Daily Archives: February 22, 2010

Heart Broken

Former Vice President Dick Cheney is being treated at The George Washington University Hospital for chest pains. Now, I am of course loathe to wish ill on my political adversaries (….moving to side a little bit to avoid the lightning strike…), but I do have to say that Dick Cheney is iron clad proof that only the good die young. What is it now, four or five heart attacks? Over the last 30 years? Now, the mystery here is why Cheney isn’t dead?

For at least three of those heart attacks came while the former Vice President was receiving government funded and provided health care. Indeed, if government health care is so horrible and evilly socialist, then Cheney should have been dead decades ago. But of course it was not and is not, and Dick Cheney is alive today because of it. How wonderful for him, and so outrageously horrible for rest of humanity (in fact, is there a doubt in anyone’s mind that if Dick Cheney left this Earth tomorrow to begin shoveling ash for all eternity that the world would instantly become a better place, but I digress….).

Of course, the real mystery here is how they can do all this surgery on an organ he doesn’t have. Why are the Republicans not complaining about this obvious example of government waste?

Seriously though, we wish Dick Cheney a speedy recovery. And of course he will recover. He is our lot in life.

Scott Brown Is a Big, Fat RINO!

I’m dyin’ here.

Scott Brown was in and out of the Senate chamber and had voted against his party before most of his colleagues had even arrived.

“It’s a small step, but it’s still a step,” Brown told reporters after casting a procedural vote in favor of the Democratic jobs bill, bucking his party leaders and the strategy of opposition they have carried out since President Obama took office.

Unlike Republicans I never had high hopes for Scott Brown – I never chanted #41!  I am however enjoying this… immensely.

Welcome to the Blogosphere, Gov. Markell

Today, Governor Markell launched his new blog.  His first post is titled Dedicated to You: Amazing and Awe-Inspiring and it details some of the heroics of state workers during the storm.  Right on cue, a commenter identifying themselves as “Employee” made this comment:

It’s so nice to hear about how hard my fellow employees work. However, you forget to mention the money we have lost, and the benefits that some of us don’t have. I have been working for the state for over two years with no raise, a pay cut, and no benefits. The tasks required to do our jobs sometimes require extra time, because as we all know these things need to be done in a timely mannor. So thank you for telling us how much we are appreciated, however, some of us would be like to be compensated for the dedication, hard work, and long hours we have had to endure.

It was promptly deleted and comments appear to be off now.  Nice.

I’m Sure Republicans Will Support This

Because tax breaks just rock!

Cash-strapped legislators have recommended spending cuts for Missouri schools and shelters for battered women, but so far the yachting class can enjoy another season of clear sailing.

Thanks to a longstanding tax exemption, Missouri’s marina set can opt to pay a small fee in lieu of sales taxes and shave as much as $30,000 off the purchase of a $500,000 boat.

That tax exemption alone is depriving state and local coffers of more than $6 million a year, according to some estimates. It’s just one of more than 130 untaxed transactions that are getting renewed attention in Jefferson City because of the state’s continuing budget crisis.

For now, however, yachts are treated like baby formula for the poor, tickets to the state fair and even newsprint —all are exempt from state and local sales taxes.

I’m beginning to think we’re doomed because there’s something so very wrong with this picture.

White House’s Health Bill

President Obama announced the White House Plan for HCR this AM and, as promised, it is up on the web.

The Wonk Room is fast out of the gate with a good summary:

The Obama plan maintains key elements of the Senate proposal but also incorporates stronger anti-fraud provisions and allows the federal government to review insurance rate hikes. On a call with reporters Pfeiffer insisted that the administration has not determined “on which path to move forward with”, but the bill’s substance suggests that Obama is hoping to bypass a prolonged-Senate debate and use the reconciliation process to fix the Senate bill and convince reluctant House progressives to pass the Senate legislation. “The American people deserve up or down vote on health reform,”Pfeiffer said. “We can get an up or down vote if opposition decides to take extraordinary steps of filibustering health reforms.”

