Tag Archives: Rand Paul

50-49: Senate narrowly passes Democratic budget for 2014

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U.S. Senate approves its first budget since 2009
By Agence France-Presse
Saturday, March 23, 2013 6:38 EDT

The US Senate reached a milestone early Saturday when it overcame partisan gridlock to approve its first budget resolution in four years, setting up a political duel with the Republican-held House.

The sweeping plan for fiscal year 2014, the first budget blueprint passed by the Democrat-led Senate under President Barack Obama since 2009, squeaked by by the narrowest of margins, 50-49. [...]

The plan, shepherded by Senate Budget Committee chair Patty Murray, seeks nearly $1 trillion in new revenue over the next decade, mostly through the closure of tax loopholes that favor the wealthy, and an equal amount in reductions to government spending.

The House of Representatives on Thursday adopted its own budget resolution, which seeks to reach balance within 10 years through significant reductions in federal spending, the overhaul of entitlements like Medicare and the repeal of Obama’s health care law.

The glaring partisanship of Congress ensures that neither plan will be enacted into law. Instead they will serve as the starting points for a broader debate this year over budget policy.

SOME DETAILS: 

  • 100 amendments were voted on in a marathon, 13-hour session known in the Senate as a “vote-a-rama.
  • The parties’ leaders contended with more than 560 filed amendments. Most fell by the wayside and were not voted on, but there were key amendments that were approved, including a repeal of an unpopular tax on medical devices that was enacted as part of “Obamacare.”
  • Senators also went on record in support of the Keystone Pipeline.

SFGate: 

  • Joining all Republicans voting no were four Democrats who face re-election next year in potentially difficult races: Sens. Max Baucus of Montana, Mark Begich of Alaska, Kay Hagan of North Carolina and Mark Pryor of Arkansas. Sen. Frank Lautenberg, D-N.J., did not vote.
  • The Senate’s budget would shrink annual federal shortfalls over the next decade to nearly $400 billion, raise unspecified taxes by $975 billion and cull modest savings from domestic programs.
  • They also voiced support for eliminating the $2,500 annual cap on flexible spending account contributions imposed by Obama’s health care overhaul.
  • [They voted] for charging regular postal rates for mailings by political parties, which currently qualify for the lower prices paid by non-profits.
  • In a rebuke to one of the Senate’s most conservative members, they overwhelmingly rejected a proposal by Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., to cut even deeper than the House GOP budget and eliminate deficits in just five years.
  • Rep. Paul Ryan’s budget claims $4 trillion more in savings… by digging deeply into Medicaid, food stamps and other safety net programs for the needy. It would also transform the Medicare health care program for seniors into a voucher-like system for future recipients.
  • They voted in favor of giving states more powers to collect sales taxes on online purchases their citizens make from out-of-state Internet companies.
  • Shoehorned into the package is $100 billion for public works projects and other programs aimed at creating jobs.

NEXT UP: this summer’s hostage crisis. 

The Senate’s Vote-a-rama: Paul Ryan and GOP House FAIL

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The Hill: The Democratic-controlled Senate appears set to approve its first budget resolution in four years. Votes on amendments to the budget began Thursday night, with a final vote set for late Friday or early Saturday.

Brian Beutler explains why tuning into CSpan2 this afternoon to watch the Senate’s “vote-a-rama” could be very educational:

“…before the Senate passes its budget this weekend, it must first get through “votearama” — the quirk in the budget rules that essentially opens the amendment floodgates to eager lawmakers.

These amendments, like the budget itself, aren’t really binding. They’re highly politicized. And because there hasn’t been a Senate budget in a few years, there’s a huge pent up demand among members for using votearama as an opportunity to preen and take political stands. [...]

For instance: Last night, Senate Dems put Republicans on the spot and forced a vote on the House GOP budget. It failed, obviously, but because it’s the GOP’s central organizing manifesto, nearly every Republican member voted for it.

What went mostly unnoticed, though, is that Dems also forced the GOP to take a position on the single most politically contentious part of the Ryan budget — its call to replace the Medicare guarantee with a private insurance subsidy. That amendment was written to put members on record over whether to prohibit such a dramatic policy change. And by a vote of 96-3 the Senate answered that question with a resounding “yes.” Only Sens. Ted Cruz, Mike Lee, and Rand Paul voted to effectively endorse Medicare privatization.

That says a lot about the politics of the Republican platform. Their commitment to a fiscal policy agenda they know to be politically toxic in its particulars is actually pretty impressive.

Democrats, by contrast, voted to preserve the tax increases their budget calls for. And they will circle their wagons around the Affordable Care Act when Republicans try to use the budget process to significantly undermine it. But on the particular, narrow issue of the ACA’s medical device tax, more than half the party joined the GOP in support of an amendment that called for its repeal…”

How bad was Paul Ryan’s night? Joan McCarter on March 22, 2013

Every Senate Republican but three voted to repudiate Paul Ryan’s Medicare plan. The three? The three teabaggiest of all: Rand Paul (R-KY) Mike Lee (R-UT), and Ted Cruz. …The slap-in-the-face vote was cast yesterday as the Senate continued working on its 2014 budget, an opportunity for all sorts of political hay-making, because budget rules allow for unlimited amendments. This one was offered by Debbie Stabenow (D-MI) Thursday night. It’s a “No Vouchers for Medicare” amendment, repudiating the Ryan budget and “to prohibit replacing guaranteed benefits with the House passed budget plan to turn Medicare into a voucher program.” The Senate voted overwhelmingly for it, 96-3.

Ryan’s budget as a whole fared a little better. Republicans really didn’t want to have to vote on it, but Patty Murray made them, by offering it as one of the first amendments. It failed, 40-59.

“There seemed to be some resistance among my Republican colleagues in bringing up the House Republican budget for a vote. And it’s pretty easy to see why that is. The House Republican approach has been thoroughly reviewed and just as thoroughly rejected by the American people.” — Patty Murray, twisting the knife last night.

Paul Ryan’s star is definitely fading. Last year, Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wisc.) was hailed as the man with a plan to save America. Today, barely half of his own party thinks highly of him. According to a Rasmussen poll released Monday, Ryan’s approval rating has plummeted since the November election. In the poll, only 35 percent of likely voters said they had a favorable view of him, while a 54 percent majority said they viewed him unfavorably. That’s a stunning reversal from last August, when 50 percent of voters liked Ryan, versus 32 percent who did not.

