Tom Coburn says after national park gun ban lifted, violent crime fell by 85 percent 9MAI13

sen tom coburn r OK deliberately lied on Morning Joe about the the level of violent crime in our National Parks since the law was changed allowing guns in the parks since 2010. Looking at the stats there is no way his claim can be attributed to an error. He is taking his orders from the nra and is employing their tactics of deception, misrepresentation, manipulation and lying, performing as the good nra minion he is, in their campaign against gun control. One really has to ask how his willingness to be dishonest for political and financial gain squares with his professed Christian faith? That is something he will have to settle with God, along with his responsibility for any harm done to anyone as a result of his actions. From PolitiFact.....

The Truth-O-Meter Says:

"In 2010, everybody said you can't dare let guns go into the national parks, and of course the rapes, murders, robberies and assaults are down about 85 percent since we did that."

Tom Coburn on Thursday, May 9th, 2013 in an interview with MSNBC's "Morning Joe"

Tom Coburn says after national park gun ban lifted, violent crime fell by 85 percent

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Sen. Tom Coburn, R-Okla., said on MSNBC's "Morning Joe" that violent crimes in national parks fell 85 percent after a gun ban was lifted in 2010. Is that correct?

During an interview on the MSNBC show Morning Joe, Sen. Tom Coburn, R-Okla., argued for legislation he’s proposing that would allow guns to be carried into lands controlled by the Army Corps of Engineers.

To make the case that guns make places safer, Coburn cited a dramatic before-and-after statistic that stems from the lifting of a ban on guns in national parks. Coburn was a leader in the effort to get Congress to approve the change. President Barack Obama signed the national park provision into law, and it took effect in February 2010.

"In 2010," Coburn said on Morning Joe, "everybody said you can't dare let guns go into the national parks, and of course the rapes, murders, robberies and assaults are down about 85 percent since we did that."

That’s a pretty stunning drop. Is it accurate?

When we checked with Coburn’s office, John Hart, a spokesman, acknowledged that his senator had misspoken in a way that overstated the decline.

Hart said Coburn’s office had compared FBI crime data on National Park Service land from 2008 to 2011, the most recent year available. By the office’s calculations, the number of violent incidents actually dropped by 12 percent, not 85 percent.

"The numbers show crime rates have declined, but he misspoke when he mentioned 85 percent," Hart said. "On balance, the facts support our conclusion that crime rates would go down under our policy, not the conclusion of the amendment’s critics who said that allowing guns in national parks would lead to more crime."

However, before we bless Coburn’s revised analysis, let’s look at the original data. Here’s a summary chart for violent crimes in the national parks between 2008 and 2011.

Year	Murder and non-negligent manslaughter	Forcible rape	Robbery	Aggravated assault	Total violent crimes
2008	5	37	66	259	367
2009	3	34	64	206	307
2010	15	45	58	251	369
2011	7	34	58	224	323
Change, 2008-11	+40%	-8%	-12%	-14%	-12%
Change, 2009-11	+133%	0	-9%	+9%	+5%

A few issues jump out to us. First, murders actually went up between 2008 and 2011, contrary to what Coburn said.

More importantly, using 2008 as the "before" year in this before-and-after comparison amounts to cherry picking.

As we noted, the law went into effect in 2010, so the most obvious way to frame the comparison would be to use the data from 2009 (the last full year before the gun ban was lifted) and 2011 (the most recent year). And as it turns out, the comparison to 2009 is not nearly as favorable to Coburn’s overall point.

Between 2009 and 2011, these four categories of violent crimes actually rose collectively by 5 percent. Robberies did decline by 9 percent, but murders more than doubled (from a very small base), the number of rapes was stable and the tally of aggravated assaults -- by far the most common of these four crimes -- rose by 9 percent.

Meanwhile, it’s also worth noting that the number of crimes in national parks is generally pretty small, which makes it unclear how much stock anyone should place in year-to-year percentage increases and decreases.

Finally, we’ll point out that Coburn’s stated decline may -- or may not -- have been caused by the deterrence of having guns around. But if they were a cause for the decline from 2008 to 2011, what’s to stop someone from arguing that they were the cause of the increase from 2009 to 2011? The numbers alone simply don’t tell us.

