Recovering from the blow to their position on Obamacare, Republicans (except Mitt Romney, whose signature achievement as governor was just vindicated, although you won’t hear him say so in this bizarre political climate) have already shifted tactics.
They are genetically compelled to attack, attack, attack the president. So their new means of doing so is to seize upon the court’s assertion that Obamacare constitutes taxation, and attack it accordingly (all taxes being, according to their ideology, bad). Lindsey Graham, being the smartest Republican in Washington, was among the first to make this shift:
To our Democrat colleagues, stand by your tax increase or stand with us to Repeal and Replace Obamacare.
(Note the way he says “Democrat colleagues.” This is a subtle ruse on his part to hide from his base the fact that he is as smart as he is: Look at me! I don’t know the difference between a noun and an adjective any more than you do! But then, he hurts himself with that same base by calling the enemy “colleagues.”)
Democrats, being partisans, will probably not respond any more intelligently.
But here’s how I wish they would respond: By saying, OK, it’s a tax. So let’s stop fooling around. Let’s replace this with single-payer, which of course we would all support through our taxes.
I’d like to see that, but I’m not holding my breath. I’d done enough of that, waiting on the Supremes to make up their minds.
As a conservative Republican, Lindsey Graham has never had a problem promising not to raise taxes. Like almost every other Republican member of Congress, he has signed the anti-tax pledge put forth by Grover Norquist’s group Americans for Tax Reform.
But now Graham says the debt crisis is so severe that the tax pledge — which says no tax loopholes can be eliminated unless every dollar raised by closing loopholes goes to tax cuts — has got to go.
“When you eliminate a deduction, it’s okay with me to use some of that money to get us out of debt. That’s where I disagree with the pledge,” said Graham…
Sounds perfectly reasonable to me. But it sent Grover Norquist into orbit, ranting about unicorns:
Grover Norquist, president of Americans for Tax Reform, is none too pleased.
“This was a brain fart, not a real idea,” he told me in a phone conversation just now. “It doesn’t scare me. I think what he was doing was answering a hypothetical question to show how hypothetically open-minded he was about something.”…
He said the Senator was making the same mistake Ronald Reagan made in 1982 and George H.W. Bush did in 1990: believing congressional Democrats who promise a ratio of spending cuts to tax increases, in this case four-to-one.
“Pinocchio was told by the fox and cat that this would be” a good idea, Norquist said. He lampooned Graham for being disconnected from the reality of fiscal negotiations, comparing him to his three-year-old daughter.
“It’s like having that conversation about what color unicorn you like, while in the back of your mind you know there’s no such thing. ‘Grover, why don’t you like green ones?’ But there aren’t any ones! I have a three year old who says this a lot. She has green unicorns, but we don’t need them in the Senate.”…
I’m not sure exactly what he means, but he seems to be saying that presuming to actually deliberate with the other member of the Congress who, although of a different party, were elected just as legitimately to that body as Graham was (you know, as the Framers of the Constitution envisioned), is as fantastic and ridiculous as the existence of unicorns.
Is that how you read it?
There is the world envisioned by the Framers, and then that envisioned by Grover Norquist. In the latter, all elected representatives do exactly what Grover Norquist tells them to do. I prefer the former.
The video above contains most of what Lindsey Graham had to say yesterday at the press conference at which he, Joe Wilson, Steve Benjamin, Bobby Harrell and Rich Eckstrom all decried the looming “sequestration” of the defense budget.
I didn’t get the video up and running at the start of Graham’s remarks, so here are some excerpts from what he said before that:
“As a Republican, I was very disappointed that my party leadership would put the Defense Department in such a bad spot.”
“If politicians can’t come up with a way to reduce spending in a responsible manner, fire us; don’t fire the soldiers. It’s the one thing that seems to be working at the federal level is the military. So we’ve come up with this hare-brained idea that if we can’t do our job, the penalty to be paid is by those who’ve been doing their job very well. I don’t know if you can print this, but I’ll say it: That’s ass-backwards.”
“What does it mean to cut a trillion dollars out of the Defense Department budget over the next decade? [the sequestration plus $400 billion in cuts being sought outside that] It means you have the smallest Army since 1940, the smallest Navy since 1915 — 231 ships — the smallest Air Force in history.”
After that, it’s pretty much all on the video. Sorry about the crudity of the clip — I was unable to edit it because I shot it on my iPhone, and don’t have software for editing that on my PC.
Bottom line, the message was that the nation shouldn’t dramatically weaken our defense just because members of Congress couldn’t do their job. Half of the $1.2 trillion in automatic cuts, resulting from the failure of last year’s supercommittee (which was a mere microcosm of the overall failure of Congress), are set to come from the Defense budget — $600 billion. And they would not be targeted — no eliminating $300 hammers and preserving pay for soldiers. “These are blind, across-the-board cuts.”
He kept hitting the point that one part of the government that’s doing its job — the military — shouldn’t get eviscerated because Congress isn’t doing its job at all.
Perhaps fitting given the setting and the presence of Mayor Benjamin, Graham’s tone was decidedly nonpartisan. For instance, he challenged Mitt Romney to put forward a plan for achieving the cuts without hollowing out the military.
I’ve got video of the other speakers as well, and can provide on request. But they said much the same things he said. His presentation was just more complete.
Graham Legislation Provides ‘Rebate’ to Consumers, Utilities, and Communities for Obama Administration’s Refusal to Open Yucca Mountain
WASHINGTON – U.S. Senator Lindsey Graham (R-South Carolina), one of the strongest supporters of nuclear energy in the Senate, has introduced legislation, The Nuclear Waste Fund Relief and Rebate Act.
Electric utilities have been paying into the Nuclear Waste Trust Fund to construct and operate a permanent federal nuclear waste repository at Yucca Mountain, Nevada. The utilities have been charging their costumers a monthly fee in each electricity bill to make these payments. According to the latest information, South Carolina residents alone have already contributed more than $1.3 billion to the fund, which has collected a total of more than $35 billion in fees.
