Thursday Stuff

K.O.'s "Special Comment" on the latest torture memos to seep out from the fetid, still-remaining Bushco sewage (this from Glenn Greenwald via Atrios sums up the awfulness)...

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...and if torture was one of the evil manifestations of our former ruling cabal, here is perhaps the other most notorious one ("blessed" by the Dems, if you will, last year of course, amplified in this interview with James Risen of The New York Times)...

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...and I've had some thoughts on all of this "teabagging" business that I haven't been able to quite put into words, though Janeane Garofalo manages to do it for me here (and here's more on the person at the mic)...

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...and here's a note for some local-area folk; I have to tell you that I found myself stuck in a horrendous traffic jam today while trying to cross from PA into NJ over the Route 1 bridge, and I listened to Pierre Robert of radio station WMMR in these parts tell a story of how the surviving members of The Grateful Dead met President Obama recently, and either by design or chance, there were scarlet begonias in a vase near where the meeting took place - Pierre built up the story really well and then led into the wrong song for a minute, but it was funny to listen to his ad-libs while he screwed up but eventually played the right tune...this gives me a chance to thank him for making a bit of misery an actual moment of fun, as well as all of the good vibes he's generated over lo these many years - this is for you, dude)...



...oh, and suddenly I just remembered I have to call the cable company tomorrow - wonder why?

Sarko Est Très Stupide En Obama!

Remember back when Nicolas Sarkozy took over in France while Dubya was still president, and gosh, so many people were happy that that boring, stodgy Jacques Chirac was gone, and Former President Brainless went out of his way to be “buds” with the new guy?

And remember how Sarkozy was supposedly so much better even though he still stiffed us on sending troops to Iraq, as noted here (and no, I never agreed with the war either, but I’m talking about “sharing the pain” of the brave men and women of our military, which is and always will be an entirely separate issue from how we feel about the politicians who put them there).

Well, I’m not sure exactly what spurred this on, but “Sarko” just laid a first-class hissy fit on just about every world leader but himself of course, including President Obama, about whom he said…

On the US President, Mr. Sarkozy said: "Obama has a subtle mind, very clever and very charismatic. But he was elected two months ago and had never run a ministry. There are a certain number of things on which he has no position. And he is not always up to standard on decision-making and efficiency," he said.

The US President had underperformed on climate change, said Mr. Sarkozy: "I told him: 'I don't think that you have quite understood what we are doing on carbon dioxide'."

In another swipe at the American leader, Mr. Sarkozy was quoted today making a dubious joke about the Obamania sweeping the European media. According to L'Express news magazine, Mr. Sarkozy talked to another set of visitors about Mr. Obama's planned visit to the Normandy beaches in June, Mr. Sarkozy said: "I am going to ask him to walk on the Channel and he'll do it, you'll see."

What a pipsqueak – as noted here…

France currently has about 1,600 troops in Afghanistan (see update below) as part of the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF), most of them deployed around the capital Kabul. In the wake of 9/11, France offered its military resources and capabilities to support the US-led military campaign, Operation Enduring Freedom. French fighter aircraft regularly offer close air support to ISAF ground troops.

France participates in the operational training of the Afghan National Army. In eastern Afghanistan, France deployed four teams of special French Military instructors (Operational Mentoring Liaison Teams, OMLT), each consisting of 50 soldiers inserted into units of the Afghan army. France has also sent more combat aircraft to Kandahar in southern Afghanistan. Last month, two multi-purpose Rafale fighter jets returned to Kandahar Air Base to support ISAF troops against insurgents.

At the NATO defence ministers’ meeting, French Defence Minister Hervé Morin confirmed that Paris is considering a greater role in Afghanistan. He declined to give details but suggested that President Sarkozy could announce a change in French policy at an April NATO summit in Bucharest, Romania.

NATO Secretary General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer met for the first time in Paris with Sarkozy on February 1. Scheffer told a press conference: “I can’t say that [Sarkozy] gave me definite assurances, but the impression I had after the talks...and the indications I received suggest that France might well take on more responsibilities in Afghanistan, but of course it’s the French government’s decision.”

(Actually, this more recently updated article tells us that France now has about 2,780 troops in that region – better, but a long way from our force numbers.)

The WSWS story also tells us that Sarko took over as EU president last July under an agreement where European leaders “rotated” every six months in and out of the job (the minister of the Czech Republic, Karel Schwarzenberg, is in charge at the moment according to this Wikipedia article).

That’s important to note because nobody “rotates” in and out of the job of President of the United States, Sarko, assuming that's the reason why you feel full of yourself, claiming some "statesemanship" mantle you haven't earned (concerning this country, you could go back and read about how Grover Cleveland was the only president to "rotate" in and out of the job, but that’s really a stretch I know).

And another thing – this story tells us that, rightly or wrongly, Obama has committed 4,000 more U.S. troops to Afghanistan.

How many more has the entire continent of Europe committed? About 5,000 according to this story.

Say goodnight, Sarko.

The Robertses Spit On The Memory Of 9/11

I'm going to say some decidedly un-liberal things here, but I don't care (and I also posted here - "slumming it" a bit, so far).

As I've often said, the Bucks County Courier Times ends up attracting a substantial amount of wingnuttery to its Op-Ed page, and the latest from Cokie and Steve Roberts ended up there yesterday (from here, a column that was written a week ago, as it turns out).

And what is ironic is that, for a change, there are some reasoned observations about how Obama can (and has) reach(ed) out to Muslims to mark an end to the wholesale demonization of an entire people and religion by Obama's predecessor and his Republican handlers in the political-media-industrial complex (with Dubya talking about how he wasn't waging war against Islam in general on the one hand while condoning torture primarily of Arabs on the other).

However, what really got me in the Robertses column was this...

No one is minimizing the significance of 9/11, but it happened more than seven years ago. Seven years after Pearl Harbor, Americans were rebuilding Japan and Germany. So it's entirely proper for Obama to rebuild America's relationship with the Muslim world. And he can start at home, by ending racial profiling.

I really don't know how to respond to that exactly, but I'll try.

First of all, it doesn't matter if 9/11 happened seven years ago or seventy; the need is no less great for this country, acting in its own interests as well as that of much of the world, to hasten the day when Osama bin Laden's head is eventually mounted onto a post and paraded around the town square. Does that mean we have the right to kill innocent civilians in Afghanistan or Pakistan with attacks from drone warplanes or other means? No.

Second, comparing the legitimate fight against al Qaeda (with 9/11 being an intelligence failure above all else, let's not forget) to a war against a nation-state shows a rather startling lack of historical perspective. Our fight in Afghanistan is primarily one of winning hearts and minds by replacing one ingrained idea (killing infidels) with another (America and NATO can successfully help you rebuild your homes, schools, clinics, and public infrastructure better than those pretending to act in your interest ever could, which would go a long way towards eliminating the root causes of terrorism - of course, saying that is the easy part; delivering on it is the sticky part).