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Also: The 39th time was not the charm on Obamacare repeal | Steve Benen on March 22, 2013: 

Remember when the 2012 presidential election ended the debate over repealing the Affordable Care Act? To a degree that is truly comical, congressional Republicans didn’t get the memo.

The Senate on Friday rejected another GOP attempt to repeal President Obama’s healthcare law. An amendment to the Senate budget resolution from Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) failed on a 45-54 vote on Friday. Cruz’s amendment would have repealed the Affordable Care Act and encouraged patient-centered reforms to reduce costs.

Senate Republicans knew Cruz’s amendment was pointless, and knew it wouldn’t pass, but literally every GOP senator voted for it anyway — just because. [...]

To listen to Republican rhetoric on Capitol Hill is to hear a series of complaints about President Obama: he’s not being “serious” enough about getting things done… But it’s against this backdrop that Republicans vote, over and over again, to repeal a health care law they know won’t be repealed. They do so, in part because they have a radicalized base that expects near-constant pandering, in part because some of their leaders have broader ambitions and see these tactics as useful, and in part because these votes just seem to help Republicans feel better about themselves.

Michele Bachmann will be so upset. Literally! 

Some have the repeal count up to 54 times, with more attempts (yes, plural!) to be offered today.

On Obamacare’s Third Anniversary, Here Are Three Ways The Reform Law Has Helped Real Americans

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Also Rand Paul, the winner of CPAC, is sponsoring a far-right extremist  amendment to have the U.S. withdraw from the U.N.  Not only is that a terrible idea for several reasons (one being economically), but “a recent poll showed that eight in ten Americans believe that the U.S. needs to maintain a strong relationship with the United Nations.”

And get this: Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah) “is planning on filing an amendment to the Senate budget resolution making it impossible for any gun control legislation to pass the Senate without a two-thirds majority—a standard currently reserved for the ratification of treaties. (That’s an even higher threshold than that imposed by filibusters, which can be broken with 60 votes.) ”[I]f the Lee amendment is passed, the practical effect will be that gun control can never again pass the Senate,” the far-right Second Amendment group Gun Owners of America boasted in an email to members on Friday. Lee’s amendment won’t pass. But the fact that Republicans would consider carving out an entirely new voting threshold just for gun control legislation tells you just how little ground they’re willing to concede, at least publicly, on this fight.”

More excitement (haha) at CSpan2!

24-hour warning: By the way, red states take in more federal money than they pay in taxes

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Paul Begala thinks it’s a shame that sequestration cuts can’t be limited to states which take in more federal money than they pay in taxes and are represented by politicians who refuse to pay for the spending that their constituents demand (and have come to expect):

“This could be fun. Oklahoma so hates Obama’s big spending that every single county in the state voted for Mitt Romney. Oklahoma has twice the percentage of federal employees than the U.S. average, and Okies get $1.35 back from Washington for each dollar they pay in taxes. So close the massive FAA center in Oklahoma City. Move it to Nancy Pelosi’s San Francisco district, where they love big government. Two years ago I made a similar argument about Kentucky, calling on Republican Sens. Mitch McConnell and Rand Paul to put the Bluegrass State in detox for its addiction to local pork. No such luck. But perhaps the principle can apply to the sequester: enforce it only in states whose elected representatives won’t support the taxes needed to fund the spending they want.” — A pox on one of their houses

Some facts:

Mother Jones: Even as Republicans gripe about deficit spending, their states get 30 cents more federal spending per tax dollar than their Democratic neighbors:

It’s no secret: The federal budget is expanding faster than tax revenues, a trend that’s been fueled by the rapid growth of entitlement programs and exacerbated by the recession. As a recent New York Times article documents, even as fiscally conservative lawmakers complain about deficit spending, their constituents don’t want to give up the Social Security checks, Medicare benefits, and earned income tax credits that provide a safety net for the struggling middle class.

This gap between political perception and fiscal reality is also reflected in the distribution of tax dollars at the state level: Most politically “red” states are financially in the red when it comes to how much money they receive from Washington compared with what their residents pay in taxes.

A look at 2010 Census and IRS data reveals that the 50 states and the District of Columbia, on average, received $1.29 in federal spending for every federal tax dollar they paid. That means that some states are getting a lot more than they put in, and vice versa. The states that contributed more in taxes than they got back in spending were more likely to have voted for Obama in 2008 and were more likely to be largely urban. (There are some clear exceptions: For instance, New Mexico, a rural, Democratic state, gets more federal money per tax dollar than any other state.)

Added to that is “the world’s least surprising chart” from Brad Plummer: 

A new survey from the Pew Research Center finds that most Americans like the idea of cutting federal spending in the abstract — they just can’t agree on any specific areas they’d actually like to cut…

[...] Foreign aid is far and away the most popular suggestion for the chopping block, but even here, it’s a close call — 48 percent of respondents said cut it, 49 percent said keep it the same or increase it. (Foreign aid makes up less than 1 percent of the federal budget.) In no other spending area is there majority support for cuts.

The tide has turned… and it’s turned away from career war profiteers in Congress:

Think Progress: A new poll released by the Hill newspaper has found that more voters favor slashing military spending versus cutting spending on domestic programs like Medicare and Social Security in order to reduce the debt and deficit.

Voters are tired of funding the GOP’s Forever Wars and think there should be spending cuts — but they think the cuts should be to all those other programs and services they personally don’t like or use (like foreign aid — only 1% of the budget). And while everyone in the country continues to subsidize the red states’ appetite for federal cheese, red state conservatives will continue to tell themselves that they deserve more federal cheese than blue states (or that it’s not federal cheese – it’s freedom cheese!). So we’ll see how long Teapublicans can hold out on their belief that only Democratic states and Democrats will be ‘hurt’ by the sequester.


Source: questionall

Want to see how much your state will lose with sequestration cuts? Go here.

Republicans are terrible people

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In a speech to the Wyoming GOP, DICK Cheney said that the recent national security choices by President Obama (i.e. Chuck Hagel, John Brennan and John Kerry) were “subpar people.”  This from the guy who was part of an administration that chose, among other things, Heckofajob Brownie for FEMA.

Charles Johnson: Sen. Lindsey Graham has appointed himself the King of Republican Bad Craziness, pandering to the far right’s bizarre fantasies about the Benghazi attack with a relentless zeal that would be impressive if it were directed at something actually useful to the country.

