Tag Archives: GOP

national news, political news

'I' word returns to Capitol Hill

So many pejorative terms to lay on this, so little time or space to count them all.

Let’s start with disgusting, revolting, sickening, reprehensible and colossally stupid.

That’s where I come down on this notion of impeaching President Obama for exercising his constitutional executive authority.

http://news.yahoo.com/could-obama-impeached-over-immigration-order-173840884.html

The impeachment babble has begun boiling again on Capitol Hill. Some Democratic lawmakers say it’s possible, which is no surprise. What is a surprise is that now a Republican or three is talking openly about impeaching the president if he goes ahead with plans to issue an executive order that delays deportation of some 5 million undocumented immigrants.

On what basis would they impeach Barack Obama? They think he’s overreaching.

I’ve looked up the impeachment provision in the U.S. Constitution. Article II, Section 4 says the president or vice president can be removed from office if they are convicted of “Treason, Bribery or other high Crimes and Misdemeanors.”

I’ve yet to know what “high crime or misdemeanor” the president would commit if he is acting in accordance with his legal and constitutional authority.

And, gosh, do you think the president’s legal team is going to turn him loose without first understanding what he can or cannot do? I doubt it.

Yet the “I” word has returned to the debate if the president acts.

For the record, I hope he doesn’t execute those orders during the duck session of Congress. I want him to wait for the new Congress to take its seat. I want him to push forward the legislation he favors, demand quick action on it after thorough debate and then let Congress vote it up or down.

If it goes down, or if he gets a bill he cannot sign, then the president can take the action he deems necessary.

This impeachment talk — in the simplest term possible — is pure crap.

 

national news, political news

Slow down just a bit on immigration

Immigration policy needs to be reformed.

Democrats favor reform, as do reasonable Republicans. The outliers appear to be the tea party wing of the GOP, which appears to be calling the shots within the Republican caucus.

The question now is whether President Obama will take executive action to institute reforms during the lame-duck session of Congress. As much as the tea party — aka nut case — wing of the GOP angers me, I think the president should wait just a while longer before taking unilateral action.

Obama ‘nearing a final decision’ on immigration

Fox News reports Obama might take action next week.

It is sure to enrage Republicans, who already are loaded for bear in the wake of their stunning election victories on Nov. 4.

Obama is said to be considering a 10-point plan that includes deferment of deportation for 4.5 million illegal immigrants; it also includes a pay increase for Immigration and Naturalization Service employees.

Here’s a thought: Wait for the new Congress to take office; enlist some congressional allies to put forward your legislative proposals; debate it with Congress; let the Republicans have their say along with Democrats.

Then, if nothing gets done, drop the executive action hammer.

This is a fight worth waging … but when the time is right.

 

environmental news, International news, political news

Shocking! GOP opposes U.S.-China climate deal

Does it surprise anyone at all that congressional Republicans would be highly critical of a deal struck this week between the United States and China to cut carbon gases over the next couple of decades?

I didn’t think so.

U.S. Sen. Jim Inhofe of Oklahoma, the incoming chairman of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, wasted little time in calling the pact a “non-binding charade.”

http://thehill.com/policy/energy-environment/223823-inhofe-us-china-climate-pact-a-non-binding-charade

And the deal is … ?

President Obama and Chinese President Hu Jintao agreed the nations should cut carbon emissions by as much as 30 percent by 2030. Inhofe — one of the Senate’s premier climate change deniers — said China will continue to build coal-fired power plants and has “no known reserves” of natural gas on which to rely.

He calls the deal a fraud.

Inhofe also says the results of the mid-term elections repudiated the president’s policy agenda on such issues as climate change and that, by golly, he’s going to roll those policies back once he becomes chairman of the Senate environment panel.

I’ll add as an aside that there’s a certain irony in handing over the chairmanship of a key congressional environmental committee to someone who keeps dismissing the notion that Earth’s climate is changing and that there just might be a human cause to much of the warming that’s occurring — the current bitter cold snap that’s gripped much of the nation notwithstanding.

