Harry Reid Is At It Again
When Harry Reid gets frustrated, he threatens to change the Senate’s rules to get his way.
The Senate Majority Leader, a Democrat from Nevada, has once again threatened to change the way the Senate works—this time, to push through President Obama’s nominees for several controversial appointments.
Reid wants to change the rules so that it would take only 51 votes, a simple majority, to break a filibuster. Now, it takes 60 votes to end debate.
The filibuster is a valued tool of minority Senators to keep the majority from simply enacting everything it wants. It’s one of the major differences between the House and Senate, making the Senate the more deliberative chamber.
But don’t take our word for it—Reid and President Obama already made the case for keeping the filibuster and the 60-vote rule intact. They argued quite well for it when they were in the Senate minority.
Obama said in 2005:
what [the American people] don’t expect, is for one party, be it Republican or Democrat, to change the rules in the middle of the game so that they can make all the decisions while the other party is told to sit down and keep quiet…everyone in this chamber knows that if the majority chooses to end the filibuster—if they choose to change the rules and put an end to democratic debate—then the fighting and the bitterness and the gridlock will only get worse.
Now Obama has signaled that he would support Reid’s changes. Reid argues that he just wants to pass Obama’s nominees for Cabinet positions and other agencies, and that the change would not apply to judges who enjoy lifelong appointments. Of course, once the filibuster is changed, it would be difficult to walk back the change.
All 100 Senators are invited to a closed meeting tonight to discuss the Obama nominees and Reid’s threats. We can hope that enough Senators recognize the value of the filibuster—whether they are in the minority or the majority—and preserve the ability to debate.
http://blog.heritage.org/2013/07/15/morning-bell-harry-reid-is-at-it-again/?roi=echo3-16252563306-13679106-3acb5689e487d580c13080417912b61b&utm_source=Newsletter&utm_medium=Email&utm_campaign=Morning%2BBell
Tuesday’s First Strike on the Filibuster
Reid aims to silence the minority in the Senate.
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid is pushing hard to eliminate the filibuster for executive nominations, on the grounds that Republicans have stood in the way too many times and are refusing to confirm qualified nominees. What’s so striking about this reason is that it’s false. President Obama’s success rate with nominees is actually higher than that of his Republican predecessor. Eighty-six percent of Obama’s civilian nominees — including both judicial- and executive-branch appointees — were confirmed in the 112th Congress. In the 111th Congress, his success rate was 82 percent.President Bush, by contrast, had only a 67 percent confirmation rate in the 110th Congress. Bush’s highest success rate came in the 108th Congress, which confirmed 76 percent of his nominees. So the notion that Obama is disproportionately burdened with rejection of his nominees is untrue. On Thursday, Reid announced there would be debate on Monday — and a vote on Tuesday — to change the rules governing confirmation of executive nominations. Interestingly, he scheduled the debate in the old Senate chamber. What distinguishes the old Senate chamber from the Senate floor? Lack of C-SPAN coverage, for starters. Could it be that Reid does not want the American public to see the debate unfold?
The hypocrisy — never in short supply in D.C. — is truly monumental here. Back in 2005, when the Republicans considered doing this (but didn’t), Reid said: “The filibuster is not a scheme, and it certainly isn’t new. The filibuster is far from a procedural gimmick. It’s part of the fabric of this institution we call the Senate.” Reid vowed he would never “employ or use the nuclear option” and claimed that to do so would “ruin our country.” My, how times have changed.
President Obama apparently supports Reid’s planned nuclear strike. But back in 2005, Senator Obama warned: “If the majority chooses to change the rules and put an end to democratic debate, then the fighting and bitterness and the gridlock will only get worse.” Obama has been wrong about many things, but he was certainly correct about this issue.
Bob Dove, now the parliamentarian emeritus of the Senate, started as the second assistant parliamentarian in 1966 and served as the parliamentarian until 2001. He says that ending the filibuster, which preserves the unique character of the Senate and provides for spirited debate, will pour poison into the daily workings of the Senate and cause lasting bitterness.Reid is not the only Democrat who, in 2005 at least, opposed breaking Senate rules to get rid of the filibuster. Senator Chuck Schumer (D., N.Y.) warned that it would “change the whole balance of power and checks and balances in this great Senate and great country.” And Senator Tim Johnson (D., S.D.) said the “notion that . . . rules that have been in place for generations should be eliminated and the bipartisan mandate they allow for should be eliminated is a step in the wrong direction.”
The need to put together 60 votes to break a filibuster, Johnson continued, “takes both parties by the scruff of the neck, brings them together, and says, ‘You will have to reach across the aisle and cooperate, coordinate with your colleagues from the other political party, whether or not you like it.’”
Johnson got it exactly right. The filibuster forces bipartisan consensus on legislation, which is needed to confirm the legitimacy of any proposed law to the public and the nation.
Another lawmaker who got it right in 2005 was Senator Dick Durbin (D., Il.). He observed that those “who are forcing this nuclear option on the Senate are not just breaking the rules to win, but they want to break the rules to win every time.” The fact that Obama has one of the highest confirmation rates of recent presidents is not good enough. Reid doesn’t want any opposition. It seems he wants the Senate to forsake its “advise and consent” role and simply become a rubber stamp for presidential nominees, no matter how radical, extreme, or corrupt they may be.