Our ruling

On Morning Joe, Coburn said, "In 2010, everybody said you can't dare let guns go into the national parks, and of course the rapes, murders, robberies and assaults are down about 85 percent since we did that."

Coburn’s office acknowledges that he misspoke; they actually calculated a decline of 12 percent, which is dramatically lower than 85 percent.

But we find even the revised statistic to be questionable. It hinges on using 2008 data, when 2009 data would be more appropriate -- and a comparison using data from 2009 actually shows an increase in violent crime in national parks since the gun ban took effect. Meanwhile, it’s far from clear that guns had an influence on the relatively small number of crimes that take place in national parks.

We rate Coburn’s statement False.

About this statement:

Published: Thursday, May 9th, 2013 at 5:49 p.m.

Subjects: Guns, Recreation

Sources:

Tom Coburn, interview on MSNBC’s Morning Joe, May 9, 2013

FBI, "Offenses Known to Law Enforcement, by State, Tribal, and Other Agencies," 2008

FBI, "Offenses Known to Law Enforcement, by State, Tribal, and Other Agencies," 2009

FBI, "Offenses Known to Law Enforcement, by State, Tribal, and Other Agencies," 2010

FBI, "Offenses Known to Law Enforcement, by State, Tribal, and Other Agencies," 2011

NBC News, "New law allows loaded guns in national parks," Feb. 19, 2010

Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility, "Rising Tide of Violence," accessed May 9, 2013

Email interview with Jeff Ruch, executive director for Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility, May 9, 2013

Email interview with Kurt Repanshek, founder and editor-in-chief of National Parks Traveler, May 9, 2013

Email interview with Mike Litterst, acting chief spokesman for the National Park Service, May 9, 2013

Email interview with John Hart, spokesman for Tom Coburn, May 9, 2013

Written by: Louis Jacobson
Researched by: Louis Jacobson
Edited by: Angie Drobnic Holan

http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2013/may/09/tom-coburn/tom-coburn-says-after-national-park-gun-ban-lifted/

Chuck Schumer Background Check Bill Loses Key Republican Co-Sponsor 6MAR13

ALL these politicians, champions of gun rights, are cowards because they will not even consider making it legal for gun owners to bring their guns with them on Capital Hill, into the halls of Congress. A constituent can't bring their gun with them when they visit their Representative or Senator in D.C. Why not? After all, these are the same politicians, the majority of whom are legislating access to any kind of gun to almost anyone, allowing them to carry them almost everywhere, except within the halls and offices of Congress. If there is any political position that tells a politician's constituents their very lives aren't as valuable as the politician's, this is it. How sad that so many American's are willing to accept such a demeaning designation. From HuffPost...

NEW YORK -- Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) is proceeding on legislation expanding background checks of gun purchases without his first choice for a Republican co-sponsor, Sen. Tom Coburn (R-Okla.)

The Huffington Post was first to report Tuesday that Schumer and other Democrats were planning to move the bill -- the backbone of President Barack Obama’s gun policy reforms -- without Coburn’s support. On Wednesday, with the deadline to submit the legislation to the Senate Judiciary Committee approaching, the decision became official. The two sides could not reach an agreement over whether sales records should be kept for private gun purchases.

A Schumer aide sent over the following guidance:

[A] sticking point has emerged with Senator Coburn over the issue of whether private sellers should be required to maintain a paper record of their transaction. Currently, commercial dealers are required to keep such a record on their premises after a sale; our bill would simply extend this same requirement to sales by private sellers. Current law already forbids the federal government from harvesting these records in a centralized database or otherwise creating a registry, and our bill would continue that policy. But without requiring a record for any private sales, it is impossible to ensure compliance with the background-check requirement our bill would impose.

Throughout this process, Senator Coburn has negotiated in complete and utter good faith, but there is an honest difference of opinion over this provision. As much as we wish to earn Senator Coburn’s support, Senator Schumer is not prepared to negotiate away the record-keeping requirement in its entirety, lest it make the law unenforceable. Accordingly, Sen. Schumer spoke to Senator Coburn yesterday (Tuesday) to let him know that while the lines of communication will remain open between their offices, he intends to begin approaching other Republican senators in earnest about the proposal. Senators Kirk and Manchin had already been feeling out other Republicans, and Senator Schumer will now join in that pursuit.

