Where The Rubber Meets The Road (7/24/09)

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 also posted here).

House

Appropriations, auto dealerships. Voting 219-208, the House passed a bill (HR 3170) to appropriate $24.2 billion in fiscal 2010 for the Treasury Department, White House, District of Columbia, the federal judiciary, and several independent agencies, including ones that regulate financial markets, protect consumers, and fund small businesses. The bill would require General Motors and Chrysler Corp. to restore franchise agreements with more than 2,000 dealerships, leaving the firms closed but entitling them to seek compensation under state laws, something disallowed in bankruptcy proceedings.

In part, the bill would provide $6.9 billion for the federal judiciary; $1.04 billion for the Securities and Exchange Commission; $848 million for the Small Business Administration; $768 million for the District of Columbia; $292 million for the Federal Trade Commission, and $113 million for the Consumer Product Safety Commission.

The bill also would give the District of Columbia the same right the 50 states have to spend locally raised funds on abortion services.

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.), Chaka Fattah (D., Pa.), Tim Holden (D., Pa.), Patrick Murphy (D., Pa.), Allyson Y. Schwartz (D., Pa.), and Joe Sestak (D., Pa.).

Voting no: Charles W. Dent (R., Pa.), Jim Gerlach (R., Pa.), Frank A. LoBiondo (R., N.J.), Joseph R. Pitts (R., Pa.), and Christopher H. Smith (R., N.J.).

Yep, I’d say it’s pretty much a “slam dunk,” as they say, that the “abortion services” item ensured that the Repugs would continue to inflict the “poor stepchild” treatment on DC, whose representative, Eleanor Holmes Norton, is able to serve on and vote with committees, as well as speak from the House floor, though she is not permitted to vote on final passage of any legislation because she is not a full member of Congress (pathetic).

At least Mike Castle acted like an adult here – my compliments.

Energy, water appropriations. Voting 320-97, the House passed a bill (HR 3183) to appropriate $33.3 billion for energy, water and nuclear programs in fiscal 2010. In part, the bill would provide $6.3 billion for maintaining the U.S. nuclear stockpile; $5.5 billion for Army Corps of Engineers public works; $5.4 billion for environmental cleanup at nuclear sites; $4.9 billion for research into long-term energy needs; $373 million for developing clean-vehicle technologies; $259 million for solar energy, and $208 million for upgrading the nation's electrical grid.

Additionally, the bill would fund the administration's decision to permanently bar nuclear waste disposal at Yucca Mountain in Nevada, and establish a commission to evaluate alternatives.

A yes vote was to pass the bill.

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

Voting no: Pitts.

This is yet another brain dead vote by PA-16’s rep, but I actually think that you have to cut Pancake Joe some slack here.

You see, he’s been busy picking a fight with Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg over a comment in a New York Times Magazine article almost two weeks ago implying that there was an abortion-worthy class of “undesirables” out there (I would say it was a “wise Latina” moment by Justice Ginsburg on the matter of abortion services that aren’t available for poor women, though they are generally for women of means, and that’s what she was trying to communicate – this site is sympathetic to Pitts, but trust me; he doesn’t deserve it).

Also, as noted here (third item), “Values Voter” Joe was busy propagandizing over the supposed abortion mandate in the upcoming health care legislation. So my guess is that all of the activity tired him out and made him more disoriented than usual.

Energy, water spending cut. Voting 167-259, the House rejected a proposed 5 percent across-the-board cut in fiscal 2010 appropriations (HR 3183, above) to fund the government's energy and water programs. The amendment would have trimmed $1.7 billion from the bill's $33.3 billion in discretionary spending.

A yes vote backed the amendment.

Voting yes: Adler, Dent, Gerlach, Murphy, and Pitts.

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

This amendment was introduced by Marsha Blackburn of Tennessee, who, as noted here…well, you can make up your own mind on how awful her remarks were.

John Adler continues to languish in some kind of a slump with yet another bad vote (and with respect, Patrick, this was not a good one for you either – siding with Pitts, Dent and Gerlach is not a good place to be).

Wild horses, burros. Voting 239-185, the House passed a bill (HR 1018) to protect the estimated 36,000 wild horses and burros that roam public lands in the West. The bill would prevent the sale of these animals for slaughter, greatly expand the federal acreage available to them, and prohibit the penning of them for longer than six months.

A yes vote was to pass the bill.

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

Voting no: Pitts.

Comforting to know that Joe was prevented from aiding the “Trigger burger” industry here (seriously, this could have affected the food supply, to the point where tainted meat could have made us as ill as we would be after a lengthy review of Pitts’ voting record).

