Spending Cartoon

Congress returns to tight deadlines, key votes on Iran deal, Planned Parenthood

Congress returns Tuesday to face several key decisions and short-term deadlines -- including votes on the Iran nuclear deal and a spending bill that if connected to efforts to defund Planned Parenthood creates the potential for another government shutdown.
The House and Senate could vote as early as this week on the Iran deal.
Both GOP-controlled chambers are expected to pass motions of disapproval for the deal. But President Obama is expected to veto the motions and ultimately complete his historic foreign policy deal because neither chamber has the two-thirds majority to override the presidential veto.
Republicans argue the deal, in which Iran will curtail its nuclear development program in exchange for the easing of billions of dollars worth of economic sanctions, gives too many concessions to the rogue nation.
GOP leaders are playing down talk of a government shutdown that's being driven by conservative lawmakers determined to use the spending legislation to strip funds from Planned Parenthood.
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, in fact, suggested last week that such an effort is pointless because Obama would reject any such bill.
“The way you make a law in this country (is) the Congress has to pass it, and the president has to sign it,” McConnell told WYMT-TV, in his home state.
“The president's made it very clear he's not going to sign any bill that includes defunding of Planned Parenthood -- so that's another issue that awaits a new president hopefully with a different point of view.”
The president must sign a stopgap spending bill by Sept. 30 to keep the federal government fully operational.
Still, Texas GOP Sen. Ted Cruz, a 2016 presidential candidate and one of Congress’ most conservative members, appears to be going ahead with a defunding effort, asking McConnell not to schedule a vote on the issue.
Republicans were blamed for the Cruz-led partial shutdown in 2013 over ObamaCare, but neither party wants to risk being blamed for another one in a presidential election year.
Planned Parenthood is under intense scrutiny after secretly recorded videos raised uncomfortable questions about its practices in procuring research tissue from aborted fetuses.
The first days for Congress, after a roughly eight-week summer break, also are expected to include efforts to increase the government's borrowing authority and avoid a first-ever federal default.
Members also will try to reach a deal on a long-sought highway bill, consider extending roughly 50 tax breaks, pass a defense policy bill that Obama has threatened to veto and renew the Federal Aviation Administration's authority to spend money.
House GOP leaders are expected to try to strip Planned Parenthood of its federal funding without creating the possibility of a shutdown, as Pope Francis plans to speak on Capitol Hill on Sept. 24.
They have been considering separate legislation this month cutting Planned Parenthood's funds, a GOP aide and a lobbyist said.
The leaders hope such a bill, which would advance free of a filibuster threat by Senate Democrats, would satisfy Planned Parenthood's opponents and free up the temporary government funding bill.
Obama would almost certain veto that bill, too. But it would allow Republicans to vote for the changes and make a case for electing a GOP president to institute them.
Facing demands for negotiations to lift domestic agency budgets hit by the return of automatic spending cuts, known as sequester, McConnell has signaled that he is open to talks on a deal that would pair increases for domestic programs with budget relief for the Pentagon.
To get to an agreement, however, Republicans must strike a deal with Obama and his Democratic allies over companion spending cuts elsewhere in the budget to defray the cost of new spending for the Pentagon and domestic programs.
There's a limited pool of such offsets, at least those with an acceptable level of political pain, and considerable competition over what to spend them on.
For instance, McConnell helped assemble a 10-year, $47 billion offsets package to pay for a Senate bill with small increases for highway and transit programs. Democrats are eyeing the same set of cuts to pay for boosting domestic agencies.
No one is underestimating the difficulty in reaching an agreement.
Speculation is growing that Republicans will try to advance a bill that would keep most federal agencies operating at current budget levels, with only a few changes for the most pressing programs. The White House has pledged to block that idea.
One potential glimmer of hope for the talks is that earlier this year Republicans reversed a position they held in talks two years ago and declared that additional defense spending doesn't require companion spending cuts.
Congress also needs to raise the government's $18.1 trillion borrowing cap by mid-November or early December, an uncomfortable prospect for GOP leaders already facing potshots from Tea Party purists and Republican presidential candidates as next year's nomination contests loom.

