DEMOCRATS AND THE IRAN DEAL

Democrats are critical of the Iran deal but they stand behind the president in this agreement. The next few years will see if their gamble in supporting the president pays off.

Top congressional Democrats have done a great job laying out the terms of the Iran nuclear deal, a Free Beacon SuperCut finds.

These members of Congress explained how Iran will ramp up its campaign of terrorism and Middle East destabilization with funds gained through the nuclear deal. They expressed “concern”—grave concern, even—over key concessions such as the curtailment of inspections on Iran’s military sites, the removal of a ban on arms sales to Iran, and the 15-year sunset clause on restrictions to Iran’s ability to enrich nuclear material.

Still, as other Democrats have unceasingly reminded us, the Iran deal was ultimately an inviolable vote of conscience for each member of Congress.

FAILURE OF CONGRESS TO DO ITS JOB

The media and the American public are criticizing a do-nothing Congress.  But who is not doing anything in Congress?  It is Harry Reid's Democrat controlled Senate according to Jennifer Rubin at WAPO.  They have not considered almost any of the legislation passed by the Republican controlled House.  Harry Reid could at least have a vote on the legislation and then as usually happens when the two bodies of Congress disagree sit down in a joint committee and try to hammer out compromise legislation.

The Senate has not voted on jobs bills sent by the House, any “fix” for Obamacare or a domestic energy development bill. The Senate will not take up a real vote on the Keystone XL pipeline. It will not take up Iran sanctions. It did pass Veterans Affairs legislation and Iron Dome funding, not exactly difficult votes. Other than that, not much of consequence has gone on in the Senate, but not because of Republican objections. The GOP would love to take up many of these subjects, debate them and offer amendments; it is Reid who either won’t take up meaty issues or won’t allow any minority amendments, a practice he has taken further than any modern Senate leader. Speaking to the press on Tuesday, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) said succinctly: “Well, if you look at the last six years, the president and his people, I think, believed they got just about everything they wanted legislatively the first two years.”

IMMIGRATION POLICY

From ABC News -- a confrontation between Nancy Pelosi and a Republican congressman on the House floor.  He accused her and the Obama administration of not doing anything with the border crisis in 2008 and 2009 when Democrats controlled the House.

In an unusual breach of decorum, even for the divided Congress, House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi chased Rep. Tom Marino across the House floor, taking offense at comments by the Pennsylvania Republican during debate on the border funding bill Friday night.

“We don’t have law and order,” Marino began as he wrapped up his comments on the border supplemental. “My colleagues on the other side don’t want to do anything about it.”

“You know something that I find quite interesting about the other side? Under the leadership of the former Speaker [Pelosi], and under the leadership of their former leader [Rep. Steny Hoyer], when in 2009 and 2010, they had the House, the Senate and the White House, and they knew this problem existed,” he continued. “They didn’t have the strength to go after it back then. But now are trying to make a political issue out of it now.”

Off-mic, Pelosi then approached Marino, crossing the aisle in view of cameras, and apparently challenged Marino’s assertion that Democrats did not do anything about the issue when they had majority control.

“Yes it is true,” Marino replied directly to Pelosi, who was House speaker in those years. “I did the research on it. You might want to try it. You might want to try it, Madam Leader. Do the research on it. Do the research. I did it. That’s one thing that you don’t do.”

ILLEGAL BUREAUCRATIC RULES

From WAPO.  "Study: Hundreds of rules passed by Obama administration are technically illegal."  What is the difference between "technically illegal" and "illegal".  Could I use this phrasing to get out of a traffic ticket?

There’s a problem, however: Technically speaking, these and about 1,800 other regulations shouldn’t be in effect, because they weren’t reported to Congress as required. Yet there is little that lawmakers or the courts can do about it.

The situation illustrates the obscure, byzantine process used to create federal regulations — and how easily it can go awry.

“It’s pretty apparent that the system is broken,” said Curtis Copeland, a retired Congressional Research Service staffer who discovered the issue. “It would seem this is one area where congressional Republicans and Democrats could get together and say: ‘This is crazy. We can fix this.’ ”

Under a 1996 statute, most federal rules are supposed to be reported to the House and Senate in paper form and to the Government Accountability Office electronically. But since the start of 2012, that hasn’t happened for many of the regulations put out by the Obama administration, either because of bureaucratic oversight or because they were considered too minor to be reported.

IMPEACHMENT

The Democrat congresswoman who co-sponsored a bill to impeach George W. Bush now says, "we never tried to impeach Bush."  A lie or a very short memory?  I would hope for a higher level of representative in Washington, but this is probably typical.

LEAKED DEMOCRAT PLANS

Every candidate has a campaign plan, but these are seldom known in there entirety.  A Democrat candidate running for the U.S. Senate in Georgia, Michelle Nunn, has had her plan leaked and it is not pretty.  It would be interesting to know who leaked it and is there some kind of internal power struggle going on.

