May 23, 2012

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Grassley talks about Secret Service sex scandal & national security (audio)

April 24, 2012 By

Senator Chuck Grassley

Iowa Senator Chuck Grassley said today he has deep concerns about the competence and integrity of the Secret Service.

The questions arise as President Obama will visit Iowa City tomorrow, while the nation’s First Lady is scheduled to be in Des Moines today.

In light of the recent sex scandal involving agents on a presidential detail, Grassley said he’s not 100% confident the first family – or national security – is safe. “For the first time in 150 years of the Secret Service and my years in Congress, I’d have to say that I can now have doubt,” Grassley said this morning during a telephone conference call with reporters.

About a dozen agents are being disciplined and several have already left the agency after allegations arose that a Secret Service advance team in Columbia was caught with a number of prostitutes. At least two Congressional panels are launching investigations, including the Senate Judiciary Committee, where Grassley is the ranking Republican.

“The issue here isn’t just people messin’ around with prostitutes,” Grassley said. “The issue is the security of the president of the United States and the issue is any national security implications that it might have because of the secrecy and the documents and things of that nature.”

Tomorrow, Grassley will take part in a Washington, D.C. hearing that will include the Secretary of Homeland Security who will be asked questions about the Columbia incident. According to Grassley, there’s a question of whether this is an ethical/moral issue or an act of espionage.

“We’re looking at something that is very, very serious when national security might not be protected properly,” Grassley said. “Who knows who might be using prostitutes? The Russians are famous for that to get information out of us. You want to know that the president is protected.”

Over the years, Grassley has spearheaded several investigations of federal agencies, including the FBI and the FDA. “You find a lot of problems come from a culture within the agency,” Grassley said. “Now, I don’t think the Secret Service would have that sort of a culture but this may be the tip of an iceberg.”

Grassley is asking the White House Counsel for details regarding the “quick weekend internal investigation” about any White House personnel being involved in the Colombia prostitution scandal. The internal review reportedly found no indication of any misconduct by the White House advance staff.

Audio of Grassley discusses Secret Service scandal. 3:30

Filed Under: News, Politics & Government Tagged With: ,

Grassley votes against “Buffet Rule,” calls it a political move

April 17, 2012 By

The so-called “Buffett Rule” legislation failed to pass the U.S. Senate last night. Named for Omaha billionaire Warren Buffett, it would have put new taxes on the wealthy.

Iowa Senator Chuck Grassley, a Republican, voted against the Democrat-backed bill. Both sides expected the measure to fail, which Grassley says made it a mostly-symbolic vote. “The bottom line of it is, it was a political move by the Democrats in the Senate and not a sincere effort to do something about the economy,” Grassley says.

“What we should be doing about the economy is fighting the deficit, getting gas prices down and creating jobs.” The Buffett Rule bill would have required anyone making at least two-million dollars a year to pay income taxes of at least 30-percent. Over time, it also would have applied to anyone making one-million dollars a year.

Grassley says the clock is now ticking on a plan to stave off what could end up being an epic tax hike at the end of this year. Grassley says, “Nearly every taxpayer will be hit by the biggest tax increase in history unless Congress and the president steps in to stop the tax increase and obviously do that by extending our existing tax laws that were first enacted in 2001 and 2010.”

The Buffett Rule would have raised a projected $47-billion over a decade. He says they’ll need to act to prevent the other tax laws from expiring.

“If no action is taken, then this is going to add up to a family of four that might be earning about $50,000 a year being hit by a $2,183 tax increase,” Grassley says. Raising taxes on the people who own businesses is counterproductive, he says.

Small business owners would see taxes increase 17%, Grassley says, adding, 70% of new jobs are created by small businesses so it “doesn’t make any sense to make it more difficult for job creation.”

Iowa’s other Senator, Democrat Tom Harkin, voted for the bill.

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Grassley admits “stupid” comment wasn’t best way to express himself (audio)

April 11, 2012 By

Senator Chuck Grassley.

Critics say Iowa Senator Chuck Grassley was disrespectful and wrong to call President Obama “stupid” on Twitter a few days ago.

In a conference call with reporters this morning, Grassley did not say he’d apologize for the comment but did say he should’ve found a better way to express himself.

“You know, it wasn’t a very diplomatic way to say what I was trying to say because we all know that the president is an intelligent person,” Grassley said. Grassley, a Republican, was referring in his tweet to the president’s comments last week when Obama said it would be “unprecedented” for the U.S. Supreme Court to rule against the health care law.

