2016 GOP CIVIL WAR MAY COST THEM THE WHITE HOUSE - HATING TRUMP (HILLARY WINS)

2016 GOP CIVIL WAR MAY COST THEM THE WHITE HOUSE - HATING TRUMP:

GOP CIVIL WAR MEANS HILLARY CLINTON WINS BY DEFAULT.

As the Nov 2016 Presidential election approaches, it's quite obvious to the naked voter eye that a Civil War is brewing among GOP Establishment leaders.

Voters want DONALD TRUMP but GOP Establishment leaders want JEB BUSH or MARCO RUBIO.

There are rumors floating of a possible Coup at the RNC Convention in CLEVELAND if TRUMP is the party Nominee.

This divisive Civil War may indeed cost the GOP to lose the White House again.

Due to this brewing GOP Civil War HILLARY CLINTON Won't have to campaign as hard and she just might capture the White House by default.

Without UNITY no organization will stand successfully.

Without UNITY no Family or Marriage will survive.

Without UNITY no Political party will Win general Elections.

Will GOP Establishment leaders wake up before it's too late??

~ The GOP Establishment’s Civil War

A free-for-all between Christie, Rubio, Cruz and others, while Trump hovers above it all.

What everyone’s waiting for is the winnowing. New Hampshire and Iowa will force some Republican candidates out. When we know who’s still in we’ll have a surer sense of the contours of the race.

It is still true that the party has never had a year like this, with the ground shifting beneath its feet. It’s hard to see this clearly because on the surface the things you expect to see happening are happening.

The candidates are starting to throw hard punches. They’re all trying to show they can float like a butterfly and sting like a bee—a necessary talent if you make it to the general election. No point in hand-wringing or telling them to stop on the grounds that what they’re doing will produce, for the Democrats, a badly bloodied GOP nominee.

Best and worst have come from Chris Christie, who has a way of keeping things lively. 

Earlier he counseled his fellow contenders not to savage each other—don’t waste your ammo, keep your eyes on the prize. Good advice. This week Marco Rubio’s PAC unloaded a spot slamming Mr. Christie on the old charge he embraced President Obama during Hurricane Sandy.

The governor answered Wednesday on Laura Ingraham’s radio show. He called Mr. Rubio “a first-term United States senator who has never had a tough race.” He continued: “This guy’s been spoon-fed every victory he’s ever had in his life. That’s the kind of person that we want to put on stage against Hillary Clinton?

I don’t think so. She’ll pat him on the head and then cut his heart out.” It was wonderfully colorful and malicious and reminded me of Sen. Bob Kerrey, who said of Bill Clinton in 1992 that he wouldn’t win in November because he hadn’t served in Vietnam: “He’s going to get opened up like a soft peanut.”

Democratic presidential primaries in those days were fierce. They’re not anymore, because the new Democratic Party, the one of the progressive left, has only a single unifying principle: winning. Hillary Clinton’s opponents haven’t laid a glove on her, and won’t.

Mr. Rubio has turned stern and indignant, as if he’s decided the base is angry so he’ll enact anger too. Ted Cruz and Rand Paul, he darkly alleges, are “isolationist candidates” whose intent is “weakening our military and intelligence capabilities.” Mr. Paul responded by comparing Mr. Rubio to Rahm Emanuel.

More touchingly, Jeb Bush again warned the base about Donald Trump. “It’s very fun to talk about the theatrics,” he said on “Morning Joe.” Mr. Trump has tapped into “angst and anger,” but “his views are not the views of a conservative.”

Mr. Trump’s supporters don’t care if he’s classically conservative. Doctrinal purity is not the story this year. The GOP base is a big jumble.

Democrats are likely less unified than they think. On the rightward and leftward edges of both parties they hate political correctness, illegal immigration, Wall Street.

A new playbook is emerging while some contenders seem to be reading from the old playbook and wondering why the plays they’re calling aren’t working.

And the GOP is struggling. In Virginia the state Republican Party wants a so-called loyalty oath in the March 1 presidential primary.

Virginia is an open-primary state—any registered voter can vote in either primary—but the GOP apparently wants to discourage independents and Democrats from voting for Mr. Trump. So they’ve decided voters should sign a statement of affiliation with the GOP before they get to cast a ballot. 

This is so idiotic it’s almost unbelievable.

When Democrats and independents want to vote in your primary you should be happy.

 Politics is a game of addition! You want headlines that say “Massive GOP Turnout.” You don’t greet first-time voters with an oath but with cookies, ginger ale and balloons. Ronald Reagan reached out to Democrats in 1984: “Come too, come walk with me.” We still speak of Reagan Democrats.

I do not understand the inability or refusal of Republican leaders to take Mr. Trump seriously.

 They take his numbers seriously—they can read a poll—but they think, as Mr. Bush said, that his support is all about anger, angst and theatrics. That’s part of the story, but the other, more consequential part has to do with real policy issues.

The establishment refuses to see that, because to admit it is to implicate themselves and their leadership. Political consultants can’t see it because they don’t think issues matter—not to them and certainly not to the dumb voters.

But issues do matter, and Mr. Trump has functioned this year not as a great communicator or great compromiser but as the great disrupter. He brags that he has brought up great questions and forced other candidates to face them and sometimes change their stands—and he has.

