Monday Stuff

It's a good thing that all eyes are on Madison, Wisconsin, but Rachel Maddow tells us here why it's important not to forget about Milwaukee also (to do more, click here - we're winning this thing, people, but we can't let up either)...



...and happy 65th birthday to Peter Wolf of the J. Geils Band (just a little '80s here, I would say).

Monday Mashup (3/7/11) (updates)

To begin, let me point out that I am completely aware of the situation with Pfc. Bradley Manning, the alleged “Wikileaker” to Julian Assange. And for what it’s worth, I find Manning’s treatment to be utterly unconscionable (profmarcus has more here, including Glenn Greenwald’s typically thorough and eviscerating commentary on the subject…fdl brings us the latest here).

Hold Manning in custody under humane conditions (you know, stuff that civilized nations are supposed to do), make the case, and then try him. If he is found guilty, punish him as appropriate for the crime. But is he is found innocent, he should be released.

If this were happening under Bushco, we would be screaming to anyone with ears to hear (and some who don’t, as it goes). The fact that this is happening under “hopey, changey” Number 44 doesn’t make it any less repellent (more so, probably, given the fact that Obama is a legal scholar who should know better).

Update: More here (and it doesn't get one bit better - worse, in fact)...

Next, I happened to pass by a TV earlier today with the channel on CNBC, and I saw an instant poll question which, I believe, asked the following (couldn’t confirm this at their web site): Should companies tell job applicants that they do not hire them if they’re unemployed if that’s their policy, or words to that effect (again, I couldn’t confirm the exact wording…it appeared for about three seconds before they went to a commercial).

Apparently, this practice has been going on for some time, if this USA Today story from last month is any indication…

(William Spriggs, assistant secretary for policy at the Department of Labor) said the chances of an employer considering an ethnic minority are decreased by one-third if jobless applicants are excluded. The pool of disabled applicants would be reduced nearly 50%, he said.

The (Equal Employment Opportunity Commission), which enforces job discrimination laws, has not issued any guidance on the issue. But some on the five-member agency suggested that could be coming.

"I hope this gives our people in the field information to start thinking about a possible problem out there," said Stuart Ishimaru, one of three Democrats on the commission. "For employers it raises serious question of liability if, in fact, there is a disparate impact."

…

In one prominent report last year, an advertisement from Sony Ericsson, a global phone manufacturer that was recruiting workers for a new Georgia facility, was restricted to those currently employed. The company later removed the restriction after media publicity.

Christine Owens, executive director of the National Employment Law Project, said anecdotal evidence from job postings, conversations with job seekers and her interviews with officials at job placement firms suggests there may be a growing trend of excluding unemployed applicants, regardless of their qualifications.

And according to individuals who testified before the U.S. EEOC at about the same time as the USA Today story (here)…

Several examples of discriminatory help-wanted ads were offered: a Texas electronics company said online that it would "not consider/review anyone NOT currently employed regardless of the reason"; an ad for a restaurant manager position in New Jersey said applicants must be employed; a phone manufacturer's job announcement said "No Unemployed Candidates Will Be Considered At All," according to Helen Norton, associate professor at the University of Colorado School of Law.

Also, as noted in this story from last June…

Some job postings include restrictions such as "unemployed candidates will not be considered" or "must be currently employed." Those explicit limitations have occasionally been removed from listings when an employer or recruiter is questioned by the media though.

That's what happened with numerous listings for grocery store managers throughout the Southeast posted by a South Carolina recruiter, Latro Consulting.

After CNNMoney called seeking comments on the listings last week, the restriction against unemployed candidates being considered came down. Latro Consulting refused to comment when contacted.

Of course they refused, because they know how despicable this practice is (and I’m a little embarrassed that I’m a bit “late to the party” on this topic).

If anyone knows of other examples of the jobless being denied consideration from employment from companies or individuals engaged in this heartless (to say nothing of stupid) practice, please let me know so I can do whatever I can legally do to utterly shame them.

Update 3/20/11: More on this here (h/t Atrios)...

Update 4/1/11: And of course, leave it to Smerky here to define the problem and provide some weak tea and sympathy, as it were, but then say that government should do absolutely nothing in response.

Here's a thought: have a state or U.S. representative say, "Do you know what we're going to do in response to employers discriminating against the unemployed like this? We're going to maintain a registry of employers and headhunters/recruiters who do this sort of thing, and we're going to post it online so job applicants in our state can read about these people and be forewarned, that's what we're going to do."

