The Obama administration plans to use its executive authority to install Richard Cordray as head of a federal consumer watchdog agency in a defiant move after the Senate rejected the nomination last month, a White House official confirmed Wednesday.
President Obama is scheduled to announce the decision during an appearance in Cordray’s home state of Ohio, where he served as attorney general until losing his reelection bid in November 2010. The president will portay his decision as an escalation of the White House’s “we can’t wait” campaign to take action that does not require congressional approval.
Of course, Republican’ts will scream that this is evil/unconstitutional/dictatorial/blah/blah/blah, even though they’re the ones who – as usual – have been completely obstructionist, obstinate, uncooperative, juvenile, anti-democratic (small “d”), you name it. The fact is, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau was created by an act of Congress, it needs someone to head it up, and there’s absolutely no excuse for Republican’ts to keep blocking superbly qualified presidential appointments from so doing. And no, the gimmicky bull**** of keeping the Congress in “pro forma” session doesn’t count. With that, commence Republican’t whining in 5…4…3…2…1…blastoff.
P.S. If you want to express your support for Richard Cordray, and also help Elizabeth Warren build her mailing list, click on the image above. Again, thanks to President Obama, and go Elizabeth Warren! 🙂
Is it possible to have a caucus that no one wins? The results from Iowa sure look like it:
Mitt Romney has been campaigning for president for six years. He’s spent millions of dollars of his own campaign money and has been backed by tens of millions in spending by shadowy outside groups (thanks, Supreme Court’s awful, activist Citizens United ruling). Romney only managed 24.6% – 0.6% less than in 2008.
Extremist social conservatives certainly didn’t support Perry (10% & clumsily indicated he’d drop out), Bachmann (5% & possibly dropping out this morning) or Cain (1% & already out). But even with supporters of controlling theocratic government consolidated behind him, Rick Santorum couldn’t win.
Despite an alleged ability to draw independent & liberal crossover votes and what his supporters claimed was an infusion of people traveling to Iowa, Ron Paul still finished third.
It’s hard to see a path to victory for anyone but Mitt Romney – phony, lying, corporations-are-people Mitt Romney. The real question at this point: Will Republicans set aside their dislike of Romney & unite in their hatred of President Obama behind him anyway? Be so dispirited by Romney that down-ballot Congressional races swing to Democrats? Turn to a third party candidate like Paul? What do you think?
Here are a few Virginia (and, for today, Iowa caucuses) news headlines, political and otherwise, for Wednesday, January 4. Also, for everyone who lives in Arlington, make sure you come tonight at 7 pm to check out the ACDC candidates forum for County Board (at GMU Law School, Founders Hall, 7-9 pm). Also, check out the utterly insufferable, phony Willard M. Romney quoting verses of patriotic songs (while his sons, none of whom serve or have served in the military, stand smugly behind him). This is the best Republican’ts can do? Welcome to a second term, President Obama! 🙂
The Iowa Republican freak show/caucuses have begun. I know, don’t get too excited or anything. 🙂 Also, for what it’s worth, CNN’s entrance poll has it roughly as follows heading into the caucuses (numbers calculated from sub-category percentages provided, but they don’t just give you the totals for whatever idiotic reason):
1. Paul 24.0%
1a. Romney 23.5%
3. Santorum 18.5%
4. Gingrich 13.0%
5. Perry 10.5%
6. Bachmann 7.5%
If this is how things end up tonight, it will be a good night for Willard “Mitt” Romney, and not such a great night for Newt Gingrich, Rick Perry, and Michele Bachmann. As for Rick Santorum, if this is the actual finish, it will be a pretty good night for him based on where he was a week or two ago, but not based on where he’d been trending the past few days. He must have thought he could win this thing, but let’s wait until the actual results, not just a CNN “entrance poll” of questionable accuracy and validity.
By the way, the Obama campaign has an impressive social media effort going on tonight, with a wrap-around banner ad on the Des Moines Register website (which should get huge traffic this evening), as well as the video you can see above. Nice job, Obama campaign!
