"The final legislation would largely keep domestic funding at current levels, while providing more money to fight various crises abroad.... The spending bill is geared toward combating threats from afar, with roughly $64 billion for wars and other overseas operations; and more than half of the overall package going to military spending."
At least the tax cuts passed.
"Lawmakers agree on $1.1 trillion spending bill" by Ashley Parker and Jonathan Weisman, New York Times December 10, 2014
WASHINGTON — Congressional leaders reached a deal Tuesday on a more than $1 trillion spending package that would fund most of the federal government through the current fiscal year [and] even with nettlesome last-minute issues, leaders in both parties expressed confidence that they would be able to keep the government running. Lawmakers battled behind the scenes over dozens of additional policy provisions.
The final legislation would largely keep domestic funding at current levels, while providing more money to fight various crises abroad.
Related:
"War is the health of the state. Headline-grabbing scandals involving the national security apparatus come and go. Today’s is just one more in a long series extending back decades. As long as the individuals and entities comprising that apparatus persist in their commitment to permanent war, little of substance will change."
That's what they funded.
**********
The rush Tuesday to post the legislation underscored the 113th Congress’ dubious record as one of the least productive in modern history — governing by deadlines and cliffs of their own making, and struggling to pass even some of the most pro forma pieces of legislation....
But somehow Israel's interests always sailed through unanimously and war budgets were passed relatively easily, as were all the tax loot giveaways to corporations.
That narrative is nothing more than the mouthpiece pre$$ complaining that it didn't get everything it wanted.
The spending bill is geared toward combating threats from afar, with roughly $5.4 billion in emergency funds to fight Ebola in West Africa; roughly $64 billion for wars and other overseas operations; and more than half of the overall package going to military spending.
The final deal amounted to what one Democratic aide called a “split decision” likely to leave both sides unhappy.
That's me.
For instance, the bill would nullify the District of Columbia’s referendum to legalize marijuana, but it would allow Washington to decriminalize the drug, meaning possession of small amounts will no longer be punished. Environmental regulations on some waterways were nullified for the US Army Corps of Engineers, but the EPA would not be limited in its ability to regulate new bodies of water under the Clean Water Act.
It's a war for Wall Street government, first and foremost.
Democrats fought off Republican efforts to scuttle first lady Michelle Obama’s tough rules on nutritional content of school lunches, but Republicans secured some flexibility on sodium levels and the use of whole grains. Schools will be able to claim a hardship waiver if they can show procuring whole grains would be too expensive or difficult.
You might want to flu$h the lunch.
Negotiators also decided to remove a separate bill to extend the federal terrorism risk insurance backstop passed first in the wake of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. Instead, House Republicans plan to vote on a compromise version struck by Representative Jeb Hensarling, Republican of Texas, the chairman of the House Financial Services Committee, and Senator Charles E. Schumer, Democrat of New York. That deal would raise the threshold of terrorism damage after which federal aid kicks in to $200 million from $100 million.
They never even classified the Marathon as a terror event, and therefore it raises the question of a completely staged and scripted crisis drill being once again passed off as a real news happening.
However, Republicans hope to attach a provision that would make farmers, ranchers, manufacturers, and small businesses that use financial instruments to hedge risk exempt from regulations under Dodd-Frank.
Which indirectly helps Wall Street, of cour$e.
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Now about those wars:
"Kerry asks Congress not to limit fight on ISIS" by Jessica Meyers, Globe Staff December 10, 2014
WASHINGTON — Secretary of State John F. Kerry told Congress on Tuesday that the administration will consult lawmakers about its policy toward the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria but urged them not to “bind the hands” of President Obama in unforeseen combat operations.
That raised concern among some lawmakers that the administration could escalate the war with ground troops.
“Sounds to me like you are making the case for a rather open-ended authorization,” said Senator Robert Menendez, a New Jersey Democrat and chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee, who called the potential scenario for those troops “Groundhog Day in Iraq all over again.”
As far as I can see, it already is open-ended. How many countries are they bombing, and who is going to stop them if they want to bomb others?
The committee is expected to vote on an authorization of force later this week, but it is unlikely to hit the full chamber before the lame-duck session ends. The meeting gave lawmakers a chance to begin a long-stalled debate and handed Kerry an opportunity to lay out the administration’s terms.
“The biggest challenge here is what is the appropriate level of restraint on the president of the United States as commander in chief and Congress micromanaging what the military can and can’t do in the context of this fight,” Kerry said to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, which he once chaired.
Would he have said the same of President Nixon?
The former Massachusetts senator encouraged Congress to pass a strong bipartisan authorization of force. While Obama has said he does not plan to put soldiers on the ground other than advisers, the administration wants to retain flexibility.
Menendez has drafted a proposal to ban ground troops.
Kerry emphasized the administration’s current policy does not include ground troops. “What we are really talking about protecting against is exigencies, emergencies, what may or may not arise,” he said.
We are no longer fooled by the name game.
Senators in both parties criticized the administration for not sending Congress a specific request for a new authorization of force. Obama, who has asked lawmakers to approve one, is working through laws passed years ago.