Grassley said Obama is certainly well-versed in the landmark court case known as Marbury v Madison. In that ruling from 1803, the U.S. Supreme Court established that it could declare a law that was enacted by Congress as unconstitutional.

“And then he gives a speech eight or nine days ago where he implies the Supreme Court wouldn’t dare declare an act of Congress unconstitutional because it was passed by a majority of Congress,” Grassley said. “He just simply knows better.”

President Obama is a Harvard Law School graduate and he taught constitutional law at the University of Chicago. “He made comments that shouldn’t have been made,” Grassley said of Obama’s remarks. “I’m sure he knows they shouldn’t have been made. It looks like he backed off a little bit, but I think a president has a responsibility to show to the American people how our system of government works and show respect for that system of government and he didn’t do that.”

Grassley said the president isn’t lacking in intelligence, but his comment was. “He said something stupid as we all say something stupid from time to time but the president is a very smart person,” Grassley said. “That’s why he’s the president of the United States.”

David Axelrod, the president’s chief strategist, sent out his own tweet, warning the senator that perhaps a six-year-old had hijacked Grassley’s Twitter account to embarrass him.

Here’s the text of Grassley’s original Tweet from Saturday: “Constituents askd why i am not outraged at PresO attack on supreme court independence. Bcause Am ppl r not stupid as this x prof of con law”

 Audio: Grassley’s discussion of “stupid” tweet 2:00

Filed Under: Crime & Courts, Featured Story, News, Politics & Government Tagged With: , ,

Governor joins Grassley in blasting Obama’s Supreme Court statements (audio)

April 9, 2012 By

Iowa’s top two Republican officials are ridiculing President Obama for his recent statements about the Supreme Court. Obama said last week he was confident the court would uphold the health care reform law because of legal precedent. U.S. Senator Chuck Grassley took to Twitter to say Obama — a former constitutional law professor — was “stupid” and Governor Terry Branstad calls Obama’s statement “outlandish.”

“I thought it was incredible that somebody that is a graduate of a law school would make the kind of outlandish statements that the president of the United States said,” Branstad told reporters this morning. “…The issue of the Supreme Court being able to decide constitutionality was decided in Marbury v Madison in 1803 and anybody that’s gone to law school knows that.”

Bob Vander Plaats, Branstad’s 2010 Republican Primary opponent, argued the Iowa Supreme Court was an “activist court” by issuing a ruling that legalized gay marriage in Iowa. Vander Plaats had pledged that if elected governor he would issue an executive order to negate that ruling because the ruling had overturned the Defense of Marriage law passed by the legislature. Branstad suggests President Obama would be “making a mistake” if he takes the of advice of people like Vander Plaats.

“I believe in telling it like I see it,” Branstad told reporters, “and, you know, maybe I’m handicapped because I have a law school education, but I did read Marbury v Madison and I do understand that it’s been settled law since 1803 that the Supreme Court can decide on the constitutionality of laws…passed by the congress and signed by the president.”

Hear and read all of what Branstad had to say on this topic and read Grassley’s tweet about the president here.

The Republican rival who Governor Branstad ridiculed today suggests Branstad should heed the advice of Iowans who’re upset with the Iowa Supreme Court’s ruling on gay marriage. Branstad said President Obama should avoid getting “constitutional law advice” from Vander Plaats.

“It doesn’t concern me if Governor Branstad wants to take legal advice from me,” Vander Plaats told Radio Iowa late this morning. “But he probably should take constitutional advice from the people of Iowa who clearly saw the Supreme Court of Iowa had overstepped their jurisdiction.”

That’s a reference to the 2010 vote which tossed three Iowa Supreme Court justices off the bench. Vander Plaats said it is “totally within” the U.S. Supreme Court’s authority to decide whether the national health care reform law is constitutional because a court “can void law” 

“The problem is the Iowa Supreme Court went beyond that,” Vander Plaats said. “They made law and they tried to execute law.”

Vander Plaats said the U.S. Supreme Court would overstep its authority if it decides the entire national health care reform law is unconstitutional, but then tries to enforce sections of it as federal law.

(This story was updated at 12:41 p.m. with comments from Vander Plaats.)

