1.) Republicans’ ‘Wild West Show’ begins today — Capitol Hill is loud with the sound of steel on wet stones this morning as House Republicans prepare to dissect Obama’s “debt on arrival” budget. “Maybe we don’t stop at $100 billion,” Rep. Lynn Westmoreland told the Atlanta Journal-Constitution’s Jamie Dupree. “It may be $150 billion, it may be $200 billion.” Tall words from a caucus that revised its promised cuts from $100 billion to $35 billion and back up again. The Daily Caller’s Jonathan Strong reports that while the GOP establishment may appear to be at odds with its freshman class, “some conservatives say the battle is ‘healthy’ and are lauding Speaker John Boehner for keeping to his promise of a more open House.” Grover Norquist, for instance, sees nothing wrong with all the internal tangling: “It’s one thing to do the right thing, it’s another for people around the country to be able to see you’re doing the right thing for the right reason.” Meanwhile, the WSJ’s Kim Strassel commended the GOP for its bickering: “That Republicans are having a debate over how much to cut—a lot, or even more—is a sign of how far the party has come.” Just imagine how elated the nation’s fiscal conservatives will be once the GOP actually cuts some spending.
2.) Obama could tell you why he can spy on Americans, but then he’d have to kill you — “The Justice Department is now claiming that the FBI has the right to get phone records on any call made from inside the US to an international number without any oversight,” reports TechDirt. When McClatchy newspapers attempted to FOIA the legal basis for the DOJ’s domestic spying program, the Office of Legal Counsel “admitted that the Obama administration believes it is perfectly legal for the FBI to route around the in-place oversight for getting access to such records and claimed that the law said so.” The only problem with OLC’s response? “The part of the letter that explains which law lets the FBI get these records without oversight was redacted.”
3.) The only thing that the GOP and Obama agree on is that the Fourth Amendment is just a guideline — “The House on Monday agreed to a 10-month extension of three key law enforcement powers in the fight against terrorism that some privacy advocates from both the right and left regard as infringements on civil liberties,” reports the AP. “At issue are two provisions of the post-Sept. 11 law that give counterterrorism offices roving wiretap authority to monitor multiple electronic devices and court-approved access to business records relating to a terrorist investigation.” Actually, what’s really at issue is that the provision allowing “court-approved access to business records relating to a terrorist investigation” doesn’t actually require the DOJ to prove to a court that said records are part of a terrorist investigation. Rep. Dana Rohrabacher is one of a handful of Republicans who gets it. “I believe the American people have a legitimate fear of out-of-control government,” Rohrabacher told the AP. “And yes, they have a legitimate fear of out-of-control prosecutors and out-of-control spy networks.”
4.) FCC needs more money to do whatever it does — “President Obama’s fiscal 2012 budget proposal includes $354.2 million for the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), up from $335.8 million in 2010, the last time Congress approved the agency’s spending levels,” reports The Hill. “The reasons for the increase, according to FCC Managing Director Steve VanRoeckel: about 75 new staffers, funding for an emergency response center created in 2010 and a request to replace four or five of the FCC’s Hybrid Chevy Tahoes each year, which the FCC uses for field work.” When asked how he would explain the increased budget to Congress, VanRoeckel claimed that the FCC pays for itself by fining TV and radio stations that fail to abide by the FCC’s draconian decency standards and renting out chunks of spectrum to corporations that have spent the most money lobbying the FCC. VanRoeckel added, “The things we bring in and the services we provide are important in this time of struggle.”
5.) Haley Barbour denies lobbying for amnesty — Yesterday we told you that Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour had once lobbied for amnesty on behalf of the Government of Mexico. “According to a State Department filing by Barbour’s former lobbying firm, The Embassy of Mexico decided to retain Barbour’s services on August 15, 2001, to work on, among other things, legislation that would provide a path to citizenship for foreigners living illegally in the United States—what opponents of immigration reform call ‘amnesty,'” TIME reported. This was in 2001, when amnesty was favored by the leaders of the Republican Party, including Pres. George W. Bush and Sen. John McCain. It now appears that Barbour no longer cares for the term “amnesty.” In a statement released yesterday, Barbour wrote, “Everybody knows we are not going to put ten or twelve million people in jail and deport them. Once the border is secure, we should develop a responsible guest-worker program and it can’t include amnesty.” Clear as mud, governor!
6.) The mortgage volcano is rumbling — “A federal bankruptcy court judge issued an opinion on Thursday offering a scathing critique of the Mortgage Electronic Registration Systems, or MERS, the electronic-lien registry system built by the housing-finance industry to facilitate the bundling and selling of pools of mortgages,” reports the Wall Street Journal. “MERS was built by Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, and several large U.S. banks in 1996 as an electronic registry of land records. The company’s name is listed as the agent for mortgage lenders on more than 65 million home loans.” Over time, MERS came to act on behalf of the lenders that used its service. But Judge Robert E. Grossman concluded that MERS doesn’t actually have the ability to transfer mortgages, or to foreclose. “This Court does not accept the argument that because MERS may be involved with 50% of all residential mortgages in the country, that is reason enough for this Court to turn a blind eye to the fact that this process does not comply with the law.”
VIDEO: Alan Simpson criticizes Pres. Obama and Republicans’ budget proposals