DELAWARE: State GOP turns page with new leader - Delmarva Now

REHOBOTH BEACH -- Delaware's Republican Party voted through a change of the guard Friday night, replacing longtime national committeewoman Priscilla Rakestraw with businesswoman and conservative activist Ellen Barrosse at the state party's convention.

The party's other representative on the national committee, Wilmington lobbyist Laird Stabler, avoided an expected challenge inside the Rehoboth Convention Center hall, where RNC chair Reince Priebus took time away from the national elections to rally state Republicans.

The election of Barrosse, who founded the anti-abortion group A Rose and a Prayer, also moves the party rightward two years after a north-south rift resulted in tea party candidate Christine O'Donnell toppling moderate Republican Mike Castle in a U.S. Senate primary election.

"This is going to be an interesting four years," said Barrosse, who is also the chief executive of a Wilmington-based regulatory consulting business. "The things that separate us, north and south, moderate and conservative, some of those are real issues. They are serous issues," Barrosse added, while calling for party unity. "I don't want to say it's a matter of holding hands and singing Kumbaya. It's not."

Castle and O'Donnell both attended Friday's convention, staged inside the Rehoboth Convention Center on Rehoboth Avenue. Michelle Rollins was also in attendance to endorse Stabler, who had come under fire for thousands of dollars in political donations made to Democrats, including leaders Pete Schwartzkopf and Helene Keeley, as well as the party itself.

State Auditor Tom Wagner, the party's only elected official controlling a statewide office, defended Stabler against that criticism. "In the business you're in, you have to do that," Wagner said, saying the party needs to be "in unification mode."

Stabler echoed those remarks after he was re-elected without a challenge. "To move forward, to be successful, we have to be unified," Stabler said.

Republicans in Delaware are fighting to remain relevant despite a deep political disadvantage in Dover and throughout the state. Both chambers of the Legislature are controlled by strong Democratic majorities, and a Republican last controlled the Governor's Office in 1992. Rakestraw had served for 37 years, making her the longest-serving member of the Republican National Committee. She announced earlier his week that she would not seek re-election to her post.

Priebus used his remarks mostly to criticize President Barack Obama. Referencing comments that Obama made to Russian President Dmitry Medvedev, saying that he would have "more flexibility" to work on middle defense and other issues after this fall's election, Priebus questioned Obama's "character." Media microphones picked up the conversation that Obama thought was private. "Character is how you act when nobody is looking," Priebus said Friday. "I think we have a character problem in the White House."

Priebus also praised Rakestraw, calling her a "great, great friend of mine." Rakestraw, who will keep her job through this August's national convention in Tampa, is the longest-serving member of the RNC.

"I hope you all realize that just because somebody's been in office for a long time doesn't mean they're ineffective," Priebus said. "Priscilla Rakestraw has been a leader of the Republican National Committee."

View the original article here

NJ Assembly's GOP leader dies at Statehouse (AP)

TRENTON, N.J. – As the long and busy final day of New Jersey's legislative session was coming to a close, most lawmakers were preparing to head home for a few hours of sleep before the new session got under way.

But in a matter of moments, everything changed.

The Assembly and state Senate members, along with their aides and other staffers, stood stunned as they learned that Assembly Republican leader Alex DeCroce had collapsed and died around 11 p.m. Monday in a men's room at the Statehouse. They had been working with the 75-year-old lawmaker all evening as the Legislature wrapped up its session with a flurry of last-minute bills, and one of his final acts as the GOP leader was to accuse Democrats of casting votes for an absent member.

The death threw into turmoil the Legislature's reorganization plans for Tuesday and caused Gov. Chris Christie to delay his annual state-of-the-state address. The Assembly and Senate greatly scaled back swearing-in ceremonies for new members. Christie planned to deliver remarks about DeCroce on the floor of the Assembly in lieu of his scheduled address.

Assemblyman Herb Conaway, the Legislature's only physician, attended to DeCroce at the scene, but it was too late. DeCroce was soon declared dead, and Christie, a fellow Republican and personal friend of DeCroce for 20 years, confirmed the death 2 1/2 hours later.

A cause of death was not immediately known.

"Tonight I lost a dear friend, colleague and mentor," Christie said in a statement. "He helped to give me my start in elective politics in Morris County in 1993. He was one of the most kind, considerate and trustworthy people I have ever had the pleasure to know. This is an enormous loss for our state and for me personally."

An obviously emotional Christie returned to the capital around midnight, wearing a sport jacket over a T-shirt and loafers but no socks. The governor was seen breaking down while embracing Assembly Speaker Sheila Oliver and other legislative leaders.

DeCroce, who lived in Parsippany-Troy Hills, served in the Assembly since 1989 and became the GOP's leader there in 2003. His district includes parts of Morris and Passaic counties.

His wife, Betty Lou DeCroce, is a deputy commissioner with the Department of Community Affairs.

DeCroce's death comes on the heels of the passing of another GOP assemblyman, Peter Biondi, on Nov. 10 — two days after he was re-elected to an eighth term.