Filed Under: Crime & Courts, Featured Story, Health & Medicine, News, Politics & Government Tagged With: , , , , ,

Grassley uses health care case to continue to push for courtroom cameras

March 27, 2012 By

Iowa Senator Chuck Grassley has served in Congress since 1975 and today he’s doing something he’s only done once before — he’s at the U.S. Supreme Court to hear arguments about the federal health care law. Living much of the year in Washington D.C., Grassley says he’s taking advantage of this rare opportunity, but wishes it was something all of us could do.

Grassley says, “The impact of the case being heard this week, with every citizen’s life touched by the law requiring everybody to have health insurance, and it’s one-sixth of the American economy effected, emphasizes the importance of public access to proceedings in the nation’s courts, including the Supreme Court.”

Grassley says he’s worked for more than a decade to grant federal judges the power to allow cameras in their courtrooms. He’s also introduced legislation to broadcast coverage of the U.S. Supreme Court. “The (Senate) Judiciary Committee has voted to pass both measures out of committee,” Grassley says.

“Until legislation can be passed, I’ve also made appeals directly to the Supreme Court to release recordings of the arguments.” At his request, the nation’s high court released audio recordings of proceedings in 2000 during hearings over the contested presidential race between Al Gore and George W. Bush.

Since then, the court has periodically released recordings and this week, it’s making audio available during each of the three days of oral arguments. “Public access to the proceedings of the courts reflect the democratic values of government transparency of due process, of integrity in court proceedings and even affecting civic education,” Grassley says.

“The best way to make sure government is accountable is for the people to establish transparency.” Iowa is among 26 states that are suing the federal government over the constitutionality of the Affordable Care Act, which critics call Obamacare.

Filed Under: Crime & Courts, News, Politics & Government Tagged With: , ,

Senator pushes for use of dollar coin

March 16, 2012 By

Senator Tom Harkin wants to make the dollar bill a thing of the past. He and Senator John McCain are sponsoring legislation that would phase out the one-dollar bill, the paper money, and replace it with the one-dollar coin. Harkin says there are nearly one-and-a-half billion coins, coins worth a buck each, just sitting in storage it’s time to start using them.

“A dollar coin lasts for 17 years,” Harkin says. “A dollar bill gets run through all the time. They put it in landfills.” Paper notes — including dollar bills with George Washington’s image on the front — last for up to five years.

Coins last three times longer and Harkin says the government could save some significant money if people start using dollar coins rather than dollar bills. “It could save us $200-500 million dollars a year,” Harkin says.

Harkin has tried to kill the bill before. He sponsored legislation back in 1989 to switch to a dollar coin. But Harkin says this fall may be the perfect time to renew the pitch because saving as much as $500-million by making the switch may prove popular.

“Our chances might be a little bit better towards the end of this year when we’re looking at extending the tax breaks and what we’re going to do about the tax code and the budget,” Harkin says. “Well, you know, they’re going to be looking for places to save money. We’ve got one right here where they can save a lot of money.”

Harkin made his comments on Iowa Public Radio.

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Grassley warns against hasty withdrawl plans for Afghanistan

March 13, 2012 By

The Sunday slaughter of 16 Afghan civilians in their homes allegedly by an American soldier is prompting many critics to say the U.S. needs to pull its troops out of Afghanistan very soon. Iowa Senator Chuck Grassley says he hopes the very unfortunate incident doesn’t force the U.S. to alter course after many years of working to build allies and trust in that country.

“You should not talk freely about what your military strategy is,” Grassley says. “Maybe announcing that we would be out in 2014, even though I think that’s reasonable, just announcing it is a way of telling the Taliban that if they wait around a couple years, they can have the country to their own and maybe accomplish their own goals.”

Grassley, a Republican, says he thinks it would be a mistake to step up our Afghan withdrawal plans. Grassley says, “I want to stay on the course we’re on.” He says we’re a government based on the rule of law and the law has to be enforced.

“War is not a normal environment so all the rules of a very peaceful society don’t necessarily apply to war,” Grassley says. “There has to be some consideration to our putting men’s (lives) in jeopardy, particularly if the person that killed 16 people was unstable because of the war situation.”

Reports say the unidentified soldier had recently sustained a head injury in a vehicle accident in Iraq. The 38-year-old Army staff sergeant is in U.S. custody in Afghanistan.

Filed Under: Military, News, Politics & Government Tagged With: ,
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