Republican Dumbness

We've already written about this, but honestly, just how stupid can the Republicans be? Apparently, VERY! They are assuming that the perceived left wing bias of the media will work it's way into these shows, and that they will effectively be campaign pieces for Hillary. What a pack of wussies.

Republicans vote to boycott CNN, NBC debates if Clinton specials air

Published August 16, 2013

FoxNews.com

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The Republican National Committee has voted to boycott any presidential primary debates planned by CNN and NBC if they proceed with lengthy television features on Hillary Clinton, widely expected to be a 2016 Democratic candidate.
With no audible dissent, GOP officials approved a resolution backing the position at their annual summer meeting in Boston on Friday.
The RNC claims that a Clinton-themed documentary and a separate miniseries -- in the works from CNN and NBC, respectively -- will put a "thumb on the scales" in the upcoming 2016 presidential election.
The draft resolution, obtained by Fox News in advance and later voted on by RNC officials, calls on CNN and NBC to cancel what it describes as "political ads masked as unbiased entertainment."
And if they don't, the resolution states, "the Republican National Committee will neither partner with these networks in the 2016 presidential primary debates nor sanction any primary debates they sponsor."
Before the vote, RNC Chairman Reince Priebus decried what he called the "obvious bias" of a network that would spotlight Clinton in this fashion.
"We're done putting up with this nonsense. There are plenty of other outlets. We'll still reach voters, maybe more voters. But CNN and NBC anchors will just have to watch on their competitors' networks," he said. "The media overplayed their hand this time."
The resolution claims the programming would show "political favoritism" in the election and jeopardize the credibility of the networks.
Last month, CNN Films announced it was producing a documentary on Clinton to premiere next year, first in theaters and then on CNN.
NBC also announced a four-hour "Hillary" miniseries starring Diane Lane, on the life of the former secretary of State and first lady.
In a statement, CNN said its division planned to air its documentary about Clinton in 2014.
"The project is in the very early stages of development, months from completion," the CNN statement read. "We encouraged all interested parties to wait until the program premieres before judgments are made about it. Unfortunately, the RNC was not willing to do that."
Even before the Clinton dispute, Republican leaders favored plans to have fewer presidential debates with more friendly moderators. They believe their 2012 presidential candidates spent too much time beating up on each other in last year's monthslong primary season, contributing to Mitt Romney's loss.
"Our party should not be involved in setting up a system that encourages the slicing and dicing of candidates over a long period of time with moderators that are not in the business of being at all concerned about the future of our party," Priebus told reporters.
Democratic National Committee spokesman Michael Czin criticized Friday's vote.
"Instead of modifying their policies to actually present smart solutions for middle class families, the only thing the GOP can unite behind is a plan to continue to limit the audiences -- and voters -- to whom they will communicate," he said.
The Associated Press contributed to this report. 

Still Think NSA is a Phony Scandal?

According to President Obama, the revelation of snooping by the NSA along with Benghazi and the IRS were  "phony scandals."  The only phony in this scenario is our President whose ego is so overbearing that he will not deal with reality. We are not dealing with foolproof systems here,  and while the total number of incidents may not appear to be high, that's not a justification.

N.S.A. Often Broke Rules on Privacy, Audit Shows

By CHARLIE SAVAGE

Published: August 16, 2013 151 Comments

WASHINGTON — The National Security Agency violated privacy rules protecting the communications of Americans and others on domestic soil 2,776 times over a one-year period, according to an internal audit leaked by the former N.S.A. contractor Edward J. Snowden and made public on Thursday night.

The violations, according to the May 2012 audit, stemmed largely from operator and system errors like “inadequate or insufficient research” when selecting wiretap targets.

The largest number of episodes — 1,904 — appeared to be “roamers,” in which a foreigner whose cellphone was being wiretapped without a warrant came to the United States, where individual warrants are required. A spike in such problems in a single quarter, the report said, could be because of Chinese citizens visiting friends and family for the Chinese Lunar New Year holiday.

“Roamer incidents are largely unpreventable, even with good target awareness and traffic review, since target travel activities are often unannounced and not easily predicted,” the report says.

The report and several other documents leaked by Mr. Snowden were published by The Washington Post. They shed new light on the intrusions into Americans’ privacy that N.S.A. surveillance can entail, and how the agency handles violations of its rules.

Mr. Snowden, who was recently granted temporary asylum in Russia, is believed to have given the documents to The Post months ago.

