Good thing the last one ended so productively (for some):
"President Obama’s determined efforts to combat global warming will face their biggest trial yet when Republicans take full control of Congress Tuesday, a day of pomp and ceremony beneath the Capitol Dome."
And the first order of bu$ine$$?
"The incoming chairman of the Senate Commerce, Science, and Transportation Committee said raising federal fuel taxes is among the options under consideration to replenish the dwindling Highway Trust Fund. Senator John Thune, Republican of South Dakota, said all options must be looked at to fill an enormous shortfall when the existing highway legislation expires in May. Gas and diesel taxes have not risen since 1993, resulting in perennial shortfalls in the fund that pays for most road projects. Several commissions have called for raising the taxes, but Congress has been reluctant. Instead, lawmakers have dipped repeatedly into the general treasury to keep the trust fund solvent. The federal gas tax is 18.4 cents per gallon; the diesel tax, 24.4 cents. Thune spoke on ‘‘Fox News Sunday.’’
I thought we elected a Republican Congress.
So who robbed all the highway money?
"Prosecutor in Garner case ponders Grimm seat" by Matthew Daly, Associated Press December 31, 2014
WASHINGTON — Potential candidates eyed a New York congressional seat Tuesday as Republican Representative Michael Grimm announced his resignation, following a guilty plea on tax evasion charges.
Among the possible candidates is a Staten Island prosecutor who oversaw a case in which a white New York City police officer was cleared in the death of a black man in an apparent chokehold. Two state lawmakers and a former congressman who was unseated by Grimm could also be interested in the seat.
House Speaker John Boehner called Grimm’s resignation ‘‘honorable,’’ saying Grimm made his decision ‘‘with the best interests of his constituents and the institution [of the House] in mind.’’
Grimm, a New York Republican, had vowed to stay in Congress as long as he could, even after his guilty plea last week. But he said Monday that he plans to resign effective Jan. 5.
Grimm said he did not believe he needed to start the next chapter of his life.
‘‘The events which led to this day did not break my spirit, nor the will of the voters,’’ Grimm said. ‘‘However, I do not believe that I can continue to be 100 percent effective in the next Congress.’’
Grimm, 44, of Staten Island, pleaded guilty last week to aiding in the filing of a false tax return related to a Manhattan restaurant he ran before being elected to Congress.
Grimm made national headlines last year after he was captured on camera threatening to throw a reporter off a Capitol balcony after the reporter asked Grimm about an FBI probe into his campaign finances.
That's why the pre$$ really went after him.
The new Congress is scheduled to convene Jan. 6, and Grimm’s presence would have been a distraction for Republicans who will control both the House and the Senate.
New York Governor Andrew Cuomo will set the date of the special election and must give between 70 and 80 days’ notice. The scheduling process won’t begin until the state is formally notified of the vacancy by the US House of Representatives. The candidates would be chosen without a primary by the political parties or by petition.
Related: Cuomo's Coda
Just paying my respects.
At least two prominent Republicans said Tuesday they were considering entering the race. Staten Island District Attorney Daniel Donovan and state Assemblywoman Nicole Malliotakis were among several potential GOP candidates, with Donovan considered the frontrunner. Donovan was the prosecutor in a case in which a grand jury cleared a white New York City police officer in the death of Eric Garner, a black man, after being placed in an apparent chokehold.
Those protests are over.
Possible Democratic candidates include state Assemblyman Michael Cusick and former US Representative Michael McMahon, who lost to Grimm in 2010. Former city council member Domenic Recchia, who lost to Grimm last month, is considered unlikely to run.
Grimm, a former Marine and FBI agent, was elected to Congress in 2010, scoring an upset win over McMahon, a first-term congressman.
The indictment accused him of underreporting more than $1 million in wages and receipts to evade payroll, income, and sales taxes, partly by paying immigrant workers in cash.
How many were illegals?
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Related:
N.Y. congressman admits to tax evasion, refuses to quit
After guilty plea, N.Y. congressman to resign
Grimm flip-flop.
"GOP leaders back member who addressed supremacists; Scalise calls talk in ‘02 a mistake; Strategists say party may suffer" by Jonathan Martin and Jackie Calmes, New York Times December 31, 2014
WASHINGTON — House Republican leaders, poised for a celebratory takeover of Congress next week, instead found themselves scrambling Tuesday to defuse a racially charged controversy over one lawmaker’s speech a decade ago to a white supremacist group.
Are you kidding me? This comes up now?