View the original article here

GOP leader: Rise in unemployment rate could sink Obama (VIDEO) (The Christian Science Monitor)

Washington – The increase in the nation’s unemployment rate in June is a major moment in President Obama’s reelection campaign and comments by one of Obama’s top advisers minimizing the political effects of joblessness are “like nails on a chalkboard to voters,” a top Republican strategist says.

Ed Gillespie, a former chairman of the Republican National Committee, told reporters at a Monitor-sponsored breakfast Friday that recent focus groups show independent voters think unemployment “is very important, and it is personal to them as we saw in these focus groups.”

Mr. Gillespie is referring to a series of focus groups conducted among independent voters in June by Resurgent Republic. It is a Republican group aimed at shaping the debate on the role of government. Gillespie is on the board of Resurgent Republic.

RECOMMENDED: Unemployment up? Not in these four maverick cities.

The focus groups included 41 independent voters. These independents – 31 of whom voted for Obama – don’t hold the president solely responsible for the economy’s problems, but are skeptical of his leadership and spending policies. They “don’t think he has made things better,” Gillespie said.

Jobless figures released Friday morning, showing the unemployment rate rose to 9.2 percent in June, are "reinforcing" data released last month which showed joblessness on the rise in May. Rising joblessness as the election draws closer “was a seminal moment in the reelection campaign,” Gillespie said. No modern president has been reelected with unemployment at its current level.

Gillespie blasted Obama confidant David Plouffe, who ran the President’s 2008 election campaign and now carries a “senior adviser” title at the White House. Mr. Plouffe spoke at a Bloomberg News breakfast on Wednesday, where he said that “the average American does not view the economy through the prism of GDP or unemployment rates or even monthly job numbers.”

Instead, Plouffe said, voters will vote based on “how do I feel about my own situation? Do I believe the president makes decisions based on me and my family?”

Voters “know the economy is bad,” Gillespie said. “When they hear people say, like the president of the United States, 'Well, just a bump in the road' or 'Things are not that bad,' it is like nails on a chalkboard to them. And for Plouffe to say, 'Well, unemployment doesn’t really matter in terms of the president’s reelection,' that will be more nails on the chalkboard to voters.”

RECOMMENDED: Unemployment up? Not in these four maverick cities.

----

youtube

View the original article here

GOP leader criticizes handling of Somali suspect (AP)

WASHINGTON – The Senate Republican leader on Wednesday accused the Obama administration of undermining U.S. national security by bringing a Somali man facing terrorism charges to New York for trial.

In a speech on the Senate floor, Sen. Mitch McConnell assailed the administration's decision, arguing that the Somali citizen — Ahmed Abdulkadir Warsame — belongs at the U.S. prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, where he could be tried by a military tribunal.

"The administration has purposefully imported a terrorist into the U.S. and is providing him all the rights of U.S. citizens in court," McConnell said. "This ideological rigidity being displayed by the administration is harming the national security of the United States of America."

Senior administration officials said Tuesday that the military captured Warsame on April 19, and then put him aboard a Navy warship, where he was interrogated at sea by intelligence officials. Under interrogation, Warsame gave up what officials called important intelligence about al-Qaida in Yemen and its relationship with al-Shabab militants in Somalia. The two groups have been known to have ties, but the extent of that relationship has remained unclear.

After the interrogation was complete, the FBI stepped in and began the interrogation from scratch, in a way that could be used in court. After the FBI read Warsame his Miranda rights — the right to remain silent and speak with an attorney — he opted to keep talking for days, helping the government build its case.

"Why? Why? Why is a man, who is a known terrorist and enemy of the United States, being afforded these protections?" McConnell, R-Ky., asked. "And now, he is in the hands of the civilian authorities and will be given all the rights accorded to a U.S. citizen in a civilian court."

A senior administration official defended the decision, saying the Defense Department and intelligence officials agreed with other members of the national security team that Warsame should be prosecuted in civilian courts. The official also said they interrogated him for two months to obtain as much information as possible and only when they finished, did they bring in the FBI, which read Warsame his Miranda rights. He waived those rights.

The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because the case is ongoing.

In a statement, Rep. Peter King, R-N.Y., chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee, said Warsame belongs at Guantanamo, not in a civilian court, and expressed concern about the security costs for New York police.

"He is not an American citizen, nor did his criminal acts or his detention occur in the U.S. He is a Somali who traveled to Yemen for terror training. Warsame is a foreigner and an unlawful enemy combatant," King said.

President Barack Obama has said he would like to close the facility at Guantanamo, but Congress has repeatedly stopped the administration from transferring any detainees out of Guantanamo for trial in the U.S. Many in Congress want military commissions to handle the trials of terrorism cases.

McConnell's remarks drew an immediate rebuke from Sen. Dick Durbin of Illinois, the No. 2 Democrat in the Senate, who pointed out that under the administrations of Republican President George W. Bush and Obama more than 400 suspected terrorists have been tried in civilian courts in the United States and are serving time in U.S. prisons.

