Monday, November 17, 2014

Cotton hints at specific GOP spending bill tactic to counter Obama executive action


Arkansas Sen.-elect Tom Cotton hinted on Sunday at exactly what he and fellow Republicans might do in response to President Obama's vow to use executive action on immigration reform: selectively block the president's spending like the GOP did on the Guantanamo Bay prison issue.
Cotton, a House member recently elected to the Senate, told “Fox News Sunday” that the GOP-controlled lower chamber could pass a spending bill that limits the president’s ability to spend on Social Security cards for illegal immigrants, who may be granted some type of U.S. residency status through executive action.
Cotton compared the strategy to House Republicans passing a Defense spending bill in June that included a provision that barred funding for transferring detainees in the U.S. prison in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, established after the 9/11 terror attacks.
Republicans have opposed Obama’s plan to shutter the facility in part by sending detainees to federal prisons on American soil.
Congressional Republicans have been considering several strategies should Obama proceed before the new year with executive action, as he has vowed to do several times in the past couple of weeks.
Among the most drastic is to submit a spending bill that Obama would assuredly veto, which would temporarily shut down parts of the federal government after Dec. 11.
Cotton and Oklahoma Sen.-elect James Lankford, another GOP House member, each told Fox News on Sunday that they are not pushing for a shutdown, which is largely unpopular with Americans.
“I don’t think anybody wants to shut down government,” Cotton said.
Lankford said: “We’re not pursing some government shutdown.”
The president is expected, by as early as next week, to announce executive action on U.S. immigration law that would protect roughly 5 million illegal immigrants from deportation, change federal law-enforcement programs and expand business visas for non-citizens.
Among the other strategies Republicans are pushing are a temporary spending bill into next year when they control the Senate, suing the president to overturn his action, passing a stand-alone bill to try to stop him and House Republicans writing their own immigration bill to show they are serious about acting and pre-empt Obama.
The Democrat-controlled Senate last year passed bipartisan, comprehensive immigration-reform legislation.
The Defense spending bill also imposed a one-year moratorium on moving detainees to a foreign country, a sharp response to Obama’s decision to trade five Taliban leaders who had been held at Guantanamo Bay for more than a decade for Army Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl, a captive for five years in Afghanistan.
Republicans said Obama broke the law by failing to notify Congress at least 30 days before the swap and increased the terrorism risk to the United States with the exchange.
“President Obama’s recent exchange of five high-level terrorists without notifying Congress illustrates his blatant disregard for its role as a co-equal branch of government,” Cotton said at the time.

Hagel says US speeding up training of Iraqi forces to fight ISIS


Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel said Sunday that the U.S. military is speeding up its training and advising of Iraqi forces who are fighting the Islamic State militants after a recommendation from the commander of U.S. Central Command.
Hagel's announcement came the same day the White House confirmed a third American, aid worker and former Army Ranger Peter Kassig, had been beheaded by members of the militant group.
The Pentagon chief spoke to reporters after observing Army training in California's Mojave Desert on Sunday. He said U.S. special operations troops in Iraq's western Anbar province are getting an early start on the train-and-advise effort.
Hagel said the effort began a few days ago but did not provide any other details.
According to plans laid out last week, the U.S. expects to train nine Iraqi security forces brigades and three Kurdish Peshmerga brigades. Hagel said the speed-up was recommended by Gen. Lloyd Austin, the commander of U.S. Central Command.
Hagel's spokesman, Navy Rear Adm. John Kirby, said later that Austin believes getting an early start on training Iraqi forces in Anbar may prompt other countries with a stake in the fight against Islamic State to commit trainers to Iraq.
Approaching the problem of ill-trained and poorly motivated Iraqi soldiers as a coalition rather than as a unilateral U.S. undertaking is a key pillar of U.S. strategy. Partnership is seen as a way of undermining the ideological appeal of Islamic State.
Kirby said a number of countries have made verbal commitments to provide trainers, but he said he could not identify them because they have yet to publicly announce their intended contributions.
On Thursday, Hagel told Congress that the U.S. and coalition forces are making progress in the fight against the militant group, also known as ISIS of ISIL, but the American people must prepare for a long and difficult struggle.
"ISIL's advance in parts of Iraq has stalled, and in some cases been reversed, by Iraqi, Kurdish, and tribal forces supported by U.S. and coalition airstrikes," Hagel said in testimony to the House Armed Services Committee. "But ISIL continues to represent a serious threat to American interests, our allies, and the Middle East ... and wields influence over a broad swath of territory in western and northern Iraq and eastern Syria."
The testimony of Hagel and Army Gen. Martin Dempsey, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, came just days after President Barack Obama asked Congress for a new $5.6 billion plan to expand the U.S. mission in Iraq and send up to 1,500 more American troops to the war-torn nation.
Kassig is the fifth Western hostage killed by ISIS in less than three months, and the third American. Previous Western beheading victims were American journalists James Foley and Steven Sotloff, as well as Britons David Haines, a former Royal Air Force engineer, and Alan Henning, a taxi driver from northwest England. The group is also holding British photojournalist John Cantlie, who has appeared in several other videos released by the group functioning as a de facto spokesman.
The group has declared a self-styled Islamic caliphate in areas under its control, which it governs according to its violent interpretation of Shariah law, including massacring rebellious tribes and selling women and children of religious minorities into slavery.
The group's militants have also beheaded and shot dead hundreds of captives, mostly Syrian and Iraqi soldiers, during its sweep across the two countries, and has celebrated its mass killings in extremely graphic videos.
The Islamic State group has its roots in Al Qaeda's Iraqi affiliate but was expelled from the global terror network over its brutal tactics and refusal to obey orders to confine its activities to Iraq. It became even more extreme amid the bloody civil war in neighboring Syria and grew strong enough to launch a lightning offensive across Iraq.
Syria's war began as an uprising against President Bashar Assad. Activists say that conflict has killed more than 200,000 people.

