Thursday, November 13, 2014

Fox News weighing decision on keeping Mike Huckabee


Ben Carson is off the Fox News payroll. Is Mike Huckabee next?
The former Arkansas governor, who won the Iowa caucuses in 2008, has been careful not to do anything that would shatter his status as a network contributor.
But some of his political moves have prompted a reevaluation.
Bill Shine, Fox’s executive vice president for programming, said in a statement:
“We are taking a serious look at Governor Huckabee’s recent activity in the political arena and are evaluating his current status. We plan on meeting with him when he returns from his trip overseas.”
The scrutiny was probably inevitable after Fox dropped Carson as a contributor on Friday. The trigger there was the Baltimore physician’s plan to run an hourlong infomercial on local stations as a prelude to a possible presidential run.
I addressed the development on Sunday’s “Media Buzz”: “This was a smart move by Fox. Because a guy who is more or less running for president shouldn't be on a network payroll. Which means Fox also faces a decision about former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee who is openly weighing a White House run as well.”
That got plenty of pickup, but the day of reckoning was inevitable. Huckabee, who hosts a Saturday night program, went through a similar dance in the 2012 cycle before deciding to stick with Fox rather than mounting a second presidential campaign.
The Washington Post reported today that Huckabee “is reconnecting with activists and enlisting staff to position himself in a growing field of potential Republican presidential candidates.” In fact, the Baptist preacher is leading a group of more than 100 pastors and Republican insiders from early primary states on an overseas jaunt to such locations as Poland and Britain.
Huckabee has also formed a nonprofit political advocacy group, America Takes Action.
Is he on the verge of running? “His heart is into it,” Huckabee’s daughter Sarah told the Post.
Asked about his Fox connection, Huckabee told the paper: “I have to be very careful about this” because he has “obligations in broadcasting.” He added that “I am not doing anything official at this point.”
Fox is obviously a great platform for a potential Republican contender. In an interview last week, Bill O’Reilly told Huckabee: “You must be happy because you, Paul, Rand Paul and Jeb Bush are all about 11 percent in the Real Clear political who Republicans would like to see run. That's taking Mitt Romney out of the equation. If Romney gets in, then he becomes the favorite. So, you know, it looks to me like you have a decent shot if you want to go to be president.”
Huckabee responded: “Well, I think it's quite a ways away to make that decision, but, you know, it's kind of comforting to know that at least there are 11 percent of the people that would like it.”
In 2011, Fox cut ties with two contributors, Newt Gingrich and Rick Santorum, as they took steps to jump into the GOP primaries. Some network insiders said then that they were uncomfortable with Huckabee’s role. And he was conscious of the situation, saying: "If I run, I walk away from a pretty good income.”
The issue is a familiar one in cable news, going back to the days when Pat Buchanan kept returning to CNN after his presidential campaigns.
The Post says Huckabee has been sounding out potential consultants, including his former campaign manager Chip Saltsman. “According to Huckabee’s associates, the Fox News show may not be a runaway national success, but it has been useful to Huckabee’s political brand, keeping him in front of Republican primary voters but not turning him into a political celebrity whose every move draws attention.”
But now it may be drawing so much attention that both sides have to make a decision.

Source: Obama to announce 10-point immigration plan via exec action as early as next week