We’ll start getting results soon from a variety of source (e.g., see Google Politics and Elections, AP, CBS, etc.). In the meantime, please feel free to use this as an open thread about the Iowa caucuses and/or the 2012 presidential race in general.
UPDATE Wednesday morning: With 1,766 precincts (99.5%) reporting, it’s Romney 25% (30,015), Santorum 25% (30,007), Paul 21% (26,219), Gingrich 13%, Perry 10%, Bachmann 5%, and Huntsman 1%. For Romney, that’s an almost identical percentage and numerical total to the 2008 Iowa caucuses, essentially demonstrating zero progress since then in rallying Republicans to his side (despite his increasingly shrill, almost crazed, anti-Obama language, not to mention his continued retreat from reality-based policies). Heckuva job, Willard, you’re made an absolute fool of yourself yet STILL not made inroads with the right wingnuts who don’t trust you but who make up a good portion of the Teapublican’t base!
UPDATE 11:00 pm: Bottom line, it looks like a tossup between Santorum and Romney, which is good news for Willard. Paul underperformed a bit, and the other candidates – especially Bachmann and Perry (neither have any excuses whatsoever, as they both were heavily invested in Iowa) are way behind, probably no “ticket” out of Iowa (although their zombie corpses could continue onwards for a bit longer). Definite winner tonight: Barack Obama, who will end up facing one of these freakazoid/losers, with no apparent sign of Republican enthusiasm in terms of voter turnout. Works for me! 🙂
UPDATE 10:37 pm: With 954 precincts (54%) reporting, it’s Santorum 24% (14,606 votes), Romney 24% (14,205 votes), Paul 22% (13,145). Forget the other candidates, they’re toast.
UPDATE 10:21 pm: With 878 precincts (about half) reporting, it’s Santorum 24%, Romney 24%, Paul 22%, Gingrich 13%, Perry 10%, Bachmann 6%. Seems to me that Perry and Bachmann are certainly toast, Gingrich possibly as well.
UPDATE 10:14 pm: According to Nate Silver, “A linear projection would estimate the total number of votes at 114,429, slightly behind the 119,118 who voted in 2008…So far, reporters who observed that there did not seem to be huge waves of enthusiasm at the events held around Iowa look to be vindicated.”
UPDATE 10:03 pm: With 808 precincts reporting, it’s Santorum 24%, Romney 24%, Paul 22%, Gingrich 13%, Perry 10%, Bachmann 6%.
UPDATE 9:40 pm: With 548 precincts reporting, it’s Romney 23%, Santorum 23%, Paul 23%, Gingrich 13%, Perry 10%, Bachmann 6%.
UPDATE 9:29 pm: With 433 precincts reporting, it’s Santorum 23%, Romney 23%, Paul 23%, Gingrich 13%, Perry 11%, Bachmann 6%.
UPDATE 9:20 pm: With 323 precincts reporting, it’s Paul 24%, Santorum 23%, Romney 23%, Gingrich 13%, Perry 10%, Bachmann 6%.
UPDATE 9:10 pm: With 270 precincts reporting, it’s Paul 24%, Romney 23%, Santorum 23%, Gingrich 13%, Perry 10%, Bachmann 6%.
UPDATE 9:05 pm: With 190 precincts reporting, it’s Paul 24%, Santorum 23%, Romney 23%, Gingrich 13%, Perry 10%, Bachmann 6%.
UPDATE 8:55 pm: With 111 of 1,774 precincts reporting, it’s Santorum and Paul at 24% each, Romney at 22%, Gingrich at 14%, Perry at 9%, Bachmann at 6%.
Longtime Del. Bob Marshall is considering entering the race for Virginia’s open U.S. Senate seat and has gone so far as to seek legal advice from the attorney general on how to collect signatures for a statewide run.
Marshall, a Prince William Republican who narrowly missed the party’s nomination for the job in 2008, told The Washington Examiner on Tuesday that he still has people asking him to throw his hat in the ring but he didn’t have a timetable for making a decision.
