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Buzz Cut:
• Jeff Sessions teaches a lesson in patriotic grace
• NorKs win with Sony hack, Obama weighs response
• Grimes promises legal challenge to Rand’s double play
• Warren plays to unions, rails against Obama trade pact
• Was the ransom note written in glitter?
JEFF SESSIONS TEACHES A LESSON IN PATRIOTIC GRACE
Sen. Jeff Sessions, R-Ala., is not known on Capitol Hill to retreat from a fight. When it comes to offering maximal resistance to President Obama, particularly on the issue of immigration, Sessions takes a back seat to no one. That’s why Republicans and Democrats alike were watching anxiously as Sessions prepared to step into his expected role as chairman of the powerful Budget Committee. That post would allow Sessions to steer GOP policy and strategies in profound ways. As the ranking Republican on the committee for the last four years, Sessions’ role was so prefigured that few bothered to note that Wyoming’s Mike Enzi was, literally by chance, the senior Republican on the panel. The two men were elected on the same day in 1996, but by Senate tradition, seniority among freshmen is determined by drawing names out of a hat. Enzi won the draw 18 years ago, a fact of which he reminded surprised colleagues in announcing his intention to seek the chairmanship.
[David Drucker explains one reason why House leaders were so eager to shuck the year-end spending package and get out of town: A big to-do list for 2015, with a handy-dandy timeline, too.]
Getting ugly – The rebel camp in the GOP conference quickly branded Enzi a leadership pigeon, pushed into the power play by party bosses looking to block Session’s immigration gambits. Committee chairmanships are determined by election among the majority party’s members, a dozen GOPers in the case of the Budget Committee. But it has been since 1987 when Jesse Helms upended Richard Lugar that the selection of any chairmanship has been contested. When majorities change, ranking members almost always rise to chairmanships or deals are made to trade spots before any ugliness ensues. But the Sessions-Enzi fight was setting up to be an ugly battle as outside groups started weighing in and accusations were flying fast. Then Sessions did something wholly unexpected in politics: He did not obey his own ambitions. Having been convinced that his old friend and colleague was sincerely interested in leaving a conservative legacy in the Senate (perhaps because former State Department official Liz Cheney attempted to knock off Enzi in a primary challenge this year, accusing the staunchly conservative senator of lily-liveredness), Sessions stepped aside. That move spared the members of the committee a painful vote and diffused what could have been another chance for moderate and conservative pressure groups to deepen enmity between the wings of the party.
[The Judge’s Ruling – Fox News Senior Judicial Analyst Judge Andrew Napolitano examines the “…belief of most of those in government that they can write any law and regulate any behavior and ignore the Constitution they have sworn to uphold whenever they want, so long as they can get away with it.”]
Out of the ooze – The Darwinian politics of our era excuse any grasping, venal conduct on the grounds that the only code is that of survival and advancement. Sessions could have fought, and possibly won, but would have diminished the value of his prize in so doing. He would also have taken another step toward the utter undoing of the Senate. In the past decade we have seen the body ground down to a bitter nub, culminating with the Reid-era rule changes to stifle the minority’s power. But, as one senior Hill staffer observed to Fox News First, “Sessions is still somebody who knows what a gentleman looks like.” Session’s show of grace will not reverse the Darwinian race to the bottom, but it is exactly because such displays are so rare in politics – and seemingly nearly every other human endeavor – that it deserves our attention. Sessions showed that he knew that for an adult, the first question is not “Can I?” but rather “Should I?”
WITH ARIZONA WIN, GOP REACHS 83-YEAR HIGH IN HOUSE
AP: “Republicans will have their largest U.S. House majority in 83 years when the new Congress convenes next month after a recount in Arizona gave the final unresolved midterm race to a Republican challenger. Retired Air Force Col. Martha McSally won a House seat over Democratic incumbent Ron Barber by 167 votes out of nearly 220,000 cast, according to results released Wednesday…Barber said he wouldn’t contest the results and that he called McSally to congratulate her…Her victory came in a year that saw the GOP make big gains across the country. The results of the mandatory recount mean Republicans will hold their largest House majority since the administration of President Herbert Hoover, controlling 247 seats to 188 for Democrats. The 2nd District was the last outstanding congressional race from the Nov. 4 general election.”
NORKS WIN WITH SONY HACK, OBAMA WEIGHS RESPONSE
NYT: “American intelligence officials have concluded that the North Korean government was ‘centrally involved’ in the recent attacks on Sony Pictures’s computers, a determination reached just as Sony on Wednesday canceled its release of the comedy, [The Interview] which is based on a plot to assassinate Kim Jong-un, the North Korean leader. Senior administration officials, who would not speak on the record about the intelligence findings, said the White House was still debating whether to publicly accuse North Korea of what amounts to a cyberterrorism campaign…Officials said it was not clear how the White House would decide to respond to North Korea. Some within the Obama administration argue that the government of Mr. Kim must be directly confronted, but that raises the question of what consequences the administration would threaten – or how much of its evidence it could make public without revealing details of how the United States was able to penetrate North Korean computer networks to trace the source of the hacking.”
Romney says – @MittRomney .@SonyPictures don’t cave, fight: release @TheInterview free online globally. Ask viewers for voluntary $5 contribution to fight #Ebola.
OBAMA’S CUBA PLAY MEANS NEW HURDLE FOR HILLARY
The Hill: “President Obama’s decision to seek normalized relations with Cuba sets up new challenges for Hillary Clinton, the Democratic front-runner for the White House if she chooses to run…She talked of recommending that Obama end the embargo toward the end of her term as his secretary of State. Clinton and her husband, former President Bill Clinton, have a contentious history with the Cuban-American population in Florida that goes back to the fight over Elian Gonzalez, the Cuban child whom the president allowed to be returned to his father in Havana after Gonzalez fled to Florida with his mother, who died on the voyage…Former Sen. Mel Martinez (R-Fla.), who left Cuba as a child, predicted that the move by Obama on Wednesday would affect the Cuban-American vote in a way that would not be good for Obama or Clinton…He also warned that the actions will remind Cuban-Americans of the Clinton policies toward Cuba that they opposed, as well as the Gonzalez incident. ‘It’s a reminder,’ he said. ‘I think all of that gets revived.’”
She said – “As I have said, the best way to bring change to Cuba is to expose its people to the values, information and material comforts of the outside world. The goal of increased U.S. engagement in the days and years ahead should be to encourage real and lasting reforms for the Cuban people. And the other nations of the Americas should join us in this effort”
–Hillary Clinton in a written statement.
He said – “The Obama Administration’s decision to restore diplomatic ties with Cuba is the latest foreign policy misstep by this President, and another dramatic overreach of his executive authority. It undermines America’s credibility and undermines the quest for a free and democratic Cuba.”
– Former Gov. Jeb Bush, R-Fla., in a Facebook statement
[Graham: block funds for embassy – The Hill: “Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) on Wednesday said he will seek to block federal funds from financing a future U.S. embassy in Cuba. Graham said President Obama‘s decision to hold talks on normalizing relations with Cuba was a bad idea in a message posted on Twitter.”]