And using 9/11 as an excuse to end racial profiling? Huh?? (That's a topic for another day that requires more detailed analysis, I'll admit).

Apparently, to the Robertses (and much of this country, I would guess), 9/11 is a social-political demarcation point, an abstraction of a sort, but not much else (helped along by the grandstanding antics of characters like Rudy Giuliani, I suppose - one of the only columns J.D. Mullane of the Courier Times ever wrote that I actually agreed with is one from years ago where he envisioned what it would be like the day that 9/11 became something remembered only in history books, and a new generation found themselves wondering what the "big deal" was...it was heavy handed, but I still think it showed what was, for him, an unusually deft touch in my opinion).

As I've said in the past, my sense of outrage and loss from that day is no better or worse than anyone else's (driving home on the PA Turnpike wondering if a plane would fall on me, diverting the young one from the news reports, getting choked up hearing "Angel" by Sarah McLachlan after learning about "morgue barges" on the Hudson River - you can fill in your own memories at least as well as I can).

I just can't imagine how any American, knowing what they know of that day, could just say that seven years is enough to internalize what happened, but now, partly because we have a recently elected Democratic president, we're supposed to stuff all of our own personal baggage about it away into a closet, turn out the light and lock the door (starting the paragraph by saying "no one is minimizing the significance" is cowardly and disingenuous; that's exactly what the Robertses are doing).

And I detest the implication from the Robertses that the events of that day require additional sacrifice on our part somehow (you can make a credible argument for why we must "rebuild (relations) with the Muslim world," but NOT one based on 9/11). I'm sure that would indeed be unwelcome news to the brave souls commemorated here, among the others we lost that day.

I will admit, though, that the Robertses are quite right when they say "we have to listen carefully to each other."

However, they should start by listening to themselves first.

Wednesday Stuff

One of the best "Still Bushed" segments from K.O. (The Murdoch Street Journal allows itself to be used as a mouthpiece of sorts for CIA agents getting the word out to let them do what they want or...gee, maybe they won't play ball with Obama - nice; 300 women protest Hamid Karzai's law legalizing marital rape and are met by 1,000 males - the good news, at least for now, is that the women are apparently still alive, having not been slaughtered in as degrading a manner as possible by life forms pretending to be actual men; and how about those teabaggers protesting how much corporations hide in tax revenue in this country, to the tune of $100 BILLION? Wonder if Fix Noise would help you promote THAT? Do I even need to ask? Oh, and by the way, no-class move by GE/MSNBC not to include this vid from their site)...



...and I just wanted to extend a little message of sorts to all of the "teabaggers," and though this is out of context, it's the best I can do for now: "Clowntime Is Over," by Elvis Costello and the Attractions from '83 (I'm sure those people don't "do irony," though).

A REAL Protest, And Nary A Teabag In Sight

As Media Matters tells us here, quoting Marc Ambinder of The Atlantic (h/t Atrios)…

Their origins -- organic, programmatic, accidental or otherwise -- don't matter much anymore. If -- and we'll have to see the numbers at the end of the day -- 100,000 Americans show up to protest their taxes, the onus to dismiss them as a nascent political force shifts to the Democrats.

Oh, that’s funny.

You want to hear about a real demonstration? Check this out from February 2003…

Up to 10 million people on five continents are expected to demonstrate against the probable war in Iraq on Saturday, in some of the largest peace marches ever known.

Yesterday, up to 400 cities in 60 countries, from Antarctica to Pacific islands, confirmed that peace rallies, vigils and marches would take place. Of all major countries, only China is absent from the growing list which includes more than 300 cities in Europe and north America, 50 in Asia and Latin America, 10 in Africa and 20 in Australia and Oceania.

Many countries will witness the largest demonstrations against war they have ever seen.

The majority will be small but 500,000 people are expected in London and Barcelona, and more than 100,000 in Rome, Paris, Berlin and other European capitals. In the US, organisers were yesterday anticipating 200,000 marching in New York if permission is given. A further 100,000 are expected to march in 140 other American cities.

And “the onus to dismiss them as a nascent political force” shifted to the Repugs.

Which, sadly, is just what happened.

Update 4/17/09: Meet the soon-to-begin new conservative quota hire columnist for the Times (I wasn’t even trying to prove that he’s incredibly wrong here, and I ended up doing that more or less by accident - h/t The Daily Kos).

Bashing Obama Yet Again With “The Catholic Crutch”

(And also posted over here.)

As many of us are aware, we observed the most important day of the Christian calendar last Sunday in commemoration of Easter. And if you guessed that that has ushered in yet another round of pundit idiocy about how President Obama is supposedly losing the support of Catholic voters, then you win a free picture of Bill Donahue suitable for mounting on a dart board or insertion into the bottom of your cat’s litter box.

The most recent culprit is Amy Sullivan, “religion correspondent” for Time Magazine here (and I have an issue with reporters from our corporate media pretending to write about faith generally, usually because they use it as an excuse for their own twisted brand of pontificating – I more or less go along with it from the Bucks County Courier Times, often because they have good writers, but mainly because fighting that battle isn’t one that I’m going to win).

Here is an excerpt from Sullivan’s column…

…Obama's first few months in office have seen a sustained assault by a loose coalition of Catholic organizations and leaders who are committed to convincing their fellow church members that Obama doesn't share their values. They have strongly criticized his selection of Kansas Democratic Governor (and pro-choice Catholic) Kathleen Sebelius to be HHS Secretary and have circulated unfounded rumors that the Vatican rejected several candidates to be Obama's ambassador there. Most visibly, the right-wing Cardinal Newman Society and a number of Catholic bishops have protested the University of Notre Dame's decision to invite Obama to speak at this spring's commencement. Even Cardinal Francis George, who sat down in the Oval Office for a half-hour meeting on St. Patrick's Day that he hoped would "foster fruitful dialogue for the sake of the common good," slammed the school's action, calling it "an embarrassment to Catholics." (Notre Dame has made clear it will not rescind the invitation.)

None of these attacks should pose a serious problem for Obama. But lined up against his early moves to restore liberal social policies that many pro-life Catholics oppose, they make it easier for the President's Catholic critics to question whether he respects their values and positions.

By the way, Francis Cardinal George, the archbishop of Chicago, has been showing his animus towards Obama for a good while now. I honestly don’t expect that to change.

This is the sort of “doom and gloom” stuff on Obama and Catholic voters that Christine Flowers of The Philadelphia Daily News served up last October here about how anyone who voted for Obama wasn’t a “real Catholic” (gee, I guess he got the support of an awful lot of “unreal” ones, then – and here is a reminder on the FOCA that Flowers railed about, by the way).

Not to be outdone, though, is former Dubya speechwriter Michael Gerson here, who recently characterized Obama as “extreme” on abortion (typical, given that Gerson called Obama the most “polarizing” President here; that talking point came and went about a week ago, I know, and I didn’t comment on it at the time because I thought it was particularly stupid – fortunately, John at Americablog did a pretty good job of shredding that one here).

