GOP showing signs of backing down from vow to block Obama’s Supreme Court nominee automatically

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Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, Kentucky Republican, and others have vowed to block any Obama nominee, saying the next president should select Justice Scalia’s replacement. (Associated Press) more >

President Obama called on SenateRepublicans Tuesday to give his eventual Supreme Court nominee a fair hearing in his bid to replace the late Justice Antonin Scalia, as cracks emerged in the Republican leadership’s position of automatically blocking any nominee.

“I expect them to hold hearings. I expect them to hold a vote,” Mr. Obama said at a press conference. “There’s no unwritten law that says it can only be done on off years.”

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, Kentucky Republican, and others including presidential candidates Sens. Ted Cruz of Texas and Marco Rubio of Florida have vowed to block any Obama nominee, saying the next president should select Justice Scalia’s replacement.

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Mr. Obama blasted that rationale.

“This is the Supreme Court, thehighest court in the land,” the president said. “It’s the one courtwhere we would expect elected officials to rise above day-to-day politics. I understand the stakes. I understand the pressure that Republican senators are undoubtedly under. This would be a deciding vote. But that’s not how the system is supposed to work.”

Even before Mr. Obama stated his case, there were signs that Republican unity was wavering on the notion of blocking any nominee out of hand.

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SenateJudiciary CommitteeChairman Chuck Grassley, Iowa Republican, didn’t rule out confirmation hearings and a vote by his panel on an Obama selection.

“I would wait until the nominee is made before I would make any decision,” Mr. Grassley said Tuesday in a conference call with Iowa radio reporters. “In other words, take it a step at a time.”

Asked whether he thought the controversy over filling the court vacancy might endanger his re-election chances this fall, Mr. Grassley said, “I think I have a responsibility to perform, and I can’t worry about the election. I’ve got to do my job as a senator, whatever it is. And there will be a lot of tough votes between now and the next election.”

His comments appeared to be a softening from a statement shortly after Justice Scalia’s death, when Mr. Grassley said it was “standard practice” not to nominate or confirm candidates for the Supreme Court in an election year.

“It only makes sense that we defer to the American people who will elect a new president to select the nextSupreme Court Justice,” Mr. Grassley said in a statement Saturday.

Sen. Thom Tillis, North Carolina Republican, voiced caution about blocking any Obama nominee automatically.

“I think we fall into the trap if [we] just simply say, sight unseen, we fall into the trap of being obstructionists,” Mr. Tillis said on Tyler Cralle’s radio show.

But Mr. Tillis added of the president, “If he puts forth someone that we think is in the mold of President Obama’s vision for America, then we’ll use every device available to block that nomination.”

A top aide to Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid, Nevada Democrat, responding to Mr. Tillis’ comments, predicted that Mr. McConnell will eventually retreat from his stance of blocking any Obama nominee without a hearing.

“Sen. McConnell’s rash and unprecedented decision to deny aSupreme Court nominee a fair hearing and floor vote has put Republicans in an untenable position, so it is not surprising to see cracks appear so quickly,” said Adam Jentleson, Mr. Reid’s deputy chief of staff. “The next step in this process will be for Sen. McConnell to back down and give President Obama’s nominee a hearing and a floor vote. That’s a simple reality.”

The White House said Mr. Obama will nominate someone to fill the vacancy after the Senate returns from its recess next week. Justice Scalia, 79, died while on a hunting trip in Texas last weekend.

Fox News legal analyst Peter Johnson Jr. said Mr. McConnell and other Republicans are making a mistake by vowing to block any Obama nominee, and they should “recalibrate immediately.”

“Mitch McConnell has been joined by [presidential candidates] Ted Cruz, Marco Rubio and Donald Trump in saying the president’s nominee to thecourt should not be considered by theSenate,” he said. “That’s an awful lot of Republicans making a big mistake.”

The No. 3 Democrat in the Senate, Charles E. Schumer of New York, said he expects Mr. Obama to select a consensus candidate who could get bipartisan support and predicted that a “huge public outcry” would force Mr. McConnell to back down.

