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The trouble with Bush's proposed lobbying reforms
Jeb Bush, eager to position himself as a reform-minded presidential candidate, delivered an interesting speech in his home state of Florida this week on his intention to clean up Washington, D.C. The Wall Street Journal reported:
Vowing to rattle the political establishment in Washington, Republican presidential candidate Jeb Bush on Monday said members of Congress should disclose their meetings with lobbyists and refrain from lobbying former colleagues for six years after leaving office. [...]"We need a president willing to challenge the whole culture in our nation's capital," Mr. Bush, the former governor of Florida, said in Tallahassee, the state capital.
At face value, there's nothing especially wrong with any of this. It's a little odd to hear the message coming from someone whose family played such a dominant role in the nation's capital for so long, and who's spent his life benefiting from his Beltway connections, but a six-year ban would be pretty ambitious and there's certainly nothing wrong with Bush making the issue an important part of his platform.
But some of the relevant details make the former governor an imperfect messenger. Politico's Marc Caputo, for example, reported that the forum at which Bush spoke was apparently organized by the Chamber of Commerce. "So Jeb gave a speech about lobbyist reforms to a room of lobbyists at a college run by a former lobbyist at a forum organized by lobbyists who then denied they organized it," Caputo wrote.
There's also the inconvenient fact that Bush, despite his concerns about lobbyists' influence, has received generous financial support from lobbyists: "The campaign disclosed last week that eight lobbyists bundled a total of $228,400 of the $11.4 million raised in the first 15 days of Mr. Bush's campaign -- more money from the industry than any other Republican candidate."
But perhaps most problematic of all is the fact that Jeb Bush was actually himself a registered lobbyist. The Associated Press reported this morning:
Thursday's Campaign Round-Up, 7.23.15
Today's installment of campaign-related news items from across the country.
* A new survey from Public Policy Polling shows Donald Trump leading the Republicans' presidential race with 19% support, just two points ahead of Scott Walker's 17%. Jeb Bush is third with 12%, followed by Ben Carson and Marco Rubio, who are tied for fourth with 10% each. No other candidate reached double digits.
* In the Democratic race, the same PPP poll found Hillary Clinton leading Bernie Sanders by 35 points, 57% to 22%. That's a sizable advantage, but a month ago, Clinton was ahead 65% to 9%.
* Speaking of the Vermont Independent, Sanders unveiled legislation yesterday to increase the federal minimum wage to $15 an hour. The bill will not advance in the Republican-led Congress, but it serves as a challenge to Clinton and other leading Democrats to keep pace.
* Though Jeb Bush boasts about his efforts at cleaning up Florida's state government, firing members of his administration if they "violated the public's trust," Politico reported that over the course of his two terms, Bush "often stood by appointees who were mired in scandal or mismanagement until long after damaging revelations emerged."
* As Rachel noted on the show last night, Ohio Gov. John Kasich (R), in his first full day as a presidential candidate, told a New Hampshire audience he supports deploying U.S. ground troops to combat ISIS. "This is something that has to be done -- let's just do it," he said.
* And speaking of Kasich, the Ohio governor will reportedly huddle with Mitt Romney today in New Hampshire. The failed GOP candidate will apparently "host Kasich for lunch at his waterfront compound on Lake Winnipesaukee,"
Trump's agenda reaches Capitol Hill
There's no denying the impact Donald Trump is having on the Republican presidential race. The New York real-estate developer and former reality-show host is not only leading in each of the recent national polls, but he's also dominating the GOP conversation in ways his rivals find exasperating, but which they seem powerless to change.
But the Washington Post reported this morning that Trump's influence is even reaching the Beltway, where the candidate is having some influence on "shaping the agenda of congressional Republicans."
As a presidential candidate, he deserves a significant share of the credit, or blame, for prompting the congressional debate over "sanctuary cities." Over the sleepy July Fourth holiday, he was the first national figure to seize on the murder in San Francisco of Kathryn Steinle, 32, allegedly by an illegal Mexican immigrant who should not have been in this country. The attention Trump brought played a central role in the Senate Judiciary Committee holding a hearing this week with testimony from Steinle's father and relatives of other victims who have been killed by illegal immigrants. [...]Taking action on the issue, the House is poised to vote on a bill that would cut off funding to certain law enforcement agencies who don't comply with federal immigration law. There are several similar measures floating around the Senate.
In a statement yesterday the Congressional Hispanic Caucus said, "Donald Trump should not be setting the agenda for the United States Congress."
That seems fair under the circumstances.
Obama admin puts '24-day' issue to the test
The vast majority of the arguments pushed by opponents of the international nuclear agreement with Iran are wildly unpersuasive. Some are stale bumper-sticker slogans, written by ideologues who haven't even read the deal, and some of them hardly even count as "arguments" at all.