“This is a charade we are going through,” said Senator John McCain, an outspoken Arizona Republican and committee member. “If the president wants an authorization for the use of military force, then he should lead.”
The committee briefing also served as an opportunity for lawmakers to voice frustration at the legislative body’s monthslong silence.
“We’re at war and Congress has really not done a darn thing about it,” said Senator Tim Kaine, a Virginia Democrat.
Well, you guys did fully fund it.
Senator Rand Paul, a Kentucky Republican who has threatened to push a full-out declaration of war, gave equal blame to both branches.
Against who?
“This president has been derelict,” he said. “But at the same time, there’s enough blame to go around Congress.”
I do blame them all.
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Related: Congress must step up to challenge of ISIS
The Globe says "it’s a good thing that Congress is finally turning its attention to this matter," after the elections and all....
Also see: Lame Duck Se$$ion: The NSA and Nazis
Other than that, here is what else they have been up to:
"House backs bill to lower suicide rate among vets" Associated Press December 10, 2014
WASHINGTON — The House unanimously approved a bill Tuesday aimed at reducing a suicide epidemic that claims the lives of 22 military veterans every day.
That is WAY MORE than are being killed in the WARS!
Related: VA Whistleblower
They aren't be cared for there, either.
A bill named for Clay Hunt, an Iraq and Afghanistan veteran from Houston who killed himself in 2011, would require the Pentagon and Veterans Affairs Department to submit to independent reviews of their suicide prevention programs.
It also would establish a website to provide information on mental health services available to veterans, offer financial incentives to psychiatrists who agree to work for the VA, and create a pilot program to assist veterans transitioning from active duty to veteran status. The suicide rate among veterans is about triple the average rate for the general population.
Something you better guard against.
The bill now goes to the Senate.
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"Campus sexual-assault response criticized by senators" Bloomberg News December 10, 2014
WASHINGTON — Police departments must be involved in investigating sexual assaults on campuses to ensure colleges don’t minimize the crime to protect their image, a US senator said at a hearing Tuesday.
Like they do with all the elite pedophile rings.
‘‘I am concerned that law enforcement is being marginalized when it comes to the crime of campus sexual assault,’’ said Senator Sheldon Whitehouse, the Rhode Island Democrat who leads a Judiciary subcommittee.
A lack of law enforcement response ‘‘sends the message that what happened to the victim didn’t matter,’’ he said. ‘‘This message fits too neatly with the pressure school administrators may feel to downplay campus sexual violence.’’
The inquisition, what a show, the inquisition, here we go....
Lawmakers at the federal and state level are seeking more prosecutions of sexual assaults and tougher penalties for educational institutions that fail to pursue cases.
Doesn't the military have a problem with that?
The hearing took place weeks after the University of Virginia was tossed into turmoil by a now-discredited Rolling Stone magazine article alleging a gang rape of a woman at a fraternity that wasn’t reported to police.
The publication has since backtracked from the Nov. 19 article, saying last week there were discrepancies in the supposed victim’s account.
At the hearing, Senator Claire McCaskill said she is ‘‘saddened and angry’’ about the ‘‘bad journalism’’ in the Rolling Stone article.
The article was a ‘‘setback for survivors in this country,’’ said McCaskill, a Missouri Democrat. ‘‘This is not a crime where you have rampant false reporting and embellishment.’’
I feel that way when I get that every morning in my Boston Globe.
Related: Rolling Stone’s UVA story a disaster for all
Not really. I stopped believing them long ago.
"We saw a lot of this same media recklessness in the 1990s when the militant feminist movement was trying to turn men and women against each other. There is a lot of "divide and conquer" going on in our society today, with the government trying to turn blacks and whites against each other (a repeat of the 1960s COINTELPRO operations such as the FBI's forged Black Panther Coloring Book), the rich against the poor, men against women, straights against gays, etc. to prevent Americans from uniting as a single people in opposition to the war agenda, government abuse, and Wall Street criminality.... Most times when a corporate media outlet makes a goof, they publish a retraction, and other media outlets ignore it out of professional courtesy. This "piling on" to Rolling Stone seems excessive, even given the nature of the serious mistake in journalism they made, and I have to wonder if the corporate media is seeing an opportunity to wreck Rolling Stone, not for this story, but for others, such as those by Matt Taibbi, who has taken it upon himself to apologize the the magazine's behavior."-- whatreallyhappened.com/
Rolling Stone was set up?
The subcommittee had been organizing the hearing for several months, Seth Larson, a Whitehouse spokesman, said in an e-mail.
‘‘The hearing does not stem from the Rolling Stone story,’’ he said.
Meaning it did.
A bipartisan group of senators this year introduced the Campus Accountability and Safety Act, which would require colleges to have a memorandum of understanding with local law enforcement to divide responsibilities and share information when certain crimes occur.
Never passed?
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Also see: House moves to bring relief to California farms More than 99 percent of California remains in moderate or worse drought despite recent rains and snow.
The floods and mudslides just slide right past and down the memory hole, same as the fires earlier.
So did the snow here:
"The effect of Tuesday’s weather system was different in Western Massachusetts, where the town of Heath reported 3 inches of heavy, wet snow."