Sen. Patrick J. Leahy of Vermont, the top Democrat on the Judiciary Committee, said, “Refusing to do anything means you’re voting maybe. That’s a cowardly way out.” In Richmond, Vermont, Mr. Leahy said the last time the court was down a jurist was during the Civil War.

But House Speaker Paul D. Ryan, Wisconsin Republican, said he supports the idea of blocking any Obama nomination to the Supreme Court.

“The Supreme Court is not an extension of the White House,” Mr. Ryan told the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. “The president has absolutely every right to nominate someone to the Supreme Court, but Congress as an equal branch also has every right not to confirm someone.”

Mr. Ryan said an election year is a poor time to make such an important decision.“We are knee-deep into a presidential election, and I think the precedent for not filling a Supreme Court vacancy in such a time is justified,” he said.

The speaker also said Mr. Obama’s nominees to the high court, Justices Elena Kagan and Sonia Sotomayor, have shown tendencies to support the president’s overreaching on executive power.

“The president has tried everything he can to empower the executive branch at the expense of the legislative one,” he said. “His Supreme Court nominees have all contributed to that, those that he has placed on the bench already. So not only does Congress have the authority to stop a nominee, it has an obligation to defend itself against a president and a radically altered court that would continue to seize its powers.”

Mr. Obama said Republicans are being hypocritical and that a delay forSupreme Court nominees in election years is “not in the constitutional text.”

“I’m amused when I hear people who claim to be strict interpreters of the Constitution suddenly reading into it a whole series of provisions that are not there,” he said.

Nearly all of the most vulnerableSenate Republicans support blocking a vote on any nominee, even as Democrats vow to make it a flashpoint in the battle for control of the upper legislative chamber.

Sens. Kelly Ayotte of New Hampshire, Ron Johnson of Wisconsin, Richard Burr of North Carolina, Patrick J. Toomey of Pennsylvania and John McCain of Arizona said they owe it to the American people to delay the nomination process until voters elect Mr. Obama’s successor.

As Mr. Obama pushes ahead with plans to nominate a successor toJustice Scalia, more attention is focusing on Attorney General Loretta Lynch, 56, as a possible candidate. Last year, she became the first black woman to hold the nation’s top law enforcement post.

“The fact that Lynch was vetted so recently for attorney general also makes it practical for the president to nominate her in relatively short order,” said Tom Goldstein, publisher of the SCOTUSblog. “There is some imperative to move quickly, because each passing week strengthens the intuitive appeal of the Republican argument that it is too close to the election to confirm the nominee.”

But Ms. Lynch drew criticism last year for defending Mr. Obama’s executive order on deportation amnesty. She also is under fire for her handling of the Justice Department’s probe into Hillary Clinton’s classified emails. She has resisted Republicans’ calls to appoint a special prosecutor to evaluate the matter.Nor was her confirmation process free of drama.

A former U.S. attorney in New York, Ms. Lynch was nominated by the president on Nov. 8, 2014, to replace Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr., shortly after Republicans won control of the Senate in the midterm elections. Democrats offered to wait until Republicans took over the majority in January to consider her nomination.

Her confirmation process then became mired in political feuds over Mr. Obama’s executive action on deportation amnesty and an abortion provision in legislation against human trafficking. As the debate over Ms. Lynch’s confirmation grew more heated, Sen. Richard J. Durbin, Illinois Democrat and a close ally of the White House, said Republicans were making her “sit in the back of the bus.”

The Judiciary Committee voted 12-8 in favor of her confirmation on Feb. 26, 2015. The full Senate confirmed Ms. Lynch by a vote of 56-43 on April 23, 166 days after the president nominated her.

The lone senator who didn’t vote wasTed Cruz, Texas Republican, who had scheduling conflicts. He voted against Ms. Lynch in a procedural vote and said the majority Republicans could have stopped her nomination.

