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With new majorities, GOP prepares for veto showdowns with Obama

After taking control of the Senate and widening their majority in the House of Representatives in the recent midterm elections, Republicans are preparing for new battles with the Obama administration, this time over vetoes. 
Until now, controversial Republican-backed legislation rarely reached the president's desk because Senate Democrats blocked it. Starting in January, however, Obama may have to decide more often whether to sign or veto GOP-crafted bills.
Obama gave lawmakers an early taste of veto politics recently when he forced congressional leaders to drop a proposed package of tax breaks that were popular with many Republican constituents. Some Democrats did support the plan, but liberals and the White House said it tilted too heavily toward corporations, not lower-income workers.
The White House also has promised to veto any bills restricting the president's major changes to immigration policies, setting up likely showdowns early next year.
Obama's threats present the type of bind that Republicans may face repeatedly in the next two years. They can agree to many or all of the changes he demands in legislation, or they can let him use his veto and hope Americans will blame him more than them.
It's a gamble, especially with critical spending bills Congress soon must address. Some Republicans want to amend these must-pass bills to thwart Obama's bid to protect millions of immigrants, now in the country illegally, from deportation.
Assuming Obama keeps his veto promise, Republican lawmakers would have to decide whether to drop their demands or let parts of the federal government close for lack of money. GOP leaders have vowed there will be no shutdowns over the next two years, but they have yet to explain how they can force Obama to back off on immigration.
The 2013 partial government shutdown occurred under similar partisan circumstances. Polls show the public blamed congressional Republicans more than the Democratic president.
It's unclear how often Obama will face a veto decision. Even in the minority, Democratic senators can use the filibuster, the name for unlimited debate, to block many measures that break strictly along party lines.
But some proposals, such as building the Keystone XL pipeline, enjoy significant bipartisan support. They might attract enough Democratic backing to reach 60 Senate votes, overcoming a filibuster and sending the measure to Obama.
White House senior adviser Dan Pfeiffer said if Congress assembles legislation that Obama opposes, the White House will threaten vetoes and "if Congress decides to pass them anyway, then we'll veto them."
"We're not going to go out looking for them, but we're not going to run from them either," he said.
Should Obama veto a proposal such as the Keystone project, the question would be whether two-thirds of the Senate and two-thirds of the House would vote to defy him. That's the constitutional threshold for overriding a veto.
It will be critical for Republicans to put together veto-proof majorities in the House and Senate. Because any bill would require 60 Senate votes to overcome filibusters, the Senate vote would always be bipartisan and closer to the two-thirds majority needed to override a veto.
But the House would be harder, giving House Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi of California greater sway in the end over the outcome of legislation.
Vetoes have existed since George Washington's day, but Obama issued only two fairly minor ones in his first six years as president. His two predecessors also went light on vetoes in their early years.
Democrat Bill Clinton vetoed 37 bills, all during his last six years in office, when Republicans controlled the House and Senate. Republican George W. Bush issued no vetoes during his first four-year term. After that he vetoed eight bills when Republicans controlled both congressional chambers and four bills when Democrats held both.
Starting next month, lawmakers say, veto clashes are inevitable.
"You're destined to see it," said Sen. Richard Burr, R-N.C.
Lawmakers say veto politics will put pressure on both parties. A veto of any bill that makes it through the Senate will frustrate some Democrats from competitive states, said Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C.. For instance, he said, a Keystone veto "splashes over on Democrats with a political future."
Throughout the next presidential campaign, Graham said, likely Democratic candidate Hillary Rodham Clinton "will always have to answer, 'Would you have vetoed that?'"
At the same time, he said, Republicans must find a way to express their anger over Obama's executive actions on immigration without closing the government. "The politics of dealing with Obama's overreach is tough politics for Republicans," Graham said.
Some Democrats want Obama to use his veto powers on important issues.
"The fact that the president, I think, is determined to use the veto pen when necessary will help protect his legacy," said Sen. Chris Coons, D-Del.

Will GOP's control of the South play significant role in 2016 races?