This is a very serious subject, but I had to laugh at one point when watching the Senate debate on Thursday. There was a discussion of Obama’s recess appointments to the National Labor Relations Board — the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals found these appointments unconstitutional because Obama made them when the Senate was not formally in recess. Reid excused the appointments by saying they were necessary because of unconscionable delays in the confirmation of the NLRB nominees.
But two of the NLRB nominees, Sharon Block and Richard Griffin, were nominated on December 15, 2011. The President appointed them only two weeks later, on January 4, 2012, claiming (unconstitutionally, as the court later judged) that the Senate was in recess. I laughed because Reid, who now argues that two weeks is an unconscionable delay, held up my nomination to the FEC for two and a half years after then-Senator Obama put a hold on it.
Why is Reid so willing to turn himself into knots to get this rule change? A clue to that question may be in an article published this January in Mother Jones, a magazine read by few conservatives. “Revealed: The Massive New Liberal Plan to Remake American Politics” describes a meeting held in Washington a month after the 2012 presidential election. The three dozen attendees represented the most powerful liberal advocacy groups and unions in the country, including the National Education Association, the Sierra Club, SEIU, the NAACP, People for the American Way, and the AFL-CIO.
These organizations provide the money, manpower, and get-out-the-vote efforts that keep Reid and the members of his caucus in the Senate. The goal of this meeting was to put together a “national, coordinated campaign” to reshape this country into a progressive utopia. They agreed upon three objectives, and one of them was getting rid of the filibuster. They planned a “coordinated push to urge” Reid to “rewrite the rules” to prevent filibusters. This change is clearly intended to allow Reid to ram through legislation and nominees with no opposition whatsoever, a complete and total elimination of the rights of the minority.
That brings up a final point. Reid is saying that this change will apply only to executive-branch nominees. But in a discussion on Friday at the Heritage Foundation, three experts on Senate rules, including Dove, said that such a change could not be successfully limited to executive-branch nominations. In all likelihood, it would quickly extend to judicial nominations and legislation.
Many of the same liberals currently demonizing the Senate’s filibuster rule sang a different song earlier this year when Senator Rand Paul (R., Ky.) used a one-man filibuster to generate a continuing public debate about the drone issue. They also seemed pleased this month when Wendy Davis, a Democratic state senator, filibustered an abortion bill in Austin. Both episodes illustrate how filibusters can bring the public’s attention to an important issue (or important nomination).
But Reid wants to turn the Senate into a majoritarian institution like the House of Representatives, where the minority has no role to play. This would damage the Senate, limiting the public debate and abandoning the broad consensus so essential to good governance.
http://www.nationalreview.com/article/353401/tuesdays-first-strike-filibuster-hans-von-spakovsky
Reid’s place in Senate history: a nuclear black chapter?
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid can dish it out, but he can’t take it.Harry Reid was Senate Democratic Whip when George W. Bush became president. Under him, the Senate Democrats mounted an unprecedented filibuster campaign against Bush’s judicial nominees. According to The Heritage Foundation’s Todd Gaziano, the average number of days a Court of Appeals nominee waited for final Senate action grew from 39 during the Reagan Presidency, 95 during the George H. W. Bush Presidency, and 115 during the Clinton Presidency to 400 during the first 22 months of the second Bush presidency.
The Democrats’ unprecedented delays imposed upon Bush’s judicial nominees resulted in talk of using the nuclear option to end the Democrats’ filibusters. The nuclear option is shorthand for changing the Senate rules so that presidential nominations would no longer be subject to filibuster — meaning they could be approved with just 51 votes, as opposed to the usual 60.
This is something that Senate Democrats warned about in apocalyptic terms when they were in the minority.
In May 2005 it looked as if Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist was actually going to pull the nuclear trigger. Sen. Reid gave a good speech on the Senate floor explaining why nuking the filibuster would be wrong:
The filibuster is far from a “procedural gimmick.” It is part of the fabric of this institution. It was well known in colonial legislatures, and it is an integral part of our country’s 217 years of history.Reid wasn’t the only Senate Democrat to speak against the nuclear option in 2005. Senators Obama, Biden, Clinton, Baucus, Dodd, Feinstein, and Schumer, also railed against the proposed use of reconciliation to end Democrat filibusters.
The first filibuster in the U.S. Congress happened in 1790. It was used by lawmakers from Virginia and South Carolina who were trying to prevent Philadelphia from hosting the first Congress.
Since 1790, the filibuster has been employed hundreds and hundreds of times.
Senators have used it to stand up to popular presidents. To block legislation. And yes – even to stall executive nominees.
[. . .]It encourages moderation and consensus. It gives voice to the minority, so that cooler heads may prevail.
It also separates us from the House of Representatives – where the majority rules.
And it is very much in keeping with the spirit of the government established by the Framers of our Constitution: Limited Government…Separation of Powers…Checks and Balances.
Mr. President, the filibuster is a critical tool in keeping the majority in check. This central fact has been acknowledged and even praised by Senators from both parties.
[. . .]
For 200 years, we’ve had the right to extended debate. It’s not some “procedural gimmick.”
It’s within the vision of the Founding Fathers of our country. They established a government so that no one person – and no single party – could have total control.
Some in this Chamber want to throw out 217 years of Senate history in the quest for absolute power.
You can watch highlights of their speeches in this video:
Barack Obama 4/25/05: “The President hasn’t gotten his way. And that is now prompting a change in the Senate rules that really I think would change the character of the Senate forever…what I worry about would be that you essentially still have two chambers the House and the Senate but you have simply majoritarian absolute power on either side, and that’s just not what the founders intended.”
