Chad’s Morning Brief: Ted Cruz Launches Effort Against Gang of Eight, Farm Bill Goes Down, & More
Here is your Morning Brief for the morning of June 21, 2013. Give me your feedback below and tune in to The Chad Hasty Show for these and many more topics from 8:30 to 11am. Remember, you can listen online at KFYO.com or with the radioPup App.
1. Cruz Launches Petition Against Gang of Eight (link)
U.S. Senator Ted Cruz isn't happy about the Gang of Eight's immigration bill. On Thursday, the Senator launched a national petition aimed at stopping the Gang of Eight.
"This is urgent," Cruz wrote in an e-mail to supporters. "We must stop this Gang of 8 immigration bill, which would give amnesty to an estimated 11 million illegal immigrants with no guarantee of a secure border."
"The Senate debate is in the final stages and we need to send Washington a strong signal of the overwhelming grassroots opposition to this amnesty bill from Americans across the country," Cruz explained.
Cruz urged supporters to share the petition with friends and to "act now--without delay--to help us defeat amnesty and stand for legal immigration!"
We will see who has more pull in the Senate right now. Marco Rubio or Ted Cruz. The immigration bill could still be strengthened though. Or Rubio could bail on the Gang of Eight and join with Ted Cruz. Interesting to watch.
2. House Kills Farm Bill (link)
Well this certainly surprised many if not most people. The House defeated the Farm Bill yesterday. Congressman Randy Neugebauer voted for the bill, but he was in the minority.
In a defeat for Republican leadership, the House on Thursday rejected a sweeping farm bill, amid opposition from both sides of the aisle.
More than 60 House Republicans defected and voted against the half-trillion-dollar bill, which sets funding for farm subsidies and other assistance as well as food stamps.
The vote was 234-195 against the bill.
The defeat was not expected. House Speaker John Boehner, who rarely votes, supported the bill. Members stood in silence as they watched the scoreboard Thursday afternoon.
Chamber leaders were facing pressure from both sides. The plan imposes significant cuts to food stamp programs and eliminates direct payments to farmers. It also reworks the dairy program, replacing guaranteed price supports with insurance.
Democrats opposed the cuts to food stamps. But powerful conservative groups -- including the Heritage Foundation, which is led by former Republican Sen. Jim DeMint -- lobbied against some of the bill's remaining and costly farm subsidies. And some Republicans pressed for deeper food stamp cuts.
Sixty-two Republicans voted no, while 24 Democrats voted in favor of the bill.
While Democratic leaders used the defeat to taunt their GOP counterparts, conservative groups in Washington tried to cast the outcome as a positive development -- an opportunity for, in their words, "real reform."
"The time for reform is now. We need to put farm subsidies on a path to elimination and we need to devolve food stamps to the state level where they belong. With $17 trillion in debt, the American taxpayers don't have time to wait," Chris Chocola, president of the conservative Club for Growth, said in a statement.
Republican leaders claimed Democrats failed to deliver on promised votes.
"I am very disappointed in (House Democratic Leader) Nancy Pelosi who chose partisanship over progress," House GOP Leader Eric Cantor said.
Pelosi, though, denied the charge, calling the vote "amateur hour." Rep. Collin Peterson, D-Minn., top Democrat on the House Agriculture Committee, said after the vote "if you over-reach, you get nothing."
Both the food stamp and farm subsidy provisions were contentious.
On the former, the five-year bill would have cut $2 billion annually from food stamps and allowed states to impose broad new work requirements on food stamps. Many Republicans said the cuts were not enough, while Democrats wanted to restore the money and instead slash subsidy payments to farmers.
House Agriculture Committee Chairman Frank Lucas, R-Okla., sped the chamber through consideration of almost all of lawmakers' 103 amendments to the legislation Wednesday night. The House at one point adopted 38 amendments at once in a single vote.
The House bill, which would cut around $4 billion a year in overall spending on farm and nutrition programs, expands crop insurance programs and creates a new kind of crop insurance that kicks in before farmers' paid policies do.
What is your opinion on this? Is it good that the House killed this bill or will it mean more spending in the future?
3. FBI Pictures of Muslims Racist! (link)
According to one Democrat, the pictures the FBI uses of Muslim terrorists is offensive to all Muslims.
Always-unfiltered Rep. Jim McDermott penned a letter to FBI Director Robert Mueller Wednesday claiming a Joint Terrorism Task Force ‘Faces of Global Terrorism’ ad is racist.
McDermott, a Democrat from Washington state, voiced his “deep concern” about the ad, which shows mug shots of international terrorists, and asked the FBI chief to “reconsider publicizing” it.
According to McDermott, the “ad featuring sixteen photos of wanted terrorists is not only offensive to Muslims and ethnic minorities, but it encourages racial and religious profiling.”
McDermott continued, “Representing terrorists, however, from only one ethnic or religious group, promotes stereotypes and ignores other forms of extremism. The FBI’s ‘Most Wanted Terrorists List‘ includes individuals of other races and associated with other religions and causes, but their faces are missing from this campaign.”
McDermott’s point is that two of the people on the FBI’s thirty-two person ‘Most Wanted Terrorists List’ do not have connections to Islam.
McDermott concluded that the “bus ad will likely only serve to exacerbate the disturbing trend of hate crimes against Middle Eastern, South Asian, and Muslim-Americans.”
What a moron. Serious folks, this political correctness garbage is just tiring and out of control.
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