They did a nice comparison of the WH, House and Senate Plans too, if you scroll down the Wonk Room article. Just looking at this summary, it looks as though the elimination of the anti-trust exemption is not here.

Greg Sargent of the Plum Line has some more, mainly that the WH won’t object to the Public Option being passed via reconciliation if there are the votes for it. But there is more on the new and much needed demand for an “up or down” vote on HCR:

Pfeiffer said no decision had been made how to proceed, pending the outcome of the summit. But he added that Obama’s proposal is designed to have “maximum flexibility to ensure that we can get an up or down vote if the opposition decides to take the extraordinary step of filibustering health reform.”

Translation: If the GOP doesn’t cooperate with us in any meaningful sense, we’re moving forward on our own.

So the Public Option needs enough votes to pass in reconciliation and reconciliation is on.

More as we get it!

VA GOP Legislator: Disabled Children Are God’s Punishment

The rhetoric of anti-abortion groups is often a bit incoherent. They believe that children are both blessings and punishment.This statement was particularly vile:

State Delegate Bob Marshall of Manassas says disabled children are God’s punishment to women who have aborted their first pregnancy.

He made that statement Thursday at a press conference to oppose state funding for Planned Parenthood.

“The number of children who are born subsequent to a first abortion with handicaps has increased dramatically. Why? Because when you abort the first born of any, nature takes its vengeance on the subsequent children,” said Marshall, a Republican.

“In the Old Testament, the first born of every being, animal and man, was dedicated to the Lord. There’s a special punishment Christians would suggest.”

Anti-choice groups have been spreading misinformation about abortion for a long time. Ever hear that abortions increase your chances for cancer – that’s anti-abortion propaganda. How will other anti-abortion groups respond? Will they support Delegate Marshall? What about Sarah Palin – will she engage in a feud?

Monday Open Thread

USA! USA! USA! How about that hockey game? The US men’s hockey team beat Canada for the first time since 1960. This caused a bit of strife in my household, but don’t worry everyone came out o.k. and no one had to sleep on the couch.

Rick Santorum hates gay people more than he loves the military:

“My thoughts are this,” he said, in a morning speech before Conservative Political Action Conference. “The military is there for one purpose and one purpose only, and that is to protect and defend the United States of America.

“We have a volunteer army,” he added. “They can un-volunteer too.”

Addressing how the military leadership, led by Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Mike Mullen, could now favor a repeal of the law, Santorum raised the specter of brainwashing.

“Political correctness is reigning in the military right now,” he said. “”Some people say: [Do] whatever the generals say [on DADT]. I’m not too sure that we haven’t so indoctrinated the officer corps in this country that they can actually see straight to make the right decision.”

This is going to leave a mark:

Andrea Fay Friedman, the voice actress who played the role of “Ellen” –the character depicted as having Down syndrome on the Valentine’s Day episode of Family Guy, has responded to the criticism of sometime-Alaska Governor Sarah Palin. Of special significance, Friedman herself has Down syndrome. Palingates has Friedman’s complete response:

My name is Andrea Fay Friedman. I was born with Down syndrome. I played the role of Ellen on the “Extra Large Medium” episode of Family Guy that was broadcast on Valentine’s day. Although they gave me red hair on the show, I am really a blonde. I also wore a red wig for my role in ” Smudge” but I was a blonde in “Life Goes On”. I guess former Governor Palin does not have a sense of humor. I thought the line “I am the daughter of the former governor of Alaska” was very funny. I think the word is “sarcasm”.

In my family we think laughing is good. My parents raised me to have a sense of humor and to live a normal life. My mother did not carry me around under her arm like a loaf of French bread the way former Governor Palin carries her son Trig around looking for sympathy and votes.

I’ve also noticed that Palin is often pictured carrying Trig in her arms and rarely in a carrier or stroller.