In the meantime, while this new round of outreach begins, a version of the bill must be submitted by 5 pm today for the purposes of the committee mark-up tomorrow. To that end, our office intends to file a bill that closely mirrors Schumer’s “Fix Guns Check Act of 2011,” which was first introduced last Congress. This bill omits many of the modifications Schumer, Kirk and Manchin have already agreed upon as part of their forthcoming bipartisan compromise. But for the time being, Schumer will advance the original, strongest version of the bill while the three senators together shop their compromise approach to potential co-sponsors on both sides of the aisle.

Sens. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) and Mark Kirk (R-Ill.), who had been working on the legislation as well, announced Wednesday that they would not support Schumer’s bill as submitted. Theirs was a largely ceremonial statement, as the bill will ultimately be replaced with something more closely resembling the Schumer-Coburn compromise.

Wednesday's development is an obvious setback for the legislation, since Coburn has an "A" rating from the National Rifle Association and his support for the bill would have basically guaranteed its passage through the Senate. On the other hand, the fact that Coburn has said that he agrees with most of the legislative language he negotiated with Schumer suggests that other Republican co-sponsors are there to be had.

A Senate Democratic aide insisted that they were still attempting to secure the Oklahoma Republican's support. "The lines of communication remain open," the aide said.

In a statement to The Huffington Post, a spokesman for Coburn, John Hart, said he was "still hopeful they can reach an agreement."

Gun control advocates are also a bit torn. Jim Kessler, founder of the centrist-Democratic organization Third Way and a former director of policy and research at Americans for Gun Safety, told The Huffington Post it would be fine with him if sales records weren’t kept in certain instances, provided those instances were limited. Others say it is essential to the bill.

Another Senate Democratic aide working on a federal trafficking statute -- another component of gun control legislation -- said that the law would be “toothless” if it didn't require sales records be kept.

"How do you prosecute straw purchases without a record of purchase?" the aide asked.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/03/06/chuck-schumer-background-check-bill_n_2822964.html?utm_source=Alert-blogger&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Email%2BNotifications

Joe Lieberman, Tom Coburn Plan To Slash Medicare Gets Cold Reception 28JUN11

"Learn to do good; seek justice, rescue the oppressed, defend the orphan, plead for the widow."
- Isaiah 1:17

