Tag Archives: White House

national news

Merry Christmas … and let's bomb Iran?

Lame-duck U.S. Rep. Michelle Bachmann chose a fascinating venue to lobby the president of the United States to take military action against Iran.

She was attending a Christmas party.

At Christmas party, Bachmann lobbies Obama to bomb Iran

Yes, the TEA party favorite was celebrating Christmas with the president and his family when she broached the subject of Iran.

The Hill newspaper reports that Obama gave her a condescending look and then laughed, according to Bachmann.

Imagine that.

I am trying to imagine a less appropriate occasion to bring something like this up to the commander in chief. A state funeral comes to mind.

A Christmas party — at the White House — ranks right up there in the ranks of inappropriate times and places to talk about bombing a stated enemy of the United States with the man who’d order such a mission.

A part of me rather wishes Rep. Bachmann was staying on for the 114th Congress. She’s so darn entertaining.

A bigger part of me, however, is glad she’s leaving. I’m glad for the people of her congressional district, who in my view will benefit much more when they’re no longer represented by this clown.

 

national news, political news, State news

No 'oops' for Perry next time around

Texas Gov. Rick Perry is soon to be a “former” governor — and a likely current candidate for the president of the United States.

He vows there will be no repeat of the infamous “oops” moment in late 2011 when he couldn’t name all three of the federal agencies he said he would cut from the federal government.

In an interview with CNBC’s John Harwood, Perry said he’ll be better prepared if he decides to run again for the White House.

He’s also got that felony indictment alleging abuse of power to get worked out one way or the other.

http://www.msn.com/en-us/money/markets/rick-perry-oops-wont-be-my-obituary/ar-BBgD52T

The most interesting element in the story attached to this blog post is how Harwood sizes up the potential 2016 GOP field with the 2012 cast of characters. The next Republican field is likely to include some serious politicians with serious ideas about how to solve serious problems.

That clearly wasn’t the case in 2012. The GOP field included a cabal of clowns: Herman “9-9-9” Cain? Michelle “Democrats are Communists” Bachmann? Rick “Say ‘No’ to Contraception” Santorum? Newt “I Impeached an Unfaithful President While I was Cheating On My Wife” Gingrich?

The next field, which might include Mitt Romney, the 2012 GOP nominee, is much more credible than the previous field of candidates.

Perry will have to do battle with a much more serious band of GOP brothers (and maybe) sisters.

Oh, but he says he’ll be ready.

We’ll see about that.

 

International news, national news

Now it's Congress's turn to act on immigration

President Obama has made his speech. He’s done what the law allows him to do. He has issued an executive order that starts to move immigration reform forward.

Now he has challenged Congress to enact a bill that would apply permanent solutions to the nation’s immigration problem.

http://www.cnn.com/2014/11/20/politics/obama-immigration-speech/index.html?hpt=hp_t1

Instead of hyperventilating and tossing out “lawless” accusations against the Obama administration, perhaps the GOP-led Congress — both the Senate and the House of Representatives — can do what it hasn’t yet done. Fix the immigration problem that has brought us to this point.

Obama has delayed the deportation of 5 million undocumented immigrants. He has ordered border security officials to prioritize the arrest of gang members, suspected terrorists and common criminals — and then deport them post haste.

A good number of the rest of the illegal immigrant population? They can “come out of the shadows,” as the president said.

Constitutional scholars have been saying for a good period of time that Obama stands on solid legal footing in doing what he did this evening. Politicians have been saying something else, that the president is “overstepping his authority,” that he’s creating a “monarchy,” that now calls himself “Emperor Obama.”

Well, what the 44th president of the U.S. did was no more dramatic than what many of his predecessors dating back to Dwight Eisenhower have done. The drama has come from the furious opposition on the Republican side of chasm.

Do I wish he would have waited for the new Congress to take its seat? Yes. He didn’t listen to me.

But the president did what the law allows him to do.

So now the ball has been batted back to Congress. Pass a bill and send it to the White House.