Senate

Hate-crimes prosecutions. Voting 63-28, the Senate advanced a hate-crimes amendment that sponsors seek to add to the $680 million, fiscal 2010 defense budget (S 1390), which remains in debate. The amendment would expand the federal law against hate crimes to include offenses based on sexual orientation, gender, or disability as well as the existing categories of national origin, religion, and race.

A yes vote was to advance a hate-crimes measure.

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

Religious freedom. Senators voted, 78-13, to ensure that hate-crimes language proposed for S 1390 (above) could not limit religious expression except when the intent of the expression is to plan, prepare for, or incite an act of physical violence.

A yes vote backed the amendment.

Voting yes: Carper, Casey, Kaufman, Menendez, and Specter.

Voting no: Lautenberg.

There’s more going on here than meets the eye, as bmaz, blogging for emptywheel, tells us here…

There are inherent First Amendment and equal protection issues with any "hate crime" legislation as I pointed out when Eric Holder started aggressively pushing Congress for passage of a new bill. That said, if you are going to enact such laws, they must be targeted, rational and designed to effect the result desired and not any other. Such laws should not be vague and expansive, should not be able to be wielded by prosecutors as selective bludgeons and should not infringe on First Amendment rights to free speech and association.

Late Thursday night, the Senate passed a Hate Crimes Bill that arguably violates all of the above.

The post goes on to note that the following language was omitted from the Senate version of this bill (versus a comparable House version)…

Evidence of expression or association of the defendant may not be introduced as substantive evidence at trial, unless the evidence specifically relates to that offense. However, nothing in this section affects the rules of evidence governing the impeachment of a witness.

Without that language, bmaz and the ACLU believe that prosecutors will “use hate crimes statutes much more as leverage to force plea agreements and prove defendants guilty simply on the basis of non-conforming speech and membership in gangs, fringe political groups and the like than they do for the righteous purpose intended.”

And the amendment noted above by Sam Brownback of Kansas (who surely understood the danger of the vagueness of the Senate bill without the language noted above), which was passed, now gives the anti-abortion forces legal protection denied to those of opposite political and social points of view.

Kudos to Sen. Lautenberg for realizing that and voting No to the Brownback amendment (and a pox on those who voted Yes).

New census chief. The Senate voted, 76-15, to end a Republican-led filibuster against the nomination of Robert M. Groves as director of the U.S. Census Bureau.

He had directed the University of Michigan Survey Research Center. Republicans delayed the nomination for three months with claims that a Democratic administration might politicize the 2010 census.

A yes vote backed Groves as Census Bureau chief.

Voting yes: Carper, Casey, Kaufman, Lautenberg, Menendez, and Specter.

This prior post (second item) discussed the typically idiotic Repug obstruction on the appointment of Dr. Groves, which is happily now no longer an issue.

This week, the House took up the 2010 intelligence budget, while the Senate continued to debate the 2010 defense budget.

Thursday Stuff

Here are some more Americans struck by the loss of health care benefits who Kent Conrad can laugh at...



...and I think this group will be at the XpoNential Music Festival this weekend in Philly (didn't see them in the lineup, though - it will be hot and humid, so be prepared).

Thursday Mashup (7/23/09)

Yep, not a lot going on again today, but I just wanted to get to some items.

As noted here, the “Looney Thune” gun amendment was defeated – barely - in the U.S. Senate yesterday by a vote of 58-39.

As a nested Thing Progress post tells us…

This amendment would, in effect, mean that states with the weakest laws will set the law for all other states. In so doing, it would strip each state’s power to enact its own public safety laws. For instance, 31 states currently prohibit “habitual drunkards” from carrying guns. The Thune amendment would render these provisions useless.

And as the New York Times tells us today (from here)…

“Lives have been saved with the defeat of this amendment,” Senator Charles E. Schumer, Democrat of New York and a leading opponent of the amendment, said in a statement. “The passage of this amendment would have done more to threaten the safety of New Yorkers than anything since the repeal of the assault weapons ban.”

…

Senator David Vitter, Republican of Louisiana, said the provision would not undermine local laws. He quoted a letter from a constituent who said she felt safer carrying her concealed weapon when she went out at night with her family.

Fine, lady – if you want to carry a piece while shopping with your kids at the mall…well, I think you’re nuts, but just don’t do it in PA (call me a “states rights” liberal on this one…and I hope it goes without saying that I don’t believe “Diaper Dave” Vitter for one minute).