SEN tom coburn's support of this plan is understandable, he is a typical gop politician owned by the wealthy and corporate America and feels no responsibility or concern for the welfare of average Americans. Sen joe lieberman's support is disturbing because he completely turns his back on the teachings of his faith, casting aside the admonishments of Judaism concerning the poor, the elderly, the widow. Sen lieberman would have been a good Capo in hitler's nazi germany, just as he has no qualms about tossing the poor, retired, the needy aside so too he would have willingly turned in his fellow Jews to the SS and gestapo, sent them off on the transport trains to the concentration camps to be gassed, all in a vain attempt to keep himself alive. Sen lieberman, your day is coming, just like if you were a nazi Capo, and you, along with your greedy cohorts in congress will reap the rewards for your betrayal. From HuffPost....
WASHINGTON -- A new plan unveiled by Sens. Joe Lieberman and Tom Coburn to slash costs in Medicare is getting a cold reception on Capitol Hill.
The new effort aimed at bridging the partisan divide over debt reduction aims to cut more than $640 billion from Medicare over the next 10 years, largely by raising deductibles and other costs for beneficiaries.
It would require wealthier Americans to pay the full cost of their Medicare premiums, raise the eligibility age to from 65 to 67, create a minimum out-of-pocket deductible of $550 and raise premiums, among other changes.
In return for paying more and giving up benefits, seniors would get a cap on out-of-pocket expenses at $7,500 to ensure bankruptcy was less of a threat.
Democrats dismissed the ideas out of hand.
"It is unfair to ask seniors to get less in benefits and wait longer to get onto Medicare -- all while Republicans back tax breaks for Big Oil and corporations that ship American jobs overseas," said House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) "Just like the Republican plan to end Medicare, this proposal is unacceptable, especially for struggling middle-class Americans."
Republicans did not exactly flock to the idea either. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell merely said the work by the Connecticut independent Lieberman and Oklahoma Republican Coburn underscores "the necessity of doing something serious about entitlement reform."
"We can put our heads in the sand and ignore that, and keep on kicking the can down the road, or we can come together as Sen. Coburn and Sen. Lieberman have with their particular proposal and try to do something about it," McConnell added.
Although the plan met such a chilly reception, reports out of the White House Tuesday suggested President Obama is hunting for a fresh option to trim Medicare costs -- a key part of the debt talks -- and thinking a lot larger than Democrats have been willing talk about so far.
If Republicans agree to revenue hikes President Obama wants, the Lieberman-Coburn plan could offer a bipartisan refuge.
But there are political realities that would make it a hard proposition for either side to embrace.
For one, Democrats likely would have to give up their relentless hammering of the Republican plans to cut Medicare -- which the Democrat-aligned Protect Your Care signled Tuesday it was not about to do.
"A plan that slashes Medicare for vulnerable seniors is a plan that slashes Medicare for vulnerable seniors no matter what co-sponsors you put on it," said Protect Your Care spokesman Eddie Vale. "This so called 'plan' is just as dangerous for seniors as the Republican budget that ends Medicare."
For Republicans, accepting the plan would also be difficult because a huge portion of the savings depend on maintaining the health reform law that they have vowed to repeal.
"It's miraculous in a way, because this legislation gets a Republican to embrace ACA [the Affordable Care Act]," one health care lobbyist told The Huffington Post.
If the heath reform were repealed, the Lieberman-Coburn measure requires keeping the eligibility age at 65 -- costing $124 billion.
The ideas are also not likely to go over well with older Americans, who would have to pay 35 percent of the cost of the premiums, instead of 25 percent. Plus, the plan aims to discourage people from going to doctors by raising deductibles.
While the plan would also raise money by making wealthier Americans pay 100 percent of their premium costs -- and by denying some payments to hospitals -- the vast majority of savings come from the pockets of beneficiaries.
The bill contains few of the popular cost-saving ideas that many advocates for reform have embraced, such as improving efficiency, allowing Medicare to negotiate drug prices and using generics.
AARP, the influential lobby for older Americans, estimated that 95 percent of the savings come from seniors. And while the group liked capping the maximum out-of-pocket expenses, and an effort to stabilize payments to doctors, they opposed it overall.
"We believe the right way to strengthen Medicare is to improve the quality and lower the cost of care throughout the health care system," said AARP's Nancy LeaMond. "Simply shifting the bill to seniors does nothing to improve health care quality or combat the real problem of rising costs."

Corn on "Hardball": John Ensign's Web of Deceit 13MAI11

WHEN will people who live in glass houses learn to stop throwing stones??? Former NV repiglican Senator john ensign is the latest to fall, and he might even face jail...The man even implicated his PARENTS in this mess......HIS PARENTS for God's sake!!!! And yet to come, the role self-righteous Sen tom colburn r OK has played in this affair, taking part in the deception, propaganda, and misleading the American public........check out this video.

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

FLASHBACK: GOP Insistence On Unrelated Policy Riders Shut The Government Down In 1995 7APR11

JUST like 1995, the right wing extremist of the gop and the tea-bagger in the house are forcing a shutdown of the government by insisting policy issues, this time women's health and the EPA being two of the most contentious, be included in any budget agreement. They know they can not get these passed on their own because a majority of the public doesn't support their positions. So they are resorting to holding the entire nation hostage to impose their minority mandated agenda. Pres Obama and the Democrats in the Senate need to hold firm with their position that none of the riders attached to the budget bill be included in any budget agreement, and if the government shuts down, so be it. From ThinkProgress....
This morning, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) took to the Senate floor and announced that, while Republicans and Democrats had essentially agreed what spending cuts should be included in a bill to keep the government operating, a shutdown was likely because of the GOP’s insistence on unrelated policy riders:

REID: Our differences are no longer over how much savings we get under government spending. The only thing holding up an agreement is ideology. […]
I’m sorry to say, Mr. President, that my friend, the Speaker, and the Republican leadership have drawn a line in the sand. … the two main issues that are holding this matter up are the choice of women, reproductive rights, and clean air. These matters have no place on a budget bill, Mr. President. This is a bill to keep the government running with dollars. They want to roll back the Clean Air Act. So if this government shuts down – and it looks like it’s headed in that direction – it’s going to be based on my friends in the House of Representatives, the leadership over there, focusing on ideological matters that have nothing to do with funding this government.