I believe the bottom line, though, is captured pretty well by US News correspondent Dan Gilgoff here, who points out (entirely accurately, I think) that if a “Catholic rift” exists, it isn’t between Obama and U.S. Catholics as a whole, but by Catholics and their church leaders (kind of an obvious observation when the direction from Rome is to keep beating the proverbial drum over “values” issues at the expense of issues such as health care, the environment, and economic opportunity – also, here is another example of Obama’s Catholic support “not fraying”).

Sullivan also tells us this…

Bill Clinton also benefited from Catholic backing at the polls, but he squandered some of that goodwill when those supporters concluded that he failed to carry through on his promise to reduce abortion rates.

In response, I give you The Big Dog himself (from a campaign story when Hillary ran for president here)…

“When Hillary was in the White House, she supervised our efforts to number one, let young women who have children out of wedlock live with their parents and still keep all their welfare benefits so that the grandparents can take care of the kids while the women went to school. Number two, led a serious effort to reduce teen pregnancy and we had the lowest teen pregnancy rate since the statistics had been kept when we were doing that. And guess what? Without overturning Roe v. Wade, or trying to keep people all torn up and upset or calling them killers, the abortion rate went down almost 20 percent on our watch.”

But the issue wasn’t put to bed just yet. Several minutes later, one of the activists shouted, “What about pro-life, Bill?”

A visibly agitated Clinton responded again, his voice growing stern, his language more forceful.

“I gave you the answer. We disagree with you. You want to criminalize women and their doctors and we disagree,” he said. “If you were really pro-life, you would want to put every doctor and every mother as an accessory to murder in prison. And you won’t say you wanna do that because you know that because you know that you wouldn’t have a lick of political support.

And then Clinton related the issue back to his wife: “You can’t name me anybody presently in politics that did more to introduce policies that reduce the number of real abortions instead of the hot air putting out to tear people up and make votes by dividing America.”

And I would say that this validates Clinton’s claim about the steadily decreasing number of abortions in this country overall since 1990 (though medical abortions rose from 2000 to 2005 with RU-486, as opposed to surgical ones).

I know stories such as the one Sullivan foists on us here get really old after awhile, but they need to be debunked from time to time despite that. Basically, Obama will rise and/or fall with Catholic voters based on his performance on the issues that matter to all voters.

And let’s not forget that it was a Democratic president (and Catholic also) who pretty much “created the template” for how matters of spirituality should be handled in The Oval Office when he said this (here)…

I believe in an America that is officially neither Catholic, Protestant nor Jewish--where no public official either requests or accepts instructions on public policy from the Pope, the National Council of Churches or any other ecclesiastical source--where no religious body seeks to impose its will directly or indirectly upon the general populace or the public acts of its officials--and where religious liberty is so indivisible that an act against one church is treated as an act against all.

Pretty smart fellow, that John F. Kennedy.

Tuesday Stuff

Back to blogging tomorrow, I hope. But meanwhile...

O joy of joys! Is the state of Texas...actually seceding from the Union here??!!

Are you actually going to return to Mexico?

No? Then shut your pie hole, Perry! Besides, where the hell was this wave of anti-federal-government bravado when your predecessor took up space at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue?

Oh, and one more thing - the only president in the last 20 years who actually shrunk the federal government was Bill Clinton...



Update 4/15/09: Keep digging, Rick - we'll just keep laughing (h/t Atrios).

...and yeah, I guess there's no escaping the lunacy due to unfold tomorrow; as I and others have said, at least they won't be shooting anyone instead - at least, I hope not (thanks to The Daily Kos for these two)...



...and K.O. and Richard Wolffe give this nonsense the proper treatment (and really, after this, how dumb would a human being have to be to watch Fix Noise and think they're hearing the truth - never mind, I'd better not ask)...

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...and in light of this story I think it's time for a tune by "the quiet Beatle."

Monday Stuff

Another questionable posting day coming up tomorrow, sports fans - I have a feeling there will be more in store...I'll keep you posted.

Also, I don't know what else to say but RIP Harry - I'm sure he and Whitey are doing play-by-play in the great beyond, as it were - they both went out the same way as it turned out...



...and gosh, whaddaya know - they actually DO convict celebrities of murder in Southern California (the composer of this song by name, as noted here - have fun in the joint, Phil)...



...the real "money quotes" from Gore Vidal come at about 4:30 or so here, by the way, in this recent episode of "Real Time"...



...and with the passing of Harry The K, I think the whole world could use a "Little Bit Of Red," preferably with pinstripes too.

Bolton Cheerleads “Blackhawk Dumb” Wingnut Bombast

Leave it to former Bushco U.N. Rep John “Blow ‘Em up” Bolton here to call for an invasion of Somalia by a new “coalition of the willing” in response to the rescue of Maersk ship captain Richard Phillips (above, right) by our special forces; commendations to all (and I heartily agree with John Cole here via The Daily Kos; approving stuff like this comes with the territory if you’re president – sometimes it works, and sometimes you get sand in the gyroscopes of your helicopters while trying to rescue U.S. hostages in Iran and people get killed…and yes, I really said that).

(Besides, I’ll be perfectly honest with you; while I’m definitely glad that a Democrat occupies the White House at this moment as opposed to a certain Republican senator from Arizona and his clueless former governor as veep dontcha know, I would like to know just what the hell kind of a game our chief executive is playing when he codifies and actually expands the surveillance activity of his predecessor as noted here.)

More to the point, though, I have to admit that I find myself at a bit of a loss in the matter of advising our ships in that area of the world. Here is another member of the wingnut chorus and his screed (another kos h/t), telling us as follows…

Start by blaming the timorous lawyers who advise the governments attempting to cope with the pirates such as those who had been engaged in a standoff with U.S. hostage negotiators in recent days. These lawyers misinterpret the Law of the Sea Treaty and the Geneva Conventions and fail to apply the powerful international laws that exist against piracy. The right of self-defense -- a principle of international law -- justifies killing pirates as they try to board a ship.

Funny how we don’t care about the Geneva Conventions when we’re trying to obtain “reliable” information from torture, but now suddenly we expect it to apply when it suits us. And by the way, we can’t enforce the Law of the Sea Treaty for a simple reason – we never ratified it!

I thought this New York Times story by Jeffrey Gettleman yesterday was interesting in that it provided historical context, discussing raids by pirates off the “Barbary Coast” in the 18th century in an area very similar to where the most recent raids have taken place; back then, from around 1786 to the early 1800s, we actually tried to work with the pirates to a degree, mainly because, as a young nation trying to survive, we really didn’t have much choice – Gettleman also tells us how we sought to avoid conflict with them…

“The United States of America is not in any sense founded on the Christian Religion,” a 1796 treaty reads. “It has in itself no character of enmity against the laws, religion or tranquility of Musselmen,” which is how Muslims was spelled back then.

“Not in any sense founded on the Christian Religion,” huh? Gee, maybe all those wingnuts screaming here about what Obama said recently (clipping the quote, of course) would do well to keep that in mind (as well as these words from a former Catholic president – this ties in a bit to this post, by the way).

