“The Dumbest Rock In The Box”: Unemployed Ken Cuccinelli Finds A Job With Rand Paul Suing Obama
Say you’re Ken Cuccinelli. You’ve recently lost the Virginia governor’s race to Terry McAuliffe, of all people. You’ve given up your post as America’s most litigious state attorney general. A good chunk of the GOP establishment resents your hyper-conservative crazy talk for damaging the brand. Yet another snowstorm is bearing down on the nation’s capital in what has been a particularly cold and miserable winter—and despite this, most Americans still believe that global warming is a real thing. How on earth do you pull yourself out of this funk?
Sue the president, of course! And the Director of National Intelligence! And the heads of the FBI and NSA! And anyone else you can think of who might know anything about the massive government spying program that Edward Snowden revealed to such great effect. And to guarantee public attention (because, really, at this point, why should anyone be paying attention to you?), file the suit on behalf of someone vastly more popular than you—for instance, libertarian nerd-chic rockstar and 2016 presidential hopeful Rand Paul.
So it was that, late Wednesday morning, Cuccinelli and Paul stood before a gaggle of political reporters on the freezing plaza outside the E. Barrett Prettyman district court house, a vaguely Soviet-looking box of a building just a couple of blocks west of the Capitol, to tout their freshly filed complaint against a government gone wild in its violation of the Fourth Amendment. In his brief remarks, Paul cited the “huge and growing swell of protest” against the government’s overzealous monitoring of its own citizenry. To illustrate what he predicts will be “a historic lawsuit”—a class action complaint on behalf of every American citizen who has used a telephone in the past seven-plus years—Paul brandished two fistfuls of cell phones (including one with an especially snazzy leopard-print case). Considering the hundreds of millions of Americans who use phones, he noted gravely, this case “may well be the largest civil action lawsuit on behalf of the Constitution.”
Paul and Cuccinelli did not stand alone, physically or metaphorically. The Tea Partying libertarians at FreedomWorks are co-plaintiffs in this case, and a couple dozen of the groups’ young ground troops had been milling about in the cold for the past hour, chanting and snapping pics and generally lending some pep to the proceedings. After Paul got the presser rolling, FreedomWorks president Matt Kibbe, characteristically hipsterish in his black-rimmed specs and blade-like sideburns, offered his take. “This is one of the most important things my organization has been involved in,” he asserted. “This isn’t a Republican vs. Democrat issue. It isn’t about the Obama administration. The government has crossed a line.” Kibbe then assured everyone that FreedomWorks was going to “put that genie back in the bottle.”
As lead counsel, Cuccinelli fielded questions about the legal whys and hows of the suit. Yes, he is optimistic that this will go all the way to the Supreme Court. No, he does not expect it to be tried in conjunction with a similar suit brought by Larry Klayman, the lawsuit-happy conservative gadfly who has a similar complaint wending its way through the courts. Is he worried about “standing”—that is, showing that his clients have themselves been injured and so have the legal right to file this complaint? Don’t be ridiculous! “If you use a phone—and both my clients do—then they are injured by the gathering of this information,” he insisted. Most fundamentally, why exactly are Paul et al even bothering with this crusade when there are multiple other suits already farther along in the pipeline? “The other cases thus far are on behalf of individuals,” explained Cuccinelli. “That does not provide relief for every American using telephones.” By contrast, this class action seeks not only to end the data collection but also to compel the government to purge its databases of all info amassed since 2006. In other words: When Paul wins, we all win!
And make no mistake, Senator Paul has his eye on winning—though political watchers suspect he is focused on a juicier prize than some random lawsuit, even a constitutionally “historic” one. It has, for instance, been repeatedly noted that Paul’s online effort to gather the signatures of Americans upset by the NSA’s spy games will yield a fat database of like-minded voters that could be usefully mined for, say, a presidential campaign.