“Bottom line, am I serious about this prospect? Yes. Definitely,” he said. “But I’ve still got to get all these ducks in line before I set the trip wire.”
To put it mildly, this would be entertainingly HIlarious. It also would be a great benefit to Virginia voters, who could see just how crazy the Teapublican’ts really ard. So…Sideshow Bob? Please let us know if you need any help with those “ducks.” Heck, it might be worth having a reunion of Jim Webb’s “ragtag army” for that reason alone! LOL
UPDATE: Aaron Blake tweets, “Marshall nearly beat former GOV Jim Gilmore at the GOP convention in 2008, but VA GOP holding a primary this time, so that hurts his chances.”
As Virginia is preparing for budget battles at both the state and local levels, one of the big issues that will be discussed is teacher salaries. That’s because for localities like Fairfax County, there have been pay freezes in effect for the last several years (though they did get a one percent cost-of-living increase last year). Most of the teachers I know could definitely use a little more money, but haven’t complained too much about the pay freeze because they’re simply thankful to have a job in this economy. Plus, nobody goes into teaching to get wealthy.
With that being said, Northern Virginia is a very expensive place to live. It therefore shouldn’t be too surprising that a recent survey by the Fairfax County Federation of Teachers found that salary impacts job satisfaction for many local teachers.
Seventy-six percent of teachers said they agreed “very much” or “somewhat” that “teacher satisfaction is primarily dependent on salary” in a survey conducted by the Fairfax County Federation of Teachers, one of two district teachers’ unions.
That was significantly different from teachers’ responses to a similar survey last year, when nearly 70 percent said the relationship between happiness and pay was “weak” despite a two-year freeze on raises and cost-of-living adjustments.
Considering the results of this survey, teachers will probably be pleased to hear that a lot of school board members have made teacher pay a big issue and Superintendent Jack Dale is expected to request a pay increase in his 2013 budget proposal. They shouldn’t get too excited, however, because I still expect a pay increase could face a lot of opposition.
In Fairfax County, simply giving school employees a one percent cost of living increase would cost about $16 million. If you allow teachers to also get their traditional pay increase (which is usually associated with how long they’ve been teaching and what type of degree they have), it would likely cost another $40 million. While these numbers are big, I personally think it’s an investment that must be made in order to make sure we keep high quality teachers in the schools. They are, after all, one of the primary reasons that Fairfax has one of the top school systems in the country.
Unfortunately, a lot of leaders in the Republican Party have made it clear they think we shouldn’t pay teachers a decent wage. In places like Wisconsin and Ohio we’ve even seen the GOP trying to cast teachers as the evil opponents of sound fiscal policy — even after they made plenty of sacrifices in the way of salary. And right here in Virginia, we’ve already seen Gov. Bob McDonnell propose significant cuts to a program that help school districts in Northern Virginia offer public school employees a competitive salary — a move that could greatly hinder efforts to remove the pay freeze in Fairfax. At the same time, he wants to increase the state’s investment in charter schools (which ultimately means less funding for public schools).
As a proud alumna of Fairfax County Public Schools, I certainly hope Jack Dale is successful in securing more funding for teacher pay. Despite the difficult economic times we’re facing, teacher pay is an investment the public could get behind because it’s one that sees both fiscal and moral rewards for the community. When you look at the national movement against paying school employees what they deserve (a movement Gov. McDonnell and his allies appear to have joined in), however, I don’t see any sort of pay increase happening without a fight.
In Eric Can’tor’s hyper-ideological, immune-to-facts world, Ronald Reagan is a mythological hero who never compromised on his principles. In reality, as pointed out on The Ed Show, Reagan raised taxes 12 times in his presidency, including a 3-year, $100 billion tax hike (largest since World War II) and the largest corporate tax hike in history to that point. Reagan, of course, also backtracked and ended up negotiating with the Soviet Union (offering to give up all our ballistic missiles, no less!), which he had earlier called “the Evil Empire.” Reagan also signed a large-scale amnesty for “illegal immigrants” into law, expanded government greatly, racked up huge amounts of debt, and pretty much violated every “principle” Eric Can’tor and his merry band of Teahadists holds dear. It’s truly astounding that someone this hollow, this ignorant, and this mindlessly ideological can be House Majority Leader, in line to possibly be the next Speaker of the House. What an embarrassment (to Virginia, humanity, etc.).