New wingnut conspiracy! In the wake of news that Sen. Lindsey Graham is threatening to block the nominations of Hagel and Brennan, there’s a whole new conspiracy theory bubbling up on the right. From ground zero of Obama era conspiracy theories comes the conspiracy theory to top them all: that CIA nominee John Brennan is himself a Muslim.


via quickhits

John Cole: Thinkprogress makes the mistake of taking John McCain at his word. Look, how many times will people fall for this. The McCain / Lieberman / Graham / Snowe / Collins caucus will always say they are in favor of looking at compromise and policies advanced by the President. But in the end, they always find a reason not to, usually because someone hurt their feelings or they didn’t like the seat they were sitting in at the negotiating table at the White House or because Nancy Pelosi smirked on CNN.

“Well, Tom, the problem with saying this is the president’s idea is that you voted for the Budget Control Act. I voted against it. We wouldn’t have ever been talking about the Budget Control Act but for your party refused to negotiate on the debt ceiling something that has been routinely increased as the country needed it. You used that occasion in 2011 August to basically say we are going to default on the country’s obligations or you’re going to give us dramatic spending cuts. That’s how we got to the Budget Control Act.” — Rep. Keith Ellison (D-MN) to Tom Cole (R-OK) for his claim that President Obama is responsible for the upcoming sequester.

Senators Marco Rubio and Rand Paul have both been tapped to rebut President Obama’s SOTU before they’ve even had a chance to hear him speak: They’re serving up both kinds of Republicans! Country and Western! The Tea Party and The Tea Party. The difference is that Tea Party hero, Sen. Marco Rubio, can say, “Pro-growth” in español. With that Steve Stifler-like smile and charm, Marco Rubio is there for outreach, and to coerce the Latino vote into bed. And just in case the Tea Party gets a little nervous if there isn’t someone there to speak the native language of “white people” to the actual base, Tea Party hero, Sen. Rand Paul, is there to reassure them that they haven’t been overrun by the demographic shift, just yet. But this is typical Republican Party behavior. They get two chances to make their case, and you get one.


via letfreedomlulz

A tutorial for today’s young women: Hillary Clinton’s Benghazi testimony

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image pandem0nia

Connie Schultz: Secretary of State Clinton showed up to answer tough and sometimes ridiculous questions regarding the deadly September 2012 attack on the U.S. diplomatic mission in Benghazi, Libya. In the process, she offered a tutorial for today’s young women.

Key points:

1) When a man asks you a question and then refuses to look at you as you answer, just keep going. Don’t let his rudeness silence you.

2) When he interrupts you, return the favor.

3) When he says things you know are not true, correct him. Repeatedly.

4) When he attempts to bully you, mow him down with facts.

5) And whenever possible, smile. Nothing rattles an angry man like a woman who looks happy to annoy him.

More…

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How to deal with a mansplainer starring Hillary Clinton in gifs

Step 5: When Senator John McCain calls you combative and proceeds to rant endlessly, nod with a sly smile.

Step 6: Take the time McCain spends ranting to reorganize the pages in your binder.

Step 7: Rearrange all of the random crap on your desk.  You can never be too organized when getting grilled by angry white dudes.

Step 8: When the rant continues on and on look at the mansplainer with a *blank stare* and put your hand on your chin like, “Are you still talking?”

More…

A quick summary of Hillary Clinton’s testimony on Benghazi

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thedorseyshawexperience: FIERCE

“Since the Republican takeover of the House, House Republicans have proposed deep cuts for U.S. embassy operations and programs across the board, including for security…Now they have topped even that record of recklessness…In preventing this transfer of unused funds appropriated earlier for Iraq—funds already appropriated and approved by Congress—[House Republicans] have hobbled the work that everyone agrees is needed to harden our embassy security efforts…Many of our diplomats serve in dangerous places by necessity. We need to protect them as best we can, without turning our embassies into impenetrable fortresses that make it impossible for them to do their jobs. For Republicans to blame the Administration for failing to protect our diplomats, without acknowledging their own efforts to slash resources for embassy security, is pure, distilled hypocrisy.” — Sen. Patrick Leahy (Democrat, Vermont) in a statement released today,

OH SNAP DICK DURBIN! “Whether the American people are told everything… in the right way… I’d like to refer to 5 words for them…” — Sen. Durbin, countering the Republican senators who were berating Hillary Clinton about the people being misinformed or under-informed regarding the Benghazi consulate attack. (via cliptamatic)


And he totally deserved it. Hillary Clinton, Ron Johnson Engage In Heated Exchange At Benghazi Hearing (VIDEO)

Ron Johnson is a total bitch.

…

“With all due respect, the fact is we had four dead Americans. Was it because of a protest, or was it because of guys out for a walk one night who decided they’d go kill some Americans? What difference, at this point, does it make? It our job to figure out what happened and do everything we can to prevent it from ever happening again, senator. Now, honestly, I will do my best to answer your questions about this. The fact is that people were trying, in real time, to get to the best information.”

And there was RAND PAUL! with his imaginary friend Ayn Rand and all their good ideas! I’ve never heard Aqua Buddha make a serious argument about anything. David Kurtz doesn’t take Rand Paul seriously, either: 

Paul went as far as saying that had he been president he would have fired Clinton, while rattling off a few examples of State Department expenditures that he considers wasteful and frivolous. It needs to be said that Paul doesn’t have much use for the State Department. In his own budget proposal for 2011, which called for a half a trillion dollars in across the board spending cuts, Paul proposed a $20 billion cut to the State Department. By way of comparison, the State Department’s core budget for the 2013 fiscal year is $43.4 billion. You can see that provision of his budget at the bottom of the page here.

The U.S. security failures in Benghazi were serious. They shouldn’t be downplayed or dismissed. But you don’t have to pretend there wasn’t a State Department failure, in order to conclude that it takes a lot of nerve to sit there and rip a secretary over the decisions made about how and where to deploy security resources when not only is the department chronically underfunded and having to make do, but while you yourself have called for slashing the departments budget by nearly half. That’s not serious. And neither is Paul.

Sen. Rand Paul will obstruct flood insurance bill with amendment defining when life begins

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An amendment which, of course, has nothing to do with floods or insurance but has everything to do with his party’s plan to do nothing until Election Day.

Think Progess reports that Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) is trying to attach an anti-choice amendment to the Senate’s flood insurance bill.