Hillary Clinton 5/23/2005: “So this president has come to the majority here in the Senate and basically said ‘change the rules.’ ‘Do it the way I want it done.’ And I guess there just weren’t very many voices on the other side of the isle that acted the way previous generations of senators have acted and said ‘Mr. President we are with you, we support you, but that’s a bridge too far we can’t go there.’ You have to restrain yourself Mr. President.”
Charles Schumer 5/18/2005: “We are on the precipice of a crisis, a constitutional crisis. The checks and balances which have been at the core of this Republic are about to be evaporated by the nuclear option. The checks and balances which say that if you get 51% of the vote you don’t get your way 100% of the time. It is amazing it’s almost a temper tantrum.”
Harry Reid 5/18/2005: “Mr. President the right to extended debate is never more important than the one party who controls congress and the white house. In these cases the filibuster serves as a check on power and preserves our limited government.”>
Dianne Feinstein 5/18/2005: “The nuclear option if successful will turn the senate into a body that could have its rules broken at any time by a majority of senators unhappy with any position taken by the minority. It begins with judicial nominations. Next will be executive appointments and then legislation.”
Joe Biden 5/23/2005: “This nuclear option is ultimately an example of the arrogance of power. It is a fundamental power grab.”
Harry Reid 5/18/2005: “But no we are not going to follow the Senate rules. No, because of the arrogance of power of this Republican administration.”
Chris Dodd 5/18/2005: “I’ve never passed a single bill worth talking about that didn’t have a lead co-sponsor that was a Republican. And I don’t know of a single piece of legislation that’s ever been adopted here that didn’t have a Republican and Democrat in the lead. That’s because we need to sit down and work with each other. The rules of this institution have required that. That’s why we exist. Why have a bicameral legislative body? Why have two chambers? What were the framers thinking about 218 years ago? They understood Mr. President that there is a tyranny of the majority.”
Dianne Feinstein 5/18/2005: “If the Republican leadership insists on forcing the nuclear option the senate becomes ipso facto the House of Representatives where the majority rules supreme and the party of power can dominate and control the agenda with absolute power.”
Hillary Clinton 5/23/2005: “You’ve got majority rule and then you have the senate over here where people can slow things down where they can debate where they have something called the filibuster. You know it seems like it’s a little less than efficient — well that’s right it is. And deliberately designed to be so.”
Joe Biden 5/23/05: “I say to my friends on the Republican side you may own the field right now but you won’t own it forever I pray God when the Democrats take back control we don’t make the kind of naked power grab you are doing.”
Charles Schumer 5/23/2005: “They want their way every single time. And they will change the rules, break the rules, and misread the constitution so that they will get their way.”
Hillary Clinton 5/23/2005: “The Senate is being asked to turn itself inside out, to ignore the precedent to ignore the way our system has work, the delicate balance that we have obtain that has kept this constitution system going, for immediate gratification of the present President.”
Max Baucus 5/19/2005: “This is the way Democracy ends. Not with a bomb but with a gavel.”Cooler heads prevailed in 2005. The so-called Gang of 14 negotiated a compromise which avoided the deployment of the nuclear option.
In 2008, Reid talked about the importance of the filibuster with former Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle during an interview about Reid’s book, “The Good Fight.” Reid told Daschle that as long as he was the Senate leader the Senate would not face the nuclear option. That the threat of using it was a “black chapter in the history of the Senate” and that he really believes it will “ruin our country.”
Don’t take my word for it. You can watch the discussion between Reid and Daschle here. You can also read a transcript of it below:
Daschle: You talk Harry about the nuclear option, you just mentioned it on chapter seven of your book, describes the circumstances with the nuclear option. Just so our viewers can better understand, what was the nuclear option and what likelihood is there that we going to have to face nuclear option-like questions again?Reid put it this way in his book, the nuclear option “would lead to the end of the United States Senate”:
Reid: What the Republicans came up with was a way to change our country forever. They made a decision if they didn’t get every judge they wanted, every judge they wanted, then they were going to make the Senate just like the House of Representatives. We would in effect have a unicameral legislature where a simple majority would determine whatever happens.
In the House of Representatives today Pelosi is the leader. Prior to that was Hastert. Whatever they wanted, Hastret or Pelosi, they get done. The rules over there allow that. The Senate was set up to be different. That was the genius, the vision, of our founding fathers – that this bicameral legislature, which was unique, had two different duties. One, was as Franklin said, to pour the coffee into the saucer and let it cool off. That‘s why you have the ability to filibuster and to terminate filibuster. They wanted to get rid of all that. That’s what the nuke option all about.
Daschle: And is there any likelihood that we’re going to face circumstances like that again?
Reid: As long as I’m the leader, the answer is no. I think we should just forget that. That is a black chapter in the history of the Senate. I hope we never, ever get to that again. Because I really do believe it will ruin our country. I’ve said, I said during that debate, that in all my years in government, that is the most important thing I ever worked on.