Also, as long as I’m posting on this, I would like to express my thanks to Repug Senators Richard Lugar and the departing George Voinovich for doing the right thing.

The Times story also tells us the following…

In May, Congress approved a measure that let gun owners with proper permits carry their loaded and concealed weapons in national parks. And Mr. Thune, Senator Tom Coburn, Republican of Oklahoma, and other pro-gun lawmakers had said they intended to bring more provisions seeking to expand gun rights to the Senate floor this year.

By the way, I’m sure Coburn isn’t a member of the AMA (haven’t been able to determine that), since that organization, to its credit, favors common sense gun control measures.

And before I depart from this topic, I just want to reiterate something I said previously.

I would ask that you take a look at this photo of Philadelphia Mayor Michael Nutter leading a funeral procession for Office John Pawlowski last February. It is a stirring image of Philadelphia’s finest.

The next time a gun control measure is introduced in Harrisburg, that is exactly what I want our senators and representatives to see as they deliberate over it before they vote. If they defeat it, they should know that they will have to explain why to those who risk their lives for us every day.

And it wouldn’t hurt for medical personnel in their “scrubs” to be part of that also (I know it’s a bit much to ask them to do more than the great work they do already, but they can make a hell of a lot more of an impact on this issue by their mere presence than I can).

Update 7/24/09: The NRA sure keeps interesting company, doesn't it?

Repug political strategist Doug Heye posted here on 42 congress- ional Democrats who he believes will scuttle the nascent health care legislation currently winding its way through Congress (with a vote scheduled for September as of now, according to this item – looks like the entire inglorious “Bush Dog” cadre in Heye's post minus, to his credit, Patrick Murphy).

I wanted to pass on this at first because Heye and his ilk can regurgitate this stuff faster than I can ever answer it, but one name of this list stood out, and that is Rep. James Clyburn of South Carolina.

This story last week from MSNBC tells us the following…

Also at (a Congressional Dem-sponsored health care) press conference, House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer argued that health-care reform is a moral issue. "Reforming health care is an economic imperative, a budget imperative and a moral imperative."

Both Hoyer and House Majority Whip Jim Clyburn attempted to play down the talk of deep divisions within the Democratic Party over health care. Many recent reports from Capitol Hill have suggested that Blue Dog Democrats are apprehensive about a health-care bill that will dramatically increase spending. In response, Hoyer stated, "I think, to a person, Blue Dogs believe that we need to pass and they want to support health-care reform."

"I think that where we are is a pretty good place with all of this," Clyburn said. "We are much, much, much better off today than we were of Thursday last week."

Maybe Heye had better make that number 41, or possibly lower (and it might do Repug Minority Whip Eric Cantor – the guy who supplied this stuff to Heye – some good to take a lesson or two in remedial math).

Finally, R. Albert Mohler of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary tells us the following on the pages of the WaPo today (here), in the matter of President Carter’s recent decision to sever ties with the Southern Baptist Convention, issuing the following statement to that effect: "The justification of discrimination against women and girls on grounds of religion or tradition, as if it were prescribed by a Higher Authority, is unacceptable" (I should note that President Carter, in so doing, cited as his main authority the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, adopted by the United Nations in 1948).

Here is some of Mohler’s response…

All this fits a pattern for which Mr. Carter is now well known. He simply rejects the texts in the Bible that clearly establish different roles for men and women in the church and the home. He dismisses these verses for the simple reason that he also rejects the inerrancy of the Bible.

He may well be the world's most famous Sunday School teacher, but over just the last several years he has publicly expressed his rejection of the belief that persons must come to a saving knowledge of Jesus Christ in order to be saved. He has also stated that his faith would not be shaken if Jesus did not perform some of the miracles attributed to him in the New Testament. His denial of biblical inerrancy is not merely theoretical -- he actually operates on the assumption that at least some texts of the Bible are false, untruthful, malignantly oppressive, and thus untrustworthy.

President Carter actually makes no argument for women as pastors. He simply dismisses out of hand what the Christian church has believed for centuries -- and what the vast majority of Christians around the world believe even now. His argument should embarrass any serious person who considers this question, for it is grounded in little more than his own sense of how things ought to be. He makes claims about the Bible that are reckless and irresponsible and historical claims that would make any credible church historian blush. He straightforwardly rejects what he admits some texts of the Bible teach.

So, assuming Mohler's claims can be taken at face value, it looks like he is favoring as literal an interpretation of the Bible here as he can concoct for the purpose of subjugation by gender. And I don’t know what the issue of women as pastors has to do with any of this (important, though not for this discussion I believe).

