Greg Corombos of Radio America and Jim Geraghty of National Review are impressed that Jordan’s King Abdullah wants to personally fly bombing missions against ISIS. They also rip Brian Williams for lying about being shot down in Iraq for almost 12 years. And they discuss the rising tide of scandal against Oregon Gov. John Kitzhaber.
‘Start Naming Names’
The chairman of a key congressional subcommittee says the Obama administration is increasingly refusing to cooperate with departmental inspectors general and he says it’s time to publicly name those obstructing critical investigations.
Rep. Mark Meadows, R-North Carolina, is a member of the House Government Reform and Oversight Committee and is the new chairman of its government operations subcommittee.
In August, 47 inspectors general complained to Congress that government agencies were hindering investigations by declaring many documents privileged and claiming they could not be turned over. The full committee heard testimony on Wednesday from the inspectors general of the Justice Department, the Environmental Protection Agency and the Peace Corps. Meadows says the problem has not gotten any better.
“Not much progress has been made, so we’ve asked them to start naming names. We want to know who within the agencies are stonewalling the inspectors general, because they’re the first line of defense for the American people,” said Meadows.
Meadows says the refusal of government to be responsive to taxpayers is leading to some government employees getting away with unethical and possibly criminal behavior.
“One instance that we heard about was a federal employee at a high level with 16 counts of sexual harassment allowed to get off scot-free and retire. It’s troubling when you have that going on, so we’ll be drilling down on that to make sure that they get the information they need,” said Meadows.
Are there steps lawmakers can take besides publicly identifying officials refusing to cooperate with investigators? Meadows says there are and Congress will be exploring them.
“One, we can look at the Freedom of Information Act. That’s part of our jurisdiction to allow the free flow of information there. Most of those are not being complied with. There will have to be more lawsuits from the private sector there. On a federal level, I think what you’ll start to see is strong cooperation with subpoena power from the Oversight and Government Reform Committee to help,” said Meadows.
The IRS will remain on the front burner for the committee as well. Meadows says the subcommittee he chairs is about to shine the light on the tax collectors over a a major fiscal headache about to strike due to the new health care law.
“You’ll see some additional hearings with regard to the IRS, specifically as it relates to the Affordable Care Act. We’ve got information that would lead us to believe that close to three million people who are enrollees in the Affordable Care Act are actually getting the wrong subsidies and they’ll be getting a tax bill next year,” said Meadows, who says his work is primarily focused on Americans getting a much better value for their tax dollars.
“We’ll be holding a series of hearings there as well as a few others on how to make our government employees a lot more accountable and efficient,” he said.
Meadows is also one of the founding members of the new House Freedom Caucus, which is designed to prod leadership towards pursuing the conservative agenda promised in the midterm election. At the top of the agenda is finding a way to stop the funding of President Obama’s unilateral action on immigration, which conservative critics describe as executive amnesty.
Last month, the House of Representatives approved funding for the Department of Homeland Security while withholding money for implementation of Obama’s program to grant legal status to some five million adults in the U.S. illegally. On Tuesday, the Senate failed to clear a procedural hurdle, making it very unlikely the bill will even get to Obama’s desk. The president has already promised a veto if it were to pass both chambers.
So what is the House Freedom Caucus strategy now that the first one appears likely to fail? Meadows says it’s too soon to concede and says the GOP could end up “possibly bifurcating some of the appropriations, where you allow the national security to continue to be funded but yet the president’s actions not funded.”
As conservatives fight to block Obama on immigration, Meadows says we can expect the House Freedom Caucus to be actively involved in other debates as well.
“I think we’ll see some workplace enforcement issues, as it relates to the federal government, to allow for an easier process of not only rewarding good behavior in the federal government but punishing bad behavior,” said Meadows.
“And then transparency. I met with my Democrat ranking member the other day and looking at transparency in terms of emails and the way that we communicate, so that the American public can actually see what is going on and hopefully weigh in,” said Meadows.
Meadows says the most important function of the House Freedom Caucus is to remind everyone on Capitol Hill who they work for.
“We’ve got to listen to the people that get us here. Somehow, when people come to Washington, D.C., they automatically believe that they need to think differently. I find my best ideas come from back home in North Carolina where I’m representing. So if we listen to those people and let their voice count, things will work out,” said Meadows.