Help Me Understand What This Year’s CPAC Straw Poll Means

I’m really not sure what to make of Ron Paul’s victory in CPAC’s straw poll.  And, make no mistake, it was a pretty big victory.

Nate breaks it down:

But the most revealing result from CPAC 2010, one that didn’t surprise me but ought to wake up national political reporters, is this one: Ron Paul won this year’s CPAC straw poll with 31 percent. Next best was Mitt Romney with 22 percent. Amazingly, Paul’s support was more than that for Sarah Palin (7 percent), Tim Pawlenty (6), Mike Pence (5), Newt Gingrich (4), Mike Huckabee (4), Mitch Daniels (2), and Rick Santorum (2) combined. Yes, that’s right–combined. By compare, just a year ago, Paul tied with Palin for third at 13 percent, with Romney winning and Bobby Jindal (who dat?) second at 14 percent.

I’m kinda wondering if Sarah Palin’s snub of CPAC resulted in her dismal performance.  Of all the results, Mitt Romney’s is the least surprising – that guy is destined to take second place.  Thoughts?

How the Media Gets Suckered by the Media Lobbying Complex

Sebastian Jones writes an excellent piece of investigative journalism — The Media-Lobbying Complex — documenting the various (and many) undisclosed conflicts of interest that seem to power much of the media narrative:

President Obama spent most of December 4 touring Allentown, Pennsylvania, meeting with local workers and discussing the economic crisis. A few hours later, the state’s former governor, Tom Ridge, was on MSNBC’s Hardball With Chris Matthews, offering up his own recovery plan. There were “modest things” the White House might try, like cutting taxes or opening up credit for small businesses, but the real answer was for the president to “take his green agenda and blow it out of the box.” The first step, Ridge explained, was to “create nuclear power plants.” Combined with some waste coal and natural gas extraction, you would have an “innovation setter” that would “create jobs, create exports.”

As Ridge counseled the administration to “put that package together,” he sure seemed like an objective commentator. But what viewers weren’t told was that since 2005, Ridge has pocketed $530,659 in executive compensation for serving on the board of Exelon, the nation’s largest nuclear power company. As of March 2009, he also held an estimated $248,299 in Exelon stock, according to SEC filings.

And the lack of disclosure is bipartisan:

Likewise, Tom Daschle dropped by MSNBC on May 12 and July 2, 2009, and NBC’s Meet the Press on August 16, 2009. At each appearance he discussed healthcare reform with no mention of his work on behalf of lobbying firm Alston & Bird, which advises insurer UnitedHealth Group. Only during a December 8 appearance on MSNBC’s Dr. Nancy was Daschle finally confronted, albeit with kid gloves, about how his simultaneous work for lobbying firms on behalf of health insurers and meetings with administration officials on healthcare reform appeared to be at odds. “I certainly want to be appreciative of perception, so we’re going to take great care in how we go forward,” Daschle promised. A month later, on January 11, the former Senate majority leader returned to MSNBC to discuss healthcare with Andrea Mitchell. In the nearly ten-minute interview, his insurance work went unmentioned.

As of this writing, healthcare and financial reform legislation have largely stalled. And although it would be foolish to argue that Daschle’s TV appearances sank the public option or that Dana Perino’s punditry fatally wounded a proposed Consumer Financial Protection Agency, there can be no doubt that there is a cumulative effect from hundreds of appearances by dozens of unidentified lobbyists and influence peddlers that helps to drive press coverage and public opinion.

I fail to see how interviewing people who are paid to push a client’s POV on subjects that are crucial to said clients gets anywhere near this vaunted “objectivity” that media so prizes. It isn’t as though you are talking to Tom Ridge about Homeland Security issues or Pennsylvania politics — he was specifically sourced to speak about a subject near and dear to the people who paid him. And Ridge isn’t the only one. There is a train of argument in this article that more disclosure of the potential conflicts of interest are in order. But I want to know (as does Jay Rosen here) why these people are even a source of information? They are, after all, PAID to have a POV and paid to get that POV into the discussion. How do paid POV’s become real news or analysis of real news? Locally, we have the shills at the Cesar Rodney Institute cranking out paper and opinions that suit the people who fund them — and really, that is the biggest reason for having these guys disclose their funders. You’ll never have any confidence in what they publish or what they say on TV just isn’t a paid for POV. And the local media who pick these guys up ought to be alot more scrupulous in vetting their potential conflicts of interest.

