Washington Extra – Fall and rise
That’s not hot air emanating from the Capitol today, it’s the huge sigh of relief from the Democratic leadership that Congressman Anthony Weiner decided to resign.
And gone with him are the difficult decisions about whether to strip him of committees or think up other pressure tactics to end the weeks-long distraction.
“Congressman Weiner exercised poor judgment in his actions and poor judgment in his reaction to the revelations. Today, he made the right judgment in resigning,” House Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi said.
On the other side of the world (we think that’s where he is, but we really don’t know) Ayman al-Zawahri got promoted to head of al Qaeda.
The U.S. government acted all nonchalant about the successor to Osama bin Laden. “Frankly, it barely matters who runs al Qaeda because al Qaeda is a bankrupt ideology,” State Department spokesperson Victoria Nuland said.
OK then. But there’s still a $25 million reward out for him.
Here are our top stories from Washington…
Former Bush lawyer hired to defend gay marriage ban
The Republican-controlled House of Representatives has hired Paul Clement, the former solicitor general during George W. Bush’s presidency, to pick up the ball and defend the law that defined marriage as between a man and woman.
The Obama administration decided in February to drop its defense of the 15-year-old law, which was hailed by gay rights advocates but widely panned by many senior Republicans infuriated that the Justice Department would no longer defend the law in court and called it a political move.
In one case in Boston, a federal judge struck down the 1996 Defense of Marriage Act banning gay marriages as unconstitutional.
But the Obama administration had initially appealed those rulings, saying it typically defends lawyers on the books. Now the Justice Department says it agreed with the judge’s ruling.
House Republican Speaker John Boehner has sought funds from the Justice Department’s budget to pay for the defense, but Democratic Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi has demanded details about the expected cost, including details about the contract retaining Clement.
Clement is now a private practicing attorney at the firm King & Spalding in Washington after working as the solicitor general from June 2005 to June 2008 in which he served as the government’s primary lawyer to argue cases at the Supreme Court. A spokesman for the firm said Clement had been hired, but declined further comment.
The hot-button issue of same-sex marriage has been the focus of many judicial and political battles across the country. Gay marriage has only been legalized in the District of Columbia and a handful of the 50 states including Connecticut, Massachusetts, Iowa, New Hampshire and Vermont.
Whether you believe in freedom of marriage or the sanctity of old marriage values, you might agree that the battle for the legalization of same sex marriage has some political motivations behind it.
One Washington day is not like another for Mr. Hu
China’s President Hu Jintao was feted with full fanfare at the White House on Wednesday, with a 21-gun salute, honor guards and a state dinner. Things might not be quite so fancy on Thursday when he goes to Capitol Hill.
There he will see Republican Speaker John Boehner in the House of Representatives, then cross the Capitol to meet Democratic Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid. Neither bothered to attend Wednesday’s state dinner.
Also attending the House and Senate meetings will be several other lawmakers who want a word with Hu about human rights in China, as well as China’s dealings with Iran and Chinese trade practices.
Representative Ileana Ros-Lehtinen plans to hand Hu an entire list of complaints in the form of a letter she sent to Obama ahead of the Chinese leader’s visit.
The letter from the Republican complains of Beijing’s “military posturing,” as well as reports that China allowed the trans-shipment of North Korean missile parts to Iran via Beijing aiport. It also calls for the closure of labor camps in China, the release of political prisoners, and “unrestricted religious freedom”.
Also attending the House meeting with Hu will be the former Speaker, now Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi. The Chinese media once called her a “defender of arsonists, looters and killers” after she visited the Dalai Lama and criticized Chinese “oppression” in Tibet.
Another lawmaker Hu will see is Democrat Sander Levin, one of Congress’s many critics of China’s trade practices. When he was chairman of the Ways and Means Committee last year, he pushed a bill through the House that threatened trade sanctions on China in retaliation for Beijing’s currency manipulation.
Washington Extra – hello goodbye
She says goodbye and he says hello.
The House Speaker’s (HUGE) gavel changed hands today, symbolizing the transfer of power to Republicans. Outgoing speaker Nancy Pelosi, attacked by Republicans as a symbol of Democratic excesses, took the high road as she repeatedly congratulated new House Speaker John Boehner and his Republican majority.
Boehner started off with some levity and humility — “It’s still just me.” And he didn’t disappoint those watching for his now trademark show of emotion when he dabbed his eyes with a white handkerchief while standing behind Pelosi before the handover. Reuters photojournalist Kevin Lamarque captured the moment, you can see it on our politics blog at http://blogs.reuters.com/frontrow/
There were goodbyes emanating from the White House too. President Barack Obama’s spokesman Robert Gibbs is stepping down from the White House press room podium. “What I’m going to do next is step back a little bit, recharge some … I will have an opportunity I hope to give some speeches. I will continue to provide advice and counsel to this building and to this president.”
And another unannounced goodbye to come from Paul Volcker. In an exclusive, White House correspondent Caren Bohan reports that Volcker plans to leave as head of the President’s Economic Recovery Advisory Board.
Now we just have to watch for who will be saying hello at the White House.