Hundreds of police officers attend funeral for slain Illinois lieutenant

ANTIOCH, Ill. –  Several hundred police officers from around the country attended a funeral Monday for a suburban Chicago lieutenant shot and killed last week, and residents of the area turned out by the thousands to watch the hearse go by.
Charles Joseph Gliniewicz, who was 52 and on the cusp of retirement after more than 30 years with the Fox Lake Police Department, was shot and killed shortly after he radioed in that he was chasing three suspicious men on foot.
His more than mile-long funeral procession wound through small-town Fox Lake and lakeside forests that were the focus of a manhunt for the still at-large suspects. Fox Lake is a close-knit village of around 10,000 people and located about 50 miles north of Chicago.
Many of those looking on from the roadside applauded as the procession went by. Blue ribbons — a mark of respect for police — were tied to trees along the way. Pictures of the officer were placed along the route. And one person held a up a sign that read, "You will never be forgotten."
Gliniewicz's wife, Mel, wore a police badge on a necklace at funeral services earlier at a high school auditorium in Antioch, her husband's hometown not far from Fox Lake. Mourners walked by his flag-draped coffin, many hugging his wife and their four sons.
Fox Lake's recently retired police chief recalled Gliniewicz's fondness for the phrase "embrace the suck," about dealing with difficult tasks. "Now we're doing it today," Michael Behan told the packed auditorium about Gliniewicz's funeral.
While most people run from danger, Gliniewicz ran toward it, Joliet Police Officer Rachel Smithberg said.
"Every day he put on his uniform and said, 'Send me,'" she said, a few feet away from Gliniewicz's open casket.
Gliniewicz, who also served in the U.S. Army, told dispatchers last Tuesday that three men ran into a swampy area and requested a second unit. He died from a gunshot wound shortly after backup officers found him about 50 yards from his squad car.
Attendees at the service included Illinois Gov. Bruce Rauner and his wife, Diana, both of whom also hugged Gliniewicz's wife and kids.
On a stage next to the coffin was a policeman's uniform and medals pinned to it. Part of the display included a statue of a soldier, standing at attention and clutching a rifle.
Bagpipers performed as pallbearers placed the casket in the hearse at the start of the 18-mile procession to Fox Lake and then back to Antioch, where Gliniewicz was to be buried later Monday at Antioch's Hillside East Cemetery.

Military selects rarely used charge for Bergdahl case

Military prosecutors have reached into a section of military law seldom used since World War II in the politically fraught case against Army Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl, the soldier held prisoner for years by the Taliban after leaving his post in Afghanistan.
Observers wondered for months if Bergdahl would be charged with desertion after the deal brokered by the U.S. to bring him home. He was — but he was also charged with misbehavior before the enemy, a much rarer offense that carries a stiffer potential penalty in this case.
"I've never seen it charged," Walter Huffman, a retired major general who served as the Army's top lawyer, said of the misbehavior charge. "It's not something you find in common everyday practice in the military."

"I've never seen it charged."
- Walter Huffman, a retired major general

Bergdahl could face a life sentence if convicted of the charge, which accuses him of endangering fellow soldiers when he "left without authority; and wrongfully caused search and recovery operations."
Huffman and others say the misbehavior charge allows authorities to allege that Bergdahl not only left his unit with one less soldier, but that his deliberate action put soldiers who searched for him in harm's way. The Pentagon has said there is no evidence anyone died searching for Bergdahl.
"You're able to say that what he did had a particular impact or put particular people at risk. It is less generic than just quitting," said Lawrence Morris, a retired Army colonel who served as the branch's top prosecutor and top public defender.
The Obama administration has been criticized both for agreeing to release five Taliban operatives from the Guantanamo Bay prison and for heralding Bergdahl's return to the U.S. with an announcement in the White House Rose Garden. The administration stood by the way it secured his release even after the charges were announced.
The military has scheduled an initial court appearance known as an Article 32 hearing for Bergdahl on Sept. 17 at Fort Sam Houston, Texas. The proceeding is similar to a civilian grand jury, and afterward the case could be referred to a court-martial and go to trial.
Misbehavior before the enemy was used hundreds of times during World War II, but scholars say its use appears to have dwindled in conflicts since then. Misbehavior before the enemy cases were tried at least 494 times for soldiers in Europe between 1942 and 1945, according to a Military Law Review article.
Legal databases and media accounts turn up only a few misbehavior cases since 2001 when fighting began in Afghanistan, followed by Iraq less than two years later. By contrast, statistics show the U.S. Army prosecuted about 1,900 desertion cases between 2001 and the end of 2014.
The misbehavior charge is included in Article 99 of the military justice code, which is best known for its use to prosecute cases of cowardice. However, Article 99 encompasses nine different offenses including several not necessarily motivated by cowardice, such as causing a false alarm or endangering one's unit — the charge Bergdahl faces.
The complexity of Article 99 may be one reason it's not frequently used, said Morris, who published a book on the military justice system.
"It is of course more complicated than the desertion charge, not as well understood, a higher burden on the government to prove," he said.
Huffman, now a law professor at Texas Tech University, said another reason may be that different parts of military law already deal with similar misconduct, including disobeying orders and avoiding duty.
Recent prosecutions under the misbehavior charge include a Marine lance corporal who pleaded guilty after refusing to provide security for a convoy leaving base in Iraq in 2004. A soldier in Iraq was charged with cowardice in 2003 under Article 99 after he saw a mangled body and sought counseling, but the charges were later dropped.
The specification that Bergdahl faces appears in the 1971 case of an Army captain accused of endangering a base in Vietnam by disobeying an order to establish an ambush position. The captain was found guilty of other charges including dereliction of duty.
Another case cited in a 1955 military law journal says an Army corporal was convicted under Article 99 of endangering his unit in Korea by getting drunk on duty. The article says he "became so drunk that it took the tank company commander thirty minutes to arouse him."
For Bergdahl, the Article 99 offense allows the prosecutors to seek a stiffer penalty than the desertion charge, which in this case carries a maximum sentence of five years in prison.
Bergdahl's attorney, Eugene Fidell, has argued his client is being charged twice for the same action, saying in a previous television interview that "it's unfortunate that someone got creative in drafting the charge sheet and figured out two ways to charge the same thing."
The scholars say that's a valid issue for Fidell to bring up in court, but it may not sway military authorities.
"The question is: Is it a piling on?" said Jeffrey K. Walker, a St. John's University law professor, retired Air Force officer and former military lawyer. "It does almost look like you're trying to get two bites at the same apple."