Three Martini Lunch 2/4/15
Greg Corombos of Radio America and Jim Geraghty of National Review applaud House Republicans for voting to repeal Obamacare. They also slam President Obama for his emotionless reaction to ISIS murdering a Jordanian pilot by burning him alive. And they sigh as North Carolina Sen. Thom Tillis suggests restaurants should not be forced to make their workers wash their hands after using the bathroom.
‘American Sniper’ Shows ‘A Real Hero, A Real Leader’
As “American Sniper” continues to smash box office records week after week, retired U.S. Army Lt. General William “Jerry” Boykin says the film is striking a chord in millions of Americans who love their country and believe in defending freedom regardless of the liberal chatter seeking to diminish the film or the late Navy SEAL Chris Kyle.
Boykin spent 36 years in uniform, was an original member of Delta Force and served as commander of all Green Berets. He concluded his career as deputy undersecretary of defense and is now executive vice president at the Family Research Council.
The general says Chris Kyle’s story shows moviegoers the very best of America and they wish our leaders were a lot more like him.
“I think Americans are so fed up in terms of what they see as a lack of leadership in the Congress and the White House and every sector of our society that they are drawn to a movie like this because it shows a real hero, a real leader, a person who understands what their transcendent cause is, what’s worth fighting, sacrificing and even dying for. That’s a very strong and powerful message and I think it attracts Americans to it,” said Boykin.
Despite the records revenues, “American Sniper” is not without its critics. Filmmaker Michael Moore has called snipers cowards. Actor Seth Rogen likened it to propaganda watched by Nazis in the film “Inglourious Basterds.” An MSNBC reporter referred to Kyle as a racist who enjoyed going on “killing sprees” in Iraq while other left-of-center media outlets have questioned the veracity of Kyle’s account of his time at war.
“First of all, does anyone really care what Michael Moore thinks? Does anyone care what Seth Rogen thinks? I certainly don’t. I don’t think most of the people that I know care what they think,” mused Boykin.
But the general does think there are more troubling reasons underlying the cool reaction to the film from the political left.
“The left has been so anti-Iraq, anti-Afghanistan, anti-war. What this is doing is not glorifying war. I think just the opposite. It is not portraying the American soldier as a bloodthirsty, drug-crazed psychopath as so many of the Vietnam-era movies did, but it is portraying him as a human and it’s showing the toll that it takes on them,” said Boykin.
But he says liberal hostility goes even deeper.
“The left wants to be heroes to be people from the left. When you make heroes out of people that are clearly patriot,s that are conservative, that have a deep appreciation for the first amendment, not only the freedom of religion but also the freedom of speech. I think it’s just too much for the left, but who cares? Who care what they say?” said Boykin.
In addition to the underlying qualities of Kyle, Boykin says “American Sniper” offers viewers an important look at the realities and impact of war.
“I think it’s one of the most realistic portrayals of the actual toll of war, not only the death and injury of Americans as well as the enemy fighters but also the emotional toll,” said Boykin.
“I think the movie does a very good job of bringing out what happens to a person when they’re in an environment like that and exposed to so much killing and carnage and so forth. I think they show that very accurately in terms’s of Bradley Cooper’s character as he plays Chris Kyle,” he said.
Kyle is credited as being the most lethal sniper in American military history. Boykin says the work of Kyle and other special forces snipers is hugely important to the success of ground combat operations.
“A good sniper is irreplaceable. A good sniper who is really good at not just his marksmanship but is mentally switched on to understand the environment and know where he should be observing and what looks out of place and knows when and when not to pull the trigger is very critical to the mission,” said Boykin.
Boykin, who commanded special forces for much of his military career, says great snipers like Kyle can do even more.
“More importantly, a good sniper that can give verbal directions to a foot patrol or a convoy and things to avoid and place to go and maneuver is just as important as being able to take a shot,” said Boykin, who says snipers of Kyle’s caliber “saved an untold number of lives.”
Story after story tells of audience members sitting silently through the closing credits of “American Sniper” and then filing out of theaters without saying a word. Boykin says there are ways to channel that powerful experience into help for real-life heroes. First, he says reaching out to veterans and their families can make a huge difference.