After staying silent Monday when news broke that Representative Steve Scalise of Louisiana, the third-ranking House Republican, had appeared before a group called the European-American Unity and Rights Organization, Speaker John A. Boehner and the majority leader, Representative Kevin McCarthy, on Tuesday afternoon issued coordinated statements of support for Scalise, who acknowledged “regret” and said he had made a mistake.
“More than a decade ago, Representative Scalise made an error in judgment, and he was right to acknowledge it was wrong and inappropriate,” Boehner said, adding, “He has my full confidence as our whip, and he will continue to do great and important work for all Americans.”
The controversy erupted as Republicans were making a renewed effort to reach out to black voters. It threatened to cloud the Republican agenda in the aftermath of their capturing control of the Senate and adding to their House majority in last month’s election.
Republicans anticipated using their new power to focus on economic growth and potentially find areas of common ground with President Obama, both elements of a broader push to demonstrate that the party can govern at a time when lawmaking in Washington has all but come to halt.
Scalise spent much of Monday and Tuesday on the phone, calling his colleagues and saying that he did not know the nature of the group he spoke to at a hotel outside New Orleans in 2002.
But Democrats and some influential Republican commentators called for Scalise to step down, questioning how he could not have known about the group’s racist views given the attention the group had received in the state at the time and its ties to former Ku Klux Klan leader David Duke, who is also from Louisiana.
OMG, they are dragging David Duke out to wave in front of you.
That was a long time ago, and I'll let you judge the good doctor for yourself.
“This is acidic for the Republican Party,” said Peter Wehner, a former adviser to President George W. Bush. “I just think it is an untenable position to have a person in the leadership of the Republican Party in the House who has spoken to a white supremacist group.”
Of course, Bob Byrd, the former KKKer and Democratic senator from West Virginia, famous for bringing home pork, is lionized!
As Republicans seek to broaden their reach beyond whites before a 2016 presidential election that will feature an increasingly diverse electorate, Wehner and other conservative strategists said retaining a leader who appeared before white supremacists could hobble Republicans nationally.
Scalise was familiar with the group’s founder, Duke. In 1999, when both men considered a race for Congress, Scalise told the Capitol Hill newspaper Roll Call, “Duke has proved that he can’t get elected, and that’s the first and most important thing.” In his statement, Scalise said his appearance before the organization founded by Duke was among many that year in which he spoke out on a divisive state tax issue.
“One of the many groups that I spoke to regarding this critical legislation was a group whose views I wholeheartedly condemn,” Scalise said. “It was a mistake I regret, and I emphatically oppose the divisive racial and religious views groups like these hold.”
In an illustration of how potentially damaging the controversy was for Republicans, Scalise’s statement was notably more contrite than his initial comments Monday, when he told The Times-Picayune in New Orleans it was “insulting and ludicrous” to suggest he was involved with the organization.
The story, first reported Sunday by a liberal blogger in Louisiana, Lamar White Jr., upended what is typically a quiet holiday week inside the Capitol. But Republican leadership aides are now hastily examining what is publicly available about Scalise’s background to determine what else may come up.
Nothing until now, and the NYT is taking its cues from liberal bloggers now? WTF????
Scalise’s Republican colleagues said they could not recall him ever using racially suggestive language in private and did not think he harbored bigoted views.
Offering Scalise perhaps the biggest boost was a Democrat, Representative Cedric Richmond, the only African-American in Louisiana’s congressional delegation, who served with Scalise in the Louisiana Legislature before being elected to Congress. Richmond said he called Scalise on Monday. “Whenever people make assumptions about your intentions and they don’t know you, it’s tough,” Richmond said, “Of the people that do know him, I don’t think anybody thinks he shares the beliefs of this group.”
Richmond, who said Scalise did not ask for his help, suggested that his colleague could use his leadership post to speak out on race issues. “He’s got a chance to write his own history going forward now,” Richmond said.
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Also see: GOP calling on courts to block Obama
Impeach or get off the pot.
I'd say time for a change in leadership, but....
"Tea Party member to battle Boehner for speaker post" Associated Press January 05, 2015
WASHINGTON — Although Congress’s approval rating hovers around 15 percent, there is one group of people excited about the institution: the newly elected lawmakers who are about to join its ranks.
And yet most incumbents got reelected?
The House will welcome 58 freshmen this week, 43 Republicans and 15 Democrats, pushing the GOP majority to 246 members, the most since the Great Depression.
In the Senate, 13 new lawmakers, all but one of them Republican, will be sworn in, flipping control of the chamber to the GOP with a 54-vote majority.
The incoming classes will bring new gender and racial diversity to Capitol Hill, with 104 women in the House and Senate and close to 100 black, Hispanic, and Asian lawmakers. The newcomers include the youngest woman elected to Congress, 30-year-old Elise Stefanik of New York, and the first black Republican woman, Mia Love of Utah.
