New York State Assembly speaker reportedly to be arrested on corruption charges

Sheldon Silver, the powerful longtime speaker of the New York State Assembly, is facing arrest on federal corruption charges, according to a published report. 

The New York Times reported that the charges stemmed from payments that Silver, a Democrat, received from a small New York City law firm, Goldberg & Iryami, that specializes in seeking reductions in New York City real estate taxes. It was not immediately clear how much Silver was paid by the firm, but the paper reported that the amounts were "substantial" and the payments were made over several years. Silver reportedly failed to disclose the payments as required in his annual financial filings with the state. 
The Times reports that the federal investigation of Silver began after New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo abruptly shut down an anticorruption commission he created in March of 2013. That inquiry had focused on outside income earned by state legislators with part-time jobs. 
Silver earns $121,000 per year as Assembly speaker and reported a $650,000 income from legal work on his financial disclosure form for 2013, the most recent year available.
Under New York law, officeholders can continue to serve after being arrested, but must leave office upon conviction for a felony offense. 
Silver, 70, was elected to the New York State Assembly in 1976, representing a district comprising much of lower Manhattan, including the site of the newly opened Freedom Tower. He has served as Assembly Speaker since 1994.

Woman showcased by Obama in State of the Union is a former Democratic campaign staffer

The woman whose story of economic recovery was showcased by President Barack Obama in his State of the Union address is a former Democratic campaign staffer and has been used by Obama for political events in the past.
Rebekah Erler has been presented by the White House as a woman who was discovered by the president after she wrote to him last March about her economic hardships. She was showcased in the speech as proof that middle class Americans are coming forward to say that Obama’s policies are working.
Unmentioned in the White House bio of Erler is that she is a former Democratic campaign operative, working as a field organizer for Sen. Patty Murray (D., Wash.).
This also wasn’t the first time the White House used the former Democratic campaign staffer as a political prop. Obama spent a “day in the life” of Erler in June so that he could have “an opportunity to communicate directly with the people he’s working for every day.”
Reuters revealed Erler’s Democratic affiliations following that June event, and the Minnesota Republican Party attacked Obama for being “so out of touch with reality that he thinks a former Democrat campaign staffer speaks for every Minnesotan.”