And this New York Times story today tells us of the dangers of arming the crews of our ships…

“If we arm our crews with light machine guns, they can probably buy heavy machine guns,” (Arthur Bowring, the managing director of the Hong Kong Shipowners Association) said. “And if we buy light rocket launchers, they can buy heavy ones.” The answer to piracy, he said, was better law enforcement ashore.

Most ports severely restrict vessels from having weapons on board, and changing those regulations in each country would be difficult, (Shipping Consultant Matthew) Flynn said. The United States Coast Guard has been especially wary, fearing that the weapons could be used for terrorist attacks.

Because a commercial vessel might stop in a dozen countries during a voyage, it would be hard for it to carry weapons if any port along the route forbade that, Mr. Flynn said.

International regulation of shipping has shifted heavily away from the countries that register vessels and toward the local and national governments at the ships’ ports of call. This has made it even more complicated to come up with common international standards, because so many countries are involved.

Protecting tankers from pirates is especially difficult. They are a favorite target in Asia and Africa because they are relatively slow moving and may carry valuable cargo like gasoline and diesel, which are easily unloaded and resold.

Accidental fires are a constant worry for tanker crews, which train for them constantly. A tanker crew that is exchanging gunfire with pirates could run the risk of igniting vapors from the cargo, or the cargo itself, shipping executives have said.

So it looks like perhaps indeed our best defense against the pirates is to be vigilant and monitor them from ashore as closely as possible (though I have no doubt that they’ll come up with more creative ways to plunder in response).

The toughest way to head this off, though, is to intervene in Somalia in an attempt to pre-empt the pirates before they take to their boats (yeah I know, good luck with that).

So as long as we have something of a plan, Former Secretary Bolton, I just have two words in response to your call for invasion into that part of the world:

You first.

Update: Wasn't the AP threatening action against web sites linking to their content in an "unauthorized" fashion just last week? Do they mean laughable dreck like this? Hell, giving a link to this stuff would be extending a favor it doesn't deserve.

Also, is it any wonder that news organizations are in trouble, given the fact that they give so much credence to the knuckleheads featured in this clip (particularly Krauthammer, who you see in that daffy turtleneck for a couple of seconds)?



And oh yeah, just go ahead and "charge for online content" and charge the same for your print ads as your online ads. And expect that to fix everything.

Yeah. That'll work...

Happy Easter 2009

May you all have a happy and blessed Easter (if you don't observe anything, may you have a happy and blessed long weekend).

Saturday Stuff

By the way, let's not forget that this weekend marks the 70th anniversary of acclaimed contralto Marian Anderson's performance at the Lincoln Memorial (more here)...



...and again, haven't done the birthday thing for a little while, but Joss Stone hit 22 today, so...

Friday AM Stuff

As you endure watching this, please keep this Obama approval number in mind (about 59-60 percent according to Gallup - more here)...



..and yep, you just go "full-steam ahead" with your little "teabag" party, wingnuts (as kos points out, at least you won't be shooting anybody)...



...oh, and Karl? Before you call Biden a "liar" and a "blowhard" here, maybe you ought to pay attention to Chuck Todd first (more here - thanks to The Daily Kos for the first three videos - and by the way, I never did get an answer to this question)...



...and Mrs. Doomsy thinks these guys sound like Coldplay, but I think they're OK (I hope they don't get sued now that I've said that).

Where The Rubber Meets The Road (4/9/09)

As reported in last Sunday's Philadelphia Inquirer, here is how Philadelphia-area members of Congress were recorded on major roll-call votes last week (and I thought I'd provide extra reading material for the long weekend, seeing as how posting will be highly questionable from tomorrow into early next week - just that kind of a guy).

House

Tobacco regulation. Voting 298-112, the House on Thursday sent the Senate a bill (HR 1256) to begin federal regulation of tobacco products. The bill empowers the Food and Drug Administration to regulate cigarette content, require disclosure of product ingredients, ban cigarette marketing to children, and require more prominent health warnings. The bill would preempt state tobacco laws.

A yes vote was to pass the bill.

Voting yes: John Adler (D., N.J.), Robert E. Andrews (D., N.J.), Robert A. Brady (D., Pa.), Michael N. Castle (R., Del.), Charles W. Dent (R., Pa.) Chaka Fattah (D., Pa.), Jim Gerlach (R., Pa.), Tim Holden (D., Pa.), Frank A. LoBiondo (R., N.J.), Patrick Murphy (D., Pa.), Allyson Y. Schwartz (D., Pa.), Joe Sestak (D., Pa.), and Christopher H. Smith (R., N.J.).

Voting no: Joseph R. Pitts (R., Pa.).

So, in addition to the other constituencies he supports and opposes, Joe Pitts is pro-carcinogen, pro-Joe Camel, anti-kids and anti-disclosure of cancer-causing cigarette additives. Peachy.

Executive compensation. Voting 247-171, the House on Wednesday sent the Senate a bill (HR 1664) limiting executive compensation at firms receiving the largest bailouts under the Troubled Assets Relief Program. The bill would repeal authority for AIG bonuses that Democrats put into this year's stimulus law.

A yes vote was to pass the bill.

Voting yes: Adler, Andrews, Brady, Fattah, Holden, Murphy, and Schwartz.

Voting no: Castle, Dent, Gerlach, LoBiondo, Sestak, Smith, and Pitts.

Kind of odd to see Democratic-sponsored legislation aimed at undoing the work of other Democrats (inasmuch as Geithner and Summers are “Democrats,” that is). And Admiral Joe ends up keeping rather unusual company on this one.

AmeriCorps expansion. Voting 275-149, the House on Tuesday sent President Obama a bill (HR 1388) that would more than triple the ranks of AmeriCorps, Volunteers in Service to America, and National Civilian Community Corps - to 225,000 participants by 2014 - while expanding their missions.

A yes vote was to pass the bill.

Voting yes: Adler, Andrews, Brady, Castle, Fattah, Holden, LoBiondo, Murphy, Schwartz, Sestak, and Smith.

Voting no: Dent, Gerlach, and Pitts.

This recent Murdoch Street Journal editorial tells us that AmeriCorps has received support from Senators Ted Kennedy (no surprise) and Orrin Hatch (yes surprise), as well as that noted “liberal” John McCain, all of whom have been instrumental in their support (of course, the Journal writer points out with pride that the latest reauthorization means that AmeriCorps volunteers won’t be able to engage in voter registration or union organizing activities - heaven forbid that one of Rupert The Pirate’s publications fails to point that out).

Still, despite the Repug “transfusion,” if you will, that does not leave AmeriCorps free from wingnut derision, as noted in the very last sentence here.

