Showing posts with label Mitch McConnell. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Mitch McConnell. Show all posts
Wednesday, January 22, 2014
The Washington Examiner, January 22, 2014
Check out the Headlines!
Environmental groups file court motion seeking EPA action on ozone standard
Obama praises Roe v. Wade on 41st anniversary
Mitch McConnell releases powerful ad featuring a throat cancer survivor
Environmental groups file court motion seeking EPA action on ozone standard
Obama praises Roe v. Wade on 41st anniversary
Mitch McConnell releases powerful ad featuring a throat cancer survivor
Friday, December 13, 2013
Reid Ends Marathon Session, Announces Schedule for Budget, Defense Bills
Roll Call, December 13, 2013, 11:59 am
One
all-nighter was not enough, but two
will suffice.
The Senate’s
leaders have reached an agreement that will bring to an end days of
round-the-clock sessions following a series of noon votes.
“This
schedule’s been extremely difficult for everyone,” Majority Leader Harry Reid,
D-Nev., said in announcing the deal, which essentially allows votes that would
have taken place late Friday and Saturday to instead occur at the usual hour of
5:30 p.m. on Monday.
Reid said he
spoke with his counterpart, Minority Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky
“On Tuesday,
we’ll begin consideration of the budget.
On Wednesday, the defense bill. After that, we’ll address further nominations …
the most important one is Janet Yellen to be on the Federal Reserve,” Reid
said. “The others, I will work with Sen. McConnell. We’ll file on a number of
them, see how many we can get done.”
The Senate’s
next session will be at 1 p.m. Sunday, but it should be a sparsely attended
because Reid has announced there will be no votes.
Wednesday, November 28, 2012
I’m Not Sure What Republicans Stand For in Congress | RedState
I’m Not Sure What Republicans Stand For in Congress | RedState
I was once an elected Republican. There isn’t much that the Republican Party has to do with trash collection, but I was a Republican on the Macon, Georgia City Council and I supported trash collection privatization. It wasn’t the Republican thing to do. It was the conservative thing to do. It was the right thing to do. Multiple times it had been tried and multiple times it had saved taxpayer dollars.
I was once an elected Republican. There isn’t much that the Republican Party has to do with trash collection, but I was a Republican on the Macon, Georgia City Council and I supported trash collection privatization. It wasn’t the Republican thing to do. It was the conservative thing to do. It was the right thing to do. Multiple times it had been tried and multiple times it had saved taxpayer dollars.
There aren’t a lot of Republican positions at the local level. There aren’t a lot of Democrat positions at the local level. There are conservative and liberal positions. There are positions that believe the private sector can do better and positions that believe the public sector can do better.
In Congress, there used to be clear and distinct Republican and Democrat positions. But in the past decade, about the only thing separating the GOP from the Democrats is the rate of spending. Republicans spend less, but they still spend a lot. Oh, and they love babies in utero.
Republicans used to believe in free enterprise, the private sector, and low taxes. They believed in getting government the heck out of the way. They still talk like that, but they don’t seem to actually be operating like that. Senate and House Republicans seem to be in a bidding war to increase revenue in Washington. What’s worse, they are mendacious enough to call it “increasing revenue” instead of “tax increases,” when it amounts to the same thing. The Republican Party of John Boehner and Mitch McConnell have taken a party that once believed in starving the beast and transforming it into a party that believes in feeding the leviathan lest the leviathan consume them. They operate out of fear — fear of losing their remaining power, fear of blame, and fear of the unknown.
I am absolutely in favor of simplifying the tax code. I am absolutely in favor of getting rid of loopholes. But I am absolutely opposed to engaging in machinations of the tax code designed to increase spending through closed loopholes and the like. Increased revenue should come through simplifying Washington to spur economic growth. Get Washington out of our lives.
While the Republican Party in Washington says that, it sure seems not to be living up to that. Consider this so called fiscal cliff.
The fiscal cliff is actually a bipartisan compromise that congress critters and their friends in the press have now given a spooky name to scare the American people lest Washington have to take the medicine it prescribed itself. The Republicans were complicit in this arrangement.
Republicans and Democrats punted and punted on the Bush tax cuts and they arranged a debt ceiling increase that would, should a committee designed to fail actually fail, force draconian cuts that both sides could scream about and demand be rejected. So Washington would get a debt ceiling increase, but would not actually have to suffer the pain of cuts. Republicans and Democrats collaborated to design a medicine so vile they could ask the public’s forgiveness if they chose not to take it and design a more sugary medicine instead.
But one way or the other, the medicine must now be taken.
Monday, June 18, 2012
Barack Obama’s Totalitarian Plan to Destroy Free Speech
Obama's chief political adviser, Alinskee radical David Axelrod, said on national TV that they plan to change the First Amendment.
Mr. Obama doesn't like Freedom of Speech the way it currently works, so if he wins a second term, he wants to remove some of the protections that it holds for all of us. And can you guess what conveniently happens right around the time that these new rules will kick in?
Not content to simply ram legislation down the throats of Americans without the input of Congress, King Barack Obama the First (and hopefully the Last) has now openly announced that the First Amendment to the Constitution needs to be amended. His main radical adviser said on national television that they want to do away with free speech provisions in the Bill of Rights, in order to silence the opponents of hope and change. That’s you, by the way, if you’re reading this and all of us here at the Beat Obama Committee. We can’t stress enough how serious this issue really is.