House GOP drops controversial abortion bill ahead of Roe v. Wade anniversary

House Republicans on Wednesday dropped a bill that would have banned abortions after 20 weeks, ending legislation that at one time seemed certain to pass but fell victim to inter-party disputes over concerns that the law would alienate women voters.
The failure of the bill, which was intended to be Congress' first anti-abortion legislation of the new session, reflects divides in the GOP just weeks after it assumed control of both houses for the first time in eight years.
Instead, the House will vote Thursday -- the 42nd anniversary of the Roe v. Wade decision -- on a bill that would ban the use of tax dollars for abortions, the same law that was passed by the House nearly one year ago but died in the Senate, which was then controlled by Democrats.
The substitute bill would make permanent the so-called Hyde amendment, which bans all federal money for abortion services. Currently, Congress simply renews the amendment each year, which it has done since the mid-1970s. Voting on the bill Thursday would provide Republicans with a symbolic act on the same day that the anti-abortion March for Life is scheduled to begin in Washington.
The failed bill, which reflected the idea that a fetus can feel pain at 20 weeks, would have criminalized virtually all abortions for pregnancies of 20 weeks or longer. It would offer some exceptions, including for victims of rape that have already been reported to authorities.
But some Republicans, including female members of Congress, objected to that requirement, saying that many women feel too distressed to report rapes and should not be penalized. A 2013 Justice Department report calculated that just 35 percent of rapes and sexual assaults were reported to police.
"The issue becomes, we're questioning the woman's word," Rep. Renee Ellmers, R-N.C., said earlier Wednesday. "We have to be compassionate to women when they're in a crisis situation."
There were also objections to the bill's exemption for minors who are victims of incest and have reported the incident.
"So the exception would apply to a 16-year-old but not a 19-year-old?" said Rep. Charles Dent, R-Pa. "I mean, incest is incest."
There was concern that the bill would have looked bad for the Republican Party as it struggles to court female voters in the 2016 presidential and congressional elections, and primary and general election candidates could have turned the vote around on the Republicans. The GOP also wants to demonstrate that it can focus on issues that matter to voters and not get bogged down in gridlock.
But members who backed the 20-week bill were furious that those who shied away didn't raise their objections until essentially the last minute.
“We’ve been working on this for two years. Where were they?” a source who is close to the process told Fox News on Wednesday afternoon.
The source added that it was expected that the abortion bill would be one of the new Congress's first votes of the session, and that any members suggesting otherwise are “being dishonest.”  
Thursday's debate was timed to coincide with the annual march on Washington by abortion foes marking the anniversary of the Supreme Court's Roe v. Wade decision in 1973 legalizing abortion.
In a statement, Family Research Council President Tony Perkins said he was disappointed by the failure of the 20-week measure, but said he was encouraged that Congress would vote on banning taxpayer funding of abortions.
"Americans have been forced to violate their conscience and religious convictions long enough by being made to fund President Obama's massive abortion scheme," Perkins said.
Rep. Trent Franks, R-Ariz., a chief sponsor of the 20-week bill, called it "a sincere effort" to protect women and "their unborn, pain-capable child from the atrocity of late-term abortion." He had also said GOP leaders "want to try to create as much unity as we can."
The White House had threatened to veto the legislation, calling it "an assault on a woman's right to choose."
Democrats were strongly against the legislation and said the measure was nothing more than a political gesture.
"This is not only insulting to the women of this country, but it's just another pointless exercise in political posturing," said Rep. Carolyn Maloney, D-N.Y. "It will never become law."
The GOP rift on the issue was discussed Wednesday at a private meeting of House Republicans, who by a large majority are strongly anti-abortion.
House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., said in a brief interview earlier Wednesday that he believed the House would debate the bill as planned. But he did not rule out changes.
"We're moving forward," he said earlier Wednesday. "There's a discussion and we're continuing to have discussions."
The legislation would have allowed an exception where an abortion is necessary to save the mother's life.
Under the bill, those performing the outlawed abortions could face fines or imprisonment of up to five years.
A report this week by the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office cited estimates by the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention that about 10,000 abortions in the U.S. are performed annually 20 weeks or later into pregnancies. The budget office estimated that if the bill became law, three-fourths of those abortions would end up occurring before the 20th week.
The House approved a similar version of the bill in 2013, but the measure was never considered in the Senate, which was then controlled by Democrats. Its fate remains uncertain in the Senate, where anti-abortion sentiment is less strong than in the House.

State of the Union Peachy Cartoon

Obama undermines Hillary Clinton in State of the Union address

Is President Obama trying to sabotage Hillary Clinton’s 2016 presidential run? That’s one take-away from his feisty State of the Union address, in which Mr. Obama did three things: first, he moved the Democratic agenda far to the left, where Hillary is not entirely comfortable; second, he rebuffed the clear preference of voters that he work with Congress, by making the cornerstone of his address proposals unacceptable to the GOP and third, he assured the country that our foreign policy (Hillary’s foreign policy) is working. 
Americans are not at all convinced, 13 days after the vicious attacks on Charlie Hedbo in Paris, that Obama’s “broader strategy” is leading to “a safer, more prosperous world.”  Obama says he believes in a “smarter kind of American leadership”; for many in the country, the assertion borders on arrogance.
None of these messages works for Hillary.

Hillary is a successful, wealthy woman who pretends otherwise and stubs her toe on money issues, such as when she described herself and her husband as “dead broke” upon leaving the White House.

