Obama Loses Major Democratic Support As He Savages Israel--Is This Obama's Legacy?

Democrats scorch Obama over UN vote condemning Israeli settlements

Jeremy Berke

Business InsiderDecember 23, 2016

Chuck Schumer

(Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY).REUTERS/Yuri Gripas) 

Congressional Democrats issued scathing statements aimed at the Obama administration over the US's abstention from a Friday UN Security Council vote demanding Israel stop building settlements in occupied Palestinian territory.

Leading Democrats from both houses called out the UN as an inappropriate venue for rejuvenating the peace process between Israelis and Palestinians. They objected to the Obama administration's departure from what they view as decades of established US policy of vetoing UN resolutions regarding Israeli settlements. 

Incoming Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer of New York said it was "extremely frustrating, disappointing and confounding" that the Obama administration failed to veto the UN's vote.

Schumer called out the UN as a "fervently" anti-Israel body, since the days of "Zionism is racism."

"Whatever one’s views are on settlements, the UN is the wrong forum to settle these issues," Schumer said.

Sen. Richard Blumenthal, a Democrat from Connecticut, called the US's abstention from the vote "unconscionable."

"A two-state solution must be negotiated directly between the Israelis and Palestinians, and this resolution flies in the face of this necessity," Blumenthal said.

He also said support for Israel must remain "bipartisan," and that he'll work with colleagues on "both sides of the aisle" to advance "productive measures" that strengthen the US's relationship with Israel.

Sen. Lindsey Graham, a Republican from South Carolina, said that he would work to form a bipartisan coalition to "suspend or significantly reduce United States assistance to the United Nations."

U.S. Senator Ron Wyden (D-OR) speaks with reporters as he arrives for the weekly Democratic Caucus policy luncheon at the U.S. Capitol in Washington June 2, 2015. REUTERS/Jonathan Ernst - RTR4YK2C

(Sen. Ron Wyden (D-OR).Thomson Reuters) 

Sen. Ron Wyden, an Oregon Democrat, said that he was "deeply disappointed" that the Obama administration allowed such a "one-sided" resolution to pass.

"Actions like this will only take us further from the peace we all want to see," Wyden said.

And Sen. Mark Warner, a Democrat from Virginia said "one-sided resolutions" at the UN are counterproductive to the peace process and "achieving a two-state solution."

"I am dismayed that the administration departed from decades of U.S. policy by not vetoing the UN resolution regarding Israeli settlements," Warner said.

Rep. Eliot L. Engel, a Democrat from New York and the ranking member on the House Foreign Affairs Committee, said he was "very disappointed" by the US's "acquiescence to a one-sided, biased resolution at the United Nations Security Council."

"I have always believed that Israel can’t get a fair shake at the UN, and that is why Israel has relied on the United States to protect it from the anti-Israel tendencies of some UN Security Council members," Engel said.

Engel further said that the text of the resolution places the "blame" for the stalled peace process between the Israelis and the Palestinians "entirely on Israel."

NSA And IRS Policies Hurting US Economy.

Senate Finance Chief Probes US Economic Harm Caused by NSA

Monday, 14 Jul 2014 03:40 PM

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Senate Finance Committee Chairman Ron Wyden is investigating the economic harm he said is being caused by the U.S. National Security Agency’s surveillance methods.Wyden, a persistent critic of the NSA, is using his perch as the panel’s chairman to broaden his attack on the agency’s practices, he said in an interview with editors and reporters at Bloomberg News headquarters in New York.
“Nobody has looked at it from an economic standpoint, purely economics, dollars and cents,” said Wyden, an Oregon Democrat. “If a foreign enemy had inflicted the damage on the American economy — these cutting-edge, innovative companies — that the overreaching by the NSA surveillance brigade had done, people would be up in arms all over the United States.”
Companies including Yahoo! Inc. and Microsoft Corp. have been waging a public-relations battle for more than a year in response to revelations of NSA spying exposed by former government contractor Edward Snowden.
U.S. technology companies may lose as much as $35 billion in the next three years from foreign customers choosing not to buy their products because of concerns they cooperate with spy programs, according to Daniel Castro. He’s a senior analyst with the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation, a Washington-based nonprofit group.
German Government
The German government has announced it was ending a contract with Verizon Communications Inc. because of NSA spying.
Wyden said his staff has been examining the issue and he’ll make judgments about what to do later.
“It certainly will help us begin to sort of think through what we want to do as a country,” he said. “If these NSA surveillance practices are not making us any more secure but are threatening our liberty, and now the Finance Committee has documented how it’s damaging our ability to grow economically, that too, I think will be something of a wake-up call in this debate.”
Wyden also renewed his intention to seek retroactive tax legislation to stop U.S. companies from moving their legal addresses to other countries.
Since Jan. 1, 2012, 12 U.S. companies have completed so-called inversions and another seven are pending, including Medtronic Inc.’s planned purchase of Dublin-based Covidien Plc.
AbbVie Inc. is moving closer to buying Shire Plc and moving the legal address to Ireland. Mylan Inc. is buying the generic drug business of Abbott Laboratories and forming a new company incorporated in the Netherlands.
Foreign Addresses
Wyden has proposed legislation that would in effect prevent U.S. companies from gaining foreign addresses by buying smaller competitors. His proposal would be retroactive to May 8 and he said companies are aware that he’s committed to that.
His preference is to make that change as part of a broader revamp of the U.S. tax code in the next 15 months. He also said a heightened pace of inversions may prompt Congress to act more quickly on a standalone measure.
“If there’s one of these every 72 hours there’s going to be a pretty big drumbeat to do something quickly,” he said.
Republicans have resisted such legislation, saying they would prefer to focus on broader tax changes.
Wyden said the Finance Committee will hold a July 22 hearing on international taxes that will address inversions.
Wyden said companies are paying attention to attempts to impose retroactive limits on inversions. He said Medtronic’s inclusion of a clause allowing it to unwind the deal if tax laws change shows that the effort is having an effect.
“If you have American companies that have been major employers, employers that pay good wages, saying that they’re just gonna pack up and go somewhere else so they can have a lower tax rate,” Wyden said, “that has very ominous implications for our country and what we want to do to create high-skill, high-wage jobs.”
© Copyright 2014 Bloomberg News. All rights reserved.