The defeat Saturday of Louisiana Democratic Sen. Mary Landrieu was essentially the final act in the Republican Party’s control this fall of the South -- a transition expected to have a significant impact on the 2016 White House races.  
The victory by Republican challenger and Louisiana Rep. Bill Cassidy means that Democrats in January will be left without a single U.S. senator or governor across nine states -- stretching from the Carolinas to Texas.
And GOP runoff victories Saturday in two Louisiana House districts ensure the party of at least 246 seats, the largest Republican advantage since the Truman administration after World War II.
Furthermore, Republicans in Alabama, Arkansas, Georgia, Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee and Texas will control nearly every majority-white congressional district and both state legislative chambers.
But will the conservative-leaning voters who appeared this year to have written a closing chapter for the white Southern Democrat have the same impact on the 2016 presidential races?
"The Republican presidential nomination will run through the South," says Ferrell Guillory, a Southern politics expert based at the University of North Carolina. "As Mitt Romney found (in 2012), that...makes it harder to build a national coalition once you are the nominee."
Democrats on Sunday argued that the GOP’s control of the South is not an insurmountable problem for Hillary Clinton, Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren or any other liberal member of their party who makes a 2016 presidential run.
“Right now, there are really two electorates -- the midterm and the presidential. It’s a different math,” Democratic National Committee spokesman Michael Czin told FoxNews.com, pointing out that voter-turnout within his party is expected to be significantly higher in 2016.
Democratic strategist and pollster Ben Tulchin said the 2008 and 2012 elections prove that “Democrats don’t need the Deep South to win.”
In 1976, former Georgia Gov. Jimmy Carter became one of the last true Southern Democrats to win the White House. He won every Southern state except Oklahoma and Virginia. In 1992 and 1996, Arkansas Gov. Bill Clinton, considered a more conservative Democrat, won only a handful of Southern states in winning the presidency.  
Tulchin also argued a moderate Republican will likely have more problems in 2016 in the Deep South than a liberal Democrat, considering the early South Carolina primary, followed by those in other states across the region, could hurt somebody like New Jersey GOP Gov. Chris Christie.
“His best hope there is the conservative candidates split that vote,” said Tulchin, president of San Francisco-based Tulchin Research.
The region also is home to GOP Sens. Ted Cruz, of Texas, and Kentucky's Rand Paul, both Tea Party favorites and popular presidential hopefuls.
Other Democrats argue that an election without Obama and his widely unpopular agenda in that region also improves their chances.
“The No. 1 thing to be competitive in the South is to have Barack Obama not be president anymore,” North Carolina pollster Tom Jensen, who runs the Democratic firm Public Policy Polling, told Politico. “It’s just a simple reality that Southern whites really, really despise him in a way they have not despised any other president.”
Democrats also argue that changing demographics, such as the growing minority populations in Georgia, North Carolina and Texas, will help.
Louisiana Republican Party Chairman Roger Villere rejects the notion that Southerners could complicate Republican electoral fortunes in the long-term.
"Whether it was the old Southern Democrats or Republicans now, we've pushed the liberal wings of the parties for a long time," he said. "I think it's good for the party and for the country."

Violence erupts at Berkeley protest for second straight night

These people need to get off their asses and get jobs and go to work.

A protest against police-involved killings spun out of control for the second straight night in Berkeley, Calif. Sunday, as demonstrators threw rocks and explosives at officers, turned on each other, and shut down a highway. 
Sunday's protest began peacefully on the University of California, Berkeley campus. But as protesters marched through downtown Berkeley toward the neighboring city of Oakland, someone smashed the window of a Radio Shack. When a protester tried to stop the vandalism, he was hit with a hammer, Berkeley Police Officer Jennifer Coats said. Coats told KTVU that the man was taken to a hospital with non-life-threatening injuries.
Sunday's demonstrations began with approximately 50 protesters, but soon swelled to at least 500 people, according to estimates by police and protesters alike. Demonstrator Alessandro Tiberio told KTVU that the crowd had "very positive energy" when the march started.
"I'm an ally," Tiberio said. "It's important to stay focused on the fact that black lives matter. It's not that all lives don't matter but I'm here to support especially the black people who are most often the ones victimized by the police."
Some of the protesters made their way to State Highway 24 in Oakland and blocked traffic. The California Highway Patrol said some tried to light a patrol vehicle on fire and threw rocks, bottles and an explosive at officers. Highway patrol officers responded with tear gas. KTVU cited additional reports of CHP and police patrol cars being vandalized with windows smashed.  
The highway patrol said it was making arrests but no figures were immediately available.
The demonstrations were the latest of several in the Bay Area in recent days to protest grand jury decisions in Missouri and New York not to indict while police officers in the deaths of two black men. The unrest in Berkeley follows violent disruptions of demonstrations in San Francisco and Oakland in recent days. Five San Francisco police officers sought medical treatment after sustaining injuries during a protest in downtown San Francisco on Black Friday.
On Saturday night, three officers and a technician were hurt and six people were arrested when a similar protest turned unruly. The most serious injury was a dislocated shoulder, Berkeley police said. Coats said no police officers were hurt Sunday evening.