"To come here and second-guess the president because he's held a man for two months in military interrogation and now is being prosecuted in our criminal courts is totally unfair, unfair because the same standard was not applied to the Republican president who tried hundreds of would-be terrorists, accused terrorists in our criminal courts successfully," Durbin said.

At the White House, spokesman Jay Carney defended the administration's decision to detain Warsame for two months to allow intelligence officials to interrogate him.

"Wherever possible, first priority is and always has been to apprehend terrorist suspects and preserve the opportunity to elicit valuable intelligence that can help protect the American people," said Carney, who added that the government acquired valuable information.

Carney said the Red Cross was told of his detention and officials had a chance to visit the site and interview the detainee.

Matthew Waxman, a former Pentagon adviser on detention issues in the George W. Bush administration, said, "Congressional Republicans are wrong to try to restrict the president's options. I think it's misguided as a matter of principle and long-term terrorism policy."

Waxman, who served the Bush administration in various posts from 2001 to 2007, said, "These cases come with their own complexities and I think any effort to try to craft a one-size-fits-all approach is dangerous."

Now a professor at Columbia University law school, Waxman said the Obama administration after weighing a number of options probably concluded that in this instance criminal prosecution may have been the best available option for ensuring "that this guy is kept off the streets for a long time."

___

AP White House Correspondent Ben Feller and Associated Press writer Pete Yost contributed to this report.

View the original article here

GOP leader 'cautiously optimistic' on debt talks (AP)

WASHINGTON – A key GOP negotiator in talks on lifting the government's borrowing cap said Tuesday that it may take more than a decade to accumulate savings to pay off the approximately $2.4 trillion in new debt needed to keep the government afloat for about a year and a half.

Sen. Jon Kyl, R-Ariz., also said that he believes any agreement to raise the so-called debt ceiling — and avoid a market-rattling, first-ever default on U.S. obligations — should be enacted sometime next month, before an Aug. 2 deadline. Kyl is a participant in top-level talks aimed at producing spending cuts to pass in concert with the debt limit increase.

"A debt ceiling increase is only over roughly an 18-month period of time. The savings could play out (over) more than a decade," Kyl told reporters. The time frame is important because spreading the cuts over a longer period means that they would be less severe than if they were imposed over a decade, as is typical for legislation considered by Congress.

Kyl's comments came as House Majority Leader Eric Cantor, R-Va., told his GOP colleagues that he's "cautiously optimistic" that ongoing budget talks led by Vice President Joe Biden will produce an agreement on budget cuts at least as large as the accompanying increase in the government's ability to borrow.

Cantor, R-Va., representing the Republican-controlled House, told fellow lawmakers in an email Monday that the Biden-led group is scrubbing all of the major spending programs of the federal budget for potential savings, including health care programs for the elderly and the poor.

Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, has put forth a marker that any increase in the so-called debt limit should be matched by spending cuts at least equaling the new level of permitted borrowing. The national debt has reached the current $14.3 trillion cap, but the Treasury Department is juggling government accounts to free up enough money to prevent the government from defaulting on its obligations until Aug. 2.

"I am cautiously optimistic we can find sufficient common ground with the administration to enact spending cuts that meet the goal outlined by the speaker," Cantor wrote. He didn't say over what time period the cuts would be measured.

Biden said last month that the group, which includes top lawmakers from both parties, is on pace to generate savings exceeding $1 trillion. At the White House last week, President Barack Obama predicted to House Democrats that the Biden group would come up with perhaps 60 to 70 percent of the requisite budget cuts and that he and Boehner would negotiate the remainder.

The Biden group is slated to have its sixth meeting Thursday at the Capitol. Kyl said the topics will include revenue increases sought by Democrats and a proposal to cap spending at a fixed percentage of the economy, say 20 percent. Republicans have promised to block any revenue increases, however, and the administration opposes the spending cap.

Cantor didn't explicitly mention the Medicare health program for the elderly — which is currently the subject of a pitched political battle and a rallying point for Democrats — but other top Republicans like Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky insist that cost cuts to the program be part of any final agreement.

A controversial House GOP plan to turn Medicare into a voucher-like program for future beneficiaries is rigorously opposed by Democrats, but Obama himself has proposed cuts to Medicare providers.

Cantor made no mention of cuts to Social Security, and the topic is not believed to be part of the talks.

The government borrows an average of about $125 billion a month. The administration hasn't said how big of an increase in the debt limit it would like, but a key consideration is whether to raise it enough to get through next year's elections. But that would require a borrowing increase of well more than $2 trillion.

"Even to go to the end of the year next year, you'd have to go to $2.4 trillion," Kyl said. "Which means that you have to do about 2 1/2 trillion — at a minimum — in savings."

On Tuesday, the Congressional Budget Office estimated that the government has run a $936 billion deficit over the first eight months of the budget year that ends Sept. 30.

View the original article here