Mr. Obama’s focus on the middle class is unsurprising. Lagging income growth for the average American has emerged as the likely debate in 2016, for good reason. The numbers show that during the Obama recovery, the middle class has, as Joe Biden put it, been “left behind.”
The issue is valid; Mr. Obama’s progressive approach to helping average Americans – relying on more taxation and more government programs -- is not. 
Despite Americans listing job creation as their number one concern for the past six years, putting people to work has never been President Obama’s priority. He has not encouraged businesses to hire, either through reducing tax rates on employers or by expanding business opportunities – through trade, or reduced regulations, for instance.
On the contrary, his economic prescriptions have raised costs for employers through the onerous provisions of Obamacare and his efforts to raise the minimum wage. 
As of this SOTU address, he has doubled down, since many of the suggested tax hikes will land on small companies that pay taxes as individuals, and as his proposed sick pay and maternity leave will raise the costs of hiring. Such policies have led to labor participation rates that are still bumping along historical lows, a crisis in our disability program, and stagnant wages. A short course in economics might help the White House: a tighter jobs market will raise wages. The government raising wages will put people out of work. It’s that simple.
Obama revisited his familiar theme of making sure all Americans have a “fair shot”; he wants to raise taxes to make sure the rich do “their fair share.” He has never laid out what that share should be, but he has tried hard to convince Americans that the wealthy don’t play “by the same set of rules.”  
It’s a tired song, and Americans have never bought the program. 
A recent Rasmussen poll showed that 60% of Americans think the country is “fair” and “decent.” They don’t believe that income distribution is the answer. They believe in growth, in optimism, in everyone getting ahead.
The tax proposals outlined by President Obama are old school, and dead on arrival in the Republican Congress, as he well knows. Congress has indicated an eagerness to work with the president on tax reform, but has prioritized changing the dysfunctional corporate tax code. 
The president understands that by placing individual tax hikes first in the queue, he has just undermined any chance for bipartisan agreement. And, by adopting the priorities of the left, which emphasize wealth redistribution and also embrace further exploiting the financial sector, he is drafting behind liberal icon Senator Elizabeth Warren.
This is a slap at Hillary, for two reasons. First, Hillary is unquestionably uncomfortable putting on a progressive cloak. 
In the fall campaigns she awkwardly mimicked Liz Warren’s rhetoric, embarrassing herself with the head-scratcher “Don’t let anyone tell you that it’s businesses and corporations that create jobs.” 
Hillary is a successful, wealthy woman who pretends otherwise and stubs her toe on money issues, such as when she described herself and her husband as “dead broke” upon leaving the White House. Also, Hillary has difficulty distancing herself from Wall Street; the Wall Street Journal has reported that she and her husband have raised nearly $5 million from Goldman Sachs alone.  
It’s also awkward for Mrs. Clinton that the president has burned relations with Republicans…again. In his speech, while talking about “A better politics” in which “we debate without demonizing each other,” the president also threatened to veto a number of GOP initiatives.  
Voters have shown they want the government to function – to repair our infrastructure, reform our dreadful tax code, to compete more effectively with our trading rivals, to streamline our outdated government agencies. 
For six years Mr. Obama has blamed the GOP for standing in the way of his programs; now he will be the obstructer-in-chief. From his State of the Union address, it is clear that he is not interested in partnering with Republicans. His aggressive executive actions over the past several weeks on preventing deportation of millions of undocumented immigrants and unilaterally overhauling our Cuba policy were the tip of the iceberg. Mr. Obama is not into compromise.  
Voters do not like the president’s “go it alone” program; they understand why the nation’s founders included those pesky checks and balances. Obama will make it more difficult for any Democrat trying to succeed him to convince voters that he or she will “work across the aisle” – a claim that Hillary might actually credibly make. 
Finally, Obama’s insufficient resolve against the threat of Islamic terrorism, and conviction that his efforts overseas are bearing fruit, are alarming.  Like Muggles fearful of naming the fearsome Voldemort, Obama seems to think if he just doesn’t say “Islamic terrorism” out loud, the menace will pass him by. 
His embarrassing absence in Paris, his waffle on Syria, his underestimation of ISIS – it all speaks to his pretense that we have won the War on Terror. 
That our president can be so misled and so misleading on a matter of such grave importance is horrifying. That Hillary Clinton was the enabler of his clueless foreign policy is a serious problem for the former first lady. And, for the country, should she be elected.