Now that 2011 is over, may the media reflections begin! 2011 was a year to remember, as well as a year to forget, for any number of different and varied reasons. The Arab Spring brought a wave of democratically-styled popular uprisings that have reshaped politics in the “crucible of empires” (i.e. the Middle East). 2011 also witnessed a historic do-nothing U.S. Congress who appeared more willing to send the U.S. into a global sinkhole than to compromise on matters of ideology (I’m referring to the GOP, of course).
Sadly, all of the momentous news stories that made 2011 a memorable year also overshadowed the issue of climate change in the media. According to The Daily Climate’s archive of global media, there were 19,000 climate change-related stories in 2011, a 42% decline from the peak year of 2009. The dip in climate change coverage ironically came amid some of the world’s most extreme and devastating natural weather events. The wildfires in Arizona, famine in the Horn of Africa, devastating hurricanes across broad swaths of the U.S., and the historic drought in Texas all occurred in 2011. In the U.S. alone, we witnessed 12 “extreme” natural disasters in 2011, a record-breaking number (extreme natural disasters are quantified as having caused $1 billion in damage or more).
With these extreme weather events so prominent across the globe, it would have been sensible for the media to refocus its attention on climate change. After all, isn’t the media supposed to be an institution that looks out for “the people”? It seems clear in hindsight that the media coverage surrounding climate change was at odds with the severity of the dangers posed by this phenomenon.
Of course, we cannot lie and wait for the media to raise the awareness of American’s over the issue of climate change. We can each do our part by reading up on climate change and how it might affect you and your loved ones for no more than 15 or 30 minutes a day. A little extra knowledge goes a long way, especially when you can also spread that knowledge to other interested parties (everyone!) that fall within your social network. Never has humankind witnessed as dangerous a “silent killer” as climate change and never will we again if we don’t continue to act to stem its worst effects.
The Washington Post’s GOP presidential candidate profiles featured extreme close-up pictures of candidates looking intently into the camera. Some, like Ron Paul & Mitt Romney, came out well, but for already mean-looking dudes like Rick Perry & Newt Gingrich, the results were downright scary. Today, the Post’s Express cover features a composite of the pictures into one image with Frankensteinian results:
Let’s just say, something tells me that Virginia Senate Democrats are not going to agree with this! The key conclusions: 1) “Contrary to the Democrats allegations, there is nothing in the Constitution of Virginia that limits the Lieutenant Governor’s ability to vote on organizational matters;” and 2) “However, I have further concluded that the Constitution of Virginia does limit the Lieutenant Governor’s ability to vote on certain other matters.” (e.g, the budget, any bills to issue debt, and election of judges). We’ll see you in court, Mr. Lieutenant Governor! 🙂
Friends,
Earlier today I issued an advisory ruling regarding my ability to break tie votes on certain matters that may come before the Senate of Virginia during the upcoming legislative session. I am writing to make you aware of that ruling and the reasons for it.
First, a bit of background information.
As a result of the November elections the Senate of Virginia now has 20 Republicans and 20 Democrats. Because of this equal division my role as President of the Senate will take on added visibility and significance during the upcoming General Assembly session.
For example, with my vote we will be able to organize the Senate with a Republican majority. That means we will have a Republican Majority Leader, Republican committee chairs and Republican majorities on Senate committees.
The Democrats, in an effort to prevent us from organizing the Senate with a Republican majority, recently filed suit seeking to have a court rule on my ability to vote on certain issues that may come before the Senate.
First, they argued that I cannot vote on organizational issues because I am not am elected “member” of the Senate. They argued that the Constitution of Virginia says that only elected “members” of the Senate can vote on organizational issues.
Second, they argued that I cannot vote on certain other types of legislation (such as appropriation bills, tax bills, constitutional amendments, etc.) because the Constitution of Virginia limits votes on such issues to elected “members” of the Senate.
