US Politics Mega-thread - Page 1565

On January 07 2015 02:20 {CC}StealthBlue wrote:
It was armed robbery and if the suspects were the actual perpetrators then their the motivation was to get away. Not "fuck the police" the media will try and spin.

WASHINGTON -- The House of Representatives voted Tuesday to once again make John Boehner its speaker, handing the Ohio Republican the gavel for the third time despite a late challenge by dissatisfied members of his own party. Tuesday's vote saw the most votes against a sitting speaker since 1923.

Boehner received the votes of 216 House members, while House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) received 164 votes. A number of discontented Republicans, however, voted for other candidates, including Rep. Daniel Webster (R-Fla.), who, with 12 votes, got the most opposition votes from the GOP.

Boehner's caucus unanimously chose him to be the speaker just after November's elections. However, the Ohio Republican soon faced a rebellion from conservative members who were angry that he pushed through a government spending bill in December that didn't extract concessions from President Barack Obama on immigration or the Affordable Care Act.

The full House of Representatives votes for the new speaker at the start of a new Congress.

The rebels were led by Reps. Louie Gohmert (R-Texas) and Ted Yoho (R-Fla.), who both challenged Boehner for the speakership. They argued that the current GOP leadership had turned its back on the principles of the voters who chose to seat a Republican House and Senate for the first time in eight years. Yoho, despite his challenge to Boehner, raised money for the speaker in October.

"There have been numerous examples of problematic Republican leadership, but we were hopeful our leaders got the voters’ message," Gohmert said in a statement ahead of the formal vote, pointing to the so-called "cromnibus" spending bill that funds most of the government through September, which is at the center of the current conservative dissatisfaction with Boehner. "However, after our Speaker forced through the CRomnibus by passing it with Democratic votes and without time to read it, it seemed clear that we needed new leadership."

The discontented Republicans offered up three alternatives to Boehner -- Yoho and Gohmert, as well as Webster. Other protest votes were also cast, including for people who are not in the House.

While the insurrection gained little traction, it does signal that Boehner could be in for a rough couple of years. The members who opposed him comprise a larger bloc than the dozen who opposed him two years ago at the start of the 113th Congress. And during the four years that Boehner has led the House, he lost control of his caucus a number of times, finding himself forced to pull key bills from the floor when he failed to muster votes that he thought he could deliver.

On January 07 2015 03:08 oneofthem wrote:
this is a good opportunity for the community to come together and show support for the police. the police in turn needs to open up to need for dialogue.

On January 07 2015 07:04 GreenHorizons wrote:


What does this say about the conservative wing of the Republican party?

On January 07 2015 07:49 Gorsameth wrote:

Since his biggest opponent (the Democrat doesnt count) only got 12 I think it means there is no real issue in the House at the moment.

On January 07 2015 02:08 Millitron wrote:

I never said I'd be upset if they scrapped medicaid. It would hurt me economically, sure, but I'd be cool with it because it would help protect property rights.

I'm going to take advantage of the system as long as it exists, but if it went away, I'd be fine with that too.

The White House says President Obama will veto any congressional legislation that approves the Keystone XL pipeline.

"If this bill passes this Congress, the president wouldn't sign it," White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest said.

The House, which has a Republican majority, is expected to vote on a Keystone bill this week. The GOP-dominated Senate is considering a similar measure, which has bipartisan support.

The pipeline, which would move crude from Alberta, Canada, to the Gulf of Mexico, has been at the center of a long and contentious debate involving politicians, energy companies and environmentalists, as NPR's Scott Horsley and Jeff Brady reported last November.

Supporters of the pipeline say it will create 42,000 jobs, but opponents cite environmental concerns and are skeptical about how many jobs the project can actually create — with one estimate noting that it would create just 35 permanent jobs.

-Ban the export of oil transported through the pipeline, language that Sen. Ed Markey (D-Mass.) has frequently floated in both chambers of Congress

-Require U.S.-produced iron, steel and manufactured goods “to be used for the pipeline construction, connection, operation, and maintenance.” It’s another familiar measure that senators like Markey and Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) have offered.

- Require “that for every job created by the pipeline, an equal or greater amount of jobs is created through clean energy investments.” Schumer and Stabenow highlight legislation from Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) that would cut the price of home solar units through rebates.

— Restore funding for the Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program to levels authorized in the 2009 economic stimulus bill under the condition that seniors and veterans get first priority.