“I just couldn’t believe that Bill Frist was going to do this. The storm had been gathering all year, and word from conservative columnists and in conservative circles was that Senator Frist of Tennessee, who was the Majority Leader, had decided to pursue a rules change that would kill the filibuster for judicial nominations. And once you opened that Pandora’s box, it was just a matter of time before a Senate leader who couldn’t get his way on something moved to eliminate the filibuster for regular business as well. And that, simply put, would be the end of the United States Senate.” – Harry Reid in his 2008 book “The Good Fight”Despite his strongly held beliefs about how ill advised using the nuclear option is, Reid has let it be known that he intends to use it, perhaps as early as Tuesday, to prevent Republican filibusters over Obama’s nominations. And Reid thinks he has the votes to nuke the filibuster. Why would Reid do such a thing after all he has said and written about how terrible doing so would be? What could justify Reid’s use of the nuclear option he has repeatedly said “would be the end of the United States Senate,” “would ruin the country,” and even the threat of using it was “a black chapter in the history of the Senate?”
According to the Washington Times, Reid wants to use the nuclear option to stop Republicans from being able to filibuster when Obama’s nominations to executive branch or independent agency positions – judges. Reid and Obama tried to make the case that Obama’s judicial nominations were being delayed longer — three times as longer than those of President George W. Bush, but the fact checkers debunked those claims. Politifact found those claims to be only half true, and the Washington Post’s Glenn Kessler awarded Obama’s assertion two Pinocchios.
The only thing that has changed is now the Democrats have the presidency and control the Senate. And it doesn’t matter whether the controlling party nukes the filibuster for judicial or executive nominations. As Reid has written, once you open that Pandora’s box, it’s just a matter of time before a Senate leader who can’t get his way on something moves to eliminate the filibuster for regular business as well. “And that, simply put, would be the end of the United States Senate.”
If Senator Reid does nuke the filibuster, his place in Senate history will be that nuclear black chapter the prevention of which he claims was the most important thing he ever worked on in all his years in government.
http://www.redstate.com/2013/07/15/reids-place-in-senate-history-a-nuclear-black-chapter/
If Reid Uses Nuclear Option, Napolitano Replacement Could Go Unopposed
New rules would weaken filibuster option
President Barack Obama will now have to appoint a nominee to replace Napolitano, a wrinkle that could impact the high-stakes fight between Senate Democrats and Republicans over whether to change the rules of the upper chamber and weaken the filibuster.
Over the past week, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D., Nev.) has threatened to use the so-called “nuclear option” to weaken the filibuster, a procedural move traditionally used by the minority party to block nominees and legislation.
If Reid used the nuclear option, the new Homeland Security secretary would be the first major replacement under the new rules.
The office of Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R., Ky.), who has fiercely opposed Reid’s maneuver, said such a change would allow the new DHS head to sail through the confirmation process with little opposition.
“If Democrats actually do the nuclear option, it would reduce the confirmation process to one party rule,” a McConnell spokesman told the Washington Free Beacon. “President Obama could install controversial nominees with a complicit Democrat majority and no real input from the opposition. The selection of her replacement could be the first test of a scaled back check on the president’s power.”
At least one option has already been proposed to replace the outgoing Napolitano.
Sen. Chuck Schumer (D., N.Y.) personally called White House Chief of Staff Denis McDonough to suggest New York City Police Department commissioner Ray Kelly for the position, according to a report by the New York Observer.
“The Department of Homeland Security is one of the most important agencies in the federal government,” Schumer said in a statement. “It’s leader needs to be someone who knows law enforcement, understands anti-terrorism efforts, and is a top-notch administrator, and at the NYPD, Ray Kelly has proven that he excels in all three.”
A potential Kelly nomination would likely infuriate progressives and civil libertarians who have opposed the NYPD’s stop-and-frisk program, as well as its surveillance of Muslims.
Kelly’s NYPD has also been notable for its lack of transparency.
Reid said Thursday on the floor of the Senate that the current rules allow intransigent Republicans to subject judicial nominees to “unprecedented obstruction.”
However, McConnell said changing the rules would destroy the Senate.
“My friend the majority leader is going to be remembered as the worst leader in the Senate ever,” McConnell said Thursday from the floor. “It makes me sad.”
http://freebeacon.com/if-reid-uses-nuclear-option-napolitano-replacement-could-go-unopposed/
Schweitzer’s decision not to run for Senate is a gift to the GOP
Former Montana governor Brian Schweitzer’s stunning decision not to seek an open Senate seat in the Last Best Place is an unexpected boost for Republicans’ chances of retaking the majority in 2014 — although it is by no means determinative for the GOP.Schweitzer’s no-go decision is bad on two levels for Democrats. In Montana, it takes a seat considered a likely hold for the party and turns it into — at least at first glance — a likely pickup for Republicans. Nationally, Montana becomes the third open Democratic seat — West Virginia and South Dakota are the others — for which the party’s chances look slim, a major development given that Republicans need six seats to reclaim the majority.
Schweitzer’s candidacy was assumed in the political world following the surprise retirement announcement of Sen. Max Baucus (D) in the spring. The popular ex-governor remains voraciously ambitious in the political arena, and the Senate seemed like a decent stop on the way to what many people in and out of the state thought might be a run for president in 2016.
The field was effectively frozen as Schweitzer made up his mind. With him not running, look for Rep. Steve Daines (R) to come under heavy pressure to make the race. And while Democrats talk about state schools superintendent Denise Juneau and state auditor Monica Lindeen, neither woman has the proven electoral record (or even close to it) of Schweitzer.
It’s worth noting that Democrats have demonstrated their ability to win in Montana — even with a national wind blowing in their collective face. Sen. Jon Tester won a second term in November despite the fact that President Obama won just 42 percent of the vote in the state. But that was a race featuring a Democratic incumbent. Montana in 2014 will be an open seat.
