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Spike in Earmarks to Democrat
Lawmakers During Controversial Votes
FOX News
The Heritage Foundation has issued a new report that charges the Obama administration sent presidential earmarks, taxpayer dollars, to Democrat lawmakers to help convince them to vote for controversial proposals such as Cap & Trade and the healthcare bill. "When you examine the recipients of those grants, there were at least 32 vulnerable house Democrats who received significant federal grant money during the run-up or directly after the votes on those pieces of legislation," says Lachlan Markay, one of the authors of the report. The amount of earmarks spiked around the time of difficult votes such as Cap & Trade, then dropped, only to spike again around controversial financial regulations known as Dodd/Frank, and spiked the most just before the vote on the health care bill.
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Pro-Obama Super PAC Fundraising a
Huge, Problematic Bust in January
The Washington Times
The big-money vehicle intended to raise astronomical sums to serve as the Democratic counter to similar action by Republican-funded super PACs and outside groups is failing miserably, federal documents filed Monday showed. Priorities USA Action, a super PAC that former top aides to President Obama left the White House last February to run, had only a single substantial donor last month, of $50,000. Even that check is not a full-throated endorsement from John W. Rogers, CEO of Chicago’s Ariel Capital and a man with the means to give much more. Besides Mr. Rogers’ gift, the super PAC raised only $5,600 in small sums, which entirely defeats the purpose of a super PAC. Unlike regular campaign organizations, super PACs can receive contributions of any amount from people, unions and corporations.
SCOTUS to Hear University Affirmative Action Case
Bloomberg
The US Supreme Court agreed to consider rolling back university affirmative action programs, entering a racially charged debate by accepting an appeal from a rejected white applicant to the University of Texas. The appeal takes aim at a 2003 Supreme Court decision that let universities consider the race of their applicants to help ensure campus diversity. That ruling extended the life of affirmative-action programs begun decades earlier. The justices will hear the case in the nine-month term that starts in October, potentially with arguments before the November presidential election. The case will test the impact of the court’s changed membership, particularly the 2006 retirement of Justice Sandra Day O’Connor, who wrote the 2003 opinion, and the appointment of her successor, Justice Samuel Alito.
As Elections Nears US Treasury
Looks for TARP Exit Plan
McClatchy Newspapers
The federal government's desire to end the politically unpopular bank bailout program could change how a number of Charlotte-area community banks pay back their share. As the nation heads into a presidential election year, the US Treasury has begun communicating with community banks around the country as it plans an exit from TARP. The government cannot force banks to repay TARP, under the terms of the capital investments brokered at the height of the financial crisis. To extricate itself, the Treasury is considering selling its stakes to third parties or restructuring their terms, said a Treasury official. Depending on how aggressive the government decides to be, the Treasury's moves could mean local banks will be able to put the bailout behind them at a discount.
6 of 10 on House Ethics Panel Quit Waters Case
AP/MyWay News
All five Republicans on the House ethics committee and the panel's ranking Democrat withdrew from a long-standing investigation of Rep. Maxine Waters (P-CA), Friday to avoid further questions about their impartiality. The extraordinary development came more than two years after the panel began examining whether Waters tried to steer money from the 2008 financial bailout to a minority-owned bank while her husband was a shareholder and board member of the institution. The mass recusal came after past allegations of bias by Republican members forced the panel to hire an outside lawyer last July to investigate the committee and its handling of the case. The committee's Republican chairman said the outside attorney, Billy Martin, found no indication of any "wrongdoing or inappropriate partisanship by the members."
House GOP Look to Repeal of
Obama Education Regulations
The Hill
House Republicans are looking to move legislation as early as next week that would repeal two Education Department regulations that the GOP say intrude on the authority of states to set education policy. The Protecting Academic Freedom in Higher Education act, HR2117, was placed on the Rules Committee agenda late last week, a signal that the committee will soon meet to write a rule for floor consideration of the bill. The legislation would reverse two DoE rules from 2010, one of which sets out federal rules for how states decide whether to allow colleges and universities to operate within the state. A second regulation sets a federal definition for "credit hour." Foxx argues that this definition is based on how many hours a student is in class, but ignores other ways students might be learning.