The legislation introduced by Graham would rebate these monies back to electric utilities and consumers. Seventy-five percent of the amount rebated to utilities would be returned to their customers and the remaining portion will be used to make upgrades to on-site storage facilities.
Additionally, the legislation authorizes payments to states currently housing defense nuclear waste scheduled to be transferred to Yucca Mountain. These payments begin in 2017, the date in which Yucca Mountain was to set to receive shipments of defense nuclear waste.
“No one should be required to pay for an empty hole in the Nevada desert,” said Graham. “The decision by the Obama Administration to close Yucca Mountain was ill-advised and leaves our nation without a disposal plan for spent nuclear fuel or Cold War waste. It was a political, not scientific, decision. It is incumbent on the Administration to come up with a disposal plan for this real problem facing our nation.”
The major provisions of the Graham legislation include:
· Presidential Certification: The Department of Energy has spent billions of dollars and decades studying the suitability of Yucca Mountain as the nation’s repository for spent nuclear fuel and defense waste. Consistently, the science has borne out that Yucca Mountain is the best site to dispose of nuclear waste. Within 30 days of passage, the President must certify that Yucca Mountain remains the preferred choice to serve as the federal repository for spent nuclear fuel and defense-related nuclear waste.
· Failure to Certify Leads to Rebates: If the President fails to make the above certification, or revokes the certification at a later date, all funds currently in the Nuclear Waste Trust Fund shall be rebated back to the utilities. Seventy-five percent of the amount rebated to utilities would be returned to their customers and the remaining money will be used to make security and storage upgrades at existing nuclear power plants.
· Defense Waste: Currently, there is at least 12,800 metric tons of defense-related waste at nuclear weapons complex facilities around the country. Unlike commercial spent fuel, this waste has no potential future defense or civilian uses. In many states, the accumulated waste poses the largest potential public health threat. In order to help mitigate the risk associated with the indefinite storage of defense waste, the legislation authorizes payments of up to $100 million per year if defense waste has not begun to have left the states by 2017.
· Waste Confidence: In order to continue to renew or issue licenses for civilian nuclear power plants, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) must have reasonable confidence that the waste will be disposed of safely. The legislation includes waste confidence language that allows for the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to continue to license nuclear reactors in the event the Presidential certification is not made.
“Our nation needs real options as a result of the uncertainty created by the Obama Administration’s change in policy,” said Graham. “I will push this legislation forward and hope to have the full Senate on-the-record on this important issue.”
Co-sponsors of the legislation include Senators Jim DeMint (R-South Carolina), John McCain (R-Arizona), Saxby Chambliss (R-Georgia), and Ron Johnson (R-Wisconsin).
######
I don’t know what y’all think, but personally, I don’t want a rebate. I just want want the president to shove Harry Reid aside and put the national repository where it belongs, at Yucca Mountain.
I sort of think that’s what Sen. Graham really wants, too.
Graham Introduces Resolution Ruling Out ‘Containment’ Strategy of Nuclear-Armed Iran
WASHINGTON – U.S. Senator Lindsey Graham (R-South Carolina) today introduced a resolution that puts the Senate on record as ruling out a strategy of containment for a nuclear-armed Iran. The bipartisan resolution currently has 27 Senate cosponsors.
“I’m very pleased the Senate will speak with a strong, unified voice that a nuclear-armed Iran is an unacceptable option for our own national security and the security of our allies throughout the world,” said Graham, a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee. “My resolution will afford every Senator the opportunity to speak on this issue and I expect a strong bipartisan vote in support. Having a political consensus between the White House and Congress that a nuclear-armed Iran is unacceptable is a giant step forward in sending an important message at a critical time.”
The Graham resolution:
· Strongly rejects any policy that fails to prevent the Iranian government from acquiring a nuclear weapons capability and would settle for future efforts to “contain” a nuclear weapons capable Iran.
· Urges President Obama to reaffirm the unacceptability of an Iran with nuclear-weapons capability and oppose any policy that would rely on containment as an option in response to the Iranian nuclear threat.
· Urges continued and increasing economic and diplomatic pressure on Iran until they agree to the full and sustained suspension of all uranium enrichment-related and reprocessing activities, complete cooperation with the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) on all outstanding questions related to their nuclear activities including implementation of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) Additional Protocol, and the verified end of their ballistic missile programs.
“It’s obvious to most people that once Iran obtains nuclear capability others in the region will respond in kind,” said Graham. “A nuclear-armed Iran also makes it exponentially more likely this information could fall into the hands of terrorist organizations.”
“I believe, to some extent, sanctions are working and believe they can be successful in helping turn around Iran’s nuclear ambitions,” said Graham. “However it is imperative the Russian and Chinese assist the international community in changing Iranian behavior.
“Finally, as President Obama said in his State of the Union address, ‘All options must remain on the table’ when it comes to stopping Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon,” concluded Graham.
Co-sponsors of the Graham resolution include: Senators John Boozman (R-Arkansas), Scott Brown (R-Massachusetts), Bob Casey (D-Pennsylvania), Saxby Chambliss (R-Georgia), Dan Coats (R-Indiana), Susan Collins (R-Maine), Chris Coons (D-Delaware), John Cornyn (R-Texas), Orrin Hatch (R-Utah), Dean Heller (R-Nevada), John Hoeven (R-North Dakota), Kay Bailey Hutchison (R-Texas), James Inhofe (R-Oklahoma), Sen. Joseph Lieberman (I-Connecticut), Robert Menendez (D-New Jersey), John McCain (R-Arizona), Claire McCaskill (D-Missouri), Barbara Mikulski (D-Maryland), Bill Nelson (D-Florida), Rob Portman (R-Ohio), Mark Pryor (D-Arkansas), James E. Risch (R-Idaho),Marco Rubio (R-Florida), and Chuck Schumer (D-New York).
#####
That’s a pretty good list of sponsors he’s got. And like Graham, I, too, endorse what the president said in the SOTU.