It was this same insistence on unrelated policy riders by Republicans that prompted the last government shutdown in 1995. A look back:

“Gingrich and Dole are offering the funding and higher-debt bills but have loaded them with ‘riders’ such as the Medicare bill that the president won’t accept and with other items such as limits on appeals by death-row inmates. [Denver Post, 11/15/95]
“One of the largest spending bills, for the Commerce, Justice and State Departments, is still being negotiated because it has riders on social issues like school prayer. The spending bill for the District of Columbia has been bogged down over a provision to bar Federal money to pay for abortions in the District and would prohibit public hospitals and clinics from offering abortion services.” [New York Times, 11/29/95]
“Congress has been unable to send any bill to the president because of the excessive number of anti-environmental riders.” [U.S. Newswire, 12/8/95]

The funding bill passed by the Republican-controlled House contains more than 80 unrelated policy riders on issues, from abortion to net neutrality to environmental regulations. You can check them out here.
Sen. Tom Coburn (R-OK) has urged his party to drop the policy riders so that a government shutdown can be avoided. Yesterday, Coburn said “And my recommendation to my friends in the House is, you know, it’s highly unlikely many riders are going to get passed…so why don’t you take the spending [cuts] and let’s get on to the budget.”

Coburn Boldly Calls For Cutting Pentagon’s ‘Sacred Cows’: ‘Taking Defense Spending Off The Table Is Indefensible’ 5NOV10 from THINKPROGRESS

CAN it be true????? Will Sen. Coburn force the gop to take this sort of action in Congress or will they cave to pressure from the military-industrial complex? From ThinkProgress...

This morning, conservative Sen. Tom Coburn (R-OK) has an op-ed in the Washington Examiner titled “What Republicans Can Accomplish In The 112th Congress.” In the op-ed, Coburn lays out a legislative agenda that he thinks Republicans should pursue in the new Congress. Many of these are boilerplate conservative ideas, like refusing to raise the debt ceiling and relying entirely on spending cuts instead.
Yet at one point, Coburn breaks with many of his Republican colleagues — and his party’s own much-touted “Pledge For America” — by calling for cuts to the defense budget. He writes that “Republicans also should resist pressure to take all defense spending cuts off the table.” He advocates for taking “common sense steps like freezing defense spending until the Pentagon can pass an audit and remove all nondefense spending from the Pentagon’s budget.” Coburn concludes that “taking defense spending off the table is indefensible. We need to protect our nation, not the Pentagon’s sacred cows“:

Republicans also should resist pressure to take all defense spending cuts off the table. Newly elected Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky had the courage to say he’d go after defense waste during his campaign, and I look forward to working with him.
We should start by taking common sense steps like freezing defense spending until the Pentagon can pass an audit and remove all nondefense spending from the Pentagon’s budget. Our nation’s military leaders understand the need to cut spending.
As Adm. Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said, “Our national debt is our biggest national security threat.” History shows that every nation eventually adopts the foreign policy it can afford. Taking defense spending off the table is indefensible. We need to protect our nation, not the Pentagon’s sacred cows.