Others on Mr. Obama’s short list include Judge Srikanth Srinivasan, 48, who was approved by the Senate on a 97-0 vote in 2013 for a seat on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit; Judge Jane Kelly, 51, also given unanimous Senateapproval in 2013 to the appeals court; Judge Paul Watford, 48, of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, formerly a law clerk for Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg; and California Attorney General Kamala Harris, 51, who is running in the Democratic primary to succeed retiring U.S. Sen. Barbara Boxer.

⦁ This article is based in part on wire service reports.

COMMENTS

AMERICA IN COMPLETE FREEFALL THXS PAUL RYAN

AP Photo/Evan Vucci

by STEPHEN K. BANNON & JULIA HAHN16 Dec 2015Washington D.C.3953

Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI) 58%

Paul Ryan’s first major legislative achievement is a total and complete sell-out of the American people masquerading as an appropriations bill.

Too harsh, you say? Let the programs, the spending, and the implications speak for themselves.

(1) Ryan’s Omnibus Fully Funds DACA

Though much of the public attention has surrounded the President’s 2014 executive amnesty, the President’s 2012 amnesty quietly continues to churn out work permits and federal benefits for hundreds of thousands of illegal aliens. Paul Ryan’s bill funds entirely this 2012 executive amnesty for “DREAMers”—or illegal immigrants who came to the country as minors.

Specifically, Division F of Ryan’s omnibus bill contains no language that would prohibit the use of funds to continue the President’s unconstitutional program. Obama’s executive action, known as Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA), has granted around 700,000 illegal aliens with work permits, as well as the ability to receive tax credits and federal entitlement programs. A recent GAO report documented how this illegal amnesty program for alien youth is, in large part, responsible for the illegal alien minor surge on our southern border.

In 2013, Paul Ryan said that it is his job as a U.S. lawmaker to put himself in the shoes of “the DREAMer who is waiting” and work to find legislative solutions to his or her problems.

(2) Ryan’s Omnibus Funds Sanctuary Cities

Five months ago, 32-year-old Kate Steinle was bleeding to death in her father’s arms. She was gunned down in broad daylight by a five-time deported criminal alien whose presence in the country was the direct result of San Francisco’s refusal to comply with U.S. immigration law—yet Paul Ryan’s omnibus rewards these lawless Sanctuary Cities with federal grants. Division B Title II of Ryan’s omnibus funds various grant programs for the Department of Justice (pages 167, 168, and 169) and contains no language that would restrict the provision of such grants to sanctuary jurisdictions.

In a Congressional hearing, Steinle’s father demanded Congressional action and recalled his daughter’s dying words: “Help me, Dad.”

(3) Ryan’s Omnibus Funds All Refugee Programs

Despite broad support amongst Republican lawmakers for a proposal introduced by

Rep. Brian Babin (R-TX)

64%

 to halt all refugee resettlement, Ryan’s appropriations bill will fund President Obama’s refugee resettlement operation and will allow for the admission of tens of thousands of refugees with access to federal benefits. Division H Title II of Ryan’s bill contains appropriations of the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) and contains no language that would restrict the program. Nor are there any restrictions for the program in Division K of Ryan’s bill, which provides funding for the Department of State, which oversees refugee admissions.

Ryan is not one of the 84 cosponsors of Babin’s bill to halt the refugee operation, and he recently told Sean Hannity that he does not support halting resettlement because, “We’re a compassionate country. The refugees laws are important laws.” Similarly, this outcome represents a legislative win for 

Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL)

79%

, who told Sean Hannity he’d “hate to use” Congress’s power of the purse to deny funding for Obama’s resettlement operation. 

(4) Ryan’s Omnibus Funds All of the Mideast Immigration Programs That Have Been Exploited by Terrorists in Recent Years 

Although multiple immigrant and visa programs in recent years have been exploited by terrorists (such as the F-1 “student” visa, the K-1 “fiancée” visa, and our green card and refugee programs), Ryan’s proposal does nothing to limit admissions from jihadist-prone regions. As Senators Shelby and Sessions of Alabama noted in a joint statement: “The omnibus would put the U.S. on a path to approve admission for hundreds of thousands of migrants from a broad range of countries with jihadists movements over the next 12 months, on top of all the other autopilot annual immigration.”