“After years of delay, senators recently came to an agreement over the flood bill and were set to vote on it this week. But now, Paul is threatening to hold up its final passage by adding an amendment defining when life begins. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) expressed his displeasure with that move this morning, saying he would not bring the bill up for a vote if the amendment is added. [...] The National Flood Insurance Program helps homeowners whose houses are destroyed by floods — like those that devastated Minnesota and are currently sweeping Florida — and has absolutely nothing to do with abortion or conception.”

Why does Aqua Budda have a sudden interest in women’s issues like contraception and choice — is it like auditioning to be Romney’s VP? Isn’t he supposed to be a libertarian with the whole individual liberty, smaller government, ‘keep the federal gov’mit out of my business’ routine?  I know, I know — that claptrap only applies to white males. Clearly.

Morning Bunker Report: Sunday 6.10.2012

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WHAT ROMNEY / REPUBLICANS STAND FOR———————————————

Yes, Republicans are stepping on the economy for political gain — The Republican line is that, even in current conditions of mass unemployment, zero interest rates and low inflation, higher short-term deficits harm the economy rather than help it. Republicans embraced this unorthodox line of thinking suddenly, after maintaining the opposite when their party held the White House. I used to reject the accusation that Republicans reversed their thinking out of a conscious decision to sabotage the economy in order to regain power. [...] I was shaken of that belief not long ago, when Mitt Romney said off the cuff that cutting spending in his first year would retard the recovery… Conservatives mounted zero pushback whatsoever, suggesting that their newfound attachment to contractionary fiscal policy is a pure shift of expediency, to be discarded immediately if their party wins power and suddenly has an incentive to speed up rather than slow down the economy. — Jonathan Chait | image: phroyd 

Romney Energy Plan Includes Drilling ‘Virtually Every Part’ Of U.S., No Protections For National Parks — As the [Washington] Post reports: Asked whether any place would be off limits for oil drilling, campaign spokesman Andrea Saul said, “Governor Romney will permit drilling wherever it can be done safely, taking into account local concerns.” [...] Presumably, if there was oil and gas found there, Romney would allow drilling in places like the Grand Canyon, Arches National Park, Glacier National Park, Yellowstone, and Isle Royale National Park in the Great Lakes, regardless of its impacts on them. In essence, he would take lands that belong to all Americans and turn them over to oil companies. – Think Progress

  • THERE’S NO SUCH THING AS “AMERICAN” OIL — The oil or gas is drilled by corporations of various sizes ranging from wildcat, low-budget start up operations through Exxon/Mobil. [...] The thing is, the stuff that comes out of a successful well doesn’t belong to you and me. Or the state or federal government. It’s owned by the company that drilled for it, produced it, and shipped it to market. It’s not “America’s oil.” It’s Exxon’s. And BP’s. And Shell’s. And believe me: Exxon doesn’t think of it as “American oil.” They think of it as a commodity sold on a hyper-competitive global market. — PoliticalProf

Just to reiterate: Romney’s “jobs” plan is to fire government workers, he mocked President Obama for wanting to hire more teachers, firefighters and police officers  – Mitt Romney once again made it clear that his jobs plan is to fire government workers: “[the President] wants another stimulus, he wants to hire more government workers. He says we need more fireman, more policeman, more teachers. Did he not get the message of Wisconsin? The American people did. It’s time for us to cut back on government and help the American people.” — Greg Sargent

via: DailyKos 

Mitt Romney Thinks High Private Sector Growth and 4.3 Million New Jobs is a “Moral Failure of Tragic Proportions” – Mitt Romney today declared that the floundering economy under President Obama is not just a “failure of policy” but a “moral failure of tragic proportion,” though he offered few new details as to what he would do differently as president.  [...] “When you look around at America’s economy, three-and-a-half years into this presidency, it’s painfully obvious that this inexperienced president with no experience as a leader was simply not up to the task of solving a great economic crisis,” said Romney. “This is not just a failure of policy; it is a moral failure of tragic proportion. Our government has a moral commitment to help every American help himself. And that commitment has been broken.” – ABL

All employees: total private industries 

image: Bob Cesca

The private sector IS doing fine — According to the Wingnutosphere, yesterday was a day that will live in infamy. Why? Because President Obama said the private sector is “doing fine.” They are doing fine, actually. [...] Business Insider’s glorious collection of charts also covers the president’s words on the slump in public sector employment, but that’s not in dispute by the Republicans. They may even gloat about it. You know, because those aren’t real jobs. – Bob Cesca

Libertarians work through the five stages of grief over Rand Paul’s endorsement of Romney – The Libertarian Party issued a blistering statement through the party’s website, in which they called Rand a turncoat, a traitor to his father’s legacy and a sellout. “(N)o true libertarian, no true friend of liberty, and no true blue Tea Partier could possibly even consider, much less actually endorse or approve of, the Father of Obamacare, Big Government tax and spender, Republican Mitt Romney,” the statement said. [...] “WHY RAND WHY?!” wrote one angry Reddit poster, who included the climactic scene of George Lucas’s third “Star Wars” prequel, in which Anakin Skywalker is betrayed and abandoned by Obi Wan Kenobi. “He bowed to the neocons!!!” wrote another, “WELL LISTEN RAND!!! WE WON’T BOW!!! WE WILL CONTINUE TO FIGHT FOR FREEDOM AS YOU BOWED TO THE KILLER GLOBALISTS!!!” On Facebook, one Ron Paul supporter wrote, “Rand Paul you disgust me.” – Raw Story || Stage one: ALL CAPS

WHAT THE PRESIDENT / DEMOCRATS STAND FOR ————————————


image: storiesbysharkbait

Tell Congress we can’t wait — The President’s jobs plan would put teachers, firefighters, police officers, and construction workers back to work right now. And it’s paid for by asking the wealthiest Americans to pay a little more, but Congress refuses to act. Tell Congress we can’t wait: JobsNow – YouTube

…

Sen. Sherrod Brown on JP Morgan’s trading mess: ‘These banks are not just too big to fail, they’re too big to manage‘ – Brown (D-OH) said that JP Morgan’s trading mess proves banks are not only too big to fail — meaning they are explicitly backed by the government and will be rescued if they blow themselves up — but simply “too big to manage”: [...] “Jamie Dimon’s smart, he’s articulate, he’s probably a good manager, he’s probably a good CEO. I don’t like his public persona in terms of what he’s done to weaken these regulations and to undercut them. They lost their fights in Congress, now they’re organizing to win them in the regulatory agencies. But I think, if he can’t manage a bank this size, it probably isn’t manageable. I think these banks will be stronger and healthier and probably more profitable if they’re smaller.” – Think Progress

