Bombshell evidence may make Waters an ethics nightmare for Dems
The reason it got postponed.
Apparently, the Charlie Rangel ethics trial was just the warm-up act. The New York Times reported over the weekend that the House Ethics Committee suddenly postponed the trial of Maxine Waters on ethics violation because it found more evidence of direct intervention by her office to benefit the bank in which her husband owned a […]
House Dems reject GOP Bill To Defund NPR
Hardly a surprise, considering it’s the lame duck session and many of the disreputable Democrat hacks voted out of office still have a seat until January.
The proposal, failed by a vote of 239-171, pretty much straight party line.
NPR praised the outcome, saying “good judgment prevailed as Congress rejected a move to assert government control over the content of news.”
‘Control of news’? No one’s telling these partisan Leftist shills what news to run. The House Republicans merely object to everybody having to subsidize it.MessNBC pays for itself and so did AirAmerica – well, at least until they ran out of underprivileged kids’ charities to steal from. Why not NPR?
Let them hit up George Soros, the Tides Foundation or the DNC if they can’t pay for themselves.
This bill being defeated was a forgone conclusion since it was introduced during the Lame Duck Session, but it was still a great idea. Let the Democrats be associated publicly and on the record with keeping some of their unpopular fascist allies feeding at the public trough.
Come January, Eric Canter and the boys can go after NPR again with a vengeance after 85 new GOP congressmen get seated, and the results are likely to be different.
Democrat Civil War Begins … “Obama’s Unpopularity has Become a Serious Liability, Senate Dems Blame Obama For Midterms Rout
Democrats sing the “Blues” …
And so it begins … Senate Democrats rip President Barack Hussein Obama a new one and blame “The One” for the Democrat 2010 midterm rout. Senate Democrats squarely placed the blame of the midterm election debacle on President Obama, including the loss of six Democrat Senators. Even mild-mannered Bill Nelson of Florida tore into President Barack Obama. Why? Because Nelson is up for reelection in 2012 in a state that went completely “red” in 2010.
Senate Democrats — including typically mild-mannered Bill Nelson of Florida — lit into President Barack Obama during an unusually tense air-clearing caucus session on Thursday, senators and staffers told POLITICO.
Nelson told colleagues Obama’s unpopularity has become a serious liability for Democrats in his state and blamed the president for creating a toxic political environment for Democrats nationwide, according to two Democrats familiar with his remarks.
“It was a raucous caucus,” said one Democratic senator, who spoke on condition of anonymity because closed-door sessions are not supposed to be discussed with outsiders.
Several senators expressed the opinion that Obama needed to show more passion, while party liberals renewed their complaint that Obama should abandon the pretense of bipartisanship in the face of Minority Leader Mitch McConnell’s intransigence and what they consider the Kentucky Republican’s blatantly political tactics aimed at making Obama a one-term president.
The “raucous caucus” … this is going to get really ugly for Democrats.
Word has it that Fox will have a new show this Fall called When Senate Democrats Attack, Each Other. However, it is rather disingenuous that the Senate Democrats would place all the blame for their losses on Obama. Granted, “The One” had much to do with it, but no one held a gun to the head of the Senators to vote for the $ 787 billion stimulus or Obamacare.
What makes matters worse for Democrats and the lack luster opinion of Americans toward Barack Obama and Democrats is the fact that Democrats must defend 21 Senate seats and and two independents who caucus with Democrats in 2012. How will Democrats change their message and voting pattern so to avoid another massacre in 2012?
Dems in Disarray: Harold Ford Hits Out at Obama
In a new Forbes piece, former Rep. Harold Ford, Jr., Chairman of the moderate Democratic Leadership Council, hits out at President Obama saying he needs to make some “halftime adjustments” including “order[ing] his department heads and agency chiefs to declare a moratorium on new regulations until further notice.”
The critique is timely, given news that Federal Communications Commission (FCC) Chairman Julius Genachowski is engaged in a less-than-stealthy, renewed effort to ram through net neutrality regulations in advance of a Republican takeover of the House that will see one of several opponents of net neutrality assume chairmanship of the House Energy and Commerce Committee.