The Post, which did not publish every document its accompanying article relied upon, cited other problems as well. In one case in 2008 that was not reported to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court or Congress, it said, the system collected metadata logs about a “large number” of calls dialed from Washington – something it was already doing through a different program – because of a programming error mixing up the district’s area code, 202, with the international dialing code of Egypt, 20.

Jameel Jaffer of the American Civil Liberties Union said that while some of the compliance violations were more troubling than others, the sheer number of them was “jaw-dropping.”

In a statement, the N.S.A. said its surveillance activities “are continually audited and overseen internally and externally.”

“When N.S.A. makes a mistake in carrying out its foreign intelligence mission, the agency reports the issue internally and to federal overseers — and aggressively gets to the bottom of it,” the statement said.

Another newly disclosed document included instructions for how N.S.A. analysts should record their rationales for eavesdropping under the FISA Amendments Act, or F.A.A., which allows wiretapping without warrants on domestic networks if the target is a noncitizen abroad. The document said analysts should keep descriptions of why the people they are targeting merit wiretapping to “one short sentence” and avoid details like their names and supporting information.

“While we do want to provide our F.A.A. overseers with the information they need, we DO NOT want to give them any extraneous information,” it said.

A brief article in an internal N.S.A. newsletter offered hints about a known but little-understood episode in which the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court found in 2011 that the N.S.A. had violated the Fourth Amendment. The newsletter said the court issued an 80-page ruling on Oct. 3, 2011, finding that something the N.S.A. was collecting involving “Multiple Communications Transactions” on data flowing through fiber-optic networks on domestic soil was “deficient on statutory and constitutional grounds.”

In a statement, the N.S.A. said the problem related to “a very specific and highly technical aspect,” which it reported to the court and Congress “once the issue was identified and fully understood.” Privacy protections for Americans were strengthened, it said, and the court allowed the surveillance to continue.

The Obamacare Mess Continues

 When you write 2,500 pages of gobbledygook that nobody bothers to read before they vote on it this is a typical snafu that you will run into. It's too complex, no one really understands the full implications, and we are consistently going to hit brick walls as this legislative nightmare rolls out. On the other hand, maybe the President will just keep postponing it until the next President has to deal with it. Are you ready, Hillary?

Abortion coverage for Congress under health law?

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FILE - In this Jan. 20, 2011, file photo, Rep. Christopher Smith, R-N.J., speaks during a news conference on Capitol Hill in Washington, It’s an issue lawmakers may not want to have to explain at town hall meetings back home. An attempt to fix a problem with the new health care law has created a situation in which members of Congress and their staffers could gain access to abortion coverage, something that currently is denied to federal employees who get health insurance through the government. "Under this scheme (the government) will be paying the administrative costs," said Smith, author of abortion funding ban for federal employee plans. "It’s a radical deviation and departure from current federal law, and it’s not for all federal employees, but for a subset: Congress. Us." (AP Photo/Harry Hamburg, File)