Well played, Senator:

Kudos to Sen. Sherrod Brown for giving CNN contributor/Breitbart.com loon Dana Loesch exactly the amount of respect she deserved, when she popped up like a malevolent jack-in-the-box at the Netroots Nation conference. — LGF

Harry Reid said he will likely push for changes to filibuster rules if the Democrats retain control next year – “I’ll just bet you … if we maintain a majority, and I feel quite confident that we can do that, and the president is reelected, there is going to be some changes,” Reid said on the Senate floor. “We can no longer go through this, every bill, filibusters [even] on bills that they agree with. It’s just a waste of time to prevent us from getting things done.” It remains unclear, however, if Reid would have the votes to change the Senate’s rules, which would require a simple majority vote at the start of the new Congress. Should Democrats retain control of the Senate, they will likely have a razor-thin majority in 2013. Only one or two defections could lead to defeat of the motion, as all Republicans are united against such a change in rules. – The Hill

image: abaldwin360

Paul Krugman at Netroots Nation: solving this depression isn’t an economic problem, it’s a political problem – The Nobel Laureate said that the current state of the U.S. economy is “incredibly awful,” and dinged Romney’s exorbitant wealth, saying, “If you don’t know multiple people who are suffering, then you must be living in a very rarefied environment. You must be maybe a member of the Romney clan, or something.” Krugman underscored the fact that the current economic crisis has been created by deregulation and poor policy decisions. “None of this has to be happening,” he said, “We didn’t have a plague of locusts, we were not hit by a tsunami, there wasn’t some act of God that created this terrible situation. It was acts of man.” [...] “Solving this depression is not fundamentally an economic problem,” he said, “it’s a political problem.” – Raw Story

Things you never imagine Dick Cheney doing: Joe Biden had an epic waterfight with kids today – The Vice President invites the press and their families to his home at the Naval Observatory every year. — Buzzfeed (more photos at the link) 

Morning Bunker Report: Saturday 6.9.2012

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WHAT ROMNEY / REPUBLICANS STAND FOR———————————————

“She absolutely should not be president: no way, no how. I’ve watched her on the public stage over the past four years. There has been zero effort — zero — to improve any of her obvious deficiencies.” — Steve Schmidt, remarking on Sarah Palin and the “disastrous political misjudgment” in selecting her as McCain’s running mate, in the NY Times.

Mitt Romney commenting on Obama and firemen, policemen, and teachers: “he wants another stimulus, he wants to hire more government workers. He says we need more fireman, more policeman, more teachers. Did he not get the message of Wisconsin? The American people did. It’s time for us to cut back on government and help the American people.”   Romney in Iowa – watch: 

…
Romney economics: fire more government workers — The last three years are the worst on record for public sector job loss, and the 700,000 government jobs that no longer exist remain a large drag on the American economy. [...Here's] yet another indication that Romney is more interested in continuing the GOP’s ideological battle against government instead of curing the ills that are plaguing the American economy. — Think Progress

  • Recall, just last month (on the anniversary of the Osama bin Laden operation), Romney needed to wrap himself in 9/11 iconography to compete with President Obama, so he and “Noun-Verb-9/11″ Giuliani took pizzas to some FDNY government parasites for a photo-op and as a means to criticize the President over the firefighters’ salaries! What does Romney stand for? IT DEPENDS ON THE HOUR OF THE DAY.

Just another day in America: a Republican throwing more free money at capitalists – The $1.65 billion tax deal the Corbett administration is negotiating with Shell Oil Co. to locate an ethane processing plant in western Pennsylvania is shaping up to be the biggest such state investment Pennsylvania history… Under the deal, taxpayers would foot the bill for hazardous materials clean up at the western Pennsylvania site, a cost that could easily soar into the tens of millions… on top of the $1.65 billion in tax credits over 25 years starting in 2017, and other sweeteners that come with a tax-free Keystone Opportunity Zone, the state would be picking up the bill to clean up the waste from a zinc smelter site. – Philly.com

This is how America works: lay-off workers and over-compensate CEOs – Verizon Communications announced last week that it would reduce its nationwide workforce by 1 percent, and if enough workers don’t accept the buyouts, it will resort to involuntary layoffs. Verizon paid chief executive Lowell C. McAdam more than $22.5 million in 2011, according to a Wall Street Journal analysis of executive compensation. The company has paid its top five executives more than $350 million in the last five years. [...] In 2011, the company’s shareholders saw an 18.8 percent increase in the value of their returns. Workers, however, have not shared in those gains. Verizon eliminated 26,000 jobs over a two-year period in 2008 and 2009 — including 16,000 jobs in 2009 alone — and laid off roughly 13,000 more in 2010. At the same time, Verizon has demanded sizable concessions from workers… – Think Progress

Fox “News” makes you stupid – Fox News host Neil Cavuto rehashed old myths on his show today to argue against a proposed Democratic bill that would raise the federal minimum wage from $7.25 to $10 an hour and require annual increases for inflation. To make his point, Cavuto claimed the higher wage would negatively impact current unemployment levels [...]The Center for Economic and Policy Research found that raising the minimum wage has no “discernible impact” on employment, and in fact, concluded that wage increases are more likely to result in more jobs rather than less. – Media Matters

Mitt Romney will now be getting loads of money from billionaire Foster Friess and his Super PAC, Restore Our Future – the primary backer of the pro-Rick Santorum Super PAC, says he is fully behind Mitt Romney’s efforts to defeat President Barack Obama…. [...] Friess said he met with Romney at a fundraiser in Phoenix recently. ”When you look a guy in the eye you can tell a little of what he’s like and he’s a special guy. He’s got a great family he loves America.” — Buzzfeed

Rand Paul endorsed Mitt Romney — [S]aying your first pick is Ron Paul, but Mitt Romney will do, proves that you stand for absolutely nothing. — JM Ashby

  • Paul told CNN it would be an honor to be [Romney's] running mate.
  • Ha ha haa!