Tax Cartoon

All starts with the government's hunger for more tax money.

Netanyahu: Israel to face threats in same way it did before elections were called

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu convened his first “lame duck” weekly cabinet meeting on Sunday, and said Israel will deal with the challenges and threats around it in the same way that it did before new elections were called.

The cabinet table was much less crowded on Sunday than it was for the last 18 months, as the seven Yesh Atid and Hatnua ministers who were either fired or quit in recent weeks were absent.

The cabinet heard a briefing from National Security Council head Yoram Cohen, and Netanyahu said that Israel was following developments in the Middle East with great interest, because “a great deal is happening.”

“We will remain constantly with our hand on the pulse, and we will deal with these threats and challenges because they do not take a time-out,” Netanyahu said. “We will deal with them with the same degree of responsibility that we have done up until now.”

Netanyahu also addressed the hospitalization over the weekend of Jonathan Pollard, saying that he spoke with US Secretary of State John Kerry and said that Pollard's bad health was an additional reason to set him free.”

“Jonathan lost consciousness, was hospitalized, and is not healthy,” Netanyahu said. “He is suffering simultaneously from a number of diseases. The time has come, for all the reasons, after 30 years that Jonathan Pollard is released and becomes a free man.”

Netanyahu said Pollard has paid his debt and should get at least the same treatment as others in his position. “We will not stop working until he is returned home, to the State of Israel,” Netanyahu said.

Pentagon says six Guantanamo Bay detainees transferred to Uruguay

The U.S. government said early Sunday that it had transferred six detainees held at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba for over 12 years to Uruguay for resettlement as refugees. 
All six men had been detained as suspected militants with ties to Al Qaeda, but had never been charged. A Pentagon statement on Sunday identified the men as four Syrians, a Tunisian and a Palestinian. They are the first Guantanamo Bay prisoners to be sent to South America. 
They had been cleared for release since at least 2010 but they could not be sent home and languished as the U.S. struggled to find countries willing to take them.
Among those transferred is 43-year-old Syrian Abu Wa'el Dhiab, who was on a long-term hunger strike at Guantanamo to protest his confinement. He was at the center of a legal battle in U.S. courts over the military's force-feeding of prisoners who refuse to eat.
The other Syrians sent to Uruguay on Saturday were identified by the Pentagon as Ali Husain Shaaban, 32; Ahmed Adnan Ajuri, 37; and Abdelahdi Faraj, 39. Also released were Palestinian prisoner Mohammed Abdullah Taha Mattan, 35, and 49-year-old Adel bin Muhammad El Ouerghi of Tunisia.
The latest release brings the total number of prisoners at Guantanamo to 136 -- the lowest number since the first month the prison opened in January 2002. The U.S. has said that the men pose no threat, but cannot be allowed to return to their countries of origin. 
"We are very grateful to Uruguay for this important humanitarian action, and to President Mujica for his strong leadership in providing a home for individuals who cannot return to their own countries," U.S. State Department envoy Clifford Sloan said.
Mujica had agreed to take the men in January, but the Pentagon didn't notify Congress of its intent to transfer the detainees to Uruguay until July. The Associated Press reported that administration officials have been frustrated that the transfer took so long and blame outgoing Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel for not approving the move sooner. 
The handoff was further delayed until after Uruguay's October presidential election and late-November runoff when the transfer became a campaign issue. On Friday, Mujica reiterated his willingness to accept the detainees in an open letter to President Barack Obama that appeared on the Uruguay leader's official website. 
Obama pledged to close the prison upon taking office but was blocked by Congress, which banned sending prisoners to the U.S. for any reason, including trial, and placed restrictions on sending them abroad.
The slow pace of releases has created a tense atmosphere inside the prison. A hunger strike that began in February 2013 totaled about 100 prisoners at its peak, including Dhiab and Faraj.
The restrictions on sending them overseas have been eased and the U.S. has released 19 prisoners so far this year. Officials say several more are expected by the end of the year.
Prisoners have been sent to countries around the world but this is this largest to the Western Hemisphere. Four were sent to Bermuda in 2009 and two to El Salvador in 2012.