The National Labor Relations Board dropped a high-profile complaint against Boeing Co., a move that was expected after the aerospace company’s 31,000-member machinists union approved a sweeping contract extension earlier this week.
The NLRB said Friday that it withdrew the April complaint, which charged the aerospace company with illegally retaliating against the union for previous strikes by opening an aircraft-production line at a non-union plant in South Carolina.
The agency had filed the complaint on behalf of the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers after siding with the union’s allegations. Boeing contested the charges, saying it had made a business decision and didn’t retaliate against the union. The case drew heavy criticism from the business community and some Republican lawmakers, who said the NLRB should not be interfering with companies’ choices about where to open factories….
The action makes sense — certainly a lot more sense than the agency’s previous position. I kept wondering where NLRB thought it was going with that. I mean, try to imagine the agency actually making Boeing pull back out of South Carolina. A federal agency telling a major corporation where it can do business within the United States? It would have been like nothing that I can recall in U.S. labor history. It would have required a complete rethinking of the role of government in the economy. It would have been way more radical than what GOP politicians seem to think Obamacare is.
Speaking of Republican politicians, this decision has left some of them off-balance. There they were in full outrage mode, and now, “Huh?” They’re like Wile E. Coyote, who suddenly realizes there’s no mesa beneath him.
Lindsey Graham is demanding an investigation:
WASHINGTON – U.S. Senator Lindsey Graham (R-South Carolina) is calling for a congressional investigation into collaboration between the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) and the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers (IAM) union against The Boeing Company’s decision to build a second 787 Dreamliner production facility in North Charleston, South Carolina.
Graham’s announcement comes after the NLRB announced it will drop its complaint against Boeing.
Graham also reaffirmed today he will continue to place an indefinite Senate hold on nominations to the NLRB Board. Beginning in January 2012, the NLRB will have just two members. The Supreme Court last year ruled that an agency board with just two members lacks the authority to issue case rulings.
More to the point, the senator said, “For the sake of the Boeing South Carolina workers, I’m pleased to hear the frivolous complaint that has put a cloud over their operations has been lifted. However, it’s hard to celebrate an event which never should have happened…”
By the way, I THINK this is the new Boeing plant. I shot this in North Charleston yesterday, near the airport. There were no signs to confirm, that I saw...
I thought this was a sort of constitutionally interesting item:
Senate Passes Graham Amendment Making National Guard Part of Joint Chiefs of Staff
WASHINGTON – The United States Senate last night approved an amendment introduced by U.S. Senator Lindsey Graham (R-South Carolina) giving the National Guard a seat on the nation’s highest military council, the Joint Chiefs of Staff.
“I’m very pleased the Senate has voted to allow the Chief of the National Guard Bureau to become a member of the Joint Chiefs of Staff,” said Graham, a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee.
“Guardsmen and Reservists are citizen-soldiers,” said Graham. “Since 9/11, the National Guard and Reserves have done tremendous work at home and abroad in defense of our nation. They have been called up to duty, taken away from their work and families, and sent to far-away lands for long tours to protect our nation. They have earned a seat at the table where our most important military decisions are made.”
South Carolina Adjutant General MG Bob Livingston said, “This is a great day for our nation and our military. We face difficult times in terms of the variety and magnitude of foreign threats while dealing the reality of limited resources. The inclusion of the Chief of the National Guard Bureau on the Joint Chiefs of Staff brings the Citizen Soldier to the discussion. The Citizen Soldier has proven himself to be the innovator with civilian skills, the tie to the community and the proven hardened combat troop that is so critical in these tough times. This tradition of citizen responsibility is one of the essential threads in the fabric of our nation. It has made our nation great and will propel us into the future. The appointment of the Chief of the National Guard is a return to the basic values of our county and will pave the way to great innovation in the defense of our nation.”
The amendment, also sponsored by Senator Patrick Leahy (D-Vermont) attracted 71 cosponsors, and was added by voice vote to the annual Defense Authorization bill. The Senate continues to debate the measure and a final vote is expected later this week.
“The Senate vote last night was a long-overdue recognition and fitting tribute for our citizen-soldiers and the sacrifices they have made on behalf of our nation,” said Graham. “The Guard and Reserve is indispensable to fighting the War on Terror and protecting the homeland. Their voice needs to be heard.”
The legislation was endorsed by the American Legion, the Veterans of Foreign Wars, the National Governors Association, the National Guard Association of the United States, the Adjutants General Association of the United States, and the Enlisted Association of the National Guard of the United States.
#####
I always have trouble explaining the degree to which the Guard is our state militia, versus the extent to which it is part of national Total Force structure (does that still exist? not sure; references on Web seem few and far between). Seems like this is another tip in the direction of the federal. If so, he makes it sound like it’s noncontroversial, with all those groups supporting him.
Nor should it be. Controversial, I mean. States have no business having separate militaries, with the Recent Unpleasantness well behind us. Still, though, this is South Carolina, so I thought I’d take note…
Just when you thought Lindsey Graham had collapsed back into a complete defensive mode to protect his right flank, he has stepped out again to lead on an issue that could cost him political support across the spectrum.
This is good to see. This is the Lindsey Graham who more than earns his pay. Because a politicians who isn’t willing to risk his position to do the right thing has no business holding office at all:
GOP’s Sen. Graham works to protect foreign aid
By JAMES ROSEN – McClatchy Newspapers
WASHINGTON — Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, who has taken on tough tasks from immigration reform to climate change, faces another one as he calls for spending billions of dollars overseas on unpopular foreign aid programs that he insists are vital to U.S. national security.
With Congress facing mandatory spending cuts and previously sacrosanct military programs on the chopping block, Graham is trying to protect funding for foreign aid even as most Americans oppose it – 71 percent in a recent poll – and other Republican leaders call for focusing U.S. resources at home.
“It is a tough sell, but you can be penny-wise and pound-foolish,” Graham, a Republican in his second term, told McClatchy Newspapers…
As Rosen correctly notes, this is classic Graham, the one we saw stepping out on rational immigration reform, and (until county parties back home starting censuring him, pushing him toward the defensive posture) on energy and climate change.