“I hope they understand that veterans have paid a dear price and I hope that translates into programs to hire veterans, to supports veterans and their families,” said Boykin.
The general also hopes moviegoers will hold Washington officials to account on keeping the U.S. military strong and not shackled by arbitrary spending caps through sequestration. He also says the pressure needs to keep coming to make sure our heroes get the care they deserve.
“I hope that it gets America fired up to want to have a strong military and to want to take care of our veterans instead of letting them die at VA facilities because they can’t get a colonoscopy or something. That’s just one of the most egregious tragedies in the last 50 years I think,” said Boykin.
Three Martini Lunch 2/3/15
Greg Corombos of Radio America and Jim Geraghty of National Review react to terrible Iowa poll numbers for Chris Christie and other news that suggests Jeb Bush is snagging major donors in Christie’s backyard. They also discuss the GOP’s oddly weak ability to handle questions about childhood vaccinations and media drooling for the chance to brand Republicans as anti-vaccine wackos. And they react to a slim plurality of Iowa GOP voters agreeing with Mike Huckabee that Beyonce’s music constitutes “mental poison.”
Obama’s ‘Groundhog Day’ Budgeting
President Obama is urging Congress to adopt the priorities he lays out in his new federal budget that would cost over four trillion dollars for just the next year, but Republicans say the president refuses to change course after American voters roundly rejected his current economic strategy.
Rep. Scott Garrett, R-New Jersey, also says Obama’s fiscal approach would greatly burden future generations and make spending on real priorities increasingly difficult.
Obama’s federal budget for Fiscal Year 2016 would cost north of four trillion dollars. He calls for a series of tax increases on investors and corporations in order to pay for specific, targeted tax credits for working families. Obama calls it “middle class economics” and stated Monday that those policies plus spending on education, infrastructure and other priorities amount to investments we can’t afford not to make.
Republicans are declaring the proposal dead on arrival. Garrett is the senior GOP member on the House Budget Committee. He says the Obama budget is disappointing but hardly surprising.
“This is just a lousy Groundhog Day repeat or as Yogi Berra would say, ‘This is deja vu all over again.’ You see the same thing from this president budget after budget. It increases taxes. It expands the size of the government. It expands the size of the same failed government programs that are not doing anything to create jobs,” said Garrett.
Garrett is also stunned at how both Obama’s budget and last months State of the Union message seem to contain any acknowledgement of the political upheaval that took place last November.
“The American public had rejected his spendthrift, bailout type of spending patterns that he had in the past. The American public has also rejected the idea that. And the American public has also rejected the idea that we have to live in an economic morass that we’ve lived over the last six years. We have to turn things around and I think that’s what the public is asking Washington to do,” said Garrett.
As for the new budget, Garrett says Obama is not only beating the same dead horse but is pursuing badly flawed economic policies.
“It is a failed policy. It is not what the American taxpayers are looking for. It’s certainly not what my constituents back in the fifth district in New Jersey are looking for. In short, they want a Washington that lives like they do, which means live within your means, come up with a budget that actually helps to expand opportunity, expand and create jobs and create more prosperity in the country. His goes in the opposite direction, ” said Garrett.
“For example, how can you possibly say raising taxes on spending and investment is a good thing? If you raise taxes on something, you discourage that activity. If you discourage saving and investment, that means you’re walking in the opposite direction of job creation. You’re discouraging good job creation and job growth,” he said.
In addition to the four trillion dollar price tag, the Obama budget also carries a $474 billion deficit in 2016. In the final year of the ten-year projection, Obama’s numbers work out to $687 billion in red ink.
“Those are the same sort of numbers we get year in and year out. I remember being in budget committee last year and asking the administration, ‘When does this budget balance? One year, five years, ten years, twenty years, forty years?’ Of course, the answer then is the same as this year’s budget. It never balances. That means that our kids (and) our grandkids are going to be the ones ultimately paying the price for the largesse that this president puts in his spending packages this year,” said Garrett.
Beyond the saddling of future generations, Garrett says the more deficit spending the U.S. racks up, the tougher it is to find room for anything else in the budget.
