Category Archives: national news

national news, political news

How about confirming new AG … now?

The delay over a confirmation vote on the new U.S. attorney general is beginning to confound me.

Loretta Lynch is an eminently qualified U.S. attorney from New York. She was nominated by President Obama to succeed Eric Holder at the Justice Department. The Senate Judiciary Committee voted 12-8 to recommend her confirmation, with three Republicans joining all nine Democrats on the panel to approve her confirmation.

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2015/03/05/democrats_call_for_nomination_vote_on_loretta_lynch_125837.html

But the full Senate has yet to schedule a confirmation vote.

All 45 Senate Democrats signed a letter to Majority Leader Mitch McConnell asking him to schedule a vote so that Lynch presumably can get started on her new job.

The confounding part is the consequence of the delay.

Eric Holder remains on the job. It’s not that I think he’s done a poor job as attorney general. Senate Republicans cannot stand the guy. He’s angered them time and again over policy disagreements. The GOP caucus doesn’t want him on the job any longer.

So, why not schedule a vote for Lynch — who still enjoys some Republican support — so she can replace the despised Eric Holder?

Is it because getting Holder out of office robs Republicans of a target at whom they can take potshots?

Hey, I’m just askin’.

Schedule a Senate vote, Mr. Majority Leader.

 

national news, political news

Nothing is secret, Mme. Secretary

Hillary Rodham Clinton has been a public figure for more than three decades, going back to when she was first lady of Arkansas.

She ought to know a fundamental truth about public notoriety: Almost nothing is secret.

Hillary’s penchant for secrecy rattles Dems

But as The Hill notes in the attached report, Clinton has a penchant for secrecy that is driving her supporters to the point of insanity.

The recent email flap is a case in point.

She used her private email account to conduct affairs of the State Department, which she led during the first term of the Obama administration. She likely didn’t break the law. Previous secretaries of state have done the same thing. So have governors, senators, county commissioners — you name it — of both major parties.

The rules have changed since Clinton left the State Department.

Still, Clinton and her team seem to have mishandled the uproar over the revelation about the use of the private account. It’s causing grief among those who want her to run for president in 2016. An announcement is expected within the next month or so.

I happen to dislike the idea of public officials using personal email or other personal media accounts to do public business. Politicians of all stripes talk about the need for “transparency.” Only the most sensitive national security matters should be kept from public view.

Clinton now has asked the State Department to release her emails to an inquiring public, which by the way includes members of the House Select Benghazi Committee that no doubt is looking for that “smoking gun” to shoot holes in her probable presidential campaign.

Whatever. The former secretary/U.S. senator/U.S. first lady knows better than most the price people for seeking to serve the public.

As the cliché reminds us: No good deed goes unpunished.

 

national news, political news

Good doctor snaps out of it

No one ever should question Ben Carson’s smarts as a neurosurgeon.

He’s one of the best ever, in the world. But the good doctor stepped in it big time during a CNN interview and has actually apologized for some remarks he made about homosexuality and how he thought people “become” gay.

http://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/234695-carson-apologizes-for-comments-on-sexuality

Dr. Carson told CNN’s Chris Cuomo that one needs to look at the prison population to understand that homosexuality is a lifestyle choice. He said prisoners have begun their sentences as straight but come out as gay.

Sexual orientation? The doctor called it a “choice.”

He’s taken it back. Carson, a possible 2016 Republican presidential candidate, still doesn’t believe marriage equality, preferring to support civil unions for gay couples. But he’s said he’s sorry for the offense he caused by using the prisoners-choose-to-be-gay example.

“I do not pretend to know how every individual came to their sexual orientation,” he said on Facebook. “I regret that my words to express that concept were hurtful and divisive. For that I apologize unreservedly to all that were offended.”

Apology accepted, Dr. Carson. Now, let’s stick to the issues that we can control. Sexual orientation isn’t one of them.

 

International news, national news, political news

Benghazi returns to center stage

I got a bit ahead of myself with an earlier blog post about Hillary Clinton’s email tempest.

The supposition was that she was in trouble again, but the difficulty didn’t have anything to do with Benghazi.

Wrong!

The House Benghazi Committee — that’s what I’ll call it — is going to subpoena the former secretary of state’s email messages to determine what she said at the time of the attack on the U.S. consulate in Benghazi that killed four Americans, including the U.S. ambassador to Libya.

http://news.yahoo.com/benghazi-committee-to-subpoena-clinton-s-emails-192823541.html

This ties into the email problem because Clinton used her personal email account to communicate official State Department business. The Benghazi panel, which already has traipsed all over the issue of the consulate fire fight and what the State Department knew about it, wants to see the emails to determine, I suppose, if there’s any “smoking gun” with which to blast away at the presumed 2016 Democratic presidential candidate.