The Democrats initially asked the court to issue an injunction to prevent me from voting on these matters, but the court properly rejected that request. However, the case is still pending on its merits and I felt it was important for me to clearly state my position on these issues in advance of the upcoming General Assembly session.
My job as President of the Senate is to preside over the Senate fairly, and properly enforce the requirements of the Constitution of Virginia, the Rules of the Senate and normal parliamentary procedure. I take those responsibilities very seriously.
So, for the past few weeks I have been undertaking a detailed review of the Constitution of Virginia in an effort to determine what matters I can and cannot vote on.
In addition to my own review I have carefully reviewed past legal opinions on this issue that have been issued by the Attorney General, and I have also consulted with my own legal counsel and other respected sources.
Based on this review I have reached the following conclusions:
The general premise in the Constitution of Virginia is that the Lieutenant Governor shall have both the right and duty to vote on matters that come before the Senate and result in an equal division. For example, Article V, § 14 of the Constitution of Virginia provides as follows:
The Lieutenant Governor shall be President of the Senate, but shall have no vote except in case of an equal division.
Stated differently, Article V, § 14 of the Constitution of Virginia gives the Lieutenant Governor broad authority to vote on any matter that comes before the Senate and results in an equal division, unless another part of the Constitution specifically limits the Lieutenant Governors ability to vote.
Contrary to the Democrats allegations, there is nothing in the Constitution of Virginia that limits the Lieutenant Governor’s ability to vote on organizational matters, and should such matters come before the Senate and result in a tie vote I fully intend to cast the deciding vote on those issues.
However, I have further concluded that the Constitution of Virginia does limit the Lieutenant Governor’s ability to vote on certain other matters.
For example, the Constitution of Virginia specifically requires that in order for certain types of legislation to pass this legislation must be approved by a “majority of the members elected to each house” of the General Assembly.
This limitation applies to the final passage of a narrow classification of bills, including appropriation bills, tax bills, constitutional amendments, the election of judges and the creation of new offices.
Clearly, the Lieutenant Governor is not an elected “member” of the Senate. While the Lieutenant Governor plays an important role in the operation of the Senate in his capacity as President of the Senate, he is not an elected “member” of the Senate.
Accordingly, it is my belief that these constitutional limitations do in fact prevent the Lieutenant Governor from voting on the final passage of this narrow classification of bills.
I would note that my interpretation of these constitutional issues is consistent with past legal opinions that have been issued by the Attorney General of Virginia. In addition, this interpretation is consistent with the advice I have received from numerous other legal sources that I have consulted with during my review.
While this ruling will protect my ability to vote on important organizational issues, it will limit my ability to vote on the final passage of certain other types of legislation. However, I feel it is the proper constitutional interpretation.
Needless to say, this is a complex issue and I know that some people will agree with my ruling while others may disagree. However, throughout my service as Lieutenant Governor I have tried to preside over the Senate in a fair and impartial manner and I will continue to do so.
In addition, I have taken a solemn oath to uphold the Constitution of Virginia, which allows us to faithfully serve the people who elected us to our offices. I believe that what I have outlined above is a correct and impartial interpretation of the Constitution of Virginia.
I hope this summary will help you understand the issues I addressed in my ruling and the reason for my actions. If you would like to review a full and complete copy of my ruling you may do so by accessing the following link: Bolling Memorandum on Tie-breaking Powers of the Lieutenant Governor.
Oh pleasepleasepleasepleasepleaseplease 
Let’s just say, something tells me that Virginia Senate Democrats are not going to agree with this! The key conclusions: 1) “Contrary to the Democrats allegations, there is nothing in the Constitution of Virginia that limits the Lieutenant Governor’s ability to vote on organizational matters;” and 2) “However, I have further concluded that the Constitution of Virginia does limit the Lieutenant Governor’s ability to vote on certain other matters.” (e.g, the budget, any bills to issue debt, and election of judges). We’ll see you in court, Mr. Lieutenant Governor! 🙂 
