Salon.com > Chuck Grassley

Weak, incompetent Democrats blow another one

Wed, 22 May 2013 16:44:00 +0000

My friend John Fugelsang likes to say that the Democratic Party is like an S&M submissive who forgot his safety word. After the lame performance of Democrats in the immigration reform markup, I would say Fugelsang is being generous. Republicans are incredibly skilled at holding no actual power but nonetheless making wildly effective threats. Democrats on the other hand display the unique and vexing ability to have every political advantage and still cave on their own goals, more often than not preemptively.

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: I would not be surprised if the modern Democratic Party’s strategy is secretly being bankrolled by Eli Lilly as a ploy to sell Prozac to liberals.

In the latest example of this disconcerting trend, Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) proposed an amendment to the Senate immigration markup that would arguably harm American workers. In fact, it wasn’t just Democrats and labor unions that opposed this amendment; Republican Sen. Charles Grassley also opposed the amendment. But Democrats nonetheless backed the change in order to woo Hatch’s committee vote. Meanwhile, not only was Hatch’s committee vote not needed to approve the bill but Hatch has explicitly said he may still not vote for the legislation unless other changes are made. In other words, Hatch got to water down the legislation and Democrats got, er, well… nothing.

GOP: Proudly xenophobic

Tue, 23 Apr 2013 15:39:00 +0000

The xenophobia has already begun.

Senator Rand Paul (R-Ky) in a letter to Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid today urged him to reconsider immigration legislation because of the bombings in Boston. “The facts emerging in the Boston Marathon bombing have exposed a weakness in our current system,” Paul writes. “If we don’t use this debate as an opportunity to fix flaws in our current system, flaws made even more evident last week, then we will not be doing our jobs.”

Senator Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa), senior Republican senator on the Senate Judiciary Committee, which is responsible for an immigration reform bill, is using much the same language – suggesting that the investigation of two alleged Boston attackers will “help shed light on the weaknesses of our system.”

Can we just get a grip? Dzhokhar Tsarnaev is a naturalized American citizen. He came to the United States when he was nine years old. He attended the public schools of Cambridge, Massachusetts, not far from where I lived.

Grassley shouts down Schumer at immigration hearing

Mon, 22 Apr 2013 17:34:00 +0000

Monday's Senate hearings on immigration reform got a little fiery when Sen. Chuck Grassley interrupted proceedings to insist that he never suggested delaying immigration reform over the Boston bombings. "I never said that!" he exclaimed to Sen. Chuck Schumer.

Schumer was giving a statement on the bill, and said that Americans "will not be satisfied with calls for delays and impediments towards the bill. I would say to my colleagues - and I understand their views are heartfelt - the chairman has a very open process, so if you have ways to improve the bill, offer an amendment." He continued: "Those who are pointing to the terrible tragedy in Boston as, I would say, an excuse for not doing a bill or delaying it many months or year--"

Grassley interrupted: "I never said that! I never said that!"

Schumer shot back: "I didn't say you did sir!" Once order was restored, Schumer continued: "Those remarks were not aimed at anyone on the committee or the three witnesses. There were people out there, you read it in the newspapers, who have said it."

Watch:

McCain and Graham: Don’t stop immigration reform over Boston

Fri, 19 Apr 2013 21:09:00 +0000

Sens. John McCain and Lindsey Graham urged Congress not to stop or delay immigration reform over the Boston bombings, saying that "Immigration reform will strengthen our nation’s security by helping us identify exactly who has entered our country and who has left."

“In the wake of this week’s terrorist attack in Boston, some have already suggested that the circumstances of this terrible tragedy are justification for delaying or stopping entirely the effort for comprehensive immigration reform," the two senators wrote in a statement. "In fact the opposite is true: Immigration reform will strengthen our nation’s security by helping us identify exactly who has entered our country and who has left – a basic function of government that our broken immigration system is incapable of accomplishing today."

Sen. Chuck Grassley was the first to link immigration reform to the Boston bombings, saying earlier today during a Senate hearing on the legislation: “We also appreciate the opportunity to talk about immigration. Particularly in light of all that’s happening in Massachusetts right now and over the last week.”