Hungary Prime Minister calls on Germany to stop taking refugees

Hungary's prime minister called on Germany late Monday to close its doors to thousands of refugees from the Middle East, Africa, and Asia who have poured into Eastern Europe in an effort to reach more prosperous nations.
Viktor Orban warned in an interview with Austrian television that millions of refugees would descend upon the continent if what he called Germany's "open door" policy continued. He also claimed that many who had passed through his country via the so-called "Balkan Corridor" were not in dire straits, but rather imrefugees attracted by Germany's generous benefit programs. For that reason, Orban warned, the refugee surge risked placing an intolerable financial burden on members of the 28-nation E.U.
"As long as Europe cannot protect its external borders it makes no sense to discuss the fate of those flowing in," Orban said.
Germany, with the largest economy in Europe, is expecting to take in 800,000 refugees in 2015, more than four times last year's total. An estimated 20,000 refugees entered Germany via Hungary by train, bus, and on foot this past weekend alone.
"I am happy that Germany has become a country that many people outside of Germany now associate with hope," Merkel told a Berlin news conference Monday. But as she has done before, the German leader pushed other E.U. nations to accept refugee quotas for those still trying to enter.
"What isn't acceptable in my view is that some people are saying this has nothing to do with them," Merkel said. "This won't work in the long run. There will be consequences although we don't want that."
Despite Merkel's steadfast support for letting in refugees, the episode has exposed tensions not only within the E.U., but within Merkel's own coalition government.
"There is no society that could cope with something like this," Bavarian premier Horst Seehofer, leader of the conservative Bavarian Christian Social Union, told Reuters. "The federal government needs a plan here."
Late Monday, Upper Bavaria government spokeswoman Simone Hilgers told the Associated Press that a total of 4,400 people have arrived in Munich, and a further 1,500 refugees were routed to other cities in Germany, including Dortmund, Hamburg and Kiel.
Reuters reported that European President Jean-Claude Juncker would unveil new plans for distributing refugees throughout the member states. Under the plan, Germany would take on more than 40,000 and France 30,000 of the 160,000 asylum seekers the European Commission says need to be relocated from Italy, Greece and Hungary, the main entry points for refugees into the E.U.
French President Francois Hollande has already pledged that his country would accept 24,000 refugees. Later Monday, Interior Minister Bernard Cazeneuve announced that France would immediately take in 1,000 refugees currently in Germany who are in "urgent need of protection." Cazeneuve said a French asylum team was currently at the border of Germany and Austria, near Munich, to identify the 1,000 — who had to be Syrian, Iraqi or Eritrean.
The 1,000 will be briefly lodged in the Paris region in the coming days while their asylum demands are processed, the minister said. They will then be sent to towns around France where mayors have said they are willing to take in refugees. The lodgings will be state-owned buildings, he said, and "very temporary." Cazeneuve will meet with the mayors on Saturday.
It was not immediately clear if the 1,000 counted toward the 24,000 specified by Hollande.
British Prime Minister David Cameron also said Monday that the U.K. would re-settle up to 20,000 Syrian refugees from camps in Turkey, Jordan and Syria over the next five years.
Late Monday, Hungarian Defense Minister Csaba Hende resigned amid delays in the construction of a border fence meant to keep refugees from crossing into Hungary via the country's border with Serbia.
A statement from Orban's government didn't explicitly blame Hende for the failure to complete the building of the planned 13-foot fence along the 110-mile frontier, but it was supposed to be completed by the end of last month and remains largely unfinished. Only several strands of razor wire have been placed along the full length of the border, while the higher barrier is standing only in a few areas.