Below is what Senator Mitch McConnell told NewsMax.TV this week:
“David Axelrod – [Obama’s] principal political adviser – said a few days ago that the administration wanted to amend the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. This has never been done before in 235 years, to make it possible for the government to control political speech in this country. A truly radical, astonishing to say out loud, even if you believed it.”
This is the most fundamental threat to our way of life in America since we fought our war for independence from Britain.
Picture this in 2013.
CONTINUED: https://beatobama.us/1st-amendment/barack-obamas-totalitarian-plan-to-destroy-free-speech
Mr. Obama doesn't like Freedom of Speech the way it currently works, so if he wins a second term, he wants to remove some of the protections that it holds for all of us. And can you guess what conveniently happens right around the time that these new rules will kick in?
Not content to simply ram legislation down the throats of Americans without the input of Congress, King Barack Obama the First (and hopefully the Last) has now openly announced that the First Amendment to the Constitution needs to be amended. His main radical adviser said on national television that they want to do away with free speech provisions in the Bill of Rights, in order to silence the opponents of hope and change. That’s you, by the way, if you’re reading this and all of us here at the Beat Obama Committee. We can’t stress enough how serious this issue really is.
Below is what Senator Mitch McConnell told NewsMax.TV this week:
“David Axelrod – [Obama’s] principal political adviser – said a few days ago that the administration wanted to amend the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. This has never been done before in 235 years, to make it possible for the government to control political speech in this country. A truly radical, astonishing to say out loud, even if you believed it.”
This is the most fundamental threat to our way of life in America since we fought our war for independence from Britain.
Picture this in 2013.
CONTINUED: https://beatobama.us/1st-amendment/barack-obamas-totalitarian-plan-to-destroy-free-speech
Monday, December 19, 2011
RedState: House Must Decouple Payroll Tax Cut From Broader ‘Extenders’ Package
December 19, 2011
Over the weekend, Mitch McConnell and Senate Republicans obviated the superior leverage of House Republicans by passing a two-month extension of the payroll tax cut, along with a clean extension (no reforms and offsets) of doc fix and unemployment benefits.
In a premature capitulation, they agreed (89-10) to amend the House extenders bill by eliminating most of the spending offsets, all of the UI reforms and the policy riders, with the exception of the Keystone pipeline provision. They will fill in the $33 billion two-month gaping budget hole with nebulous revenue increases from higher Freddie/Fannie mortgages over ten years. To the extent that those revenues will be actualized, this deal will indeed make it harder to shut down these officious venture-socialist enterprises. The Senate action was akin to grounding into a triple play for Team GOP, yet the underlying bill passed with unanimous consent.
Yes – we can already see the ecstatic pronouncements emanating from the McConnell Republican echo chamber. “We got the pipeline,” they will exclaim. But here is the problem: the ship already sailed on that. This issue was such a political liability for Obama that, despite his rhetoric, it was a foregone conclusion he would be forced to cave on it. He was not going to allow this to become an albatross around his neck during the election. Accordingly, the White House is lending enthusiastic support to McConnell’s Senate-passed extension. Besides, due to loopholes in the Keystone provision, the administration is already balking at compliance with the language of the bill.
http://www.redstate.com/dhorowitz3/2011/12/18/house-must-decouple-payroll-tax-cut-from-broader-%E2%80%98extenders%E2%80%99-package/
Over the weekend, Mitch McConnell and Senate Republicans obviated the superior leverage of House Republicans by passing a two-month extension of the payroll tax cut, along with a clean extension (no reforms and offsets) of doc fix and unemployment benefits.
In a premature capitulation, they agreed (89-10) to amend the House extenders bill by eliminating most of the spending offsets, all of the UI reforms and the policy riders, with the exception of the Keystone pipeline provision. They will fill in the $33 billion two-month gaping budget hole with nebulous revenue increases from higher Freddie/Fannie mortgages over ten years. To the extent that those revenues will be actualized, this deal will indeed make it harder to shut down these officious venture-socialist enterprises. The Senate action was akin to grounding into a triple play for Team GOP, yet the underlying bill passed with unanimous consent.
Yes – we can already see the ecstatic pronouncements emanating from the McConnell Republican echo chamber. “We got the pipeline,” they will exclaim. But here is the problem: the ship already sailed on that. This issue was such a political liability for Obama that, despite his rhetoric, it was a foregone conclusion he would be forced to cave on it. He was not going to allow this to become an albatross around his neck during the election. Accordingly, the White House is lending enthusiastic support to McConnell’s Senate-passed extension. Besides, due to loopholes in the Keystone provision, the administration is already balking at compliance with the language of the bill.
http://www.redstate.com/dhorowitz3/2011/12/18/house-must-decouple-payroll-tax-cut-from-broader-%E2%80%98extenders%E2%80%99-package/
Wednesday, December 14, 2011
CQ Roll Call Daily Briefing: On the Brink of Brinkmanship
Wednesday, December 14, 2011
Today In Washington
THE SENATE: Convened at 9:30 and is now rejecting two versions of a balanced-budget amendment to the Constitution — a foregone conclusion ever since the votes were promised as part of the summer debt limit deal. Reid and McConnell are now working behind the scenes (while overtly furious at each other) on the next step in the year-ending tax extenders debate.