Here are our top stories from Washington today…
Pelosi says Congress must create jobs, while giving up hers
As she handed over the House Speaker’s gavel to the other party, Nancy Pelosi pointed out that the shoe was now on the other foot and the new Republican-led Congress would be judged by whether it creates jobs.
The California Democrat, now House minority leader, probably would like her old job back, and setting such a high performance bar for the Republicans now in charge of the House of Representatives might be one way to get it.
Lessons from the November elections are still burning — it was public anger and anxiety about the economy and job losses that partly led to Democrats losing control of the House of Representatives.
“Our most important job is to fight for American jobs … And so Democrats will judge what comes before Congress from either side of the aisle as to whether it creates jobs, strengthens the middle class, and reduces the deficit,” the first woman speaker said as she handed a huge gavel to the new speaker of the House, Republican John Boehner.
Boehner also addressed job concerns. “We gather here today at a time of great challenges. Nearly one in ten of our neighbors are looking for work,” he said. “Hard work and tough decisions will be required of the 112th Congress. No longer can we fall short. No longer can we kick the can down the road. The people voted to end business as usual, and today we begin carrying out their instructions.”
He also didn’t disappoint those watching for his now trademark show of emotion when he dabbed his eyes with a white handkerchief as he waited for Pelosi to hand over the gavel.
Pelosi congratulated Boehner and the new Republican majority several times, and pledged that if they “come forward with solutions that will address these American challenges, you will find us a willing partner.”
Washington Extra – New Year state of mind
New Year often means out with the old and in with the new.
On Capitol Hill, the new 112th Congress will start its 2-year run that will end after the 2012 presidential election. (For numerologists — that’s an awful lot of 2s).
Today was Nancy Pelosi’s last day as the first Madam Speaker. The most powerful woman in American politics and second in line to the presidency turns into House minority leader next. Her exit line: “No regrets.”
Tomorrow will be John Boehner’s first day as speaker when Republicans take control of the House and the new Tea Partiers get seated. We’ll be watching for tears of joy.
Before embarking on something new, Republicans have promised to rehash something old — namely President Barack Obama’s signature health care law.
House Republicans will likely approve scrapping health care reform at a Jan. 12 vote, but a repeal was unlikely to succeed since Democrats still control the Senate and can block it.
President Obama has returned from Hawaii and it’s back to dealing with Congress and world leaders. He meets French President Nicolas Sarkozy on Jan. 10, will they go to Ben’s Chili Bowl for a half-smoke? (It’s the only smoke for Obama these days since he gave up cigarettes).
1. By default, every criticism needs to come with the alterative.
Under the broken system below,
(a) Inaction cost, $9trillion over the next decade, ((Some of CBO analysis : While the costs of the financial bailouts and economic stimulus bills are staggering, they are only a fraction of the coming costs from Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid. Over the next decade, the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) projects that each year Medicaid will expand by 7 percent, Medicare by 6 percent, and Social Security by 5 percent. These programs face a 75-year shortfall of $43 trillion–60 times greater than the gross cost of the $700 billion TARP financial bailout)).
Under the previous broken system, health costs will skyrocket, leading to more personal, corporate, and governmental bankruptcy.
(b) The insurers set up a monopoly via consolidation violating an anti-trust law.
(c) The biggest 10 healthcare providers are driven mostly to please Wall Street and must show growing profits every three months in their reports to wall Street or their stocks values go down. So healthcare prices climb at an unreasonable rate at the expense of everyone involved.
Can the reps show me the best possible breakthrough ? Just return to the failed Bush policy based on trickle-down economics ? :
“If the rich aren’t getting richer neither are the poor! The wealthy create companies and jobs; the more they have the more they can spend and that eventually filters down to the rest of us.”
If so, can you explain to me why the U.S. economy was on the brink of complete collapse just like Lehman Brothers in 2008 ?
And the reps claimed earlier : Are you listening to people ?
(a) The vast majority of the PEOPLE wanted the public option that the House passed and a majority of the Senate favored, but it couldn’t get past the Republican filibuster.
(b) The biggest concern about the economy is a job market, (according to CNN polling, voters said that unemployment is roughly twice as important as all other top issues combined.)
Can the reps also explain to me why they aren’t listening to people ?
Looks as if the reps are set to drag the U.S. economy into another failed Bush era via the ransom deal, repeal of ACA.
( Looks as if the reps are Glorifying the culture of corruption as the trickle-down economics )
Regrets? Madam Speaker has none
Nancy Pelosi spent her final full day as speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives saying she had “no regrets.”
“I don’t really look back. I look forward,” said Pelosi, who as speaker became the most powerful woman ever in American politics.
At noon on Wednesday, the new 112th Congress will convene with Republicans in control of the House, ending Pelosi’s four-year reign as the first woman speaker, a position that is second in the line of succession to the U.S. presidency, behind only the vice president.
In that post, the 70-year-old California Democrat has been derided by critics as a free-spending liberal, yet praised by backers as a crusading trailblazer.