This is good to see.
Today, I was walking through Charleston, past 39 Rue de Jean, and mentioned to a friend that the first time I ate there, it was with Alex Sanders. Which got us onto the 2002 Senate campaign, and what a bitter pill it was to the state’s Democrats that he lost — they had placed such hope in him reviving their fortunes. But, my friend noted, Graham has done a good job since then.
Yes, he has. Especially when he does stuff like this.
There’s a slight implication — perhaps not intentional — in Rosen’s story that there’s something ironic about the hawkish Graham pushing “soft power.” But the idea that there’s some sort of dichotomy between soft and hard power is a canard pushed by people who don’t understand foreign policy. Effective foreign policy includes a good deal of both, and Graham is a guy who understands, and advocates, the full DIME.
Oh, by the way — that thing about 71 percent of Americans wanting to cut foreign aid… there’s nothing new about it. Polls always say that. They also tend to say that Americans don’t know squat about foreign aid. When you ask them how much of the budget goes to foreign aid, they tend to answer that it’s something like 25 percent. When you ask them how much should go to foreign aid, they say about 10 percent.
The true amount? About 1 percent. So basically, if Graham sought to make foreign aid 10 times as much of the budget as it is now (or 3-5 times, according to some polls), they should be happy. But watch — they won’t be.
Speaking of stuff in The Wall Street Journal today, Joe Lieberman had a good piece on the Opinion pages about the importance of the upcoming Tunisian elections.
Third, the U.S. should recognize that the foremost challenges for Tunisia’s new government will be economic, in spurring growth and reducing unemployment. While the U.S. cannot offer billions of dollars of direct aid, given our own economic challenges, there are other actions we can take. These include establishing a robust Millennium Challenge Corporation compact with Tunisia and expanding the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development to operate there. Congress should also pass legislation, which I co-sponsored with Sens. John Kerry and John McCain, to establish a Tunisian-American Enterprise Fund aimed at helping small and medium-sized businesses, and modeled after similar efforts in Central Europe following the fall of communism.
Then, Graham took all kinds of horrific grief from the most hateful ideological extremists in his own party from having had any dealings with a Democrat, and pulled out of the deal — tragically, thereby collapsing it.
Now, it’s Lieberman, McCain and Kerry? Is Kerry the new, replacement member of the Three Amigos? Is he Ringo to Graham’s Pete Best?
I don’t know what I think about the issue that Lindsey Graham keeps going on about:
Graham Responds to Chinese Government Criticism of Senate on Vote over Currency Manipulation
WASHINGTON – U.S. Senator Lindsey Graham (R-South Carolina) made this statement in response to criticism from the Chinese government’s Central Bank, Foreign Ministry and Ministry of Commerce over Senate legislation to crack down on Chinese currency manipulation. (Articles below.)
Last night, the Senate voted to proceed to debate on legislation cracking down on Chinese currency manipulation. The procedural vote was 79-19. The Senate continues to debate the legislation today.
Graham said:
“China’s threats to the United States Senate should fall on deaf ears. We should be examining their business practices, not their rhetoric. China should be rewarded and engaged when they play fair and we should push back when they continue to cheat.
“The Chinese government’s criticism of our efforts to bring about long-overdue currency reform is ill-advised. We all want a healthy trading relationship with China, but their business practices – from intellectual property theft to currency manipulation, has created an unhealthy business relationship.
“China’s pegging of the yuan to the dollar and keeping it consistently undervalued continues to create a competitive advantage for the Chinese. China has too big of an economy to allow them to continue creating an unfair trade advantage. Chinese currency manipulation has resulted in 2 million jobs being lost in the United States and over 40,000 in South Carolina. China must stop cheating.”
#####
How would I know? Like I’m an international currency expert or something.
I know what my gut reaction is — to be mad at the Chinese for being all unfair to us and everything. But what does my gut know about fair currency policy?
From what I hear, what they do is fairly standard practice for developing economies. And they DO have a developing economy — a humongous, planet-eating developing economy, but still…
I’ve just been shaking my head ever since I read this release a day or two ago:
WASHINGTON – U.S. Senators Lindsey Graham (R-South Carolina) and John Barrasso (R-Wyoming) will hold a press conference tomorrow to discuss legislation they plan to introduce, the Medicaid Flexibility for States Act, which enables states to ‘Opt-out’ of the Medicaid expansion mandate included in Obama health care law.
Here’s the thing, Sen. Graham: The health care reform bill passed by Congress was far from perfect. This is thanks in part to your friend and mine (more your friend than mine, but I still respect you, him and John McCain as much as or more than anyone else in the Senate), Joe Lieberman, who blocked key provisions that could have made it more worthwhile.
But it might help. When fully implemented, it will offer some alternatives to depending upon overburdened employers for this benefit, and create at least the beginning of the kind of national pool insured that would make the most sense and benefit the most Americans. Oh, and to go back to the beginning of the sentence: “When fully implemented…” Neither you nor anyone else has even given this legislation a chance to either succeed or fail.
You’re fond of saying that “elections have consequences.” I agree, and always have. But so do votes of Congress. And while this falls far short of the kind of all-purpose nullification we’ve unfortunately seen revived over in the Legislature as our lawmakers have gone careening off into anachronistic extremism, it is still at the very least unseemly for you to be moving to exempt South Carolina from this national law. Yeah, I get that you think you are protecting South Carolina from something. But I submit that in protecting us from the bad effects that you anticipate, you would also be preventing us from receiving any benefit which you may not be able to see.
And since we desperately need something to broaden access to medical care, and you and I both know that the Legislature of this state is NOT going to do anything to help on its own — quite the contrary — it is unconscionable to try to prevent South Carolinians from reaping any such benefit.