Federal budget. Voting 233-196, the House on Thursday approved a five-year Democratic budget (H Con Res 85) that for 2010 projects $3.55 trillion in spending, a $1.2 trillion deficit, $284 billion in interest payments on the national debt, and $130 billion for the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. Over five years, it embraces President Obama's major initiatives in areas such as health care, renewable energy, and education, and extends his middle-class tax cuts if means are found to pay for them. The budget allows Bush-era tax cuts for high-income payers to expire after 2010.

The budget sets "reconciliation" procedures under which Senate Democrats would need 51 rather than 60 votes to pass administration proposals such as overhauling health care and education programs. The Senate (below) excluded reconciliation from its budget plan.

A yes vote was to adopt the Democrats' budget.

Voting yes: Adler, Andrews, Brady, Fattah, Holden, Murphy, Schwartz, and Sestak.

Voting no: Castle, Dent, Gerlach, LoBiondo, Pitts, and Smith.

Just typical Repug obstruction, nothing else to see here…let’s move along (and I’ll have something to say about one of our Senators on this shortly).

GOP budget alternative. Voting 137-293, the House on Thursday defeated a Republican alternative to the Democratic budget plan (HJ Res 85, above) that differed, in part, by permanently extending the full range of Bush-era tax cuts, freezing most non-defense discretionary spending for five years, and repealing the stimulus bill except for its jobless benefits.

A yes vote backed the Republican budget.

Voting yes: Dent and Pitts.

Voting no: Adler, Andrews, Brady, Castle, Fattah, Gerlach, Holden, LoBiondo, Murphy, Schwartz, Sestak, and Smith.

Pretty funny when most of the Repugs don’t even vote for their own crock of a budget “alternative” – ha, ha, ha…

Senate

Federal budget. Voting 55-43, the Senate on Friday approved a five-year Democratic budget (S Con Res 13) that, for 2010, projects $3.5 trillion in spending and a $1.2 trillion deficit. In a key difference with the House Democrats' plan (above), it rules out the use of "reconciliation" for advancing key administration proposals.

Voting yes: Thomas Carper (D., Del.), Bob Casey (D., Pa.), Ted Kaufman (D., Del.), Frank Lautenberg (D., N.J.), and Robert Menendez (D., N.J.).

Voting no: Arlen Specter (R., Pa.).

As always, screw you, Arlen (maybe you’ll overcome this primary lead by Pat Toomey, and maybe you won’t – we’ll see).

By the way, speaking of our state’s Repug U.S. senator, this column from Specter appeared today in Philadelphia’s newspaper conservative house organ of record, and in it he offers the “(creation of) a National Criminal Justice Commission to undertake a comprehensive 18-month review of the criminal justice system” as a cosponsor to a bill sponsored by Dem Senator Jim Webb of Virginia (curious for Specter to pursue a “moderate” course like this, particularly given his 14-point deficit to Toomey).

I doubt if Specter has read this fine recent article in The New Yorker about solitary confinement (maybe Webb has) by correspondent Atul Gawande, but I think it is food for thought since we’re talking about the Webb/Specter bill here; extended excerpts follow…

Prolonged isolation was used sparingly, if at all, by most American prisons for almost a century. Our first supermax—our first institution specifically designed for mass solitary confinement—was not established until 1983, in Marion, Illinois. In 1995, a federal court reviewing California’s first supermax admitted that the conditions “hover on the edge of what is humanly tolerable for those with normal resilience.” But it did not rule them to be unconstitutionally cruel or unusual, except in cases of mental illness. The prison’s supermax conditions, the court stated, did not pose “a sufficiently high risk to all inmates of incurring a serious mental illness.” In other words, there could be no legal objection to its routine use, given that the isolation didn’t make everyone crazy. The ruling seemed to fit the public mood. By the end of the nineteen-nineties, some sixty supermax institutions had opened across the country. And new solitary-confinement units were established within nearly all of our ordinary maximum-security prisons.

The number of prisoners in these facilities has since risen to extraordinary levels. America now holds at least twenty-five thousand inmates in isolation in supermax prisons. An additional fifty to eighty thousand are kept in restrictive segregation units, many of them in isolation, too, although the government does not release these figures. By 1999, the practice had grown to the point that Arizona, Colorado, Maine, Nebraska, Nevada, Rhode Island, and Virginia kept between five and eight per cent of their prison population in isolation, and, by 2003, New York had joined them as well. Mississippi alone held eighteen hundred prisoners in supermax—twelve per cent of its prisoners over all. At the same time, other states had just a tiny fraction of their inmates in solitary confinement. In 1999, for example, Indiana had eighty-five supermax beds; Georgia had only ten. Neither of these two states can be described as being soft on crime.

…

Is there an alternative? Consider what other countries do. Britain, for example, has had its share of serial killers, homicidal rapists, and prisoners who have taken hostages and repeatedly assaulted staff. The British also fought a seemingly unending war in Northern Ireland, which brought them hundreds of Irish Republican Army prisoners committed to violent resistance. The authorities resorted to a harshly punitive approach to control, including, in the mid-seventies, extensive use of solitary confinement. But the violence in prisons remained unchanged, the costs were phenomenal (in the United States, they reach more than fifty thousand dollars a year per inmate), and the public outcry became intolerable. British authorities therefore looked for another approach.

Beginning in the nineteen-eighties, they gradually adopted a strategy that focussed on preventing prison violence rather than on delivering an ever more brutal series of punishments for it. The approach starts with the simple observation that prisoners who are unmanageable in one setting often behave perfectly reasonably in another. This suggested that violence might, to a critical extent, be a function of the conditions of incarceration. The British noticed that problem prisoners were usually people for whom avoiding humiliation and saving face were fundamental and instinctive. When conditions maximized humiliation and confrontation, every interaction escalated into a trial of strength. Violence became a predictable consequence.

So the British decided to give their most dangerous prisoners more control, rather than less. They reduced isolation and offered them opportunities for work, education, and special programming to increase social ties and skills. The prisoners were housed in small, stable units of fewer than ten people in individual cells, to avoid conditions of social chaos and unpredictability. In these reformed “Close Supervision Centres,” prisoners could receive mental-health treatment and earn rights for more exercise, more phone calls, “contact visits,” and even access to cooking facilities. They were allowed to air grievances. And the government set up an independent body of inspectors to track the results and enable adjustments based on the data.

The results have been impressive. The use of long-term isolation in England is now negligible. In all of England, there are now fewer prisoners in “extreme custody” than there are in the state of Maine. And the other countries of Europe have, with a similar focus on small units and violence prevention, achieved a similar outcome.

If nothing else, I hope Gawande’s article serves as a starting point for a serious discussion on the merits of solitary confinement and whether or not it serves any rehabilitative purpose whatsoever.

Reconciliation ban. The Senate on Wednesday voted, 67-31, to prohibit the use of "reconciliation" in S Con Res 13 (above) to advance Obama's cap-and-trade proposal for reducing greenhouse-gas emissions. Republicans said reconciliation would deny them a chance to filibuster a proposal they see as a crippling tax on key industries.

A yes vote backed the amendment.

Voting yes: Casey and Specter.