He changed the debate on illegal immigration. He said he’d build a wall and close the border and as the months passed and his competitors saw his surge, they too were suddenly, clearly, aggressively for ending illegal immigration.

Mr. Trump touched an important nerve in opposing the political correctness that has angered the American people for a quarter century. He changed the debate when he asked for a pause in Muslim immigration until America “can figure out what’s going on.” In the age of terror, that looked suspiciously like common sense.

Americans do not want America to become what Europe is becoming.

You only have to look at what is reported to have happened in Cologne, Germany, on New Year’s Eve to get a sense that Europe’s establishment, with its politically correct thinking, is losing control.

Angela Merkel is a great lady and most of her leadership has been sound as a drum, but she will probably lose her job eventually because of her epic miscalculation in accepting more than a million Middle Eastern refugees.

Her decision was no doubt driven by heart and sympathy, but it reminds me of the fall of Margaret Thatcher. In 1989 Thatcher moved to impose a change in the British tax system. This caused resentment and then unrest. She wouldn’t back down, and the next year she fell. Years later she told me what she’d learned.

People are afraid, she said; they live closer to the margins than we understand. When you propose a big change you can leave people feeling as if the rug is being pulled from under them. That’s a big thing to learn, and she spoke of it with humility.

She lost her job by being too tough. Ms. Merkel has imperiled hers by being too soft. But the lesson is the same: know how close to the edge people feel, how powerless, and respect their anxiety. Don’t look down on it, and them.

Back to the Republicans. It reflects badly on the party that Donald Trump—whom one journalist this week characterized as a guy running around with his hair on fire—had to become the party’s 2016 thought leader.

Bernie Sanders has, in a way, had the wit to see this, which is why he said he is reaching out to Trump supporters.

Reaching out. What a concept.

Sources: Wall Street Journal, The Atlantic, Youtube

Obama's Earmarked Tax Cut Deal Creates GOP Revolt! Pay To Play

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Revolt: Republicans Angry About Omnibus Spending Bill Decry 'Total Mess'

Republicans poring over a 1,924-page overarching spending bill proposed by Democrats to cover the rest of the fiscal year are threatening to grind the legislation to a halt, citing massive earmark spending, which, if passed, would be enacted into law without debate in the full Senate.

Two sources who spoke to Fox News are describing the legislation as "a total mess."

But the head of the Senate Appropriations Committee, Sen. Daniel Inouye, D-Hawaii, said he believes the legislation must pass.

"The twelve bills included in this package fulfill the Congress' most basic responsibility, to exercise the power of the purse," he said in a statement. "This measure reflects a year's worth of work by members of both parties. Together, we have closely scrutinized the president's budget request, held hundreds of hearings, thousands of meetings, and asked literally tens of thousands of questions to each and every federal department and agency seeking justification for how taxpayer dollars are being spent."

Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, responded in a statement, saying that after neglecting to pass a budget, "today we learn Senate Democrats now want to sandwich them together, totaling almost 2,000 pages, and jam them through in the waning moments of this lame duck session before anyone can read them. This political end-around reveals just how quickly my colleagues across the aisle have already forgotten the voters' message in November."

Though none of the spending bills has passed the Senate, all the individual appropriations bills have been through the full committee process. In an afternoon release, the Appropriations Committee website listed all of the requested earmarks, winnowed into separate categories that go into making up the 12 separate annual spending bills.

In total, thousands of earmark requests are listed. The financial services earmark chart, for instance, lists 220 earmark requests from dozens of lawmakers, mostly in the House, each worth anywhere from $50,000 to $2.4 million. The largest sum was requested by Inouye and his Hawaii colleague Sen. Daniel Akaka for "Bank on USA" demonstration projects" in their state. The projects are designed to give underserved communities greater access to financial institutions.

Elsewhere, the Department of Defense earmark list, mostly requests by senators, is 29 pages long and individual requests more often are worth $2 million to $5 million each. In that list, Inouye's requests total more than $159 million, including $21 million for a Hawaii Federal Health Care Network. Cornyn's defense spending earmarks total nearly $16 million.

The list was released after a Republican policy lunch that a source said was devolving into pandemonium.

"All hell is breaking loose," the source told Fox News, noting that Sens. Tom Coburn of Oklahoma and Jim DeMint of South Carolina were expected to insist the omnibus bill be read in its entirety by the clerk on the Senate floor before a vote is held. They also were expected to seek debate on all earmarks and any amendments.

If the clerk follows the pace of last year's reading of the health care bill -- 53 pages an hour -- it will take almost 40 hours to read the omnibus bill.



A spokesman for Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky responded that "all hell is not breaking loose just yet. But I'm sure there will be a robust conversation."

In a news conference, McConnell compared the omnibus bill to the health care legislation last year, calling it a big bill arriving amid cold weather and no one knowing exactly what's in it.

On top of Republican angst, Sen. Claire McCaskill, D-Mo., also is revolting against the Democratic-sponsored bill, saying she will not support an omnibus spending bill unless it includes an amendment proposed by McCaskill and Sen. Jeff Sessions, R-Ala., that calls for a three-year cap in discretionary spending. Democratic leaders told McCaskill on Monday that they would meet a one-year gap, which she rejected, according to sources familiar with the conversations.