“The interest on the debt will be $229 billion. That’s a huge sum of money.It’s going to go up to over $780 billion by the end of this cycle. That’s more money than we spend on defense. That’s more money than we spend on Medicaid. That’s more money than we spend on all of the discretionary stuff combined. When you’re spending so much money on the interest on your debt, that means you don’t have any money to spend on the things they have to spend on,” said Garrett.
Critics of Republicans are quick to point out that GOP of control of Washington for much of last decade also led mounting debts crippling future generations. Garrett says that is inexcusably true but pales compared to what we’re seeing in this administration.
“I never defended the Bush administration’s spending. I often criticized what President Bush did, but President Obama is Bush’s spending on steroids,” said Garrett.
With Republicans now controlling both the House and Senate, a very different budget will be offered by the GOP in the coming weeks.
“It’ll be a realistic budget. It’ll be a budget that actually tries to live within our means and also tries to help promote growth and job creation. Once we have that laid out, the American public will have their choice and their voice will be heard. Do we have a budget that actually grows the economy or do we have one like we’ve seen in the past that stunts it, restrains it and leads to the dismal economic growth that we’ve seen over the last several years,” said Garrett.
The budget blueprints offered by the White House and Congress are really more like wish lists than practical expectations. Some previous Obama budgets have failed to draw a single vote of support in either the House or Senate, even among Democrats. Reality will clash with the wish list once the appropriations process kicks off in earnest later this year.
In the meantime, Republicans and Obama are preparing for a showdown over funding for the Department of Homeland Security, which runs out at the end of this month. President Obama wants a clean extension. Republicans want to withhold funding to enforce Obama’s unilateral actions on immigration, citing them as unconstitutional. The House has already passed such a plan to withhold the immigration funds. The Senate has yet to take it up. Obama has promised a veto.
For Garrett, this showdown is about Obama honoring his word. The congressman says there is a simple way to address this standoff without ratcheting up the shutdown drama.
“Pass that bill and then, if he has other ideas on immigration policy and the like then he should be coming back to Congress and addressing those in the next step. But right now, it’s most important that we make sure that Homeland Security, that appropriations bill, a clean bill if you will, passes both houses and gets signed into law,” said Garrett.
Three Martini Lunch 2/2/15
Greg Corombos of Radio America and Jim Geraghty of National Review offer only crazy martinis today. They wonder why George Pataki and Lindsey Graham are wasting time exploring GOP presidential bids. They rip the Nationwide Insurance ad featuring a supposedly dead child. And they discuss the inexplicable play call and mini-brawl that marked the end of the Superbowl.
Obama Attorney General Nominee ‘Came Up Way Short’
Sen. David Vitter (R-Louisiana) is strongly opposed to the nomination of Loretta Lynch to be the next attorney general, saying she has made it clear she is committed to to enforcing what he considers President Obama’s unconstitutional amnesty orders and ignoring the laws on the books.
Vitter is a member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, which held confirmation hearings for Lynch on Wednesday. He says her answers, especially on Obama’s immigration policy, should disqualify her from leading the Justice Department.
“I have a lot of concerns, but the single biggest reason, by far, is President Obama’s unconstitutional executive amnesty and the fact that she’s defending it and would carry it forward,” said Vitter.
During the eight hours of testimony, Lynch made it clear she believes Obama’s unilateral action to confer legal status on some five million people in the country illegally is “reasonable” and is a policy she will defend. Lynch further stated that it made sense to focus immigration enforcement the most recent illegal arrivals and those who pose a criminal threat .
During his questioning, Vitter sought to convince Lynch that Obama’s action directly conflicts with existing immigration law and was not impressed with her response.
“I thought she came up way short, quite frankly. I cited the statutes relied on. One of them makes it clear that any case like this has to be considered on a case by case basis. And I asked her, ‘Is an action that covers five million illegal aliens really acting case by case?’ She would never address that question directly, I think for a very obvious reason. That doesn’t pass the smell test,” said Vitter.
Vitter says he also found Lynch strangely unconcerned about how Obama’s change in policy seems to trump current law and greatly diminishes the attorney general’s position when it comes to immigration enforcement.
