National Security Brief: Top Senate Democrat Wants Greater U.S. Role In Syria

Senate Armed Services Committee chairman Carl Levin (D-MI) said on Monday that the United States should play a more active role in bringing about Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s downfall. “I would go further than the President,” Levin said, adding that President Obama should consider establishing so-called “safe zones” for Syrian rebels within the country. Levin also said the U.S. should consider taking out the Syrian military’s anti-aircraft batteries and other Syrian Air Force assets.

Meanwhile, House Foreign Relations Committee Ranking Member Rep. Eliot Engel (D-NY) introduced legislation on Monday giving Obama that authority to provide “lethal equipment” to Syrian rebels fighting Assad’s forces. In a statement, Engel said the U.S. is “long past due to arm friendly rebels and turn the tide to allow for a more hopeful Syrian future.”

While U.S. officials mull whether and how much to intervene in Syria, the Syrian opposition coalition elected a Syrian born U.S. citizen to be the first prime minister of an interim government there should Assad fall. The group chose Ghassan Hitto, an information technology executive who lived in Texas until recently.

In other news:

Former Pentagon top counsel Jeh Johnson criticized the idea of any secret court to oversee the Obama administration’s targeted killing program, saying it would simply act as a “rubber stamp” for anything the executive wants to do. Johnson said that instead, the program should be brought within the auspices of the Defense Department in order to ensure its legality.

The AP reports: A hunger strike at the Guantánamo Bay prison has grown and now involves at least 21 men, a U.S. military official said Monday while denying reports trickling out from prisoners through lawyers that there is a more widespread protest and lives are in danger.

The Washington Post reports: Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel has ordered the Pentagon to reconsider a sweeping military strategy that the Obama administration unveiled just last year to determine whether it is still affordable in light of recent budget cuts.

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Republicans: Obama wants higher taxes

With less than a week before deep spending cuts kick in, Republicans in their weekly address accused President Obama of being ready to plunge the economy into a tailspin to extract higher taxes.

“The fact is: Republicans in Congress, right now, will provide the flexibility to make the necessary spending reductions and address our deficit and debt, instead of going through the sequester. In fact, House Republicans have already passed two bills to replace the President’s sequester,” said Sen. John Hoeven (R-N.D.). “So the question is: Why won’t he work with us? And the answer, quite simply, is because he wants higher taxes.”

Obama has been traveling the country to create momentum for legislation that would replace the automatic, across-the-board cuts with a mix of tax hikes on the rich and specific cuts. He is expected to travel to Virginia next week to continue pressing his message even as Republicans have sought to pin the blame for the sequester on him.

"Hope springs eternal,” Obama said Friday. “And I will just keep on making my case, not only to Congress but more importantly the American people."

Hoeven repeated Saturday that the idea for the sequester originated in the White House, even if Republicans voted for it in the House and Senate. He said it's the president's whole approach – not just his tax policy – that's failing.

"The right way to address our deficit and debt, and get past the sequester, is not higher taxes or just better spending control,” he said. “It’s by creating jobs, growing the economy, and expanding the tax base.”

“Above all, you have to get the economy growing. That creates jobs and revenue from economic growth, not higher taxes. President Obama, however, not only wants higher taxes; he’s actually preventing economic growth and private-sector job creation. He is blocking it with more regulation, red tape, and bureaucracy.”

Hoeven, a former governor of North Dakota, went on to excoriate Obama for failing to approve the Keystone XL Pipeline that would allow Canadian crude – and oil from Hoeven's own state – to flow to refineries in the southern United States. The project, which faces stiff opposition from environmentalists, needs approval from the State Department to move forward.

“The Keystone XL project will carry 830,000 barrels of oil a day to U.S. refineries,” he said. “That includes not only oil from Alberta, Canada, but also 100,000 barrels per day of light, sweet crude from the U.S. Bakken region in Montana and my home state of North Dakota.”

He said polls show widespread public support for the project.

“Why, Mr. President, are you blocking a project that the American people support overwhelmingly? Clearly, it appears to be because of special interest groups,” he said. “It’s time to do things differently, Mr. President. It’s time to turn our country around with the right approach, and we stand ready to work with you to do it."

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President Wants 'Smart Spending Reductions'

 Highlight transcript below to create clipTranscript:  Print  |  Email Go  Click text to jump within videoMon 04 Feb 13 | 04:10 PM ET Former Sen. Judd Gregg, (R-NH), explains what is a "smart" spending cut. Former Labor Secretary Robert Reich, weighs in.