Nationally, Montana becomes the third problematic open seat for the party. In West Virginia, Rep. Shelley Moore Capito (R) is a clear favorite, as Democrats have yet to persuade a serious candidate to run. In South Dakota, the two leading potential Democratic candidates took a pass while popular former governor Mike Rounds dodged a serious Republican primary challenge.
If you give Republicans those three open seats — they are favored at the moment, but the election remains 16 months away — they then need three more for the majority. Those pickups would almost certainly come from four seats, all of which are held by Democratic incumbents running for reelection — in Alaska, Arkansas, Louisiana and North Carolina.
That fact was the silver lining Democrats focused on in the wake of the Schweitzer decision Saturday. “Only three Democratic incumbents have lost reelection in the last decade,” noted Guy Cecil, executive director of the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee.
Of the quartet of targeted Democratic senators, Arkansas’s Mark Pryor looks to be the most vulnerable — particularly if freshman Rep. Tom Cotton (R) decides to run. While Pryor is a known commodity in the Natural State, the fact that Obama won just 37 percent of the vote there in 2012 is a massive hurdle for any Democrat.
Alaska and Louisiana are not much friendlier for Democrats; Obama took 41 percent in each of those states. But a contentious Republican primary seems to be shaping up in Alaska for the right to take on Sen. Mark Begich (D), and in Louisiana, Sen. Mary Landrieu (D) has proved she knows how to win close races, claiming reelection victories in 2002 and 2008 with 52 percent of the vote or less. In North Carolina, where Obama won in 2008 and took 48 percent in 2012, the landscape is more level for Democrats, although freshman Sen. Kay Hagan (D) is regarded by both parties as endangered.
To win back the majority, Republicans need to win Montana, South Dakota and West Virginia and beat three of the four Democratic incumbents mentioned above. They could also, theoretically, expand the playing field a bit wider, although recruiting failures for Iowa’s open seat lessened the party’s chances of a pickup there. And of course, they have to hold the seat of Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (Ky.), the only Republican incumbent in any real political peril.
Make no mistake: Schweitzer’s decision not to run gives Senate Republicans more flexibility to get to 51 seats in November 2014. But the path to a GOP majority still goes through Democratic incumbents in Republican-leaning states.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/schweitzers-decision-not-to-run-for-senate-is-a-gift-to-gop/2013/07/13/fa5d68cc-ebe3-11e2-a301-ea5a8116d211_story.html
Transparency Suffers as State Department Fails to Report
In her four years as the top U.S. diplomat, Hillary Clinton kept a running total of countries visited, miles traveled and hours spent in transit on the State Department website.Still untallied: The bill to taxpayers for her globe-trotting.
Bloomberg News last year asked for the details of out-of-town trips for the heads of 57 major departments in fiscal 2011, a test of President Barack Obama’s pledge to run the most open government in history. As of July 12, about one-fifth of those surveyed hadn’t responded.
The State Department is one of five Cabinet offices that have yet to fully comply with requests under the Freedom of Information Act to disclose the details and expenses of official travel more than a year after they were filed.
“These are exactly the kinds of records Cabinet offices should have at their fingertips,” said Thomas Blanton, director of the National Security Archive, a Washington-based open-information advocacy group. “You should not even have to ask for these records. They should be online already.”
The Justice Department, which is responsible for monitoring compliance with the open-government law, took more than one year to comply even though Attorney General Eric Holder has called swift responses to public records petitions an “essential component” of government transparency. Following repeated queries, the agency provided travel vouchers and then the costs of the trips last week.
Open-government requests that involve numerous records and the personal details of top officials may lead to processing delays, said Melanie Ann Pustay, the director of the Justice Department’s Office of Information Policy.
Complicated Requests
“While the length of time necessary to process these requests can vary depending on whether sensitive, national security or privacy information is involved, they are handled as promptly as possible,” Pustay said in an e-mail.The remaining holdouts among Obama’s Cabinet include former Defense Secretaries Robert Gates and Leon Panetta, Education Secretary Arne Duncan and Housing and Urban Development Secretary Shaun Donovan.
Under FOIA, agencies have 20 working days after an information request to provide the data or offer a timetable for its eventual delivery.
The Obama administration’s response record belies directives from both the president and Holder himself. On his first full day in office, Obama signed an executive order telling federal officials of his intention to “usher in a new era of open government.”
Holder’s Directive
Holder -- as the nation’s top law enforcement official and custodian of FOIA compliance -- followed up in March 2009 with instructions on how to be more open.“Timely disclosure of information is an essential component of transparency,” he said.
On a “Travels with the Secretary” State Department website page, visitors could track the record-setting pace Clinton kept in office.
She visited 112 countries, traveled 956,733 miles and spent 2,084 hours -- or more than 86 days -- in flight, according to the department.
In the year ended Sept. 30, 2011, the time period subject to the FOIA filing, Clinton visited 46 countries, including Brazil, the United Arab Emirates, Yemen, Oman, Qatar, Mexico and Haiti in January of that year.
Delivery Date
Clinton’s successor John Kerry has maintained the tradition, logging 27 countries and 134,691 miles thus far in his tenure.The State Department said the request for Clinton’s details may be completed next month. Estimated completion dates are “‘strictly’ estimates and not intended to be used as ‘actual’ dates of completions,” Chris Barnes, a State Department FOIA official, said in an e-mail. Nick Merrill, a spokesman for the Office of Hillary Clinton, referred a question about the records to the State Department.