This country is in a huge mess on so many issues in large part because way too many people have been listening to people like Smerky telling us for the last 30 years or so that government is absolutely useless. It's long past time to ignore these idiots because they were every bit as wrong then as they are now.

Further (and in another example of highly questionable news judgment), the Bucks County Courier Times gave this story the banner front page treatment today…

Republican Congressmen Mike Fitzpatrick and Charlie Dent are questioning the worthiness of a conservative group's scorecard that ranks the "Congressional appetite to cut spending."

The data released last week by Heritage Action, a sister organization to Heritage Foundation, rated votes on 21 of more than 100 amendments that followed House Bill 1, which included $61 billion in cuts.

Yep, as far as the Courier Times is concerned, the most important story of the day is the response of Republican congressional representatives to a right-wing think tank’s criticism of their spending votes in Congress.

And news organizations wonder why both younger actual voters and prospective ones don’t read newspapers.

The story lists some of the headline-grabbing defunding votes, including $447 million in Amtrak funding (sponsored by Pete Sessions - wonder if they talked about this during their “TV swearing-in”?) – the Center for Budget and Policy Priorities provides more here on the typically ridiculous effort of the Repugs to plunge this country back into economic chaos.

And as you might expect, congressional Dems Bob Brady and Chaka Fattah rated a zero from Heritage for wisely voting No to all of the cuts. But take a guess as to who got the highest rating of 90 from all of our area congressional reps?

Why, it would be this guy (continue to take a bow, all of you PA-16 numbskulls who insist on sending this meat sack back to Washington every two years to vote No and return absolutely nothing to your district).

In addition, the New York Times ran a profile over the weekend of David Koch and his contribution to cancer research (here); he gave a speech opening the new David H. Koch Institute for Integrative Cancer Research at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, which he gave $100 million to help build.

(The story tells us that Koch suffers from prostate cancer. He was first diagnosed in 1992 and was “originally told he would not live long. Since then, he said, he has treated it with radiation, surgery, hormones and, for the last year, an experimental drug called Abiraterone that he said worked like a miracle.” So basically, Koch was able to take advantage of the highest level of medical treatment that he could afford given his power and influence, though, by supporting Republicans and the teahadists to whom the health care law is a socialist plot, he would readily deny that to everyone in the country with lesser means, which is about 98 percent of us. Also, I find it hard to imagine Koch feeling any notion of philanthropy if there wasn’t at least a little bit of self-interest involved.)

Koch also called the prank call against Hosni Mubarak Walker where someone impersonated him “identity theft” (too funny).

Also…

In his speech at the opening ceremony, Mr. Koch warned that government spending cuts could impede cancer research. And he urged donors to fill the gap.

Gee, now who do you think is yelling the loudest for those nasty “government spending cuts”? As I noted above, that would be the Repugs and the “teahadists” supported by Koch money.

God, this man is truly scum. And get a load of this…

His gift here means that one of the biggest donors to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, home to some of the top climate scientists in the nation, is an owner of a company that Greenpeace called “a kingpin of climate change denial.”

Koch Industries — which owns oil refineries, pipelines and consumer brands like Dixie cups and Lycra — responded that “it is Greenpeace that is the denier here — denier of any rational and honest dialogue on the underlying scientific debate regarding climate change.”

As noted here, Koch Industries, perhaps more than any other corporation, is funding the climate change denial industry. If they withdrew their largess, we could address this problem for real (assuming it isn’t too late by now).

But I suppose, as far as Koch is concerned, by the time this planet is utterly wrecked as a result of the climate crisis (with Biblical casualty figures and the accompanying refugee crisis), he’ll be dead of prostate cancer anyway.

Despite what he would readily wish for us, my faith does not permit me to wish it for him as well (though I wish it would).

Finally, I would like to dispel one piece of wingnut fiction that I see repeated over and over (including here)…

Suffice it to say that a lack of collective bargaining power has not much impaired the access of federal workers to the grievance process.

As noted here, President Kennedy granted collective bargaining rights to federal workers (in 1962, though the Times article doesn’t note the year).

Just add this to the pile of Fix Noise falsehoods on the whole issue of workers’ rights particularly as regards Wisconsin, as noted here.

More Saturday Stuff

Gee, I wonder what it's going to take for "The Most Trusted Name In News" to stop reporting on "Panda people," dog adoption and ENOUGH OF CHARLIE FREAKING SHEEN ALREADY!!! and pay attention to what I guess they think is dumb stuff like this and this instead (and h/t Daily Kos for this great video)...



...and I hope you're in the mood for some Saturday night funk - if you aren't, too bad, because here it is.