But sources said Inouye was confident he had the votes needed to get the legislation passed and sent to the House.

The fiscal year runs from Oct. 1-Sept. 30. Currently, a continuing resolution, the stopgap measure to keep government operational until a budget is passed, is set to expire on Saturday. If another CR or the bill itself isn't passed and signed into law by President Obama by then, the government will shut down.

On the House side, Republican leader John Boehner is apparently warning that if the Senate sends over the bill as it is, "We will work to kill it." House Democrats had hoped to file a year-long CR at the previous year's rates.

Opponents of the package are finding support among conservative groups who describe the legislation as a Democratic attempt to lock in 2010's $3.5 trillion budget for the next year without allowing any spending cuts.

"Despite the dire fiscal crisis the nation faces, with a $13.8 trillion national debt that cannot be paid, and in spite of the American people who are demanding action to cut spending, Congress is busy voting to kick the can for yet another year. A vote for the continuing resolution is a vote for another trillion dollar-plus deficit, and that is simply unacceptable to all Americans. Any politician in Congress that has ever promised to reduce the deficit should vote 'no' on this continuing resolution," Americans for Limited Government President Bill Wilson said in a statement Tuesday.

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Earmarks Used To Lure Support For Tax-Cut Bill


In the spirit of the holiday season, President Barack Obama's tax-cut deal with Republicans is becoming a Christmas tree tinseled with gifts for lobbyists and lawmakers.

There are ethanol subsidies for rural folks, commuter tax breaks for their cousins in the cities and suburbs, wind and solar grants for the environmentalists - all aimed at winning votes, particularly from reluctant Democrats.

The holiday additions are being hung on the big bill that was Congress' main reason for spending December in Washington, long after the elections that will give Republicans new power in January. The measure will extend Bush-era tax cuts, averting big tax increases for nearly all Americans, and keep jobless benefits flowing.

Republicans generally liked that agreement, worked out by Obama and GOP leaders. Democrats generally didn't, hence the add-ons.

It's expected to come to a decisive vote next week, at a total cost by the latest congressional estimate of $857.8 billion.

Almost $5 billion in subsidies for corn-based ethanol and a continuing tariff to protect against ethanol imports were wrapped up and placed on the tree Thursday night for farm-state lawmakers and agribusiness lobbyists. Environmentalists won more grants for developers of renewable energy, like wind and solar.

For urban lawmakers, there's a continuation of about-to-expire tax breaks that could save commuters who use mass transit about $1,000 a year.

Other popular tax provisions aimed at increasing production of hybrid automobiles, biodiesel fuel, coal and energy-efficient household appliances would be extended through the end of 2011 under the new add-ons.

The package also includes an extension of two Gulf Coast tax-incentive programs enacted after Hurricane Katrina to spur economic development in Mississippi, Louisiana and Alabama.

While the add-ons may have won more votes for the Obama-GOP deal in the Senate, their potential impact is less clear in the House, where Democrats have criticized the package as a tax giveaway to the rich.

There's the possibility the added goodies will have opposite the intended effect for some lawmakers. Rep. Jeff Flake, R-Ariz., said the add-ons could turn his fiscally conservative colleagues against the bill.

"You don't want to be accused out there of supporting stimulus three," he said. "It will knock some votes off in the House, but more than anything, it will show the voters out there that things haven't changed with Republicans."







CBO Score Shows Tax Plan Ups Deficit $900 Billion In 5 Years


The Congressional Budget Office released its score Friday on the tax plan hammered out between Republicans and President Barack Obama, showing a $893 billion hit on the deficit over the next five years.

The bulk of the deficit increase comes from loss of revenue -- $756 billion -- with the rest coming from additional direct outlays.

The 13-month extension of unemployment benefits adds less than $57 billion to the deficit.

The highest price item is the extension of the Bush-era tax cuts, which will add more than $400 billion to the deficit, followed by the payroll tax holiday at about $225 billion.

Earlier, Obama enlisted former President Bill Clinton to help sell a compromise tax package negotiated with Republicans to reluctant Democrats.

After meeting with Clinton at the White House, Obama brought him to the briefing room to tout the proposal to reporters, even backing off after a brief introduction to let Clinton do the talking and take questions.

"I personally think this is a good deal, and the best we can get," Clinton said, arguing that the combination of payroll tax cuts, unemployment insurance benefits and various tax credits would help the economy grow.

Acknowledging that the Republican insistence on extending tax cuts to the wealthy would help him personally, Clinton said the compromise meant that both sides had to accept provisions they disliked.

"There's never a perfect bipartisan bill in the eyes of a partisan," Clinton said. "I believe this will be a significant net-plus for the country."

It was the latest salvo by the Obama administration in a battle for public and political support for the plan that combines extended tax cuts from the Bush era with extended unemployment benefits, tax breaks and the payroll tax holiday intended to bolster a sluggish recovery from economic recession.

House Democrats declared Thursday they opposed the package because it would extend the lower Bush-era tax rates for millionaires. They support the stance Obama has championed for years -- extending the current lower tax rates only for those earning up to $200,000 a year, or families earning $250,000, while letting rates for higher incomes return to 1990s levels.