States hurry to fix healthcare exchange websites in new enrollment period


Several states whose health exchange websites failed their first test during last year's inaugural ObamaCare open enrollment period have adopted different approaches for the second round, which began Saturday.
Some, like Oregon and Nevada, folded and decided to go with the federal exchange. Others, like Maryland and Massachusetts, fired their technology contractors and are hoping for better results this time.
It hasn't been cheap.
The original cost of Massachusetts' website was estimated at $174 million. That has jumped to $254 million. When launched, the website, designed by the same contractor that worked on the troubled Healthcare.gov, was incompatible with some browsers and was riddled with error messages and navigational problems. The problems were so bad, federal officials gave the state three extra months to meet the requirements of the Affordable Care Act. Gov. Deval Patrick issued a public apology and health care officials were forced to adopt a series of manual workarounds, creating a backlog of more than 50,000 paper applications.
Patrick told the Associated Press that there won't be a repeat of the disastrous roll-out this time around, saying the state has "been testing and retesting" the revamped website.
Minnesota's state-run exchange, MNsure, wasn't ready for prime time when it launched in 2013. Some of the technical glitches that frustrated consumers remained unresolved by the time the open enrollment period closed. MNsure officials are promising a better experience this time -- with more call center workers and a website that's 75 percent faster. But they also acknowledge the system won't be perfect.
California's exchange also was ill-prepared to handle the high volume of calls, triggering long wait times at help centers and forcing the state to extend open enrollment for two weeks beyond the original March 31 deadline.
"It swamped us," said Covered California Executive Director Peter Lee, promising increased website capacity and extra call center staff.
Maryland's website crashed on the day it opened last year. The state decided there were too many bugs to completely fix Maryland's original system for the new enrollment period, and the board overseeing the exchange fired its prime information technology contractor and is transitioning to a new system with technology used by Connecticut.
The problems at Washington state's health care exchange occurred after people signed up for insurance. At least 24,000 people who obtained private insurance couldn't use that coverage when they went to the doctor because of problems crediting payments and sending those dollars on to insurance companies.  It took about nine months to fix those problems.
In Vermont, officials announced in August they were scaling back their relationship with the prime contractor on the state's exchange, CGI, reducing the company's role from developing and hosting the Vermont Health Connect site to just hosting it.
Development of the site was switched to another contractor, Optum, the same health care technology firm retained by Massachusetts to revamp its website after it also cut ties with CGI.
Other states fared better.
Colorado's exchange experienced minimal disruptions and the state was able to sign up about 148,000 people.
Kentucky also had a successful rollout, signing up more than 421,000 people for health insurance during the first round of open enrollment. Obama even pointed to Kentucky as an example of the success of his health care law during his State of the Union address this year.
The states were so successful that when Massachusetts was casting around for solutions to its website troubles, it looked to Kentucky and Colorado for what it called "a proven, off-the-shelf solution."
Connecticut was also able to claim bragging rights: After the launch of its marketplace, Access Health CT, officials there predicted the state's uninsured rate would drop to from 7.9 percent to 6.5 percent. Instead it fell to 4 percent.
"We had an office pool going on about what this percentage was going to look like," said Access Health CT CEO Kevin Counihan. "No one expected we'd be down to 4 percent."
In Massachusetts, the experience of finding insurance through the website is beginning to turn around for some.
Christopher Doty lost his insurance when he lost his job in marketing last month. The 32-year-old Boston resident, who has asthma and needs medicine on a regular basis, said he was quickly able to sign up for insurance through MassHealth, the state's Medicaid program.
"Losing my job and knowing I needed some kind of health insurance at first was super-stressful," Doty said. "I basically had coverage within a couple of days."
On Sunday, Health and Human Services Secretary Sylvia M. Burwell told NBC's "Meet the Press" that 100,000 people had submitted new applications this weekend via the federal website serving 37 states. That's a big difference from last year, when only a handful of customers managed to enroll on the first day.
Burwell also said that a half-million people who already have coverage through the program were able to log into their accounts this time.
There were reports Saturday that returning customers had problems, but some of that may have been confusion trying to remember user names and passwords.
Patrick said one way to avoid future problems is heightened vigilance.
"Outsourcing and privatizing -- this is not the solution." Patrick said. "The solution is to make sure that there's very close oversight even when we use an outside vendor."