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Florida Governor Now Wants To Expand The Early Voting Days He Cut

Florida Gov. Rick Scott (R) became one of the most notorious figures of the 2012 election after he slashed the period for early voting and enacted a number of other vote suppressing election laws. As a result of these laws, Florida voters were forced to wait in lines for up to 6 hours and as late as 1 am. After the election, several top Republicans admitted these election laws were designed to keep Democrats and minority voters away from the polls.

As his public image sinks, the governor has tried to distance himself from his own laws, blaming the Legislature and even denying to a group of black lawmakers Tuesday that the early voting law was his. On Thursday, Scott went even further and endorsed major election reforms–including a reversal of his early voting restrictions.

Scott now supports increasing the number of early voting days, reducing ballot length, and widening the range of polling places:

The proposal calls for extending early voting once again to a maximum of 14 days from 8, including adding back the Sunday before Election Day, a popular day among black voters; increasing voting hours to 168 hours from 96; allowing votes to be cast at locations beyond election offices, city halls and libraries; and making sure that ballots are kept short. Any change in the law must be approved by the Legislature, which convenes for its one-month session in March.

Mr. Scott’s endorsement comes on the same day as the release of a new report concluding that black and Latino voters were most affected by the 2011 changes. Of the more than 1.17 million ballots cast by black voters, nearly half were during early voting.

If early voting days are restored, the state could avoid a repeat of the 2012 fiasco, in which thousands of Floridians were disenfranchised.

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Three Things The NRA Wants You To Believe About Biden’s Gun Safety Task Force That Aren’t True

On Thursday, the National Rifle Association (NRA) blasted the Obama administration for undermining Americans’ Second Amendment rights just moments after its representatives met with Vice President Joe Biden and the White House task force to reduce gun violence.

Two years ago, the NRA wouldn’t even meet with President Obama and the group’s CEO and executive vice president Wayne LaPierre warned that he would confiscate “our firearms” and undermine America’s greatness. In a statement following Thursday’s meeting, the group demonstrated that it’s still not interested in reducing gun crimes, offering three misleading claims about its intentions:

1. The NRA was “prepared to have a meaningful conversation.” The NRA claimed that it’s willing to consider “school safety, mental health issues, the marketing of violence to our kids and the collapse of federal prosecutions of violent criminals.” The glaring omission in that list is any action involves the sale of guns and ammunition. It’s the same tactic they tried in their widely-panned press conference where they went so far as to blame hurricanes, but not guns. The resistance to any gun violence prevention measures that involve actual firearms shows that the NRA really wasn’t interested in a “meaningful conversation” where all options were on the table.

2. The White House has “an agenda to attack the Second Amendment.” Despite LaPierre’s paranoid insistence that the White House was lulling gun owners into a false sense of security by not passing any gun laws during his first four years, the Obama administration actually expanded gun rights in its first four years by loosening restrictions for concealed carry on federal grounds. Both Biden and Obama have insisted that they have no intention of changing the right to bear arms — rather, they simply want to create restrictions that make it harder for murderers to acquire their weapon of choice.

3. The “Administration continues to insist on pushing failed solutions.” There’s really no proof that universal background checks, restrictions on military-style assault weapons and high-capacity magazines, and expanded mental health services are “failed solutions.” In fact, evidence points to the opposite: Since the repeal of the assault weapons ban, mass shootings have drastically increased and studies show that the firepower of gunmen (how many rounds they shoot, and how quickly they shoot them) has jumped significantly.

Biden plans to deliver his suggestions for possible gun violence prevention laws to Obama on Tuesday. On Friday, he will meet with the entertainment and television industries. It’s likely that will be a more positive meeting, since representatives have signalled they will be more receptive to Biden’s case. In a statement, they wrote, “We welcome the opportunity to share that history and look forward to doing our part to seek meaningful solutions.” That’s despite that videogames and movies, unlike guns, can’t kill people.

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GOP Rep. Wants To Slash Flood Preparedness Funding In Hurricane Sandy Aid Package

Georgia Rep. Paul Broun (R) has proposed amendments cutting $300 million from the $17 billion House relief package for states affected by Hurricane Sandy. Among those cuts are nearly $20 million meant for studying future flood risks.

Such studies would lead to investments that would help reduce the risks of major flooding and to better infrastructure projects. But Broun, a stalwart conservative, believes that represents wasteful spending, The Hill reports:

Two of Broun’s amendments would affect the main bill, by removing $19.5 million to study future flood risks and removing $3 million for oil spill research.