Anyway, her entire blueprint for faux authenticity has been published, and it contains all of the usual and contrived political maneuvering that voters find so disgusting. The plan involves trying to create a fake, gun-toting, rural-friendly image for the wannabe Georgian senator supplied by a Democratic PR firm based in San Francisco, and exposes her positions on issues as basic as her commitment to Israel as contrived to drive her fundraising efforts.

The issue of Democrat candidates hiding their real positions is raised in the column.

CIA BUGS SENATE INTELLIGENCE COMMITTEE

From the Guardian.  Obama knew about it and did nothing about it.  I don't recall this ever happening before.  Executive power run amok.

McClatchy and the New York Times reported Wednesday that the CIA had secretly monitored computers used by committee staffers preparing the inquiry report, which is said to be scathing not only about the brutality and ineffectiveness of the agency’s interrogation techniques but deception by the CIA to Congress and policymakers about it. The CIA sharply disputes the committee’s findings.

“If, as alleged in the media, CIA accessed without permission or authority a computer network dedicated for use by a Senate committee, it would be an extremely serious matter. Such activity, if it occurred as alleged, would impede Congress’ ability to carry out its constitutional oversight responsibilities and could violate federal law,” Levin said in a statement on Wednesday.

CBO ANALYSIS OF OBAMACARE, 2014

The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) just looks at the facts--it is not a partisan group.  Its analysis of the impact of Obamacare is grim.  It is slowing growth and an estimated 2.3 million jobs will be lost.

CNBC.

The Hill.

Fox News. 

The White House response. Jobs have been added because of Obamacare.  A critique of the White House statement.

OBAMA ON CIVILITY

A summary of his language used in the recent kerfuffle with the Republican controlled House.  A few years back Obama promised a more civil discourse.

Historian Michael Beschloss said Obama was trying to "make this a better country." CBS News history commentator Douglas Brinkley surmised "this guy might be a great man" and conservative-turned-liberal author Garry Wills compared Obama's words to both the Gettysburg Address and Shakespeare's Henry V Agincourt speech.

If "their death helps usher in more civility in our public discourse," the president said, it is "because only a more civil and honest public discourse can help us face up to the challenges of our nation in a way that would make them proud."

Unfortunately Obama has not followed his own advice.

HISTORICAL SUPPORT FOR HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES IN BUDGET BATTLE

This is the word from James Madison in Federalist Papers No. 58.  The House of Representatives is to protect the people from the Senate and presidency.

WHO TO BLAME FOR THE SHUTDOWN?

Republicans in the House may have legislation that Harry Reid, Obama, and liberal Democrats don't like. . .but all I hear from Reid and Obama is that they will not negotiate.  Somehow negotiation has to take place.  The Republicans have something on the table so Reid and Obama should start negotiating.  This is like a football player negotiating with a team's owner.  Normally they negotiate before a stalemate takes place.

The Tatler has a summary of decisions made to lead us to this wall of non-negotiation.  If the report is right this is Reid's shutdown, not Obama's.

Is this really the “Republican” shutdown?  No. The roads of blame all end with Sen. Harry Reid and the Democrats.  First, Reid reportedly talked Obama out of negotiating with Republicans to avoid a government shutdown.

When the president considered sitting down with the four congressional leaders in the White House ahead of the deadline to avert a government shutdown, Reid privately urged Obama to call off the meeting, according to several people familiar with the situation,” Politico reported. “Reid believed that it would amount to nothing more than a photo-op that would give the false impression that a serious negotiation was occurring, even warning he wouldn’t attend such a session. Obama scrapped it.”

DEMOCRATS UPSET WITH OBAMA

It remains to be seen what the final vote will be but a number of Democrats are upset with Obama's decisions on Syria.

Representative Charles Rangel (D, New York):

Speaking on MSNBC, Rangel said "I love Obama" and you'll "never find a truer Democrat than me."

But he said the idea that a president could draw a red line and push the nation into war was "unheard of.

"So of course it's embarrassing, I wish it didn't happen. I guess Secretary Kerry is even more embarrassed than me after making his emotional speech that this was urgent."

From Politico:
“This could be the biggest miscalculation of his presidency,” a senior House Democrat told POLITICO Sunday. “Not only is his credibility on the line but the country’s credibility is on the line, so he is rolling the dice by taking this to Congress.”

The prospects for passage of Obama’s war resolution are dim. Prominent Democratic allies of the president have said they won’t vote for it in its current form. Senate Judiciary Chairman Pat Leahy (D-Vt.) said Sunday that his aides are working on new language. But even a resolution that circumscribes the president’s authority to strike Syria more than the relatively open-ended version he sent to the Hill Saturday would face a tough vote in both chambers.

Another Democrat congressman with concerns. 

Rep. Alan Grayson (D-Fla.) said Monday that the administration's argument that letting Syria's use of sarin gas last month go unchecked would hurt U.S. security was "not logical" and did not "make any sense."