For South Carolinians, this is it. There is no state solution. (I don’t believe any state can do it on its own, but set that aside; I know South Carolina won’t.) This is our only chance. If you “opt out” on our behalf, you’ve opted us out of any chance to get greater access to effective, affordable, portable health care.
Meant to blog about this all day, but wanted to do a little research first. I’m out of time, and before the day ends, I’m just going to throw it out there…
I was disappointed by Lindsey Graham’s criticism of the Obama administration for deciding not to release photos of Osama bin Laden’s bullet-riddled body:
WASHINGTON — Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., criticized President Barack Obama’s decision Wednesday not to release death photos of terrorist Osama bin Laden.
Graham on Monday had congratulated Obama on Sunday’s daring raid that killed the al-Qaida leader, but he said withholding photos of bin Laden’s corpse would raise questions about whether he is really dead.
“The whole purpose of sending our soldiers into the compound, rather than (delivering) an aerial bombardment, was to obtain indisputable proof of bin Laden’s death,” Graham said.
“I know bin Laden is dead, but the best way to protect our decisions overseas is to prove that fact to the rest of the world,” the second-term senator said. “I’m afraid the decision made today by President Obama will unnecessarily prolong this debate.”
Obama, though, said releasing photos of the slain terrorist would amount to gloating that would only inflame anti-American sentiment and do nothing to satisfy skeptics.
“That’s not who we are,” Obama told CBS in an interview. “We don’t trot out this stuff as trophies.”
Sen. Graham’s argument now is that we must shut up doubters by proving we did, too, kill bin Laden.
But you know what I think? I think this decision fits perfectly with the series of good decisions the president has made in this situation, from the start. He was right to send in the SEALS rather than B-52s so that we’d know we got him (not to mention the intelligence treasure trove that would have been destroyed in a bombing). He buried him at sea so that not one could make a fetish of his body or his grave. Then he similarly refused terrorists a rallying point by refusing even to let them see photos of the body.
The president knows he’s eliminated bin Laden (let anyone who says otherwise produce him as evidence). That’s enough for him. It’s enough for me, too.
Graham To Refuse Pay, Close Offices, Furlough Staff During Government Shutdown
WASHINGTON– U.S. Senator Lindsey Graham (R-South Carolina) today made this announcement on how his Senate office will function, should the Congress and President fail to come to agreement on the federal budget by midnight. Each Member of Congress is responsible for establishing their procedures for operation during a government shutdown.
Senator Graham will refund his salary to the Federal Treasury for the time the government remains shutdown.
Senator Graham’s offices in Columbia, Florence, Greenville, Mount Pleasant, Pendleton, Rock Hill, and Washington will be closed during the shutdown.
Senator Graham’s staff — both in Washington and South Carolina — will be furloughed and placed on unpaid leave.
“I will refund my salary to the Bureau of the Public Debt within the U.S. Department of Treasury,” said Graham. “Our brave men and women serving in uniform will not get paid during the shutdown. I believe Members of Congress should think twice about putting their way of life before those who fight to protect it.
“I’m disappointed Democrats in Congress and President Obama have not agreed to our very reasonable requests for spending reductions,” said Graham. “What we’re seeking is belt-tightening at the federal level, a practice millions of Americans have already gone through. It’s long past time we get our nation’s fiscal house in order. The essence of our proposal is to take spending back to 2008 levels plus inflation. Our proposal is by no means extreme.
“I’m very proud of my staffers who deliver high-quality constituent services to the people of South Carolina,” said Graham. “It’s a tradition I’ve tried to carry over from Senator Thurmond. However, I cannot justify having the offices open during a government shutdown when the staff will be unable to meaningfully help people.
“Therefore, my staffers will be furloughed without pay,” said Graham. “I truly believe with the government shut down, we can’t deliver services to the people of South Carolina in a way to justify the expense. In light of those facts, closing the office and furloughing the staff is the fiscally-responsible step to take.”
#####
Of course, I went without pay for about nine months not so long ago. I suppose I could tell these folks to buck up, that it’s a character-building experience. But I know better. I know that it’s just a lousy situation. And it’s caused by polticos in Washington acting like children over the budget. (And no, senator; it’s not just the Democrats failing to be “reasonable.”)
I heard some highamuckymuck on the radio today pontificating on the subject, saying that the disagreement came down to one thing: spending.
And I’m like duh, yeah, I guess so — seeing as how it’s the budget we’re talking about here. Congrats on figuring that out, Einstein.
“I don’t know how many people have died as we wait to do something. Thank God for strong women in the Obama administration.”
— Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC), quoted by NBC News, on how it was President Obama’s female advisers that prevailed in arguments to take military action in Libya.
NBC’s Andrea Mitchell reported Saturday night on the internal debate about the decision to go into Libya. “In the end, it became the women foreign policy advisers against the men. Although Hillary Clinton initially resisted the idea of a no-fly zone, she was persuaded at the beginning of this week by the Arab League’s endorsement of military action, and she had intense meetings with the Arab League leaders and a Libyan opposition leader this week. She actually joined U.N. ambassador Susan Rice and two other women in the National Security Council, who had been arguing for some time for more aggressive action in persuading the president on Tuesday. This is a rare instance, by the way, of Clinton going up against Defense Secretary Bob Gates and the National Security Adviser Tom Donilon among other men in the White House who were much more cautious about this.”
To that point, here was more Lindsey Graham on FOX: “I don’t know how many people have died as we wait to do something. Thank God for strong women in the Obama administration.”
Graham Presses Obama Administration to Establish Libyan No-Fly Zone
WASHINGTON – U.S. Senator Lindsey Graham (R-South Carolina) today made this statement on the establishment of a No-Fly zone over Libya and what United States inaction means for our own national security. Graham is a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee.
“One test in foreign policy – at least be as bold as the French. Unfortunately, when it comes to Libya we’re failing that test.
“The French and British are right to call for a no-fly zone over Libya, and they are correct to recognize the forces opposing Gaddafi. I’m very disappointed by the indecisiveness of the Administration in the face of tyranny. They are allowing the cries of the Libyan people to fall on deaf ears.