A Saturday "Foto Funny"

While doing my Internet thing looking for stuff in general to post about, I found the "Stay or Go" feature at philly.com, which the site does at the conclusion of every season by one of our area sports teams (which players/coaches/front office personnel for that team should stay or go...it's basically a fan poll).

Well, the "Stay or Go" poll for the Eagles is still up after the conclusion of their season, but I think they need to make an update - defensive coordinator Sean McDermott was released by the team as soon as the season ended (and was almost immediately signed by the Carolina Panthers).

Saturday Stuff

While we're all quite rightly focused on Wisconsin, lets not forget about the nonsense in Ohio either...kind of wonder why any Dem anywhere would have been "sleeping" last year, but we are where we are (and coming to The Keystone State also, noted here, which is of course a commonwealth and not a state)...



...and this tune came readily to mind as a result (and by the way, this tells us how Chrissie Hynde ended up allowing the OxyContin addict to use it - not a fair trade as far as I'm concerned, but it was her call, not mine).

Friday Stuff

And yet again, when it's time for perspective on the demonizing of teachers in this country (which puts us in a league with who exactly, I wonder? Iran? North Korea??), it's time for Jon Stewart (here - and Fix Noise humanoid Megyn Kelly stands out as a cold, soulless harpie yet again)...

The Daily Show
Tags: Daily Show Full Episodes,Political Humor & Satire Blog,The Daily Show on Facebook

...and I think this report makes the jump a little too quick in assuming that Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is necessarily talking about U.S. propaganda, though I'm not naive enough to discount that possibility out of hand - I saw another clip of her testimony where she's talking about how ridiculous the "dual arguing talking head" format is that passes for news analysis on cable, and she's absolutely spot-on there...important stuff that we ignore in this country at our peril...



...and Rachel Maddow brings us the latest on the Repug slo-mo train wreck, this time in Wyoming of all places (I don't buy all of what the two ladies with her say here, but I respect their opinions)...



...and I've been meaning to tip my hat to this guy all week for winning another Academy Award (here), so please allow me to do so now.

Friday Mashup (3/4/11)

We all know that Fix Noise is the epicenter of voter fraud allegations involving Democrats which just about always turn out to be baseless (as noted here – actually, I can’t recall a single instance when they’ve been right).

Well, guess what? As reported in the New York Times here…

Indiana’s top elections official, Secretary of State Charles P. White, was indicted Thursday on felony charges that he committed voter fraud.

The indictment, announced by two special prosecutors, prompted immediate, bipartisan calls for Mr. White to resign. But Mr. White, a Republican who took office two months ago, said he would remain in the post as he contests the charges.

And what do we hear from Fix Noise in response?

Cue the sound of crickets (a Google search yielded nothing).

Next, I don’t know who else has noticed but yours truly, but The Orange One has been a veritable “laff riot” lately, with an allegation in particular here that “most Americans don’t have a clue” on the issue of entitlement reform (too funny...unlike you, at least we realize that Social Security has bupkes to do with the deficit).

Well, fresh on the heels of that noxious instance of oral self-entitlement, Boehner is back with the following from here…

Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) has privately assured President Obama that House Republicans will not attack him if he makes a proposal to reform entitlement spending, according to sources familiar with the offer.

Moreover, Boehner has personally promised Obama that he will stand side by side with him to weather the strong political backlash expected from any proposal to cut entitlement costs.

Please allow me to respond with the following well-reasoned observation:

OMIGODTHATISWAYTOOFUGGINFUNNYOHSTOPITIMAYBUSTAGUT...

...HAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!!!!

There are at least six reasons why Boehner should not be trusted in any way, shape or form (probably many more, but life is short)…

Here, Boehner blames Obama for the debt but ignores the stinking Repug tax cuts that are primarily responsible.

Here, Boehner said Obama “ignores American exceptionalism.”

Here from last December, he told Obama it was “time to govern” (you first, Orange Man).

Here Boehner said how dare Obama claim Repugs hate government, or words to that effect (truth hurts, doesn't it?).

Here, Boehner falsely claimed Obama allowed AIG bonuses in the “stim.”

Here, Boehner said to Obama: “Fire (your) economic team” (and we get more whining about “uncertainty”).

So basically, I hope Obama takes Boehner’s olive branch and stomps all over it. And if the House Speaker goes on another crying jag over it, Obama should just utter three words: So be it.

Update: And The Orange One plummets to new depths of both stupidity and insensitivity here (as well as having zero respect for history, to say nothing of our veterans).