However, Senate Republicans have refused to accept any difference in tax treatment for the wealthy, demanding that all current rates be extended. With the tax cuts expiring at the end of the year, and Republicans able to block any legislation in the Senate, Obama and Democrats face a fast-approaching deadline to reach a deal or see tax bills increase for everyone.

Earlier Friday, Obama told National Public Radio that the tax and benefits package would gain congressional approval because "nobody -- Democrat or Republican -- wants to see people's paychecks smaller on January 1 because Congress didn't act," Obama said in an interview with National Public Radio.

"And I think that the framework that we've put forward, which says not only that people's taxes don't go up on January 1, but also that we extend unemployment insurance for a year, that we make sure that key provisions like the college tax credit, the child tax credit, the earned-income tax credit are included -- that that framework is going to serve as the basis for compromise," Obama said.

The debate over taxes in the waning days of a lame-duck session of Congress illustrated the mistrust and animosity that has built up in the deeply partisan environment on Capitol Hill.

Rep. Gary Ackerman, D-New York, told CNN Friday that the tax plan will need Republican support to pass so that voters in 2012 will know it was not Democrats who approved the measure's projected $857 billion cost.

Obama will have to "get more Republicans than Democrats to make it go through," Ackerman said.

So far, Republicans "haven't said that they're all going to vote for it. They haven't said how many votes they're going to provide," Ackerman said. "This is on our (Democrats') watch. Then they're going to attack us in the next election for increasing the deficit when most of them are going to vote against it. ... Why should the Democrats get all the blame? The Republicans are very good at this. ... They get the credit for everything we do. We get the blame for everything they did that went bad."

Also Friday, conservatives Republicans questioned the tax and benefit package, warning it went against the campaign mantra from November of holding down the deficit.

U.S. Rep. Michele Bachmann, R-Minnesota, told CNN that the package would increase the deficit, adding that "investors are reacting to the increases in the deficit and so we're concerned about that. We want to get on a sound financial footing."

Sen. Jim DeMint, R-South Carolina, vowed earlier this week to filibuster the tax and benefit package to prevent a vote on the Senate floor. He noted that those who ran from the right in the election had said they would oppose anything that increased the deficit.

The Senate will consider the tax package first. On Thursday, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nevada, released the first version of legislation to implement the negotiated deal and said the first vote on it, a procedural one to open debate, would occur Monday.

The Senate version made public by Reid was largely the same as the deal announced by Obama, but it added a one-year extension of a program that provides cash grants in lieu of a tax credit for construction of new solar and wind energy projects. The Treasury Grant Program was part of the 2009 economic stimulus bill.

White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs told reporters Friday that the additional clean energy provision added $3 billion to the cost of the package. Meanwhile, a letter to House Democratic leaders signed by at least 79 Democratic members called for the provision to be extended for two years.

The negotiated package includes a two-year extension of Bush-era tax cuts set to expire at the end of the year, as well as 13 months of unemployment benefits and a cut of 2 percentage points in the payroll tax. In addition, the plan extends current tax breaks for students and lower-income Americans, and adjusts the estate tax in a way that Democrats believe benefits the wealthy.

However, Bachmann and other conservatives complained that the compromise resurrects the estate tax, which had expired for 2010 but was set to be restored in 2011 at a rate of 55%, with inheritances under $1 million exempted. A bill that passed in the House set the tax rate at 45% and exempted inheritances under $3.5 million, while the provision in the tax deal would exempt estates up to $5 million and set the tax rate at 35%.

To Obama, the bottom line is that legislators from both parties will prevent a tax increase on January 1 by accepting the main components of the negotiated package, including the extension of unemployment benefits.

"At the end of the day, people are going to conclude we don't want 2 million people suddenly without unemployment insurance and not able to pay their rent, not able to pay their mortgage, not able to pay their house note," Obama said, adding that the package also will bolster the so-far sluggish recovery from a recession that has unemployment still near 10%.

"I think that people are also going to understand that the single most important thing we can do for all of our constituencies is to make sure that the recovery that is taking place right now gets stronger," he said, adding that economists have noted the negotiated package would increase growth and could mean more jobs, a development that "has got to be the highest priority for everybody."

He called for legislators "to act responsibly and to think not in terms of abstract political fights here ... on Capitol Hill, but to think about those families that, in the middle of the holiday season, are trying to figure out -- are they still going to have unemployment benefits at the end of this month?"

"I'm confident that we're going to be able to get this resolved by the end of the month," Obama said.

Thursday's vote by the House Democratic caucus was a defiant rejection of both the agreement on tax and benefit measures, as well as what many Democrats in the chamber perceived as being marginalized in the talks by the White House.

"This message today is very simple. That in the form that it was negotiated, it is not acceptable to the House Democratic caucus," said Democratic Rep. Chris Van Hollen of Maryland, who represented House Democrats in the negotiations. He pledged to "work with the White House and our Republican colleagues to try and make sure we do something right for the economy and right for jobs."

During their meeting, caucus members chanted "Just say no," according to two Democrats in attendance, and Rep. Laura Richardson of California later asked reporters outside the room: "Did you hear us saying 'Just say no'?"