WHAT THE PRESIDENT / DEMOCRATS STAND FOR ————————————

Obama clarifies ‘private sector is doing fine’ remark, responding to the ‘political games’ that started over it – “The economy needs to be strengthened,” Obama told reporters Friday afternoon. “That is why I had a press conference. I believe there are a lot of Americans who are hurting right now. That is what I have been saying for the last year, two years, three years.” Dismissing “political games” around the issue, Obama said Americans should instead focus on choosing a candidate who can articulate a clear solution to the problem. “The key is, for folks, what I am interested in hearing from Romney, is what steps are they willing to take right now that will make an actual difference? And, so far, all we have heard are additional tax cuts to the folks who are doing fine.” – TPM

image: jojo-wants-a-tardis

Obama says the “private sector is doing fine” and the GOP circus pulls into town — As gaffes go, this strikes me as extremely weak tea. The choice of words probably could have been slightly better, but really, to treat this as some kind of breakthrough moment in the campaign is pretty silly. Indeed, what Obama said, in context, is largely correct — compared to the public sector, the private sector really is doing fine. This isn’t complicated. Corporate profits have soared, the stock market is up, and private sector job growth has fueled the recovery entirely on its own. In fact, private sector job growth last year was the second best year we’ve seen since the late 1990s, and 2012 is on track to be even stronger. The public sector, meanwhile, continues to be a drag on the economy, laying off workers and cutting budgets. Comparing the two sectors, there’s nothing shocking about saying one is “fine” and the other isn’t. If the media pushback is that the current growth rates aren’t yet good enough, that’s certainly fair — but I think everyone realizes Obama has said the same thing several thousand times. — Steve Benen 

JUST HOW FINE IS THE PRIVATE SECTOR DOING? Corporate / private-sector profits after taxes are at record highs – Andrew Sullivan || Note: this private-sector success isn’t doing much for the nation’s economy, the treasury, or for job creation — but there are several CEOs who have huge bank accounts now. 

Obama campaign’s full response to Romney’s “fire more government workers” remarks –  ”After years on the campaign trail, Mitt Romney finally revealed his jobs plan today. It is a plan of job elimination, not creation. While the President has put a jobs plan on the table that addresses areas of employment where we need to spur hiring the most right now – keeping police officers on the street and teachers in the classroom, Mitt Romney promised to eliminate even more public sector jobs. Mitt Romney has also said we should ‘send home’ 145,000 federal workers – those workers are mostly military personnel, VA hospital personnel who care for the wounded and Homeland Security workers. Not only has Mitt Romney opposed the President’s plan to create one million jobs, he is actually calling for further job loss in the sector that needs the most urgent boost. While job creation in Massachusetts lagged during Romney’s tenure as Governor despite his promises, calling for job elimination when we’re still digging out from the economic crisis is nothing short of stunning.” — Buzzfeed

Romney Economics: Fewer teachers, fewer firefighters, fewer police officers — Watch:

…

Chris Matthews goes nuts on ‘idiot Republican argument’ – As the conversation turned to the economy in general, fellow panelist and former Deputy Press Secretary to George W. Bush, Tony Fratto, began to argue that people want the private sector and not the government to, “take the lead.” “It hasn’t. It has failed, and it keeps failing,” Matthews interrupted. As he and Fratto talked over each other, Matthews claimed that the private sector was purposefully withholding its money to keep the economy stagnant and to hurt the president’s reelection campaign. [...]  “Okay, here’s the idiot Republican argument,” Matthews said. “If you’d just give them a bigger tax cut than Bush gave them.” [...] “I feel like I’m teaching first grade here,” Matthews said. “What do you think Tom Donohue of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce does for a living representing American business? He gets Republicans elected. Business and the Republican party are the same thing.” – Raw Story

NEW DATA: 6.6 Million Young Adults Insured Thanks To Obamacare – According to a study by the Commonwealth Fund, 6.6 million young adults have signed up for coverage through their parents’ health insurance plans. Under the ACA provision, young people can now stay on their parents’ plans until the age of 26. About half of the 19-to-25 year-olds interviewed for the study reported opting in to their parents’ plans between November 2010 and November 2011. — Think Progress

Morning Bunker Report: Saturday 5.12.2012

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WHAT THE REPUBLICAN PARTY STANDS FOR TODAY—————————–—

An email campaign endorsed by Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) launched this week (pictured, below) depicts a rifle pointing at President Barack Obama’s head, and a message about an imaginary “million rifle ban” the president is allegedly seeking to implement. “Death threats against this president are up 400 percent as compared to President Bush,” Ladd Everitt, director of communications for The Coalition to Stop Gun Violence, told Raw Story on Thursday. “We are living today in a supercharged, partisan political climate where threats of violence and violent rhetoric are everywhere, and you would think that anyone — anyone, no matter what their political views or disagreements with this president — would have the common sense and decency to not create a banner image for a conspiracy theory-fueled email that shows a gun pointing directly at [the president's] head, while simultaneously preaching to folks about some ridiculous Obama gun ban that exists only in a fantasy world.” – Raw Story

