Tag Archives: Senate

June 15, 2013 · 11:12 AM

53 Senators Blew Off Briefing On Secret NSA Program Because They Wanted to Go Home

congress-closed

This is not the House we’re talking about, these are our “prestigious” and influential United States Senators who apparently have better things to do than get briefed on something as important as the NSA program.  Go figure…

PoliticusUSA

Fifty three senators skipped Friday’s briefing on the secret NSA data mining program, because they wanted to go home early for Father’s Day weekend.

According to The Hill:

The Senate held its last vote of the week a little after noon on Thursday, and many lawmakers were eager to take advantage of the short day and head back to their home states for Father’s Day weekend.

Only 47 of 100 senators attended the 2:30 briefing, leaving dozens of chairs in the secure meeting room empty as Clapper, Alexander and other senior officials told lawmakers about classified programs to monitor millions of telephone calls and broad swaths of Internet activity. The room on the lower level of the Capitol Visitor Center is large enough to fit the entire Senate membership, according to a Senate aide.

The problem is that these same senators who skipped the briefing are in charge of overseeing the program.  When congress doesn’t take its oversight duties seriously, or even worse, abusing their powers to chase empty scandals, the freedoms of every American are at risk.

It doesn’t matter how you feel about the Patriot Act and surveillance programs. This is about 53 members of the Senate who refused to stay at work, and do their jobs.

The problem of members not attending briefings is a rampant epidemic. Members of congress constantly blow off important briefings, and instead rely on special interest groups to tell them how to vote. This is how the NRA was able to stop wildly popular background checks legislation. Some members of congress vote how they are told to, because they fear that special interest groups will work against them in the next reelection campaign if they don’t.

The next time a member of congress claims that they didn’t know about something, the first question asked should be, “Did you attend the briefing?” The odds are pretty good that they didn’t.

The fact of the matter is that a majority of the Senate doesn’t care about secret domestic spying. Most of them either voted for or to reauthorize the Patriot Act.

The bigger story is that our congress is more interested in going home than doing the people’s business. The main reason why our legislative process is broken is because the people we are sending to the House and Senate don’t care enough to do their jobs.

There are millions of dads who will be working this Father’s Day. They don’t have the luxury of blowing off work, like 53 members of the United States Senate.

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June 14, 2013 · 12:47 PM

Has the death of federal gun legislation been greatly exaggerated?

Crosses symbolizing grave markers sit on the National Mall in April as part of a 24-hour vigil to "remind Congress action is needed on gun violence prevention." 

Crosses symbolizing grave markers sit on the National Mall in April as part of a 24-hour vigil to “remind Congress action is needed on gun violence prevention.”

In a word…yes.

The Week

Six months after the Newtown mass shooting, Democrats are starting to quietly restart the gun-control engines

Six months have passed since a lone gunman walked in to Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn., and shot 20 small children and six adults. The big push for legislation to curb gun violence that followed Newtown peaked in April, in a Senate showdown where supporters of the bill were unable to get 60 votes to break a Republican-led filibuster.

The Week‘s Jon Terbush noted earlier this week that this defeat took the wind out of the sails of the gun-control movement — and now, he says, “the prospect of gun control legislation getting a second wind seems unlikely.”

Senate Democrats, apparently, disagree. “The fight is not over, it has just begun,” said Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) on Thursday, flanked by families of the Newtown victims. “We may have lost the first vote, but we’re going to win the last one,” added Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.).

They aren’t just blowing hot air, says Jonathan Weisman in The New York Times. Congressional Democrats and the White House are quietly renewing their effort to pass gun safety legislation “amid delicate talks on a new background-check measure that advocates hope could change enough votes from no to yes.” The number of votes needed is daunting, and Reid warned that any new measure can’t be weaker than the one stymied in April, but this does provide supporters a concrete glimmer of hope.

The quiet talks between two senators who voted against the bill, Mark Begich (D-Alaska) and Kelly Ayotte (R-N.H.) “officially do not exist,” Weisman adds. Both lawmakers “deny the existence of negotiations or legislation.” At the same time, “other senators are openly acknowledging and encouraging the effort and say the talks are building momentum.” And if Begich and Ayotte switch their votes, supporters need at least three more nay-to-aye conversions. (Stand-in Sen. Jeffrey Chiesa [R-N.J.] is a wild card.)

Supporters of the gun measures say that if Begich and Ayotte can reach a deal on background checks that’s robust enough for Democrats and different enough to make vote-switching look credible, four other senators may join them. That would be enough to pass at least that part of the gun safety package.