A party-line vote was expected to rebuff the Republican proposal, which was to cap spending at 18 percent of gross domestic product, require a two-thirds majority to increase taxes and dictate that spending not exceed revenue in each fiscal year unless supermajorities in Congress voted for deficits during war or other emergencies. The vote a few minutes ago was 21-79 against the Democratic alternative, which had no spending caps or special rules for tax bills (except that cuts for millionaires could only be allowed during times of surplus) and would shield the Social Security trust fund from being tapped to balance the books.
THE HOUSE: Convened at 10 and is expected to be dismissed before 5, after adopting the $662 billion defense authorization conference agreement and voting on as many as 10 bills under the suspension of the rules process.
THE WHITE HOUSE: Obama is arriving for a 90-minute visit to Fort Bragg, his first as president. At noon he and the first lady will deliver speeches thanking the troops and their families for their sacrifices during the Iraq War and promising that the administration remains committed to providing veterans robust benefits and help securing jobs. (The North Carolina fort — home to the Special Operations command, the 18th Airborne Corps and the 82nd Airborne, among others — says more than 200 soldiers who died in Iraq left from there.)
Obama is due back in the Oval Office by 2, and at 5 he’s headed a few blocks away to the St. Regis Hotel for another re-election fundraiser.
ANOTHER STANDOFF: Shutdown brinkmanship is back. There’s even a decent shot that the two sides will dig in long enough that the current stopgap spending law will be permitted to expire 60 hours from now, which would mean a mad weekend scramble to get something to replace it before the bulk of the federal government reopens for business next Monday — either a very, very short CR or the comprehensive $1 trillion appropriations package that’s essentially written up and ready to go.
The standoff intensified in the Senate this morning, when Reid proposed holding the next symbolic test vote tonight — the one in which the Democratic majority will formally spurn the payroll tax, jobless benefit, “doc fix” and AMT “patch” package pushed through the Republican House yesterday, because it also would speed along construction of the Keystone oil pipeline. McConnell objected, insisting that he’d use all his parliamentary powers to make sure the appropriations “megabus” is done first.
Republicans clearly see a way to seize back the year-end momentum on this front from Obama and the Senate Democrats, who have been holding the better hand for weeks on the question of continuing a tax cut for 160 million people. But now, the Democrats think their opponents have badly overplayed that hand by holding up final action on the spending bill until the GOP relents (or at least comes to the final bargaining table) on the tax package. And that, the Republicans say, makes Democrats vulnerable to the same criticism they have been using against the GOP all year: They’re willing to hold the government hostage, and cause genuine problems for millions of people, until they get what they want.
The longer the megabus package is allowed to sit on the shelf, the more it risks being picked apart around the edges — and it could well fall apart altogether if the votes aren’t called soon. Officially, the text is not out because no Senate Democrats have been allowed to sign on the dotted line at the bottom, but everyone knows it’s a done deal (despite what Reid insists) and more and more people are aware of the thousands of line-item details every hour. If the old legislative adage is that a compromise, like an unrefrigerated fish, starts to rot after three days, then this is Day Two.
AGAINST THE GRAIN: The 10 House Democrats who voted for the extenders bill last night bill were Barrow, Boren, Boswell, Braley, Cardoza, Donnelly, Loebsack, Matheson, Ross and Walz. The 14 Republicans who voted “no” were Amash, Barton, Brooks, Campbell, Flake, Fortenberry, Garrett, Tim Johnson, Lummis, McClintock, McKinley, Neugebauer, Wolf and Woodall.
SAVE THE DATE: Obama will deliver his next State of the Union address the evening of Tuesday, Jan. 24 — one day after the Senate returns from the coming break, and one week after the House reconvenes to start the second session of the 112th Congress.
DOWN IN THE POLL: Only 22 percent say the nation is headed in the right direction, according to the NBC-Wall Street Journal poll out today, while 42 percent say the performance of the current Congress is “one of the worst” ever —the highest number ever recorded on a question that’s been asked since 1990. Obama’s job-approval rating is at 46 percent, 2 points better than a month ago.
The poll’s numbers in the GOP presidential race, meanwhile, show Newt Gingrich leading Mitt Romney by 17 points among Republican voters nationwide — and by 23 points if all the other candidates are excluded. The reason seems clear: Only 29 percent view Romney as “conservative,” while 59 percent give Gingrich that label. But when the surveyors asked about general election matchups, they found Obama defeating the former Speaker by 11 points among all registered voters but in a statistical tie with the former Massachusetts governor. That apparent electability gap is what has so many Republican congressional strategists worried: They fret that Gingrich at the top of the could do the party serious damage in close races for the House and Senate, particularly in the Northeast.
RUNNER-UP: House Budget Chairman Paul Ryan was named “the most influential American politician” of 2011 and the third runner-up for Time magazine’s “Person of the Year” recognition today. (Kate Middleton was fourth runner-up.) “Through a combination of hard work, good timing and possibly suicidal guts, the Wisconsin Republican managed to harness his party to a dramatic plan for dealing with America’s rapidly rising public debt,” the magazine said. “He brought an ugly issue out of the foggy realm of think tanks and blue-ribbon panels and dropped it into the middle of the national debate in time to define the next presidential election.”
Finishing higher up in the editor’s balloting were Chinese dissident artist Ai Weiwei; William McRaven, the admiral who ran the SEAL operation that killed Osama bin Laden; and the face on the cover: “The Protester,” honoring the people from Tahrir Square to Zuccotti Park “for capturing and highlighting a global sense of restless promise, for upending governments and conventional wisdom, for combining the oldest of techniques with the newest of technologies to shine a light on human dignity and, finally, for steering the planet on a more democratic though sometimes more dangerous path.”