The Pentagon has estimated that it will be able to deliver documents on Panetta’s and Gates’s travels by Sept. 6.
The tardy responses to Bloomberg’s travel record filings are “disturbing but not surprising,” said Representative Darrell Issa, chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee. “FOIA is the way for journalists and the American people to know how officials are spending taxpayer dollars and these delays are an ugly blemish on claims of transparent government.”
Online Postings
The House Oversight Committee has approved a bill that would require information on federal officials’ travel to be posted online.The Justice Department took a year to fulfill the filing for Holder’s records.
The department sent the documents last week as Bloomberg prepared a story examining the department’s lack of compliance with the law. In fiscal 2011, Holder took 62 out-of-town trips that cost at least $1.45 million, according to the disclosures. Flight costs for seven trips, including journeys to China, Hawaii and Brussels, weren’t provided.
Holder’s travel during the period in question included an April 2011 trip to Las Vegas, marked business and personal, that cost $46,358. Nine other trips, including visits to Martha’s Vineyard, Massachusetts, and Miami, were labeled “personal,” and cost a combined $169,502.
As attorney general, Holder is a “required use” official who is compelled by executive order to use government aircraft for all travel while in office due to “security and communications needs,” according to a February 2013 U.S. Government Accountability Office report.
Solis, Geithner
Some Cabinet members offered faster responses. Hilda Solis, the former secretary of Labor, offered her travel itinerary and expenses within 28 working days, and the office of then-Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner responded in 43 working days.Karen Mills, head of the Small Business Administration, was the only Cabinet-ranked member to meet the deadline, providing her travel details in 18 working days.
U.S. agencies and departments received 651,254 FOIA requests in fiscal 2012, about 1.1 percent more than a year earlier, according to FOIA.gov, the website that tracks federal responses to open-government requests.
Even with that increase, the total backlog of outstanding requests fell 14 percent to 71,790 last year from 83,490 in fiscal 2011, the government said.
Hanging Up
While Justice Department officials have cited shrinking request backlogs as evidence the system is improving, an audit by the National Security Archive showed that agencies haven’t followed up on Holder’s demand for a review of the FOIA process. The group said in March that 59 of 100 agencies ignored the Holder-Obama directives in their regulations.Without updated guidelines, individuals seeking travel costs may still be confronted with a varying quality of responses across the government.
One Bloomberg reporter filed a 2012 request for information on gifts to and from foreign dignitaries. Following up past deadline, a State Department FOIA officer told her to “Go ahead and sue” -- before hanging up the phone.
A Bloomberg FOIA filing seeking details of conference-related spending at the U.S. Agency for International Development was met with a request for a copy of the reporter’s employment contract and copies of news articles written within the last three years. USAID backed off after being reminded that under the law, individuals have the legal right to request public information without regard to profession.
5-Year Wait
On Sept. 26, 2007, another Bloomberg reporter requested a memo on the work contractors were doing in Iraq that had been prepared for then-Defense Secretary Gates. More than five years later -- on New Year’s Eve, 2012 -- the Pentagon denied the request. It cited an exception to FOIA allowing the withholding of communications between the president and his top advisers, one of nine categories of information shielded from the law.The response rate to Bloomberg’s travel survey is “appalling,” Anne Weismann, chief counsel for Citizens for Ethics and Responsibility in Washington, said in an interview.
She said citizens that don’t work for large news organizations have an even harder time getting results.
“What’s it like for an average member of the public who doesn’t have the resources, who doesn’t understand the process, who doesn’t understand what recourse they have?” Weismann said.
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-07-15/holder-falls-short-on-obama-openness-pledge-he-enforces.html
Earth To Keynesians, Government Spending Isn't Demand
Keynesians continue to claim the recent recession and weak recovery have as their root cause a shortage of demand. If only the government would spend more money in the short run to augment demand from the private sector, we could fully recover. At that point, miraculously, the economy begins to generate sufficient demand on its own to replace the temporary government stimulus spending and the government can go back to business as usual.
The problem with this scenario is that it misunderstands the role of demand in an economy and it also equates continuing, private sector demand with temporary government spending. Unfortunately, these two sources of demand have very different economic impacts.
First, demand cannot produce economic growth on its own. At its most fundamental level the economy is the sum of transactions between buyers and sellers, a giant marketplace where people and businesses trade goods and services for money. The key part of this concept is that every buyer requires a seller; you cannot buy a product unless somebody has manufactured it and is ready to sell. If the supply of goods to sell is unchanged, an increase of demand simply results in bidding wars among buyers and higher prices.
It is not the dollar size of an economy that counts, but its real size measured in terms of the amount of goods and services produced and sold. People want more money only to the extent that they can use it to buy more stuff (which can include savings or investments). More demand without more supply does no good, since it does not result in more goods and services being produced.
Clearly, Keynesians are not trying to simply raise prices by augmenting demand with government spending. That would produce no real economic growth, only inflation. To be effective, government stimulus spending must convince suppliers to produce more because to get the economy growing suppliers must increase supply of their goods and services; otherwise there is no growth.
An increase in supply can come from one of two sources: companies bringing idle capacity back into production or companies investing in new productive capacity (new factories, new equipment). During and after a recession, companies have lots of idle capacity that can be employed to meet a sudden increase in demand. In many cases, companies keep some employees on payroll even if there is no real work for them to do so that they will have skilled workers ready when their business comes back. This avoids the expense of finding and training new workers later and makes it worth spending some extra money keeping good workers around during slack periods.