Further, allow me to bring you the anatomy of a wingnut smear, beginning with the following from The Daily Tucker (here)…

In her first appearance before the House Energy and Commerce Health Subcommittee since the health-care law passed, Kathleen Sebelius responded to a line of questioning by Republican Rep. John Shimkus of Illinois about whether $500 billion in Medicare cuts were used to sustain the program or pay for the law.

“There is an issue here on the budget because your own actuary has said you can’t double-count,” said Shimkus. “You can’t count — they’re attacking Medicare on the CR when their bill, your law, cut $500 billion from Medicare.”

He continued: “Then you’re also using the same $500 billion to what? Say your funding health care. Your own actuary says you can’t do both. […] What’s the $500 billion in cuts for? Preserving Medicare or funding the health-care law?

Sebelius’ reply? “Both.”

And as a result, Tucker Carlson’s Crayon Scribble Page proclaimed the following headline: “HHS Secretary Sebelius Admits To Double-Counting Funds For Obamacare.”

This is just sad, people – in response, I give you the following from last August (here)…

Reporting from Washington — President Obama reached out Saturday to retired Americans, an important group of voters, touting a report that showed the healthcare overhaul had brightened prospects for the Medicare hospital trust fund.

The whole “double-counting in the health care law” thing appears to be yet another right-wing zombie lie. Well, to begin, I give you the following from here...

The long and short of it: the administration says that it estimates the effects of the law on the entire federal budget over a 10 year period. Under that scenario, the law increases the cash flow into the Medicare Trust Fund, but since that fund is part of the larger federal budget, some of the funds could be used on other legislative priorities. Klein quotes Jonathan Blum, the director of the Center for Medicare Management for CMS, as saying, “I think it’s been a historical, and longstanding budget convention that when you have less dollars paid to the Medicare program to pay for benefits, there are dollars that accrue to the overall federal treasury, that can be spent for other purposes. And this is an OMB, CBO budget convention.”

OK, wonky stuff I know – more to the point, I give you the following from here…

In a 2009 blog post, CBO Director Doug Elmendorf wrote: "The key point is that the savings to the HI trust fund under the (health care law) would be received by the government only once, so they cannot be set aside to pay for future Medicare spending and, at the same time, pay for current spending on other parts of the legislation or on other programs.

…

To describe the full amount of HI trust fund savings as both improving the government's ability to pay future Medicare benefits and financing new spending outside of Medicare would essentially double-count a large share of those savings and thus overstate the improvement in the government's fiscal position."

Further, as noted here…

This double-counting charge is a bit vague. (The health care law) reduces the deficit, and it reduces future Medicare spending. Is it double-counting to take credit for both things, when some of this reduction in future spending will be used outside of Medicare, for example to help finance insurance coverage for all Americans?

One might dismiss this question as reflecting a sudden double-standard. The Center on Budget and Policy Priorities rightly points out that the Obama Administration presents budget numbers in precisely the same manner that elected officials from both parties always have. There is nothing dishonest or unusual here.

Oh, and by the way Tucker, please note that, though I wish you were correct in the pic above, Joe Pitts is, in fact, the U.S. House rep from PA’s 16th congressional district.

Finally, it’s time once more for The Murdoch Street Journal to “Get Christie Love” (here, in a column by Reagan cultist Peggy Noonan about those oh-so-baad public sector teachers)…

Let's look for a second at one of the most famous battles, in New Jersey. A year ago Chris Christie was sworn in as the new governor. He immediately faced a $10.7 billion deficit and catastrophic debt projections. State and local taxes were already high, so that if he raised them he'd send people racing out of the state. So Mr. Christie came up with a plan. He asked the state's powerful teachers union for two things: a one-year pay freeze—not a cut—and a modest 1.5% contribution to their benefit packages.

The teachers union went to war. They said, "Christie is trying to kill the unions," so they tried to kill him politically. They spent millions on ads trying to take him down.

And it backfired. They didn't kill him, they made him. Chris Christie is a national figure now because the teachers union decided, in an epic political drama in which arithmetic is the predominant fact, to ignore the math. They also decided to play the wrong role in the drama. They decided to play the role of Johnny Friendly, on whom more in a moment.

Uh, well, the following should be noted in response here (from last October)…

NJ Gov. Chris Christie and his advisors are trying to sell him as a "principled" man who does the right thing no matter what, but a closer look reveals an egomaniacal political hack who is a lot more concerned about his image than anything else. Now he blames a good little wingnut soldier like Bret Schundler for his very expensive temper tantrums, and apparently his major decisions are being dictated by the local right-wing talk radio:

Before rejecting a compromise with teachers that would have won New Jersey a $400 million federal education grant, Gov. Chris Christie’s main objection was that it would appear that he had given in to the teachers’ union, a former education commissioner testified on Thursday.