Missing Emails Should Require A Special Prosecutor. Will Holder Appoint One?

Cruz: Impeach Holder If He Doesn’t Appoint Special Prosecutor For IRS Investigation

June 26, 2014 by Sam Rolley 

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Texas Republican Senator Ted Cruz on Thursday called for Attorney General Eric Holder’s impeachment in the Department of Justice fails to appoint a special prosecutor to investigate the Internal Revenue Service’s targeting of conservatives and former IRS employee Lois Lerner’s mysteriously missing emails.

Cruz said that the IRS’s “computer crash” excuse for not providing Congressional investigators with two years’ worth of Lerner’s emails screams of a criminal conspiracy.

“We’re told that the hard drive crashed, and that the documents are irretrievable under any circumstance,” Cruz said. “We also know that hate IRS didn’t follow the law when it failed to report the hard drive crash that we’re told occurred.”

Cruz likened the IRS tactics to those used to cover up wrongdoing during the Nixon Administration.

“Make no mistakes. These emails haven’t just been lost. These emails have been deleted, taped over, and the hard drive physically destroyed according to public news reports. Madame President, this is Rosemary Woods,” Cruz charged. “Madame President, when you have Federal government officials destroying evidence, in the ordinary parlance that’s called obstruction of justice. The hard drive magically collapses, magically crashes and is physically destroyed right after the investigation begins.”

If a Republican Administration were in power as the IRS scandal unfolded, according to Cruz, every Democrat and mainstream media outlet would be trying to get to the bottom of the abuse of power.

“If Attorney General Eric Holder continues to refuse to appoint a special prosecutor, he should be impeached,” Cruz concluded. “Madame President, when an Attorney General refuses to enforce the law, when an Attorney General mocks the rule of law, when an Attorney General corrupts the Department of Justice by conducting a nakedly partisan investigation to cover up political wrongdoing, that conduct by any reasonable measure constitutes high crimes and misdemeanors.”

Cruz called for unanimous consent on his resolution to require Holder to appoint a special prosecutor— Senator Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) objected on Democrats’ behalf, blocking passage of the measure.

Wow, Senators Get Rewarded/Punished By Contractors. Feinstein Wins Big By Giving Up Our Rights.

Tale Of Two NSA Bills: Feinstein Gets Big Bucks From Intelligence Contractors, Leahy Doesn’t

November 15, 2013 by Sam Rolley 

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UPI FILE

Senator Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) has positioned herself as one of the primary Congressional defenders of the National Security Agency’s bulk surveillance programs following recent controversy, and she has even penned a “reform” bill that codifies the spy agency’s powers.

Feinstein’s bill, dubbed the FISA Improvements Act, is different from much of the other legislation proposed by her Congressional peers following whistle-blower Edward Snowden’s leaks because, while it would implement modest reporting requirements for the agency, the legislation green lights the continued collection of metadata on every phone call in the United States.

“This is not reform but an attempt to put a congressional stamp of approval on gross privacy violations. We will fight this bill for what it is — a way to make the worst abuses of the Patriot Act permanent,” American Civil Liberties Union attorney Michelle Richardson told POLITICO in reference to Feinstein’s bill.

The Feinstein bill is competing with other efforts to address the NSA controversy in the Senate which offer strict privacy protections and transparency requirements and curtail the NSA’s data collection abilities. One of the strongest efforts, the “USA Freedom Act,” has been offered by Senator Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.).

That bill would effectively end the bulk collection of communications data that was authorized by Section 215 of the Patriot Act. The bill would also introduce a number of safeguards and reforms to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act Court, which governs the NSA.

Last week, Senator Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) added his name to the Leahy bill and criticized the Senate Intelligence Committee for moving Feinstein’s bill late last month.

“I am proud to add Chairman Leahy as a co-sponsor of our Intelligence Oversight and Surveillance Reform Act. Our bipartisan legislation sets the bar for real, meaningful reforms to surveillance law,” said a statement from Wyden. “This includes ending the dragnet domestic surveillance that has infringed on the Constitutional rights of millions of Americans without making our country any safer.”

Wyden was one of four members of the Intelligence Committee who voted against Feinstein’s bill.

“Now that the Senate Intelligence Committee has decided to preserve surveillance business-as-usual, Chairman Leahy’s legislation is now our best hope for reform in this Congress,” Wyden’s statement said.

Earlier in the month, however, Feinstein vowed to kill the Leahy bill which a growing number of her colleagues have embraced, saying: “I will do everything I can to keep this program from being canceled out… to destroy it is to make this nation more vulnerable.”

It has previously been noted that Feinstein’s undying dedication to keeping the surveillance status quo intact has led some people to question whether her efforts are truly the result of a belief that “it’s the only way we prevent an attack” or if she simply has become too close to the Nation’s intelligence agencies. And a recent comparison of campaign contributions to Feinstein and Leahy by top the Nation’s top intelligence contractors from MapLight may provide the answer.

According to the numbers, Feinstein has received three times more money from top intelligence service contractors than Leahy since 2007: