“An Election Do-Over?”: Congress Thinks Elections Don’t Matter if They Don’t Like The Outcome
The problem for many years in Washington was that lawmakers were always looking to the next election, holding votes meant to burnish their own conservative or liberal credentials or set their opponents up for an attack ad based on that vote. That was an unproductive approach, but it seems downright quaint compared to now, when lawmakers are still fighting the last three elections.
Democrats note that their candidate won the 2008 election, and achieved an agenda – including the health care law – as a result of that win and the wins of Democrats in Congress. Republicans counter that voters overwhelmingly expressed their disgust with the law in 2010, electing scores of new Republicans to Congress and giving the GOP control of the House. Democrats say that voters had a definitive opportunity in 2012 to undo Obamacare, when Mitt Romney ran on a platform of doing just that. Not only was Romney defeated, but Democrats picked up seats in both the House and Senate.
Elections have consequences, as Obamacare foe John McCain reminded his colleagues recently. But too many lawmakers seem to think that elections are meaningless if they don’t like the result.
The standoff has resulted in a whole new definition of the word “compromise” on Capitol Hill. It was bad enough when the idea of compromise became equivalent to capitulation. That made it nearly impossible to get an agreement on anything, with lawmakers in both parties declaring to constituents that they will “fight” for them – meaning they wouldn’t accept the concerns or needs of any other district. But now, “compromise” has been expanded to re-open settled matters. This was true when Democrats sought (though with much less ferocity than the GOP has displayed with Obamacare) to vitiate the Bush tax cuts for upper-income people before the law’s expiration date. And Republicans are doing it now with Obamacare.
If lawmakers want to undo settled law and free and fair elections, why stop at legislation? Why don’t the Republicans say, OK, we’ll keep the government running, but only if President Obama and the entire cabinet resign. Then they can offer a “compromise” under which they’ll accept the early departures of merely Obama and Attorney General Eric Holder.
And maybe Democrats could say, sure, we’ll delay Obamacare, but only if every single tea party-affiliated member of Congress resigns immediately, and pledges never to get involved in politics or public policy again. Then, they could “compromise” by accepting the resignations of only the most vociferous of the GOP’s right wing. If you’re going to undo an election, after all, why not go big?
Sports teams and armies have operated under the idea that you fight the battle with the people and the tools you have at that moment. Washington could do the same.
By: Susan Milligan, U. S. News and World Report, September 27, 2013
“The Madness Continues”: Navy Yard Shooting Hits Home Amid Complacency Of Our Elected Officials
Washington was under siege Monday, with SWAT teams racing through the streets and military helicopters circling overhead. Not immediately threatened, however, was the complacency that allows our elected officials to argue endlessly about the threats we face rather than work together to lessen them.
“We are confronting yet another mass shooting,” President Obama said at midday, “and today it happened on a military installation in our nation’s capital.”
A few miles away, at the historic Washington Navy Yard, authorities were just beginning to assess the carnage left by a gunman — or perhaps gunmen — who sprayed the halls of the Naval Sea Systems Command with semiautomatic-weapons fire. Police have put the number of fatalities at at least 13, but the tally of dead and wounded kept changing throughout the afternoon.
Was this an act of terrorism, similar to the Fort Hood shootings or the Boston bombings? That theory advanced and receded during the day, amid conflicting reports of multiple assailants and speculation about possible motives.
Since no possibility could be quickly ruled out, all the old arguments about the nature of the “war on terror” were deemed in order. Obama’s supporters praise him for killing Osama bin Laden and smashing al-Qaeda to bits. Critics say that decentralized terrorism and “self-radicalized” individuals constitute an increasing menace. Both positions are more often used to score political points than to seek solutions.
Or was the Navy Yard rampage “just” another senseless multiple shooting, like so many others? During his presidency, Obama has mourned the victims and consoled the survivors of Fort Hood, Tucson, Aurora and Newtown. There was a weariness in his voice as he spoke of Navy personnel who had served bravely overseas yet “today . . . faced the unimaginable violence that they wouldn’t have expected here at home.”
The one confirmed shooter — who died at the scene — was reportedly carrying at least three firearms. Following the unimaginable horror of Newtown, in which 20 children were slaughtered, Obama could not even convince Congress to mandate universal background checks for gun purchases, let alone take stronger measures to keep powerful weapons out of unstable hands.
Opponents of gun control argue that, instead of infringing Second Amendment rights, we should focus on the fact that most, if not all, of these mass shooters are psychologically disturbed. But many of the officials who take this view are simultaneously trying their best to repeal Obamacare, which will provide access to mental health services to millions of Americans who are now uninsured.
So what difference did it really make what motivated Monday’s shooting? Beyond tightening security at military bases, what is our sclerotic political system capable of doing to prevent the next slaughter of innocents?
The shocking events in Washington eclipsed what otherwise would have been headline news from New York: U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon released a report providing “clear and convincing” evidence that chemical weapons were indeed used in Syria.
The report did not seek to ascribe blame. But it described the trajectory of rockets carrying nerve gas that were fired into a Damascus suburb on Aug. 21, and the data strongly indicate the projectiles were fired by forces loyal to dictator Bashar al-Assad. If ever there was doubt, none remains: Assad used poison gas to kill more than 1,400 civilians.
In a rare display of consensus, House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) both favor passage of a resolution giving Obama the authority to launch a punitive strike against Assad. But neither congressional leader is able to convince his rank-and-file members to back military action.
Failing to decide, however, is a decision. The multiple conflicts that intersect in Syria — Assad vs. rebels, Shiites vs. Sunnis, Iran vs. Saudi Arabia — have the potential to reshape the Middle East in ways that clearly will have an impact on U.S. national security. Whatever we do or decline to do, we will live with the consequences.
We don’t want to get involved in Syria. We don’t want to honestly assess where we are in the war on terror. We don’t want to deal with gun control. All these issues are fraught with political danger. Much safer for our intrepid elected officials to stake out their positions and yell at the other side, knowing the words will bounce off harmlessly. No progress made, no political damage done.
But the world doesn’t stop just because Washington does. Sometimes the issues our officials want to ignore hit tragically close to home.
By: Eugene Robinson, Opinion Writer, The Washington Post, September 16, 2013
“It’s Working”: The Ultimate Reason To Support Resolution Authorizing Use of Military Force To Stop Chemical Weapons In Syria
The ultimate reason to support the Congressional resolution to authorize the use of military force to stop chemical weapons use in Syria is clear: it’s working.
Over a year ago, the U.S. proposed that Syria turn over its chemical weapons for destruction by the international community and join the chemical weapons treaty that bans their possession or use. Syria refused, and Russia refused to demand that it do so.
Today they have both said yes. There is only one reason. They hope to stop the use of military force that President Obama has proposed to degrade their ability to deliver these weapons — and make the regime pay a price for the indiscriminate slaughter of 1,400 adults and children using chemical weapons containing poison sarin gas.
Many of my fellow Progressives — who like me were strong opponents of the Iraq War — support President Obama’s request for Congressional authorization to use force to sanction chemical weapons use in Syria and deter its future use. They include Congressman Keith Ellison, the Co-Chair of the Congressional Progressive Caucus; former anti-war presidential candidate Howard Dean, progressive columnists E.J. Dionne and Gene Robinson; and of course former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi.
But for those who do not want to see the use of military force in Syria, the best thing they can do to assure that the military action is not needed is to support the Congressional resolution authorizing the president to use military force if necessary. That is the absolute best way to make certain the Syrian regime actually gives up its chemical weapons once and for all — and that there is no need for the U.S. to take military action to force Assad to comply.
As the President argued last night, we need to make certain that the Russians and Syrians are absolutely convinced that if they do not make good on their new promise to turn over Syrian chemical weapons, military action will ensue — it’s that simple.
Three additional arguments have been used over the last few days that need to be addressed:
1). Some have argued that it is never justified to use force to counter malicious use of violence.
There are some Progressives who are truly pacifists — who feel that the use of force and violence is never justified.
I respect the convictions of those who hold pacifist views, but I do not agree with them.
When Governor Orville Faubus of Arkansas refused to allow the integration of the schools in Little Rock, Arkansas in 1954, it would have been easier for the rest of America to simply shake our collective fingers and decry racism. It would have also been more popular. Instead the federal government sent troops from the National Guard to enforce the desegregation order with the threat of force.
Sometimes the threat — or actual use — of force is necessary — especially to prevent violence.
That’s why we empower police departments with the ability to use the force of arms when necessary to prevent violent acts.
2). Some politicians worry that supporting the President’s proposal is simply too unpopular. They should remember that polls showed the public opposed the possible bombing campaign in 1999 that was aimed at protecting Kosovars from ethnic cleansing as well. A Gallup poll in February 1999 showed that 45 percent of the public opposed the proposed bombing compared with only 43 percent who supported it.
After the campaign was successful at achieving its goals, that opposition turned into public support, and the issue played very little role in the November 2000 Congressional elections.
3). Some opponents say simply, the use of poison gas in Syria is just not our problem. Let someone else worry about it, they say.
In fact, of course, nothing could be further from the truth. If the use of chemical weapons and other weapons of mass destruction can occur with impunity any where on our small planet, they will be used more and more frequently in military conflicts. And if they are, they pose a massive danger for human beings everywhere.
If Assad can get away with using these weapons with impunity, that will ultimately endanger us all.
But assume for a moment it were possible to isolate their use, so that it would never impact those of us thousands of miles away from the streets of suburban Damascus. Can we just ignore the suffering of those who are its victims?
There was another story about another middle eastern road – the road to Jericho – where the hero of the tale did not ignore an injured foreigner who lay suffering by the roadside. That of course was the story of the Good Samaritan – the quintessential story that is at the center of the Christian New Testament. It was the story Jesus used to explain what it meant to “love your neighbor as yourself.”
Can we sit by and ignore the cries of people in foreign lands who are slaughtered in Rwanda, or ethnically cleansed in Kosovo, or gassed by the Nazis? I don’t think so. And sometimes getting involved is not always clean and sterile. Sometimes it is messy and inconvenient and difficult.
By: Robert Creamer, The Huffington Post Blog, September 11, 2013
“Coming To A Head Very Soon”: Syria Isn’t The Only Crisis On Congress’ To-Do List
It seems like a long time ago, but as recently as mid-August there was a spirited fight within the Republican Party about the looming budget crisis. Far-right lawmakers wanted to use the threat of a government shutdown to pressure Democrats into defunding the federal health care system — an idea destined for failure — while party leaders balked.
U.S. policy in Syria quickly became the dominant issue on the political landscape, but in the back of our minds, there was an awkward realization: the budget fight had been pushed from the front page, but it hadn’t gone away. Indeed, folks stopped talking about this, but nothing had changed — GOP extremists still demanded a shutdown; the GOP mainstream still hated the idea.
This is coming to a head very soon, and the House Republican leadership has an idea on how to get themselves out of this mess. As Sahil Kapur reports, GOP leaders will make their pitch to the caucus today.
First, the House would pass a continuing resolution to continue funding the government at sequester levels, coupled with an amendment to defund Obamacare. When the package is sent to the Senate, it would be required to vote on the defunding measure first. If the Senate votes it down, and then passes the CR with Obamacare funding, it goes straight to President Barack Obama’s desk.
No confrontation. No attempt to force Democrats to back down. No need to go back to the House for a vote on a clean continuing resolution. But conservatives get a vote.
Just to clarify, there would be only one vote in the House — members would vote for the spending measure, with the anti-Obamacare measure tacked on as a sort of appendage. The Senate, meanwhile, would hold two votes — one to reject the House package, the other to approve the House package without the healthcare add-on.
In effect, House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) and the rest of the leadership want to put on a little political theater in the hopes of making their far-right colleagues feel better about themselves. Everyone would know in advance that the Senate would reject the effort to defund the Affordable Care Act, but the plan allows for Republicans to cast this vote with the knowledge that they wouldn’t actually have to shut down the government.
It’s a win-win, right? Conservatives get to say they voted to “defund Obamacare”; Democrats would get to keep the government’s lights on; and GOP leaders would get to placate the radicals among them without any real adverse consequences.
At least, that’s the idea. The trouble comes when we take a closer look.
First, there’s a very real possibility that right-wing lawmakers won’t appreciate feeling patronized by their own leaders, and simply won’t accept the plan as a credible solution. Indeed, this isn’t just idle speculation: “Conservative Republicans who caught wind of the plan on Monday told The Hill it was unacceptable.”
These folks don’t want a symbolic, feel-good gesture; these folks actually want to force a budget crisis in the hopes of denying millions of Americans access to affordable health care. Republican leaders are afraid of the fallout of a government shutdown, but rank-and-file Republicans don’t give a darn.
And if House Republicans balk at their own leadership’s ploy, it means Boehner & Co. will find themselves dependent on House Democratic votes to avoid a shutdown. Do you think Dems might want a little something out of this deal to save the Speaker’s butt? Count on it.
Which then leads us to the second problem: under this approach, spending levels are still at sequestration levels. Why is that important? Because the sequester is a painfully stupid and destructive policy that’s hurting the country for no reason.
In August, Boehner said “none of us like” the sequestration policy. House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-Va.) said the sequester “is not the best way to go about spending reductions.” House Appropriations Committee Chairman Hal Rogers (R-Ky.) said the sequester is “unrealistic,” “ill-conceived,” and a policy that “must be brought to an end.”
And yet, the Speaker’s plan is to effectively tell the right, “You’re not getting the shutdown you wanted, but at least you’re getting the destructive sequestration cuts we pretend not to like.”
There’s a real chance that rank-and-file Republicans oppose the idea because they want to shut down the government, while rank-and-file Democrats balk because they hate the sequester.