And for the record, here is a link to the 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights, in which the equal rights of men and women are noted in both the Preamble and Article 16 (you can argue with whether or not it applies directly to any organized religion, but I think such an association, if not directly expressed, is at leas implied here…it should also be noted that the person who played the most important role in bringing this wonderful document to fruition was none other than Eleanor Roosevelt, who I’m sure would side with President Carter in this matter).

And as far as Mohler is concerned, this Wikipedia article tells us that he has said that “any belief system, any world view, whether it's Zen Buddhism or Hinduism or dialectical materialism for that matter, Marxism, that keeps persons captive and keeps them from coming to faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, yes, is a demonstration of Satanic power."

Oh, and did I mention that he also encouraged the “evangelization” of Iraqis in May 2003, called Catholicism a “false church,” and encouraged a prenatal treatment to reverse (a baby’s) sexual orientation to heterosexual (if it) is ever developed” (Wikipedia tells us that Mohler was "frustrated by the public response to his statement"...I'm sure he was).

I firmly believe that President Carter exemplifies a character more closely associated with a faith and spirituality I recognize and try to practice (imperfectly, I know) more than any other figure in public life. And I applaud his decision to leave the Convention for the reasons he has stated.

And as far as Mohler is concerned, he doesn’t have a prayer.

Wednesday Stuff

Here is the bilious garbage of right-wing hate radio in all its ignominy; the day Michael Savage actually sounds intelligent is the day that I'll be ready for "the old liberals home" at an undisclosed location in Massachusetts...



...oh, and by the way, wingnuts, this is called leadership (after eight years of having to endure the swaggering idiocy of Commander Codpiece, I personally am not going to budge ONE FREAKING INCH on core issues responsible for President Obama's election like this one)...



(Update - Well, the MSNBC vid above isn't cooperating, so let's try this one from CNN.)



...and by the way, the previous sentence was aimed also at chicken Dems like Kent Conrad (it disgusts me that I have to share a party allegiance with toadies and gutter snipes like this character, but alas I must)...



...and by the way, this has a bad word in it, but I think it completely fits (sadly, though, I believe the answer to the question is "yes")...



...and in memory of Gordon Waller of Peter and Gordon, I present the following (though I'm sure Peter Asher, producing performers such as Linda Ronstadt, ended up doing OK also)....



...and congratulations to Jackson Browne for this; way to "stick to your guns," dude.

Real ID vs. Pass ID And More 9/11 Report Wrangles

(I also posted here.)

To commemorate the fifth anniversary of the 9/11 Commission Report today, the Washington Post printed the following Op-Ed recently by U.S. House Repugs Lamar Smith, James Sensenbrenner, Peter King and Darrell Issa (now THERE’s a collection of wingnuts).

The subject is the Real ID Act versus the Pass ID Act; here is an excerpt…

Despite the fact that a unanimous Senate -- including then-Sen. Barack Obama -- passed the Real ID Act, several senators recently introduced legislation known as the Pass ID Act, which promises to return the nation to pre-Sept. 11 dangers.

Under the Pass ID legislation, about which the secretary of homeland security testified last week, states would no longer need to verify a person's identity before issuing a driver's license or identification card. They would not be required to resolve Social Security number mismatches; nor would they need to ensure the person does not possess duplicate or additional licenses or identification cards issued from other states.

To begin, this Wikipedia article tells us the following about the Real ID Act of 2005…

The Real ID Act started off as H.R. 418, which passed the House[4] and went stagnant. Representative James Sensenbrenner (R) of Wisconsin, the author of the original Real ID Act, then attached it as a rider on a military spending bill, H.R. 1268, the Emergency Supplemental Appropriations Act for Defense, the Global War on Terror, and Tsunami Relief, 2005. The House of Representatives passed that spending bill with the Real ID rider 368-58,[5] and the Senate passed the joint House-Senate conference report on that bill 100-0.[6] President Bush signed it into law on May 11, 2005.[7]

So basically, what President Obama signed off on was the conference report on a spending bill with Real ID as a rider to the bill; hardly a glowing endorsement (in fact, this tells us that Obama in fact opposed the bill for the following reason)…

"I do not support the Real ID program because it is an unfunded mandate, and not enough work has been done with the states to help them implement the program."

And this Las Vegas Sun editorial tells us the following…

Since the Real ID Act was passed by Congress four years ago, criticism of this legislation to increase the security of driver’s licenses has arisen from many sources, including state governments, privacy groups and travel agents.