Obama's Economic Report Hides Sharp
Drop in Number of Working Americans
The Daily Caller
White House officials are trying to downplay the growing political damage caused by a shrinking federal statistic: the percentage of working-age Americans who actually have jobs. The increasingly visible statistic shows that roughly 11 million working-age Americans are being excluded from the nation’s formal tally of 13.75 million unemployed Americans. The 2012 Economic Report of the President attempts to bury the statistic in a 448-page blizzard of statistics, jargon and reassuring comparisons. Democrats are touting downward ticks of the formal unemployment rate to 8.3%, but Republicans are making an increased effort to highlight the painfully low employment participation rate. Amid the optimistic text in today’s economic report, the detailed tables reveal a sharp statistical decline.
SCOTUS to Hear Arguments on
Whether a Lie Is Protected Speech
McClatchy Newspapers
Fake hero Xavier Alvarez lied to his fellow Californians. He never rescued an American ambassador. He was never a Marine. Most definitely, contrary to what he told a Southern California audience, Alvarez was never awarded the Medal of Honor. He lied, until he was caught. Now, the Supreme Court must decide whether the First Amendment protects Alvarez and other wannabes from prosecution. The consequences could stretch well beyond what lawmakers and veterans call stolen valor. "If false factual statements are unprotected, then the government can prosecute not only the man who tells tall tales of winning the Congressional Medal of Honor, but also the JDater who falsely claims he's Jewish," Judge Alex Kozinski of the 9th US Circuit Court of Appeals warned in a ruling that overturned Alvarez's conviction.
Ginsburg: Supreme Court Should
Revisit Campaign Finance Issue
The Washington Times
The Supreme Court on Friday temporarily blocked a Montana law that had banned corporations from running political ads, but Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg said the case makes it likely the Supreme Court will have to revisit the Citizens United ruling that has unleashed a flood of ads this year. Montana’s law had blocked corporations from spending, and last year the state’s Supreme Court upheld the law, ignoring the Citizens United decision. Justice Ginsburg said that cannot be allowed, but said it is time the federal courts rethink the Citizens United decision. “Montana’s experience, and experience elsewhere since this Court’s decision in Citizens United...make it exceedingly difficult to maintain that independent expenditures by corporations ‘do not give rise to corruption or the appearance of corruption,’” Ginsburg said
Obama Budget Director Says
Obamacare Mandate Fine ‘Not a Tax’
The Hill
House Republicans quickly pounced Wednesday after the White House's top budget official said the healthcare reform law's penalty on people who don't buy insurance isn't a tax. Republicans argue the admission from Acting White House Budget Director Jeff Zients undermines the White House's defense of the law before the Supreme Court. Congress has broad power to impose taxes. The administration has argued that the penalty isn't per se a tax -- that would violate the president's pledge not to raise taxes on the middle class -- but that the authority to impose it is derived from Congress's authority to raise taxes. The health law calls for the mandate and the penalty to start in 2014. In filings before the Supreme Court, White House lawyers have adopted two seemingly contradictory stances.
Ryan to GOP Candidates:
'Prepare Country' for Tax, Entitlement Reform
The Hill
House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan (R-WI) urged his party’s presidential candidates to make the 2012 election a stark choice between policy differences so that massive changes on taxes and entitlements can be enacted quickly next year. “We just can’t have an ordinary election where it is a personality contest,” Ryan said. “We can’t simply win this thing by default, by running against all the bad news.” He said the election needs to be one in which the GOP clearly explains to voters that it will implement ideas like Ryan’s premium support plan for Medicare. He said that President George W. Bush did not prepare the country adequately for tax and Social Security reform in 2004, and then failed to accomplish them. “You have got to prepare the country,” he said.
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