But none of the potential switchers are encouraging talk of a renewed push, and Democratic leaders are increasingly urging New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg (I) to put down one of his financial weapons, his threat to spend heavily to defeat Democrats who voted against the bill. A Republican-led Senate would spell the death of gun control, Reid says he told Bloomberg, to unknown effect: “He’s kind of a free spirit, and a very rich one.”

Just because the “recalcitrant Senate succumbed to pressure from gun manufacturers and the NRA’s leadership and failed to pass even the most modest measure” doesn’t mean the post-Newtown gun control push has failed, say Robyn Thomas and Juliet Leftwich in the Los Angeles Times.

Since the Newtown tragedy, gun regulation has made enormous gains in states across the country, with more on the horizon. In fact, an unprecedented number of gun control laws have been introduced, debated, voted on and enacted this year. What a difference Sandy Hook and six months have made…. In all, we’ve seen a year-to-year increase of 231 percent in the introduction of common sense gun-safety legislation nationwide. [Los Angeles Times]

Even the Senate bill’s defeat “was, in its way, a victory,” say Thomas and Leftwich, who work for the Law Center to Prevent Gun Violence.

The fact that it was introduced, that hearings were held, and that it got 55 votes represents progress. After the vote, several senators felt real repercussions from their decision to vote against the bill, including Sen. Kelly Ayotte (R-N.H.), whose approval rating dropped by more than 15 percent immediately after the background check vote. There are now real consequences for legislators who choose not to represent the will of their constituents on this issue. [Los Angeles Times]

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June 11, 2013 · 12:01 PM

John Boehner, Eric Cantor to meet Newtown families

Eric Cantor and John Boehner are pictured. | AP Photo

Sandy Hook families are keeping pressure on lawmakers to expand background checks. | AP Photo

Politico

Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) and Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-Va.) will meet this week with the families who lost relatives in the Newtown, Conn., shooting.

The meeting will be Thursday, during the group’s most recent swing through Washington, D.C.

“Speaker Boehner’s heart goes out to the victims of this senseless tragedy, and their families,” Boehner spokesman Michael Steel said. “He wants to hear their stories and talk about ways to reduce the culture of violence in our country.”

The Republican House hasn’t attempted to tighten gun laws in the wake of the shooting — and has shown little appetite to do so. GOP leadership has prepared some options if the Senate passed tighter gun restrictions, but a move to tighten background checks on commercial gun sales failed in March.

House Republicans have privately considered renewing the current background check system, promoting legislation to deal with violence in society. They would also consider moving a Republican gun control bill drafted by Sens. Ted Cruz (Texas) and Chuck Grassley (Iowa).

Families of several Sandy Hook shooting victims arrive on Capitol Hill this week to try and resurrect the gun control debate.

A nonprofit group called Sandy Hook Promise, which was created in the wake of the shootings is intended to spark a legislative dialogue and action on guns, is bringing to the Hill members of seven families of Sandy Hook Elementary School victims, a spokeswoman confirmed to POLITICO.

The families will meet with members of both the House and the Senate and will be pushing the background check legislation and the House companion bill. The families will also begin discussions with lawmakers on mental health legislation.

The nonprofit will host Nelba Marquez-Greene, Neil Heslin, Nicole Hockley, Terri and Matthew Rousseau, Bill Sherlach, David and Francine Wheeler, and Mark Barden, whose family was the subject of a long profile in The Washington Post on Sunday.

The return to Washington by the families will occur on Tuesday and Wednesday and was first reported by The Associated Press.

The Capitol Hill lobbying comes the same week as the six-month anniversary of the mass shooting. Connecticut Gov. Dannel Malloy, a Democrat, will lead a moment of silence for victims in Newtown on Friday at 9:30 a.m., which will kick off a national bus tour by Mayors Against Illegal Guns to lobby members of Congress to support background checks.

The Senate’s background check legislation authored by Sens. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) and Pat Toomey (R-Pa.) failed in April, but Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) has indicated he plans to huddle with Manchin and Vice President Joe Biden on ways to revive the legislation.

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· 5:40 AM

Tuesday Blog Roundup – 6-11-2013

Julian Assange (l) and Edward Snowden (r)

Assange to fleeing leaker: Go here…

Calif. Gunman Studied Gaming Tech

Did Alleged NSA Leaker Work Alone?

Who is Edward Snowden? – NBCNews.com

Hillary Clinton’s brilliant new Twitter profile

E. W. Jackson’s Christine O’Donnell problem

Obama Administration To End Age Restrictions On Plan B

Is Cory Booker really a shoo-in for Frank Lautenberg’s Senate seat?