The governor, who had battled the union all year, said “that he was not going through the fire with all of their attacks on him merely to cave in to the union,” the former commissioner, Bret D. Schundler, told a State Senate hearing investigating the loss of the federal grant. “And he said that emphatically and for a rather extended period of time.”

Mr. Schundler recalled that in his conversation with the governor, in May, he had explained that it was the union that had given ground, and that the administration had won nearly everything it wanted. “When the governor came to understand that, his concern became more about how it would be perceived,” he said.

[...] Mr. Christie fired Mr. Schundler, a fellow Republican, in August, after New Jersey finished 11th in a competition, called Race to the Top, that rewarded the top 10 states.

A minor omission in New Jersey’s application was one reason the state lost the contest. The mistake cost the state 4.8 points, giving it a score of 437.8, just 3 points behind 10th-place Ohio.

But New Jersey lost at least 14 points because the teachers’ union, the New Jersey Education Association, refused to endorse the application; the added points from the union’s endorsement would have put the state into fourth or fifth place.

The union had agreed in late May to a draft agreement negotiated by Mr. Schundler, signing on to almost every change called for by the governor, including paying teachers based partly on their students’ performance. There was one major exception, Mr. Schundler said: The union would not endorse giving up the principle that when tenured teachers were laid off, it had to be in reverse order of seniority. Mr. Schundler said that that was not a major issue, because such layoffs were rare, and the governor could pursue the change whether or not it was included in the application.

The news release announcing the deal with the union intentionally avoided claiming victory for the governor, Mr. Schundler testified, so that the union could more easily sell the plan to its members. But the next morning, he said, the governor called him, irate because a talk-radio host, Jim Gearhart on WKXW, “was saying he caved in to the union.”

So Christie scuttled a perfectly good agreement brokered by Bret Schundler with the teachers union, and cost New Jersey $400 million in education funds, because of a fit of pique over comments from a talk radio host.

And this from a guy who claimed, in essence, that he could win the 2012 presidential election here (the gall of this man truly takes your breath away).

Incidentally, the “Johnny Friendly” reference pertains to the legendary Hollywood film “On The Waterfront,” made in 1954 and starring Marlon Brando, Eva Marie Saint, Lee J. Cobb, Karl Malden and Rod Steiger (Brando won his first Oscar for the role of dockworker and washed-up fighter Terry Malloy). Basically, the author of the Journal piece is trying to compare the NJ teachers union to Friendly, the character played by Cobb, who indeed was a “selfish, bullying union chief.”

Friendly, in the movie, was also behind the death of a would-be informant who was crushed by a case of whiskey in a dock “accident,” as well as the murder of Malloy’s brother, who was left to hang on a hook in a back alley as a message to Malloy about testifying against Friendly (which Terry eventually does).

That’s the kind of association we’re supposed to make with teaching professionals according to the author, as people no better than murdering thugs.

…

All class, Nooners.

A Thursday Meditation

I don't know what else to do with this, so I thought I might as well put it here (my reaction to this - based very loosely on this)...

O beautiful polluted skies
That pour down acid rain
Upon the heads of right-wing nuts
Who shout out oaths insane
From "Fox and Friends," the cancer spreads
Across our panicked land
Watch hate and fear now reappear
Just like the Repugs planned

We once stood up for people who
We fought to liberate
From oppressive demagogues
Who we now imitate
Our media's obsequiousness
Keeps us hypnotized
It's true, in sum, we've now become
The thing we once despised

God Bless America.

Thursday Stuff

Probably no posting today - whatever...

I know I'm a bit late with this, but what George Miller said here definitely bears repeating (as what Jeff Merkley says here - h/t Atrios...I can't think of a word for the disgust that I feel when the Dems give up without a fight - it's sad that Merkley stands out the way he does because of the relative silence from the rest of the elected officials that supposedly belong to his party also)...



...and I understand the religious revivalism of this song, but I think this embodies the mindset that we must all have these days - the "pay no price, bear no burden" bunch won't be satisfied until they have everything and we have nothing (and no, I'm not exaggerating).

Wednesday Stuff

Damn straight (and to help get the ad on the air, click here)…



…and I must tell you that during weeks like this, when posting is getting all messed up for a variety of reasons, this song captures how I feel, despite my liberal do-gooder tendencies to try to make a positive difference at all times (hat tip to Matt Cord of WMMR for playing this tonight on my way home; it was the highlight of my day…Cord has the common sense to keep his political opinion to himself).