Overall, Republicans generally appear supportive of the package, which White House advisers noted gave them their two main priorities -- an extension of the lower tax rates from the Bush era to everyone, including the wealthiest Americans, and setting a lower-than-expected estate tax rate only on inheritances of more than $5 million.

Both provisions angered liberal Democrats, who oppose extending the lower tax rates enacted in 2001 and 2003 to the wealthy. Some said Obama should have forced a showdown with Republicans over the tax cut extensions by holding out longer to force more GOP concessions.

However, Obama and White House aides said the deal reached in negotiations was the best they would get from unyielding Republicans, who will take control of the House and enjoy a stronger minority stake in the Senate when the next session of Congress begins in early January.

Gibbs told reporters Thursday that he expected Congress to pass a package this year because the alternative was higher taxes for everyone after December 31.

"At the end of the day, members are not going to want to be in their districts, senators are not going to want to be in their districts, when their constituents find out their taxes have gone up by several thousands of dollars," Gibbs said, noting that the deal is a compromise with elements unpalatable to both sides. "If everybody took out what they didn't like, we'd have nothing. And we know the consequences of doing nothing."

A top Democratic adviser to the White House added that Senate Democrats "have several vehicles they can use" as the legislative base for the tax plan, and are working on a plan to pass a tax bill and "then jam the House" with that legislation.

Some House Democrats say they will support the tax package as a compromise made under tough circumstances.

"If it passes the Senate and this is the compromise the president of the United States has committed to, what are we going do in the House, hold this up?" said Rep. Shelley Berkley of Nevada.





Will Congress Find Funds For Obamacare & Lots of Pork Under the Tree This Christmas?


Last Christmas Eve, the U.S. Senate gave Americans the lump of coal known as Obamacare. This year, they may take even more of our money to fund it and also force us to buy a pork-barrel full of thousands of earmarks. In a 212-206 vote, House Democrats pushed through a flawed continuing resolution yesterday that funds Obamacare and extends overall funding for the next year at reckless 2010 levels.

As Sen. Tom Coburn has pointed out, the House-passed bill contains significant Obamacare funding, which is why Coburn called the bill a “Trojan Horse to Fund New Health Law.”

Now the focus shifts to the Senate, where efforts are underway to amend the House-passed version—and not for the better.

Senate Democrats will offer an amendment to make it even worse with a full-blown omnibus appropriations bill packed with pork-barrel earmarks, spending increases, and even more funding for every top Obama administration priority. And unfortunately, some Senate Republicans may be poised to help the Democrats pass it.

Rumors are swirling that despite the fact Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell pulled the plug on official Republican support for the omnibus, a small group of rogue Republican appropriators are playing ball, planning to vote for the massive bloated spending bill in exchange for a parting Christmas gift of pork-barrel goodies for their states.

The most likely to play ball are three retiring appropriators: Kit Bond of Missouri, George Voinovich of Ohio, and Robert Bennett of Utah who will never face voters again. Plus, there's also the highest-ranking Republican appropriator: Thad Cochran of Mississippi.

We don’t know which earmarks made it into the omnibus yet but we do know that Kit Bond requested 142 earmarks this year totaling over $600 million. George Voinovich requested 172 earmarks totaling over $460 million, Robert Bennett requested 321 earmarks topping $1.3 billion, and Thad Cochran requested a whopping 712 earmarks totaling over $2.4 billion.

Other Republican senators worth worrying about identified themselves last week when they voted against the Coburn-McCaskill amendment to ban earmarks: Susan Collins (R-Maine), Jim Inhofe (R-Okla.), Dick Lugar (R-Ind..), Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska), and Richard Shelby (R-Ala.).

These nine Republicans must be urged to abide by the wishes of the American people and to learn the same lesson Mitch McConnell, himself an appropriator, made clear in his wonderful Senate floor speech embracing the earmark moratorium:

“Nearly every day that the Senate’s been in session for the past two years, I have come down to this spot and said that Democrats are ignoring the wishes of the American people. When it comes to earmarks, I won’t be guilty of the same thing.”

Unfortunately, despite our best efforts, some Republicans may vote for the Democrats’ pork-packed, Obamacare-funding omnibus monstrosity.

That’s why pressuring Democrats is critical, starting with the ones who voted in favor of the Coburn-McCaskill earmark ban.

Claire McCaskill herself is the most likely Democrat to oppose the omnibus. Unlike her pork-loving Republican colleague Kit Bond, McCaskill has requested no earmarks this year and has long been a proponent of reform. This vote will test whether, when the rubber hits the road, she is really willing to vote to stop a rolling pork-barrel.

The other Democrats who voted with Coburn include Evan Bayh (D-Ind.) and Russ Feingold (D-Wis.), neither of whom requested any earmarks this year, along with Michael Bennet (D-Colo.), Bill Nelson (D-Fla.), Mark Udall (D-Colo.) and Mark Warner (D-Va.). They will be put to the test of whether their earmark reform was sincere when they have the opportunity to stop the omnibus.

Moreover, all senators need to be forcefully reminded that this will be the first vote on funding Obamacare, a signature issue that will loom large in the 2012 election.