 

political news, State news

Gov. Perry loses key dismissal fight

A state district judge has ruled that Texas Gov. Rick Perry should stand trial for felony charges related to his alleged abuse of power.

Good. Now let’s get the trial started and then concluded, OK?

http://www.cnn.com/2014/11/18/politics/rick-perry-case-texas/index.html?hpt=hp_t2

Perry legal team sought a dismissal on the grounds that special prosecutor Michael McCrum wasn’t sworn in properly, rendering all his actions taken during the time he has investigated Perry to be invalid.

Today, Judge Bert Richardson said in Austin that McCrum’s swearing in was sufficient and that he has standing to prosecute the governor on two felony counts. “This court concludes that Mr. McCrum’s authority was not voided by the procedural irregularities in how and when the oath of office and statement of officer were administered and filed,” Richardson said in his ruling.

A grand jury indicted Perry on abuse of power and coercion of a public official in connection with his veto of money appropriated for the Public Integrity Unit run out of the Travis County district attorney’s office. He threatened to yank the money after DA Rosemary Lehmberg was arrested for drunken driving. She pleaded guilty to the crime and served jail time. Perry demanded she quit. She didn’t. So, Perry vetoed the money appropriated by the Legislature for the integrity unit she runs.

This case is riddled with political overtones and consequences.

Perry is pondering a run for the presidency in 2016. He doesn’t want this case hanging over his head. Frankly, I happen to agree with him. Let’s get this thing settled.

As for Lehmberg, she’s going to bow out when her term expires. She should have quit when she got popped for the DUI. Had she done so, Perry could have appointed a Republican DA to replace the outgoing Democrat.

Do you see how this is so, so political?

Perry calls the indictment a serious overreach. He has received a lot of legal support — from Democrats as well as Republicans.

So, let’s get this case settled. If he’s acquitted of both charges, he can crow all he wants about his huge victory in court.

But if he’s convicted of just one of them — and I still think the coercion charge is the stronger of the two counts — well, the governor can kiss the White House good bye.

I’m ready to have this case decided.

 

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.

 

 

International news, political news

Who said this about Bibi?

A White House official called Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu a “chickens**t”?

That’s all we know at the moment.

Here’s an idea: How about for once we find out who did the name-calling? Bring this individual out from the shadows and have him or her explain the reference.

US, Israel relations hit new low

This is the kind of thing that’s said behind closed doors all the time in Washington, D.C., and more than likely in Jerusalem as well.

I only can imagine what some of Netanyahu’s more strident inner circle members think of President Barack Obama or perhaps the Congress and what he or she might be saying about all of them in private.

This little term of non-endearment, however, has been let loose and has poisoned — perhaps — the sometimes-testy relationship between the two leaders.

And just when it had been reported that Netanyahu actually had expressed some warm feelings toward Barack Obama, well, this happens.

OK, if we’re not going to learn the name of the individual, perhaps someone on the inside — perhaps the press secretary, Josh Earnest — can tell us at what level this individual operates. Cabinet level? Sub-Cabinet? A member of “diplomatic” corps, for crying out loud? Hey, was it a national security team member? Someone from the Joint Chiefs of Staff?

We need to know who said it and why?

What’s more, the president ought to get on the phone and call his pal Bibi and tell him that the potty-mouth individual was speaking for himself or herself.

Then again, maybe the president should assure the prime minister that he — the leader of the Free World — himself didn’t say it.

 

 

national news, political news

Foes team up for security reform

It turns out that two leading members of the House Oversight and Reform Committee aren’t enemies for life after all.

Republican Chairman Darrell Issa and ranking Democrat Elijah Cummings are on the same page regarding the Secret Service. They want a broad investigation that examines the culture that seems to pervade the agency charged with protecting the president of the United States.

http://www.politico.com/story/2014/10/secret-service-probe-darrell-issa-elijah-cummings-111587.html?hp=l5

Their concern is legit. The Secret Service has been pounded in the media and on Capitol Hill for the horrendous security lapses that have placed the president in potential peril. The agency’s director, Julia Pierson, has resigned. Issa and Cummings have sent Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson a letter asking to examine a full range of issues that have resulted in what they call “embarrassing security mistakes.”