The federal law was passed as a response to 9/11. Its purpose was to prevent terrorists from easily obtaining false licenses, enabling them to set up bank accounts, rent living quarters and otherwise blend into American society unnoticed.

Although its intention was good, the Bush administration followed its usual pattern — quickly writing legislation and pushing it through a Republican-controlled Congress without thinking much about problems that could arise.

The National Governors Association has endorsed an alternative to Real ID that is backed by Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano. She was governor of Arizona when that state, along with many others, protested Real ID as too expensive and unworkable from technical and privacy standpoints.

Such protests led the Bush administration to essentially punt by delaying implementation of the law until a new administration took office.

(I know – as far as Bushco is concerned, just another case of “lather, rinse, repeat.”)

More to the point (and more in line with President Obama’s comments), this tells us the following…

States have bristled at provisions of the Real ID Act that require them to upgrade their driver's licensing programs with new technology at their own expense, and that frustration is forming the nucleus of a movement to repeal the 2005 law in favor of a less expensive alternative.

On July 15, Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano told the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee that it would cost states an estimated $1.5 billion to update their systems and electronically verify applicants’ information.

All of this has a lot to do with why DHS and members of the National Governor’s Association (including Haley Barbour of Mississippi, Jim Douglas of Vermont, Joe Manchin of West Virginia, and Bill Ritter of Colorado) support Pass ID, projected to cost $2 billion as opposed to the $3.9 billion price tag for Real ID, as noted here.

Also, this release from the Department of Homeland Security tells us the progress achieved to date in complying with the 9/11 Commission recommendations, though as noted here, there are still waay too many Congressional committees and subcommittees involved with agency oversight (and believe it or not, the ability of first responders to communicate with one another during an emergency remains an issue – Secretary Napolitano and former 9/11 Commission chair Lee Hamilton claim that we’re making progress, however…hope they’re right).

And of course, what would this topic be without some corporate media hilarity, courtesy of Fix Noise here, in which talking head Greg Jarrett neglected to mention that the post of Director of National Intelligence, a commission recommendation, was not allowed to coordinate Pentagon intelligence gathering activities and related budgeting, among other misinformation (the 2004 Republican intelligence bill – actually not an oxymoron here – did not implement the other commission recommendations either; the stronger Senate bill provisions were “watered down” by the anemic House version).

Also, let’s not forget that the 9/11 Commission Report from 2004 stated categorically that “America's leaders failed to grasp the gravity of terrorist threats before the 9/11 attacks.”

…

I’m just going to let that quote “hang there,” more or less – somehow I think that is no longer the case (I hope and pray as much anyway), but more fool us if somehow it is.

Tuesday Mashup Part 2 (7/21/09)

(I also posted here; took me awhile to get to Part 2 of this.)

BoBo tells us the following from here, perched upon his ivory tower at The Old Gray Lady…

Only 11 percent of the (stimulus) money will be spent by the end of the fiscal year — a triumph of ideology over pragmatism.

Apparently this is the right-wing talking point du jour (and presumably, David Brooks is referring to a report by the Congressional Budget Office).

Well then, please allow me to point out that the CBO forecasted here in January that “only 40 percent of the appropriations money will flow in the first 18 months, and slightly less than 70 percent in the first 30 months” (with that number revised downward to 23 percent in February, as noted here).

More importantly, though, I think we should keep the following in mind, as noted from the American Progress post in January…

It is also important to recognize that contrary to the representations of some critics of the program, job creation under most programs in the package will significantly precede the outlay of federal funds, which is what the CBO data projects. The U.S. Highway Administration, for instance, allocates funds to the states based on a federal highway formula, but states do not actually get reimbursed from the U.S. Treasury (creating an “outlay”) until after the contracts have been signed, employees have been hired, and a phase of the construction project has been completed.

So just because whatever percent of stimulus funds have been allocated, that doesn’t mean that jobs funded from the “stim” aren’t already on the way.

What a shame that “stim” funds aren’t required to staff jobs for corporate media pundits.

And while I was away, the ever-execrable Andrew Malcolm of the Los Angeles Times brought us the following bit of hilarity (from here)…

The president is in a big rush to get (health care) reform through Congress by Aug. 7, when Congress takes another of its lengthy vacations from four-day workweeks.

I think Laura Bush’s former employee has apparently confused the 111th Congress with the 109th, which, as noted here, served for seven fewer days than the infamous “Do-Nothing Congress” of 1948.