But looking past the partisan nonsense and knee-jerk opposition to all diplomatic solutions, there is one criticism that, at face value, seems harder to dismiss. If the United States and our partners suspect Iran is violating the agreement, the apparent "24-day window" seems like it might give Iranian officials an opportunity to cheat.
In a new Washington Post op-ed, Secretary of State John Kerry and Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz tackled the point head on.
If the international community suspects that Iran is cheating, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) can request access to any suspicious location. Much has been made about a possible 24-day delay before inspectors could gain access to suspected undeclared nuclear sites. To be clear, the IAEA can request access to any suspicious location with 24 hours' notice under the Additional Protocol of the Nonproliferation Treaty, which Iran will implement under this deal. This accord does not change that baseline. In fact, the deal enhances it by creating a new mechanism to ensure that the IAEA gets the required access and sets a firm time limit to resolve access issues within 24 days. [...]Most important, environmental sampling can detect microscopic traces of nuclear activities even after attempts to remove evidence.
It's a credible response, though I'll confess that I don't know anything about "environmental sampling" and its ability to "detect microscopic traces of nuclear activities." Given how important this is to the entire debate, it's important to know whether this is accurate.
So, as it turns out, the Department of Energy did some interesting testing. Politico reported last night:
Jeb Bush pushes to 'phase out' Medicare
Republican presidential hopeful Jeb Bush appeared at a New Hampshire event last night sponsored by the Koch brothers' Americans for Prosperity, and the former governor raised a few eyebrows with his comments on the future of Medicare.
"The left needs to join the conversation, but they haven't. I mean, when [Rep. Paul Ryan] came up with, one of his proposals as it relates to Medicare, the first thing I saw was a TV ad of a guy that looked just like Paul Ryan ... that was pushing an elderly person off the cliff in a wheelchair. That's their response."And I think we need to be vigilant about this and persuade people that our, when your volunteers go door to door, and they talk to people, people understand this. They know, and I think a lot of people recognize that we need to make sure we fulfill the commitment to people that have already received the benefits, that are receiving the benefits. But that we need to figure out a way to phase out this program for others and move to a new system that allows them to have something -- because they're not going to have anything."
Remember, Jeb Bush is the ostensible moderate candidate in the massive GOP presidential field. It says something important about Republican politics in 2015 when the most mainstream candidate is also the candidate who wants to scrap Medicare altogether.
Regardless, there's quite a bit wrong with his take on the issue, both as a matter of politics and policy. Let's start with the former.
The Florida Republican is convinced that "people understand" the need to get rid of Medicare. He's mistaken. Given the polling from the last several years, what people understand is that Medicare is a popular and successful program, and a pillar of modern American life.
Previous attempts to "phase out" the program have met with widespread public scorn and if Jeb Bush believes he can "persuade people" to get rid of Medicare, he's likely to be disappointed.
Benghazi Committee, Iran deal intersect
The ostensible point of the House Select Committee on Benghazi, on track to oversee the longest investigation in congressional history, is to examine the 2012 attack in Libya that left four Americans dead. We've already had seven other committees do this, but House Republicans demanded an eighth.
Nearly three years after the deadly terrorism, however, the GOP-led panel is drifting, taking a keen interest in all kinds of other issues far from its mandate. The Associated Press reported last week that the GOP-led panel "has devolved from an investigation into the deaths of four Americans in Libya into a political fight over Hillary Rodham Clinton's emails and private computer server – a battle that is likely to stretch into the 2016 presidential election year."
And this week, the committee's focus has shifted once more, taking steps that Democrats believe are intended to undermine the debate over the international nuclear agreement with Iran [Update: see below].
Rep. Elijah Cummings (D-Md.) says the GOP-controlled House Select Committee on Benghazi is trying to undermine the Iran nuclear deal by scheduling a hearing at the same time Secretary of State Kerry is supposed to testify to the House.Kerry is scheduled to appear before the House Foreign Affairs Committee next Tuesday morning to discuss the merits of the nuclear agreement. Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz, who was involved in the negotiations, will also testify, as will Treasury Secretary Jack Lew.But the Benghazi panel wants Kerry's chief of staff, another major player in the talks, to testify before their panel on the same day.
"Next week -- on the same day Secretary Kerry will be testifying about the historic deal to prevent Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon -- Republicans are demanding that his chief of staff, who spent months working on these negotiations, drop everything and testify before the Benghazi Select Committee on the pace of document production," Cummings wrote this week. "This is either embarrassingly poor planning or a flimsy attempt by Republicans to scuttle the Iran deal. Either way, this is a preposterous abuse of authority."