“Allowing Gaddafi to regain control over Libya through force – without any meaningful effort to support the Libyan people – will create grave consequences for our own national security.
“The biggest winner of an indecisive America refusing to stand up to dictators who kill their own people, will be the Iranian regime. The Iranian regime has already used force against their own people when they demanded freedom. If we allow Gaddafi to regain power through force of arms, it is inconceivable to me that the Iranians will ever take our efforts to control their nuclear desires seriously.
“The world is watching, and time is beginning to run short. The Obama Administration should join with the international community to form a no-fly zone while it still matters.
“Then-Senator Obama relished the opportunity to label Iraq as President Bush’s war. If he does not act decisively in Libya, I believe history will show that the Obama Administration owned the results of the Gaddafi regime from 2011 forward.
“Their refusal to act will go down as one of the great mistakes in American foreign policy history, and will have dire consequences for our own national security in the years to come. I truly fear the decisions they are making today will come back to haunt us.”
#####
Yeah, that’s kind of what I thought the other day, when I saw that the French and the Brits were taking the lead on trying to coordinate an international response to try to stop Qaddafi from continuing to kick the stuffing out of the Libyan people who have risked their lives to fight our enemy for us (and, of course, for themselves and their country).
I don’t know what the right thing to do is — such things are complex — but the no-fly zone certainly seems like a measured response that would carry some likelihood of doing good. Unlike, say, boots on the ground, which Sen. Graham draws the line at.
Let’s get our money down, now: Who will be the first to criticize the senator’s common-sense assertion? An antiwar liberal Democrat, or one of those extremists in his own party who are pleased to trash the “RINO” at every opportunity. Cue the Jeopardy music…
Just to elaborate a bit on that last post, in which I wrote about how once-sensible Republicans are dancing with madness these days…
I’d just like to point out to Sen. Graham where all this “hate Obamacare to the point that we’ll hurt actual South Carolinians by blowing it up” stuff leads.
Continue down that path, and you cease to be that voice of reason you’ve always been in Washington, that Gang of 14 guy, the guy who took a bullet for comprehensive immigration reform, the guy who at least for a time fought for the Energy Party platform at great personal political risk, the guy who could get President Obama to listen to reason on national security. You cease being all that (which is a national tragedy, because the nation NEEDS you to play that role), and you end up being state Sen. Lee Bright. I mean this guy:
Sen. Lee Bright: SC should coin its own money
Continuing a pattern of attempts to assert South Carolina’s independence from the federal government, State Sen. Lee Bright, R-Roebuck, has introduced legislation that backs the creation of a new state currency that could protect the financial stability of the Palmetto State in the event of a breakdown of the Federal Reserve System.
Bright’s joint resolution calls for the creation of an eight-member joint subcommittee to study the proposal and submit a report to the General Assembly by Nov. 1.
The Federal Reserve System has come under ever-increasing strain during the last several years and will be exposed to ever-increasing and predictably debilitating strain in the years to come, according to the legislation.
“If there is an attempt to monetize the Fed we ought to at least have a study on record that could protect South Carolinians,” Bright said in an interview Friday.
“If folks lose faith in the dollar, we need to have some kind of backup.”
The legislation cites the rights reserved to states in the Constitution and Supreme Court rulings in making the case that South Carolina is within its rights to create its own currency…
Thank Bud for bringing that to my attention. I hadn’t seen coverage of it. But the Boston Globe has noted it. And these guys are applauding it. (This really embarrassing stuff tends to come to my attention this way. While SC media is trying to look the other way — or rather spending its time covering legislation that might actually pass, which sounds better — the rest of the country is chortling. When Mike Pitts proposed doing away with the Yankee dollar and replacing it with gold and silver, I first learned about it from Burl Burlingame and The Onion.)
Sen. Bright, by the way, was last seen pushing broader legislation to protect South Carolina’s “rights” (which rights were under siege was unclear, but then it usual is) from encroaching federal power in general. You may or may not recall that I wrote about it in a post headlined “These guys cannot POSSIBLY be serious.” I led with a reference to that scene from “Gettysburg” with the Confederate prisoners speaking nonsensically about fighting for their nonspecific “rats.” You know how I like movie allusions.
Anyway, that’s where you could end up.
You don’t want to go there, do you, Lindsey? I didn’t think so. But that’s where this “seceding from Obamacare” stuff leads…
I say that because, between the two of them — him and Nikki Haley — I figure he’s the one more likely to listen to reason. At least, I would normally think that, although his recent behavior on this subject injects a large measure of doubt.
Here’s what I’m on about:
U.S. Sen. Lindsey Graham and Gov. Nikki Haley on Monday opened the S.C. front in the Republican Party’s battle to roll back health care legislation signed into law by President Barack Obama last year.
At a State House news conference, Graham and Haley took turns blasting the law as an expensive federal takeover of the nation’s health care system. Graham said the law, which won 60 votes in the 100-member U.S. Senate, was passed through a “sleazy” process that offered no opportunity for GOP input.
Graham also said he has introduced legislation to allow South Carolina and other states to “opt out” of the law, which is being challenged in federal courts.
“I’m confident that, if given the chance, a large number of states would opt out of the provisions regarding the individual mandate, employer mandate and expansion of Medicaid,” Graham said, referring to requirements in the law that individuals buy insurance, companies offer it and Medicaid be expanded to cover those without insurance. “As more states opt out, it will have the effect of repealing and replacing Obamacare.”
In fact, this is the one thing that leading Republicans (or anyone else who got such a notion) could do that would be totally beyond the pale, truly unforgivable.
Look, I get it: You don’t like Obama. No, scratch that: What I get is that your constituents don’t like Obama (in some cases for reasons that don’t bear a lot of scrutiny), so you’re playing to that. I doubt Nikki has any strong feelings toward the president one way or the other (she never even had occasion to think about him until she decided to become the Tea Party’s Dream Girl last year) and for his part Lindsey is perfectly happy to work with him in a collegial manner. But they’re trying to stay in the game with Jim “Waterloo” DeMint, and this leads to trying to fake the symptoms of Obama Derangement Syndrome.