Also noted in the WaPo story is the following (written soon after the 109th ended in December 2006)…

With the new calendar, the Democrats are trying to project a businesslike image when they take control of Congress in January. House and Senate Democratic leaders have announced an ambitious agenda for their first 100 hours and say they are adamant about scoring legislative victories they can trumpet in the 2008 campaigns.

Also, this tells us of former Repug House Rep (and now Obama Transportation Secretary) Ray LaHood complaining in essence about having to work a five-day work week as a reason why he wanted to leave Congress (along with fellow House Repug Jack Kingston of Georgia, who I hope has found his flag lapel pin by now, as noted here).

This story tells us the following (hat tip to Mark Halperin of The Page - yeah I know, but fair is fair)…

WASHINGTON - Former Vice President Dick Cheney's Secret Service protection has been extended for at least another six months, beginning Tuesday.

Normally, ex-veeps only get six months of protection at taxpayer expense. But Cheney asked for an extension, and President Obama - whom Cheney has excoriated in several interviews since leaving office - recently signed off.

Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano signed the order extending Cheney's security detail, her spokeswoman Sara Kuban confirmed Monday.

If the Obama administration hadn't gone along with Cheney's request, he would have been forced to hire his own security agents - or go without.

As noted, far more than any other member of Bushco, “Deadeye Dick” has attacked the Obama Administration with a peculiar kind of vigor not seen while he was in office, lurking in the shadows of his “undisclosed location” (or hiding in the trees in that creepy photograph when Dubya spoke to reporters at the White House a year or so ago).

And by the way, we’re still awaiting proof from the former veep of the success of the “enhanced interrogation” methods he championed (here). And this tells us about the recent disclosure of Cheney’s supposed secret assassination program (with the predicatable Repug response here).

I think a reasonable person would have a hard time arguing the opinion that, at this moment, Dick Cheney is the most disreputable person in the world (or short of that, at least a qualifier for the top five in that category).

Given all of this, I can only add the following:

Mr. President, Dick Cheney can pay for his own damn security (and it’s not as if he can’t afford it).

Monday Stuff

I'm still in semi-blogging mode at the moment, but I hope to get back to more posting soon.

In the meantime, here are some high-res pics of Apollo 11's first moon landing, which we experienced 40 years ago today...



...and once more, time to rock.

Snarlin' Arlen's Sotomayor-Saudi Slam

(By the way, I also posted over here.)

This item appeared in the Philadelphia Inquirer last Friday (still in catch-up mode here)…

Sen. Arlen Specter suggested during Judge Sonia Sotomayor's confirmation hearing yesterday that the Obama administration sought to block Supreme Court review of lawsuits blaming Saudi Arabia for the Sept. 11 attacks for fear of offending an important ally.

…

In a July 7 letter to Sotomayor, Specter also raised the issue of Saudi involvement in the attacks, asserting that "plaintiffs' counsel had developed considerable evidence showing Saudi complicity."

…

At (the Sotomayor) hearing, Specter said: "There was a case in which the Supreme Court denied certiorari just a couple of weeks ago involving claims for damages brought by survivors of victims of Sept. 11 against certain individuals in Saudi Arabia. The executive branch interposed objections to having that case decided because of the sensitivity of matters with Saudi Arabia.

"Don't you think that this is the kind of case the Supreme Court should have heard?"

Sotomayor deflected the question, saying she had not been part of the Supreme Court discussion and thus could not make a judgment.

I find it more than a bit galling that “Democrat” Arlen Specter would use the Sotomayor confirmation hearing as an opportunity to blame the Obama Administration for trying to shield the Saudis from prosecution (though it is a fair charge, I’ll admit) given the following, as noted in this November 2005 post (dated from when Specter chaired the Senate Judiciary Committee, during a hearing called “Saudi Arabia: Friend or Foe in the War on Terror?”)…

…testimony also discusse(d) an audiotape, obtained by NBC earlier this year, of the chief justice of Saudi Arabia's Supreme Judicial Council heard exhorting young Muslims to go to Iraq to kill Americans. When NBC asked Saudi officials for their reaction, Saudi officials falsely claimed that the tape was a fabrication. NBC then contacted the Sheik directly in Saudi Arabia, who admitted that he made the recording. When asked about these and specific instances of propaganda cited by (reporter Nina) Shea, Anthony Cordesman replied that Saudi officials had never expressed warlike sentiments to him during his numerous visits there over 30 years, and that we are seeing real, though incomplete, progress by the Saudis in excising hateful propaganda from textbooks.