Trump keeps third-party bid on the table
Donald Trump's comments about John McCain over the weekend made plenty of headlines, but there was something else the Republican presidential candidate said at the same forum that may have a lasting impact.
An attendee asked Trump on Saturday, "Would you go on record today saying that, if you can't get the Republican nomination, you will not run as a third-party candidate?" Trump shook his head and replied, "No. No, I won't go on record saying that."
It's a subject that comes up with surprising frequency. Two weeks ago, the candidate boasted, "I've had many, many people ask me about running as an independent. My sole focus is to run as a Republican. I'm a conservative Republican.... It's something I'm not thinking about right now."
Two days later, the topic was still on Trump's mind. "So many people want me to run as an independent -- so many people. I have been asked by -- you have no idea, everybody wants me to do it," he told the Washington Post.
And in a new interview with The Hill, Trump's interest in a third-party candidacy almost sounded like a threat.
Donald Trump says the chances that he will launch a third-party White House run will "absolutely" increase if the Republican National Committee is unfair to him during the 2016 primary season."The RNC has not been supportive. They were always supportive when I was a contributor. I was their fair-haired boy," the business mogul told The Hill in a 40-minute interview from his Manhattan office at Trump Tower on Wednesday. "The RNC has been, I think, very foolish."
He reportedly added, once again, that "so many people" want him to run an independent presidential bid. "I'll have to see how I'm being treated by the Republicans," Trump added. "Absolutely, if they're not fair, that would be a factor."
At this stage in the process, it's hard to say with confidence how serious to take rhetoric like this. Trump is no doubt aware of the consequences associated with splitting the far-right, which makes a third-party bid unlikely, but he also has an unquestionable thirst for attention -- and if his Republican campaign comes up short, an independent candidacy would guarantee months of time in the national spotlight, and quite possibly even a spot on the stage for the official presidential debates in the fall of 2016.
GOP's Planned Parenthood fight blocks bill for veterans
Late yesterday morning, Sen. Patty Murray (D-Wash.) turned to Twitter to deliver a message to Senate Republicans: "Don't take something that should be above politics -- our sacred duty to veterans -- and pull it down into the muck of petty politics."
It quickly became clear exactly what the Democratic leader was referring to -- and the degree to which GOP senators were inclined to ignore her suggestion. The Washington Post reported late yesterday:
The burgeoning controversy over Planned Parenthood's fetal-tissue practices may have claimed its first victim: a bipartisan bill to help wounded veterans have children.The Women Veterans and Families Health Services Act, a bill authored by Sen. Patty Murray (D-Wash.) that would require fertility treatment and counseling for "severely wounded, ill, or injured" military members or veterans, had been expected to proceed through the Senate Veterans Affairs Committee on Wednesday. But Murray said she has asked that the bill be pulled thanks to proposed amendments from Sen. Thom Tillis (R-N.C.) -- including one that would have, in Tillis's words, prevented the Department of Veterans Affairs from working with "organizations that take human aborted babies' organs and sell them."
Left with little choice, Murray had to pull her bill -- a measure that had been considered uncontroversial -- because of the Republicans' new-found interest in crusading against Planned Parenthood.
It was a discouraging setback for proponents of expanded veterans' benefits, but it was probably just the opening salvo in a much larger campaign. Politico reported overnight that some GOP lawmakers intend to connect Planned Parenthood to a pending highway bill, too:
Trump's third-party threat and other headlines
Trump threatens a third-party run. (The Hill)
Pres. Obama makes his first trip to his father's homeland as President. (AP)
President Obama's trip to Kenya sets off gay rights debate in Africa. (New York Times)
Details of Chattanooga shooting emerge: 3-5 minutes of terror. (The Tennessean)
Sheriff: Sandra Bland told Texas jailer of prior suicide attempt. (AP)
Ted Cruz's thoughts on Star Trek captains, Tony Stark, and Spider-Man. (New York Times)
Defense Secretary Ash Carter makes a surprise trip to Baghdad. (AP)
Want more of Rachel on Seth Myers last night? Here are their discussions of Donald Trump and of Bernie Sanders. (Late Night with Seth Myers' youtube page)
Wednesday's Mini-Report, 7.22.15
Today's edition of quick hits:
* South Carolina: "Dylann Roof, the man accused in the mass shooting last month at a historically black church in Charleston, South Carolina, was indicted Wednesday by a federal grand jury on 33 counts, including federal hate crime charges, Attorney General Loretta Lynch announced."
* An important detail: "A service member opened fire on the Chattanooga gunman after he crashed the gates of a military reserve center last week, an FBI investigator disclosed on Wednesday."