“I also asked her about her role in this because the statute makes very clear that the attorney general is supposed to be in the middle of this, making these case by case determinations. The administration’s plan is not to involve the attorney general in any major way. Again, she didn’t have a direct answer to that,” he said.
Does Vitter see Lynch as a carbon copy of current Attorney General Eric Holder when it comes to partiality toward the Obama administration? The senator says yes and no.
“I think it would be largely the same. She wouldn’t be as much of a lightning rod as Eric Holder. Arguably, that could make her even more dangerous because she would operate under radar more. But I think in terms of substance and policy and outcome it would be the same,” said Vitter.
Nonetheless, early indications suggest Lynch is probably headed for confirmation. Two Republicans on the panel, Lindsey Graham (R-South Carolina) and Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) have suggested they are inclined to support the nomination. Sen. John McCain (R-Arizona), who is not on the panel has already indicated his backing for Lynch. However, Vitter says observers may be surprised by how many votes are cast against Lynch.
“I think lots of members are still making up their minds. I think you’re going to see a very significant number of no votes. I’m not predicting we’ll block the confirmation as I would hope we’ll do, but you’re certainly going to see a significant number of no votes,” he said.
Immigration is not only a major issue concerning the Lynch nomination, but the Senate will soon take up the effort to block funding for the president’s unilateral action as well. Earlier this month, the House of Representatives approved funding for the Department of Homeland Security through end of Fiscal Year 2015 without providing funds for Obama’s orders or the Deferred Action for Child Arrivals program that Obama unilaterally instituted in 2012 to grant legal status to young people brought to the U.S. illegally when they were very young, a group often labeled as “dreamers”.
Sixty votes are needed to pass the bill out of the Senate and on to Obama’s desk. Vitter knows it will a tough fight. He praises Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell for allowing a full and open debate on this and other issues. However, the senator will be working to pass the bill in it’s current form.
“Everybody’s going to have their opportunity for amendments. Folks who want to take some of the language out of the bill can put up an amendment. I’m going to oppose that. I strongly support all of the House bill. We’ll see where we end up at the end of that process. I hope that we keep the House bill wholly or largely intact and then pass it on to the president,” said Vitter.
Beyond what he considers the ignoring of existing immigration enforcement statutes, Vitter is also fuming that Obama’s actions make life harder for American citizens and legal immigrants to find work.
“It’s not just setting enforcement priorities. It’s going further. It’s giving these people a parole, a different legal status for at least three years at a time. It’s also giving them a work permit, when there’s plenty of statutory law that says they cannot work here in the United States legally,” said Vitter.
Getting to 60 votes will require at least six Democrats to come on board. Vitter doesn’t know of any that are prepared to buck the president right now but he says their own words in reaction to the president’s actions in November may push a few to join the Republicans.
“This executive amnesty is a big deal. There were certainly Democrats who stated that they opposed it at the time, who stated that the president overstepped his bounds,” said Vitter. “How are they going to show that? How are they going to demonstrate that position? We’re going to find out in the next few weeks.”
Department of Homeland Security funding is currently set to expire in late February.
Three Martini Lunch 1/29/15
Greg Corombos of Radio America and Jim Geraghty of National Review are not at all surprised to see Cuba making more demands to normalize relations with the U.S. and they hope the new demands scuttle the whole plan. They also groan as Hillary Clinton appears to be drawing no serious competition for the Democratic presidential nomination. And they shake their heads as legal experts predict former Virginia Gov. Bob McDonnell will see his corruption convictions overturned on appeal.
Strong Families = A Strong Economy
Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah) is pushing a pro-family legislative agenda that he says is a common sense approach to strengthening families and the U.S. economy at the same time.
The proposals range from a renewed push for a balanced budget amendment to the Constitution to giving Americans more flexibility at work so they can make family a priority.
Lee outlined his approach earlier this month in a speech at the Heritage Foundation. His main thesis is that it’s a mistake for conservatives or anybody else to think of family issues as separate from our economic challenges.
“I believe the family is the fundamental building block of society. Too often, as conservatives, we’ve tended to look at the family exclusively as a social unit that has economic implications. I think it’s equally important to view it as an economic unit with social implications,” said Lee.
