Category Archives: Congress
Ebola in Akron
Democrats have learned the true source of the ebola virus – Republicans. Or more specifically sequestration, the scheme to hold federal spending in place. Sequestration was actually proposed by President Obama and later implemented by Congress as a way to climb down from the fiscal cliff.
The head of NIH says if not for sequestration we’d have an ebola vaccine by now. He didn’t say if it would cause autism.
IBD says CDC and NIH are doing just fine..
The CDC’s budget today is 25% bigger than it was in 2008 and 188% bigger than in 2000. The NIH budget has been flat for the past few years, but at a level that’s more than double what it was 14 years ago.
Plus, spending at both of these agencies has actually been higher than President Obama himself proposed (see chart). The 2014 NIH budget, in fact, is almost $1 billion bigger than Obama sought in his budget plan, released in early 2010.
Akron
AAAAAAAAAAiiiieeeee This just in: Ebola comes to Akron. I live in Akron! The victim traveled through Cleveland Hopkins airport this past weekend. I traveled through Cleveland Hopkins airport this past weekend! Damn Republicans.
Abuse of Congress
Republican Senator Jeff Sessions thinks Congress is in an abusive relationship with the president.
Abuse
National Review Online published a speech Sessions gave on Wednesday. He complained that no Democrat would support legislation to block President Obama from issuing executive orders on immigration.
The Senate Democratic conference has supported and enabled the president’s unlawful actions and blocked every effort to stop them…
Just yesterday Majority Leader Reid wrote in a tweet something that was shocking. He said: “Since House Republicans have failed to act on immigration, I know the President will. When he does, I hope he goes Real Big.”
Let this sink in for a moment. The majority leader of the Senate is bragging that he knows the president will circumvent Congress to issue executive amnesty to millions…
Go It Alone – Later
In June the president said that since Congress refused to act on immigration he’d do it himself, just like the little red hen. He promised to go it alone before the end of summer.
On Saturday he announced that he would delay his go it alone strategy until after the November elections. Ezra Klein, usually more sympathetic than not toward Obama, says this is dumb.
Senator Mitch McConnell has a point when he says, “What’s so cynical about today’s immigration announcement is that the president isn’t saying he’ll follow the law, he’s just saying he’ll go around the law once it’s too late for Americans to hold his party accountable in the November elections.”
Klein wonders why Obama is delaying his end run around a Congress he accuses of delaying immigration reform.
This is the problem with the White House’s decision — and, to some degree, the way they’ve managed this whole issue. If these deportations are a crisis that merits deeply controversial, extra-congressional action, then it’s hard to countenance a politically motivated delay. If they’re not such a crisis that immediate action is needed, then why go around Congress in the first place?
Degrade and Destroy
Last week President Obama said he didn’t have a strategy for dealing with ISIL, the Islamist terror concern occupying large swaths of Iraq and Syria.
Degrade and Destroy
This week he said he would “degrade and destroy” those same head sawing barbarians. Moments later he dialed that back, saying he would reduce ISIL to a “manageable problem“.
Just to keep things interesting Joe Biden vowed to chase them to the gates of hell.
Daniel Henninger of the WSJ (you should get a one-time pass) thinks Obama believes America’s real enemies are the unmanageable, “ideologically rigid, anti-science” congressional Republicans.
Climate Shame
The president is going it alone on a climate plan. Well, not exactly alone. He’s working it out with the UN. It’s just that Congress won’t be involved.
Name and Shame
The idea is to hammer out a plan for carbon reduction for the entire “international community”. But without Senate approval the agreement won’t have the force of law (see Kyota). If the plan isn’t legally binding what keeps it from being a toothless piece of paper? It will be a “politically binding” agreement. International Community members will be shamed into compliance.