As Coburn notes with his praise for Senator-elect Rand Paul (R-KY), he isn’t the only Senate Republican calling for reining in the military budget. Paul told PBS’s Gwen Ifil last month that that cutting defense spending “has to be on the table.” The same month, Pennsylvania candidate Pat Toomey criticized Congress for voting for “programs the Pentagon doesn’t even want.” The week before, Illinois Senator-elect Mark Kirk said we need “across-the-board” reductions in defense spending. Earlier that same month, Johnny Isakson (R-GA) told a local news station that reducing the deficit “begins with the Department of Defense.” And two weeks ago, Bob Corker (R-TN) said on CNBC that defense cuts have to be “on the table” because there’s “a lot of waste there.”
If these Republicans are really serious about reining in the defense budget, they can look to The Sustainable Defense Task (SDTF) report released earlier this year. The SDTF — which comprises Rep. Barney Frank (D-MA) and some of the nation’s leading defense and budget experts — identified nearly $1 trillion in waste that can be cut from the defense budget over the next ten years simply by eliminating outdated Cold War-era programs. They could also reference a recent report by CAP experts Lawrence Korb and Laura Conley that lays out $108 billion in defense cuts in the current 2015 budget forecas

There They Go Again: Two Senators Continue False and Misleading Attacks on Recovery Act 3AUG10

SO Senators john mccain and tom coburn continue in their lies and deception to the American people to satisfy the right wing of the gop and serve their wealthy corporate masters that control them? These men of faith, Christians, should be ashamed of their actions, their greed and lust for power that only hurts the very people and the nation they are sworn to protect and serve. They disgust me.....Be sure to click the link for the report on the economy from Mark Zandi and Alan Blinder. And check out my post on 24 JUL 10 Which Party Will Throw The First Stone about Sen coburn's association with the adulterous Sen jon ensign r NV.

Posted by Jared Bernstein on August 03, 2010 at 09:53 AM EDT

This morning two senators—John McCain and Tom Coburn—released their third report critiquing 100 Recovery Act projects. And just like the last two, this one was an inaccurate and misleading attack on programs that are putting Americans to work across the nation. I’ll present some details in a moment, but it’s very unfortunate that, once again, instead of trying to help create the conditions for stronger growth, to help build on the momentum of the Recovery Act, McCain and Coburn spend their valuable time cooking up phony critiques and, with their Republican colleagues, blocking votes of even bipartisan measures to help small businesses.

Let’s start with the bigger picture. Just last week two prominent, independent economists released a rigorous study on how actions by the government (and the Federal Reserve), including the Recovery Act, helped to end the Great Recession. One of the authors—Mark Zandi—was one of McCain’s top advisers during his presidential bid. He and Alan Blinder (a former vice-chairman of the Federal Reserve) found that the Recovery Act has created or saved about 2.7 million jobs so far, and shaved about a point and a half off of the unemployment rate.

These jobs are the result of over 70,000 projects in action around the country, of grants to states supporting jobs of teachers, police, and firefighters, of tax cuts for working households, loans to small businesses, and investments in innovative new industries producing advanced batteries, clean energy, and much more. They’ve helped reverse a situation where last year, we were losing millions of private sector jobs; in the first half of this year, we’ve added 593,000 private sector jobs.

Now, we’re always glad to take a second look at projects when concerns are raised. In fact, there’s never been a stimulus program of this magnitude with anywhere near the amount of oversight that’s been brought to bear on the Recovery Act. And when we find a problem, we fix it. We’ve shut down hundreds of projects that weren’t delivering the goods.

But the inaccuracy of McCain/Coburn in this regard renders this report just as unreliable as the last two. We followed up the projects in those reports, and found half of their claims to be flat-out false or misleading. Many of the others criticized worthwhile, job-creating projects. Check out this link and you’ll see that news outlets like CNN have debunked their claims in the past, often by simply going to the folks who were working on the project and learning about it:

In the current report, our review so far finds that five of the 100 projects are not even Recovery Act projects. And others are just blatantly wrong on the facts. Take for example an award that McCain and Coburn describe as “funding a WNBA Practice Facility,” when in fact the award is building a tribal government center that will create education and health facilities while also creating hundreds of jobs. Moreover, the tribe has agreed to disallow any commercial use of the facility.

One of their top critiques in the new report is a clean energy program in California that’s put about 50 people to work so far, expects to create 1,500 construction jobs, and then 500 permanent green jobs after that. Gov. Schwarzenegger praised the program, as did the Chamber of Commerce. What would McCain and Coburn say to these workers? That they shouldn’t have this opportunity? That they should go back to the jobless roles? That building a clean energy future is the wrong way to go?

What ideas does Senator Coburn have to offer to the 35,000 people working in Oklahoma who wouldn’t be there without the Recovery Act? What about the 64,000 Arizonans at work because of the Act?