Obama said this in announcing the agreement in Beijing: “As the world’s two largest economies, energy consumers and emitters of greenhouse gases, we have a special responsibility to lead the global effort against climate change.”

And we have this, then, from House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy: “The president appears to be undeterred by the American people’s clear repudiation of his policies of more regulations and higher energy costs.”

Higher energy costs? McCarthy needs to ponder the ongoing trend in fossil fuel prices. They’ve gone down, Mr. Majority Leader.

I get that China doesn’t engender a lot of trust among many Americans. Count me as one who is skeptical of Beijing’s commitment to do what it promises to do.

At least we’ve got them on the record to cut carbon gases. Let’s hold them to that pledge.

 

national news, political news

GOP scores sweep; now let's govern … actually

The deed is done.

Republicans got their “wave” to sweep them into control of the Senate, with an eight-, maybe nine-seat pickup in the U.S. Senate. What’s more, they picked up a dozen more seats in the House to cement control of that body.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/senate-control-at-stake-in-todays-midterm-elections/2014/11/04/e882353e-642c-11e4-bb14-4cfea1e742d5_story.html

The only undecided race will be in Louisiana, which is going to a runoff. Democratic U.S. Sen. Mary Landrieu appears to be in trouble there. Big surprise, huh?

What happens now?

Despite all the good economic news, there appears to be rampant discontent out there with a Democratic administration and its friends in Congress. So the voters spoke, tossing out Democratic incumbents and turning seats over where Democrats had retired.

Republicans say they want to work with the president where possible. I’m not yet ready to swill that drink.

Senate Majority Leader-in-waiting Mitch McConnell had declared his primary goal in 2009 was to make Barack Obama a one-term president. It didn’t work out that way. So now he wants to actually govern — he says.

We’ve got this immigration thing hanging over the Congress; that oil pipeline known as “Keystone” needs to be decided; the president has an attorney general appointment to make; and, oh yeah, the Affordable Care Act still is on the table, even though it’s working and insuring Americans.

How is Congress going to get past all those differences? And how is the White House going to reconcile itself with the change in power in the upper legislative chamber?

My friends on the right are crowing this morning that Democrat Harry Reid no longer will run the Senate. They now believe Hillary Clinton’s presidential “inevitability” in 2016 has been damaged by this shifting power base. They think the president has been made irrelevant as he finishes out his tenure in the White House.

I shall now remind my right-leaning friends of something critical.

The 2016 political roadmap looks a bit different than the 2014 map. Democrats will be positioned to take over some key Republican Senate seats in a presidential election year, which historically bodes quite well for Democrats.

This was the Republicans’ year and their time. Nice going, folks.

It’s time now to actually govern and to show that we can actually keep moving this country forward — which it has been doing for the past six years.

 

 

national news, political news

What's in store on Election Day?

Who knows what the future holds in the next four days?

Americans are going to elect a new Congress, several governors and thousands of county commissioners, sheriffs, constables (in Texas at least — ugh!) and assorted lower-level government officials.

Everyone who follows this stuff, though, has their eyes on the U.S. Senate. Will it swing from Democratic control to Republican? Virtually everyone who isn’t a dedicated Democratic Party operative thinks it’s a done deal.

Here’s what we ought to look for on election night to determine how strong the tide will be.

The earliest poll closings will be back east. In New Hampshire, Democratic Sen. Jeanne Shaheen is being challenged strongly by carpetbagger Republican Scott Brown, who lost his Senate seat in Massachusetts and then moved to New Hampshire because he wants to serve in the Senate from another state. If the race is too close to call when the polls close — or if Brown is declared the winner — in the Granite State, Democrats are going to lose big.

Look for something similar to happen in North Carolina, where Democratic Sen. Kay Hagen is being challenged by tea party Republican Thom Tillis. If Tillis is declared the winner outright when the polls close, turn out the lights — as Dandy Don Meredith used to say — the party’s over.

OK, one more key race to ponder. Down yonder in Georgia could tell us something. If Democratic challenger Michelle Nunn defeats Republican foe David Perdue for that state’s Senate seat, then we’ve got something quite different going on. The seat has been in GOP hands. Both of these candidates are kin to political giants in Georgia: Michelle’s dad is former Sen. Sam Nunn; David’s cousin is former Gov. Sonny Perdue. Talk about dynasty politics, right?

