Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) launched a broadside attack on President Obama’s foreign policy failures yesterday. McConnell - not known for heated words or short-temperedness - has apparently lost patience with our rookie president.
On the release of the CIA interrogation memos, McConnell said, “Unfortunately, the administration erred when it selectively declassified a number of the so-called CIA interrogation memos almost in their entirety. The choice on this issue was clear: defend career intelligence professionals or reveal to Al Qaeda terrorists the interrogation methods they can expect to face if captured. The administration chose the latter. This was a mistake.”
On Obama’s consideration of an investigative witch hunt over former Bush administration intelligence policy opinions, McConnell said, “Some of the President’s own advisors have warned that such an investigation would only serve to demoralize the intelligence community and therefore weaken its ability to protect the American people. Moreover, the President himself has repeatedly said that America must use all the tools in its arsenal in addressing the problems we face, including, presumably, the ongoing threat of Islamist terrorism. Weakening our tools of intelligence through an investigation of the intelligence community and other key decision makers would, by definition, make that pledge impossible to fulfill. It would also serve to divide us, I fear, at a time when we must continue to present a united and determined front to our enemies.”
McConnell also took the Obama administration to task for their proposed release into the United States the most dangerous of terrorists that America has in custody: the Gitmo detainees.
“News reports over the weekend suggest that the administration is close to announcing the release of a number of detainees into the U.S. - not to detention facilities, but directly into communities and neighborhoods right here on U.S soil,” McConnell said. “Virtually every member of the Senate is on record opposing the transfer of detainees to United States soil - even if it only meant incarcerating them in some of the nation’s most secure prisons. Until these new reports emerged, no one had ever even contemplated the possibility of actually releasing trained terrorists into American communities.
“If the administration actually follows through on this shocking proposal, it will have clearly answered the question of whether its plan for the inmates at Guantanamo will keep America as safe as Guantanamo has,” McConnell continued. “By releasing trained terrorists into civilian communities in the United States, the administration will, by definition, endanger the American people. Moreover, by releasing trained terrorists into the United States, the administration may run afoul of U.S. law, which prohibits admission to the United States of anyone who has trained for, engaged in, or espoused terrorism. Before any decision is made that will affect the safety of American communities, the attorney general needs to explain how his decision will make America safer, and whether this decision complies with U.S. law.”
You can read more of the Senate minority leader’s floor speech online.
And stand by: McConnell, according to staff sources, is going to deliver another speech this morning on the expected decision by Attorney General Holder to release Gitmo inmates - yes, release, not imprison - inside the United States.
Yesterday’s speech may prove to have been only McConnell throwing some warmup pitches. The fastball comes today.
So What the Heck is a Green Job and Will Creating One Cost Me Mine?
Senate Republicans yesterday unveiled a report entitled “Yellow Light on Green Jobs” commissioned by Kit Bond of Missouri, the Republican ranking member of the new Senate Subcommittee on Green Jobs and the New Economy (will the Orwellian names ever end?). The report takes a revealing look at “green” jobs and their debilitating effect on the economy.
Compiled by Senate Republican staffers, the report offers a wealth of information from a long list of majority far left sources: progressive policy, environmental and labor groups and source materials from green jobs advocates.
“Their own material provided cause for concern,” Bond said. “For example, a report by Teamsters, the Sierra Club and others found that many new green jobs offered sub-par wages, less than the median wage needed to support a family of four and not much above the federal poverty wage.”
According to the “Yellow Light” study, this same Teamsters/Sierra Club report showed that state and local governments would spend anywhere from $100,000 to over $300,000 per “green” job in subsidies.
“Proposals for federal green jobs programs have astounding price tags in the hundreds of billions of dollars,” Bond said.
The Apollo Alliance, a faction including actor Robert Redford, the United Steel Workers of America and an environmental group called NRDC admitted that their program to invent 5 million “green” jobs would cost $500 billion.
Uber liberal John Podesta’s Center for American Progress is touting a “green” jobs program that would cost taxpayers $200 billion.
“Green jobs are not so much created as they are bought with massive taxpayer subsidies,” Bond said.
To concoct all of these “green” jobs through subsidy from taxpayer dollars, the Obama administration and the Democrat congressional leadership propose a massive cap and trade carbon tax, which suffered a setback yesterday in the House in the Energy and Commerce Committee. The scheduled markup of the legislation was postponed indicating trouble in enviro-whackjob land. Although Democrats outnumber Republicans on the committee by a count of 36 to 23, it would appear that even some Democrats don’t have the stomach for what this foolish scheme will do to wreck the economy and kill millions of real, lucrative jobs that do not require taxpayer subsidy.
Sen. Bond’s “Yellow Light on Green Jobs” report is online here.