I fully get the fact that since the defeat of November 2008 (when, it you’ll recall, I endorsed both John McCain and Lindsey Graham), the Republican Party has gone stark, raving mad, having concluded that its problem in ’08 was that it wasn’t extreme enough, not wacky enough, causing it, as it wandered lost in the post-apocalyptic landscape, to embrace the Tea Party in its lonely desperation. I get all that.
But that is a disgusting, absurd, inexcusable, disgustingly irresponsible reason to try to prevent the people of South Carolina — who have perhaps more need for health care reform than people in any other state — from deriving any benefit that might accrue from the federal health care legislation.
No, the thing dubbed “Obamacare” doesn’t accomplish much; it’s a bit of a Frankenstein of a bill. But it actually would do SOME people SOME good. And it at least has the one essential element that one would have to have in any attempt to address the crisis in paying for health care in this country, the national mandate — which, absurdly, is the ONE thing you object to most vehemently. (We’ve discussed in the past how there’s no point in talking about “reform” unless you start with the premise that everybody has to be in the game for it to work, so I won’t go on and on about it now.)
Yep, Obamacare is pretty inadequate. But you have NOTHING to replace it with, nothing in the wings (with any chance of passing, or any chance of doing any good if it DID pass) to do what little good Obamacare will do.
So trying to tear it down is nothing but an act of pure destruction. And the thing you’re destroying is the ONE thing that’s been done lately to address the one greatest domestic need in this country.
I expect this kind of nonsense from Nikki Haley (the Tea Party Nikki Haley that is, not the promising young House member I used to know). But Lindsey Graham is fully smart enough to know better.
Fine, have your little press conferences and make your symbolic gestures. But if you actually start to make this “opt-out” thing a reality, that will be unforgivable.
That kind of stuff makes me tired. You know why bloggers and sure-enough journalists avoid ever saying anything nice about anybody in public life? Because they never hear the end of it. They’re constantly getting this Well I hope now you see what a jerk your buddy is, and see the error of your ways stuff.
Let’s be clear. There is no one I respect in the U.S. Senate more than Lindsey Graham, so stuff that in your pipe and smoke it, you cynics. There are good men in public life, and Graham is highly intelligent, principled and hard-working. He has proved this time and time again. He is good for South Carolina, and good for the country. I am proud that he is our senior senator. Now that John Spratt is gone, I think Lindsey is clearly the best member of the SC congressional delegation.
But you know what? Sometimes, even on an important issue, he’s dead wrong. That happens. It happens with the best of men. (Women, too, probably, but far be it from me as a gentleman to reflect negatively upon the ladies.) And there’s one that he and two of my other favorites in the Senate, John McCain and Joe Lieberman, and that’s the one Doug and I were talking about — national health care policy.
He’s really, really wrong on it. I mean, Jim DeMint just wants it to be Obama’s Waterloo, but I get the feeling that Lindsey Graham really means it. He really wants to gut Obamacare. And he doesn’t just want to vote on a purely symbolic “repeal;” he want to hang it, draw it and quarter it, slice and dice it, by passing legislation that deprives it of its central elements, the only things that give it any chance of having a good effect on the health care crisis in this country.
Barrasso, Graham Introduce Legislation Allowing States to ‘Opt-Out’ of Obamacare
WASHINGTON – U.S. Senators Lindsey Graham (R-South Carolina) and John Barrasso (R-Wyoming) today introduced S.244, The State Health Care Choice Act, to repeal and replace Obamacare by allowing states to ‘Opt-Out’ of its major provisions. Under the legislation, states could choose to ‘Opt-Out’ of:
Individual mandate – the requirement to buy government-approved health insurance coupled with a financial penalty for not doing so.
Employer mandate – the requirement for businesses to provide government-approved health insurance coupled with financial penalties for not doing so.
Medicaid mandate – the forced expansion of state Medicaid programs.
Benefit mandates – defines what qualifies as a health plan as well as new federal requirements for regulating health insurance.
“As a doctor in Wyoming, I witnessed regularly how Washington simply didn’t understand the needs of the people of our state,” said Barrasso. “After Obamacare, Washington is more out of touch than ever. Instead of requiring states to follow Obamacare’s one-size-fits-all health care policy, our bill lets states decide what works best for them. We will fight to repeal the President’s bad health spending law and provide states with flexibility, freedom and choice.”
“Our legislation opens up a third front in the fight against Obama health care,” said Graham, noting the other ‘fronts’ include legal challenges moving through the courts and the House-passed repeal. “Our bill takes the fight out of Washington and puts it back in the states. I would hope every Senator, regardless of party, would give the people of their home state a chance to be heard. I’m confident that if given the chance, a large number of states would opt-out of the provisions regarding the individual mandate, employer mandate, and expansion of Medicaid. As more states opt-out, it will have the effect of repealing and replacing Obamacare.”
“Medicaid expansion under Obama health care will be devastating to many states, including South Carolina,” continued Graham. “We are already facing a severe budget shortfall this year. The future expansion of Medicaid – which adds an additional one billion dollars of state matching funding requirements and will result in nearly 30 percent of South Carolinians being eligible for Medicaid – only adds to our budget problems. This combination of Medicaid expansion and increased state funding makes it virtually impossible for South Carolina to pull out of her economic woes.”
The Senators noted the Obama Administration has already issued 733 waivers to businesses allowing them to continue offering insurance to their employees and questioned why states should not have the same ability to obtain relief.
Note that this masquerades as a substitute for Obama care — not mere repeal, but replacement. What a mockery. It is most certainly nothing of the kind.
The absolute worst thing you could do to last year’s health-care bill — which is deeply flawed, but would at least take a step or two in the direction of real reform — would be to let anyone opt out of it, much less entire states.