So faced with an increase in demand due to temporary government spending, companies can respond by doing nothing and letting prices rise. That will not accomplish what the Keynesians want, but it can happen when prices are so low that businesses are losing money at current price levels. However as prices rise, profits will return and at some level of profitability firms will begin to compete for market share.
When firms competing for business choose to increase supply to meet the temporary demand, companies can meet that temporary demand by putting some of their underutilized resources back to work. Employees that had been reassigned to maintenance projects or make-work jobs can be returned to productive work. Factories or assembly lines that had been idled can be placed back in action. Unfortunately, this does not require firms to buy new equipment or to hire new workers.
When this happens, the economy may increase in size as measured by gross domestic product (GDP) since more goods and services are being produced, but unemployment is not decreased because the extra output comes from increased labor productivity.
If government boosts demand by enough that companies compete for the extra business and cannot meet that new demand by using idle workers and factories, they will move to overtime and extra shifts. Only after exhausting all these options will businesses finally start hiring new workers and investing in new factories. Even then, the companies will likely start by hiring temporary workers since they probably do not believe the demand will last.
As long as companies know that the demand created by government stimulus spending is temporary, they will be loath to base long-term investment and hiring plans on a source of demand that is supposed to go away soon. Keynesians overlook the fact that they are counting on firms to make long-term decisions based on a short-term policy.
Apparently, Keynesians believe they are smarter than the average person. They think that a government stimulus program can trick everybody (or most people) into thinking the economy is better and to resume pre-recession spending patterns. Yet experience teaches us that people are smarter than the government and we are not likely to be fooled by a government program that specifically announces to us what its purpose is.
A look at the data for the U.S. over the last few years suggests that the above scenario fits our experience. GDP has recovered much more rapidly than employment or business investment. Labor productivity has been rising since the middle of the recession, real GDP is larger than before the recession, but total employment is still two million jobs below its pre-recession peak. As further evidence, temporary employment has increased by about one million since the end of the recession.
Perhaps businesses will soon believe that conditions are favorable, with positive enough long-term prospects to hire more permanent employees. If so, we may return to more normal unemployment levels and see companies hiring more permanent and fewer temporary workers. But if that happens, it won't be because of any government stimulus spending. Only expectations of a continuing source of demand for a firm's products will induce it to expand output and employment.
Temporary government programs will not trick firms into long-term decisions. Policy makers should stop trying temporary solutions and simply focus on policies conducive to the long-run health of businesses and the economy. Tax reform that simplifies the tax code and lowers marginal tax rates would fit the bill.
Short-run policy only generates short-run responses. Policy for the long-run will yield long-lasting responses. That is what we need if we want a solid economy for future generations.
http://www.realclearmarkets.com/articles/2013/07/15/earth_to_keynesians_government_spending_isnt_demand_100472.html
Gang of Eight Bill Gives Corporations Amnesty
An explosive new report from the Government Accountability Institute (GAI) slams the Gang of Eight's comprehensive immigration reform bill as an amnesty bill--for corporations.GAI, a nonpartisan government watchdog organization, has found a so-called corporate "Get Out of Jail Free" card in the Senate's immigration bill that would allow companies to dodge millions of dollars in fines and prosecution of executives for hiring or having hired illegal immigrants.
Here is how the bill would give "corporate amnesty" to employers who knowingly employ illegal immigrants. Under the Senate bill, illegal immigrants currently in the United States may apply for "provisional status" by providing documentation, which includes employment records, that shows they have been in the country since December of 2011, per Section 2101 of the bill.
Since the Immigration and Naturalization Act of 1986 requires employers to "verify the identity and employment eligibility of all individuals hired in the United States after November 6, 1986," many of the employment records may subject current employers to fines and prosecutions.
Section 2104 of the bill, though, gives such corporations amnesty by prohibiting them from being fined or prosecuted based on what could have otherwise been incriminating employment records. Here is the text of the relevant provision in Section 2104:
(1) USE OF EMPLOYMENT RECORDS.— “Copies of employment records or other evidence of employment provided by an alien or by an alien’s employer in support of an alien’s application for registered provisional immigrant status under section 245B may not be used in a civil or criminal prosecution or investigation of that employer under section 274A or the Internal Revenue Code of 1986 for the prior unlawful employment of that alien regardless of the adjudication of such application or reconsideration by the Secretary of such alien’s prima facie eligibility determination. Employers that provide unauthorized aliens with copies of employment records or other evidence of employment pursuant to an application for registered provisional immigrant status shall not be subject to civil and criminal liability pursuant to section 274A for employing such unauthorized aliens.”As GAI notes, under Section 274a.10 of the Code of Federal Regulations, employers who knowingly employ illegal immigrants can be subject to "criminal fines up to $3,000 per employee and imprisonment up to six months. In addition to the criminal penalties, employers may be subject to civil fines as high as $16,000 per employee." And in recent years, "worksite enforcement" audits by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) "have skyrocketed from 250 in 2007 to over 3,000 in 2012" while, during the same period, "civil fines administered by for unlawful employment increased from $26,560 to $10,463,988," according to the report.
In addition, "criminal fines and forfeitures for worksite enforcement went from $31,426,443 in 2007 to $36,611,320 in 2010" and there has also been an increase in the number of managerial employees who have been arrested for hiring illegal immigrants.