Wednesday Mashup (3/2/11) (updates)

From the “past is prologue” file here (40 years ago yesterday)…

Hundreds of thousands of workers across Britain have taken part in an unofficial day of protest against the government's new industrial relations Bill.

Figures suggest over 100,000 workers walked out on strike in London alone - although only a tiny proportion of that number, about 2,000 joined a march through the capital.

Some reports suggest as many as 1.5 million people stopped work across the country.

The protest is the latest and biggest demonstration so far against the bill, which includes proposals for a strike ballot and a cooling-off period before any industrial action, as well as tighter controls on union agreements and membership.

And by the way, in a related story as they say, kudos to the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops for this (and in the other corner, wearing the white trunks, it’s “Now watch this drive” Boehner).

Update 3/3/11: Now I must tell you that, as a Democrat, I start off as being biased against Boehner I'll admit, so my point of view isn't going to be totally impartial (though I don't like him for a lot of good reasons, chiefly that he is a thoroughly co-opted corporate shill).

But after reading this, you have to admit that he truly is overmatched by his job. For a public official to not admit that Social Security has bupkes to do with the deficit is the height of dishonesty and/or incompetence. And you can say the same thing for the fact that the health care law, as it is currently constituted, will lower the deficit over the next ten years, despite what that idiot Joey Vento says (who, I should point out once more, wasn't elected to a damn thing).

Update #1 3/4/11: Actually, Boehner is partly right here, shockingly enough - someone "doesn't have a clue," but it's not who he thinks.

Update #2 3/4/11: And here is an item about workers taking out their frustrations that I don't condone or encourage, by the way.

Update 3/5/11: And add this to the "not having a clue" file.

Next, I have some truly shocking news for you – Mikey The Beloved actually made a mistake (here – and yes, you can add this to the swearing-in gaffe and the supposed “listening” session over the health care law which, by total coincidence of course, was attended by a lobbyist representing an organization opposed to the bill, as well as members of that organization, all of whom donated to Mikey’s campaign, as noted here...first bullet)…

Two weeks ago, while defending his vote not to penalize companies that ship jobs overseas, Bucks County Congressman Mike Fitzpatrick said the motion defeated in January would have sent the full bill back to committee, where it would have been killed.

And since it was tied to House Resolution 38, which allowed Republicans to cut federal spending, the GOP would have been prevented from slicing the budget.
It turns out, that's not the case.

Because the term "forthwith" was included in the Democrats' motion, the proposal to "curb the practice of U.S. companies sending jobs overseas" would have been attached to the spending-cuts bill and it could have been voted on immediately.

…

Fitzpatrick, however, maintained this week that even without the bill having to return to committee, the Democrats were not interested in a good law but rather in playing politics.

"The minority party was given an option to file an amendment to the bill and there would have been a debate," the 8th District Republican said. "Instead, they chose to file it as a motion, which is procedural and not substantive."

Well, among other things, this confirms for me the fact that Mikey doesn’t read liberal blogs, since David Waldman at Daily Kos posted about this two years ago (linked from here). As Waldman points out (along with Lara Brown, a Villanova poli-sci professor quoted in the Courier Times story)…

…a motion to recommit a bill to committee with instructions to report back a proposed amendment "forthwith" means the bill stays on the floor and is amended immediately, whereas instructions to report back "promptly" actually sends the bill off the floor and back to committee, where it usually dies.

Yes, it’s minutiae, but guess what? Mikey served in Congress once before, remember? Why doesn’t he get this stuff?

And oh yes, it’s the Dems’ fault because they didn’t offer an amendment to the bill instead of the recommit motion (and how the Repugs love their amendments to legislation, usually stupid, pointless ones such as the 400 here to largely short-fund or no-fund agencies of government that they don’t want to expose to the cold light of day, as it were).

Mikey, you screwed up. Again. Admit it for a change, OK (what was that popular phrase from the last election..."man up"?)

In addition, I saw something here that made me scratch my head, so I had to look into it a bit more. In the story at The Hill, we learn the following (about Commerce Secretary Gary Locke and his efforts to clean up the patent approval process – more wonky stuff I know, but it’s important)…

In the past seven years, of almost 3 million applications filed, only 25 patents were granted to small entities that were the second inventor to file but were able to prove they were first to invent. Of those 25, only one patent was granted to an individual inventor who was the second to file. Thus, in the last seven years, only one independent inventor in nearly 3 million patent filings would have gotten a different outcome under the “first-inventor-to-file” system.