(5) Ryan’s Omnibus Funds Illegal Alien Resettlement

On page 917 of Ryan’s omnibus a section titled “Refugee and Entrant Assistance” funds the President’s resettlement of illegal immigrant border crossers.

(6) Ryan’s Omnibus Funds the Release of Criminal Aliens

Senior legislative aides tell Breitbart News that Ryan’s bill does not do anything to change the enforcement priorities that Jeh Johnson established a little over a year ago that would shield entire categories of criminal aliens from immigration law, nor does it include language recommended by Sessions and Shelby to “deny the expenditure of funds to issue visas to countries that refuse to repatriate criminal aliens.”

(7) Ryan’s Omnibus Quadruples H-2B Foreign Worker Visas 

Despite Ryan’s pledge not to move an immigration compromise with President Obama, tucked 700 pages into Ryan’s spending bill is language that would resuscitate and expand a controversial provision of the Schumer-Rubio Gang of Eight plan to increase the H-2B visa program.

The provision “would quadruple the number of H-2B visas for unskilled guest workers, for a total of more than 250,000,” writes immigration attorney Ian Smith. The Americans who fill these jobs are typically “society’s most vulnerable — including single women, the disabled, the elderly, minorities, teenagers, students, and first-generation immigrants,”  Smith explains.

A recent BuzzFeed exposé revealed how this program allows businesses to discriminate against American workers and “deliberately den[y] jobs to American workers so they can hire foreign workers on H-2 visas instead.” As one GOP aide told Breitbart News, “This provision is a knife in the heart of the working class, and African Americans.”

(8) Ryan’s Omnibus Funds Tax Credits for Illegal Aliens

Ryan’s bill preserves the expansion of the President’s expiring child tax credits without any accompanying language to prevent illegal aliens from receiving those tax credits. While Sen. Sessions attempted to include language in the bill that would prevent illegal immigrants from receiving tax credits, his recommendation was rejected.

(9) Ryan’s Omnibus Locks-In Huge Spending Increases

The bill funds the Obama-Boehner budget deal, which eliminated spending caps, and will increase both defense and non-defense spending next year by $25 billion more each.

(10) Ryan’s Omnibus Fails to Allocate Funds to Complete the 700-Mile Double-Layer Border Fence That Congress Promised the American People

Nearly a decade ago with the passage of the 2006 Secure Fence Act, the American people were promised a 700-mile double-layer border fence. However, funding for the fence was later gutted and, as a result, its construction was never completed. Despite heightened media focus over the past six months about Americans’ desire for this barrier to illegal entry, Ryan’s bill does not require that funds be allocated to finish the construction of the 700-mile double-layer fence.

A vote could occur as early as Thursday after midnight, giving lawmakers and the public only one full business day to review the 2,242 page package. The Ryan-Pelosi package represents nothing short of a complete and total betrayal of the American people.

Yet Ryan’s omnibus serves a second and equally chilling purpose. By locking in the President’s refugee, immigration, and spending priorities, Ryan’s bill is designed to keep these fights out of Congress by getting them off the table for good. Delivering Obama these wins–and pushing these issues beyond the purview of Congress–will suppress public attention to the issues and, in so doing, will boost the candidacy of the Republican establishment’s preferred presidential contenders, who favor President Obama’s immigration agenda.

What may prove most discouraging of all to Americans is that recent reports reveal that conservatives in the so-called House Freedom Caucus are praising Ryan even as he permanently locks in these irreversible and anti-American immigration policies.According to Politico, the House Freedom Caucus will “give Ryan a pass” even as he funds disastrous policies that prioritize the interests of foreign nationals and global corporatists above the needs of the American people whom lawmakers are supposed to represent.