Dems praise Obama's economic proposals while Republicans call him 'out of touch'

Democrats praised President Obama for the aggressive economic proposals in his State of Union address to help the middle class, while Republicans dismissed the president as continuously "out of touch" and suggested his agenda is doomed in Congress. 
Texas GOP Sen. Ted Cruz, a potential 2016 candidate, said he was disappointed in Obama's speech, considering voters in November overwhelmingly rejected his policies along with those of other Democrats.
"He could ... be focusing on jobs and economic opportunity," Cruz said on Fox News' "The Kelley File." "But instead he doubled down on taxes and spending. I was really disappointed."
Cruz said he was pleased to see the president interested in bipartisan efforts to pass free-trade legislation but disappointed to hear him mention a veto threat at least four times, particularly on Iran sanctions and the Keystone XL oil pipeline, each of which has support from Democrats and Republicans. 
Rep. Michael McCaul, R-Texas, chairman of the House Committee on Homeland Security, said, "Tonight President Obama sent one resounding message: He remains wholly out of touch with the priorities of the American people." 
He suggested that Obama, in his roughly 60-minute address, focused too much on recent economic gains as a means to support a tax-and-spend agenda before addressing plans to thwart terrorism abroad and on American soil.
The Republican response was expected since Obama and the White House over the past several weeks have signaled what the president would propose -- particularly the plan to tax the country’s highest wage-earners to pay for middle-class tax break.
Democrats praised Obama for putting forth what they called a bold agenda, which comes amid his recent surge in popularity, after months of low approval ratings and Democrats suffering big losses in the November elections.
"Under President Obama’s leadership, we ... restored an emphasis on middle class economics," said Democratic National Committee Chairwoman Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz. "Now ... we need to ensure that middle-class families have their shot at the American dream."
Obama in his pitch to help the middle-class argued his polices helped the United States out of an economic recession and that the country's unemployment rate is now below where it was before the recession, which started roughly seven years ago.
"The president made it clear he is on the side of the middle class," said Hawaii Democratic Rep. Mazie Hirono. "The president’s forward-thinking initiative to fund two years of community college will be a game changer for families I’ve met in Hawaii and across the country. ... Tonight the president laid out how we must invest in our middle class families, which means investing in our infrastructure."
But Rep. Curt Clawson, R-Fla., who delivered the Tea Party response, said, "further burdening the American economy with even higher taxes is wrong, just as more debt and more unfunded programs are wrong,".
In the days before the speech, Republicans dismissed the plan as a “non-starter,” particularly in the GOP-led Congress.
Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., a potential 2016 presidential candidate, struck a more conciliatory tone after the address, saying, "I’ll work with the president, Democrats, Independents and anyone who wants to get people back to work and alleviate poverty in our country."
However, he added, “We need real jobs created in the real world, not more empty government promises.”
Obama said during his address, his sixth, that he would deliver his full fiscal 2016 budget to Congress in two weeks.
Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., another potential 2016 White House candidate, questioned Obama's sincerity when championing his economic record, saying he takes credit for the country's recent prosperity while wages remain stagnant and the unemployment rate for blacks remains twice that of most other Americans.
He also criticized what he called Obama's tax-and-spend policies.
"I heard a lot about free stuff," he said on "The Kelley File." "But I didn't hear much about how we're going to pay for it. ... I have to wonder about the guy's sincerity."

