Greg Corombos of Radio America and Jim Geraghty of National Review are encouraged by new research showing candidates with small leads two weeks before the election win the vast majority of the time and are excited about the chance to witness a major Martha Coakley collapse in Massachusetts. They also groan as a new Ebola case emerges in New York City. And they have fun as Michelle Obama tells Colorado voters they should vote for Mark Udall because he’s a fifth-generation Coloradan, because Udall is not but his GOP opponent is.
‘This White House Has Got to Stop Lying’
New reporting shows the Obama administration released illegal immigrants accused of violent crimes including murder despite various officials repeatedly insisting only those with very minor infractions were set free while they waited for deportation or for their cases to be resolved in court, and Rep. Louie Gohmert says it’s time for the president to tell the truth and for Americans to be protected.
The congressman is also seething over reports from earlier this week that the administration seems to be ramping up to legalize a massive number of people in the U.S. unlawfully.
Obama administration officials ranging from former Immigration and Customs Enforcement Director John Morton to former White House Press Secretary Jay Carney assured lawmakers, reporters and the public that the 2,200 illegal immigrants released from detention last year either had no other crimes on their records or were extremely minor. On Thursday, USA Today reported on records it discovered showing illegal immigrants accused of kidnapping, sexual assault, drug trafficking and even homicide
“It is the first obligation of the federal government to provide for the common defense, and that’s against all enemies foreign and domestic. If everybody in the world loved Americans, we’d be great. If everybody in America loved America, we’d be great. But that’s not the case. We owe the American people better and this administration and this White House has got to stop lying,” said Gohmert.
According to Gohmert, officials in Texas long disputed the official immigration numbers offered by the federal government. He says this latest revelation is more proof that suspicion is well-founded.
“We’ve been reporting for months now, just based on Texas numbers, that the federal immigration numbers were a lie. They were just absolutely a lie. We knew in Texas there were tens of thousands more than [Citizenship and Immigration Services] was admitting. So this really documents that Texas was right all along and that the American public had been lied to,” he said, asserting that repeated lies from the government greatly damage the foundation of a country.
“Unfortunately, when you have an administration who’s been caught in one lie after another, it just destroys the faith that people might have in the government,” said Gohmert.
While deeply disappointed, Gohmert says he is not at all surprised because the forces tasked with holding the administration accountable refuse to do their jobs.
“This is what happens when you have a Congress that protects the president from being questioned about lies, protection from being brought and made accountable for lost lives and lies about those lost lives,” said Gohmert.
“That’s what we’ve had in (Senate Majority Leader) Harry Reid. No matter what we’ve demanded, what we’ve voted for, what we’ve passed in the House, Harry Reid has stood in defiance and protected the president. Then we have a Supreme Court that has a majority that really doesn’t want to deal with the president when it comes to things he’s been dishonest about,” he said.
However, Gohmert says stories like these also put the burden on the American people to demand better of their government.
“I keep bringing up the old age that is eminently true that democracy ensures a people are governed no better than they deserve. So if people in the United States want better government, they have got to get Harry Reid out of the way as majority leader. You do that by going and voting and get Republicans in the Senate, give us more authority, get us people that will elect strong leaders in the House and Senate. Then we can use the Constitution to stop the illegality that’s going on in the executive branch,” said Gohmert.
According to the USA Today story, government officials contend they never intended to allow illegal immigrants charged with violent crimes to walk free. They say much of it happened because of funding issues that were largely out of their control.
Gohmert strongly denounces the idea that more money was all that was needed to stop dangerous people from being released. He says it is factually and politically disingenuous.
“They have not wanted a lot of money to spend on deporting people because they don’t want to deport them. They’ve got plenty of money to do their job,” he said, pointing out how the administration has defied the clear demands of Congress when it comes to spending on immigration enforcement.
“Under the Bush administration, there was four billion dollars appropriated for part of the fence (real and virtual) and (former Homeland Security Secretary) Janet Napolitano said, ‘You know what, we’ve decided we don’t want to do that. We’ll use the money somewhere else,'” said Gohmert, noting again that key allies of Obama stand in the way of true accountability.
“They refuse to follow the law. They refuse to spend money where it’s dictated. They do what they want and with Harry Reid standing in the way of enforcing the law and Eric Holder providing the president the biggest criminal defense firm in America, he’s been able to get away with it. This administration has. It’s got to stop,” he said.