These early races could determine how much of the rest of the country will go.

Texas’s Senate race between GOP incumbent John Cornyn and Democrat David Alameel? That one’s over.

The GOP tide has yet to build in the eyes of many observers. We’ll know in due course whether the swells are growing across the country or whether the Senate flips with a slim majority turning up on the Republican side of the chamber.

If the Senate turns Republican Red when all the ballots are counted, then the game changes. We’ll have to see how these folks intend to actually govern and whether they can rise beyond the role of obstructionists.

I’m waiting anxiously.

 

 

national news, political news

If GOP takes Senate, it'll need to govern

The stars apparently are lining up for a Republican takeover of the U.S. Senate, or so the experts are saying.

Let’s assume they’re right. A RealClearPolitics average of all the major polls show a six-seat shift, precisely the number that the GOP needs to become the majority in the Senate.

I’m not clear about the House of Representatives, where Republicans have ruled since 2011. Perhaps their control will tighten.

http://news.yahoo.com/republicans-poised-snatch-us-senate-mid-terms-015415687.html

This much is becoming clearer as the mid-term elections approach: If Republicans are destined to control the entire legislative branch of government, then they need to prepare to actually govern, as in enact legislation that President Obama can actually sign into law.

So far since January 2009, when Barack Obama took office, Republicans have done their level best to block just about every major initiative the president has put forward. It started with the financial bailout package which the GOP opposed, but which got enacted over its objections.

Then came the 2010 mid-term election. The House switched to Republican control. Then the fun really began.

Republicans opposed the Affordable Care Act; they’ve conducted an ongoing series of show hearings on Benghazi and the Internal Revenue Service’s vetting of conservative political action groups’ request for tax exempt status; they’ve opposed immigration reform; increasing the minimum wage and a host of other White House initiatives.

If the Senate flips, then we’re going to see donnybrooks develop over confirmation of, say, the next attorney general and a series of lower-level appointments the president will seek.

I’ll buy the notion that the legislative branch of government is going to turn Republican.

Will legislators keep trying to stick it in the president’s eye or will they actually compromise when possible on key bills and send them to the White House in good faith? And will the president follow suit and sign these bills into law?

Republicans have mastered the art of obstruction since Democrat Barack Obama became president. Let’s see if they can learn the art of governing.

 

local news, national news, political news

TR clearly was a RINO

Watching the first episode of PBS’s series on the Roosevelt family last night, I was struck once again by the notion that Theodore Roosevelt proclaimed himself to be a dedicated Republican, but didn’t act like one who is defined by today’s Grand Old Party.

Let’s call TR the original RINO — a Republican In Name Only.

http://www.pbs.org/kenburns/the-roosevelts/

The first part of “The Roosevelts” documentary produced by historian Ken Burns tells of TR’s ascendance to the presidency. He was the youngest man ever to assume the office. He got there by way of the assassination of President William McKinley.

He set out to bust up monopolies, rein in oversized companies, while making them pay their fair share of taxes. He didn’t believe business could build the country all by itself. Teddy Roosevelt believed in activist government.

TR used government muscle to secure land in Panama and begin construction of the Panama Canal. Is that an “infrastructure project” or what?

Imagine today’s Republican Party doing any of that. It wouldn’t happen. TR would be laughed out of the party that we’ve come to know and — in my case anyway — loathe with a passion.

“The Roosevelts” is going to be broadcast throughout the week. It will continue through TR’s post-presidential life and the battle he fought with his own Republican Party. He didn’t think it was “progressive” enough, so he launched a presidential bid in 1912 under the Bull Moose party banner. He failed, but laid the groundwork for what would become the modern progressive movement.

The series will chronicle the careers of Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt, two champions in their own right. They were dedicated Democrats.

Teddy Roosevelt, though, more or less broke the mold that used to define early-20th century Republicanism. What has emerged in the century that followed is a mere shadow of what it used to be.

national news, political news

Clinton's going to run, period

One of my many pet peeves is when folks try to read the mind of public figures.