Voting no: Carper, Kaufman, Lautenberg and Menendez.

As Ezra Klein tells us here…

The reconciliation process…limits debate to 20 hours and bypasses the filibuster altogether (only 50 votes are needed for bill passage, whereas 60 are needed to break the filibuster). It was instituted to ensure that minority obstruction couldn't block important business like passing a budget or reducing the deficit. But it was misused. At least, Robert Byrd thought so. He saw all manner of "extraneous" amendments and legislation sneaking beneath the radar of the reconciliation process.

…

…the reconciliation process has been used for plenty that did not reduce deficits. Both of President Bush's tax-cut plans traveled through the process. And the very senators who speak reverentially of the filibuster now, voted for reconciliation then. Judd Gregg, in fact, voted for reconciliation every time it was used in the Bush era.

And even if reconciliation had only ever been used to cut the deficit, an observer might wonder what renders deficit reduction so much more pressing than, say, ending the punishing human cost of the health-care crisis, or saving the planet from catastrophic climate change. Why should cutting programs be exempt from the Senate rules but not saving lives?

So (echoing Klein a bit), by voting against “reconciliation” here as an option, Specter and Bob Casey are saying that it’s more important to observe the sometimes-absurdly-arcane rules of Senate governance than it is to do something about the fact that our planet is melting due to global warming.

And gee, Bob, if you’re going to oppose reconciliation on the climate crisis today, what’s to prevent you from opposing it again tomorrow on the Employee Free Choice Act or the Obama/Sebelius health care initiative?

At this moment, I really can’t find the words to communicate my disgust with Bob Casey. He has become every bit the centrist/corporatist/DLC-Third Way/accommodationist flunky I feared he would be when he defeated Chuck Pennacchio in the Democratic Senatorial primary three years ago.

Note: As of last Sunday, Congress is in recess until the week of April 20.

Wednesday Stuff

"Best Persons" with K.O., including Ebert's open letter to Bill Orally (here it is, but sorry Roger, nothing "admirable" about Krauthammer - stay well, dude, and the person telling Coleman to give up at long last was Ramesh Ponnuru, by the way)...

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

...and I don't know about you, but I'm diggin' this new tune from Incubus (thanks to YouTuber Christi0v for the way cool vid).

Five Ultra-Quick Wednesday Hits

Don’t blink…

Thumbs Up here to Dem U.S. Senator Byron Dorgan for his spot-on prediction of our economic meltdown over credit default swaps way back in 1994 (here) as well as the Gramm-Leach-Bliley fiasco (here – I just posted about Dodd I know, but maybe Dorgan should be Finance Committee chairman instead)

Thumbs Down to Our Man Arlen Specter for saying the following about Flush Limbore: “I like him” here

Thumbs Up to Patrick Murphy for taking the House congressional lead in trying to repeal “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” here (h/t Atrios – can’t wait for the howls of outrage from the Bucks County Courier Times over this one)

Update 4/11/09: Nice work for Patrick to take the lead in legislation creating the Washington-Rochambeau Revolutionary Route National Historic Trail - a 685-mile path crossing eight states from Newport, R.I., to Yorktown, Va., as noted here (President Obama recently signed the bill into law).

Thumbs Down to pretend Bush Dog Democrat (redundant?) Dan Boren of Oklahoma for accusing Obama of “being weak on defense” here (hey brainiac, the defense budget was prepared by Robert Gates, the Republican Secretary of Defense, OK? - I'm not unsympathetic to the possible loss of DoD jobs here, but it's time to be realistic)

Thumbs Up to President Obama for being the first president to attend a White House Seder (here)

And by the way, Happy Passover to everyone observing the holiday.

In Defense Of Chris Dodd

(And I also posted over here.)

I have to say that, like many of you I’m sure, I’ve been watching the deterioration of Chris Dodd’s political fortunes with more than a bit of alarm. And I’ve been reluctant to say anything, that is, until I read this post from Megan McArdle of The Atlantic.

I’m sure McArdle is a pretty bright individual, but I really have to wonder why she would write a post sourcing an editorial in the Augusta (GA) Chronicle attacking Dodd over the bonuses paid to executives of AIG (the editorial is fundamentally wrong for reasons I will note shortly). Another clue as to the partisan nature of the Chronicle editorial is the fact that it praises South Carolina Repug Gov. Mark Sanford for “(doing) his best to wean his state off the cocaine of federal money. He knows it's corrupting. He knows it will mask the state's needs rather than fill them. He knows we are stealing from our children.”

Gosh, what noble rhetoric from the Chronicle. Would that I and others had heard it while Dubya and his “ship of fools,” otherwise known as the 108th and 109th Congresses, were busy passing and signing budgets into law that left us awash in red ink (and no, I’m not going to go off on another rant defending the stimulus; at this point, if people still don’t get the concept, they never will).

And I guess what has me a little ticked off is the decidedly lukewarm response to the news of Dodd’s current electoral trouble from progressives generally, helped also by Dodd himself, I realize; I wish he’d written an Op-Ed months ago explaining this Countrywide mortgage deal once and for all in response to the caterwauling from the right-wing echo chamber, chiefly the Murdoch Street Journal – I posted about this awhile ago here; it all appears to be nothing but a tempest in the proverbial teapot.

Something else in McArdle’s post today that I took issue with is the following claim…

…the more damning case (against Dodd) is that the Senate Banking Committee was basically non-functional in the early part of the crisis, because Dodd was running for president. Even if early action could have saved us money and pain later--and that's a big if--I recently heard a plausible case made that such action was made impossible by his presidential campaign. But somehow, no one finds that offensive, or even notable.

Well, Dodd ended his presidential campaign in January 2008 after he was shut out in the Iowa caucuses (making his purchase of property there all the more mystifying to your humble narrator), but the collapse of Lehman Brothers (the moment that our economic slide really started to accelerate) didn’t take place until September of that year, and the first TARP funds weren’t released until the following month. Besides, with Dubya still on board and fellow Repug Richard Shelby at Dodd’s side on the Senate Finance Committee, I’m not sure what else Dodd could have been expected to accomplish.

However, we know the real reason why Dodd is in trouble, and that’s because the “kick me” sign, as it were, has been pinned on his back for the AIG bonuses paid out with TARP funds.

Yeah, well, therein hangs a tale; as noted here by My Left Nutmeg (excerpting Glenn Greenwald)…

It was Dodd who did everything possible -- including writing and advocating for an amendment -- which would have applied the limitations on executive compensation to all bailout-receiving firms, including AIG, and applied it to all future bonus payments without regard to when those payments were promised. But it was Tim Geithner and Larry Summers who openly criticized Dodd's proposal at the time and insisted that those limitations should apply only to future compensation contracts, not ones that already existed. The exemption for already existing compensation agreements -- the exact provision that is now protecting the AIG bonus payments -- was inserted at the White House's insistence and over Dodd's objections. [...]