— Prohibit a state from permitting a foreign corporation to invoke eminent domain. This addresses a key part of a case that will soon be decided by the Nebraska Supreme Court on the legality of the state’s approval of a route for the pipeline there. “Many Republicans have raised serious objections to the use of eminent domain by local American governments, and unless they believe the authority is less troubling when exercised by a foreign company they should vote for this amendment,” Schumer and Stabenow wrote.

Amendments are expected when the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee takes up the bill Thursday ahead of expected debate in the full Senate next week, said Robert Dillon, a spokesman for incoming Chairwoman Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska.). Wyden, Sanders and Stabenow are among those on the energy panel who may offer up amendments that are highlighted in the DPCC letter.

-Ban the export of oil transported through the pipeline, language that Sen. Ed Markey (D-Mass.) has frequently floated in both chambers of Congress

Seems like status quo

-Require U.S.-produced iron, steel and manufactured goods “to be used for the pipeline construction, connection, operation, and maintenance.” It’s another familiar measure that senators like Markey and Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) have offered.

Within reason sure, usually "made in America" clauses apply to taxpayer dollars though.

- Require “that for every job created by the pipeline, an equal or greater amount of jobs is created through clean energy investments.” Schumer and Stabenow highlight legislation from Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) that would cut the price of home solar units through rebates.

Seems like an unenforceable goal, that would be hard to make SMART

— Restore funding for the Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program to levels authorized in the 2009 economic stimulus bill under the condition that seniors and veterans get first priority.

This pork should be in a budget bill no?

— Prohibit a state from permitting a foreign corporation to invoke eminent domain. This addresses a key part of a case that will soon be decided by the Nebraska Supreme Court on the legality of the state’s approval of a route for the pipeline there. “Many Republicans have raised serious objections to the use of eminent domain by local American governments, and unless they believe the authority is less troubling when exercised by a foreign company they should vote for this amendment,” Schumer and Stabenow wrote.

Sounds like the jurisdiction of the State level, and a judicial matter. Separate legislation should be passed or amended though for clarity and precedence reasons, applicable to pipelines, railroads, highways and general transportation over borders both state and national. (I shudder to think how impossible to build up the interstate system if you had to do it from scratch nowadays.)

Amendments are expected when the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee takes up the bill Thursday ahead of expected debate in the full Senate next week, said Robert Dillon, a spokesman for incoming Chairwoman Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska.). Wyden, Sanders and Stabenow are among those on the energy panel who may offer up amendments that are highlighted in the DPCC letter.

With a little-noticed proposal, Republicans took aim at Social Security on the very first day of the 114th Congress.

The incoming GOP majority approved late Tuesday a new rule that experts say could provoke an unprecedented crisis that conservatives could use as leverage in upcoming debates over entitlement reform.

The largely overlooked change puts a new restriction on the routine transfer of tax revenues between the traditional Social Security retirement trust fund and the Social Security disability program. The transfers, known as reallocation, had historically been routine; the liberal Center for Budget and Policy Priorities said Tuesday that they had been made 11 times. The CBPP added that the disability insurance program "isn't broken," but the program has been strained by demographic trends that the reallocations are intended to address.

The House GOP's rule change would still allow for a reallocation from the retirement fund to shore up the disability fund -- but only if an accompanying proposal "improves the overall financial health of the combined Social Security Trust Funds," per the rule, expected to be passed on Tuesday. While that language is vague, experts say it would likely mean any reallocation would have to be balanced by new revenues or benefit cuts.

House Democrats are sounding the alarm. In a memo circulated to their allies Tuesday, Democratic staffers said that that would mean "either new revenues or benefit cuts for current or future beneficiaries." New revenues are highly unlikely to be approved by the deeply tax-averse Republican-led Congress, leaving benefit cuts as the obvious alternative.

The Social Security and Medicare Boards of Trustees estimated last year that the disability insurance program would run short of money to pay all benefits some time in late 2016. Without a new reallocation, disability insurance beneficiaries could face up to 20 percent cuts in their Social Security payments in late 2016 -- a chit that would be of use to Republicans pushing for conservative entitlement reforms.

"The rule change would prohibit a simple reallocation! It will require more significant and complex changes to Social Security," Social Security Works, an advocacy group, said in a statement Tuesday. "In other words, the Republican rule will allow Social Security to be held hostage."

Policy wonks who follow Social Security saw the GOP rule change as a play for leverage.

"Everybody's been talking about entitlement reform. Mr. Boehner and President Obama were pretty close to coming up with some kind of grand bargain, which ultimately fell apart," Tom Hungerford, senior economist at the liberal Economic Policy Institute, told TPM. "Maybe this could be used as a hostage to try to get back to something like that."