He says Washington needs to recognize that helping American families is good for all of us.
“Everything we need to be doing in Washington should be focused on the family, on making sure that government is at least not harming the family, making sure that the government is not doing anything to discourage marriage and child rearing, not doing anything to single out, target or punish or harm families,” said Lee.
Lee’s agenda takes on many different dimensions but largely seeks to address kitchen table issues. Right at the top of his list is the need to reduce the cost of a college education.
“I think the best way to bring it down is to look at the way we accredit institutions of higher learning. If we look to expand the number and nature of entities that are accredited and allowed to participate in federal higher education funding programs, I think we could achieve a state of play in which there’d be more competition. With more competition, you generally have prices going down instead of perpetually up,” said Lee, who believes accrediting many more online colleges and universities could be a game-changer in reducing the cost of college and the staggering amount of student debt.
For those already in the workforce, Lee wants to see transportation made a priority but in a way that largely takes Washington out of the picture.
“Through my Transportation Empowerment Act, we would help moms and dads get home to their families sooner, allowing them to spend less time in gridlocked traffic by shifting more of the funding over to the states. We would lower the federal gasoline tax from 18.4 cents per gallon to 3.7 cents per gallon and allow states to collect and spend the differential of 14.7 cents per gallon entirely on their own,” said Lee, who says there are great benefits in this approach.
“When you do it that way, you expand the spending potential of each dollar by 20-30 percent because all of a sudden you don’t have all of these federal regulatory costs that go into this. We want to connect where people need to work with where they want to live, and that’s what this bill would do,” he said.
Besides a desire to shorten commutes for working parents, Lee is teaming with Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell on giving parents more freedom in their schedules through the Working Families Flexibility Act.
“What this does is to give the comp time alternative and makes that available to private sector workers. Currently, that’s available only for government workers. If an employer wants to offer comp time and an employee wants to receive comp time, they don’t have that choice even if they’re both interested in doing that because federal law precludes it. We think that’s wrong and we think that if it’s OK for government workers, it ought to be just fine for America’s private sector employees as well,” said Lee.
He says that sort of flexibility at work will give parents more opportunities to focus on things more important.
“If someone wants to work an extra hour or two or more one week, they can take that time off the next week if they want to go attend their child’s ballet recital or baseball game,” said Lee.
The teaming of Lee and McConnell on the bill may surprise some who remember the two senators preferring much different strategies during the 2013 showdown over appropriations and Obamacare funding and last month’s drama over the “cromnibus” bill. Lee says he is thrilled to see McConnell running the Senate and allowing a much more open process on legislation than former Majority Leader Harry Reid ever did. The senator also says too much is made of a few high-profile disagreements.
“As senators from the same party, we don’t always agree but our areas of agreement far outnumber our areas of disagreement. This is one of the countless areas in which we agree. So I’m happy to have his help,” said Lee.
Aside from the family agenda, Lee is also starting a new push for the federal government to handle it’s finances like most families and businesses, by not spending more than it takes in. He is calling for a balanced budget amendment to the Constitution. It’s an idea that fell one vote short in the Senate on two separate occasions in the 1990s. Lee says it’s something the American people want.
“People want a balanced budget amendment. They want Congress to have restrictions placed on its ability to spend money, and in particular on its ability to impose economic burdens on future generations of Americans, including Americans who have not yet been born and including others who have been born but are not yet old enough to vote. It ends up being a form of taxation without representation,” said Lee, who says his proposed amendment is pretty straightforward.
“It would require Congress to use a super majority vote to approve any budget that’s not balanced, to approve any increase on the debt ceiling, in order to raise taxes or in order to spend more than a specific, defined percentage of GDP (18 percent). We think that if Congress wants to do any of those things, it ought to have to secure a super majority vote in both houses of Congress in order to do it,” said Lee.
A constitutional amendment would require 67 votes in the Senate. Hi family agenda measures would likely need 60. Lee says he’s not to the head-counting stage yet but believes his ideas are little more than common sense and should draw wide bipartisan support.
“It’s really hard to argue against these things. It’s going to be hard for them to argue against allowing private sector employees the same benefits that government workers have, the same opportunity they have to access comp time,” said Lee.