As for Paul’s new BFF, bringing Virginia’s lightning-rod ex-AG on board with this case makes better political sense than legal sense. Not to question Cooch’s legal chops, but surely Paul had his pick of Fourth Amendment geniuses. In fact, Paul and Cuccinelli are currently embroiled in a nasty spat with former Reagan administration attorney Bruce Fein—who spent the past several months working with Paul on this complaint before being unceremoniously jettisoned for Cuccinelli.
It’s not just that Fein’s people are ticked that Cuccinelli has taken over the case; they are accusing the former AG of appropriating huge chunks of a legal brief previously written by Fein. As Fein’s spokesman (and ex-wife) Mattie Fein fumed to the Washington Post on the very day of the presser, “I am aghast and shocked by Ken Cuccinelli’s behavior and his absolute knowledge that this entire complaint was the work product, intellectual property and legal genius of Bruce Fein.” Testy emails have been zipping back-and-forth between Teams Paul, Cuccinelli, and Fein, complete with finger-pointing and name calling. In one, Mattie, somewhat indelicately, called Cucinnelli “dumb as a box of rocks.” Bottom line, she told the Post, “Ken Cuccinelli stole the suit.”
From a political perspective, however, one can easily imagine why Paul would value this particular box of rocks. While the senator already has the love and trust of the GOP’s small-government enthusiasts, he needs to do some serious wooing of its social conservatives. Thus, for example, his recent efforts to revive the Clinton scandals of the 1990s. So who better to ally himself with in his current undertaking than anti-abortion, anti-gay-rights champion Cuccinelli? For many of the same reasons that Virginia women gave their AG the cold shoulder in November’s gubernatorial election, Republican “values voters” love the guy. Paul’s making common cause with Cuccinelli could help soothe some of the base’s suspicions regarding the libertarian senator’s moral fitness.
Not to suggest that the senator isn’t genuine in his outrage over the NSA’s antics. Those Paul men are nothing if not consistent in their small-government passions. But if linking arms with Cooch in this crusade happens to serve Paul’s broader political aims, where’s the harm? (Unless you’re Bruce Fein, of course.)
Certainly, Cuccinelli seems happy with the arrangement. At Wednesday’s presser, after Paul bid the media farewell to return to his senate duties, the former AG hung around to answer additional questions. As the TV camera guys broke down their equipment and the FreedomWorks activists began drifting back down Constitution Ave., Cuccinelli lingered on the plaza, surrounded by a tight circle of reporters. Nothing takes the sting out of a frigid winter day like a warm bath of attention.
By: Michele Cottle, The Daily Beast, February 13, 2014
“Ideology Versus Pragmatism”: Republicans Consider Stripping Health Insurance From Tens Of Thousands Of Arkansans
In Arkansas, approximately 83,000 low-income residents are in danger of losing their health insurance as early as July 1.
In 2013, Arkansas’ Republican-controlled legislature devised an alternative plan to expand Medicaid while still protecting the state’s poorest residents and hospitals. Through the plan, commonly referred to as the “private option,” Arkansas distributes federal funds — provided under the Affordable Care Act — to eligible recipients, who then use the funds to buy private health insurance plans. Proponents note that the plan offers private coverage to residents who would otherwise be unable to obtain it.
As The Washington Post reports, Governor Mike Beebe (R) welcomed the plan, saying it would save taxpayers nearly $90 million this year. The Obama administration later approved the plan, adding two necessary conditions: that cost-sharing and recipients’ benefits remain the same as the traditional Medicaid program, and that the total costs of the private plan do not exceed those of implementing traditional Medicaid expansion.
Over the past year, the private option has become so popular that variations of it are now being adopted in several states, like Pennsylvania and Utah.
“In crafting the ‘private option,’ Arkansas has provided a pathway for other states. They truly are trailblazers,” Deborah Bachrach, a partner with consulting firm Manatt Health, told the Post.