EXCLUSIVE: President Obama is planning to unveil a 10-part plan for overhauling U.S. immigration policy via executive action -- including suspending deportations for millions -- as early as next Friday, a source close to the White House told Fox News. 
The president's plans were contained in a draft proposal from a U.S. government agency. The source said the plan could be announced as early as Nov. 21, though the date might slip a few days pending final White House approval. 
Obama was briefed at the White House by Homeland Security officials before leaving on his Asia-Pacific trip last week, Fox News has learned. 
The plan contains 10 initiatives than span everything from boosting border security to improving pay for immigration officers. 
But the most controversial pertain to the millions who could get a deportation reprieve under what is known as "deferred action." 
The plan calls for expanding deferred action for illegal immigrants who came to the U.S. as children -- but also for the parents of U.S. citizens and legal permanent residents. 
The latter could allow upwards of 4.5 million illegal immigrant adults with U.S.-born children to stay, according to estimates. 
Critics in the Senate say those who receive deferred action, according to U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, receive work authorization in the United States, Social Security numbers and government-issued IDs.
Another portion that is sure to cause consternation among anti-"amnesty" lawmakers is a plan to expand deferred action for young people. In June 2012, Obama created such a program for illegal immigrants who came to the U.S. as children, entered before June 2007 and were under 31 as of June 2012. The change would expand that to cover anyone who entered before they were 16, and change the cut-off from June 2007 to Jan. 1, 2010. This is estimated to make nearly 300,000 illegal immigrants eligible. 
One of the architects for the president's planned executive actions at DHS is Esther Olavarria, the late Sen. Ted Kennedy's former top immigration lawyer. 
Under the changes, Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers also would see a pay raise in order to "increase morale" within the ICE workforce. 
DHS also is planning to "promote" the new naturalization process by giving a 50 percent discount on the first 10,000 applicants who come forward, with the exception of those who have income levels above 200 percent of the poverty level. 
Tech jobs though a State Department immigrant visa program would offer another half-million immigrants a path to citizenship. This would include their spouses as well. 
The other measures include calls to revise removal priorities to target serious criminals for deportation and end the program known as "Secure Communities" and start a new program. 
The planning comes as immigrant advocates urge Obama to act. As lawmakers returned for a lame-duck session, Democrats in Congress on Wednesday implored Obama to take executive action. 
"We're begging the president. Go big. These [illegal immigrants] are a plus to our nation. Mr. President, please. You said you were going to do something. Do it. Act now," said Rep. Juan Vargas, D-Calif. 
House Democratic Whip Steny Hoyer said: "I join with my colleagues in urging the president to take action. What he needs to do is give immediate relief to families who are being wrenched apart and living in fear." 
Angela Maria Kelley, vice president for immigration policy at the Center for American Progress, touted deferred action as a "tried and true component of immigration policy used by 11 presidents, 39 times in the last 60 years." 
She said for many undocumented immigration who have been here for years, "there is no line for people to get into." 
Obama has vowed to act in the absence of congressional action and has claimed that congressional action could still supersede his executive steps. 
In a recent op-ed in Politico, Sen. Jeff Sessions, R-Ala., said Congress would stop Obama from taking executive action by adding language explicitly barring money from being used for that purpose. "Congress has the power of the purse. The President cannot spend a dime unless Congress appropriates it," Sessions wrote. He also pointed out that similar language in the past has prevented the president from closing the Guantanamo Bay prison camp.

Yet another video shows ObamaCare architect disparaging voter intelligence


Yet another video has surfaced of ObamaCare architect Jonathan Gruber crediting the passage of the health care bill in part to American voters’ lack of intelligence.
The Daily Caller posted the third video Wednesday of the MIT professor, this time speaking at the University of Rhode Island in 2012.
Gruber was discussing the law’s so-called "Cadillac tax,” which he said was helped along by “hero” then-Sen. John Kerry. The “Cadillac tax” mandates that insurance companies be taxed rather than policy holders. He said that taxing individuals would have been “politically impossible,” but taxing the companies worked because Americans didn't understand the difference.
“So basically it's the same thing,” he said. “We just tax the insurance companies, they pass on higher prices that offsets the tax break we get, it ends up being the same thing. It's a very clever, you know, basic exploitation of the lack of economic understanding of the American voter.”
The new video follows a second tape played on Fox News' "The Kelly File” Tuesday that showed Gruber speaking on a similar topic at an October 2013 event at Washington University in St. Louis.
Referring to the "Cadillac tax,” he said: "They proposed it and that passed, because the American people are too stupid to understand the difference."
This was similar to remarks he made at a separate event around the same time in 2013. In a clip of that event, Gruber said the "lack of transparency" in the way the law was crafted was critical. "Basically, call it the stupidity of the American voter or whatever, but basically that was really, really critical for the thing to pass," he said.
After the first tape surfaced -- prompting Republican outrage -- Gruber went on MSNBC to express regret. On Tuesday, he said: "I was speaking off the cuff and I basically spoke inappropriately, and I regret having made those comments."
But after Fox News played the second tape, GOP lawmakers said it proves what they've been saying all along.
"It confirms people's greatest fear about the government," Sen. John Barrasso, R-Wyo., told Fox News on Wednesday. "Remember, it was Nancy Pelosi who said first you have to pass it before you get to find out what's in it."
As Congress returns for a lame-duck session, on the heels of midterm elections where Republicans won control of the Senate, GOP leaders say they will try once again next year to repeal the law -- or least change its most controversial provisions.