Hurricane Sandy left large swaths of New York and New Jersey underwater. The Senate’s aid package included a total of $5.3 billion for future flood prevention, and experts have begun exploring various ways to protect New York City and New Jersey from the possibility of major flooding in the future. As the Sacramento Bee editorialized, “by failing to finance flood control projects and programs to protect communities against other natural disasters, Congress is adding to the potential liabilities of the federal government.”

House Republicans initially decided not to take up the Sandy relief package before passing a smaller bill as the last Congress ended. Some Republicans have renewed their calls that the relief funding be offset by spending cuts elsewhere, including cuts to every discretionary spending program in the federal budget.

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Eric Cantor Doesn’t Want You. He Wants Democrats.

This is more offensive than Cantor throwing his weight behind Adam Kinzinger’s re-election bid against Don Manzullo. He was successful there, but we need to shut him down in Indiana.

The Republican Leader in the House of Representatives is not backing down from trying to drive up Democrat turnout in the Indiana Republican Primary.

First, you have to wonder why a House guy is getting involved in a Senate race.

Second, you have to wonder why a Republican Leader is using Republican donors’ money to drive up Democrat turnout in a Republican race.

I wonder if the Republican donors to the Young Guns Network know their campaign donations to a Republican group are going to aid and abet Democrat turnout in a Republican race. And I hope House conservatives know their own supposedly leader is not just using their own money to pick and choose between them in the House, but to also help Barack Obama’s favorite Senator.

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Mike Lee Wants to End the ‘Monetary Morphine’ at the Fed

What’s worse than Congress picking winners and losers and distorting the free-market with bailouts, stimulus, and tendentious interventions on behalf of specific industries?  Unelected members of the Federal Reserve doing the same through monetary policy.

It is amazing to watch how many Republicans will speak with such conviction against Keynesian fiscal stimulus policies, yet they will fervently promote monetary stimulus policies by the unaccountable Federal Reserve.  Their support for near-zero interest rates, quantitative easing, bailouts, and intervention in the housing sector has muddled our message against Obama’s anti-free-market policies.  Moreover, in this time of record commodity prices, pro-(monetary) stimulus Republicans preclude us from showing how government intervention on behalf of special interests distorts the markets, depletes savings, and devalues the currency – a winning political argument if there ever was one.

Richard Fisher, president of the Dallas Fed and frequent dissenter on the Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC), recently said that he is “personally perplexed by the continued preoccupation, bordering upon fetish, that Wall Street exhibits regarding the potential for further monetary accommodation—the so-called QE3, or third round of quantitative easing.”  He explained that Wall Street has become hooked on “monetary morphine” based on the previous expectation that the Fed will always come through with stimulus measures.  We need to break this addiction.

Undoubtedly, our complex economy would be restricted by a pure gold standard, but it’s not too much to ask that we reform the Federal Reserve to end its interventions in the economy and promote a strong dollar.  Advocating some reform to our 30-year old mandates on the Fed it not tantamount to advocating for ending the Fed.  Senator Mike Lee is introducing a bill, the Federal Reserve Modernization Act (S.2247), to do just that.  Here are the major provisions of the bill:

It will repeal the Fed’s current dual mandate (Humphrey-Hawkins) to achieve maximum sustainable employment and keep prices stable.  The Fed would be forced to focus solely on price stability.  This would take “the game” out of the Fed.  If they have no ability to create stimulus and provide monetary morphine, Wall Street can’t anticipate it.It would require the Fed to clearly articulate its function as the lender-of-last-resort.  When the government was picking winners and losers in 2008, the Fed bailed out Bear Sterns but not Lehman Brothers.  This bill would force them to communicate a clear policy so financial entities will not erroneously rely on the Fed’s support.It would make the 12 regional Federal Reserve Bank presidents permanent members of the Federal Open Market Committee, the branch of the Fed that sets interest rate policy.  At present, only the president of the New York Fed is on the committee, along with a rotating membership of just 4 of the remaining 11 branch presidents.  The regional presidents tend to be more conservative (like Fisher) than the 7 bureaucrats that are appointed to the governing board by Congress.  It would also weaken the power of the Fed chairman.It would ban the Fed from buying up other securities and bonds, such as mortgage-backed securities from Freddie and Fannie.  We must stop distorting the markets by encouraging investments on the basis of how much capital is available instead of real growth in a specific industry.It would require that the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, created by the Dodd-Frank law, be subjected to congressional appropriations.  Under current law, the CFPB is housed in the Fed and shielded from congressional oversight.

The House version, HR 4180, is sponsored by Kevin Brady (R-TX) and already has 31 cosponsors.

Cross-posted from The Madison Project

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