The news on illegal immigrants accused of violent crimes being released from detention follows on the heels of reports earlier in the week, suggesting the president is preparing for a massive extension of work permits to people in the U.S. illegally. Breitbart.com reports that U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services are bracing for a “surge scenario” of up to nine million work visas in a year. The total contract could possibly legalize anywhere from four to thirty-four million people in the near future.
“I think when we see this kind of request, despite the dishonesty of (White House Press Secretary) Josh Earnest on behalf of the president that obviously this is what they planned to do. They planned to legalize millions of people that are here illegally. They are going to turn this country inside out,” said Gohmert, who believes the administration is orchestrating much of what we have seen this year, including the massive influx of illegal immigrants, including many minors across our southern border this past summer.
“At the first of this year, this administration sent out for contracts for people who would be able to transport thousands and thousands of people from the Texas border. Low and behold, it turned out that’s exactly what happened in the months ahead. The administration said, ‘Gee, we didn’t really anticipate this.’ Yes they did. It was in their initial request,” he said.
Especially galling to Gohmert is what he sees as the president’s unconstitutional attempts to unilaterally change immigration policy because Congress won’t give him the legislative changes he wants.
“He continues to refuse to do his job (of securing the border) and says, ‘Not only am I not going to do my job that’s legally required, I’m going to start legislating, which is not my job,” he said.
If Republicans gain control of the House and Senate and Obama goes through with executive action on immigration, Gohmert says the Congress will hit the administration hard in the wallet.
“If he does that, we have got to cut off massive billions and billions of dollars to the White House and the executive branch. That is the power of the purse. When the executive branch is acting illegally, then you quit providing any money whatsoever to allow them to continue their illegality,” said Gohmert.
Three Martini Lunch 10/23/14
Greg Corombos of Radio America and Jim Geraghty of National Review discuss Charles Krauthammer’s assertion that Obama called red state Democrats his allies and votes he could count on because it’s very hard for him to handle going from mass adoration to a parish within parts of his own party within six years. They also discuss the latest Islamic radical terrorism – this time in Canada. And they rip the Obama administration for releasing illegal immigrants accused of murder, kidnapping, sexual assault and more.
‘We’ll Change the Direction of the Country’
Recent polls suggest former Michigan Secretary of State Terri Lynn Land is trailing Democratic Rep. Gary Peters in the state’s open U.S. Senate race, but Land says she will close the small gap and win because intrusive government is crippling her state and her opponent is nothing more than a “rubber stamp” for Harry Reid and the Obama agenda.
“It’s going to go down to Election Day. We always knew that. This is a very close race. This is a close state. We’re working hard to talk to the voters, ask for their vote and tell them we’ll change the direction of the country,” said Land.
Land describes Michigan as a purple state, although voters there have elected a Republican to the U.S. Senate only once since 1972.
The seat is up for grabs in Michigan since six-term Democrat Carl Levin announced he would not seek re-election this year. Land served as a Republican secretary of state from 2003-2011, while Democrats controlled the governor’s office and the state legislature. Peters is a three-term congressman from the Detroit suburbs.
If elected, Land says her experience of working with people in both parties would be a benefit to Michigan and to the nation. She says one immediate benefit of her election would be to improve the odds that Republican ideas see the light of day on the Senate floor.
“The biggest hindrance to all of this is Sen. Harry Reid (D-Nevada). He has not allowed over 400 bills to come up from [the House of Representatives] to vote on in the Senate, everything from energy security and the economy to jobs and all of that. We need to change the direction of the Senate, so that we can vote on these bills up or down and send them to the president,” said Land.
She says electing Peters would result in more of the same in Washington.
“Gary Peters would just be another rubber stamp for Sen. Harry Reid. We’d be in the same situation we are today. We need to change the direction of this country. He does not support balancing the budget and cutting and making sure the government works for the people. He’s had a history of voting for taxes. He talks about that he supports women but yet he pays women in his office 67 cents on the dollar,” said Land, who also accuses Peters of supporting the outsourcing of American jobs through various votes in Congress.
According to Land, the Obama presidency has been bad for Michigan for a number of reasons, but she says the state is especially wounded by a flood of environmental regulations.
“In our state, we have the manufacturing industry, farming and tourism. Now we’ve got the [Environmental Protection Agency] putting in new regulations that put the pedal to the metal on greenhouse gases and making utility companies up costs. It’s going to increase costs for not only manufacturers but also for individuals with their home utilities,” said Land.
The GOP nominee also says she is committed to getting the nation’s fiscal house in order and says step one in congressional accountability is make members feel the pinch if they don’t get their jobs done.
“We need to balance the budget. I propose that if we don’t pass a budget that’s balanced that you don’t get paid in the Senate until you do,” said Land, who says eight years in statewide elected office prepared her for the task.
“As secretary of state, we went through the dark days of Michigan, where Gov. (Jennifer) Granholm and Congressman Peters’ (an official in the Granholm administration) policies lost over 800,000 jobs in our state. We said we need to reduce and consolidate every program that we have. So we looked at literally every program, eliminated programs, looked at positions when they came open when people retired or left and went from 2,100 employees down to 1,500 without any layoffs. We reduced our whole operation by over 20 percent and kept out costs down,” said Land.
When asked where she would start trimming at the federal level, Land believes there is an obvious candidate for cutting a lot of spending.
“Obviously, the biggest thing is Obamacare. That is a huge cost and it doesn’t work. It’s been a disaster and that would be the first place to go,” she said.
“We need a health care system that works for Michigan and our country, one that’s portable and that you can buy with pre-tax dollars, one where the costs are competitive because you can purchase it across state lines and making sure you can keep that doctor-patient relationship,” said Land.
The Real Clear Politics average of polls suggests Peters leads by nine points, but pollsters are also stunned by the huge number of still-undecided voters less than two weeks before voters go to the polls. Land says the choice of direction for Michigan couldn’t be clearer.
“Whether it’s outsourcing, raising taxes or not balancing the budget, that is not good for Michigan and would not put Michigan first. I’m going to go down there and put Michigan first,” said Land.
Three Martini Lunch 10/22/14
Greg Corombos of Radio America and Jim Geraghty of National Review enjoy New Hampshire Sen. Jeanne Shaheen’s awkward dodge of a debate question about whether she approves of President Obama’s job performance. They also react to ISIS intercepting weapons the U.S. was trying to drop to Kurdish forces. They laugh and cry as a new report on government waste highlights tax dollars being spent on Swedish massages for rabbits, teaching monkeys to gamble and other gems. And they celebrate four years of the Three Martini Lunch with a look back at a classic moment from three years ago.
Gay Marriage Forces Coming for Churches Next
Idaho State Sen. Steve Vick says one city’s efforts to force a Christian wedding chapel to perform same-sex marriages in his state is a blatant violation of the Constitution and he is seriously considering legislation to get the state government out of marriage entirely because he fears churches will be the next target in the aggressive homosexual agenda.
Earlier this year, a federal judge ruled Idaho’s constitutional amendment defining marriage as one man and one woman was unconstitutional. While that decision was placed on hold during the appeals process, officials in Coeur d’Alene, Idaho, informed Hitching Post wedding chapel owners Donald and Evelyn Knapp that they would be required to perform same-sex ceremonies or face jail time and fines if the court’s decision stood. Last week, the Supreme Court allowed same-sex marriages to go forward in the state.
The Knapps have operated the Hitching Post since 1989. They are bible-believing Christians who refuse to participate in ceremonies they believe are clearly condemned in scripture. A legal fight is already underway, but Sen. Vick says he and the local community are outraged by the Coeur d’Alene’s treatment of the Knapps and anyone else seeking the free exercise of their faith.
“It’s very disappointing to me that they would require a Christian business owner to do something that violates their religious convictions, which I believe are protected by the first amendment to the United States Constitution,” said Vick. “Most of the reaction that I incurred has been from disappointment to shock that [the city] would do that.”
Vick has plans to meet with the Knapps later this week to discuss their ordeal. In the meantime, he expects the state legislature to address the issue. Vick admits there is no concrete legislation in place yet but many lawmakers strongly believe the state needs to take action. The senator is personally investigating two approaches, the second of which may come as a major surprise to other conservatives.
“One is to try to re-establish the standing of those who have deeply-held religious convictions,” said Vick. “Another potential avenue that I’m exploring is just eliminating marriage licenses in Idaho.”