The bottom line is that this Congress had all year to do its job and pass legislation to fund the government before the November midterm elections. They failed. They should not now be rewarded with a massive omnibus spending bill on their way out the door.

Sen. Coburn got it exactly right when he said: “It’s time for Congress to extend current tax rates, pass a clean spending bill – a ‘continuing resolution’ -- without extraneous and vague health care provisions, and go home.”


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Sources: AZ Central, CBO, CNN, Fox News, MSNBC, Zimbio, Wikipedia, Youtube, Google Maps

TSA vs Passengers: Anti-TSA Sentiment Heats Up

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Passenger Chooses Strip-Down Over Pat-Down



When a San Diego man opted out of security screening using the Advanced Imaging Technology (AIT) at Lindbergh Field Friday, he stripped down to his underwear in an attempt to avoid the pat-down procedures.

Samuel Wolanyk took the protest started Nov. 13 by Oceanside's John Tyner to a whole new level.

While Tyner videotaped his refusal to be patted down, telling the agent "If you touch my junk, I'll have you arrested," Wolanyk decided to give TSA a look at his body down to his Calvin Klein's.

Through a statement released by his attorney Sunday night, Wolanyk said "TSA needs to see that I'm not carrying any weapons, explosives, or other prohibited substances, I refuse to have images of my naked body viewed by perfect strangers, and having been felt up for the first time by TSA the week prior (I travel frequently) I was not willing to be molested again."

Wolanyk's attorney said that TSA requested his client put his clothes on so he could be patted down properly but his client refused to put his clothes back on. He never refused a pat down, according to his attorney.

Wolanyk was arrested for refusing to complete the security process. A woman, identified by Harbor police as Danielle Kelli Hayman, 39, of San Diego was detained for recording the incident on a phone.

San Diego has played a central role in the debate over the need for AIT machines in our nation's airports. From Tyner's videotape and U.S. Rep. Bob Filner's call for a congressional hearing, to the parody song penned by Poway musician and Grammy-winner Steve Vaus. This Wednesday, one group is asking Americans to opt out of the AIT machines.

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Pat-Down Backlash Grows During Holiday Travel Rush



s backlash against airline passenger pat-downs intensified with a viral online video, the nation's top airline security official said Monday that his agency is walking a fine line between privacy concerns and public safety.

A short video clip circulating on the internet shows a shirtless boy receiving a pat-down from a Transportation Security Administration agent. His father watches, hands on his hips, obstructing part of the view.

But the words playing in the background are clear.

"Are they harassing a kid?" one man asks.

"It's ridiculous," another voice chimes in. "Unbelievable."

Finance student Luke Tait said he started recording the incident with his cell phone when he saw the "visibly upset" father while waiting in line Friday at the airport in Salt Lake City, Utah.

"It was an interesting situation. I never saw a little boy with his shirt off getting a pat-down," Tait told CNN.

TSA spokesman Dwayne Baird said screeners searched the child after he set off a metal detector alarm.

"The father removed his son's shirt in order to speed up the screening process. Once screening was complete, both proceeded to the gate for their flight," Baird said in a statement.

Asked about the incident Monday on CNN's "American Morning," TSA Administrator John Pistole said his understanding was the same as the account given by Baird.

The TSA is trying to strike a delicate balance, Pistole said -- ensuring the safety of the traveling public while taking privacy concerns into account. "The bottom line is, everybody wants to arrive safely at their destination," he said.

In the short term, no changes will be made as the holiday season approaches. Some 2 million people a day are expected to travel on Tuesday and Wednesday of this week.

A Michigan man, who endured an "extremely embarrassing" pat-down earlier this month, disagreed.

"These new pat-downs have to be stopped until [TSA agents] are trained and are comfortable doing what they need to do," Thomas Sawyer told CNN's "American Morning."

Sawyer, a bladder cancer survivor who has worn a urostomy bag since a surgery three years ago, said a TSA agent at Detroit Metropolitan Airport caused the seal of the bag to open partially during a pat-down, spilling urine on his clothes.

Sawyer said he tried to caution the agent against pressing too hard on his abdomen because of the bag. The agent didn't understand and continued with the search, Sawyer said, and "pulled the seal kind of half-off" the bag.

"These people need to be trained on medical conditions ... and emotional conditions," Sawyer said Monday on CNN's "American Morning." He said the agent "didn't apologize, he didn't do anything."

"I'm a good American, I know why we're doing this and I understand it," Sawyer said. "But this was extremely embarrassing and it didn't have to happen. With educated TSA workers, it wouldn't have happened."

Pistole pointed out that the pat-downs are not mandatory -- passengers receive them only if they opt out of a screening with advanced imaging technology. The technology is the TSA's best effort, he said, to head off attacks like the would-be Christmas Day bomber last year. Umar Farouk AbdulMutallab allegedly had a bomb sewn into his underwear on a flight from Amsterdam, the Netherlands, to Detroit, Michigan.

Asked whether the technology and pat-downs would have been able to find that device, Pistole said he believes they would have, saying it would have shown up as "an anomaly" with the imaging technology and then might have been located in a pat-down.