She helped pushed through Congress much of President Barack Obama’s agenda, including an overhaul of the U.S. healthcare system, a crackdown on Wall Street and an end to the U.S. military’s ban against gays serving openly in its ranks.
But Pelosi’s Democrats lost control of the House largely because of their inability to bring down a stubbornly high U.S. jobless rate of nearly 10 percent.
Asked if she had any regrets that Democrats didn’t spend more time trying to remedy fiscal matters, Pelosi said no. And she pointed a finger of blame at what she described as Republican obstructionists in the U.S. Senate.
Washington Extra – Whose bipartisanship?
The feeling appeared mutual when President Barack Obama shook hands with Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell after signing the tax cut bill. It looked like the picture of what Obama called a “bipartisan effort.”
McConnell tried not to grin too much over the Republicans winning the war in their efforts to extend tax cuts to the wealthy.
But when it came to Capitol Hill Democrats, there wasn’t much display of unity with even Obama, let alone bipartisanship with the Republicans. Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid were no-shows at the bill signing.
(Lawmakers don’t miss bill signings if they can help it, it gives them a chance to show accomplishment… and get one of those presidential pens).
Vice President Joe Biden got the first mention in Obama’s remarks, McConnell and the Republican leadership in the Senate were second. Then Obama mentioned House Republican Dave Camp, followed by the Democrats on stage, starting with Senator Dick Durbin.
Obama said there were elements of the tax-cut bill that he, Democrats and Republicans each didn’t like, but, “that’s the nature of compromise, yielding on something each of us cares about to move forward on what all of us care about.”
Tackling the deficit will likely be even more difficult than the tax cut bill, Obama said, and he will be looking for more bipartisanship on that.
O’Donnell’s ‘witch’ captures spirit of times
Tea Party darling Christine O’Donnell may have lost the Delaware Senate race. But she heads the list when it comes to expressing the spirit of the times.
“I’m not a witch,” her famous TV ad declaration that preceded the demise of her Republican Senate campaign, tops Yale University’s annual list of most notable quotes for 2010.
O’Donnell doesn’t have the No. 1 slot to herself, however. She’s tied with former BP CEO Tony Hayward’s lament to reporters: “I’d like my life back.” That was when his company’s off-shore rig was spewing oil into the Gulf of Mexico, endangering life and livelihoods along the U.S. coast.
Yale librarian Fred Shapiro, who compiled the list, said he looked for quotes that are “famous or important or particularly revealing of the spirit of our times.”
“It was not pleasant dealing with this material,” Shapiro himself was quoted as saying by the New Haven Register, Yale’s hometown daily. He explained that the most notable remarks are “generally polarizing, fairly harsh. Some would say they are extreme.” O’Donnell’s ‘witch’ quote came to symbolize a phenomenon of the 2010 campaign: Tea Party candidates who proved ill-equipped to thrive in the burning spotlight of national politics. O’Donnell actually made the Yale list twice. The second entry is her rhetorical question about the constitutional separation of church and state, uttered during an Oct. 19 debate: “You’re telling me that the separation of church and state is found in the First Amendment?” Others on the Yale list of notable quotes include: * Republican and Tea Party rock star Sarah Palin, who tweeted to supporters on March 23: “Don’t retreat. Instead — reload!” * Tea Party favorite Sharron Angle, Nevada’s losing Republican Senate nominee, who said in January: “I hope that’s not where we’re going, but you know, if this Congress keeps going the way it is, people are really looking toward those Second Amendment remedies. They’re saying: My goodness, what can we do to turn this country around?” * House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, who said on March 9: “We have to pass the (healthcare) bill so you can find out what is in it.”
Nothing from President Barack Obama? Shapiro explained: “He’s proven to be surprisingly unquotable. He doesn’t seem to come up with any good sound bites.”
Photo Credits: Reuters/Jason Reed (O’Donnell); Reuters/Sergei Karpukhin (Hayward); Reuters/Jessica Rinaldi (Palin); Reuters/Jonathan Ernst (Pelosi)
Separation of church and state is NOT in the first amendment, it has been interpreted by the Supreme Court as erecting a separation of church and state.
Washington Extra – Cold shoulder
It’s a chilly day in Washington, and we’re not just talking about the weather.
Democrats on Capitol Hill are giving President Barack Obama the cold shoulder after he blinked first in the stand-off with Republicans over extending tax cuts.
“We will continue discussions with the President and our Caucus in the days ahead,” House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said. (Translation – House Democrats are not on board with this yet.)
Another sign of which way the wind is blowing: Republicans have been uncharacteristically silent since the compromise was announced. As is often the case in Washington, those who talk loudest fear they are losing most, and those who are quiet don’t want to rock the boat that’s headed their way.
Obama said he had no choice because Republicans weren’t going to budge from their “Holy Grail” of tax cuts for the wealthy, and it would be more difficult to reach a deal in the next Congress when they have more seats.
And then he proceeded to dish it out.
Republicans were likened to hostage-takers in the tax fight. “I think it’s tempting not to negotiate with hostage-takers, unless the hostage gets harmed,” Obama said. “In this case, the hostage was the American people. And I was not willing to see them get harmed.”