House GOPer: Grassley’s immigration comments “not appropriate”

Fri, 19 Apr 2013 18:42:00 +0000

Rep. Mario Diaz-Balart, a Republican from Florida who is leading the House's drafting of immigration reform, said that he thought it was "not appropriate" for Sen. Chuck Grassley to tie immigration to the manhunt for the Boston bombing suspects at this point.

"Linking something like that to other legislation I think is probably not appropriate at this time," Diaz-Balart told ThinkProgress. "In the first place, we don’t have the facts. What I will tell you is, what is indisputable, is that we have an immigration system that is broken."

He continued that, "If somebody is here today in the United States and commits a crime, it is under the current immigration system," so "what does that lead me to believe? That we have to fix the current immigration system, if in fact there is any connection between immigration at all."

Grassley kicked off the Senate's Friday hearing on immigration reform by saying: “We also appreciate the opportunity to talk about immigration. Particularly in light of all that’s happening in Massachusetts right now and over the last week."

Boston manhunt used for point-scoring on immigration, gun control

Fri, 19 Apr 2013 15:59:00 +0000

As law enforcement officials work to capture the second bombing suspect in the Boston attacks, pundits are already using the unfolding events to score political points on immigration reform and gun control.

The first lawmaker to bring Boston into the immigration debate, which is currently going on in a Senate hearing, was Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa."We appreciate the ability to talk about immigration, particularly in light of the events in Boston," he said.

Sen. Marco Rubio's office put out a statement urging people to avoid politicizing Boston. "Boston is still developing and it's too soon to jump to conclusions, let alone use the tragedy to make political points."

But that didn't stop Twitter:

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GOP plots to rig the court

Thu, 11 Apr 2013 17:40:00 +0000

The high-water mark of FDR's power came when he tried to give himself the power to appoint six new Supreme Court justices, which opponents decried as an underhanded scheme to rig the court with justices who favored his agenda.

Now, 75 years later, Republicans are trying to do the same thing, but in reverse. Sen. Chuck Grassley, the ranking Republican on the Senate Judiciary Committee and thus the most important member of his party on such issues, introduced legislation yesterday that seems innocuous enough at first. Here's how he explained it in a hearing yesterday:

This legislation is straightforward. It would add a seat to the Second and the Eleventh Circuits. At the same time, it would reduce the number of authorized judgeships for the D.C. Circuit from 11 to 8. If adopted, this legislation would be a significant step towards rectifying the extreme disparities between the D.C. Circuit and the Second and Eleventh circuits.

Does Eric Holder know the law?

Wed, 06 Mar 2013 18:00:00 +0000

In a chilling statement about executive power, Attorney General Eric Holder today declared that the president can authorize lethal force against Americans, and that Congress can not constitutionally limit such powers.

At a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing today, Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, asked Holder whether Congress could prohibit the targeted killing of Americans in America. “Do you believe Congress can pass a law prohibiting POTUS to use lethal force on U.S. soil?” he asked directly, explaining he meant the prohibition would apply only where a person did not present an imminent threat.

“I’m not sure that such a bill would be constitutional,” the attorney general responded. “It might run contrary to the Article II powers that the president has.” Article II is the section of the Constitution that lays out the president’s authority as commander in chief of the military.

The exchange suggests that the administration believes that Congress cannot limit the president’s authority in such an area, a view consistent with public Office of Legal Counsel opinions on the war.

More disingenuous GOP obstruction

Thu, 21 Feb 2013 18:30:00 +0000

Chuck Hagel isn’t the only Obama nominee Senate Republicans are raking through the coals for dubious political reasons.The President's pick to head the Treasury, Jack Lew, is getting his own hazing.

Although it got less publicity than Hagel's hearing, Lew, too, faced a torrent of tough questions during his first round of confirmation hearings before the Senate Finance Committee earlier this month. Now, this week, Sen. Chuck Grassley, the number two Republican on the panel, is stepping up the pressure.

Yesterday, he asked Committee Chairman Max Baucus to postpone a vote on Lew’s confirmation until the he answers more of Grassley’s questions (a request Baucus denied).

At issue for Grassley is a series of loans provided to Lew in the early 2000s, especially one for $1.4 million in 2002 from New York University, where Lew served as executive vice president. Lew said the loan was to help pay for housing and was part of his compensation package, but couldn’t recall some of the details Grassley demanded.