TRAIL TIPS:
(1) Steny Hoyer may not ever be Speaker, his unambiguous ambition of the past 30 years, but the minority whip insists he wants to stick around for at least one more term (which would be his 16th) representing southern Maryland. He turns 73 next June, and speculation that he would retire surged yesterday for two reasons: His longtime top aide, Terry Lierman, announced he was leaving the Hill to start a health care venture capital firm. (The new chief of staff will be Alexis Covey-Brandt, who now runs Hoyer’s floor operation and has been with Hoyer for eight years.) And state House GOP leader Anthony O’Donnell revealed he was ready to give up his legislative seat after 18 years to run for Hoyer’s seat, even though the state’s redistricting may make the 5th District no more inclined to go Republican. Hoyer told reporters he is firmly committed to seeking re-election.
(2) The 18 new congressional districts for Pennsylvania were unveiled last night by the Republicans who run Harrisburg, and it’s no surprise that the mapmakers went to great lengths to shore up the prospects for GOP congressmen in politically competitive territory. (Also no surprise, the legislators took care of the one House seat the state lost in reapportionment mainly by combining the exurban Pittsburgh districts currently held by Democrats Jason Altmire and Mark Critz, but in a way that gives each a fair shot at beating the other in a primary — and then gives GOP state Rep. Jim Christiana a solid shot in the fall.) On the other side of the state, the map was significantly reconfigured to make political life more comfortable for Patrick Meehan, Jim Gerlach, Charlie Dent, Tom Marino and — most of all — freshman Lou Barletta, who saw his territory changed from mostly Democratic to GOP-leaning. The biggest Democratic beneficiary is Tim Holden, whose seat was made safer by dispersing much of his GOP precinct to nearby Republican incumbents. Under the new map, Democrats will probably view the seats held by Republicans Mike Fitzpatrick and Mike Kelly as their most plausible pickup opportunities.
— David Hawkings, editor
Become a Facebook fan at facebook.com/DavidHawkingsDC. Or follow me on Twitter at twitter.com/davidhawkings.
Today In Washington
THE SENATE: Convened at 9:30 and is now rejecting two versions of a balanced-budget amendment to the Constitution — a foregone conclusion ever since the votes were promised as part of the summer debt limit deal. Reid and McConnell are now working behind the scenes (while overtly furious at each other) on the next step in the year-ending tax extenders debate.
A party-line vote was expected to rebuff the Republican proposal, which was to cap spending at 18 percent of gross domestic product, require a two-thirds majority to increase taxes and dictate that spending not exceed revenue in each fiscal year unless supermajorities in Congress voted for deficits during war or other emergencies. The vote a few minutes ago was 21-79 against the Democratic alternative, which had no spending caps or special rules for tax bills (except that cuts for millionaires could only be allowed during times of surplus) and would shield the Social Security trust fund from being tapped to balance the books.
THE HOUSE: Convened at 10 and is expected to be dismissed before 5, after adopting the $662 billion defense authorization conference agreement and voting on as many as 10 bills under the suspension of the rules process.
THE WHITE HOUSE: Obama is arriving for a 90-minute visit to Fort Bragg, his first as president. At noon he and the first lady will deliver speeches thanking the troops and their families for their sacrifices during the Iraq War and promising that the administration remains committed to providing veterans robust benefits and help securing jobs. (The North Carolina fort — home to the Special Operations command, the 18th Airborne Corps and the 82nd Airborne, among others — says more than 200 soldiers who died in Iraq left from there.)
Obama is due back in the Oval Office by 2, and at 5 he’s headed a few blocks away to the St. Regis Hotel for another re-election fundraiser.
ANOTHER STANDOFF: Shutdown brinkmanship is back. There’s even a decent shot that the two sides will dig in long enough that the current stopgap spending law will be permitted to expire 60 hours from now, which would mean a mad weekend scramble to get something to replace it before the bulk of the federal government reopens for business next Monday — either a very, very short CR or the comprehensive $1 trillion appropriations package that’s essentially written up and ready to go.
The standoff intensified in the Senate this morning, when Reid proposed holding the next symbolic test vote tonight — the one in which the Democratic majority will formally spurn the payroll tax, jobless benefit, “doc fix” and AMT “patch” package pushed through the Republican House yesterday, because it also would speed along construction of the Keystone oil pipeline. McConnell objected, insisting that he’d use all his parliamentary powers to make sure the appropriations “megabus” is done first.
Republicans clearly see a way to seize back the year-end momentum on this front from Obama and the Senate Democrats, who have been holding the better hand for weeks on the question of continuing a tax cut for 160 million people. But now, the Democrats think their opponents have badly overplayed that hand by holding up final action on the spending bill until the GOP relents (or at least comes to the final bargaining table) on the tax package. And that, the Republicans say, makes Democrats vulnerable to the same criticism they have been using against the GOP all year: They’re willing to hold the government hostage, and cause genuine problems for millions of people, until they get what they want.
The longer the megabus package is allowed to sit on the shelf, the more it risks being picked apart around the edges — and it could well fall apart altogether if the votes aren’t called soon. Officially, the text is not out because no Senate Democrats have been allowed to sign on the dotted line at the bottom, but everyone knows it’s a done deal (despite what Reid insists) and more and more people are aware of the thousands of line-item details every hour. If the old legislative adage is that a compromise, like an unrefrigerated fish, starts to rot after three days, then this is Day Two.