There has never been an explosive found on a flight from one U.S. city to another, Pistole acknowledged. But, he pointed out, domestic terrorists exist -- Timothy McVeigh, Eric Rudolph and Ted Kaczynski, for instance -- and there are people who want to do the government harm. While America is "fortunate" that such an incident has not occurred on a domestic flight, he said, it could conceivably happen.

"We welcome feedback and comments on the screening procedures from the traveling public, and we will work to make them as minimally invasive as possible while still providing the security that the American people want and deserve," Pistole said in a statement released Sunday. "We are constantly evaluating and adapting our security measures, and as we have said from the beginning, we are seeking to strike the right balance between privacy and security."

But Rep. John Mica told "State of the Union" Sunday the enhanced screening shows the TSA is "headed in the wrong direction as far as who they're screening and how they're doing it."

"I don't think the roll-out was good and the application is even worse," he said. "This does need to be refined. But he's saying it's the only tool and I believe that's wrong."

The Florida Republican, who will be chairman of the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee in January, has argued that airports should hire private security screeners.

The ramped up use of pat-downs and full-body scanning is needed to stop non-metallic threats including weapons and explosives from getting aboard planes, the TSA says. And it appears that most Americans agree.

In a recent CBS News poll, 4 out of 5 Americans supported the use of full-body scans.

President Barack Obama stood by the new controversial screening measures Saturday, calling methods such as pat-downs and body scans necessary to assure airline safety.

The president told reporters that the balance between protecting travelers' rights and their security is a "tough situation," but stressed that such methods are needed after what happened last Christmas Day.

But Obama's support hasn't stopped a growing group of objectors, from civil rights and privacy advocates to scientists and pilots, from loudly claiming these measures are too invasive, ineffective and possibly unsafe.

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, asked by CBS' "Face the Nation" on Sunday whether she would submit to an enhanced pat-down, laughed and said, "Not if I could avoid it. No, I mean, who would?"

Pistole noted Monday Clinton went on to say she understands the importance and focus on travelers' security.

Some are calling the frenzied travel day before Thanksgiving "National Opt-Out Day," urging travelers selected for full-body scanning to refuse.

Travelers have the right to opt out of full-body scanning, according to the TSA, but the pat-down alternative has, in turn, created its own public furor.

Last week, a San Diego, California, man's viral video of his clash with security screeners spawned several T-shirt designs with his "Don't touch my junk" quip.

And CNN affiliates around the country have reported examples of passengers who say they find pat-downs embarassing or invasive.

But on Sunday, Pistole told CNN that the outcry over the new screening was overblown.

"Very few people actually receive the pat-down. In spite of all the public furor about this, very few people do," he said.


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Sources: CNN, Denver Post, MSNBC, NBC San Diego, The Guardian, Youtube, Google Maps

Democrat Left Revolt Likely To Occur During 2010 Elections

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Under Pres. Obama, the Left feels left out



The outrage among some of America’s most vocal liberals at President Barack Obama’s failure to expand government-run health care caps a year of disappointments for Obama’s allies on the left and raises worrying questions for Democrats in the 2010 midterm elections.

The revolt led by former Vermont Gov. Howard Dean comes after a series of more contained disappointments among traditional Democratic constituencies that invested heavily in Obama — unions, gays, civil libertarians, Hispanics, and anti-war Democrats, among others — who have seen specific promises deferred and grand hopes of systematic change denied by an administration that has found itself severely limited by a combination of economic realities, congressional imperatives, and tactical choices.

The disillusion has produced a growing tide of organizing energy — and money — among liberals aimed at dragging the White House back to where many supporters believe Obama's heart really lies. Union presidents have discarded their talking points and are openly sparring with the White House, while gay rights activists threaten civil disobedience, the ACLU keeps litigating, and congressional Hispanic leaders work to force their issues into the debate.

But while those actions may actually create politically useful space to the president’s left, the other consequence of disillusion is what polls have found to be deepening apathy among Democratic voters.

“This has been a fairly transactional presidency, and the president did nothing to insulate himself from the compromises — which were inevitable — by making it clear at the outset what his values were on some of these important issues,” said Rep. Anthony Weiner (D-N.Y.), who has pushed for more liberal versions of health care reform. “While being transactional may help you get through the days in Washington and get things on the scoreboard, it creates a weird disconnect that most people in the country don’t know what you want and don’t feel they should rally to your side.”

The gap between promises of sweeping change and standard-issue Democratic Party policy platform was evident during Obama’s campaign.

Unlike most Democrats, Obama won the nomination without the support of liberal union leaders, bloggers, and members of Congress, most of whom rallied around him only after he had effectively become the Democratic nominee. Running as an outsider, he wasn’t forced to match his sweeping pledges of change to specific commitments to interest groups, and some current claims of betrayal may have more to do with the hope Obama inspired than with the commitments he made.

The abrupt pivot from the politics of hope to the politics of the possible began the day before Obama was elected, when word leaked that he had offered the post of White House chief of staff to Rahm Emanuel, a Washington veteran and dealmaker who represented little of what Obama had campaigned on. And the administration has come through on that promise, with ambitious goals — notably health care reforms — pursued more through back room deals with industry than mass mobilizations of ordinary citizens.