Chuck Grassley: Accidental abortion rights advocate

Thu, 21 Feb 2013 18:12:00 +0000

Twitter haiku enthusiast Sen. Chuck Grassley has a 100 percent rating from the National Right to Life Committee and a subzero ranking from NARAL.

So what's he doing going on about a constitutional right to privacy -- the very backbone of Roe v. Wade?

As Kalli Joy Gray reported, Grassley was recently asked by a constituent about the government's "plan" to implant microchips in preschoolers starting in 2013. A rather bored looking Grassley replied:

No. First of all, nothing can be done to your body without your permission. It’d be a violation of the constitutional right to privacy if that were to happen.

First, let's address the semantic point that, in a country without legal abortion, forced pregnancy would definitely be something "done to your body without your permission," thankyouverymuch.

Senate rejects Republican version of VAWA without LGBT protections

Fri, 08 Feb 2013 15:30:00 +0000

Leading up to the Senate vote on the Violence Against Women Act reauthorization, a version of the bill that stripped protections for LGBT women, undocumented immigrants and Native American women was defeated.

Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, introduced the scaled-back version of the bill, which failed by a vote of 34-65. Among the 34 Republicans to vote for the bill were Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., and Sen. Deb Fischer, R-Neb., the only female senator who is not a co-sponsoring the version of the VAWA that will likely be voted on on Monday.

The new protections for LGBT, immigrant and Native American women were a big reason why Republicans opposed the reauthorization bill in the last session of Congress. VAWA had been allowed to expire in September, 2011, and stalled several times over the course of 2012.

From the Huffington Post, Grassley's version would also reorient the law to focus on men as well:

“Hostile takeover”: Ron Paul’s fans react

Wed, 29 Aug 2012 00:39:00 +0000

TAMPA -- Chaos and turmoil may have befallen the Ron Paul delegation -- members of which frantically scrambled about the Tampa convention floor Tuesday to exert their influence -- but much of the party establishment seemed unmoved by their plight. For example: I spotted Sen. John Thune of South Dakota striding around the exterior ring of the building, and asked if he felt the Paul People's grievances were legitimate. "Well, perhaps in their minds," the senator replied. "I think that there's a process, everyone followed it. Everyone did it according to the rules."

Virtually every Paul supporter I have encountered thus far would stridently disagree with Thune's assessment. Generally, they range from somewhere between perturbed to violently apoplectic over GOP insiders' skulduggery.

“Meatless Monday”: Where’s the beef?

Fri, 03 Aug 2012 16:10:00 +0000

To understand how utterly broken our society is, how hostile to sacrifice we are and how willfully ignorant we have become, you need only look at the historic drought hammering the heartland -- and how our elected officials are responding to that cataclysm.

As you likely know from this arid summer, America is suffering through the worst drought since 1950. According to the United States Department of Agriculture, half of all counties in the nation are officially disaster areas -- a situation that has devastated the country's supply of agriculture commodities. Consequently, food prices are expected to skyrocket, and eventually, water-dependent power plants may be forced to shut down.

This is a full-on emergency, and USDA, a key agency involved in the national security issues surrounding our food and water supply, last week responded with a minor non-binding recommendation. In its inter-office newsletter to agency employees, it suggested that those who want to conserve water could simply refrain from eating meat on Mondays.

The politicization of the Secret Service scandal

Tue, 24 Apr 2012 17:08:00 +0000

It's hard to work up much outrage about the Secret Service prostitution scandal, in which 11 members of the president's elite protective service and various military personnel were found to have picked up escorts in Colombia, where they were doing advance work for the president's visit. I guess it is probably not a good idea for the people in charge of protecting the president to leave themselves vulnerable to sexual blackmail, but on the other hand we do not live in a John Le Carré novel or "24" episode, and I don't think the threat of a honey-trap assassination conspiracy plot is very credible. If members of the Secret Service want to get drunk and hire escorts after work, that is their business. (As Melissa Gira Grant says, the only actual scandal here -- and the reason this became an international incident -- is that all these guys tried to bilk one of the women out of the money she was owed.)