Many proposals in this legislation have been debated for a decade, but we now have core provisions with broad support that will undoubtedly add more certainty around the validity of patents; enable greater work sharing between the USPTO and other countries; and help the agency continue with operational changes needed to accelerate innovation, support entrepreneurship and business development, and drive job creation and economic prosperity.

So, let me try to “wrap my arms around” this again, OK?

Three million patent applications filed in seven years, but only 25 granted to legitimate entrepreneurs who could prove they were the first to invent? And one to an individual inventor who was the second to file?

Yes, I’m not an expert on patent law, but this doesn’t pass the smell test, people.

So with that in mind, I came across this item…

In crafting the American Inventor Protection Act of 1999, Congress inserted a proviso calling for the director and other high-level appointees to have “a professional background and experience in patent or trademark law.” The previous year Bruce Lehman had resigned as agency director. Appointed in 1993, he was credited by some with bringing the agency and intellectual property issues from the backwaters to a prominent stage, but Lehman was dogged by the fact that his background was in copyrights.

After his failed efforts to get the U.S. Copyright Office moved from the Library of Congress to the PTO, Lehman ended up leaving in 1998. Q. Todd Dickinson, with an extensive career in patent law, took over for the final two years of the Clinton administration.

In 2001 President George W. Bush appointed James Rogan, who had no experience in patents, trademarks or intellectual property in general. As a congressman, he had been one of 13 U.S. House managers in President Bill Clinton’s impeachment trial, and in the 2000 elections, his Los Angeles County constituency showed their disapproval at the polls. Bush picked him up.

So Commander Codpiece “picked...up” Jim Rogan, he being a “made man,” having done his best to prolong the Clinton impeachment spectacle.

And as a result…

After a little more than two years, Rogan resigned and went into private practice. He now is a California state court judge. He was succeeded by (Johnathan) Dudas, who also came from Capitol Hill in 2002 to be the agency’s No. 2 appointee. Dudas had worked on intellectual property matters as a congressional staffer, but otherwise had no background in patent or trademark law.

Lather, rinse, repeat – sigh…

“The levels of review got ridiculous,” says Robert Budens, president of the Patent Office Professional Association, the union representing examiners and other patent professionals in the agency. “The allowance rate began to drop like a stone, in part from a larger fear created in the examining corps, and especially the supervisors who don’t want to get dinged on their performance. People started becoming fearful of allowing things because you could run headlong into quality review problems that make life miserable.”

…

Dudas defends his quality-control measures, though he does admit they had some unintended consequences.

“We focused on quality with a number of new initiatives and the error rate came down,” Dudas explains. “We anticipated the allowance rate to come down, but didn’t think it would come down as much as it did. You never target an allowance rate.”

While morale plummeted among examiners, it probably wasn’t that good at the top, either. All the while in the background, from cocktail palaver to prominent blogs, there were questions about the bona fides of political appointees in the PTO leadership, some of whose backgrounds ran deep in politics and shallow on patents.

…

In 2007, a San Francisco lawyer and patent activist, Gregory Aharonian, along with several others, sued for the removal of a political appointee in a high-level position at the PTO, saying she was not qualified under the provisions of the 1999 statute. The suit claimed Margaret Peterlin’s only qualification was that she’d served as a senior aide to House Speaker Dennis Hastert, R-Ill., who resigned in late 2007 not long after her appointment.

Judge James Robertson of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia dismissed the case in December 2007, finding no congressional intent for a private cause of action. But in his opinion, Robertson wrote that even if he couldn’t order it, it would be good if Peterlin acknowledged her deficiencies and asked various PTO constituencies for help.

“Besides holding out the prospect of actually addressing the real problems besetting the office,” he wrote, “any such behavior from Ms. Peterlin would be a refreshing change from the hostility and adversarial stance taken in recent times by patent office management.”

The point was made. Peterlin resigned eight months later, in August 2008.

Yet another story of Bushco ineptitude, staffing an agency of government with a sycophant and/or ideologue and/or party hack who was previously turned out of public office by voters (though, as noted above, Peterlin was an aide to Hastert).

Usually, after reading stories like this about our prior ruling cabal, I come to the conclusion that, except for the “pay no price, bear no burden” bunch, this country saw nothing approximating economic prosperity because of the utter cluelessness of the stooges who served in the executive branch from 2001-2009.

After reading this, though, I kind of think that maybe it all happened by design. Which is worse.

Continuing, I should note that I came across this rather shocking piece of right-wing propaganda from an individual named Burt Prelutsky, which I probably would not have given further thought to had I not recognized his name as one of the writers of the “M.A.S.H.” T.V. series.