Instead of answers, we’re left with a partisan attack contradicted by one of the author’s own former advisers. But that’s not all. We’re also left with a choice.

The President has shown he is willing to work with anyone who will join us to figure out new ways to create more jobs. The Vice-President spends each week making sure we’re squeezing job out of every Recovery Act dollar. Meanwhile, Republicans are blocking an up or down vote on a package of bipartisan proposals that would cut taxes for small businesses and allow them access to capital through community banks. It’s incredible, when you think about it: last week as they were working to turn out this hit-job of a report, these same two senators were voting against helping small businesses expand and create jobs.

Yes, we must carefully evaluate our progress, but we must do so without partisan thumbs on the scale. In that regard, the report these two senators are touting today is not a road map forward. To the contrary, it is one back to the failed policies that got us into this mess. We’ve tried that route. We cannot afford to go back there again.

Jared Bernstein is Chief Economic Advisor to the Vice President

Sen. Coburn cooperating with federal investigation of Nevada Sen. John Ensign &Democrats worry Rangel's ethics trial will hurt party in midterm elections 24JUL10

WHICH party will throw the first stone????
 

By Carol D. Leonnig
Washington Post Staff Writer
Saturday, July 24, 2010; A05


Sen. Tom Coburn (R-Okla.) said Friday that he has provided information to federal authorities investigating whether Sen. John Ensign (R-Nev.) broke the law in trying to keep secret his affair with a part-time staff member.
Before Ensign publicly admitted the adulterous relationship last June, Coburn had been a key behind-the-scenes counselor to Ensign. Coburn had urged his friend to end the affair with Cynthia Hampton and later tried to help him mediate the tension when her husband, a senior aide to the Nevada senator, confronted Ensign about the affair in late 2008.
Investigators are looking into whether Ensign then tried to help Doug Hampton get lobbying work, through meetings with key donors and administration officials. Such actions could violate federal laws and congressional rules that require departing congressional staff members to avoid lobbying for a year. The Justice Department has issued subpoenas seeking information to more than five Las Vegas companies tied to Ensign.
Ensign's parents also made $96,000 in payments to the Hamptons, funds the senator may have been required to report under federal disclosure laws as part of a severance package.
On Friday, Coburn confirmed that the Justice Department had requested copies of particular e-mail correspondence and said he was voluntarily cooperating with the probe and was not served with a subpoena. Coburn did not disclose the nature of the correspondence but said only a small number of his e-mails met the prosecutors' specific request.
"Dr. Coburn has also said he will gladly cooperate with any inquiry into the matter," Coburn spokesman John Hart said. "He went above and beyond DOJ's request."
Ensign's attorney, Robert Walker, declined to comment on the development.
When asked last year about the affair, Coburn originally denied knowing about it, then he balked at discussing his conversations with Ensign by asserting they were "privileged," due to his position as an ordained deacon and a doctor. (Coburn is an obstetrician.) He later retreated from that position.
Coburn told ABC News in November that he did nothing wrong in trying to mediate.
"Look, my whole goal in this thing was to bring two families to a closure of a very painful episode," he said.
"And there's no question that Doug called me and said, 'Will you talk to John about solving a problem?' And so I called John Ensign and said, 'Do you want me to talk to him?' [Ensign] said, 'Yes.' "

Democrats worry Rangel's ethics trial will hurt party in midterm elections
By Paul Kane and Carol D. Leonnig
Washington Post Staff Writer
Saturday, July 24, 2010; A03