All of this will have to be dealt with fairly soon, since the government runs out of money on Sept. 30. Once that’s done, we then get to move on to congressional Republicans threatening to crash the global economy on purpose with another debt-ceiling hostage crisis.
By: Steve Benen, The Maddow Blog, September 10, 2013
“A Criminal Regime Of Terror”: A Negotiated Solution In Syria Starts With Congress’ Approval To Attack
A vote by Congress to reject the resolution sought by President Barack Obama to authorize military force in Syria will add to the long list of unintended consequences already produced by bad policy choices on Syria. Among other things, it will kill for the foreseeable future any prospect of a negotiated end to this gruesome, destabilizing, and dangerous conflict. Indeed, the eleventh-hour suggestion by Russia that Syria might put its chemical stockpile under international supervision aims to kill the president’s prospects by offering Congress the alternative of a lengthy, open-ended, and likely inconclusive process, one that would leave Bashar al-Assad’s regime free to return to business as usual: slaughtering civilians in their homes with conventional weaponry.
Let us first stipulate some hard, unpleasant truths. A large majority of Americans either doesn’t care about Syria, thinks the United States has no business doing anything about it, or both. Many in Congress normally inclined to support Obama think that he, of all people, may lead us into armed conflict resembling Iraq or worse. Others in Congress would gladly sink, or at least capsize, the ship of state (at least in terms of the country’s reputation and credibility) as long as Obama is on board. These are the facts the president faces as he tries to make a case for a resolution he need not have put before the Congress in the first place.
As if popular and Congressional apathy over the depredations of the Assad regime were not enough, the president hit a wall of indifference at the G20 gathering in St. Petersburg as well. In addition to the usual defense of the indefensible one would expect from Russian President Vladimir Putin, and the customary “let’s not further militarize this regrettable situation” from others, Obama was forced to endure “let’s have negotiations instead of violence” advice from Pope Francis and United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon.
Neither the Holy Father nor the Secretary-General was able to identify a way forward to peace talks. This is understandable, because under current conditions none exists. So long as the Assad regime’s strategy of choice remains one of mass terror aimed at populated areas it does not occupy, there is no prospect of dialogue, negotiation, compromise, reconciliation, reason, or peace. This was recognized in late 2011 by former Secretary-General Kofi Annan, who begged the Assad regime to take the initiative in implementing a ceasefire and a series of humanitarian steps. The regime’s latest answer to Annan, Ban, and Lakhdar Brahimi, the UN–Arab League envoy for Syria, was the chemical abomination of August 21.
Obama recognizes, at long last, that a criminal regime endowed with artillery, aircraft, rockets, and missiles will use those delivery systems to visit random death, widespread destruction, and universal terror on innocent civilians. It does so with conventional ordnance that kills and maims with high explosives. It does so with chemical munitions that strangle and smother. It drives millions from their homes, many into neighboring countries. It scars for life, physically and emotionally, those it does not kill outright. So long as this campaign of mass terror continues, it will make it impossible for anyone purporting to represent the opponents of this regime to take part in anything labeled a negotiation. So long as it continues, it is as solid an indicator as one could want that the regime has no interest in negotiating a blessed thing.
Ban, the Pope, and others who earnestly seek peace in Syria are not unaware of the foregoing. They hope, as does Obama, that some combination of Putin and Iran’s Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei will prevail on Assad to knock it off: to spare the innocent and give peace a chance. Indeed, Russia and Iran are free to do so, and by so doing make a U.S. military operation unnecessary and unthinkable. Yet as long as they enable the war crimes and crimes against humanity of the Assad regime, can Obama be faulted if he opts, with Congress’ permission, to neutralize the regime’s tools of terror—its artillery, rockets, missiles, and aircraft?
Contrary to prevailing opinion in the West, the Assad regime and its enablers do indeed think there is a military solution to the Syrian crisis. If Congress denies Obama the option of neutralizing Assad’s tools of terror, it will confirm the view of Assad and his supporters. It will do so by keeping the mass terror machine untouched and in business. For all we know Assad may have already learned his lesson about chemicals. No doubt Tehran and Moscow are mystified by their client’s stupidity. Yet if he returns to the practice of pounding populated areas with vicious impunity, no one should expect Western passivity to produce a negotiated solution to anything.
Russia and Iran should convince Assad to declare a ceasefire, invite UN observers, implement Annan’s humanitarian, de-escalatory steps, and prepare for Geneva. The chances of them doing so are low. They, and any sense of restraint by Assad, sink to zero if and when Congress turns down the president. If there are those in Congress sincerely interested in a negotiated end to Syria’s nightmare, one that can begin to stabilize the region soon instead of decades from now, they will give Obama the authorization he seeks.
By: Frederick C. Hof, The New Republic, September 9, 2013
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