  • UPDATE — 5/11: The image housed at the website for the campaign has been changed. The rifle now points toward the head of Sen. Paul. – HuffPo

~~~

HOW ARE WE DOING AS A SOCIETY? Trayvon Martin gun range targets were sold online “to make money off the controversy,” report says – The targets reportedly do not show Martin’s face, but feature a hoodie with crosshairs aimed at the chest. A bag of Skittles is tucked in the pocket and a hand is holding a can resembling iced tea. Martin reportedly was carrying both items the night of his death.  [...] According to WKMG, the seller of the targets told them in an email exchange that the “main motivation was to make money off the controversy.” – CBS News

Harry Reid finally gets fed up with ‘mindless’ Republican obstructionism over the refusal of Senate Republicans to pass a completely non-controversial reauthorization of the Export-Import Bank on the grounds that they wanted time to offer amendments. “It’s so unusual here,” Reid continued. “I have been here in Congress thirty years, but this is a new one. Even bills that they agree on, they want to mess around with. In years past, this would have gone through here just like this [snapping his fingers]. … The House passed something 330 to 93, and we’re here playing around with it? It should be done. We should have passed it yesterday. This thing is going to expire.” “It’s hard to comprehend what the new mantra of the Republicans in the Senate, what it is,” he added. “I don’t get it.” – Raw Story

  • Reid expressed regret that he had not supported a proposed change to the filibuster rule in January 2011, but had instead entered into a “gentleman’s agreement” with Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) to keep it intact.
  • NOTE: If the Democrats hold their Senate majority, Democratic voters will need to remind Harry Reid and others that there can be no ‘gentlemen’s agreements’ with Republicans anymore. Ever. There is no more trust.

The 111th Congress was practically defined by Republicans who turned an extraordinary measure–the filibuster–into a routine tool of obstruction. GOP senators invoked holds and filibusters on virtually everything that came from Senate Democrats, resulting in a session that saw more filibusters than any previous session in history. This nifty graph is illustrative. [...] At this point, I’m honestly unsure of what will convince reporters to cease the constant equivalence between the two parties. Democrats aren’t angels, of course, but the Republican Party has embarked on a crusade against the norms that govern conduct in the Senate. It’s totalistic approach to politics is responsible for congressional dysfunction, and placing blame on both sides only makes the problem harder to solve. — Prospect.org

Maddow Blog: It’s a good thing we didn’t let Detroit go bankrupt: “U.S. auto sales are on pace for the best showing since 2007 and a third straight year of at least 10 percent gains, only the fourth such streak since the Great Depression, as more-confident buyers return to showrooms.”

Mediaite: Geraldo Rivera appeared on Fox & Friends on Friday where he described an intrusive inspection he had received from a Transportation Security Administration officer on a recent trip to Afghanistan. “I got manually raped by a guy,” said Rivera. “This guy, it seemed to me, was getting off on it.” (NOTE: it was a TSA pat-down, something thousands of people go through every day.)

TPM: Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY), on Obama: “Call me cynical, but I didn’t think his views on marriage could get any gayer.”

PRESIDENT OBAMA / DEMOCRATS————————————————————


…
President Barack Obama gave Congress a “to-do list” for fixing the economy in his weekly address broadcast Saturday. Obama’s suggestions:
1) ending tax breaks for companies that outsource work overseas,
2) help homeowners refinance their mortgages at lower interest rates,
3) increasing tax benefits for small businesses that hire,
4) increasing tax benefits for small businesses that hire and extending tax credits for clean-energy companies,
5) and creating a Veterans Job Corps for troops returning from Iraq and Afghanistan who are re-entering the private sector.

“… America’s real problems have nothing to do with what we do in our bedrooms and everything to do with what top executives do in their boardrooms and executive suites. We’re not in trouble because gays want to marry or women want to have some control over when they have babies. We’re in trouble because CEOs are collecting exorbitant pay while slicing the pay of average workers, because the titans of Wall Street demand short-term results over long-term jobs, and because of a boardroom culture that tolerates financial conflicts of interest, insider trading, and the outright bribery of public officials through unlimited campaign “donations.” Our crisis has nothing to do with private morality. It’s a crisis of public morality – of abuses of public trust that undermine the integrity of our economy and democracy … .” – Former Secretary of Labor Robert Reich in Of Bedrooms and Boardrooms [via: reagan-was-a-horrible-president]

Daily Kos: Tom Barrett gets an Obama campaign assist in Wisconsin recall against Scott Walker – The next election here in Wisconsin is coming up on June 5th — and it’s important to make sure your voice is heard. For the last year and a half, Governor Walker has divided Wisconsin — siding with big corporations and the super-rich at the expense of working, middle-class families. He’s broken our trust in state government: Too many Wisconsin families are out of work, students face crowded classrooms, and working men and women will be hurt by cuts to health care funding.

  • Charles P. Pierce: The microphone is always open, the camera is always on, and Scott Walker, the goggle-eyed homunculus hired by Koch Industries to run their midwestern subsidiary formerly known as the state of Wisconsin, is always saying the wrong thing to the wrong people. In the video in that link there, which you should really watch all the way through, the billionaire Diane Hendricks tells Walker she wants to discuss “controversial” subjects away from reporters…
  • In the video, Diane Hendricks, who owns a roofing wholesale and siding distribution company, asks Walker: “Any chance we’ll ever get to be a completely red state and work on these unions—” Walker: “Oh, yeah.” Hendricks: “—and become a right-to-work? What can we do to help you?” Walker: “Well, we’re going to start in a couple weeks with our budget adjustment bill. The first step is we’re going to deal with collective bargaining for all public employee unions, because you use divide and conquer.” – Daily Kos
  • Walker has said publicly before that he wouldn’t pursue right-to-work. Asked about right-to-work earlier this year by The Atlantic’s Molly Ball Walker had said, “When I was in the legislature, I supported it. It’s not something I’m pursuing right now, nor have any plan of pursuing. Again, private-sector unions have been our partner in the economic revival we’ve had in this state.” — Buzzfeed

Asked whether he would be at a disadvantage politically if gays galvanize behind Obama’s reelection campaign, Romney said, “Hopefully, people are focusing on the major issues of the day, which relate to our economy, getting people back to work, dealing with Syria…. But I know for many people, the issue of marriage is going to be a defining issue, and they will make their decision on that basis. That is their right. But you don’t change your position to try to win states or certain subgroups of Americans. You have the positions you have, and you know, for a long time, I think since the beginning of my career, I have made it very clear that I thought that marriage should be a relationship between a man and a women.” – NationalJournal.com

Think Progress: Insurers Will Pay $1.3 Billion In Rebates To 16 Million Consumers Because Of Obamacare – Thanks to a provision of the Affordable Care Act, 16 million consumers and businesses are expected to receive about $1.3 billion in rebates from health insurance companies, according to the Kaiser Family Foundation. The medical loss ratio rule requires insurers to spend at least 80 to 85 percent of premiums on patient care; if not, then the companies owe rebates to their customers. As Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius explains, “We want to know that most of what we are paying for is for health care, not advertising, executive bonuses or overhead. It’s pretty simple: we want to get a good value for our premium dollars.”