But as the media is less and less trusted, it is clear that they are complicit — again — in their own difficulties. Just stop using people who are paid to have an opinion from opining or acting as a “subject matter expert” and do the work to find people who can give you more objective information.

Bayh-partisanship: Reform Congress

Evan Bayh may be a mediocre legislator but since he’s announced his retirement from the Senate, he’s been a strong voice for Senate reform. He wrote an op-ed that appeared yesterday in the NYT on the subject. He correctly diagnoses the problem with money in politics and the “permanent campaign:”

Perhaps from this starting point, we can move onto more intractable problems, like the current campaign finance system that has such a corrosive effect on Congress. In the Senate, raising in small increments the $10 million to $20 million a competitive race requires takes huge amounts of time that could otherwise be spent talking with constituents, legislating or becoming well-versed on public policy. In my father’s time there was a saying: “A senator legislates for four years and campaigns for two.” Because of the incessant need to raise campaign cash, we now have perpetual campaigns. If fund-raising is constantly on members’ minds, it’s difficult for policy compromise to trump political calculation.

The recent Supreme Court ruling in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, allowing corporations and unions to spend freely on ads explicitly supporting or opposing political candidates, will worsen matters. The threat of unlimited amounts of negative advertising from special interest groups will only make members more beholden to their natural constituencies and more afraid of violating party orthodoxies.

We’re entering election season for the first time since the Citizens United ruling, and I don’t know how this will affect this campaign. Now corporations will be able to run unlimited ads for or against specific candidates up to election day. If you think there’s too many commercials already, just wait. And since there’s no limit now, will we see candidates on TV shows and scripts written just for certain candidates?

Bayh also identifies filibuster abuse as a problem with the functioning of the Senate:

Filibusters have proliferated because under current rules just one or two determined senators can stop the Senate from functioning. Today, the mere threat of a filibuster is enough to stop a vote; senators are rarely asked to pull all-nighters like Jimmy Stewart in “Mr. Smith Goes to Washington.”

For this reason, filibusters should require 35 senators to sign a public petition and make a commitment to continually debate an issue in reality, not just in theory. Those who obstruct the Senate should pay a price in public notoriety and physical exhaustion. That would lead to a significant decline in frivolous filibusters.

Filibusters should also be limited to no more than one for any piece of legislation. Currently, the decision to begin debate on a bill can be filibustered, followed by another filibuster on each amendment, followed by yet another filibuster before a final vote. This leads to multiple legislative delays and effectively grinds the Senate to a halt.

The system wasn’t intended so that each Senator gets a veto. I understand the hesitancy to abolish the filibuster altogether since it is a way for the minority to influence legislation. (I shudder to think what would have happened to Social Security in 2005 without filibuster power). Right now, though, the Senate is unable to do any business at all because Republicans filibuster everything, even bills they support. There were more cloture votes in 2009 (39) than in the Senate between 1949-1970 (30).

The filibuster worked when there were two governing parties. However, Republicans have decided that they will gain politically by blocking all business of the and blaming Democrats for not getting things done. Too few people actually understand what’s happening and are frustrated by the lack of progress.

I’m getting the feeling now that Republicans might have overplayed their hand. It started with Republicans voting against the bipartisan debt reduction committee, with 8 Republicans who supposedly supported it voting against cloture. Now Evan Bayh’s departure is shining a light on the dysfunction of the Senate. So, thank you Evan Bayh for explaining this to everyone in a way they understand. You may have done the country a great service.