Keystone pipeline re-emerges as political football as Landrieu, GOP rival call for vote



The lame-duck Congress has been in session a matter of hours, and the Keystone pipeline already is a political football.
Sen. Mary Landrieu, D-La., facing a tough runoff election next month, on Wednesday called for a vote on a bill approving the long-delayed project -- in an apparent bid to flex her clout on Capitol Hill. The Senate approved her request and teed up a vote for next Tuesday.
 Republicans responded swiftly to Landrieu's maneuvering, scheduling a vote in the House on Thursday on an identical bill sponsored by Rep. Bill Cassidy.
The back-and-forth amounts to a continuation of their bitter Senate campaign, with one of the most controversial energy projects in America caught in the middle. The TransCanada-built pipeline, which would cross over an aquifer in Nebraska, has been held up for six years by environmental and other concerns. 
White House spokesman Josh Earnest, traveling with President Obama in Burma, told reporters that the president takes a "dim view" of legislative efforts to force action on the project. Earnest stopped short of threatening a veto, but reiterated Obama's preference for evaluating the pipeline through a long-stalled State Department review. Obama has repeatedly ordered such reviews under pressure from environmental groups, who say the project would contribute to climate change. 
Landrieu, who is thought to be trailing Cassidy ahead of their Dec. 6 runoff election, wants to deliver a win for the energy industry by pushing Keystone. The measure was one she co-sponsored with Sen. John Hoeven, R-N.D., back in May. 
“We can pass the Keystone pipeline and answer the frustrations of the American people,” she said. “So they could rest next and say, oh my gosh the senators of the United States of America have ears and they have brains and they have hearts and they heard what we said and we can do this.” 
But the timing immediately raised Republican suspicions. 
Cassidy noted that the House has passed pro-Keystone legislation eight times, and "the Senate did not consider any of the eight." After Landrieu called for a vote, Cassidy and GOP leaders in the House said they would vote Thursday on a Cassidy-authored Keystone bill. 
"I hope the Senate and the president do the right thing and pass this legislation creating thousands of jobs," Cassidy said in a statement. "After six years, it’s time to build."
The legislative tug-of-war came a day after aides first said that Senate Democrats were considering bringing the pipeline to a vote in order to boost Landrieu ahead of the runoff election. (The two rivals are heading to a runoff because neither got more than 50 percent of the vote last week.) The pipeline is a popular project in oil industry-heavy Louisiana, and Landrieu has touted her support of the pipeline and her tenure as chairwoman of the Senate energy committee in her campaign.
On the Senate floor on Wednesday, Landrieu insisted she was not trying to gain political points, and said she didn’t even care if her name stayed on the bill. 
“I didn’t come here to see my name in lights,” she said. “I came to fight for jobs for my state.”
She also seemed to take credit for Cassidy's House bill, calling it "identical" to the legislation she co-sponsored.
However, Cassidy told Fox News' Greta Van Susteren that his rival's assertion that politics were not involved was obviously untrue. 
"I have to smile when Sen. Landrieu says politics are not involved," he said on "On the Record." "Clearly (Senate Majority Leader Harry) Reid did not care about the 40,000 jobs that would be created for families which are struggling, but he does care about Sen. Landrieu’s job. So finally he is going to take the bill up. I don’t think the president cares about those 40,000 people."
Senate Republicans and several moderate Democrats have pushed for the project to be approved for years, and backers of the project got a major win after Republicans took control of the Senate. Supporters say the construction of the pipeline would create tens of thousands of jobs. 
Landrieu said in an evening press conference that she does not have a commitment from Obama that he would sign the bill should it reach his desk, but she is "hopeful."
"We believe the bill we drafted could receive support in the House of Representatives and get the president's signature," she said.
Landrieu is facing a tough battle to keep her job after nearly 20 years in office. A Real Clear Politics average of recent polls has the senator trailing her rival by nearly 5 points ahead of the election on Dec. 6.

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