"Given the substantial rewards and protections that companies hiring illegal aliens stand to gain from the Senate bill’s passage, it is not surprising that numerous employers and corporations have aggressively supported the bill’s passage," the GAI report concludes. "These provisions raise serious questions about whether employers who have accrued unduly earned competitive advantage by breaking the law should be held legally accountable, rather than be provided with a corporate amnesty regime that inoculates them from fines, penalties, legal fees, and prosecution."
http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Government/2013/07/15/GAI-Report-Senate-Immigration-Bill-Corporate-Amnesty-Get-Out-of-Jail-Free-Card
The Obama Doctrine of Control Through Dissension
The president has more than proven that he is not a uniter. He is a committed divider. Jesus said, "If a house is divided against itself, that house cannot stand." Hence, try as we might, it's getting harder to ignore what appears to be a burning desire on Obama's part to destroy the great and glorious house called America.With an eye toward stepping in and reorganizing everything from our social and economic structure to the U.S. Constitution, it appears that Obama's plan to gain control involves stirring up discord and agitating every area of society to the point of near-collapse.
Barack Obama has managed to undermine the nation's unanimity through the deliberate fostering of racial, political, religious, and class-based conflict. In other words, the President of the United States is actively endeavoring to community-organize America to death.
Chicago-style troublemaker Barack Obama acquired his skill set while nestled close to the pedagogical breast of Rules for Radicals author Saul Alinsky. It was there that the president was schooled in the fine art of community organizing, and excelled as a top student.
Alinsky taught that in order to 'disorganize the old and organize the new' one must "stir up dissatisfaction and discontent" and "agitate to the point of conflict." Unfortunately, Alinsky's instructions are alarmingly similar to the president's leadership style.
Undoubtedly, Obama understands the Alinsky principle that teaches that in order "To organize a community you must understand that ... the word 'community' means community of interests, not physical community." That's why the president subtly stirs dissension in diverse places. His method is to "Pick...freeze...personalize... and polarize" a wide variety of groups, individuals, and philosophies.
Therefore, in his unending quest to "fundamentally transform" America, Barack Obama has stealthily managed to expose many a raw nerve. Still, rather than make a blatant attempt to further divide Americans, the president cunningly pokes his finger into past grievances in hopes of creating festering sores he seems committed to exacerbating.
Proficient community organizer that he is, Obama inflames old hurts with veiled suggestions that incite hostility among factions, and then uses silence to offer tacit approval of the hate speech spouted by his allies. Those tried-and-true Alinsky polarizing tactics alienate those who disagree with Obama's agenda by portraying whole swathes of Americans as menaces to a national unity he purports to desire, but continues to undermine.
Yet even while employing doublespeak, blithe disregard for the facts, subterfuge, and occasional impulsivity, the president has been able to project the image to some of unifier as he carefully manipulates the tools of divisiveness to the benefit of his long-term agenda.
Obama darkly suggests that the Catholic Church is the arch enemy of women; Americans who just want immigration laws to be enforced and the border secured are dream-destroying xenophobes; excluding Democrat donors, rich people are portrayed as selfish parasites; pro-traditional marriage advocates are homophobes; gun owners are a threat to the safety of every American child, and the antagonistic beat goes on.
Now, in what appears to be the next phase, macro acrimony is being perpetrated on an increasingly micro level.
Based on his public response, it's apparent that Barack Obama, just as he did with Henry Gates, Jr. and Officer Crowley, must have felt that George Zimmerman, an Hispanic man originally assumed to be white, "acted stupidly" when defending himself against Trayvon Martin, a black teenager whom Zimmerman claims was trying to kill him.
America already knows that Obama believes that "if [he] had a son he'd look like Trayvon Martin." That fatherly declaration may have been a foreshadowing of the president's attempt to purposely foment racial unrest by dispatching the Department of Justice's Community Relations Service to descend on Florida to "work marches, demonstrations, and rallies related to the shooting and death of an African-American teen by a neighborhood watch captain."
And if that's not bad enough, the Obama Administration's "Insider Threat Program" is now promoting suspicion among federal co-workers by asking colleagues to spy on and report one another based on criteria that can only be described as wholly subjective.
Organized divisiveness masked as an attempt to keep America safe, the program asks federal employees and contractors to pay "particular attention to the lifestyles, attitudes and behaviors - like financial troubles, odd working hours or unexplained travel." The stated hope is that co-workers can predict whether "suspicious action" might indicate that the guy they've worked side-by-side with for the last 20 years has plans to do "harm to the United States."
As a result, federal workers have officially been added to a list of potential threats that already includes pro-life advocates, ex-military, Christians of all denominations, Tea Party activists, Conservatives, and just about any group on the planet that is perceived to pose problems for Barack Obama's progressive vision for an Alinsky-inspired "world not as it is," but as he thinks "it should be."
At the rate the Obama-instigated dissension is progressing, before long, American neighborhoods will devolve into combat zones and children will turn in parents for being enemies of the state. In the meantime, instead of asking the president about his favorite food, some journalist, kid or otherwise, should inquire of him how his constant fostering of disunity helps drive home the point that the state of our union is in need of stronger alliances?
Nevertheless, the Bible emphatically states that "A troublemaker plants seeds of strife." From the first day he was elected, the president has consistently sown seeds of strife, and, as a result, it has become clear that Barack Obama is indeed implementing Alinsky's strategy on a national level. Apparently the president hopes that if he stirs up enough dissension, America's great and glorious house will be unable to stand. Then, it will be on to the coup de grâce, when Barack Obama finally gets to implement the type of control he so fervidly desires.
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