Now I’m not going to say that, just because of the subject matter of the TV show and the movie, I automatically assumed that everyone associated with either production is a liberal. I know there are certain actors and media people generally who are conservative, which is their right. Of course, that doesn’t mean that I actually have to watch an Adam Sandler movie or a Kelsey Grammer TV show (and I don’t), or listen to Lyle Lovett who voted for George W. Bush in 2004, for example. I know the actor Robert Duvall is also a conservative (speaking of the original “M.A.S.H.” movie – he played Frank Burns), but that doesn’t mean that I don’t respect his work.

However, there is being a conservative I admire for his or her work (Duvall), a conservative I more or less tolerate and say “I think they’re nuts, but they have a right to their opinion” (Sandler, Grammer), and a conservative I loathe even though I have to grudgingly give him credit for performing for our military, never mind the jingoistic, simplistic claptrap he peddles in his songs (Toby Keith).

And then there is Burt Prelutsky. In his Daily Tucker screed, he tells us the following…

Quite frankly, I am getting sick and tired of my fellow conservatives who seem to feel that they should take on back-alley thugs while confining themselves to Marquis of Queensbury rules. I mean, either, like me, they seriously believe that those on the left are out to destroy America or they don’t. If they don’t, they’ve been lying to us. If they do, they shouldn’t be above kicking, kneeing and gouging, because all is fair and even necessary in war, if not necessarily in love.

Frankly, I personally find their insistence on maintaining a civil tone and setting an upstanding example to be as tedious and self-laudatory as a PBS fundraiser.

You get the idea; Prelutsky also said here that “if Obama had turned out to be a serial killer, he would be in prison today instead of the Oval Office”; here, he said Congressman Barney Frank should “stop phoning every number he finds scrawled on bathroom walls”; and here, he said "[O]nly [a] loop ... hanging from the branch of a very tall tree" is "appropriate for most ... ninnies in Congress."

Oh, and of course he opposes those in Wisconsin protesting in response to Gov. Hosni Mubarak Walker’s attempt to gut collective bargaining (funny to me that Prelutsky now opposes the principle of working men and women standing up for their rights, when he apparently had no issue with that as chairman of the Writers Guild of America disciplinary committee here).

Quite frankly, I think Prelutsky, in addition to being a demagogue, is a hypocrite.

Finally, congratulations are in order to Dem U.S. House Rep Rush Holt of New Jersey, who, as noted here…

..topped the IBM computer (Watson) Monday night in a "Jeopardy"-style match of congressmen vs. machine held at a Washington hotel.

Though Holt isn't the first human to beat Watson, the victory adds to the 62-year-old Democrat's already-impressive resume: a former State Department arms control expert and ex-leader of the federal Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory.

"I wonder if Watson wasn't having a low-voltage night, because I certainly didn't expect to score higher than the computer," he told The Associated Press in an interview Tuesday.

He built a lead in categories including "Presidential Rhyme Time," in which the correct response to "Herbert's military strategy" was "Hoover's maneuvers." The congressman also correctly identified hippophobia as the fear of horses.

Watson beat him to the buzzer with "love" when prompted on what Ambrose Bierce described as "a temporary insanity curable by marriage."

Bierce also described politics as “a strife of interests masquerading as a contest of principle…the conduct of public affairs for private advantage.”

Fortunately for us all (and the residents of NJ-12 in particular), Holt has stood as an exception to that axiom. May he serve in government as long as his sanity permits him to do so.

Tuesday Stuff

Ed Schultz brings us a recap of the Sunday bobbleheads here, including Nikki Haley and her "Democrat" Party reference - wonder who she's rumored to have had an affair with this week (oooohh).



And by the way, the voters of Wisconsin appear to have had enough of Hosni Mubarak Walker and some of the "Republic" Party senators who want to help him end collective bargaining for public workers in that state (to say nothing of Walker's "fluffing" of the Koch Brothers, which explains all of this).

...and hopefully this is what awaits Walker, from a political point of view anyway.



(No posting today because of medical stuff, hopefully not a big deal - I'll try to get back to doing what I do tomorrow.)

Update: And the Kochs had more than a little bit of a hand in this also (funny how Mikey The Beloved flipped from voting against cutting funding for the Greenhouse Gases Polluter Program last week to now supporting oil subsidies; hope he didn’t hurt himself doing the “360” for that one…the “pay no price, bear no burden” bunch skates again while the rest of us get it in the proverbial neck – can’t wait to see how the Bucks County Courier Times spins this move)…