CONGRESSWOMAN ASKS FOR BRIBE????

A voicemail to a lobbyist from Congresswoman Norton asks for a contribution and she leaves a voicemail!  Is it legalized bribery or just typical politics?

OBAMACARE

Democrat leaders in Congress were seeking a way to get around Obamacare while sticking the rest of the country with it.

SENATE DEMS PROTECT CORPORATE TAX LOOPHOLE

Political hypocrisy is so interesting.

Democrats and Obama may be demonizing Republicans for being the protectors of fat-cat Wall Street capitalists and corporation CEOs, but they are doing a good job of protecting their moneyed friends. Democrats don't like big oil, but if you are not part of corporate big oil, being a fat-cat corporation is okay. Normally the press doesn't cover this type of hypocrisy.

The following is from the ABC News report:

Listening to the White House, you'd think the key to averting the across-the-board spending cuts (the dreaded "sequester") set to in place on March 1 is closing the tax break for owners of private jets.

Here was White House Press Secretary Jay Carney last week: "How do you explain to a senior that we're doing this, asking you to sacrifice, but we're not saying that corporate jet owners should lose their special tax incentive."

On Wednesday, Carney summed up the Republican position this way: "We'd rather see our national security undermined than corporate jet owners, God forbid, give up their tax break."

And President Obama in an interview Wednesday with KAKE-TV in Wichita: "What we don't want to do is give somebody who's buying a corporate jet an extra tax break."

Carney has brought up the corporate jet tax break at every single briefing this week.

Listening to the White House, you might think that the "balanced" Democratic plan to avert the spending cuts would close that loophole for private jets.

But you would be wrong.

The Senate Democratic plan - which has been endorsed by the White House and is, in fact, the only Democratic plan actively under consideration right now - doesn't touch corporate jets.

We asked Carney if the White House is upset that the Senate Democrats' plan protects corporate jets. His answer: "Our position - in the president's plan that has been available for ages but republicans and some reporters pretend doesn't exist - is that the corporate jet loophole should be eliminated. We'd be fine if it were eliminated as part of the revenue component of a sequester buy-down or as part of broader tax reform in a bigger balanced deficit reduction deal. Either way. And either way, Republicans oppose it, and would rather see sequester hit than ask corporate jet owners to give up their special tax break. How is that not true?"

Even if the Senate plan did end the tax break for private jets, it wouldn't make much of a difference. The tax break - which allows the owners of private jets to depreciate their airplanes over five years instead of the standard seven years for commercial airplanes - would raise less than $300 million a year. That's a tiny fraction of the $85 billion in across-the-board cuts scheduled to go into effect this year.  But - even so - the Senate Democratic plan allows that tax break to continue - unchanged.

The White House also frequently mentions tax breaks for oil and gas companies. The Democratic plan does eliminate some of those, but even that doesn't add up to much: Just $2 billion in the Senate Democratic plan.

BOEHNER CHALLENGES OBAMA ON SEQUESTER

Boehner argues that sequester was Obama's idea so he needs to fix it and stop blaming Republicans.

But Boehner reminded Obama that the automatic cut idea was originally proffered by the White House during the debt-ceiling talks of 2011. He said Congress "reluctantly accepted the president's demand" and claimed it's now up to Obama to find the escape hatch. 

"So, as the president's outrage about the sequester grows in coming days, Republicans have a simple response: Mr. President, we agree that your sequester is bad policy. What spending are you willing to cut to replace it?" Boehner asked. 

SENATE DEMOCRATS NOW CONCERNED ABOUT OBAMACARE

From the WSJ.  The media seems to have ignored the questioning of an administration official by Senate Democrats.

"Powerful Democrats" subjected a top Obama administration health-care official "to withering criticism" last week, notes Walter Russell Mead. When Gary Cohen, head of the Center for Consumer Information and Insurance Oversight, appeared before the Senate Finance Committee, chairman Max Baucus of Montana and Sens. Ron Wyden (Ore.), Bill Nelson (Fla.) and Maria Cantwell (Wash.) "tore into him."

DEMOCRAT SENATE CRONYISM

Senator Max Baucus (D, Montana) is taking care of his friends and Obama allowed this cronyism into fiscal cliff legislation.

“Baucus’ Finance Committee passed a bill in August extending 50 expiring deductions and credits for favored industries. At Obama’s insistence, the Baucus bill was cut and pasted word for word into the cliff legislation…

Pick any one of the special-interest tax breaks extended by the cliff deal, and you’re likely to find a former Baucus aide who lobbied for it on behalf of a large corporation or industry organization.”

SENATOR MENENDEZ

Surely in a 6 minute interview ABC News should have asked Senator Menendez (D, NJ) about his association with Dominican prostitutes, even if only to be given the chance to deny it.  If he were a Republican. . .

UPDATE (1/30/2013) FBI raids the office of a dentist friend linked to Senator Menendez. 

MILLIONAIRES IN CONGRESS