Snowden Helped Guardian Reporter With Secure Communication System

Potential Trayvon Martin case jurors get look at defendant George Zimmerman

 

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June 5, 2013 · 9:30 AM

Mitch McConnell Charges ‘Culture Of Intimidation’ On Obama Nominees

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell suggested Democrats are fueling a “culture of intimidation” when it comes to advancing President Obama’s nominees. (Photo credit: Alex Wong/Getty Images)

Who’s intimidating who here?

Mr. McConnell appears to display a classic case of projection in this instance.

The Huffington Post

Senate Republicans have come up with lots of reasons for not wanting to advance President Barack Obama’s nominees to the powerful U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit, whether it be false accusations of “court-packing” or claims that the court doesn’t need its three vacancies filled because it’s not busy enough.

On Tuesday, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) argued there was another problem with moving Obama’s nominees: a “culture of intimidation” being fueled by Democrats.

“There’s a culture of intimidation throughout the executive branch of the federal government,” McConnell told reporters in response to a question about nominations and listed a number of agencies. “There’s also a culture of intimidation here in the Senate.”

McConnell accused Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) of planning to break a promise he made in January about not messing with Senate filibuster rules. Reid has been hinting for weeks that he may be ready for a filibuster fight this summer if Republicans don’t ease off their blocking of Obama’s nominees. Plenty of Democratssupport changing the rules so that nominees would require only a simple majority to be confirmed, versus the current 60-vote threshold.

It’s still not clear whether Reid will actually follow through with changing the rules, but McConnell hammered him for signaling that he may do so.

Continued…

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June 4, 2013 · 2:45 PM

Marco Rubio: Immigration Reform Doesn’t Have 60 Votes

This do nothing congress is worse than the last one.  Their plan is to stall or stop President Obama’s agenda at all cost.  Anyone that’s not living on Mars would know this by now.  

We are so divided as a country that the negative activity coming from the GOP may not affect their ability to garner more seats in the House in the 2014 mid-term elections.  Especially since their redistricting (aka gerrymandering) efforts have paid off even when they lost a general election in 2012.

The Obama campaign committee and the Democratic National Committee will have to be as organized as they were in 2012 to defeat this rigged process of winning seats by the GOP.  President Obama’s last two years and the agenda he wants to carry out depend on it.

The Huffington Post

Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.), a member of the bipartisan “gang of eight” authoring comprehensive immigration reform, said Tuesday that the bill does not have the votes to pass the Senate.

“I think even the Democrats would concede that,” he said on “Fox and Friends.” “One of the things we’ve learned over the last few weeks — through the open process that happened through the committee process and all the public input that we’ve gotten — is how little confidence people have that the federal government will enforce the law.”

He added, “I’m optimistic something good for our country can happen, but it needs to happen the right way.”

Rubio’s comment contradicts recent statements by Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.), who said that the bill had 60 votes for passage to avoid a filibuster. “I think we have 60 votes. Remember, we start out at 55 Democrats. I think the most I’ll lose is two or three. Let’s say I wind up with 52 Democrats. I only need eight Republicans, and I already have four, so that should be pretty easy,” he said on the Nevada television program “To The Point” last week.

Sen. Robert Menendez (D-N.J.) has also agreed with Rubio that the bill does not yet have the votes. “We need to add more votes on the floor,” he told Univision in late May. “That means that the community in your state, in every state, should be contacting your state’s two U.S. senators, saying that they want comprehensive immigration reform, that they are going to judge their political future based on this vote. And if we do this, both in the Senate and later with the members of the House of Representatives, we can achieve the victory that we want.”

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June 3, 2013 · 11:15 AM

Remembering Frank Lautenberg’s Progressive Legacy

We need more Senators like Sen. Lautenberg.  He will be missed.

Think Progress

Sen. Frank Lautenberg (D-NJ), the last remaining World War II veteran in the Senate, died on Monday morning at the age of 89, after struggling for months with poor health.

Throughout his long career in the Senate — he held two different Senate seats — Lautenberg championed a long list of progressive causes from women’s health to gun safety, LGBT rights, and anti-tobacco laws, making him one of the loudest and most effective lawmakers of his time. Here is just a short list of some of Lautenberg’s most progressive causes and accomplishments:

1. Lautenberg helped write the law banning smoking on airplanes, which helped start the movement towards smoke-free public spaces.