Vick admits eliminating state sanctioning of marriage would be a big step and he is only beginning to explore that option. Still, he says the response so far is very positive.
“I have discussed it with just a few people. I don’t have a bill drafted or anything. I have discussed it at some of the town halls I’ve been at. It actually seems to be fairly well-received. In my opinion, if we’re not allowed to determine the standards for a marriage license, then maybe we should just not issue them,” said Vick.
The senator says these are the kind of things states must consider since the will of the voters are being rejected in the federal courts.
“I believe the only way the Supreme Court will hear it is if a different circuit court rules differently. I haven’t seen that yet, but if another circuit ruled that a state could keep on their books a constitutional amendment or a statute that says marriage should be between one man and one woman, then I think the Supreme Court would have to hear it. Other than that, I think these rulings will probably stand,” said Vick, referring to the high court refusing to hear appeals from multiple states after judges struck down voter-approved constitutional amendments establishing traditional marriage as law.
While Vick remains concerned for Christian business owners like the Knapps, he believes efforts to force believers into approving and participating in same-sex weddings are already targeting the church itself.
“I believe the next step will be to say that churches themselves cannot discriminate. They cannot discriminate and the church will have to marry same-sex couples and not be allowed to say anything. Clearly they’re going after the freedom of the church’s speech through the hate speech statutes,” said Vick.
For Vick, officials in Coeur d’Alene and elsewhere are guilty of assaulting freedoms that are the cornerstone of our nation.
“I still believe [they] are requiring someone to violate a long-held and well-established religious conviction. It’s not like somebody established a new religious conviction to discriminate. This is a well-established belief that’s been held by most of the people in the Christian church for over 2,000 years. So, I don’t know that the state should be involved in choosing who’s rights to violate,” said Vick.
Three Martini Lunch 10/21/14
Greg Corombos of Radio America and Andrew Johnson of National Review gleefully appreciate President Obama saying embattled Democratic senators in red states are reliable allies and supporters who always vote with him when it matters. They also groan as reports suggest Obama is preparing to grant legal status to between four million and thirty-four million illegal immigrants after the midterm elections. And they discuss the latest reappearance of Monica Lewinsky, her admission that she loved President Clinton and her contention that she was ‘patient zero’ in cyber bullying.
Why Klain Can’t Be Trusted
President Obama’s new Ebola czar was hired for the purpose of “massaging news” for political purposes much more than he was to coordinate the federal response to the disease appearing on American soil and his involvement in the Solyndra mess is proof, according to former federal prosecutor Andrew C. McCarthy.
“It’s not a good sign when they bring somebody in to coordinate an effort whose chief talent is massaging bad news for political purposes. Klain, from all accounts, is a very bright guy and he’s probably very good at his job. But I don’t know that when what the country’s worried about is an Ebola outbreak, his particular skill set is what people were looking for in a coordinator,” said McCarthy, a New York Times bestselling author, who recently released “Faithless Execution: Building the Political Case for Obama’s Impeachment.”
Since the White House announced Klain as the Ebola response coordinator on Friday, plenty of critics have pointed to Klain’s lack of medical experience and his partisan history on matters ranging from the 2000 Florida recount to the Democratic strategy against the Supreme Court nomination of Clarence Thomas in 1991. However, McCarthy believes another illuminating chapter of Klain’s time in Washington was his handling of the Solyndra controversy in the early years of the Obama administration.
In a piece for National Review Online, McCarthy revisits the story of Solyndra, a solar panel manufacturer based in California and he says there are some eerie similarities between Klain’s actions as Solyndra was imploding just before the 2010 midterms and what he is likely to do in response to Ebola coming to the U.S.
In October 2010, despite the infusion of $535 million in taxpayer assistance, the company was about to go under. Solyndra officials told the Obama administration it was about to go public about it’s financial woes and the need to cut jobs. Klain, serving as chief staff for Vice President Joe Biden, was having none of that just days before the midterm elections.
“It was reported to Klain and Valerie Jarrett among others that around October 28 they were letting 20 percent of their workforce go and closing one of their big plants. The next thing you know, the Department of Energy ends up putting a lot of pressure on Solyndra and they delay the announcement until the day after the election,” said McCarthy.
So what is the parallel to Klain’s appointment to lead the Ebola response effort?