The Conservative Crusaders of America

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Accurate! Take a quick look at what the conservative ‘Christian’ base actually supports with their vote, election after election, just because GOP candidates / politicians promise to get involved in other people’s personal lives and to publicly and politically vilify entire groups of people who are not white, Christian, and conservative:

Report: Lawmakers Opposing Volcker Rule Receive Four Times As Much From Financial Sector As Those Supporting It

Members of Congress who submitted comments advocating the weakening of the already watered-down Volcker Rule — which is meant to rein in banks’ risky trading — have received more than four times as much in campaign contributions from the financial sector as members who demanded stricter regulations, a report released today by Public Citizen reveals:

Those seeking to weaken the rule have received $66.7 million from the financial services industry since the 2010 election cycle compared to only $1.9 million in contributions received by those asking for a more robust rule. Those seeking to weaken the rule have received an average of $388,010 from the industry, more than four times as much as the average of $96,897 received by those asking for a stronger rule.

Continue…

Harry Reid: Rising Gas Prices Are Giving Big Oil Billions Of Dollars

During debate on a bill to eliminate $2.4 billion in big oil tax breaks, U.S. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) stated the obvious: rising gasoline prices mean billions in profit for big oil companies. “Domestic oil production has increased every year during the Obama administration. Meanwhile, the American dependence on foreign oil has decreased ever year. Yet prices at the pump have continued to rise. Here’s why. For every price the price at the pump goes up, the major oil companies, there’s five of them, make an additional $200 million a quarter,” he said, citing the Center for American Progress. “Let’s say that again: For every penny that you pay extra at the gas pump, these five oil companies make $200 million. It doesn’t take a lot of math to understand gas prices have increased 62 cents this year. Take 200 million times 62, you’ve got a huge amount of billions of dollars.” $12.4 billion, in fact.

BUT THE FURINNERS! THE HOMOSEXUALS! THE LEFTISTS! Teaparty favorite Rand Paul to the rescue:

Sen. Rand Paul: When Big Oil Screws Americans At The Gas Pump, ‘You Should Want To Encourage Them’

GOP senators like Rand Paul (R-KY) and Jon Kyl (R-AZ) have used their time on the Senate floor today to push error-riddled arguments coming straight from their oil industry donors.

Paul argued Big Oil deserves even more favors from government, because they’re doing such a good job extracting wealth from American families:

Instead of punishing them, you should want to encourage them. I would think you would want to say to the oil companies, “What obstacles are there to you making more money?” And hiring more people. Instead they say, “No, we must punish them. We must tax them more to make things fair.” This whole thing about fairness is so misguided and gotten out of hand.

[...] Republicans have received 88 percent of donations from the oil industry’s coffers. In the Senate, Republicans have taken over $13.8 million from oil, compared to the Democrats’ $3.3 million, meaning Senate Republicans have taken four times the amount in Big Oil contributions as Democrats. Kyl is the No. 29 largest recipient in the Senate from oil and gas in career contributions with over $330,000 and Paul has received over $106,000 from oil. 

America’s Conservative Crusaders are fighting to make America a third-world theocracy, while the wealthiest one percent are laughing all the way to the (Swiss) bank.

And these people vote every time there’s an election, even if you don’t.

10 interesting things to read this morning

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1. A new analysis from Citizens for Tax Justice has determined that the Buffett rule as laid out in Obama’s SOTU could raise up to $50 billion per year to pay down the deficit, while affecting just 0.08 percent of taxpayers. – Analyzing the Buffett Rule

2. President Obama is announcing Friday morning a new proposal to limit federal student loans for students going to schools not making an effort to curb costs. There will be more details when he speaks at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor. – Obama to Announce Proposal to Push Colleges to Lower Tuition

3. Watch a 1994 debate between Mittens Romney and Senate incumbent Ted Kennedy, where a partially vibrant Romney attacked Kennedy’s blind trusts, saying: “The blind trust is an age-old ruse. You give a blind trust rules. You can say to a blind trust, don’t invest in properties which would be in conflict of interest or where the seller might think they’re going to get an advantage from me.” This is completely opposite to what Romney says about HIS blind trusts today – plus, and most gratifyingly, Sen. Kennedy went on to trounce Mitt’s ass in this video and in the voting booth:

4. The newly-released GDP numbers fell a little short of expectations, but given the larger trajectory, it was at least encouraging to see the domestic economy moving in the right direction in the final three months of 2011. [...] Here’s a chart showing GDP numbers by quarter since the Great Recession began. The red columns show the economy under the Bush administration; the blue columns show the economy under the Obama administration.  –  Economy shows signs of life

5. “If President Obama is the food stamp president, then Bush was the planes flying into the buildings president.” – Bill Maher, HBO’s Real Time

6. Goodbye to unions, goodbye to the middle class: the percentage of workers represented by a union dipped slightly in 2011, the Bureau of Labor Statistics said on Friday, as organized labor came under attack in states once considered union strongholds, including Wisconsin and Ohio. – Union membership slipped further as attacks came in 2011

7. Romney is also obviously shameless, a mushy walking inconsistency, and is also quite a facile liar. But he is incredibly disciplined. It ought to be humiliating news that after a year of campaigning and seventeen debates, Romney had to go find a debate coach, so that he might arrange the syllables coming out of his mouth in such a way that he sounds at last like a man one wouldn’t be ashamed to vote for… — Facile Mitt Aims for Newt in One Fell Floridian Thwack

8. The Obama administration announced Friday a new inquiry to investigate fraud in the mortgage-backed securities market, whose billion-dollar implosion helped trigger the global financial crisis. – White House announces investigation of subprime mortgage fraud

9. A full 100 percent of economists agreed that permanently raising the federal tax rate by 1 percent for those in the top income tax bracket would increase federal tax revenue over the next 10 years. By contrast, only 66 percent of the general public agreed that this was the case, with just 50 percent of Republicans concurring and 80 percent of Democrats. The misconception could partly explain why there’s such aversion to tax increases. – Ezra Klein: Average Americans don’t think like economists

10. The security camera video of Kentucky Senator Rand Paul’s encounter with Nashville airport TSA agents is here, complete with wacky libertarian captions, so now you can make your own determination about how full of shit he was when he told his communications manager he was being detained by the TSA. Our verdict: still totally full of shit… Maybe Rand Paul speaks in a kind of old-timey way, and uses “detained” to just mean “slowed down…” – Video Shows Exactly How Full of Shit Rand Paul Was About Being ‘Detained’

The lesson for all of us from Rand Paul’s TSA kerfluffle

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stfuconservatives:

On way to anti-choice rally Rand Paul refused TSA pat-down. Because invasive government is wrong when it’s a man’s body.

Well put TV’s Frank. - Joe

Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) was escorted away from a Transportation Security Administration checkpoint at the Nashville airport on Monday after declining to undergo an enhanced security pat-down, the agency said. He later completed the screening process and boarded a later flight. Read full article >>