Therefore, I am going to get angry at myself for what I’m about to write: I believe Hillary Rodham Clinton has decided to run for president in 2016 and that the only decision left is to decide the best time to announce her intentions.

http://news.msn.com/us/clinton-2016-decision-likely-by-early-next-year

Clinton is in Mexico City, as is Gov. Chris Christie, R-N.J., another possible candidate for president.

The former U.S. senator/secretary of state/first lady said she’ll decide by early next year whether she’ll seek the Democratic nomination for president.

Sure thing, senator/Mme. Secretary. My trick knee is throbbing a good bit right about now and it’s telling me she’s told her husband, former President Bill Clinton, that she wants to run for the office he once held. She has sworn him to secrecy and if the 42nd president has a brain in his head — and I believe he does — he’ll keep quiet about it.

If I were a bettor, I’d bet all HRC has to decide now is when to announce it. Indeed, you can parse her language just a little bit to conclude that’s the decision left to make. She’s spoken hypothetically about a presidential run; she’s been mildly critical of President Obama’s foreign policy doctrine; she said in Mexico City that her background gives her “unique” qualifications to be president.

I’m still baffled, of course, over why she’d want to run for the White House, given the intensely harsh, personal and in some case unfair criticism she’s received over many years. You can bet the mortgage the critics will be out in force when she makes her intentions known.

Is it blind ambition or a sense of public obligation that drives her? Perhaps it’s both. We’ll be able to make that determination for ourselves in due time.

 

Uncategorized

Increase the minimum wage

President Obama is right to raise a ruckus over the minimum wage.

It ought to be no surprise to learn that a family of four cannot live on $7.25 per hour, the current federally mandated minimum wage. Of course, I’m not convinced that a family of four would try to live on that kind of wage. Surely, the adults in that family would seek second, maybe third jobs.

http://www.msnbc.com/morning-joe/obama-pushes-minimum-wage-hike-slams-gop-saying-no-everything

Still, the minimum wage has been stuck at its current rate for a long time. Inflation has moved along, making the cost of everything more expensive. College students trying to pay for school are having an increasingly difficult time doing so while working for minimum wage.

Having declared my support for increasing the minimum wage, I also think there should be limits.

Cities across the nation are boosting the minimum wage dramatically. Seattle has nearly doubled it.

The president recently signed an executive order that increased the minimum wage for federal workers to $10.10 per hour. I believe that is a reasonable amount to increase everyone’s wage.

I’m not going to get into the political battle that’s shaping up here. Democrats want to keep control of the Senate and are making the case for boosting the minimum wage. Republicans are resisting, saying it will hurt businesses that would have to pay it.

Whatever. Boost the minimum wage. It’s the right thing to do. Make citizens’ struggle a little less burdensome.

 

 

national news, political news

McConnell campaign goes national

It’s interesting to me how some ostensibly local races gain national attention.

One of them involves Kentucky Republican U.S. Sen. Mitch McConnell, who’s in a tough for fight for re-election against Democratic nominee Allison Lundergan Grimes.

McConnell’s future is the subject if a large New York Times Magazine article by Jonathon Miller.

Grimes isn’t going to accept any political advice from yours truly, but I’ll offer it anyway.

If she wants to hang something around McConnell’s neck, she ought to dig up the video of McConnell saying that his No. 1 goal, his top priority back in 2009 was to make Barack Obama a “one-term president.” He’d block everything the president proposes. He would fight him every step of the way. He would obstruct and derail every initiative coming from the White House.

That’s what McConnell said. He said it with emphasis. By golly, I believe he meant it. It was a promise he made to the nation, not to mention to the people of Kentucky.

How did the Senate’s minority leader deliver on his promise to the nation? Not very well. President Obama was re-elected in 2012 with 65 million votes, 51.7 percent of the total, 332 electoral votes.

So, Sen. McConnell’s top priority will have gone unmet.

Grimes ought to make that a signature issue of her campaign, along with whatever positive alternatives she proposes if she wins the Senate seat.

I think it’s a winner.