“I think it’s a cautionary tale about what Mr. Klain’s real job is here, which is basically to massage news, particularly with a new round of midterm elections on the horizon, to manage when news gets disclosed so it will have the least damaging political impact,” said McCarthy.
However, the former prosecutor says the whole Solyndra tale reveals far more than that about Klain and the Obama administration as a whole.
In 2005, President George W. Bush signed the Energy Policy Act. Among other things, the law allowed the federal government to engage in venture capitalism with taxpayer dollars with the goal of boosting green energy businesses. Solyndra applied for federal assistance then but was denied.
“Even though the administration was anxious to get on that bandwagon, it shunned Solyndra. The main reason was it’s business model was, as one analyst put it, a complete and total disaster. It was hemorrhaging money. It really didn’t have any prospects of becoming viable, much less profitable,” said McCarthy.
McCarthy says the federal government’s attitude toward Solyndra changed drastically in January 2009.
“Within a week of Obama taking office, their application was back in business again. One has to conclude that has something to do with the fact that the backer of Solyndra was the family foundation of a major Obama donor,” he said, referring to the family foundation of Obama donor George Kaiser.
This time, with environmental advocates in power and Klain serving as Biden’s chief of staff, Solyndra’s application was speedily approved, but it didn’t change the financial outlook for the company.
“It’s business model was such that it couldn’t compete with Chinese companies that were able to deliver solar energy with much more efficiency and for much less money. As a result, this company continued to hemorrhage money,” said McCarthy.
When hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars failed to stabilize Solyndra, the next step was to seek market financing by going public and selling shares of the company. That never happened, however, because a legally-mandated audit revealed a fiscal mess that accounting firm Price Waterhouse Coopers described as a “going concern”.
Even with that backdrop, the Obama administration continued to publicly highlight Solyndra as a model for robust American economic growth.
“[The audit] happened a couple of months before President Obama famously came to Solyndra and touted it as a great company that was going to have these wonderful ramifications throughout the economy,” said McCarthy.
This is also the time, emails show, that Klain became directly involved in advancing the glowing Solyndra narrative despite the mounting evidence that it was a house of cards. Prior to the speech, presidential adviser Valerie Jarrett saw the financial state of the company and sought counsel from Klain as to whether Obama should still go there.
“Basically, Klain said, ‘Look, I’m comfortable with it. The president touted ten of these companies. Chances are a couple of them might go belly-up. That’s just what you have to do. You have to take these risks.’ It seems to me, when you read the email about it, he was sort of cavalier about the fact you could have massive, catastrophic failures of these companies that are flush with taxpayer funds,” said McCarthy.
But the worst part of the story the taxpayers getting shortchanged upon Solyndra’s implosion. The Energy Policy Act mandates that if a company receiving taxpayer funds goes under, the taxpayers (the U.S. Treasury) were to be first in line for reimbursements when a company’s assets were sold.
“In this instance, what the Obama administration did was to allow that part of the law to be essentially waived. They restructured the deal so that Solyndra backers were able to get priority over the taxpayers,” said McCarthy, noting well-connected donors got in line ahead of the public for at least the first $75 million of the reimbursement.
That, says McCarthy, is criminal.
“They went out of their way and beyond the parameters of what federal law wants done in order to protect the backers from the consequences of their horrific investments,” he said.
Three Martini Lunch 10/20/14
Greg Corombos of Radio America and Eliana Johnson of National Review are pleasantly surprised to see black liberal commentator Tavis Smiley say the Obama administration has been a huge disappointment for black Americans. They also groan as Obama hopes to strike a nuclear deal with Iran but never submit it for congressional approval. And they react to a rally of Maryland Democrats walking out on Obama’s speech on behalf of Maryland’s Democratic candidate for governor.
Vitter: ‘Pathetic’ CDC Director Must Be Fired
Louisiana Sen. David Vitter is ripping President Obama’s “political” choice to be the administration’s Ebola response coordinator and says Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Director Dr. Thomas Frieden needs to be fired and the U.S. Congress should be reconvened to pass travel restrictions on people linked to the African nations hit hardest by the Ebola outbreak.
On Friday, just hours after saying he hadn’t decided whether to appoint an “Ebola czar”, Obama tapped Ron Klain for the job. In that role, Klain will report to National Security Adviser Susan Rice and Homeland Security Adviser Lisa Monaco.