…

The Saudis refused to testify and have not assured committee chairman Sen. Specter that they have excised their textbooks, but they did mount a PR offensive today. They announced that they have a fugitive Al Qaeda suspect in custody; they used another Washington event to deny the committee's bipartisan criticism; and the new Saudi Ambassador to the U.S. "vowed" that his government would show terrorists "no mercy." His words are ironic considering that he personally assisted the Taliban after they took in UBL and also oversaw the spread of the hateful literature that was the subject of the hearing. But the Ambassador couldn't stop the State Department today from releasing its report citing Saudi Arabia as one of 8 countries "of particular concern" for failing to safeguard religious freedom.

I don’t recall Specter making any noise about this whitewashing of the behavior of our “friends” the Saudis back when he chaired the Senate Judiciary Committee. However, now that the Democrats run our government again, I suppose 20-20 hindsight is appropriate as far as he's concerned.

(Also, let’s be clear on something; did Specter really think Sotomayor would do anything besides deflect that question?)

Besides, there is ample evidence documenting our involvement on behalf of the Saudis in matters related to the 9/11 attacks; this tells us that the Saudi Defense Minister hired the law firm of Baker-Botts (including “Poppy” Bush “fixer” James Baker) to represent him in a suit brought by the 9/11 families in 2004. Also, this tells us of former Sen. Bob Graham’s charge that Bushco blocked an investigation of a probable 9/11-Saudi link (Graham was the Democrat who co-chaired Congress’s probe into the attacks, though Commission Executive Director Philip Zelikow cleared Omar al-Bayoumi, a Saudi government agent living in San Diego, California, who, according to Graham, gave “significant financial support” to two of the hijackers – given this, though, I would be skeptical of Zelikow, to say the least).

I’ll admit that I’ve had bigger issues with Specter in the past than this one, and asking Sotomayor a question about a Supreme Court review of cases involving possible Saudi-9/11 involvement is fair game (really though, even if the Obama Administration supported such a review, does anyone think this Supreme Court would grant it?).

But for Specter to pose this to Sotomayor with no context as to his own actions is disingenuous to say the least (as are Specter’s actions recalled in this post).

Saturday Stuff

Kudos to Marcy Wheeler for using that dreaded "B" word here that is less obscene than other language representing the illegality and malfeasance perpetrated by the Repugs during their ruinous turn in charge of our government (more here)...



...and even though it appears that Judge Sonia Sotomayor navigated successfully through some truly insipid questioning this week (surprised?) on her way to confirmation, I thought this moment with Tom Coburn of Oklahoma was important to recall once more in its proper context.

Friday Stuff

As a tribute to Walter Cronkite, here is a link to his broadcast of the Apollo 11 moon landing (the 40th anniversary of which we will sadly observe this Monday without him) and here are words from President Obama (definitely not the way I'd hoped to return to this after the break; he had been sick for some time, though).

I know it's difficult to imagine a time when broadcasters were trusted and respected as Cronkite once was, along with Murrow of course and people like Eric Sevareid, Huntley and Brinkley, Howard K. Smith, Frank Reynolds and a few others, but such a time once existed in this country. And when all is said and done, Cronkite may go down as the one who eclipsed them all (hat tip to The Raw Story for both of these videos).


Walter Cronkite-JFK - The best free videos are right here



1968 King Assassination Report (CBS News) - video powered by Metacafe

Update 7/18/09: I thought this was a nice remembrance last night by David Shuster and Matt Lauer.

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

Where The Rubber Meets The Road (7/13/09)

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 also posted here).

House

2010 foreign-affairs budget. Voting 318-106, the House approved a $48.8 billion foreign-affairs budget (HR 3081) for fiscal 2010 that provides $9.6 billion to operate the Department of State and U.S. Agency for International Development while funding the hiring of more than 1,300 Foreign Service officers for duty mainly in Afghanistan and Pakistan.

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.), and Joe Sestak (D., Pa.).

Voting no: Joseph R. Pitts (R., Pa.) and Christopher H. Smith (R., N.J.).

My guess is that both Smith and Pancake Joe voted against this because of the repeal of the so-called “Mexico City” ban, which, as noted here, “require(d) any non-governmental organization to agree before receiving U.S. funds that they will 'neither perform nor actively promote abortion as a method of family planning in other nations'” (with funding to those organizations provided by US AID, which is funded in this bill).

However, as we know, Joe Pitts really doesn’t need much of a reason to vote “No” to anything.