Nothing about the heavier totals in points north (Vermont, new Hampshire, Maine)?
As for the "New" Leadership we will be seeing:
Iraq presses Hagel for greater US military support against Islamic State
They are asking the wrong guy.
"Warren finds support, ramps up attacks on Treasury pick; Says Obama’s Treasury choice is unqualified, part of inversion" by Jessica Meyers, Globe Staff December 09, 2014
WASHINGTON — Senator Elizabeth Warren, in an increasingly public spat with the White House, on Tuesday issued her fiercest salvo yet about President Obama’s choice for a key Treasury Department post.
The Massachusetts Democrat — in a 4½-page speech with 34 footnotes — rebutted criticism about her opposition to Antonio Weiss, the nominee for undersecretary of domestic finance. She denounced his qualifications for the job, cast the relationship between Wall Street and the White House as dangerously unbalanced, and further dug a divide between the administration and her allies.
In a strikingly personal jab at Weiss and a broader knock at the White House, Warren noted Weiss’s employer, the investment bank and asset manager Lazard, would give Weiss a multimillion-dollar payment if he left for public service.
Ah, the agenda-pushing banker's mouthpiece that is the Globe says she has made it personal and divisive.
“Mr. Weiss’s friends at Lazard are giving him a golden parachute valued at about $20 million as he goes into government service,” Warren said at a Capitol Hill event. “For me, this is one spin of the revolving door too many. Enough is enough.”
Warren, who will assume a Senate leadership role next month as a strategic policy adviser, has faced backlash from financial observers, editorial boards, and members in her own party for what they say is unfairly attacking Weiss.
Senator Elizabeth Warren’s speech at the “Managing the Economy” conference laid out her reasons for opposing Antonio Weiss as Treasury chief.
A White House spokesperson declined to comment Tuesday directly on Warren’s speech but pointed to previous comments in support of Weiss.
Warren only continues to raise the volume on her attacks, and she’s finding support.
Democracy for America, a liberal political action committee, blasted an e-mail this weekend calling her efforts “a game-changing moment in the fight for the future of the Democratic Party.”
Simon Johnson, former chief economist for the International Monetary Fund and a professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, recently labeled Weiss’s qualifications “weak.”
Glad that guy is on "our" side.
Liberal group MoveOn.org, citing her fight for America’s middle class, announced Tuesday it was prepared to spend at least $1 million on a “Run Warren Run” effort aimed at persuading her to enter the 2016 presidential race. Democracy for America plans to ask its members to vote on a similar campaign.
I'm not against it, per se, but she won't go anywhere.
Warren has repeatedly said she will not enter the race. And on Tuesday, at an event titled “Managing the Economy,” she kept the focus on Weiss.
She called him a “corporate dealmaker” and once again questioned how his international experience would lend itself to the domestic issues he would face at Treasury. She disputed notions that the merger Weiss participated in this summer between Burger King and Canadian fast-food chain Tim Hortons was anything but a tax inversion, a process in which companies relocate abroad to pay fewer taxes.
She accused the administration of going against its own beliefs.
They do it all the time.
“This matters — because at the end of the day, the administration undercuts its own opposition to this practice by nominating someone who was involved in a high-profile, cross-border inversion,” she said at a conference put on by Americans for Financial Reform, the Economic Policy Institute, and the Roosevelt Institute — all liberal groups.
White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest earlier this week defended Weiss’s experience and his values.
He “has a very good knowledge of the way that the financial markets work, and that is critically important when you’re asking somebody to take on a position in the federal government that has such a significant bearing on those markets,” he told reporters.
Yeah, those guys have been doing a great job for all of us.
Earnest said Weiss “shares the president’s view” on simplifying the tax code and “eliminating the inversion loophole.”
Weiss and Lazard have declined to comment publicly, leaving his defense to others.
His supporters have ripped Warren for false remarks, pointing to an important mix of global and domestic roles in his two decades with Lazard. They contend the $11 billion Tim Hortons deal, which was approved by the company’s shareholders Tuesday, does not amount to the kind of dramatic inversion the administration wants to end. And they note Obama has largely appointed lawyers and career public servants to fill regulatory spots.
A Treasury official said they are not aware of any prominent Wall Street officials currently serving at the department.
The White House also pushed back on criticism about the parting package — up to $21 million — that Weiss would receive when he leaves for Treasury. Companies sometimes grant early payouts of stock and deferred compensation when executives move to lower-paying government jobs. The figures, cited by Warren and the AFL-CIO, are based on his recent financial disclosures.
Earnest said any ethics concerns would have been explored by the independent agency that vetted Weiss.
Asked if the president had an issue with the compensation package, Earnest said, “He does not.”
But Warren does.
“Weiss defenders are all in,” she said, “loudly defending the revolving door and telling America how lucky we are that Wall Street is willing to run the economy and the government.”
We are lucky to have them!
The battle shows no signing of quieting down. The Senate Finance Committee, which will first need to confirm Weiss, does not expect to hold a vote in the waning days of this lame duck-session. Obama would need to renominate him next year, when Republicans take control of the Senate.
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Look at that. Raised fist and everything!
You know what that means, right?
