeMint said on CNN’s “The Situation Room.” “This government doesn’t need any more money, this country needs less government.”

House Republican leaders on Monday proposed a counteroffer to President Obama in the “fiscal cliff” negotiations. The proposal would reduce spending by $2.2 trillion through a combination of spending cuts and entitlement reforms, and would produce $800 billion in new revenue without raising tax rates, although the plan doesn’t specify how.

Two high-profile conservative groups lashed out at the GOP offer, one of which was the Heritage Action for America, a sister organization to the Heritage Foundation.

“Republicans were reelected in the House to stop Pres. Obama’s agenda, not figure out creative ways to fund it,” Heritage Action for America communications director Dan Holler told The Hill in an email.

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Energy Industry Concerned Obama Could Pursue End-Run on Climate Change Rules

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photo credit: donkeyhotey

The United States has joined nearly 200 countries at a United Nations climate summit in Doha, Qatar, this week with the primary goal of coming together on a treaty aimed at preventing what activists are calling dangerous climate change.

Some point to superstorm Sandy as a primary example of the need to curb emissions that they believe are fundamentally disrupting the way Earth’s ecosystem works. They would like to have a treaty signed by 2015.

But many in the energy industry are concerned the Obama administration, fresh off a re-election win, will go too far with a radical environmental strategy that will have a negative impact on U.S. businesses and consumers – not just through the U.N., but executive edict.

“They brought hundreds of millions of dollars into his re-election campaign,” said Michael Whatley, vice president of the Consumer Energy Alliance. He believes the president delayed consideration of the Canada-to-Texas Keystone XL Pipeline because he couldn’t afford to lose allies in the environmental sector, and may now feel pressure to deliver to those groups. Indeed, on the night of his re-election, Obama vowed the U.S. would be a leader in combating a “warming planet.”

For years, both Democrats and Republicans have blocked cap-and-trade legislation on Capitol Hill which would set emissions limits and fees for those who exceed them. Now, a growing number of lawmakers are sounding an alarm about what they believe will be the Executive Branch’s “end run” around Congress.

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Michigan Republicans Approve Right to Work Amid Protests

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LANSING, Mich. – Republicans rushed right-to-work legislation through the Michigan Legislature Thursday, drawing raucous protests from hundreds of union supporters, some of whom were pepper-sprayed by police when they tried to storm the Senate chamber.

With six-vote margins in both chambers, the House and Senate approved measures prohibiting private unions from requiring that nonunion employees pay fees. The Senate was debating a similar bill, with Democrats denouncing it as an attack on worker rights and the GOP sponsor insisting it would boost the economy and jobs. Separate legislation dealing with public-sector unions was expected to come later.

Because of rules requiring a five-day delay between votes in the two chambers on the same legislation, final enactment appears unlikely until next week. Republican Gov. Rick Snyder, who previously had said repeatedly that right-to-work was “not on my agenda,” told reporters Thursday he would sign the measures.

A victory in Michigan would give the right-to-work movement its strongest foothold yet in the Rust Belt region, where organized labor already has suffered several body blows. Republicans in Indiana and Wisconsin recently pushed through legislation curbing union rights, sparking massive protests.

Even before the Michigan bills surfaced, protesters streamed inside the Capitol preparing for what appeared inevitable after Snyder, House Speaker Jase Bolger and Senate Minority Leader Randy Richardville announced at a news conference they were putting the issue on a fast track.

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George Zimmerman Sues NBC for Defaming Him as a ‘Racist’ in Trayvon Martin Reporting

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Lawyers for George Zimmerman filed suit today against NBC Universal Media over a well-publicized editing error that portrayed their client in racist terms in his pursuit of Trayvon Martin on a drizzly evening in February.

“NBC saw the death of Trayvon Martin not as a tragedy but as an opportunity to increase ratings, and so to set about the myth that George Zimmerman was a racist and predatory villain,” states the civil complaint in its opening salvo against NBC.

NBC’s editing of the 911 audiotape in the Martin case became a public fixation after the media-monitoring Web site NewsBusters.org noted editing oddities on a “Today” show broadcast March 27. Here’s how NBC News portrayed the audiotape: Zimmerman, “This guy looks like he’s up to no good. He looks black.”

The full tape went like this: Zimmerman, “This guy looks like he’s up to no good. Or he’s on drugs or something. It’s raining and he’s just walking around, looking about.” Dispatcher, “OK, and this guy — is he black, white or Hispanic?” Zimmerman, “He looks black.”