Either we’re all in it, or it will not work. It may not work anyway. I still firmly believe that simple, straightforward single-payer is the way to go. But hey, critics of Obamacare say it’s a back-door way to get us there, and maybe they’re right. One thing I know for sure is that there isn’t a plan in the wings to replace it. I mean, if this is the best that a smart guy like Lindsey Graham can come up with, we’d better cling to Obamacare as though it were our last chance to avoid drowning.
And this fantasy that states can in any way affect this mega-economic hole that we are in — or that they would (especially if they are South Carolina). Again, either we come up with a national solution and we’re all in it — a risk pool of 300-plus million people — or there’s not much use talking, because you really don’t get the problem. Sen. Barrasso says Washington doesn’t get it. He may be right; I can certainly point to one guy in Washington who doesn’t get it. No, make that two. (And for that matter, the Dems don’t either, or they’d have gone for single-payer. So I guess he’s right; it’s a majority.)
This is just sad. So sad, that I marvel at it.
I’m going to issue another invitation to Sen. Graham to join me on “The Brad Show” and explain this. He always has good explanations for what he does, and I’d love to hear this one.
In the meantime, satisfy yourselves with this video of him and Barrasso talking about this abomination…
On the one hand, on the other hand... Lindsey Graham, 2007 file photo. / by Brad Warthen
Seeing the story about Lindsey Graham and immigration in The Stet Peppah today reminded me of this release I got from the senator yesterday:
“Illegal immigration is a nightmare for America. Giving a pathway to citizenship without first securing the border is an inducement to encourage more illegal immigration. This is nothing more than a political game by the Democrats to try and drive a wedge between the Hispanic community and Republicans.
“Today’s cynical vote on the DREAM Act, along with a series of other votes, convinces me that the Democratic leadership in the Senate does not get the message from the last election. They care more about politics than policy in a variety of areas, including illegal immigration.”
Now truth be told, the senator isn’t really being two-faced on this. Only if you believe in the misrepresentation of his critics do you think he’s changed his mind on the overall issue. He ALWAYS wanted to secure the border. To him and John McCain, this was first and foremost a national security issue — you need to know who’s in your country. That’s why you would both secure the borders and regularize the people who have already gotten in. Big Brother (and you know I love Big Brother) doesn’t need folks running around off the grid.
So basically what we have here is a change of emphasis. And that change really started as soon as 2007, when the debate over the previous attempt at serious, comprehensive immigration reform was still going on.
The one thing that Sen. Graham has said lately that really seems a departure for him was when he went out of his way to say that children born here to illegal parents shouldn’t be citizens. If anything indicates that he’s running scared and trying to head off a primary challenge from Mark Sanford or someone four years from now, that would be it. But senators, particularly this one, don’t run that scared that early. There are other explanations. And next time I speak with the senator, I hope to hear it. I doubt I’ll hear it through the MSM between now and then.
Folks, this is really embarrassing. Throughout our history, U.S. senators have not exactly been known for modesty. Fritz Hollings, for instance, was no shrinking violet. Being one of only 100 in the country, with some pretty weighty constitutional responsibility, can go to one’s head. Add in the tradition going back to ancient Rome, and you have a formula for bombast.
But I have never heard or read of any one senator taking upon himself such a megalomaniacal presumption as what Jim DeMint has taken upon himself with this latest move:
U.S. Sen. Jim DeMint, R-S.C., in an extraordinary move, has warned the other 99 U.S. senators that for the rest of the legislative session this year, all bills and nominations slated for unanimous passage must go through his office for review…
Normally, senatorial ego is limited by the understanding that there are 99 others just like you, which is the wellspring of senatorial courtesy. The notion that the world does not revolve around YOU is something that we start teaching our children as we’re trying to get them beyond the Terrible Twos. Most of us pick up on it by the time we reach the age of majority, at least to some extent.
But if Jim DeMint had ever been familiar with this concept, he has forgotten it.
Contrast this obnoxious cry of ego, if you will, to the quiet way that Lindsay Graham has worked behind the scenes to have a salutary effect on foreign policy since the election of Barack Obama. Despite the imperative of satisfying his left wing, I keep seeing Obama do things in Afghanistan and elsewhere that show a marked pragmatism, a reassuring wisdom. And apparently, Sen. Graham is one of the main reasons why:
A new book by The Washington Post’s Bob Woodward describes U.S. Sen. Lindsey Graham as playing a central role in the formation and execution of President Barack Obama’s war policy in Afghanistan through his close ties to Vice President Joe Biden, Gen. David Petraeus and White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel.
The book by the former Watergate reporter, Obama’s Wars, contains vivid and previously undisclosed portrayals of Graham’s closed-door conversations and confrontations with Obama, Afghan President Hamid Karzai and other key figures.
Petraeus, the former commander of U.S. troops in Iraq who now holds the same post in Afghanistan, describes Graham as “a brilliant and skillful chess player” whom the general admires for his ability to navigate the power channels of Washington.
Talk about your polar opposites — the ball hog vs. the guy who just wants to make sure his team wins. And his team (and this might come as a shock to Jim Demint) is the United States of America, NOT the extreme right wing of the Republican Party, which Sen. DeMint seems to think is his country.
Consider the case of Sen. Jim DeMint of South Carolina, the new Republican kingpin and enforcer on Capitol Hill. DeMint claims he was misquoted by Bloomberg Businessweek last week as saying that his goal for the next Senate is “complete gridlock.” But you’d never know it from the way he’s behaving during the Senate’s do-nothing, pre-election legislative session. DeMint makes no apologies for saying that there’s no place for bipartisan compromise or consensus or some “watered-down Republican philosophy,” as he put it. For DeMint, this is war. The only acceptable outcome is total victory, and any Republican who dares to disagree will be treated as a traitor during the next election cycle.
And of course, he’s trying to get in a position to accomplish all this by such moves as supporting such candidates as Christine “Witchy Woman” O’Donnell.
I’ve never been more proud of Lindsey Graham, or more embarrassed by Jim DeMint. This moment has been coming, but I never suspected it would go this far.