AGAINST THE GRAIN: The 10 House Democrats who voted for the extenders bill last night bill were Barrow, Boren, Boswell, Braley, Cardoza, Donnelly, Loebsack, Matheson, Ross and Walz. The 14 Republicans who voted “no” were Amash, Barton, Brooks, Campbell, Flake, Fortenberry, Garrett, Tim Johnson, Lummis, McClintock, McKinley, Neugebauer, Wolf and Woodall.
SAVE THE DATE: Obama will deliver his next State of the Union address the evening of Tuesday, Jan. 24 — one day after the Senate returns from the coming break, and one week after the House reconvenes to start the second session of the 112th Congress.
DOWN IN THE POLL: Only 22 percent say the nation is headed in the right direction, according to the NBC-Wall Street Journal poll out today, while 42 percent say the performance of the current Congress is “one of the worst” ever —the highest number ever recorded on a question that’s been asked since 1990. Obama’s job-approval rating is at 46 percent, 2 points better than a month ago.
The poll’s numbers in the GOP presidential race, meanwhile, show Newt Gingrich leading Mitt Romney by 17 points among Republican voters nationwide — and by 23 points if all the other candidates are excluded. The reason seems clear: Only 29 percent view Romney as “conservative,” while 59 percent give Gingrich that label. But when the surveyors asked about general election matchups, they found Obama defeating the former Speaker by 11 points among all registered voters but in a statistical tie with the former Massachusetts governor. That apparent electability gap is what has so many Republican congressional strategists worried: They fret that Gingrich at the top of the could do the party serious damage in close races for the House and Senate, particularly in the Northeast.
RUNNER-UP: House Budget Chairman Paul Ryan was named “the most influential American politician” of 2011 and the third runner-up for Time magazine’s “Person of the Year” recognition today. (Kate Middleton was fourth runner-up.) “Through a combination of hard work, good timing and possibly suicidal guts, the Wisconsin Republican managed to harness his party to a dramatic plan for dealing with America’s rapidly rising public debt,” the magazine said. “He brought an ugly issue out of the foggy realm of think tanks and blue-ribbon panels and dropped it into the middle of the national debate in time to define the next presidential election.”
Finishing higher up in the editor’s balloting were Chinese dissident artist Ai Weiwei; William McRaven, the admiral who ran the SEAL operation that killed Osama bin Laden; and the face on the cover: “The Protester,” honoring the people from Tahrir Square to Zuccotti Park “for capturing and highlighting a global sense of restless promise, for upending governments and conventional wisdom, for combining the oldest of techniques with the newest of technologies to shine a light on human dignity and, finally, for steering the planet on a more democratic though sometimes more dangerous path.”
TRAIL TIPS:
(1) Steny Hoyer may not ever be Speaker, his unambiguous ambition of the past 30 years, but the minority whip insists he wants to stick around for at least one more term (which would be his 16th) representing southern Maryland. He turns 73 next June, and speculation that he would retire surged yesterday for two reasons: His longtime top aide, Terry Lierman, announced he was leaving the Hill to start a health care venture capital firm. (The new chief of staff will be Alexis Covey-Brandt, who now runs Hoyer’s floor operation and has been with Hoyer for eight years.) And state House GOP leader Anthony O’Donnell revealed he was ready to give up his legislative seat after 18 years to run for Hoyer’s seat, even though the state’s redistricting may make the 5th District no more inclined to go Republican. Hoyer told reporters he is firmly committed to seeking re-election.
(2) The 18 new congressional districts for Pennsylvania were unveiled last night by the Republicans who run Harrisburg, and it’s no surprise that the mapmakers went to great lengths to shore up the prospects for GOP congressmen in politically competitive territory. (Also no surprise, the legislators took care of the one House seat the state lost in reapportionment mainly by combining the exurban Pittsburgh districts currently held by Democrats Jason Altmire and Mark Critz, but in a way that gives each a fair shot at beating the other in a primary — and then gives GOP state Rep. Jim Christiana a solid shot in the fall.) On the other side of the state, the map was significantly reconfigured to make political life more comfortable for Patrick Meehan, Jim Gerlach, Charlie Dent, Tom Marino and — most of all — freshman Lou Barletta, who saw his territory changed from mostly Democratic to GOP-leaning. The biggest Democratic beneficiary is Tim Holden, whose seat was made safer by dispersing much of his GOP precinct to nearby Republican incumbents. Under the new map, Democrats will probably view the seats held by Republicans Mike Fitzpatrick and Mike Kelly as their most plausible pickup opportunities.
— David Hawkings, editor
Become a Facebook fan at facebook.com/DavidHawkingsDC. Or follow me on Twitter at twitter.com/davidhawkings.
Monday, July 25, 2011
News Bulletin: White House says no to bipartisan agreement
According to the Washington Post, Boehner and Reid reached an agreement and the White House has said no..........
"If Obama is rejecting and presumably threatening to veto a bipartisan agreement that is reached between Boehner and Reid, it can only mean one thing. He wants a default on America’s debt."
MORE: http://www.teapartynation.com/forum/topic/show?id=3355873%3ATopic%3A1144949&xgs=1&xg_source=msg_share_topic
"If Obama is rejecting and presumably threatening to veto a bipartisan agreement that is reached between Boehner and Reid, it can only mean one thing. He wants a default on America’s debt."