Democrat-led Senate set to finally vote this week on Keystone, in odd turn of political events


The Democrat-controlled Senate is expected to take a long-awaited vote Tuesday on approving the Keystone XL oil pipeline -- in an unexpected and politically-charged turn of events for legislation that has languished in the upper chamber for roughly six years.
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid will allow the vote in part to give Louisiana Democratic Sen. Mary Landrieu an opportunity to vote “yea” and perhaps help her win her runoff election next month with Republican challenger Rep. Bill Cassidy.
However, Landrieu’s political future and the fate of the bill remain highly uncertain.
Most political analysts think Landrieu’s effort to win a fourth term by trying to show voters in oil-rich Louisiana how much she supports Keystone is a lost cause, with reports of Washington Democrats pulling out and polls showing Cassidy ahead by double digits.
South Dakota GOP Sen. John Thune said on “Fox News Sunday” the vote will be a “cynical attempt to save a Senate seat in Louisiana," considering Reid has blocked the vote for years.
President Obama appears to be giving every indication that he will veto the bill, repeatedly saying the only way the $8 billion pipeline can be approved is after the completion of a long-stalled State Department review. There is also the pending outcome of a legal challenge to the pipeline's route through Nebraska.
And during his recent trip to Australia for an economic summit Obama said: “I have to constantly push back against this idea that somehow the Keystone pipeline is either this massive jobs bill for the United States or is somehow lowering gas prices.”
Rhode Island Democratic Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse told “Fox News Sunday” that he hopes Obama will veto the bill, considering the oil is “the filthiest fuel on the planet.”
Whitehouse said he thinks the new Senate Republican majority “has long despised and denigrated this president and if they can roll him I think they would like to.”
He also argued that Senate Republicans twice passed on voting on a Democrat-sponsored Keystone bill.
The analysts think the 100-member Senate is now one vote shy of the 60 needed for passing Keystone. (They have the 59 votes as 14 Democrats and all 45 Republicans.)
The GOP-controlled House on Friday passed legislation, sponsored by Cassidy, to move forward with Keystone, which would carry crude oil from Canada and several U.S. states to Midwest and Gulf Coast refineries.
However, neither chamber appears to have the two-thirds majority to override a presidential veto.
Completion of the pipeline, supporters say, will create hundreds of new jobs and help the U.S. become less dependent on foreign oil.
Critics, like Whitehouse, say the oil from Canada is extremely dirty and unearthing it would result in the release of high amounts of greenhouse gases. They also say the jobs are temporary.
Environmentalists have framed the issue as a significant test of Obama's commitment to addressing climate change.
The State Department said in a Jan. 31 report that the 1,179-mile project would not significantly boost carbon emissions because the oil was likely to find its way to market by other means. It added that transporting it by rail or truck would cause greater environmental problems than if the pipeline were built.
The debate in Congress is centered on the pipeline's proposed northern leg, which would run from Alberta, Canada, through Montana and South Dakota to Nebraska, where it would connect with existing pipelines to carry more than 800,000 barrels of crude oil a day.
The Gulf Coast segment of the project began carrying oil earlier this year from the northern Oklahoma town of Cushing. A study commissioned by the Consumer Energy Alliance shows the Gulf Coast project, which began in 2012 and became operational in January, pumped $2.1 billion into Oklahoma's economy, including more than $1 billion in wages and $72 million in total taxes.
The bill passing the House marked the ninth time the lower chamber has voted in favor of speeding up the pipeline's construction.
Landrieu pushed the Senate to hold its upcoming vote on the measure.
In a recent call with reporters from Louisiana, where she was campaigning, Landrieu called herself the "sparkplug" to get the Keystone bill through Congress.
The House bill is identical to one introduced by Sen. John Hoeven, R-N.D., and Landrieu in May.
Landrieu has said she doesn’t know Obama's plans but that he “most certainly understands my position" and that at least 15 other Senate Democrats “really want to build the Keystone pipeline."
If the bill fails to pass the Senate next week, Hoeven said he would reintroduce it next year when Republicans will control the chamber.
That would make it one of many showdowns expected with Obama over energy and environmental policy after Republicans take full control of Congress in January.
House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, recently said it was time for Obama to listen to the American people, especially after Republican gains in last week's midterm elections, and sign the bill.
"The president doesn't have any more elections to win, and he has no other excuse for standing in the way," Boehner said.

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