Klain served as chief of staff to former Vice President Al Gore and held the same position from 2009-2011 for Vice President Joe Biden. Klain may be best known for his role with the Gore campaign during the Florida recount following the 2000 presidential election.
The choice leaves Vitter confused and unimpressed.
“I’m still looking for (his) health care background. Maybe it’s there. I’m still looking for that. In terms of a manager, he quite frankly seems more of a political manager than a strong policy manager,” said Vitter.
Regardless of the appointment of Klain as the response coordinator, Vitter says it is imperative that Obama relieve Frieden from his position as head of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).
“I think his response to the crisis has been pathetic. I think that was underscored again yesterday with his testimony before the House committee. He didn’t have strong, clear answers and he hasn’t had strong, clear actions. So he’s not the leader we need. President Obama needs to fire him and have a strong, competent leader at the CDC and elsewhere who can lead this effort,” said Vitter.
According to Vitter, there are three glaring reasons why Frieden has lost credibility and must be dismissed.
“Number one, the CDC has not been competent and proactive in terms of helping the hospitals involved with adequate protocols. We now know, after all this happy talk about strict protocols, that they weren’t in place anywhere near in time that they had to be,” he said.
Even worse, says Vitter, was the stunningly bad advice given to Dallas nurse Amber Vinson, who checked in with the CDC before boarding a flight following her work with now-deceased Ebola patient Thomas Eric Duncan.
“They made horrible mistakes in other cases, like telling the second person who came down with the disease, who had contact with the patient, that she could go on a flight because her fever was only 99.4 (degrees) instead of 100.6. That’s ludicrous. Then she went on a flight and was obviously in contact with dozens or hundreds of people who were distributed all around the country,” said Vitter, who also faults Frieden for not doing more to keep the threat out of the U.S.
“Dr. Frieden has been very, very weak on travel restrictions. I think he’s letting political correctness trump caution and common sense,” he said, clearly frustrated by the entire administration’s refusal to impose a temporary travel ban on transportation to and from the African nations hit hardest by Ebola.
“President Obama has to get real and immediately look at travel restrictions. That was a key element of the successful strategy that isolated and then eradicated the Ebola epidemic in Africa in the 1970s. We need to learn from that positive experience,” said Vitter.
And the senator is not just talking about flights directly into or out of Liberia, Guinea and Sierra Leone.
“I think we need to think of it in terms of individual travel restrictions, not just flights. You can end direct flights and still have folks in through Europe or elsewhere. So I think we need to talk about travel restrictions into the U.S. and barring certain folks from certain countries,” said Vitter, who is strongly urging congressional leaders to call members back to Washington to pass legislation to restrict travel.
“I’ve called for that with Rep. Scott Garrett (R-NJ) today. I think we should be back now. I think we should get back as soon as possible. I think we need to talk about these important things , starting with travel restrictions,” he said.
Public trust in the federal government was already quite low. Vitters says it may very well plummet further and that would be very understandable given how recent headlines show the government not being up to the job on key issues.
“I think it’s adding to an already dismal lack of confidence, and I don’t blame the public. They see over and over and over again these huge sprawling bureaucracies which have become incompetent or worse, like the IRS and all of their scandals, like the (Veterans Administration) and the CDC and other federal agencies with Ebola,” said Vitter.
However, a new wrinkle to this debate is conservatives wondering if criticizing the competence of the CDC and other federal agencies is a tacit GOP admission that big government is OK so long as the leaders can do their jobs well.
“Though there are fair criticisms of the CDC’s handling of Ebola, by giving into the temptation to point fingers at Obama, Republicans run the risk of reinforcing the idea that any crisis or perceived crisis can be handled if only there were a better person in charge. And this could cut against many of the arguments that conservatives usually make about the inherent problems with federal bureaucracies,” wrote Washington Examiner columnist Philip Klein.
Vitter says there are some things the federal government is supposed to lead on and this is one of them.
“I do think in a national situation like this , CDC as a federal agency is the right entity to have a big role. Certainly, talk about travel restrictions has to come from the federal government. Individual states can’t do it. So I don’t have a problem with that. I have a problem with how all of this has been decided and executed by the Obama administration,” he said.