Perhaps the first to complain were gays and lesbians, who found an administration living in the shadow of Bill Clinton’s disastrous attempt early in his first term to end a ban on gays in the military. Obama had promised on the campaign trail to be a “fierce advocate” on behalf of gay rights and to fight to repeal the Defense of Marriage Act. But as a series of states legalized same-sex marriage in 2009, he offered minor gestures, such as naming a gay ambassador to New Zealand.

“I don’t think anyone expected too much. He created those expectations,” said David Mixner, a gay activist who said the Obama letdown was worse than that of the early Clinton years, when Mixner, a major Clinton fundraiser, was arrested outside the White House in protest. Mixner said he’s even more disappointed by Obama.

“He really came to the American people and said, ‘I’m going to represent powerful change — and I think people believed him',” he said.

Hispanic leaders have also found themselves losing patience with the Obama White House. The president promised to make immigration reform a “top priority” during his first year in office, and he won overwhelming Hispanic support against a southwestern Republican, John McCain, once known for his appeal to Hispanic voters.

The Congressional Hispanic Caucus, fed up with the delay, finally introduced legislation this week over the conspicuous silence of a distracted White House.

“We have a president who received a mandate and addressed the [immigration] issue specifically as one he would aggressively pursue,” said Texas Rep. Charlie Gonzalez. “We told people this is what we’re going to do and we need to do it — and you need to do it not just in good faith, but you need to make a really sincere and all-out effort.”

He said he’s optimistic a bill will pass next year but remarked on the White House silence, so far, on the new legislation.

“There has to be some acknowledgement that a bill has been filed,” Gonzalez said.

Obama’s foreign policy has produced some of the sharpest breaks with the left, though anti-war activists — attracted to his initial opposition to the Iraq war — were always suspicious of his tough talk on Afghanistan and moderate views on Iraq. Civil libertarians have bridled at one of Obama’s most dramatic deferred promises, his aim to close the prison at Guantanamo Bay in his first year in office; instead, the aides leading that charge were purged.

The discomfort among labor unions that has been brought most dramatically to the fore by the health care debate. Union leaders spent much of the year repeating to an increasingly skeptical press the evidently hollow promise that the White House would fight for the Employee Free Choice Act, a bill aimed at making organizing easier.

The act never came close to congressional passage, and the White House barely lifted a finger to help it. Now labor is particularly incensed by a plan to tax expensive health care plans such as those held by many public workers. Even the union leader closest to the White House, SEIU President Andrew Stern, felt obliged Thursday to press Obama on his own commitments.

“President Obama must remember his own words from the campaign,” Stern wrote members. “His call of ‘Yes We Can’ was not just to us, not just to the millions of people who voted for him, but to himself. We all stood shoulder to shoulder with the president during his hard-fought campaign. And, we will continue to stand with him, but he must fight for the reform we all know is possible.”

Labor insiders say their leaders were genuinely shocked by the shape of the final legislation.

“We thought it would be a little less robust,” one said. “But they went and pulled the rug right out.”

The administration and its allies argue that it has merely reckoned with reality.

“I think everybody who is part of the Obama coalition recognized that the first order of business had to be the economy and that we needed to focus on that and that we need to continue to focus on that until it turns around,” Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee Chairman Chris Van Hollen told POLITICO Thursday. “In talking to labor, their No. 1 priority was getting the economy turned around.”

And it wasn’t just the economy. A united Republican opposition scuttled hopes of a new politics. Presidential efforts would not have won for interest groups’ prized priorities the required 60 votes in the Senate, according to administration officials. And the passage of health care reform, one official predicted, will send Obama’s approval rating up past 60% and restore his supporters’ enthusiasm.

“Some of the analysis we've seen about the base of our party might be more of a temporal argument about where things are now,” Sen. Robert Casey (D-Pa.) told POLITICO. "Give him a little more time.”

But for now, the anger has consequences. With established liberal organizations biting their tongues and standing with the White House, others are filling the gap, raising money and getting attention by attacking Obama from his left. The old Dean campaign organization, Democracy for America, has returned to join the health care debate with an attack on the individual mandate.

The blog FireDogLake has developed a political action arm aiming darts at Emanuel. And the new Progressive Change Campaign Committee has carved out a role as the MoveOn.org of the left flank.

“We will be publicly shaming President Obama until he threatens Joe Lieberman's committee chairmanship and hits the campaign trail for the public option in states like Maine and Connecticut,” said one of the group’s founders, Adam Green. “If at the end of the day, President Obama is so weak that he can't get Joe Lieberman in line, progressives will be perfectly fine killing the current corporate-giveaway bill and starting over again in reconciliation.”

Labor Democrats argue that one of the reasons for the 1994 Republican landslide was union voters’ alienation over the White House’s trade politics. It could happen again next year.

“Midlevel union leaders sat on their their hands in the midterm election — when the turnout programs are more critical,” said Steve Rosenthal, a veteran union political consultant. “If [health care] goes through with a tax on benefits and no public option, and then there’s no action on the Employee Free Choice Act, it’ll be a disaster.”



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Sources: Politico, MSNBC, Firedoglake, MoveOn.org, AFL-CIO, Progressive Change Campaign Committee, Google Maps