Rep. Charles B. Rangel (D-N.Y.) hunkered down Friday as he prepared to stage a public battle over allegations that his financial dealings broke House ethics rules. His determination to fight the charges has left Democrats fearful that an ethics trial, planned for mid-September, could wind up tarnishing the whole party just weeks before the midterm elections.
Rangel, 80, dismissed talk of resignation, and Democratic leaders left Capitol Hill for the weekend without a clear path for resolving the case. As of late Friday, Rep. Betty Sutton (D-Ohio), an endangered second-term incumbent, was the only Democrat to call for the 40-year veteran to resign, telling the Hill newspaper, "This is about preserving the public trust." No Democrats had come out in his defense.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and Majority Leader Steny H. Hoyer (D-Md.) had not spoken to Rangel about the issue, aides said. They made only tepid statements, noting the "process is moving forward."
In private, Democratic aides and political strategists shook their heads at the prospect of a public reading of Rangel's alleged misdeeds -- first at a televised preliminary hearing set to begin Thursday and continuing with the ethics trial in September after Congress returns from a nearly seven-week recess.
"The time has come for Charlie Rangel to think more about his party than about himself. Each and every day that a trial goes on would cost Democrats more seats," said a Democratic chief of staff to one of the dozens of incumbents who are facing difficult reelection campaigns. Like most Democratic staff and strategists, the aide requested anonymity because of the political sensitivity of criticizing Rangel, who until his ethics woes had been a beloved figure in the Democratic caucus.
Rangel displayed his usual confidence at a news conference Friday in Harlem. "My lawyers are gonna kill me," he joked, hinting that they would prefer he remain silent. He avoided the specifics of his case and vowed to fight on, saying the public airing of the charges next week would benefit him.
"I'm in the kitchen and I'm not walking out," said the former chairman of the powerful Ways and Means Committee.
The ethics committee announced Thursday that an investigative subcommittee had found that Rangel broke unspecified congressional rules, and it established a separate subcommittee to consider the case. It did not spell out what sanction he might face, although the options could range from an admonishment to a more severe censure or even expulsion.
Since 2008 the investigative panel had probed whether he improperly used his congressional office to raise money for a New York college wing named in his honor; violated city rules through his rent-controlled apartments in Harlem; failed to pay taxes on a villa he owns in the Dominican Republic; and failed to properly disclose hundreds of thousands of dollars in personal financial assets. A separate investigative panel reprimanded Rangel in February for accepting corporate-financed travel, a minor infraction that was still serious enough to force him to surrender his chairmanship while the more serious investigation continued.
Some Democrats privately expressed irritation because a spectacle might have been avoided had Rangel reached a settlement with the leaders of the Committee on Standards of Official Conduct. An accidentally leaked copy of the committee's internal work from 2009 showed that, as far back as last July, Rangel's attorneys were discussing the possibility of a "proffer," a legal term for a defendant's stipulating to certain facts.
But the chances of a settlement had grown bleak by June as Rangel -- not his lawyers -- repeatedly refused to acknowledge some violations, according to sources familiar with the case. His lawyers filed procedural motions, which members considered an effort to drag out the process.
One source familiar with the negotiations in the ethics case said Rangel was willing to make a public apology. But the investigative subcommittee's members grew angry when Rangel told New York media that the committee had found nothing wrong, sources said.
Republicans, meanwhile, are seeking to make the most of connections between Rangel and Democratic candidates. The National Republican Senatorial Committee targeted a handful of House Democrats running for Senate seats, including Rep. Paul W. Hodes (D-N.H.), who has accepted $17,000 in donations from Rangel's political committees. "Hodes is vying for a promotion to the U.S. Senate, and he has a responsibility to stand up for ethical standards and accountability in Congress on behalf of the people of New Hampshire," NRSC press secretary Amber Marchand said Friday.
Hodes's campaign did not respond to inquiries about Rangel.
Rep. Brad Ellsworth (D-Ind.), also running for the Senate, announced he would donate the $12,000 he received from Rangel to charity. But he stopped short of calling for Rangel's resignation.
"In light of these serious charges, there must be a thorough and expeditious trial," Ellsworth said.
Rangel will face two juries in September: one, his colleagues on an evenly divided bipartisan ethics subcommittee; the other, voters in his Harlem-based district, where he faces several younger self-proclaimed reformers in a Sept. 14 primary.
One of those is New York State Assemblyman Adam Clayton Powell IV, the son of the late congressman Adam Clayton Powell Jr. (D-N.Y.). Rangel entered Congress after ousting Powell in a 1970 primary in which Rangel played the role of young reformer running against an entrenched incumbent who faced his own ethics problems.
Rangel said he was not relishing the spotlight: "No, hell no, nobody in his right mind would be looking forward to something like this."