More municipal bans on fracking pose setback to domestic energy boom

The surge in domestic-energy production that has created millions of new jobs and abundant natural gas and oil is now facing a potential setback, cities across the country imposing bans on the widely-used deep-drilling process known as fracking.
At least three U.S. cities and two counties in the November elections voted in favor of such a ban. And courts in Pennsylvania and New York have recently ruled in favor of letting cities have some control over the drilling.
There is little surprise that Texas is at the forefront of the fight between energy companies and other fracking supporters and critics who say the drilling process is noisy, pollutes water supplies and triggers earthquakes.
Most of the attention in Texas is now on Denton, a college town near Dallas that sits on the Barnett shale formation that is full of natural gas.
The city became the first in Texas to impose the ban and has emerged as a test case for municipalities across the state trying to halt the drilling -- particularly in the face of the powerful energy industry and the Texas General Land Office, which owns 13 million acres of land across Texas and uses revenue from the mineral rights to fund public education.
Denton residents approved the ban in a Nov. 4 referendum that promptly resulted in at least two lawsuits including one by the land office and the Texas Oil & Gas Association, an industry group.
The ban on fracking went into effect Tuesday, but the situation appears headed for a lengthy legal battle.
"Whatever happens next will take place in a courtroom," Ed Ireland, executive director of the Barnett Shale Energy Education Council, a group aligned with producers, told Reuters.
Property rights are a part of Texas' cultural fabric. But the desire to develop hydrocarbons such as oil and gas is equally powerful.
Another factor is that property rights are separate under state law from mineral rights, making it possible to own one but not the other.
The process of fracking involves shooting a mix of pressurized water, sand and chemicals to split rock formations and release the gas and so-called tight oil.
Fracking supporters say the industry in 2012 supported 2.1 million jobs across the country and contributed nearly $284 billion to the country’s Gross Domestic Product, according to most recent figures.
In Ohio, which is home to the Utica shale gas field and is enjoying a manufacturing renaissance as a result of fracking, the cities of Youngstown, Gates Mills and Kent on election day rejected proposed bans. However, the city of Athens approved one. They join the Ohio cities of Broadview Heights, Mansfield, Oberlin and Yellow Springs in the banning of fracking within city limits.
California voters in San Benito and Mendocino counties passed bans, while those in Santa Barbara defeated one. Santa Cruz County had already enacted one, and Los Angeles was already in the process of imposing a temporary ban. At least on local referendum has passed in Colorado, but the courts have ruled against it.
In Texas, the fight against fracking also pits municipalities against the Texas Railroad Commission, which governs the oil and gas industry.
"Regulation doesn't work very well in the state of Texas because the Railroad Commission doesn't work on the public's behalf," said Dan Dowdey, who is asking Alpine city commissioners to ban fracking in the nearby Permian Basin and Eagle Ford shale formations, though the closest drilling is more than 100 miles away.
And residents of Reno, which had its first recorded earthquake last year and hundreds since then, took their first step this past spring toward a ban. The ban limits fracking activities to operators who can prove the injections won't cause earthquakes.
Cities might never be able to prove definitively that fracking causes earthquakes.
Texas hired its first seismologist to investigate the potential link after Reno Mayor Lyndamyrth Stokes led an effort to get the Railroad Commission to halt the drilling in her area. Stokes say the seismologist told her that making such a definitive connection would be impossible.
On Monday, potential 2016 Democratic White House Candidate Hillary Clinton, who will need a domestic-energy platform, tried walking the narrow line between fracking supporters and critics.
“It is crucial we put in place smart regulations and enforce them including deciding not to drill when the risks to local communities, landscapes and ecosystems are just too high,” she told the League of Conservation Voters in New York. But “natural gas can play an important bridge role in the transition to a cleaner, greener economy.”