We’ve had the fence-jumper who ran through the front door of the White House. That incident came after an armed convicted felon got into an elevator with President Obama in Atlanta, standing only a few feet from the head of state.

The Secret Service is in trouble. It needs fixing. Congress has been justifiably outraged over these embarrassing matters.

Issa and Cummings have had their differences over their committee’s handling of the IRS matter and the Benghazi controversy.

On this one, they’ve locked arms and are demanding answers.

Political animosity appears to come and go, according to the issue of the moment.

I’m OK with that.

national news, political news

It's still the People's House

Julia Pierson is gone from her job as head of the Secret Service.

She’d come in to change the culture of an agency beset by scandals involving agents consorting with hookers. Now, though, she’s resigned, the person responsible for a new scandal involving the protection of the White House, where the president and his family live.

A man jumped the fence and got into the mansion, running past and/or through several perimeters. What’s more, now we have learned that an armed man masquerading as a security guard at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention rode an elevator with President Obama.

OK, so now we’re searching for a new permanent director of the agency charged with protecting the president.

What’s next for security at the White House?

Here’s my suggestion for what should not happen at the People’s House: Do not lock the place down and make it next to impossible for tourists to walk through it and enjoy the majesty of the place.

The knee-jerk reaction is predictable. Some might want to essentially shut down the White House to the public. They’ll suggest searching tourists as they enter the place. One thing that can be done easily is to boost the height of the fences surrounding the White House. That’ll get done; no problem there.

Let us remember, as Washington Post columnist Eugene Robinson noted this afternoon, the White House is a symbol of First Amendment guarantees, where people can assemble and perhaps ask questions of their head of state — the president — on questions that concern them.

Shutting the White House off from the people to whom the house belongs would be the wrong course as this necessary review of security takes hold.

national news

Pierson quits; good deal

Bragging is so unbecoming, so I won’t go there.

About an hour ago, I posted a blog that said Secret Service director Julia Pierson needed to quit her job in the wake of the abject failure of her agency’s White House security detail to protect the place that houses the president of the United States and his family. An obviously disturbed Iraq War veteran stormed onto the White House lawn, ran into the front door of the building and then got deep into the structure before being restrained.

Just a few minutes ago, CNN reported that Pierson has resigned.

She’d been grilled intensely by House Democrats and Republicans. Her answers were insufficient.

Now it’s time to fix the problems that created this mess in the first place.

See the earlier blog post:

https://highplainsblogger.com/2014/10/01/piersons-days-at-secret-service-appear-to-be-over/

national news, political news

Pierson's days at Secret Service appear to be over

1 Comment

Given the mile-wide partisan rift between Democrats and Republicans on Capitol Hill, it’s really saying something when politicians on both sides of the aisle sound as one in their outrage at a leading public official.

Secret Service director Julia Pierson got the grilling of her life Tuesday from the U.S. House Government Oversight and Reform Committee.

She had it coming.

http://time.com/3452979/secret-service-white-house-fence-jumper-nancy-pelosi/

Now we hear from House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, the chief Democrat in the House, saying Pierson should quit.

Why? It’s on her watch that some serious security glitches have occurred at the White House, the most notable of which is the one involving Omar Gonzalez, who raced across the White House lawn, broke into the building and then got deep inside the mansion after rushing through five levels of security. He finally was subdued.

Pierson got the treatment from committee Democrats and Republicans, all of whom spoke with equal outrage over the security detail’s failure to prevent the intruder from entering the White House.

That the first family was not in the house doesn’t matter. The intruder got past security in broad daylight.

Pierson didn’t help herself any with her non-answers to some quite specific questions about the breach in security.

If I were a betting man, I’d put some money on Pierson leaving this job in fairly short order.

Then we can get some needed changes installed at the Secret Service.