Rep. Fred Upton (R-Mich.), a leading contender for the job, recently wrote in a policy memo that “The FCC’s regulatory compass is broken as it continues in its unrelenting pursuit to impose so-called network neutrality regulations, regardless of whether the agency has the legal authority for such a blind power grab.”
In addition, Ford’s urging of a regulatory moratorium will no doubt hearten Gulf state residents concerned about an ongoing, de facto “permitorium” preventing the resumption of drilling operations in the region in the wake of the BP disaster, and subsequent drilling moratorium, earlier this year.
Ford notes in the piece that “The U.S. needs a strong oil and gas industry to secure our future, and our own companies are leading the world in the development of new technologies to safely recover America’s own resources. These companies are also investing in the fuels of tomorrow. A case in point is Exxon Mobil’s (XOM) work with Synthetic Genomics to develop fuels from algae.”
In the piece, Ford also urges Obama to make permanent the Bush tax cuts for middle-class Americans, and those affecting capital gains and dividend income; he also argues for cutting the corporate tax rate by half.
The advice comes as many conservative and moderate Democrats have been publicly and privately decrying the decision to keep Nancy Pelosi and the rest of the Democratic leadership team that led House Democratic candidates to a bloody defeat in November in place. Progressive Democrats, meanwhile, have been arguing that Democrats lost because they did not govern liberally enough, and that Obama needs to veer left in order to improve his chances of re-election.
All indications as yet are that Obama does not intend to pursue a Clinton-esque approach in the wake of November election losses, despite consistent charges from industry and non-profit groups that regulation on his watch has gotten out of hand and threatens to undercut chief administration objectives, ranging from job creation to promotion of green energy. Setting aside net neutrality and drilling permitting issues, the Environmental Protection Agency’s Tailoring Rule has recently been criticized for threatening the biomass industry, traditionally considered a producer of environmentally-friendly energy, and one active in states won by Obama in the Pacific Northwest and New England.
As Ford notes, in order “to jump-start economic growth and business investment, stimulate job creation, and get wages up for ordinary Americans… The most important thing our leader can do is to push the reset button with business.”
FCC Chair Sends Message to Moderate Dems
Welcome to FCC Airways. Did you pack your own luggage, Mr. Ford?
Coming from the South as he does, Harold Ford jr. has, on occasion, been guilty of exhibiting a few blue dog tendencies and running with the moderate Democrats on a cold winter’s night. This week the Chairman of the Democratic Leadership Council penned a note to the Obama administration. In it, he suggested that now […]
FCC Chair Sends Message to Moderate Dems
Welcome to FCC Airways. Did you pack your own luggage, Mr. Ford?
Coming from the South as he does, Harold Ford jr. has, on occasion, been guilty of exhibiting a few blue dog tendencies and running with the moderate Democrats on a cold winter’s night. This week the Chairman of the Democratic Leadership Council penned a note to the Obama administration. In it, he suggested that now […]
FCC Chair Sends Message to Moderate Dems
Welcome to FCC Airways. Did you pack your own luggage, Mr. Ford?
Coming from the South as he does, Harold Ford jr. has, on occasion, been guilty of exhibiting a few blue dog tendencies and running with the moderate Democrats on a cold winter’s night. This week the Chairman of the Democratic Leadership Council penned a note to the Obama administration. In it, he suggested that now […]
Dems defecting from Obama strategy
The LA Times reports today that prominent Democrats are quietly working to rebuild the kind of liberal outside groups that the Obama campaign famously shunned in 2008:
Frustrated by what they see as President Obama’s weakness in battling Republicans, leading Democratic donors and tacticians have begun independently plotting their political recovery — including building a network of outside fundraising and campaign organizations to compete with those formed this year by Republicans.
This week, more than 100 wealthy Democrats gathered in a posh Washington hotel for a closed meeting in which participants repeatedly called for Obama be more aggressive in his agenda and tactical combat with the Republican right.
"I am used to fighting losing battles, but I don’t like losing without a fight," said financier George Soros, a longtime donor to causes on the left, in a comment confirmed by his staff as part of a call to arms in private conversations at the postelection meeting of the Democracy Alliance, an organization of wealthy Democrats that provides funding to liberal groups.
This comes on the heels of the announcement yesterday that a New Hampshire DNC member was working to create a progressive 501(c)4 backed by the same kind of anonymous donors that Democrats decried in this cycle.
Wonkbook: Dems have plan on Bush tax cuts; Bernanke backs stimulus; Lew confirmed
Reid and Pelosi have settled on a strategy for the Bush tax cuts: Split them up. The tax cuts for income under $ 250,000 will come up for a vote, the tax cuts for income over $ 250,000 won’t — or will possibly get their own vote. But this strategy isn’t expected to work: Republicans in the Senate are expected to join with a few conservative Democrats to block any effort that allows the expiration of the tax cuts for the wealthy. And no one yet knows what Plan B is.
But there are some obvious options for Plan B — or even Plan A. Unemployment insurance is expiring for two million Americans in the next couple of weeks. Congress needs to pass an extension, but as of yet, they’ve not been able to do so, and most observers expect benefits will lapse. The idea that Democrats would allow an extension of the Bush tax cuts for income over $ 250,000 without also demanding an extension of unemployment insurance for jobless workers boggles the mind.
Then there’s the debt ceiling. Come February, Congress is going to have to raise it — in part because of the Bush tax cuts. But Republicans aren’t going to want to make that vote, as they ran against the debt. So they’re already discussing the concessions they’ll demand in return. Rep. Pete Sessions, for instance, is telling reporters that Boehner will present Obama with an “agreement that could include a debt limit hike packaged with a rollback of parts of Mr. Obama’s health plan.” But that leverage only exists if the debt limit gets a vote on its own. If Democrats are going to agree to Republican demand to extend the tax cuts for the wealthy — which means, of course, adding much more to the deficit — then the debt limit should be raised at the same time.
Top Stories
Congress will only vote on extending middle-class tax cuts, report Lori Montgomery and Shailagh Murray: “House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and Senate Majority Leader Harry M. Reid (D-Nev.) both said they would put such a plan to a vote in their respective chambers immediately after the Thanksgiving break. But Democrats acknowledged that such a bill is unlikely to pass the Senate, where Republicans – and at least half a dozen Democrats – are arguing that it makes no sense to raise anyone’s taxes when the economy is so weak…Unless Congress acts, virtually every taxpayer will be hit with higher taxes in January that could leave monthly paychecks hundreds of dollars lighter.”
Fed chair Ben Bernanke will express support for additional fiscal stimulus in a speech today, reports Neil Irwin: “The United States needs to do more, he argues, calling for Congress and the Obama administration to take action to encourage growth. Bernanke has privately supported fiscal measures, such as temporary tax cuts or spending increases, and has acknowledged in congressional testimony that such policies could be helpful. But he has not previously endorsed these steps in a speech. Addressing critics, including leaders of major exporters such as Germany and China that have accused the Fed of trying to unfairly boost U.S. trade, Bernanke argues that his policies seek to create a global economy where there is better balance between what countries produce and consume.”
Read the speech: http://bit.ly/aMuRpF
Jack Lew has been confirmed as OMB director, reports Mary Clare Jalonick: “Obama nominated Lew last July after Peter Orszag resigned. Sen. Mary Landrieu, D-La., had held up his confirmation to protest the six-month moratorium on deep-water oil and gas drilling in the Gulf. Even though the administration lifted the moratorium Oct. 12, Landrieu said she remained displeased with new rules for drilling operations. On Thursday, Landrieu cited ‘notable progress’ in her talks with the Interior Department and said that some shallow water permits had been issued in recent weeks. She said she had a commitment from Interior Secretary Ken Salazar to travel to Louisiana next week and provide some clarity to the rules.”
Prince cover interlude: Robyn plays “When Doves Cry”.
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Still to come: The House rejected a bill extending unemployment benefits; Olympia Snowe has joined a lawsuit targeting health care reform; Mitch McConnell will block a bill to keep the federal government funded through the fiscal year; China may adopt a cap and trade system; and Harry, Hermione, and Ron try to speak American.
Economy
The House failed to pass an unemployment benefit extension, report Janet Hook and Martin Vaughan: “Lawmakers in both parties expect a compromise eventually to be reached-but not until December, after the current program expires. Without an extension, 800,000 unemployed workers will lose their benefits by Nov. 30 and two million by the end of December. A similar lapse in benefits occurred last summer as Congress struggled to break another impasse…Members of both parties say they want to extend the benefits, and a majority backed the legislation in the 258-154 vote Thursday, which included 143 Republicans voting against it and 21 in favor. The bill failed after Democratic leaders had brought it to the floor under fast-track procedures that require a two-thirds majority for passage.”
John Boehner will urge House Republicans to support raising the debt ceiling: http://on.wsj.com/bXiFbF
General Motors made a modest gain in its first stock offering, report Jia Lynn Yang and Brady Dennis: “After markets closed, Obama hailed the offering as vindication of his administration’s rescue of GM. ‘There were plenty of doubters and naysayers who said it couldn’t be done,’ he said, adding that the U.S. auto industry ‘is once again on the rise.’ Doubts remain about how much taxpayer money can be recovered. The Treasury nearly halved its 61 percent stake in GM on Wednesday, raising at least $ 11.8 billion. It now must wait six months before shedding any more stock. The government would have to sell the remainder of its stake for about $ 53 a share to break even.”
Poverty is at its highest level in a half-century, reports Wil Haygood: “The Census Bureau recently reported that the poverty rate in the United States rose to 14.3 percent last year, the highest level in more than 50 years. Texas and Florida saw the most people fall below the line. In Florida alone, 323,000 people became newly poor last year, bringing the state’s poverty total to 2.7 million. The numbers tell another tale as well: Nationwide, in black households such as Walker’s, income plunged an average of 4.4 percent in 2009, almost three times the drop among whites. The number of blacks living below the official poverty line – $ 21,756 for a family of four – increased by 7 percent in just one year.”
The fiscal commission again failed to agree on recommendations: http://on.wsj.com/cWyqhu
Foreign opponents of quantitative easing don’t have a leg to stand on, writes Paul Krugman: “It’s no mystery why China and Germany are on the warpath against the Fed. Both nations are accustomed to running huge trade surpluses. But for some countries to run trade surpluses, others must run trade deficits — and, for years, that has meant us. The Fed’s expansionary policies, however, have the side effect of somewhat weakening the dollar, making U.S. goods more competitive, and paving the way for a smaller U.S. deficit. And the Chinese and Germans don’t want to see that happen…But why are Republicans joining in this attack?”
Speaking American interlude: The cast of Harry Potter tries their hand at American accents.
Health Care
After voting for the Senate health care bill in committee, Olympia Snowe has joined a lawsuit designed to rule health care reform unconstitutional, reports Brian Beutler: “She and 30 other Republicans signed an amicus brief in the case…Snowe did in fact seek to weaken and eliminate the individual mandate during the health care reform fight. And during the floor debate on the Senate’s legislation she voted for a Constitutional point of order challenging the constitutionality of that provision. So this isn’t exactly a new position for her.”
Many insurers are shuttering Medicare Advantage plans: http://on.wsj.com/a8JZkA
Wisconsin governor Scott Walker is working to limit health care reform’s effect, reports Kevin Sacks: “Mr. Walker and the new legislative leadership clearly intend to apply the brakes to the state’s design of its health insurance exchange, a virtual marketplace that the law requires in each state by 2014. States can either establish and operate their own exchanges, or abdicate the responsibility to the federal government…He said that he hoped to put as few restrictions as possible on the ability of insurers to join the exchange, and that he opposed linking their participation to premium reviews. He said he might request a waiver from federal authorities to allow Wisconsin to opt out of certain requirements, although he did not specify which ones.”