Zimmerman thus didn’t volunteer a racial profile of Martin; he was asked to provide it, a point that the lawsuit makes in colorful fashion: “NBC created this false and defamatory misimpression using the oldest form of yellow journalism: manipulating Zimmerman’s own words, splicing together disparate parts of the recording to create illusions of statements that Zimmerman never actually made.”

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Study: Childless Couples Have Higher Risk of Dying Prematurely

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Most parents have claimed at one stage that their children will be the death of them – but the reverse could be true.

A new study suggests being childless may increase the risk of dying prematurely, especially in women.

Scientists say the study throws new light on the age-old question of whether life fulfilment provided by children can actually extend your years.

The answer appears to be yes – but only compared with people who want children and are unable to have them.

In these circumstances, adoption may reduce the risk of early death, according to Danish scientists.

But their investigation did not look at whether couples who choose to be childless are likely to have shorter lives as a result.

Among possible reasons for early death rates are risky behaviours, such as more drinking and drug abuse, depression and psychiatric illness, and physical illness linked to their infertility.

Professor Esben Agerbo, of Aarhus University, who led the research, said the study was a ‘natural experiment’ because it only analysed data from parents who wanted a child and were actively seeking to do so using IVF treatment.

He said it found an ‘association’ between being childless and dying prematurely but no link with higher rates of mental illness.

He said ‘Mindful that association is not causation, our study suggests that the mortality rates are higher in the childless.

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Sen. Jim DeMint To Resign From US Senate, Become Head of Heritage Foundation

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South Carolina U.S. Senator Jim DeMint will replace Ed Feulner as president of the Heritage Foundation. Mr. DeMint will leave his post as South Carolina’s junior senator in early January to take control of the Washington think tank, which has an annual budget of about $80 million.

Sen. DeMint’s departure means that South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley, a Republican, will name a successor, who will have to run in a special election in 2014. In that year, both Mr. DeMint’s replacement and Sen. Lindsey Graham will be running for reelection in South Carolina.

Mr. DeMint was reelected to a second term in 2010. The 61-year-old senator had announced earlier that he would not seek a third term.

Mr. Feulner, who is 71 and planned to step down, is to be named chancellor of Heritage, a new position, and will continue in a part-time capacity as chairman of the foundation’s Asian Studies Center.

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Unbalanced Approach: Government Workers Work Less and Earn More

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Analysis of government versus private sector pay and work hours suggests bureaucrats get more money for less work.

Andrew Biggs of the American Enterprise Institute and Jason Richwine of the Heritage Foundation have recently taken a look at two issues related to public sector pay, compensation and hours worked. What they find is that government workers work about one month less in a given year and earn more than comparably skilled workers in the private sector.

A summary of their findings on compensation were published by the Washington Post last month. Biggs and Richwine were responding to claims that public sector employees earn 35 percent less than their private sector counterparts. However, these comparisons are badly misleading.

“All five outside studies reviewed this year by the Government Accountability Office found that federal pay is equal to or higher than those of comparable private-sector workers. This is consistent with three decades of academic research. According to our analysis of Census Bureau data last year, the typical private-sector worker who shifts to a federal job receives a salary increase, while federal workers who leave for the private sector tend to get a salary cut.”

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New Poll Shows . . . Senator Herman Cain?

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photo credit: gage skidmore

Georgia Senator Saxby Chambliss is theoretically very vulnerable to a primary challenger in 2014: it’s just a question of whether any of the folks interested in taking him on can run a strong enough campaign to take advantage of that vulnerability.

Only 38% of Republican primary voters say they want Chambliss to be their nominee next year, compared to 43% who would prefer someone more conservative. But Chambliss stomps most of the people who’ve shown the most interest in taking him on. He leads Congressman Paul Broun by a 57/14 margin in a head to head, has a 50/22 advantage over Congressman Tom Price, and leads former Secretary of State Karen Handel 52/23.

By far and away the Republican who would pose the greatest threat to Chambliss in a primary, if he changed his mind about running, is Herman Cain. Cain would lead Chambliss 50-36 in a hypothetical match up. Cain has a 68/20 favorability rating with GOP primary voters, which compares quite favorably to Chambliss’ 45/36 approval spread. Other long shot candidates we tested against Chambliss were Allen West, who trails 47/26, and Erick Erickson who trails 51/22.

Chambliss is extremely weak with Republicans describing themselves as ‘very conservative.’ 61% of them would like to replace him, compared to only 23% who would like to see him nominated again. He would trail Cain 68/19 with that group of voters.

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