Pelosi, Reid Back Obama Raising Debt Ceiling via Executive Order

by Wynton Hall 5 Jan 2013

 

 Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) has reportedly told President Barack Obama that he would back the president overriding congressional authority and unilaterally raising the debt ceiling.   House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) was more forceful: “I’ve made my view very clear on that subject: I would do it in a second.  But I’m not the president of the United States.”

Such a move would spark a constitutional crisis by running roughshod over the 14^th Amendment, which states that “the validity of the public debt…shall not be questioned.”

White House Press Secretary Jay Carney has already taken the 14^th Amendment option off the table; the
 Obama Administration, says Mr. Carney, “does not believe that the 14^th Amendment gives the president the power to ignore the debt ceiling—period.”

But on Tuesday, Mr. Obama said, “I will not have another debate with this Congress over whether or not they should pay the bills that they’ve already racked up through the laws that they passed.”

On Monday, the United States hit the $16.4 trillion debt limit.

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Florida Poll: Four Out of Five Support Photo ID Laws

by Tony Lee

 
 A new Mason-Dixon poll of Florida voters found an overwhelming majority (82%) of Floridians support laws that require voters to present Photo IDs at the polls and a majority (54%), including 60% of Hispanics, favor Florida Gov. Rick Scott’s plans to purge non-citizens from the Sunshine State's voter rolls. 

When asked, “Do you support or oppose requiring Floridians to provide photo identification at the polls in order to vote in an election?,” 82% supported requiring Photo IDs while only 15% opposed. The support was overwhelming across all demographics with 82% of men and women, 87% of Whites, 61% of Blacks, 77% of Hispanics, 71% of Democrats, 93% of Republicans, and 86% of Independents in support. 

When asked, “Do you support or oppose the plan being implemented by Governor Scott and state elections officials to purge the Florida voter roles of persons who are non-U.S. citizens?,” 54% of voters said they would favor such a plan while 35% said they would not. Sixty-two percent of men, 47% of women, 58% of Whites, and only 29% of Blacks and Democrats supported the plan. However, 60% of Hispanics, 80% of Republicans, and 58% of independents surveyed said they would support purging non-citizens from the voter rolls. 

Mason-Dixon polled 800 voters by telephone from July 9-11, and the margin of error for the poll is +/- 3.5%. 

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Harry Reid Must Be Scrutinized in Berkley Ethics Investigation

by Ben Shapiro 10 Jul 2012

 

 The consensus is in: Rep. Shelley Berkley (D-NV) is in serious trouble in her Senate race against Sen. Dean Heller (R-NV). That’s because yesterday, the House Ethics Committee voted unanimously to open an investigation into Berkley’s support for subsidies and tax breaks for the kidney health care industry, which directly benefitted her husband, a nephrologist who runs a kidney health center. Politico says it’s a “major blow” to Berkley. The Washington Post calls it a “blow to her candidacy.” The New York Times said that Berkley’s race would remain “under an ethics cloud through Election Day.”

But there was one person who wasn’t too concerned about Berkley’s investigation: Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV). At least not publicly. While Reid’s Senate Majority Leader status could ride on the Berkley-Heller race, as Politico reports, Reid is playing it cool:

“No, I really don’t think so,” Reid told reporters Tuesday when asked whether the ethics probe would influence the results of Berkley's close race for the Senate seat occupied by GOP Sen. Dean Heller.

Reid also defended Berkley’s involvement in the episode that triggered the ethics allegations – that she used her official position to help avert a shutdown of a kidney transplant center in Las Vegas, in which her husband has a business interest. Berkley has denied any conflict of interest.

“I and the entire rest of the Nevada delegation did whatever we could to keep that program going. Why? Because it saved lives,” Reid said. “And that is why I helped with it, all the other members of the delegation did, and it should have absolutely no bearing on Shelley Berkley. She did the right thing, as I think I did.”

There are a myriad of problems with Reid’s response here. First off, any decent House investigation into Berkley should now extend into Reid’s office – Berkley should turn over any and all correspondence between herself and Reid regarding their joint support for the kidney health care industry. If Berkley was exerting pressure on Reid, or called in friendship, or lobbying Reid to leverage pressure with her, he could be implicated too. Reid’s support of Berkley doesn’t exonerate her – it implicates him.

Second, if the entire Nevada delegation supported this legislation regardless of Berkley’s support, shouldn’t she have recused herself to avoid a conflict of interest? Any successful action has to have a bunch of legislators supporting it. That doesn’t eliminate conflict of interest. Recusal was the proper action here. Reid’s suggestion that Berkley “saved lives” here is both disingenuous – the kidney center’s funding was originally cut for killing too many people, apparently – and fails to justify Berkley participating.

Third, the kidney transplant center is not the only issue with Berkley. As Breitbart News has covered, Berkley was involved in a cornucopia of suspicious activities, including killing a tax that would have hit her husband’s industry.

Reid should be concerned. So should the House Ethics Committee, which should now call Reid and the rest of the Nevada delegation on the carpet to get the full truth on this matter.

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