As the new members prepared to arrive on Capitol Hill, several said they brought hopes of curbing the often partisan atmosphere in Washington.
‘‘This election was not an endorsement of either party, it was a condemnation of, yes, the president’s policies, but also of government dysfunction,’’ said GOP Representative-elect Carlos Curbelo, who defeated a Democratic incumbent in Florida. ‘‘I hope we can be different. . . . I hope we focus on getting things done.’’
Depends on what you want to do.
Stefanik, a Republican, is one of several young people bringing fresh blood to Capitol Hill, where many lawmakers, especially senators, are in their 70s or even older....
They have fallen and can't get up.
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And what will happen when then send it to the White House?
"Obama warns GOP he plans to use veto pen in 2015" by Josh Lederman, Associated Press December 30, 2014
HONOLULU — Bracing to do business with a Congress run solely by Republicans, President Obama is serving notice he has no qualms about vetoing legislation he dislikes.
This would be a significant change in style for Obama come January, when the new Congress will be seated with the GOP not only in command in the House but also the Senate.
Will he be called an obstructionist?
He’s wielded the veto pen in his first six years very sparingly. Since taking office in 2009, Obama has only vetoed legislation twice, both in fairly minor circumstances.
‘‘Now, I suspect, there are going to be some times where I’ve got to pull that [veto] pen out,’’ Obama said in an NPR interview airing Monday.
He added: ‘‘I’m going to defend gains that we’ve made in health care. I’m going to defend gains that we’ve made on environment and clean air and clean water.’’
See: Obummercare Will Make You $ick This Year
He's defending that?
Obama’s warning to the GOP that he’ll veto legislation if necessary to protect his agenda and such laws as the Affordable Care Act came as he sought to set the tone for a year in which Congress and the president are on a near-certain collision course.
All the money has already been doled out.
Buoyed by decisive gains in last month’s midterm elections, Republicans are eager to use their newfound Senate majority to derail Obama’s plans on immigration, climate change, and health care.
To overturn Obama’s veto, Republicans would need the votes of two-thirds of the House and Senate. Their majorities in both chambers are not that large, so they would still need to persuade some Democrats to defy the president.
But Obama said he was hopeful that at least on some issues, that won’t be necessary because there’s overlap between his interests and those of congressional Republicans. On that point, at least, he’s in agreement with incoming Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky.
‘‘Bipartisan jobs bills will see the light of day and will make it to the president’s desk, and he’ll have to make decisions about ideology versus creating jobs for the middle class,’’ McConnell said in response to Obama’s comments.
‘‘There’s a lot we can get done together if the president puts his famous pen to use signing bills rather than vetoing legislation his liberal allies don’t like.’’
Potential areas for cooperation include tax reform and global trade deals — both issues where Obama and Republicans see at least partially eye to eye.
That's not what we voted for.
The likeliest points of friction surround Environmental Protection Agency regulations, the Keystone XL pipeline, and Obama’s unilateral steps on immigration, which let millions of people in the United States illegally avoid deportation and get work permits.
In the interview, recorded before Obama left Washington earlier this month for his annual Hawaii vacation, the president also offered his most specific diagnosis to date of why Democrats fared so poorly in the midterms. He said he was ‘‘obviously frustrated’’ with the results.
‘‘I think we had a great record for members of Congress to run on and I don’t think we — myself and the Democratic Party — made as good of a case as we should have,’’ Obama said. ‘‘And you know, as a consequence, we had really low voter turnout, and the results were bad.’’
He's delusional.
Also in the NPR interview, Obama said he has not ruled out the possibility of reopening a US Embassy in Iran. ‘‘I never say never,’’ he said, adding that US ties with Tehran must be restored in steps.
Think Israel will allow that?
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About those trade deals:
"Undaunted by the odds, Obama’s trade chief backs 12-nation deal" by Mark Landler and Jonathan Weisman, New York Times December 31, 2014
WASHINGTON — For Michael B. Froman, President Obama’s chief evangelist for enhancing global trade, skepticism comes with the territory.
Globali$m is religion!
He and his colleagues have clocked more than 1,500 meetings on Capitol Hill to promote the Trans-Pacific Partnership — and still its prospects look as problematic as ever.
Even before Froman began facing a leery Congress, he had to persuade wary colleagues at the White House it was worth pursuing. They scoffed that the partnership concept, conceived during the administration of George W. Bush, was too small, with only four Asian countries as members. And in the chaotic days of 2009, when Froman was deputy national security adviser for international economic affairs, a campaign to advance a new trade agenda seemed less important than averting a global financial collapse.