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Big Government, Immigration, Obama, Paul Ryan

Obamacare, Horse Tracks, NASCAR, Loans, FUNDED

Tax deal doles out year-end goodies for NASCAR tracks, racehorses, college students

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Paul Ryan wrote the agreement with Sen. Orrin G. Hatch, Utah Republican and chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, and Sen. Ron Wyden of Oregon, the ranking Democrat on the Finance Committee.

"Millions of working families with children will not find themselves suddenly taxed into poverty. Millions of college students won't have the rug pulled out from under them when the tuition bill arrives. Charities can confidently plan and expand the good work they do. And small business and enterprises on the forefront of innovation now have the economic certainty they deserve," Mr. Wyden said.

Tax breaks on everything from racehorses and film productions to NASCAR racetracks to college tuitions and teachers' out-of-pocket classroom expenses are covered in the massive deal.

Also included is a permanent extension of the research and development tax credit, created by Congress in the early 1980s as a temporary boost to the slumping economy. It's been extended 16 different times, but the new bill writes it into the tax code for good.

And the agreement unravels one of the key tax increases in Obamacare, in a move budget watchdogs had long warned against, saying it would make the massive health overhaul a bad deal for taxpayers.

That provision is the so-called "Cadillac Tax," a 2.3 percent excise tax levied on high-value health plans. The tax was expected to particularly strike at the generous plans unions sometimes negotiated for their members in lieu of pay hikes.

Mr. Obama had fought for the tax, saying it was an important incentive to try to control exploding costs in the health care market, but Democrats in Congress, prodded by their union allies, linked arms with the GOP to impose a two-year delay on the Cadillac Tax, which was to go into effect in 2016.

© Copyright 2015 The Washington Times, LLC. Click here for reprint permission.

Here is the link.
PAUL RYAN TRILLION DOLLAR BABY http://www.sickbias.com/2015/12/paul-ryan-trillion-dollar-baby.html

https://m.facebook.com/story.php?story_fbid=1730413297194596&id=1461608194075109

PAUL RYAN TRILLION DOLLAR BABY

If John Boehner Made the Spending Deal Paul Ryan Just Did, Conservatives Would’ve Called for His Head

www.slate.com

House Speaker Paul Ryan talks to reporters following the weekly House GOP Conference meeting at the Capitol on Dec. 16, 2015, in Washington.

Photo by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images

When Paul Ryan was handed the speaker’s gavel in late October, he pledged to restore normal order to the People’s House and eliminate the sort of backroom deals that rank-and-file members complain are shoved down their throats at the 11th hour. So, late Tuesday night, Ryan unveiled a few thousand pages of consequential tax, spending, and regulatory legislation costing roughly $2 trillion and gave Congress and the public two whole days to review everything.

Jim Newell is a Slate staff writer.

To be fair to Ryan, the buzzer-beating legislating has more to do with the workload and deadlines John Boehner left him than anything he did wrong. The agreement Ryan reached with fellow congressional negotiators also looks much like one Boehner would have reached: Each side scores some points, but Republican congressional majorities again will fail to deliver a high-profile, base-pumping, ideological victory over some nefarious aspect of the “Obama agenda” on which conservatives had drawn a red line. Will this land Ryan in the same hot water that eventually cooked Boehner? He’ll get a pass, for now.

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The two towering paper stacks are the 2016 omnibus appropriations package, which funds the government through next September, and a “tax-extenders” bill that, well, extends (and in many cases makes permanent) a bunch of tax breaks that were set to expire. Though they will be voted on separately, they were negotiated together. The omnibus is more favorable to Democrats, and the tax extenders are more favorable to Republicans.

Considered as a whole, an overriding theme is that everyone gets a lot of money but neither side hammers home that big-ticket ideological victory. In other words, it’s a compromise, something Democrats usually accept as part of the process while Republicans scream bloody murder.