* Related news: "A Lawyer representing the uncle of Chattanooga gunman Muhammad Youssef Abdulazeez says his client has been questioned for five days by the FBI and Jordanian intelligence without access to a lawyer."
* Iran: "The Washington Post appealed to the United Nations on Wednesday to help secure the release of jailed reporter Jason Rezaian, accusing the Iranian government of flagrant human rights violations in a year of 'arbitrary and unlawful' detention of the veteran journalist, company officials said."
* Though nearly all recent polling shows Americans endorsing international nuclear diplomacy with Iran, a Pew Research Center poll found a plurality disapproving of the deal, with Republican taking their cues from party leaders and turning against the agreement.
* Afghanistan: "After suffering setbacks and heavy casualties at the hands of the Taliban in 2014, Afghan security forces came into this year with what Afghan and Western officials acknowledge were relatively modest goals: hang on till the end of the fighting season without major collapses."
* Keep expectations low: "Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) said Wednesday that he has 'some significant issues' with the 1,030-page highway bill that was unveiled by Republican leaders in the Senate on Tuesday."
Appeals court strikes down state abortion ban
Republican lawmakers in plenty of states have gone after reproductive rights in recent years, but in 2013, North Dakota lawmakers went much further than most. While the trend among conservative policymakers has been to impose abortion bans after 20 weeks of pregnancy, North Dakota passed a "fetal heartbeat" bill -- which banned abortions after just six weeks of pregnancy.
The measure, which would have required some women to terminate unwanted pregnancies before they even knew they're pregnant, was never actually implemented, since a district court judge said the law was unlikely to prevail in the courts.
And on the heels of North Dakota's defeat at the lower court, the state lost again at an appellate court today. Politico reported:
A federal appeals court has struck down the earliest state ban on abortion in the country, a move that could invite the Supreme Court to weigh in on one of the nation's most controversial social issues in the middle of a presidential election year.The 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals on Wednesday struck down a 2013 North Dakota law banning abortion once a fetal heartbeat is detected, or about six weeks into a pregnancy. The court said the North Dakota law violates Supreme Court precedent establishing that abortion is legal until a fetus is viable outside of the womb, usually about 24 weeks into pregnancy.
When North Dakota Gov. Jack Dalrymple (R) created the law two years ago, he acknowledged that legal fights were inevitable, but he saw the measure as "a legitimate attempt by a state legislature to discover the boundaries of Roe v. Wade."
In other words, North Dakota taxpayers were on the hook, financing an experiment of sorts -- the state would create a dubious law, knowing it would likely fail, as a political test. In the unlikely event that the law survived court challenges, policymakers would have successfully curtailed reproductive rights. If the law failed in the courts, North Dakota would have wasted time, money, and energy, which state Republicans were glad to invest in a culture-war cause.
The state can now appeal the case to the U.S. Supreme Court, but there's no guarantee the justices will want to hear the case, and even many on the right would prefer to see North Dakota quit now, rather than risk setting a new precedent in a case conservatives would almost certainly lose.
Guantanamo plan in its 'final stages'
Just last week, Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) complained that he's still waiting for a formal Obama administration plan to close the Guantanamo Bay prison. In May, the Republican senator, who's occasionally expressed lukewarm support for closing the detention facility, reportedly met with President Obama about the issue, and McCain says he told the president, "Okay, give me a plan. Give me a plan, okay?'
The senator added last week, "I have not heard a word since."
This was familiar rhetoric from McCain, though I've never been entirely clear on what kind of "plan" he's looking for. The plan seems to involve (1) transferring the prisoners; followed by (2) closing the prison.
But it turns out, there's a little more to it than that, and a more detailed blueprint is nearly complete. Time reported this afternoon:
White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest on Wednesday confirmed that a plan to "safely and responsibly close" the prison at Guantanamo Bay is currently being drafted by members of the Administration. Earnest said closing the prison is in the national security interest of the United States.
"The administration is, in fact, in the final stages of drafting a plan" to close the prison, Earnest told reporters. "It is a priority of the president. He believes it's in our national security interest to close the prison at Guantanamo Bay."
The timing of the remarks matters. The New York Times reported this morning that the administration's "fitful effort to shut down the prison is collapsing again," in part the result of ongoing Pentagon resistance.
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About The Rachel Maddow Show
Launched in 2008, “The Rachel Maddow Show” follows the machinations of policy making in America, from local political activism to international diplomacy. Rachel Maddow looks past the distractions of political theater and stunts and focuses on the legislative proposals and policies that shape American life - as well as the people making and influencing those policies and their ultimate outcome, intended or otherwise.