Today Froman, now the US trade representative, is convinced he can complete negotiations on a complex agreement with 12 countries on both sides of the Pacific and sell it to a Congress that remains deeply hostile to Obama.
“The end game is a long game,” Froman said, “but we’re in that end game.”
At stake is a colossal trade agreement that would stretch from Peru and Chile to Japan and Vietnam, accounting for 40 percent of the world’s economic activity. It would not just lower tariffs: It would require rigorous regulations on labor and environmental standards, and the first rules for state-owned enterprises like those in Vietnam and Malaysia.
The partnership has emerged as the linchpin of Obama’s strategic shift to Asia, giving the United States a way to counter the economic inroads made in the region by China.
The deal is supposed to be followed by the Trans-Atlantic Trade and Investment Partnership with Europe, though those talks have much further to go.
“If the United States succeeds in these trade negotiations, and I think we will, Mike would have forged some of the most important institutions that the president will leave as a legacy,” said Thomas E. Donilon, a former national security adviser.
Still, to members of Congress, Obama’s trade agenda has been waiting in the wings for so long that the promises are beginning to ring hollow. Efforts to grant Obama trade promotion authority — once known as fast-track authority — have gone nowhere.
He can't have many more to break.
Froman insists the political stars have aligned.
Oh, that's what holds the fate of us all in their hands -- the stars.
Republican control of the Senate has elevated pro-trade lawmakers to key positions, and the international negotiations themselves have progressed.
But the deal’s completion is not guaranteed. Republicans inclined to give the president trade-negotiating authority are still seething at his executive action deferring deportation of millions of unauthorized immigrants.
Democrats may be the bigger problem. Froman has met dozens of times with Representative Sander M. Levin of Michigan, the ranking Democrat on the House Ways and Means Committee, which has jurisdiction on trade. Levin said he wants to work with the administration on the partnership. But he’s not about to let Obama negotiate the partnership on his own, then present it to Congress for an up-or-down vote.
Environmental groups doubt the administration is really pressing for binding, enforceable standards.
And trade unions worry that the administration is putting too much emphasis on protecting intellectual property, a boon to pharmaceutical companies, Hollywood, and rich investors — but not in their view particularly useful to workers.
They expected something else?
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Enough of the looting; now for the wars:
"Defense pick advises careful use of military force" by Bryan Bender, Globe Staff January 06, 2015
WASHINGTON — Former Harvard scholar Ashton B. Carter, President Obama’s nominee to be secretary of defense, once advocated a “surgical strike” to prevent North Korea from testing a ballistic missile designed to carry a nuclear warhead, concluding the regime could not be deterred by other means.
I missed that.
But he later warned against attacking Iran’s alleged nuclear weapons complex, arguing that airstrikes would probably only delay the effort, might spark retaliation, and could “turn a generation of Iranians against rapprochement with the United States.”
Also see: Iran unveils a memorial honoring Jewish heroes
The fires that Hassan Rouhani needs to douse
Those seemingly different recommendations illustrate how the 60-year-old physicist and former senior Pentagon official might grapple with what could be the most weighty responsibility in his new role: when to recommend using military force.
A review of his writings and public statements depicts a strategist who believes military force works only in narrow circumstances, when the potential consequences are fully analyzed and as part of a strategy of international pressure — such as in the North Korea case.
Specialists inside and outside the Pentagon are mining such clues as they wonder how Carter’s mostly theoretical experience — none of his previous Pentagon roles required him to recommend whether to use force — will translate in the real world. Carter will probably be asked about his views when he testifies in the coming weeks before the Senate Armed Services Committee at his confirmation hearing.
“It is kind of hard to pin him down,” said retired Army Colonel Ken Allard, who studied at Harvard with Carter. “He is the classic technician. That is what made him a really good weapons procurement chief. I am not sure it makes him very well-equipped to be the guy to decide, ‘Do we go or not go?’
“To figure out what we do about ISIS? He has not had that much experience with these things,” Allard said, referring to the group also known as the Islamic State.
But he has thought about it. Much of Carter’s career has been a wonky tour through military theory and strategy. He might have penned more books, studies, and scholarly papers about war and peace than any would-be Pentagon chief in history.
Just what we need, another armchair warrior.
He also served as the Pentagon’s top weapons buyer and second-in-command between 2009 and 2013....
He was nominated so he could cover up corruption and fraud a while longer.
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Related: The "New" Leadership in Wa$hington
Also see: The 2016 Electoral Map
I think I'll be back to post before then.
