Politics

During his second inaugural speech, the president proclaimed that "[o]ur journey is complete until we find a better way to welcome the striving, hopeful immigrants who still see America as a land of opportunity.” Powerful words, indeed. The problem is that, coming from him, they ring hollow.
 
The president loves to pontificate about immigration, but the reality is that since his administration began, he hasn’t done anything to advance the discussion of immigration and help forge the bipartisan consensus necessary to address this important issue. He’s only made promises that he hasn’t kept.

While Barack Obama is busy shredding the Constitution, Washington, D.C. insider Karl Rove is busy trying to destroy what is left of the Republican Party by launching a multi-million dollar Super PAC to usurp representative democracy, disenfranchise American voters, and concentrate even more power in Washington DC.
 
Rove and the professional “consultant class” think that only Washington D.C. insiders like them – not the American people – should get to decide who runs for public office.
 
That’s why he is launching the “Conservative Victory Project” – a Super PAC whose mandate is to wrestle local decision-making power away from the American people, so that only Washington DC insiders can hand-pick our candidates – against our will – again.

There’s little anyone seems to agree on in Washington these days except for the following: Congress is broken, hopelessly divided and captured by special interests instead of working for the public good.

The recently concluded 112th Congress has been deemed one of the least successful and most unpopular in U.S. history. Congress' approval ratings hover just above 10 percent, rivaling American support for communism today and Nixon during Watergate.

Things are apparently so bad that eminent political scientists Thomas Mann and Norm Ornstein, who have called Congress the "broken branch" of our government, wrote a book last year saying that "it's even worse than it looks" — that Congress has reached a level of dysfunction not seen since before the Civil War. Even members of Congress are not defending the institution.

It seems everyone has some advice for beleaguered Republicans these days, especially when it comes to Hispanic voters and the issue of immigration.
 
Among the many groups and interests who may or may not have the best interests of the Republican Party at heart is the Hispanic Leadership Network, which bills itself as a coalition of Hispanic Republicans. In an appeal to congressional Republicans, the HLN suggests that the party’s rhetoric on immigration policy is the decisive impediment to winning more of the Hispanic vote.

The Senate recently passed a pair of resolutions dealing with how the body operates. The first, Senate Resolution 15, was a standing order that will sunset at the end of this (113th) Congress; the other, Senate Resolution 16, permanently amends the Senate rules.
 
Each of these resolutions provides a new motion to proceed for the majority leader to use in attempting to call up a piece of legislation.

The Tea Party movement is a major force in American politics because people are sick and tired of the tax-and-spend policies and crony capitalism of both political parties. Now we learn of the newly launched Conservative Victory Project that wants to push the Tea Party out and replace them with the failed strategies of 2008 and 2012.
 
After Election Night 2012, even some Tea Party members bought into the false narrative of devastating losses in the Tea Party’s conservative ranks. However, the Tea Party grew in Congress with the election of 27 new Tea Party conservatives to the House and three new Tea Party Senators. The movement again exhibited electoral strength even while the GOP establishment stumbled badly.

In a warning to fellow Republicans, Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) urged the GOP to not overlook immigration reform, or else run the risk of having U.S. Latinos defect from their ranks as red states could become blue. Sen. McCain is right - immigration reform is a necessary and important first step - but in and of itself, is not enough if conservatives truly want to gain the trust and confidence of the fast growing U.S. Latino electorate. 

If they wish to turn the tide on U.S. Latinos, the GOP must show a deeper understanding of how this key demographic has evolved over time.

To begin, U.S. Latinos are not a homogenous group and the term “Latino” itself is a construction of U.S. origin to describe an otherwise extremely diverse population. The majority of U.S. Latinos are Mexican-American, Puerto Rican and Cuban-American with a growing group of Central and South Americans.  Cuban-Americans, given their history, tend to vote Republican, although they elected the first Cuban Democrat from South Florida, Joe Garcia, in the last election. Puerto Ricans have tended to vote Democrat, although pro-statehood Puerto Ricans lean Republican. Mexican-Americans have voted overwhelmingly Democratic for decades. This recent Congress has the largest number of Latino congressmen ever, with three Senators (all Cuban-American).

Four years ago, the coalition I lead welcomed President Obama’s pledge to hold himself and his administration to a new standard of openness. Today, I urge the president to implement early in his second term an agenda that advances that promised transparency. Openness needs to be the default position for the federal government.

The administration has made progress toward proactively releasing more information online, including on such sites as data.gov, recovery.gov and USAspending.gov. But more yet can be done toward achieving transparency. In the spirit of helping reach that objective, I offer some suggestions developed by openness and accountability groups.

As fumbling and apologetic as former Senator Hagel's answers are to the members of the Senate Armed Services Committee, even my low expectations for the performance of the senators on that committee are unmet. Several Democrats seem mostly interested in protecting themselves from being seen as too cozy with Hagel because of his previous statements about Israel, its issues and its lobby (eg. Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand), and others seem mostly concerned about pork (e.g. Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.). 

As President Obama begins his second term, and his agenda for the next four years begins to unfold, the men and women who make up his cabinet will have the unenviable task of running a massive agency in the face of falling budgets, and increased Congressional scrutiny.
 
Given the president’s performance and inability to work with Republicans, it is not surprising that controversy will befall some of his bigger decisions.  However, the continuing drama over the nomination of Chuck Hagel to replace Secretary Panetta as Defense Secretary represents an unjustifiable opposition based less on fact, and more on personality.
 
Since news of the nomination, lawmakers from both parties were quick to weigh in and air their objections.