I am concerned about the use of a private email account to conduct public business. The Benghazi matter? Not so much. Yes, the deaths of those people were tragic beyond measure. But I do not believe Secretary Clinton purposely misled Americans about the attack, nor do I believe there’s been an orchestrated cover-up by the State Department or the White House.

However, by golly, we’re going to revisit the Benghazi attack once again because of questions about whether Secretary Clinton hid pertinent information — whatever it might have been — from the public she was serving.

national news, political news

HRC looking suddenly vulnerable

What’s the opposite of “invincible”?

Is it, say, “vincible”?

Suddenly and with little warning, the chatterers of Washington and in some key political hot spots are starting to wonder aloud whether the once seemingly invincible Hillary Rodham Clinton might actually not run for president of the United States next year.

http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2015/03/what-if-hillary-clinton-drops-out-115715.html?ml=po#.VPcJFFJ0yt8

I believe a Clinton pullout from the White House contest remains the longest of long shots. She’s invested a lot of her time, money, effort and political capital in getting support on board to bail now.

But oh, man, there’s trouble out there. It has nothing to do, really, with Benghazi.

It has to do with her use of email technology and whether she might have kept the public’s business hidden from public view.

Politico is reporting that Democratic strategists aren’t yet considering the idea of Clinton dropping out of the race: “What if The Unthinkable did happen and she actually dropped out? What would be the Democrats’ response? ‘Panic,’ says Democratic consultant Chris Lapetina.”

Some questions have emerged of late about whether the then-secretary of state broke federal rules by communicating exclusively with her private email account. The way I see the trouble is that using private channels leaves open the possibility that she conducted non-classified public business in private. More murkiness has emerged as well, with some Clinton supporters suggesting that the rules weren’t put in place until after she left the State Department.

Clinton’s advisers have said she broke no laws and followed the “spirit and letter” of the rules governing such communication.

Suddenly, though, the smooth sailing Clinton has enjoyed so far has given way to some choppy waters. Have the waves built enough to capsize the Good Ship Hillary? Not yet, but factions on the Democratic Party’s left and most certainly those on the right and far right aren’t about to throw her many life lines.

Democratic Party “panic” needs to give way to some planning in the event that The Unthinkable actually occurs.

 

national news

Speaker gets past this rocky road

House Speaker John Boehner has had more fun than what he experienced the past couple of weeks.

It’s been like, well, herding cats. His Republican caucus all but went into apoplexy over a plan to fund the Department of Homeland Security. The TEA party wing of the caucus remained dead set against it. Other Republicans joined with Democrats to fund DHS until September.

Without the money, DHS would have had to shut down; 30,000 federal employees would have been furloughed.

Crisis is averted. For now.

http://thehill.com/homenews/house/234467-house-approves-dhs-funding

The speaker’s difficulty with his the TEA party cabal is far from over. I’ll just suggest that his fear will be that they’ll be so angry with him they might try to launch an intraparty insurrection to get Boehner removed from his post.

Who would get the gavel? Louie Gohmert, the East Texas chucklehead? Would it be Steve Scalise, the majority whip from Louisiana who once spoke to a David Duke-sponsored outfit?

My hunch is that Boehner will survive any possible rebellion.

But the vote to fund DHS now allows the House of Representatives to get on with more serious matters. Lawmakers ought to focus on things such as, oh, a budget, infrastructure legislation, some national security issues. You know, the stuff to which they all signed on to do on behalf of all Americans.

I’m glad the deal was struck. Boehner actually worked with Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, the despised former speaker. That, by itself, might be cause for the TEA party wing of the GOP to break out the pitchforks and torches.

Isn’t governing fun, Mr. Speaker?

national news, political news

Gov. Walker goes to 'war' with unions

Now that Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker has all but announced his 2016 Republican primary presidential campaign, it is time to examine everything this man says in public.

Such as when he drew a shaky comparison between union protesters and Islamic State terrorists.

Warren dings Walker over comments on unions and ISIS

Speaking to the Conservative Political Action Conference this past week, Walker actually said his experience facing down tens of thousands of angry union members has prepared him to wage war against ISIL.

Union protesters equal monstrous terrorist cult. Get it? One is the same as the other.

Walker has sought to put a bit of distance between himself and those remarks. He told reporters after his CPAC speech, “There’s no comparison between the two, let me be perfectly clear. I’m just pointing out the closest thing I have to handling a difficult situation was the 100,000 protesters I had to deal with.”

Still, the critics make a point of wondering why he would make such a ghastly comparison in the first place.

I’ve covered my share of union disputes over the years, in Oregon reporting and commenting on teacher strikes and in Southeast Texas, where the union movement remains a significant political force. I get that union protesters can be a rowdy bunch, that they actually threaten people with physical harm, particularly those who cross picket lines.

