Chad’s Morning Brief: Texans Love Ted Cruz, Janet Napolitano Promises to Release More Illegal Immigrants, & More
Here is your Morning Brief for the morning of March 5, 2013. Give Chad your feedback below and tune in to The Chad Hasty Show for these and many more topics from 8:30 to 11am.
1. Cruz Missle (link)
Senator Ted Cruz has made friends and enemies in D.C. already. In Texas though, voters aren't fazed by his style.
Republican Ted Cruz may be ruffling some feathers in Washington, but the freshman senator's in-your-face style apparently doesn't bother voters back home in Texas.
The Tea Party favorite is viewed favorably by 39% of voters in a new University of Texas/Texas Tribune poll, compared with 28% who view him unfavorably. Sixteen percent of voters say neither and 17% have no opinion.
"He's playing pretty well with the voters he cares about — the conservatives in Texas," Daron Shaw, co-director of the poll, told the Texas Tribune.
Cruz's questioning of Chuck Hagel during the Defense secretary's confirmation hearing drew criticism from Democrats and Republicans. In just two months in Congress, his approach has earned him nicknames such as "Cruz Missile" and "The GOP's Nasty Newcomer," according to Fox News.
Cruz told Politico and The New York Times he's just living up to his promise that "I would come to Washington to shake-up the status quo."
Cruz is doing exactly what he promised to do. The only people that are upset by the actions of Senator Cruz are Democrats (shocking!) and the establishment that thinks freshman lawmakers should just sit in the back and not speak.
Kudos to Senator Cruz.
2. Napolitano to Release More Illegals (link)
Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano said yesterday that more illegal immigrants will be released from jail due to the sequester. According to the Daily Caller, the releases will continue for the foreseeable future.
Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano promised to release more illegal immigrants into the United States, saying the budget sequester has left her no choice.
Several hundred detainees have already released because of the sequester, she insisted. They were released on bail, or because their legal status had changed, she said.
“We’re going to continue to do that … for the foreseeable future,” Napolitano said at a March 4 breakfast meeting hosted by Politico. “We are going to manage our way through this by identifying the lowest risk detainees, and putting them into some kind of alternative to release.”
However, Napolitano’s statement clashed with a March 1 report by The Associated Press, which said that internal agency documents show that her managers had already released 2,000 detainees, and planned to release 3,000 more detainees.
Napolitano’s threat reflects the White House’s determination to ramp up public distress until the GOP agrees to another tax increase.
Under the sequester, budgets at the Pentagon and the numerous civilian agencies are being cut by roughly 8 percent from March to September. The cuts will trim roughly 1 percent from federal spending in 2013.
President Barack Obama suggested the sequester plan in 2011, and is now refusing any changes until the GOP agrees to tax increases.
This is all part of the administrations plan to scare the American people into action. Obama wants higher taxes and it appears as though he is ready to tear this country apart until he gets them. I don't buy for one minute that these people had to be released.
3. No Set Price (link)
If you were worried that it costs thousands of dollars to meet with President Obama, don't be. The White House yesterday said there is no set price.
There is no "set price" to meet with President Obama, White House press secretary Jay Carney said Monday amid continued outcry over the role of Organizing for Action, the outside group supporting the president's agenda.
"Any notion that there is a set price for a meeting with the president of the United States is just wrong," Carney said during his daily briefing.
Since OFA is intended to back the president's agenda, it makes sense that Obama would meet with the group, Carney said. "As anyone would expect, the president would likely meet with their representatives to discuss his agenda."
"But, again, any notion that there's a price for meeting with the president is simply wrong," he added.
Carney's comments followed critical weekend editorials from The New York Times and The Washington Post. Major donors will get spots on an advisory board that will have regular meetings with the president, "behavior that has become all too common in this town and carries more than a whiff of influence-peddling," the Post editorial board said.
The Times was more blunt, writing that a spot on the advisory board "is nothing more than a fancy way of setting a price for access to Mr. Obama."
There is price to meet with Obama. Except for when there is a price, but it's not a set price or anything.
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These and many more topics coming up on today’s edition of The Chad Hasty Show. Tune in mornings 8:30-11am on News/Talk 790 KFYO, streaming online at kfyo.com, and now on your iPhone and Android device with the radioPup App. All guest interviews can be heard online in our podcast section after the show at kfyo.com.
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