Republican response: GOP Congress ready to champion middle class

Sen. Joni Ernst hammered home the idea of a new Republican Congress ready to champion the middle class in America as well as go after terrorists abroad in the Republican response to President Obama’s State of the Union address Tuesday night.
In contrast to Obama's optimistic tone on the economy, Ernst spoke of the struggle that still exists.
“Americans have been hurting,” she said, and cited concerns over stagnant wages, lost jobs and higher monthly insurance bills.
The freshman senator from Iowa, with less than a month of experience, in Washington, told Americans during her 9-minute rebuttal that the GOP is “working hard to pass the kind of serious job-creation ideas you deserve” that she said includes building the controversial Keystone pipeline.
Ernst also said Republicans will prioritize American concerns and called on Obama to work with her party to simplify the tax code by lowering rates and eliminating unspecified loopholes. She also called on him to ease trade barriers with Europe and Asia.
Obama, who gave the annual speech before a Republican-controlled Congress, focused on the state of the economy and its impact on the middle class. He also took on climate change, cyber threats and terrorism abroad.
Ernst also cited the recent terror attacks in France, Nigeria, Canada and Australia in her rebuttal and said lawmakers need to come up with a “comprehensive plan” to defeat terror groups like  Al Qaeda and the Islamic State as well as those radicalized by them.
“We know threats like these can’t just be wished away,” she said. 
Ernst, a former colonel in the Iowa Army National Guard, won one of the toughest election challenges last year, beating Democrat Bruce Braley. She is the first woman elected to the office from Iowa and the first combat veteran to serve in the Senate. 
Ernst has served 21 years between the Army Reserve and National Guard. She spent 14 months in Kuwait in 2002-2003 as part of Operation Iraqi Freedom. In a nod to her military roots, she wore camouflage pumps.
She also said veterans deserve better care and “nothing less than the benefits they were promised and a quality of care we can all be proud of.”
Ernst, who ran on a promise of bringing change to Washington as well as an attention-grabbing campaign ad where she said she “grew up castrating hogs on an Iowa farm” and vowed to cut the pork in Washington if elected, said lawmakers have too often “responded with the same stale mindset that led to failed policies like ObamaCare.”
“It’s a mindset that gave us political talking points, not serious solutions,” she added.
But not everyone bought Ernst’s message. 
Brad Woodhouse, president of Americans United for Change, said  it was Republicans who are blocking efforts to pass legislation in Washington.  
“Ernst decried ‘stagnant wages and lost jobs’ but made no apologies for her fellow Republicans in Congress who have blocked all Democratic efforts to raise the minimum wage, to create millions of jobs rebuilding America’s crumbling roads and bridges, and to stop rewarding corporations that outsource U.S. jobs with tax breaks,” he said in a written statement. 
Rep. Curt Clawson, R-Fla., delivered the official Tea Party response to Obama’s State of the Union speech from the National Press Club in D.C.
Clawson, who won a special election seven months ago by marketing himself as “the outsider for Congress,” drew on his strong conservative grassroots base during his response. He stressed that people were key to achieving the American dream, not the government. 
Florida freshman Rep. Carlos Curbelo delivered the Republicans’ Spanish-language response.