For their part, congressional Republicans were fairly transparent about their thinking. Rep. Tom Reed (R-NY), who has been outspoken on the disability program, co-sponsored the rule amendment. The disability program has been a favored target for the GOP; members were warning last month that the program could be vulnerable to fraud.

On January 07 2015 09:25 GreenHorizons wrote:



I like the idea of adding amendments that make the US be offered first right of refusal on all the oil that goes through it (a tamed down version of the first offer),



Source

When the 114th Congress convenes, it will find it has lost something of significance: much of its institutional memory about science and technology. And with the rest of the world making a strong play to topple America from its perch atop the innovation pyramid, that’s very troubling.

Two major lights will be missing from the House: Rush D. Holt, D-N.J., a physicist; and Frank R. Wolf, R-Va., the appropriations chairman with purview over the National Science Foundation, NASA and the National Institute of Standards and Technology. Their retirements come on the heels of several other House departures in recent years.

Rep. John W. Olver, D-Mass., a chemist, hung up his political cleats in 2012. Vernon J. Ehlers, R-Mich., a physicist, exited in 2010, as did Bart Gordon, D-Tenn., who was the incumbent House Science and Technology Committee chairman. His predecessor, Rep. Sherwood Boehlert, R-N.Y., had left in 2006.

Together, the six former House members logged a total of 140 years of legislative service. That’s a lot of experience to lose in any field, but it is especially true in the arcane arena of science and technology policy.

Across the Hill, the Senate will have to plug the gaping hole left by the retirement of Jay Rockefeller, D-W.Va. A decade and a half ago, Rockefeller teamed up with former Sen. Bill Frist, R-Tenn., and co-sponsored the Federal Research Investment Act. The 1999 legislation, the progenitor of the 2007 America COMPETES Act, provided the first road map and economic rationale for broad federal investment in science and engineering research. The bill, having garnered exceptional bipartisan support, passed the Senate by unanimous consent, but failed in the House over jurisdictional jousting.

Rockefeller’s 30-year tenure matched that of another Senate science stalwart, Jeff Bingaman, D-N.M., who left in 2012. Bingaman was the Democratic counterweight of the New Mexico science and technology gang of two, which Peter V. Domenici, R-N.M., anchored on the GOP side for 36 years before he retired in 2008.

As a new generation of lawmakers takes over, it ought to consider some novel approaches to supporting America’s research enterprise at a time of federal fiscal stress. Here’s one possibility, for which I have to give significant credit to Tom Culligan, who was Wolf’s legislative director.

On January 07 2015 07:54 GreenHorizons wrote:


That's what I thought, but there are more of them in there now than there was before the election when they pretty much dictated what Boehner could and couldn't do. (So I was kind of looking for what conservatives/Republicans thought about it?

On January 07 2015 14:56 coverpunch wrote:

Consensus on conservative blogs is that this was a "shot across the bow" to stay firm and not compromise with Obama and the Democrats.

Follow up from Politico says Boehner is getting his revenge by pulling the dissenting Republicans out of influential and prestigious committees.

On January 07 2015 15:04 GreenHorizons wrote:


These people don't really strike me as the type that would respond in the expected way. The question I have is did enough non-tea party types sneak in on the republican wave for them to pass anything?

Yoho was on Hannity saying retribution would be like "living in China or Cuba"

It was easy to collectively say no to everything the other side was proposing when it was them making the proposal, it's going to be a lot harder for republicans to explain why they are going to say no to their own proposals without Harry Reid handing cover over to Boehner.

I actually expect Harry Reid to do the right thing and work to pass things to help people instead of just pulling a Boehner and sacrificing progress toward mutual goals in order to prevent the other side (more specifically Obama) from getting any credit for getting stuff done.

On January 07 2015 15:45 coverpunch wrote:

I think most people are expecting Washington to start making deals and get stuff done. Facing an opposition majority is not really a good time for the president to encourage his minority party to filibuster, and this same situation happened to Clinton and Bush. The real question seems to be whether Obama wants to make a deal and if he can live with the old political adage that half a loaf is better than none, or perhaps more starkly, that a starving man shouldn't turn down crumbs. Clinton and Bush got stuff done but they had to substantially water down their agendas. I would expect the same out of Obama.

It is worth noting that the stakes are also high for the GOP, which will want to project an image of strength and unity as the jostling for 2016 starts, especially with how badly the fractures of 2012 cost them. Democrats may start to crack as they ponder their post-Obama leadership.