…to defend his nuclear weapons deal is ad hominem attacks on those who disagree with him. That’s President Barack Obama’s abject confession that he knows it’s a bad deal.
Republican opposition as “knee-jerk partisanship….”
And
It’s those hardliners chanting “death to America” who have been most opposed to the deal. They’re making common cause with the Republican caucus[.]
And
…critics of the deal, who he said were “selling a fantasy” to the American people.
Hmm….
Jake Tapper fed Governor and Republican Presidential candidate Chris Christie the straight line:
[W]ho “at the national level deserves a punch in the face?”
Christie had the answer:
Oh, the national teachers union, who has already endorsed Hillary Clinton 16, 17 months before the election. …they’re not for education for our children. They’re for greater membership, greater benefits, greater pay for their members. And they are the single most destructive force in public education in America. I have been saying that since 2009. I’ve got the scars to show it. But I’m never going to stop saying it, because they never change their stripes.
What he said.
Paul Mirengoff, over at Power Line, highlighted this exchange between the guy who sits in the Secretary of State’s chair and Congressman Brad Sherman (D, CA) while Kerry testified before the House Foreign Relations Committee regarding the Iranian nuclear weapons deal.
Sherman: You strongly do not want [Congress] to override a presidential veto, but if we do, that triggers certain American laws…. You don’t want us to do it. You think its terrible policy. You think the rest of the world would be against us.
But let’s say Congress doesn’t take your advice—we override a veto—and the law that’s triggered then imposes certain sanctions. Will you follow the law even though you think it violates this agreement, and even if you think it’s absolutely terrible policy?
Kerry: I can’t begin to answer that at this point without consulting with the President and determining what the circumstances are.
Sherman: So you’re not committed to following the law?
Kerry: I’m not going to deal with a hypothetical, that’s all.
But, Skipper, what’s hypothetical about whether you’ll follow the law? And why do you need to consult with President Barack Obama before you’ll say whether you’ll follow the law or break it?
Two Congressmen have some concerns, and they want IRS Commissioner John Koskinen removed. Ron DeSantis (R, FL), House Oversight and Government Reform Subcommittee on National Security Chairman, and Jim Jordan (R, OH), Subcommittee on Health Care, Benefits and Administrative Rules Chairman, laid out their case in Monday’s Wall Street Journal. RTWT, but here are the highlights.
It’s not just Koskinen who needs to be fired—not allowed to retire, not allowed to resign, fired—though. IRS personnel cannot be trusted down to the worker bee accountants who do the actual work of checking tax returns. The breadth of IRS crimes—worthy of a RICO case, were it a private enterprise—renders the entire agency worthless. And that’s to the detriment of those worker bees.
At the Federal level, Republicans in Congress are attempting to take national-level steps to curb union abuses of members and nonmembers. The particular abuse is union use of dues to fund a particular party’s candidates, whether the union members support that party or candidate or not for now, at least, the Congress is ignoring union states’ practice of collecting dues from non-union members—which the employees are required to pay as a condition of keeping their jobs—and using those coerced dues also for political work rather than union activities related to work).
The Employee Rights Act, introduced Monday by Senator Orrin Hatch (R, UT) and Congressman Tom Price (R, GA), would allow union members to tell their bosses they don’t want their share of dues going to certain candidates or causes, without fear of retaliation.
The response?
…Democratic strategists are accusing Republicans of ignoring the needs of hardworking union members, and instead just trying to re-route sizable campaign contributions.
Don’t address the subject of the bill. Talk about “rerouting.” Never mind that the bill doesn’t reroute a penny of union money.
Never mind, too, that the bill takes care of the “needs of hardworking union members,” particularly those hard workers who don’t want their dues to go to political causes they don’t support.