In recent weeks, however, Republicans have threatened to jump ship on the plan, jeopardizing the program that offers protection to tens of thousands of Arkansans.
With the state’s May primaries quickly approaching, Republican lawmakers facing more conservative challengers are feeling the pressure to vote against a renewal of the program’s financing.
“You’ve got a very small minority of people who can derail this,” explains Governor Beebe, who says that the sudden lack of support has to do with “ideology versus pragmatism.”
“If we lose one or two votes, it’s critical,” he added.
Considering that Arkansas requires 75 percent of the members of both houses to pass appropriations measures, “one or two” GOP votes are certainly critical to the program’s future. And in recent weeks, two Republican state senators have voiced their opposition to extending the private plan.
Senator Missy Irvin, who voted for the program last year, announced she would no longer support it, citing a decision made by Arkansas Blue Cross and Blue Shield – Arkansas’ dominant health insurance company – to cut reimbursement rates by 15 percent to specialists who participate in its federally run online insurance exchange plans. Irvin might have had another motive, however; she is currently facing a primary challenge from Tea Party candidate Phil Grace, who pointed to Irvin’s support for the private option as one of the main reasons he chose to run.
The argument against the plan made by Grace and other conservatives like him is rather vague, but it still has the power to sway other GOP votes.
“Right now, Washington is broken and trillions of dollars in debt. We can’t count on D.C. to keep promises for any funding and Arkansas certainly can’t foot the bill. The only way to deal with D.C.’s issues is for states to band together and push back,” Grace says.
Grace’s opposition to the private program – which has been echoed by other conservatives running in 2014 — steers clear of the GOP’s typical “big government” arguments, leaving it seeming rather arbitrary.
State Senator John Cooper, another Tea Party favorite, also says that he will not vote to reauthorize the plan’s funding — which is not a surprise, since he won the state’s special election by running against the program. Cooper argues that it will not save Arkansas money in the long term, despite reports to the contrary.
If Republicans vote against the private option – a vote that come could as early as next week – the implications for the state’s poor residents are burdensome and great. Before the private option existed, Arkansas had one of the most restrictive Medicaid programs in the nation, which made it especially difficult for struggling individuals and families to obtain coverage.
By: Elissa Gomez, The National Memo, February 11, 2014
“A Party Of One”: Ted Cruz Flips Off The GOP And The Country
Only a week ago Politico introduced us to a new Ted Cruz. The freshman senator who brought his party to historic public-approval lows by forcing last fall’s government shutdown had since worked on “thawing” his relationship with fellow Republicans. In “Ted Cruz plays nice,” we learned the effort was paying off: The firebrand was already “getting along reasonably well with most of his GOP colleagues.”
That was then. Now Cruz is promising to filibuster the debt-ceiling bill passed by House Democrats with 28 GOP votes. He wasn’t expected to scuttle the deal, but he will force at least five of his GOP colleagues to join the Senate’s 55 Democrats to get it passed. Already, as the Senate votes, Kentucky’s Mitch McConnell and Texas’ John Cornyn, both facing primary challenges from their right, had to flip no votes to yes to defeat the filibuster. The actual measure still hasn’t passed. (Update: The Senate evaded the filibuster with additional Republicans joining Cornyn and McConnell to make the final vote to advance the bill 67-31; then all 43 Republicans voted against it.)
“Under no circumstances will I agree to the Senate’s raising the debt ceiling with just 50 votes. I intend to object and force a 60-vote threshold,” Cruz told reporters Tuesday. “They don’t have to vote for it, I think Republicans should stand together and do the right thing. We should have every Republican stand together and follow the responsible course of action, which is to insist on meaningful spending reforms before raising the debt ceiling.”
So what happened to Politico’s new Ted Cruz? Well, he’s probably looked over at Chris Christie and realized that another 2016 contender has self-imploded more spectacularly than he did. Although Cruz saw his own national-poll standing drop after his shutdown histrionics, it was nothing compared with Christie’s plunge. Tragically for Christie, he now trails Hillary Clinton, in a hypothetic 2016 matchup, by more than the wildly polarizing Cruz does.