The Senate has passed a one-month “doc fix”: http://politi.co/aBihmp
Two House Republicans will reject government health care, reports Chris Good: “‘I’ve done a contract with my district.’ Schilling said. ‘I have term-limited myself. I am not taking the pension. I am not taking pay raises, and my family and I are bringing our own health care to Washington, D.C. And my dad taught me as a kid to lead by example — Congress should not have anything better than the American people.’…KELLY: There is no reason for anybody to get anything different than anybody else. I personally have always paid for my own health care.”
Congress should fix Medicare’s waiting period for disabled people, writes Harold Pollack: http://bit.ly/br7fu4
Domestic Policy
Senate minority leader Mitch McConnell will not support a stop-gap spending bill covering the rest of the fiscal year, reports Corey Boles: “Congress will now have to craft a short-term spending measure to extend funding for the government until February or March, with roughly a $ 200 million price tag. At that stage, Republicans hope they can exert greater influence over spending. House Republicans have said they want to lower domestic discretionary spending back to fiscal-2008 levels, before President Barack Obama took power. That would cut roughly $ 100 billion in spending over a 10-year period. As recently as last week, Senate Republican leadership aides had indicated that the party could be open to passing a single large spending measure to clear the decks for fiscal 2011.”
Tech industry priorities are likely to pass in the new Congress: http://politi.co/cNtjgv
Anti-spending Republicans will soon face major appropriations votes, report Darren Samuelsohn and Jason Voorhees: “The major infrastructure bills are all due for major updates in the 112th Congress, forcing difficult decisions on measures that lawmakers in the past found easy to trumpet back home but could be more difficult to sell given the deficit-busting rhetoric that Republicans just rode to victory. Combined, the last iterations of the three giant omnibus proposals cost more than a half-trillion dollars, which would generate painful headlines for fiscal conservatives. But the bills would pay for everything from replacing decaying bridges to keeping farms in business. They are also alluring to lawmakers because they have something for virtually every state and every district.”
Democrats owe Latinos the DREAM Act, writes Edward Schumacher-Matos: http://wapo.st/cbeKO6
House Republicans have passed their own earmark ban, reports Jake Sherman: “‘Earmarks have become a symbol of a Congress that has broken faith with the people,’ speaker-designate John Boehner of Ohio said in an emailed statement. ‘This earmark ban shows the American people we are listening and we are dead serious about ending business as usual in Washington.’ Senate Republicans passed a similar ban, and Boehner and Majority-Leader in waiting Eric Cantor (R-Va.) called on President Barack Obama to veto bills with earmarks.”
Adorable animal escape interlude: A puppy fights his way out of a giant pile of leaves — twice.
Energy
China may implement a cap and trade system, report Wang Ying and John Duce: “The government may set emissions quotas for large enterprises and a certain portion of them may be traded, Zhang Junkuo, head of development strategy at the State Council’s development research center, told reporters in Beijing today. The world’s fastest-growing major economy has pledged to reduce its carbon-dioxide output per unit of gross domestic product by as much as 45 percent through 2020 compared with 2005 levels. The cap-and-trade study is still in the early stages and is being considered among other options including a carbon tax, Zhang said.”
Britain’s plan to double the use of biofuels could dramatically increase greenhouse emissions: http://ind.pn/aLnx4E
Republicans should accept climate science, writes former Rep. Sherwood Boehlert: “What is happening to the party of Ronald Reagan? He embraced scientific understanding of the environment and pollution and was proud of his role in helping to phase out ozone-depleting chemicals. That was smart policy and smart politics. Most important, unlike many who profess to be his followers, Reagan didn’t deny the existence of global environmental problems but instead found ways to address them. The National Academy reports concluded that ‘scientific evidence that the Earth is warming is now overwhelming.’ Party affiliation does not change that fact.”
Closing credits: Wonkbook is compiled and produced with help from Dylan Matthews, Mike Shepard, and Michelle Williams. Photo credit: White House.
Restless Dems begin plotting Obama work-arounds for 2012
With big battles ahead for the White House and the lame duck Congress on everything from unemployment benefits to tax cuts to the DREAM Act, Don’t Ask Don’t Tell and the START treaty, multiple reports suggest some Democrats are growing impatient with the White House, and are starting to look at ways to go their […]
The Reid Report