Obama pushes tax plan, wields veto pen in defiant State of the Union address

King Obama

A defiant President Obama staked out a populist agenda Tuesday night for his final two years in office built on what he called “middle-class economics,” while using his sixth State of the Union address to deliver a slew of veto threats challenging the new, Republican-led Congress.
Setting a combative tone with Capitol Hill’s GOP leadership, Obama trumpeted a plan centered on free higher education, new worker protections and a sweeping tax overhaul that hikes rates on top earners to fund credits for the middle class. Far from chastened by Republican gains in the midterm elections, he vowed to defend signature accomplishments from his first six years in office.
“Middle-class economics works. Expanding opportunity works. And these policies will continue to work, as long as politics don't get in the way,” Obama said.
Throughout, Obama hammered the message that the economy, and the country, are bouncing back after the recession and two protracted wars.
“Tonight, we turn the page,” Obama declared, claiming: “The shadow of crisis has passed.”
The address reflected a president disinclined to cede ground in the wake of his party’s midterm losses. While urging lawmakers to join him in pursuing a “better politics” in Washington, the president repeatedly antagonized congressional Republicans. He sprinkled his address with jabs at the “superrich” and the Keystone XL pipeline, and vowed to fight GOP bills that would chip away at ObamaCare, financial regulations and his recent immigration actions.
“If a bill comes to my desk that tries to do any of these things, I will veto it,” Obama said. He issued similar threats with regard to legislation teeing up new Iran sanctions and efforts to roll back environmental regulations.
In an off-script moment, the president even reminded Republicans of his electoral successes. After declaring he had no more campaigns to run, he quipped, “I know because I won both of them.”
Obama, in his address, was promoting a series of programs he previewed in the weeks leading up to it.
Most controversial is a plan unveiled over the weekend imposing more than $300 billion in tax hikes over 10 years – including on investment and inheritance taxes for top earners – to fund tax credit expansions for the middle class, including tripling the maximum child tax credit to up to $3,000 per child. The funding also would pay for an initiative providing free community college for two years for students who keep up their grades (though the White House calls for rolling back a separate college savings tax break).
Referring to long-established entitlement programs like Medicare and Social Security, Obama said “middle-class economics” helps everyone get a “fair shot” when everyone “does their fair share.”
With that pitch, Obama also called anew for Congress to raise the minimum wage. And he called for new measures to guarantee paid sick leave for American workers.
On his college plan, the president said he wants to make two years of community college “as free and universal in America as high school is today.”
While Republicans have questioned the mechanics of the college plan, they have declared his tax proposal a “non-starter” in the new GOP-led Congress.
House Speaker John Boehner described the president’s wish-list Tuesday as “more of the same” and said his approach is hurting, not helping, the middle class.
Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, said in a statement that the address showed Obama slipping back into his role as “campaigner-in-chief,” pushing higher taxes and more regulations, while issuing “premature veto threats.”
In a pointed swipe sure to anger Republicans, Obama in his address downplayed the jobs impact of the proposed Canada-to-Texas Keystone XL pipeline, without mentioning it by name. Calling for more infrastructure spending, he said: “Let's set our sights higher than a single oil pipeline. Let's pass a bipartisan infrastructure plan that could create more than thirty times as many jobs per year.”
Defending his tax plan, Obama said lobbyists have “rigged” the system with loopholes and giveaways “that the superrich don't need, while denying a break to middle class families who do.”
He called for closing them “to help more families pay for childcare and send their kids to college.”
Yet the president, as part of his tax plan, is calling for ending a tax break for college savings plans known as 529 plans. Under the change, earnings on contributions could not be withdrawn tax-free, as they can be now.
The speech was dominated by economic and domestic issues, though the president did devote several minutes to addressing terrorism and specifically the threat posed by the Islamic State.
After the recent terror attack in Paris, he said “we stand united” with victims of terrorists.
“We will continue to hunt down terrorists and dismantle their networks, and we reserve the right to act unilaterally, as we have done relentlessly since I took office to take out terrorists who pose a direct threat to us and our allies,” he vowed.
On ISIS, though some lawmakers have criticized his current approach, he claimed the current campaign in Iraq and Syria is “stopping ISIL’s advance.” Though airstrikes have been underway for months, he urged Congress to formally authorize the use of force.
And on Cuba, he defended his recent decision to push for normalizing relations with the country. Despite concerns among some lawmakers in Congress that the Castro regime may exploit the opening to its advantage, Obama urged Congress to “begin the work of ending the embargo.”  
The speech was Obama’s first State of the Union before a Congress controlled by Republicans. The party won control of the Senate and built a historic majority in the House in November.
Yet Obama has made clear he plans to play “offense” in his final two years, and his speech Tuesday set the stage for that political and legislative battle.
Both Republicans and Democrats are appealing to middle-class voters as they begin the new Congress. But Obama’s State of the Union address, thematically, promoted federal government protections and programs as key to their security, where Republicans are making a flat pitch for private-sector job creation.
Earlier in the day, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell urged the president to look beyond “more tired tax hikes,” and instead strive for “responsible reforms that aim to balance the budget.”
He also sounded a middle-class message, but urged the president to boost workers with bipartisan jobs bills, including by backing efforts to approve the Keystone XL pipeline.
Sen. Joni Ernst, R-Iowa, who was elected in November to an open Iowa seat, delivered the official Republican response to Obama Tuesday night. The senator presented a markedly different picture of the economy, where Americans “agonize over stagnant wages and lost jobs.”
On the tax front, Ernst called for simplifying America’s “outdated and loophole-ridden tax code” – not to finance more spending but improve the economy.
“So let’s iron out loopholes to lower rates — and create jobs, not pay for more government spending,” she said. “The president has already expressed some support for these kinds of ideas. We’re calling on him now to cooperate to pass them.”