2. In 1989, Lautenberg co-authored an amendment that designated Soviet Jews as a “persecuted minority” in the Soviet Union and therefore eligible for admission to the United States without regard to regular immigration quotas. The measure allowed thousands of persecuted Jews to immigrate into the United States.

3. Wrote the law banning smoking in all federally funded places that serve children. He was also the author of legislation to ban smoking in federal buildings.

4. Wrote the domestic violence gun ban to protect women and children by keeping spousal and child abusers from owning guns. Gun safety advocates are now seeking to strengthen the law.

5. Strongly supported eliminating $24 billion in “immoral” subsidies for big oil companies, noting on the floor of the Senate that “A single oil company CEO makes more in one year than all the people in that county all together. They’re already contributing to his salary when they fill up at the gas tank.”

6. Wrote the Responsible Education about Life (REAL) Act, which provides funding for comprehensive sex education, and the Access to Birth Control (ABC) Act that would prohibit pharmacies from denying access to birth control. As he said on the floor in March of 2012, “So I want them to have doctors making decisions, not some employer who has a self-righteous moral view that he wants to impose on my daughter, my granddaughter, my wife.”

7. An original cosponsor of the Family and Medical Leave Act, which allows people to take time off work to care for sick children or parents.

8. Coauthored and helped secure funding for the Ryan White CARE Act, provides services to over half a million people living with HIV/AIDS and offers treatment for low-income, uninsured and under-insured patients.

9. Wrote the Toxic Right to Know law to make sure local communities are informed about harmful toxins that chemical facilities are releasing into the air.

10. Coauthored a 2007 law to increase the fuel efficiency of cars and trucks.

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· 5:45 AM

Monday Blog Roundup – June 3, 2013

What’s Happening In Turkey?

U.S. and China to Hold Talks on Hacking

The 11 Biggest Conservative Scandal Flops

Storm Chasers Killed by Oklahoma Tornado

Monsanto Messes with World Wheat Market

Chelsea Clinton’s mother-in-law seeks House seat

Goals to Fulfill and Foes to Foil Keep Holder Going

Four Years After Murder of Dr. George Tiller, His Wichita

Cigarette Maker Funded Dark-Money Conservative Groups

Boxer, with more women in Senate, pushes military to end sexual assaults

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June 2, 2013 · 5:08 AM

Ted Cruz’s personality problem

Ted Cruz's personality problem

Ted Cruz (Credit: Jeff Malet, maletphoto.com)

From where I stand, Ted Cruz is an opportunistic nitwit.

He’s a freshman senator trying his best to make his mark with the Tea Party faithful.  It also appears he has ambitious plans to run for the presidency in 2016.

Salon

The Texas senator is annoying, and doesn’t play well with others. Will that doom his White House ambitions?

Ted Cruz has sharp elbows. He’s already managed to annoy several senators, including Republicans, and sparked what appears to be a full-on feud with Sen. John McCain. He also wants to be president of the United States.

Do those things go together? The political scientist John Sides thinks it’s going to be a problem:

[T]o be the Republican nominee, he’ll need the support of his Republican colleagues. The 2012 election once again showed—and despite some skepticism—that it is very hard to win the nomination unless you’re preferred by a substantial chunk, if not the vast majority of, your party’s leaders (as was Romney). Which is to say, it pays to be nice to your colleagues. It’s no guarantee, of course: junior Senator Hillary Clinton kept her head down and played nice, and lost the nomination. John McCain often irritated his fellow Republicans, but still mustered enough support within the party to win the nomination.

But political scientist Dave Hopkins isn’t so sure: “Don’t think this is the problem for Cruz that John does. McCain bugged Sen colleagues/leaders too; still won ’08 nom.”

They’re both right … but Dave is more right than John is.

It’s absolutely true, as Sides, the co-author of “The Gamble: Choice and Chance in the 2012 Presidential Election,” says, that party leaders are important to winning presidential nominations.

But U.S. political parties are large, and have many leaders, only a small subset of whom are members of Congress. There are governors, interest group leaders, activists, fundraisers and more. And there’s a long history, from Lyndon Johnson in 1960 through Dick Gephardt in 2004, of candidates being overrated because they had strong support within Congress – just as there’s a long history, from John Kennedy through John McCain, of candidates doing well with less-than-stellar Hill reputations (not just nomination winners; John Edwards wasn’t exactly a legislative dynamo but did just fine in 2004; Gary Hart had few supporters from the Senate and almost won in 1984).