MORE: http://www.teapartynation.com/forum/topic/show?id=3355873%3ATopic%3A1144949&xgs=1&xg_source=msg_share_topic
Thursday, July 14, 2011
CQ Roll Call Daily Briefing July 14, 2011: Today In Washington, DC
THE WHITE HOUSE: Obama is supposed to lay out what tax increases he’s after when the fifth straight day of Cabinet Room budget negotiations gets started at 4:15. After Reid, Pelosi, Durbin and Hoyer nod politely, the president will ask the Republican congressional leaders what extra revenue they have in mind. Once McConnell, Kyl, Cantor and, yes, Boehner all say “none,” the question will be how long the room falls silent before someone makes an awkward joke about walking out.
The rest of the president’s day also will be all about the budget: He’s taping another round of interviews with local TV stations (including NBC-4 here) at 2 to promote his point of view and will meet with Biden and Geithner at 3 to talk about preparations for a looming default in 20 days.
THE SENATE: Convened at 9:30 and is officially debating whether to debate its first spending bill of the year, which would allocate $59 billion for discretionary VA programs and $14 billion for military construction. Combined, it’s an 8 percent drop from what’s being spent this year. (Once mandatory veterans’ benefits are added in, the bill’s grand total goes up to $142 billion.) Some Republicans say it’s both inappropriate and pointless to deliberate any appropriations measure while the big budget numbers are totally up in the air. A vote to for the formal motion to proceed is nonetheless likely by suppertime.
THE HOUSE: Convenes at 10 and at noon will pick up debate on the energy and water appropriations bill. There’s only an outside chance the last amendment will be disposed of and the measure will be passed by 4 — after which members will be free to leave so they can either suit up for (or get a good seat at) the 50th annual Roll Call Congressional Baseball Game.
HE WALKED OUT. DID NOT. DID SO: To the viewers at home, that’s the sum and substance of what was accomplished yesterday by the two principal players (the president and the House majority leader) in what’s becoming the biggest fiscal policy crisis of the modern era.
If the usual adage holds true — that it’s always darkest before the dawn — then yesterday’s testy and impolitic confrontation will be remembered as the negotiating nadir. And there can be reason for optimism that moving the momentum-going-the-wrong-way talks to Camp David (and keeping all the leaking aides and the hungry-for-conflict press corps far from the cabins) might produce handshakes all around in only a couple of days. That’s apparently the president’s plan; he’s ready to invite the congressional Elite Eight for the weekend in the Catoctin Mountains so long as they're all still talking tomorrow. There’s also a chance he might ask the three whips to stay behind in order to further focus the talks. (Boehner's office this morning said the Speaker sees "no need" for a trip to Camp David.)
But if the fabled John McCain adage is true — that it’s always darkest before it’s completely black, as he likes to say — then everyone may as well spend what’s supposed to be a sunny and temperate Saturday and Sunday outside. That’s because the final two weekends before the Aug. 2 default deadline are sure to be spent indoors at the Capitol. Even if a genuine impasse arises tomorrow, and even if the tension and anxiety fester for more than a week, leaders and the rank-and-file alike will have little choice but to hunker down July 23 and 24, and again July 30 and 31, in the countdown-to-disaster rituals of crunching numbers, waiting for the quorum call bells to ring in the middle of the night, making predictable speeches and casting votes on measures designed by both parties for posturing.
HIS GAME TO LOSE: For today, though, the dynamic is that Obama has clearly got the upper hand — and the top Republicans are realizing as much, even if their idealistic and ideological rank-and-file are surely not there yet.
There can be no other reason why Cantor issued his statement lamenting that “nothing can pass the House,” then violated the presumed cone of silence among the big talkers by rushing back to the Capitol and offering reporters his melodramatic version of how yesterday’s talks ended. (In his telling, the president stormed out after warning, “Eric, don’t call my bluff.” In the White House’s version, leaked in response, Cantor interrupts the president three times.) And there can be little other interpretation for McConnell’s warning to the right (on Laura Ingraham’s radio show yesterday) that they’ll suffer the same fate as Gingrich did against Clinton in the 1995-96 government shutdowns if they try to persuade the public of the rightness of their cause after allowing a default: "You know, it's an argument he has a good chance of winning, and all of a sudden we have co-ownership of a bad economy," he said. "That is a very bad position going into an election."
If that’s the leadership consensus, then, they have just three options for cutting their losses and getting the budget battle behind them: They can reverse course on taxes and rush to accept the 4-to-1 ratio of spending cuts to revenue increases that Obama had been offering, before he raises the pressure by pressing for a 3-to-1 ratio that would mean much less pain for Democratic priorities. They can reverse course on the 1-to-1 ratio of deficit reduction to debt ceiling increase, accept only the 10 years worth of promised cuts both sides say they more or less agree on (assuming they can fine-tune that agreement so the price tag doesn’t keep oscillating between $1.5 trillion and $2 trillion) while allowing the debt ceiling to rise from $14.3 trillion to $16.7 trillion. Or they can rally behind the McConnell plan to give Obama that $2.4 trillion in borrowing power before the next election — and hope to come up with some way (and quickly) to pair it with an expedited, up-or-down process for moving legislation in the next year on deep spending cuts, tight enforcement caps and limited entitlement curbs.