RICARDO ALONSO-ZALDIVAR 4 hours ago HealthHealth careBarack Obama

WASHINGTON (AP) — It's an issue lawmakers may not want to have to explain at town hall meetings back home:
An attempt to fix a problem with the new health care law has created a situation in which members of Congress and their staffers could gain access to abortion coverage, something that currently is denied to federal employees who get health insurance through the government's plan.
Abortion opponents say the Obama administration needs to fix it; abortion rights supporters say the concern is overblown.
The abortion complication is a new headache for the administration as it tries to shoehorn members of Congress and certain staffers into insurance markets coming later this year under President Barack Obama's health care overhaul. An amendment by Iowa Republican Sen. Charles Grassley — who opposes the health care overhaul and abortion — requires lawmakers and their personal staff to get private coverage through the same markets that uninsured Americans will use.
Last week, the White House Office of Personnel Management said the government would keep paying its share of premiums for lawmakers and affected staffers who must leave the federal employee health care system by Jan. 1. That eased a major anxiety for several thousand staffers accustomed to getting the same benefits as other federal employees.
But the proposed regulation did not explicitly address abortion coverage. Under the health care law, insurance plans in the new markets may cover abortion unless a state passes a law prohibiting them from doing so. Plans offering coverage for abortion, however, may not use federal funds to pay for it and must collect a separate premium from enrollees. Federal tax credits to help the uninsured afford coverage must also be kept apart.
Abortion opponents say the proposal from the personnel office would circumvent a longstanding law that bars the use of taxpayer funds for "administrative expenses in connection with any health plan under the federal employees health benefits program which provides any benefits or coverage for abortions." Unlike many private corporate plans, federal employee plans only cover abortions in cases of rape, incest or to save the life of the mother.
"Under this scheme (the government) will be paying the administrative costs," said Rep. Chris Smith, R-N.J., author of abortion funding ban for federal employee plans. "It's a radical deviation and departure from current federal law, and it's not for all federal employees, but for a subset: Congress. Us."
Smith is calling on the personnel office to specify that lawmakers and staffers must choose a plan that does not cover abortions. The funding ban even bears his name: It's known as the Smith amendment.
The personnel office refused to answer questions about the issue on the record. Instead, its media office released a generic statement, saying: "Federal law prohibits the use of federal funds to pay for abortion except in the case of rape, incest or when the life of the woman is endangered. All plans available in the marketplaces will comply with the law."
Obama, who supports abortion rights, previously has said he does not want his health care overhaul to change existing laws on abortion.
A leading independent expert on the federal employee plan said abortion opponents appear to have raised a legitimate question, but the applicable laws are so arcane that it's hard to tell whether they're right.
"This goes into a legal thicket the complexity of which I can't begin to fathom," said Walton Francis, lead author of an annual guide to federal health benefits. "It would take lawyers hours to decipher the interrelationship between these statutes, and they would probably come to different conclusions."
It's even legally murky whether the government can continue to pay its regular share of the premiums for lawmakers and staffers, he added.
Abortion opponents say the longstanding ban on "administrative expenses" related to abortion coverage precludes the personnel office from dealing with health plans that cover abortion.
"To comply with the Smith amendment, they would have to advise members and congressional staff that they can only choose plans that do not cover abortions," said Douglas Johnson, legislative director of the National Right to Life Committee. "And, of course, they would have to enforce it."
Abortion remains a legal medical procedure in most cases, but it's subject to increasing restrictions in many states. So far, 23 states have barred or restricted abortion coverage by plans in the new health insurance markets. But 27 states and Washington, D.C., have not. Under the health care law, every state must have at least one plan that does not cover abortion.
Judy Waxman, a leading attorney for the National Women's Law Center, said the outcry from abortion opponents is overblown.
In the new insurance markets under Obama's law, states decide whether abortion can be offered, she explained. If it's allowed, insurers decide whether they want to offer the coverage. But they have to make sure funds to pay for it are segregated from federal money.
"No federal money will go to abortion," she said.

One Six Year Term

Here is an almost perfect argument as to why the constitution should be changed and the president should be elected to one six year term. It would simplify and clarify an awful lot, and eliminate much of the internecine warfare that now consumes Washington.

 

Second-Term Blues

Rampant tribalism makes rocky path faced by all reelected presidents even rougher for Obama

by Norm Ornstein

August 14, 2013 | 7:46 p.m.

Obama has opportunities to excel in his second term, but he faces an uphill battle due to unique challenges during his presidency. (AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster)