Republicans’ major “get” in the omnibus is a lift on the longtime ban of crude oil exports. That’s a big deal. But since it’s such a big deal, Democrats dangled it to win all sorts of other concessions of their own (even if these were mainly concessions to the status quo). In terms of energy and the environment, Democrats won multiyear extensions of critical tax credits for solar and wind energy production. They successfully nixed a rider that would have blocked the Environmental Protection Agency’s proposed “waters of the United States” rule that would expand its jurisdiction against polluters under the Clean Water Act. Riders blocking proposed regulations of power plants were cut out. The U.S. government’s contributions to the international Green Climate Fund will continue, a crucial component of the Paris climate agreement.

Somehow the financial services industry, which owns the United States Congress,came up on the losing end too. A provision that would designate fewer financial institutions as “systemically important” (and thus subject to greater oversight under Dodd-Frank) was dropped. The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau will maintain its independence from congressional appropriations—i.e., Republicans who want to defund it. Another rider that would have blocked a proposed Labor Department rule better aligning financial advisers with their clients’ interests was cut.

The Zadroga Act, a health care and compensation fund for 9/11 first responders and nearby workers, will be reauthorized until 2090, a hilarious year to settle on but one that effectively means permanent. Jon Stewart is an effective lobbyist.

Conservatives also lost on their most well-publicized demands that have dominated cable news.Language restricting Syrian and Iraqi refugee resettlement, defunding Planned Parenthood, or blocking President Obama’s executive actions on immigration will not be included. (The Senate will, however, take up the stand-alone Syrian and Iraqi refugee bill that passed the House with a veto-proof majority. Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid has said that it will not fare nearly as well there.) Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell’s annual chip-away at campaign finance regulations, which this year would have blown up the McCain-Feingold fundraising coordination caps between parties and campaigns, did not make it through. (This was an interesting fight, in which Democrats joined up with Tea Party conservatives who don’t want to enhance the power of party committees.)

Meanwhile, over in tax-extenders land, Republicans made all sorts of business tax breaks permanent without any new way to pay for them, so, hooray! This roughly $600 billion package of treats includes permanent extensions of the research-and-development tax credit and other depreciation credits. Democrats got extensions of certain tax credits from the 2009 stimulus. Both got to chip away at funding for the Affordable Care Act, by delaying implementation of the so-called Cadillac tax on high-cost health plans (this one was technically tacked onto the omnibus, not the tax package) and the medical device tax. This half of the deal will be a big, fat budget-buster, and it will pass with mostly Republican votes.

Both packages, and the way in which they were negotiated, look … an awful lot like the packages that Boehner would have negotiated and the way in which he would have negotiated them. Conservatives in the House Freedom Caucus, who have said at various points that they would not vote for a spending bill that funded either Planned Parenthood or Syrian and Iraqi refugee resettlement, are sticking to their word. Rep. Jim Jordan, chairman of the Freedom Caucus, does not expect his group to support to omnibus and doesn’t even expect that many rank-and-file Republicans to support it either. Rep. Tim Huelskamp, among the more vocal Freedom Caucus members, also predicted that a majority of Republicans would vote against the $1.1 trillion appropriations package that he’s calling the “Boehner legacy bill.”

In other words, Ryan will have to pass the omnibus with the same organic governing coalition of mostly Democrats and some Republicans that Boehner himself used to pass most necessary legislation. That’s a violation of the so-called Hastert rule in which a speaker has pledged to only call up legislation that has support of a majority of the majority party. Ryanassured conservatives that he would abide by this rule if they supported his bid. On his first big funding bill, Ryan will just … not follow the rule that he said he would follow.

That’s great news for America but might be awful news for Ryan in the long run. He’ll get a pass for a number of reasons this time: He’s finishing a process Boehner initiated; he’s offering Republicans a mammoth tax-break package in exchange; and most importantly, Freedom Caucus members would embarrass themselves if they started talking about how Paul Ryan is a failure and must be overthrown this early in his tenure. Perhaps his fetching newmanly man-beard also played some sort of hypnotic role on the House Republican Conference.

This appropriations package will expire near the end of the 2016 election, so Congress may pass a continuing resolution then to kick the major political fights past the campaign. Ryan’s next real tests on must-pass legislation should come when there’s a new president. Until then, he can enjoy the honeymoon.