CANTOR’S CALL: McConnell has already made clear his preference, and his idea continues to gain bipartisan momentum. Absent a miracle in the next 48 hours, Boehner will probably sign on (at least behind the scenes) by the start of next week. But the key will be Cantor. He will soon be pressed to decide for good how he wants to put his own career on the line. He can either keep taking the tea party’s side, and hope that makes him Speaker someday, or he can find a way to blink and hope his odds are better for remaining in the leadership indefinitely (meaning he’ll have to survive conservatives’ recriminations) than they are for being sacrificed in the next couple of months. Because if there’s a “huge financial calamity” after a default, the construct Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke used yesterday, then Cantor is positioned for now to be the principal political face of it — which either means his elevation within or his elimination from the GOP pantheon.
PART OF A BALANCED REGULATORY DIET: General Mills, ConAgra, Kellogg and several other big food companies are announcing an agreement today to limit their marketing and advertising of hundreds of sugary, salty, fatty and otherwise unhealthy products to children. The new industry standards are designed to replace stricter government-suggested guidelines spurned by the industry. (On the orders of Congress, earlier this year the Federal Trade Commission and several other agencies proposed a system for marketing junk food to kids, but the companies rejected them as too broad and limiting.)
Iowa’s Tom Harkin, the Democratic senator who wrote the language directing the government to develop the standards, labeled the industry alternative as inadequate. But they look to be the only viable option for now. The GOP majority in the House has rallied behind language in the FTC spending bill that would delay the government standards by ordering a cost-benefit study
PLAY BALL: After several weeks of early-morning practices, tonight’s Roll Call baseball game should feature some surprisingly decent play from the lawmakers — and some not-so-surprising partisan intensity (good natured, at least on the surface) both on the left side of the park (predictably, where the Democratic fans congregate behind their guys in the third-base dugout) and on the right side (where else but there for the GOP?). The first pitch is at Nationals Park at 7:05, and the forecast is for a beautifully cloudless and low-humidity evening. Proceeds from the $10 tickets ($134,000 last year) will benefit the Boys & Girls Clubs of Greater Washington and the Washington Literacy Council.
The GOP leads the series, 33-16-1, and has captured 10 Roll Call trophies to the Democrats’ two. (A trophy goes to the party that wins three out of five annual games.) But the Democrats have won the past two and so have every incentive tonight, although one of last year’s stars, Anthony Weiner, is no longer available.
The starting pitchers haven’t been announced by the managers — Democrat Mike Doyle of Pennsylvania and Republican Joe Barton of Texas — but for the last few years they’ve been Illinois’ John Shimkus for the GOP and California’s Joe Baca for the Democrats. But lots of attention is being paid to a pair of freshman hurlers: Louisiana Democrat Cedric Richmond and Pennsylvania Republican Lou Barletta.
Now that Jim Bunning and John Ensign are gone, the senatorial contributions to the game are likely to be minimal. (Rand Paul is the only senator on either roster, and he’s in a suit in his program picture.)
— David Hawkings, editor
The rest of the president’s day also will be all about the budget: He’s taping another round of interviews with local TV stations (including NBC-4 here) at 2 to promote his point of view and will meet with Biden and Geithner at 3 to talk about preparations for a looming default in 20 days.
THE SENATE: Convened at 9:30 and is officially debating whether to debate its first spending bill of the year, which would allocate $59 billion for discretionary VA programs and $14 billion for military construction. Combined, it’s an 8 percent drop from what’s being spent this year. (Once mandatory veterans’ benefits are added in, the bill’s grand total goes up to $142 billion.) Some Republicans say it’s both inappropriate and pointless to deliberate any appropriations measure while the big budget numbers are totally up in the air. A vote to for the formal motion to proceed is nonetheless likely by suppertime.
THE HOUSE: Convenes at 10 and at noon will pick up debate on the energy and water appropriations bill. There’s only an outside chance the last amendment will be disposed of and the measure will be passed by 4 — after which members will be free to leave so they can either suit up for (or get a good seat at) the 50th annual Roll Call Congressional Baseball Game.
HE WALKED OUT. DID NOT. DID SO: To the viewers at home, that’s the sum and substance of what was accomplished yesterday by the two principal players (the president and the House majority leader) in what’s becoming the biggest fiscal policy crisis of the modern era.
If the usual adage holds true — that it’s always darkest before the dawn — then yesterday’s testy and impolitic confrontation will be remembered as the negotiating nadir. And there can be reason for optimism that moving the momentum-going-the-wrong-way talks to Camp David (and keeping all the leaking aides and the hungry-for-conflict press corps far from the cabins) might produce handshakes all around in only a couple of days. That’s apparently the president’s plan; he’s ready to invite the congressional Elite Eight for the weekend in the Catoctin Mountains so long as they're all still talking tomorrow. There’s also a chance he might ask the three whips to stay behind in order to further focus the talks. (Boehner's office this morning said the Speaker sees "no need" for a trip to Camp David.)
But if the fabled John McCain adage is true — that it’s always darkest before it’s completely black, as he likes to say — then everyone may as well spend what’s supposed to be a sunny and temperate Saturday and Sunday outside. That’s because the final two weekends before the Aug. 2 default deadline are sure to be spent indoors at the Capitol. Even if a genuine impasse arises tomorrow, and even if the tension and anxiety fester for more than a week, leaders and the rank-and-file alike will have little choice but to hunker down July 23 and 24, and again July 30 and 31, in the countdown-to-disaster rituals of crunching numbers, waiting for the quorum call bells to ring in the middle of the night, making predictable speeches and casting votes on measures designed by both parties for posturing.