Back in 2007, John Fortier and I did a book called Second-Term Blues on how George W. Bush had governed after his reelection. John and I started with an essay on the usual characteristics of second-term presidencies, and measured Bush against them. This is a good time to do the same with Barack Obama.
We identified a set of characteristics that defined presidents reelected to a second term from FDR on. Let's look at them.
Hubris. Every second-term president views reelection as a mandate for his policies and priorities, a vindication of the first term, and a rebuke to the president's critics. Many overreach, as Franklin Roosevelt did with his plan to "pack" the Supreme Court, and Bush did with his attempt to privatize Social Security.
What about Obama? As the first president since Dwight Eisenhower to win election and reelection with at least 51 percent of the popular vote, he had reason to feel vindicated. No question, he started his second term with high expectations that the unrelenting and blanket opposition to every one of his initiatives by Republicans in Congress would abate enough, at least in the Senate, to give him chances to enact major new policy initiatives on guns, immigration, energy, and infrastructure, while also moving toward at least a mini-Grand Bargain on fiscal matters. The path seemed to be through bipartisan coalitions in the Senate, forcing action in the House. To get there, Obama did not take a "my-way-or-the-highway" approach.
But it did not take long before it became clear that the underlying pathology in contemporary American politics had not abated. The failure of the background-check bill to get 60 votes in the Senate was followed by Republican cosponsor Pat Toomey saying that many of his colleagues voted against it because the president was for it. Tellingly, Obama did not overreach on the gun bill; he did not demand an assault-weapons ban or a limitation on magazines. But a more humble approach made no difference.
How has Obama responded? One way is to be more aggressive at reaching out to the public, traveling across the country to make his case. But except on the gun issue, he has not overpromised on his capacity to move the public to demand action that will pay off; he knows that most Republicans in the House and Senate are either immune from those pleas or more concerned with narrow slivers of right-wing activists than the public as a whole. Another has been to use executive orders and executive actions. But contrary to the screams of those "unitary executive" proponents who championed aggressive executive unilateralism under Reagan and Bush, Obama has not gone outside the norm here.
Burnout. Fatigue is a universal in a second term, for a president and his staff. The job(s) are brutal in their hours and pressure. Inevitably, there is substantial turnover, in White House staff and Cabinet positions. We have seen ample evidence of this early in Obama's second term, with the departure of his chief of staff, national security adviser, and other key White House officials, along with many Cabinet and sub-Cabinet figures. There will be more departures, and as time passes it gets more difficult to get the best and brightest to come into a lame-duck administration. The changes can bring fresh blood and perspective, but it can also result in dislocation and turmoil. The long delays in identifying replacements and vetting them for several of these posts, as well as the Senate shenanigans on confirmation that were ostensibly relieved by the informal deal on filibusters in July has made this a bit more rocky than usual.
Lack of new ideas. As we wrote six years ago, "If presidents have big ideas, they usually raise them in the first term. Sometimes they succeed. If they fail to implement their grandiose notions in the first term, it is rare that conditions will change to make it more likely that they will succeed in the second." Obama had considerable success in the first term, with health reform and financial regulation, along with many substantive advances in the stimulus package. But there are some ideas that did not make it very far in the first term that are at least alive in the second, if not particularly healthy. One is the public/private Infrastructure Bank. Tax reform—the last big idea to make it through in a second term, in 1986—could be back; while not an Obama initiative, it could be an Obama accomplishment. If there is an immigration law, and if background checks can be revived--both big ifs--there could still be impressive successes.
Scandal. Scandal is typical for second-term presidents, usually amplified because it is also typical to have at least one chamber controlled by the other party. The Obama administration was remarkably free of significant scandal in the first term. So far, we have had Benghazi, the Internal Revenue Service, and the National Security Agency in the second. But the fact is, there is nothing significant tying the White House, much less the president, to any major wrongdoing (and scant evidence of any corruption or serious malfeasance overall, Darrell Issa notwithstanding).
Party infighting. Every second-term president has hassles from his party's base. Expectations are high, and there is no longer the excuse of the need to run for reelection. Here, Obama has a slew of challenges, on environmental matters like the Keystone XL pipeline, on any concessions on Social Security or Medicare, on Guantanamo, the NSA, and civil liberties. Liberal Democrats are restive. But Obama may be helped, as Bill Clinton was, by the overreaching of a vitriolic and ardent opposition, including the renewal of birtherism, calls for impeachment, and even some overt racism.
Salvation abroad. Faced with hassles at home, especially in Congress, second-term presidents typically turn more of their attention to foreign affairs, but not always with success (see: Iran/Contra, Iraq war.) No doubt, Obama will focus considerable attention on foreign affairs, partly by design, partly out of necessity. The jury is very much out on whether he will be able to have notable successes or will basically engage in frequent and extended crisis management.
Midterm losses. The "six-year-itch" phenomenon means most second-term presidents face serious losses in seats in Congress in the midterm elections. The prime exception to that rule was Clinton, whose party gained seats in the House—largely because he had presided over massive losses in his first midterm. Obama is in a similar situation, but as in 1998, Democrats have little chance of winning back the House, unless the Republicans so overreach in opposition in coming months that there is a massive backlash. And there is a near certainty that Democrats will lose seats in the Senate, perhaps enough to return the chamber to the GOP. There will be a big drag on Obama's ambitions in his final two years if the Senate does switch. And in the meantime, Obama has been hurt by the fact that the two top Republican leaders in the Senate are up next year, and have tilted sharply right in response to their own concerns about reelection.
What is the take-home value here? In many ways, Obama faces the same kinds of challenges that hit every second-term president. His opportunities to excel are there—but the combination of the typical and the added complication of rampant and intense tribalism make break-the-mold success an uphill battle.