In a February Texas Monthly profile, Cruz hardly seems worried about the enmity of his fellow Republicans. He’s unapologetic about his role in the hugely unpopular government shutdown. He considers himself vindicated by the Affordable Care Act troubles that emerged after the shutdown, from glitches in the website to the controversy over canceled plans. And he remains the most popular statewide figure in Texas politics.
Politico’s case for a kinder, gentler Cruz was never convincing anyway. The only evidence mustered was that he’d dined with Sen. John McCain, who famously called him a “wacko bird” last year, and cracked jokes with Sen. Lindsey Graham, who subsequently praised him to reporter Manu Raju.
It’s clear that Cruz has 2016 fever again, and a debt-ceiling filibuster is just what he needs to cement his status as the Tea Party standard-bearer (he’s in a virtual tie with Sen. Rand Paul in the latest Tea Party polls). Cruz is heading to Iowa yet again next month, and in April he’ll visit the first-primary state, New Hampshire, for a “Freedom Summit,” along with Rand Paul and Mike Huckabee.
A few Republicans have criticized Cruz’s debt-limit showboating. “Maybe Ted Cruz should spend a little time trying to win the Senate instead of attacking his fellow Republicans,” Rep. Adam Kinzinger, R-Ill., said Tuesday. “I thought that Ted Cruz was past [that], but maybe he isn’t.”
On CNN’s “Crossfire” Nevada GOP Sen. Dean Heller also opposed Cruz’s filibuster plan. “I don’t think it’s right,” he said. “At the end of the day, we’re going to pass a clean debt ceiling increase with Ted’s or without Ted’s support, with my support or without my support. But at the end of the day, there’s going to be a debt ceiling increase and it’s going to be clean.”
That’s true. We now know one thing: Ted Cruz is no longer playing nice. He forced 12 of his fellow Republican senators effectively to go on record in favor of hiking the debt limit, votes that will put them on the bad side of Tea Party primary challengers and the nihilistic right-wingers at Heritage. Ted Cruz has proved that he’s a party of one, unable to work effectively with his fellow Republicans, or on behalf of his country.
By: Joan Walsh, Editor at Large, Salon, February 12, 2014
“Always Pick Door Number 2”: The Lessons Of John Boehner’s Latest Failure
A last-ditch plan by House Republicans to extract concessions in exchange for hiking the nation’s borrowing limit fell apart Tuesday morning, with conservative holdouts leaving the party short of the necessary votes.
That the GOP caved isn’t as surprising as the speed with which it did, just a few minutes into a morning conference meeting. All along, it was clear Republicans had no leverage with their debt-ceiling threats; they’d caved before, and public opinion was firmly against more debt limit extortion.
Still, the GOP’s latest debt ceiling defeat is yet another sign of how difficult it has become for Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) to move anything through his divided caucus. And Boehner’s inability to control his party is a real liability, as it’s given Democrats even less reason to concede ground in future negotiations — not only on the debt ceiling, but on other major issues as well.
Even after Republicans self immolated during last year’s debt ceiling negotiations by offering a fantastical hostage list, the party again wanted to extract some kind of concessions this time. But though the ask list was smaller, the party again couldn’t agree on a single plan, and a handful of proposals quickly collapsed. In a weird Bizarro World twist, the last idea — to restore pension benefits to some veterans — would have had Republicans either voting to raise spending, or voting against the military.
In the end, the potential damage to the GOP was so great that party leaders knew they had two options on the debt ceiling: Stand firm and destroy the party’s approval rating (again), or ask Democrats for help. Boehner gave the finger to the Tea Party and picked Door Number 2.