HIS GAME TO LOSE: For today, though, the dynamic is that Obama has clearly got the upper hand — and the top Republicans are realizing as much, even if their idealistic and ideological rank-and-file are surely not there yet.
There can be no other reason why Cantor issued his statement lamenting that “nothing can pass the House,” then violated the presumed cone of silence among the big talkers by rushing back to the Capitol and offering reporters his melodramatic version of how yesterday’s talks ended. (In his telling, the president stormed out after warning, “Eric, don’t call my bluff.” In the White House’s version, leaked in response, Cantor interrupts the president three times.) And there can be little other interpretation for McConnell’s warning to the right (on Laura Ingraham’s radio show yesterday) that they’ll suffer the same fate as Gingrich did against Clinton in the 1995-96 government shutdowns if they try to persuade the public of the rightness of their cause after allowing a default: "You know, it's an argument he has a good chance of winning, and all of a sudden we have co-ownership of a bad economy," he said. "That is a very bad position going into an election."
If that’s the leadership consensus, then, they have just three options for cutting their losses and getting the budget battle behind them: They can reverse course on taxes and rush to accept the 4-to-1 ratio of spending cuts to revenue increases that Obama had been offering, before he raises the pressure by pressing for a 3-to-1 ratio that would mean much less pain for Democratic priorities. They can reverse course on the 1-to-1 ratio of deficit reduction to debt ceiling increase, accept only the 10 years worth of promised cuts both sides say they more or less agree on (assuming they can fine-tune that agreement so the price tag doesn’t keep oscillating between $1.5 trillion and $2 trillion) while allowing the debt ceiling to rise from $14.3 trillion to $16.7 trillion. Or they can rally behind the McConnell plan to give Obama that $2.4 trillion in borrowing power before the next election — and hope to come up with some way (and quickly) to pair it with an expedited, up-or-down process for moving legislation in the next year on deep spending cuts, tight enforcement caps and limited entitlement curbs.
CANTOR’S CALL: McConnell has already made clear his preference, and his idea continues to gain bipartisan momentum. Absent a miracle in the next 48 hours, Boehner will probably sign on (at least behind the scenes) by the start of next week. But the key will be Cantor. He will soon be pressed to decide for good how he wants to put his own career on the line. He can either keep taking the tea party’s side, and hope that makes him Speaker someday, or he can find a way to blink and hope his odds are better for remaining in the leadership indefinitely (meaning he’ll have to survive conservatives’ recriminations) than they are for being sacrificed in the next couple of months. Because if there’s a “huge financial calamity” after a default, the construct Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke used yesterday, then Cantor is positioned for now to be the principal political face of it — which either means his elevation within or his elimination from the GOP pantheon.
PART OF A BALANCED REGULATORY DIET: General Mills, ConAgra, Kellogg and several other big food companies are announcing an agreement today to limit their marketing and advertising of hundreds of sugary, salty, fatty and otherwise unhealthy products to children. The new industry standards are designed to replace stricter government-suggested guidelines spurned by the industry. (On the orders of Congress, earlier this year the Federal Trade Commission and several other agencies proposed a system for marketing junk food to kids, but the companies rejected them as too broad and limiting.)
Iowa’s Tom Harkin, the Democratic senator who wrote the language directing the government to develop the standards, labeled the industry alternative as inadequate. But they look to be the only viable option for now. The GOP majority in the House has rallied behind language in the FTC spending bill that would delay the government standards by ordering a cost-benefit study
PLAY BALL: After several weeks of early-morning practices, tonight’s Roll Call baseball game should feature some surprisingly decent play from the lawmakers — and some not-so-surprising partisan intensity (good natured, at least on the surface) both on the left side of the park (predictably, where the Democratic fans congregate behind their guys in the third-base dugout) and on the right side (where else but there for the GOP?). The first pitch is at Nationals Park at 7:05, and the forecast is for a beautifully cloudless and low-humidity evening. Proceeds from the $10 tickets ($134,000 last year) will benefit the Boys & Girls Clubs of Greater Washington and the Washington Literacy Council.
The GOP leads the series, 33-16-1, and has captured 10 Roll Call trophies to the Democrats’ two. (A trophy goes to the party that wins three out of five annual games.) But the Democrats have won the past two and so have every incentive tonight, although one of last year’s stars, Anthony Weiner, is no longer available.
The starting pitchers haven’t been announced by the managers — Democrat Mike Doyle of Pennsylvania and Republican Joe Barton of Texas — but for the last few years they’ve been Illinois’ John Shimkus for the GOP and California’s Joe Baca for the Democrats. But lots of attention is being paid to a pair of freshman hurlers: Louisiana Democrat Cedric Richmond and Pennsylvania Republican Lou Barletta.
Now that Jim Bunning and John Ensign are gone, the senatorial contributions to the game are likely to be minimal. (Rand Paul is the only senator on either roster, and he’s in a suit in his program picture.)
— David Hawkings, editor
Wednesday, November 10, 2010
Mitch McConnell fights GOP earmark ban
Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell is maneuvering behind the scenes to defeat a conservative plan aimed at restricting earmarks, setting up a high-stakes showdown that pits the GOP leader and his “Old Bull” allies against Sen. Jim DeMint (R-S.C.) and a new breed of conservative senators.
Read more:
http://www.politico.com/news/stories/1110/44888.html
Read more:
http://www.politico.com/news/stories/1110/44888.html
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