To back up a bit: There are really two tests for whether someone is a viable candidate for a presidential nomination. The candidate needs to have conventional qualifications, and with (by then) four years in the Senate, Cruz qualifies, albeit just barely. The candidate must also be within the mainstream of his or her party when it comes to public policy. This is where Cruz is a solid step ahead of his fellow Tea Partying Sen. Rand Paul – as far as we know so far, Cruz doesn’t have major issue areas, such as Paul has with foreign policy, where there are important differences between him and key party groups.

Where Cruz stands out, and where he gets in trouble with his Senate colleagues, is in his willingness to use demagogic rhetoric (such as his McCarthyite and uncollegial attacks on Chuck Hagel) and his frequent attacks on “Republican leaders” or the “Republican establishment.” Many members of Congress may see themselves as targets of those attacks.

But outside of those chambers (and even to some extent within them), there’s a curious phenomenon in both parties, and usefully for Cruz it’s probably even stronger in the Republican Party than it is among Democrats: people who by any objective standards function as party leaders but nevertheless think of themselves as outsiders and rebels.

Indeed, in U.S. politics, hardly anyone thinks of themselves as the “establishment” – that’s always those other folks. Tea Party activists hardly think of themselves as “Republican leaders” no matter how long they have been active within GOP politics, and how many battles they’ve won. Neither do most talk show hosts – my guess is that Rush Limbaugh would throw a fit if you called him a longtime leader of the Republican establishment that he regularly mocks. Even within government, my guess is that there are a fair number of staffers in Barack Obama’s White House, even some who previously served with Bill Clinton, who think of themselves as infiltrating the establishment, not embodying it – and I’m sure the same was true during George W. Bush’s presidency, just as it was during Richard Nixon’s and Ronald Reagan’s presidencies.

All of which means that even if those who actually have to work with Ted Cruz may not like him, there are still plenty of party leaders who may interpret his attacks on “party leaders” as those of an ally ready to help them storm the gates, rather than as a threat to their insider status.

None of which means that Cruz is a sure thing, of course. It’s very early, and it’s extremely difficult to predict how any of the candidates will navigate the process, or even what strengths and weaknesses they will reveal along the way. Cruz surely won’t be the only candidate vying for the support of Tea Party and other extreme conservative party elites. At this point, he’s a potentially viable candidate, no more.

But feuding with John McCain, and having other Republican senators uncomfortable with his excesses? That’s not going to be what stops him.

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May 28, 2013 · 10:36 AM

Obama To Nominate 3 For D.C. Circuit Court Of Appeals, Setting Up Filibuster Fight

This is long overdue.  Kudos to Senator Harry Reid for his persistence in bringing the GOP’s perpetual acts of obstructing the president’s agenda to the forefront.

The Huffington Post

President Barack Obama plans to nominate three judges to a critical federal court in a move that The New York Times says “will effectively be daring Republicans to find specific ground to filibuster all the nominees.”

The United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit is considered nearly as powerful as the Supreme Court and is known as a proving ground for potential high-court nominees. The three vacancies are part of a staffing crisis that has plagued the judiciary, as Obama’s nominees have been bottled up in the Senate by GOP obstruction. And while he has had to wait longer than past presidents to have judges approved, he has also nominated them at a slower pace.

A Senate Democratic aide said that Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) has been pressing the president to make such a move to raise the pressure on Republicans. “That is what Reid has been pressing for and why we cleared Sri last week,” the aide said, referring Sri Srinivasan, who was recently approved for the Court, reducing the gap from four to three. He was approved 97-0 once Republicans dropped procedural objections.

A major reason Obama has tapped fewer judges, HuffPost’s Jen Bendery recently reported, has to do with Senate tradition, which requires home state senators to put forward a slate of acceptable nominees from which the president chooses. But GOP senators have declined to put forward a slate. In some cases, they have then subsequently complained about the slow pace of nominations.

Sen. Charles Grassley (R-Iowa) recently slammed the idea that Obama would fill all the D.C. court vacancies as “packing the court,” but was quickly corrected by a colleague, who noted that the term refers to an attempt to increase the number of judges on a panel in order to tip the balance, not to fill existing vacancies.

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) made a similar charge. “The whole purpose here is to stack the court,” he said on the Senate floor during debate over obstruction and Srinivasan’s nomination. “The real issue here is I guess [Reid] disagrees with the rulings on the D.C. Circuit.”

Obama’s move coincides with Reid’s increased attention on Senate rules related to nominations. All indications are that there will be a showdown in July that could result in Democrats implementing the so-called “nuclear option,” which would eliminate the ability to filibuster nominations.

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