So now, Democrats and President Obama, who insisted throughout the ordeal that they would only support a clean debt ceiling vote, have watched the GOP cave once again. When Republicans return with more debt ceiling demands in the future, Democrats will surely be emboldened to shrug them off and say “nope” again, confident the demands are merely more empty threats.
But will Boehner keep bucking the right wing? Immigration offers a salient test case, with Boehner seemingly interested in passing some reforms, and conservative critics blasting any action as “amnesty.”
The fallout for Republicans from spiking immigration this year wouldn’t be as visceral as the damage from, say, the government shutdown. But it would give Democrats a huge talking point — “Republicans are anti-immigration” — and further impinge on the party’s ability to court minority voters.
In short, Boehner is, as he has been for some time, caught between his need to appease the right and his need to do his job. The latest debt ceiling brouhaha has only exposed how tricky that balancing act is, and shown Democrats that, with a little pressure, they can force him to dump the right and seek out their help.
By: Jon Terbush, The Week, February 11, 2014
“Not Just For The Few”: A Government To Love, One That Works For Everybody
Rep. Steve King of Iowa told a local TV station a few weeks ago that “the best thing anybody can do” in Congress is not come up with positive solutions, but to “kill bad bills.” He wasn’t just speaking for himself. He was explaining the philosophy of today’s right wing.
Of course elected officials should oppose bills they disagree with. But King and his party have taken this to an extreme, opposing any efforts to use the power of government to fix problems that affect ordinary people. This anti-government strain of the Tea Party that is calling the shots in today’s GOP doesn’t represent just hands-off libertarianism, as many would like us to believe. The Tea Party does want government to work: but they only want it to work for a few of us.
This growing movement that claims to be anti-government has caught us up in almost daily skirmishes over federal programs and budget line items. But these battles have obscured the real issue. It’s not a big government vs. small government debate. It’s a debate about who the government works for.
It’s not enough for progressives to fight these selective battles. We must also go on the offense, envisioning and proudly defending a government that works. A government that works serves the needs of all Americans. A government that works provides a safety net that allows us to take reasonable risks. A government that works is one that helps make the American Dream possible for everyone.
It’s important to note that the bashers of big government aren’t really against government in any form. They’re fine with the government that they want; they just don’t want one that serves all of us. When the Ted Cruz wing of the Republican Party shut down the federal government for weeks on end last year with their bluster about cutting the size of government, not everyone was hurt equally. Hundreds of thousands of government employees were sent home without pay, and government agencies shut down many services for low-income people, veterans, pregnant women, and National Institutes of Health patients. Also on hiatus: yes, environmental and financial regulators.
When the Senate refused to confirm any of President Obama’s nominees to the influential Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit, it wasn’t just a refusal to let government do its job and thereby limit the work of the court. It was an attempt to preserve a Republican-appointed majority on the court that had been consistently rewriting the law to favor the interests of large corporations — that kind of government, they like just as is.
When the House Republicans voted to make drastic cuts to food stamps and Senate Republicans filibustered an effort to extend unemployment insurance to the long-term jobless, they weren’t concerned with shrinking the size of government. Instead, they focused their “small government” rhetoric on the minor portion of federal spending that goes to helping everyday Americans get a chance.
Unsurprisingly, the right, led by Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, also favor “small government” when it comes to letting corporations and wealthy individuals give huge amounts of unaccountable money to political campaigns, drowning out the voices of individual Americans. Limits on campaign spending, some of which go back more than a century, are what allowed us to build our strong, vibrant government of the people — a government that is now under constant attack.
When President Obama said in his State of the Union address that “it should be the power of our vote, not the size of our bank accounts, that drives our democracy,” he wasn’t offering a platitude. He was outlining a clear vision of government that works. We must remain aware of what the government-bashers are really after and proudly stand for a government that works for all Americans.
By: Michael B. Keegan, President, People For the American Way; The Huffington Post Blog, February 7, 2014
Share This Blog
Unknown Feed- An error has occurred; the feed is probably down. Try again later.
mykeystrokes.com 