The point was -- and is -- that Dodd was pressured to put that carve-out in at the insistence of Treasury officials (whose opposition meant that Dodd's choices were the limited compensation restriction favored by Geithner/Summers or no limits at all), and Dodd did so only after arguing in public against it. To blame Dodd for provisions that the White House demanded is dishonest in the extreme...

So what has been the effect of this Dodd sellout by Geithner and Summers? Basically, according to this Quinnipiac poll, Dodd would lose big in a head-to-head matchup with presumptive Repug Senate candidate Rob Simmons (with pollster Douglas Schwartz telling us that “a 33 percent job approval rating is unheard of for a 30-year incumbent”).

Well, to me, this spells trouble, even though the election is due to take place a year and a half from now (basically, Dodd is losing to “anybody not named Chris Dodd” at this point). And it would be nice if some lefty political sites such as this one would be a little less inclined to pump up silly “scandals” involving Dodd in a cheap attempt to drive up their hit count (that is, unless they want to contribute to the “drip, drip, drip” of negative commentary that could ultimately drown him in November 2010).

After all, let’s not forget that Dodd tried to fix the fatally flawed FISA bill that was signed into law last year here (and speaking of FISA, I would call this a decidedly alarming development, and a little beyond "trying to sweep something under the rug" – nice try by Obama’s people to pull this off while press coverage is focused on the POTUS overseas).

Also, as noted here, Dodd mixed it up with Billo the Clown over The Daily Kos, and he also signed on here as a cosponsor to an amendment sponsored by fellow Dem Russ Feingold in 2007 to redeploy our troops out of Iraq in 90 days (we know what happened to that one, of course).

So basically, Dodd is a friend of progressives as far as I’m concerned. And I was always taught that you try to help out a friend when that person is in trouble.

And a lukewarm blog post by anyone with unjustified innuendo of wrongdoing doesn’t even come close to doing that.

Tuesday Stuff

Good for Joe here (go howl at the moon...Dick)...



...yep, this is good news, but I have a feeling the biggest battles have yet to come (EFCA, trying to overcome that traitor Blanche Lincoln and her Senate Repug buddies, along with health care - we'll see; hat tips for these two videos to The Daily Kos)...



...and you're very welcome, K.O. (referring to this video, which I inexplicably missed last night - anyway, here's "Worst Persons," with Sean Inanity chastising Obama for the latter's entirely correct pronouncement that we're engaged in a struggle against radical Islam, not Muslims in general...duh; and what a charming T-shirt some apparently single-brain-celled life forms in Kentucky concocted, no doubt hoping to goose-step their way to fame and fortune; and I don't know about you, but I just hope and pray that, the next time something terrible happens in this country - and I hate to sound like I'm giving comfort to a thought like that, but it's just about statistically inevitable given the amount of guns in this country, the level of hate and the economy - the person who does it doesn't stand up and shout "I LOVE GLENN BECK" before he blows his brains out, hopefully taking no one else with him...if that happens, at the very least, it will be time to retire this talking point cipher and gutter snipe one and for all, to a place where a camera and/or microphone can nary be found, or even a computer)...

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

...and I thought this was interesting about the jazz sax player Bud Shank who just left us, and that is the fact that perhaps his most memorable contribution to music (at least in terms of hearing it on the radio) was this solo on an instrument he didn't play as much as the sax (the flute) in a musical idiom aside from jazz where he was most famous (namely, '60s-era pop...video by YouTuber UMG with the last note cut off) - crazy world.

On The Economy, Our Pain Is J.D.’s Gain

(Also, I posted over here.)

I have to admit that the two most recent columns by Bucks County’s big mouth pundit J.D. Mullane (last Sunday and today) have been absolutely startling, definitely “Exhibits A and B” for not having to pay online if you’re a non-subscriber to the paper (actually, for reasons I will note shortly, I think the paper should pay us if we happen to ingest any of Mullane’s drivel).

He told us the following on Sunday (here)…

Unemployment has bolted to 8.5 percent, the highest in 25 years. From January through March, 2 million jobs have been lost. It’s grim.

So why did I have to wait 45 minutes for a table at a restaurant the other night?

The eatery’s parking lot was packed. So was the bar, where people crowded two deep to pay $6 a drink.

A couple easily drops $100 on dinner at a chain restaurant like that, which made me wonder: Where’s the recession?

If millions are unemployed and the president says it is the worst economy since the Great Depression, where is it?

…

…(Last week), I conducted a search for the worst economy since the Great Depression — let’s call it the “Great Recession.” I figured it would be evident in places where middle class people are most likely to spend discretionary cash, since that kind of spending stops in tough times.

I did not find soup lines, suffering or struggle.

Not at Dunkin’ Donuts, where a steady line of cars clogged the drive-thru for $2 coffees.

Not at a Wal-Mart, where a woman was waiting to purchase a $54 Sunbeam bread-making machine with “12 baking functions.”

J.D. goes on to tell us that he conducted further “research” at Game Stop in the Oxford Valley Mall and Best Buys, presumably on Commerce Drive in Fairless Hills, PA. And as a result, here is his “analysis”…

We go to Dunkin’ Donuts rather than Starbucks. We eat at a chain restaurant, rather than a chic place downtown. We buy off-brand water, not name-brand.

Hard times. They ain’t what they used to be.

And in response today to those who wonder what universe Mullane inhabits that somehow renders him unable to see the reality faced by an ever-growing number of people in this country, he tells us this…

Oh, there's "suffering" - especially for those who spent the good years maxing out their credit cards, tapping the equity in their house to buy unneeded goodies, and trading in perfectly good cars to buy new ones because, well, because.

I really don’t know what else there is to say in response to such appalling literary smegma except to provide this excerpt from some actual reporting on Sunday from business writer Jane M. Von Bergen of The Philadelphia Inquirer, who tells us the following (from here)…

Seventy-two truck drivers and warehouse workers at the USF Holland truck terminal in the city's Tacony section are losing their jobs. The terminal closed Friday.

In Blue Bell, a Montgomery County suburb where homes cost upwards of $800,000, three out of 10 neighbors in adjoining culs-de-sac are laid off.

In West Philadelphia's 5700 block of Spruce Street, in one of the city's zip codes hardest hit by unemployment, the block captain worries about prospects for the young men on his street - bleak, when unemployment among African American male teenagers stands at nearly 40 percent.

"I can't offer nothing to these kids," said Thommie Hampton. "You can't get a job."

In Cheltenham Township, a business-process manager laid off in January for the second time in two years struggles to reinvent himself - again - as his middle-class lifestyle slips away.

In Mount Ephraim, a young woman who graduated from Rutgers University in Camden last year is still looking for a librarian or government-research job this year. "It's pretty disheartening to apply for so many positions and get rejected," said Stephanie Kurek, 26. Older workers, willing to take pay cuts to stay employed, are competing with her for entry-level positions, she said.

If there is anything that these tales tell us, it is that misery is everywhere in the Delaware Valley. It crosses all geographic lines, all economic lines, all gender lines, all race lines, all age lines.