However, whatever preparation a president has in fighting hideous terrorist groups such as ISIL and now, as we’ve learned, Boko Haram, shouldn’t have any relationship with how they handle union employees who have the right under our governing framework to seek “redress of grievances.”

As U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., a friend of the union movement, said in a tweet: “If Scott Walker sees 100,000 teachers & firefighters as his enemies, maybe it’s time we take a closer look at his friends.”

International news, national news, political news

Partisanship has no place in foreign policy

OK, one more attempt at making sense of this Bibi blowup and I’ll move on.

It’s being reported that about a quarter of congressional Democrats are going to stay away from the speech Tuesday that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will make before a joint session of Congress.

http://thehill.com/homenews/news/234398-bibi-boycott-grows-ahead-of-address

Democrats are angry that Republican Speaker John Boehner invited Bibi to speak without consulting with the White House. I get their anger. It is infuriating that Boehner would flout longstanding diplomatic protocol by inviting a foreign head of government in such a manner.

Netanyahu, in remarks today to a pro-Israel group, said he doesn’t want to become the object of partisan scorn in Washington. Indeed, such partisanship shouldn’t be an issue when we’re talking about foreign policy matters.

Who, though, turned it into a partisan event? I’ll go with Boehner, who stuck it in the president’s eye in the way he invited Netanyahu. The prime minister opposes negotiations to get Iran to stop its nuclear development program; he favors tougher sanctions on Iran now, along with Boehner and most Republicans; Obama opposes the sanctions; and the president is miffed over the invitation issue.

None of this means the United States and Israel are going to part company. Netanyahu will affirm the nations’ close ties Tuesday, just as he did today.

The partisan nature of the protest, though, smacks more of petulance than anything else.

I’ll say it again: Democrats should listen to Bibi in person and give him the respect that the leader of our nation’s strongest Middle East ally deserves.

 

national news, political news

Governing looks like the old way

So, this is what the new style of governing looks like on Capitol Hill.

Republicans control both legislative houses. The Senate wants to move away from the stalemate over funding the Department of Homeland Security; it wants to vote on a “clean” funding bill that doesn’t contain measures to strip out President Obama’s executive action on immigration. The House of Representatives — led by its TEA party coalition — wants to stick it to Obama.

http://www.politico.com/story/2015/03/john-boehner-republicans-homeland-security-funding-plan-115657.html?hp=t2_r

Neither side can persuade the other chamber that their way is the right way.

We’re stuck.

Ain’t governing fun?

House Speaker John Boehner is having a difficult time corralling the rebels in his GOP caucus. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell has done a better job of taking control of the Senate.

DHS has enough money to function until Friday. Then lawmakers either (a) vote on yet another short-term deal or (b) vote on a “clean” bill that might just anger the House TEA party rabble rousers enough to try to oust Boehner as speaker.

Meanwhile, the agency charged with protecting our borders from oh, you know, drug smugglers and terrorists is being kicked around like an unwanted critter.

This isn’t the way it was supposed to work when Republicans took control of government’s legislative branch.

national news, political news

WSJ gives congressional GOP a swift kick

When the men and women who run Capitol Hill — the Republicans — lose The Wall Street Journal, then they’ve lost their most critical media ally.

I’m not suggesting the WSJ has abandoned the GOP majority, but the paper’s conservative editorial page — one of the best opinion pages in the country — turns on you, then you’d better pay attention.

http://www.politico.com/story/2015/03/homeland-security-shutdown-cliff-republicans-wall-street-journal-115651.html?hp=b2_l1

I’ve long admired the WSJ editorial writers for the way they express themselves. I disagree with the paper’s editorial policy, but few editorial pages say it better than the Wall Street Journal.

The WSJ editors are angry at what they’re calling the GOP “Cliff Marchers,” the faction of Republicans who are intent on making some political point than in any actually governing.

As Politico reports about the WSJ’s scolding: “House Republicans refuse to fund (Department of Homeland Security) without forcing the president to dismantle the changes (in Barack Obama’s executive order on immigration), while Senate Republicans do not believe they can win the standoff. The Senate voted last week to fund the department through the end of the fiscal year without altering the president’s immigration orders, but the House has not yet agreed to take up the bill.”

The WSJ writes: “Republicans need to do some soul searching about the purpose of a Congressional majority, including whether they even want it.”

The Journal argues that Congress should go fund DHS and move on to bigger issues, such as the budget. The paper believes the president’s immigration order — in which he delays deportation of millions of undocumented residents — will be settled by the courts.

It’s good advice. Are you listening, GOP members of Congress? Get busy and start governing.