All these people, the unemployed executives in Blue Bell, the unemployed teenagers in West Philadelphia, the lawyers, the doctors, the truck drivers, and the managers have their own difficult and individual stories.

But collectively, their loss is our loss.

Every now and then the Inky reverts to its past form, as it does so admirably here (and God, does philly.com have some hideous trolls).

And I know J.D. wouldn’t get caught dead reading that bad liburuul paper The New York Times, but they told us the following also on Sunday (here)…

On Friday (4/3), reality bit back with the news that the unemployment rate spiked in March, to 8.5 percent, a 25-year high. The government’s report also showed that employers had shed 663,000 more jobs in March. Nearly two million jobs have vanished this year — 5.1 million since the recession began in December 2007. The ranks of the unemployed now stand at 13.2 million.

There is no longer any doubt that the current recession will be the longest yet in America since World War II. The previous record-holders — the contractions of the early 1970s and the early 1980s — each lasted for 16 months. As of now, the economy already has been in decline for 16 straight months.

The questions now are how much longer the recession will be and how much worse it will get. Measured by the labor market, the answer to both questions is “a lot.” That is because employers will continue to cut jobs as long as the economy is weakening and will resume hiring only once they are sure a recovery is under way. In this recession, the traditional paths to recovery are especially blocked. Economic rebounds — especially from steep declines — are generally led by recovery in the housing market. This time, housing is unlikely to provide the spark. By prudent estimates, housing sales and prices will not begin to turn up appreciably until 2010 at the earliest.

And I’ll go Mullane even better than that – if he wanted to find a clue, all he had to do was read the same Sunday issue of the very paper in which his column appeared; his fellow writer Jo Ciavaglia tells us this (here)…

To get perspective into how bad the U.S economic crisis is, ask someone who works in mental health.

Suicide call volume has doubled, according to one local emergency hot line. Bucks County's largest short-term psychiatric unit is seeing a significant upswing in involuntary mental health commitments - eight since Wednesday alone.

A New Jersey behavior health center is seeing notably large increases in first-time psychiatric hospitalizations, particularly among nontraditional patients.

Demand for outpatient mental health treatment also is increasing, but so are requests for copay waivers and other financial assistance, local providers say.

The growing demand for mental health services also is outpacing the limited resources of providers. Most Bucks County mental health agencies the county contracts with are in danger of running out of money for uninsured patients before the fiscal year ends, a county official said.

"We can feel the tempo. People are incredibly nervous, anxious and upset. We get calls about rents, mortgages and even food," said Lenore Sherman, executive director of Contact Greater Philadelphia, a crisis hot line. "People are obviously in chaotic shape, so worried over the situation."

I have to admit that citing this stuff really isn’t that difficult – there is plentiful evidence to support the fact that Mullane doesn’t know what he’s talking about; shooting his arguments full of holes is about as satisfying as kicking the crutch out from underneath the arm of Tiny Tim (and by the way, I conducted a bit of “research” myself at Dick’s Sporting Goods in Fairless Hills, PA on Sunday, and except for a couple of other families, it basically was a ghost town).

So I attempted to find out how food banks and social service agencies in Bucks County are being affected by the economic conditions, calling some numbers from this list (I am currently awaiting “call backs” from the Penndel Food Pantry and the Emergency Relief Association in Levittown; I will call again if I don’t hear from anyone – part of the issue with tracking these people down is that these agencies are usually based in a church or community center during “off hours” in the evening when the need for their services is the greatest).

I have to admit that I was unsuccessful for the most part, though I did speak to a lady named Stephanie Sides of the Family Service Association of Bucks County. She told me that, in addition to running a food pantry, the association partners with the Bucks County Opportunity Council to help lower-income residents of the county achieve self-sufficiency. She said that the demand for food seems to “ebb and flow” more centered on the holidays, though the number of people seeking food has increased in recent months (she was careful not to draw a direct link to the economic conditions).

In addition, she mentioned that the association runs a teen center near One Oxford Valley (the office building next to the mall, for local-area folk) on Thursday and Friday evenings; the center is located near the FedEX and UPS mail stops. The center allows the teens (14-21) to socialize with one another and seek counseling, and it’s difficult to keep up with the demand for food (always a need for microwaveable dishes such as Raman noodles, turkey dishes, etc., as well as snacks such as crackers and chips).

As I say, I have some calls outstanding on this in an attempt to gauge the impact of the recession, for which you can blame solely those who made bad purchasing choices, according to Mullane. If I find out anything else, I’ll let you know.

Monday Stuff

Touching tribute on "Countdown" tonight to Keith's mom, by the way - our sympathies...

And it sounds like the wingnuts were in winning form again with their little "tea party" (kind of scary when a bunch of terminal adolescents get together for no good reason, I suppose)...



...and oh yes, didn't I tell you that, on the side, I'm a "reprogrammer" for the Obamabot "reeducation" facility in Bucks County, PA? Uh huh (nice touch on the black helicopter)...



...something else to consider when you hear about how charging an online fee to non-subscribers is the answer to problems in the media industry...



...I thought this had kind of a nice ring to it (not much happening in the video - kind of morose like the weather in these parts at the moment).

My Tribute To The AP

(And I also posted here.)

So the AP tells us from here that it and “its member newspapers will take legal action against Web sites that use their articles without legal permission,” huh?

Wow, you mean that the AP would actually seek to punish individuals such as your humble narrator who tries to access some of that service’s glorious content....

…from Ron Fournier (here)

…from (former correspondent) John Solomon (here)

…from Jennifer Loven and Fournier again (here)

…from David Espo (here)

…from Sam Hananel (here, with clarification by Media Matters here)

…from Hope Yen (here)

…from Amy Lorentzen (here)

…from Andrew Taylor (here)

…from Phillip Elliott (here)

…from Liz Sidoti (here)

….from Elliott, Calvin Woodward and (wait for it…) Nedra Pickler (here)

….and from (drum roll, please) the one and only Charles Babington (here)

The AP really “wants a piece o’ me,” as it were?

Well, considering that the news service has produced such sterling content as that which I have cited above, I have only this to say in response:

Bring it on, meat!

Update 4/16/09: I forgot about this choice item from Ben Feller.

Sunday Stuff

The Daily Show's Jon Stewart and John Oliver have some fun concerning the media fawning over the Obamas' recent visit to the Queen...

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart	M - Th 11p / 10c
The Poisonous Queen
comedycentral.com
Daily Show Full Episodes Economic Crisis Political Humor

...and boy, that Repug PA State Senator Mike Folmer is a real "rocket scientist," isn't he? With the EFCA, both "card check" and the secret ballot would still be legal, but the employee would call the shots, not the employer (h/t Michael Morrill at Keystone Progress)...



...actually, though, Cantor and the House Repug "leadership" did offer this, which is way beyond a bad joke (more on Cantor here)...



Update 4/7/09: Oh yeah, Cantor and the Repugs sure will overtake Obama and the Dems with stuff like this.

...and oh yeah, time to rock harder.