Agriculture spending cut. Voting 185-248, the House rejected a proposed 5 percent across-the-board cut in fiscal 2010 appropriations (HR 2997) to fund agriculture and food programs, rural development, and agencies such as the Food and Drug Administration and Commodity Futures Trading Commission. The amendment would have trimmed $1.1 billion from the bill's $20.5 billion in discretionary spending. The bill was later passed.

A yes vote backed the amendment.

Voting yes: Adler, Castle, Dent, Gerlach, Murphy, and Pitts.

Voting no: Andrews, Brady, Fattah, Holden, LoBiondo, Schwartz, Sestak, and Smith.

I think Patrick voted yes here to burnish his “Blue Dog” budgetary “cred” (can’t think of why else he and John Adler would line up with so many Repugs here – kind of an astute vote here in a way, considering that the money was ultimately approved anyway - "having it both ways," sort of).

Food and Drug Administration. Voting 135-292, the House refused to freeze the 2010 Food and Drug Administration budget at its 2009 level. The amendment to HR 2997 (above) sought to block a proposed 11 percent, or $373 million, increase in FDA spending for the budget year that begins in October.

A yes vote was to freeze the FDA budget at the 2009 level.

Voting yes: Adler and Pitts.

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

I have to admit that I’m stumped on this one. I can’t think of why Adler would oppose this (and there’s nothing on his web site about it), particularly given that an amendment was defeated introduced here (near the bottom of the Congress Matters post) by the odious Jeb Hensarling seeking to strike funding that Adler and his fellow Jersey reps had requested for researching cranberry and blueberry disease.

Senate

Mexican border fence. The Senate voted, 54-44, to require the government to build at least 700 miles of double-layered fencing along the nearly 2,000-mile U.S.-Mexico border by the end of 2010. The amendment was offered to a bill (HR 2892), later passed, that appropriates $42.9 billion for the Department of Homeland Security in fiscal 2010.

A yes vote backed the amendment.

Voting yes: Arlen Specter (D., Pa.).

Voting no: Thomas Carper (D., Del.), Bob Casey (D., Pa.), Ted Kaufman (D., Del.), Frank Lautenberg (D., N.J.), and Robert Menendez (D., N.J.).

Not sure what else the “fence” will do except isolate wildlife and encourage the use of “coyotes” (noted here) to a greater extent that we have already – interesting vote for “Democrat” Arlen Specter.

Prescription-drug imports. The Senate approved, 55-36, an amendment to HR 2892 to permit individuals to import prescription drugs for their personal use from Canada. The measure would prohibit U.S. customs officers from confiscating Canada-bought pharmaceuticals at border crossings.

A yes vote backed the amendment.

Voting yes: Casey, Kaufman, and Specter.

Voting no: Carper, Lautenberg, and Menendez.

Big Pharma doesn’t like competition – kind of a gutsy vote by Kaufman here in particular.

Firefighter grants. Voting 32-58, the Senate refused to add $100 million for firefighter grants to the Federal Emergency Management Agency budget (HR 2892, above) in addition to $810 million already in the bill for that purpose.
A yes vote backed the amendment.

Voting yes: Carper, Casey, Kaufman, and Specter.

Voting no: Lautenberg and Menendez.

This was an attempt to by Dem Rep David Price to add funding to the FIRE grant program, which (as noted here) “helps enhance the basic operational capabilities for career, combination, and volunteer fire departments”; it was cut by about 70 percent in the Obama FY 2010 budget (though, in addition to the current funding, about $210 million in stimulus funds were set aside for fire station construction, as noted here – not sure why a cut in firefighter funding was approved by Lautenberg and Menendez, given that their state has so many refineries).

This week, the House will debate the 2010 intelligence budget, and the Senate will take up the 2010 defense budget.

And with that, I’m outta here (off to a hedonistic blue-state locale) – hope to rev this up again starting early next week.

Saturday Stuff

More lowlights from The Party of No - first we have Repug Arizona Sen. Jon Kyl...



...and House Minority Leader John "Man Tan " Boehner ("What would they do?" indeed)...



...and I apologize for wasting your time with more coporate media nonsense on this...



...and of course, it's not as if Former Commander Codpiece ever intentionally ogled young women, right? (h/t Jed Lewison at The Daily Kos - from a US women's volleyball team contest at last summer's Beijing Olympics)...

...and I guess you can file this under "fighting vainly the old ennui" - and it's suddenly raining here also.

Friday Stuff

By the way, I don't think I'm going to be able to post the way I want to on a couple of big non-Sarah Palin stories that have broken recently, so I'll just try to provide some "ultra-quick hits" here...

I just have one response to this - NOW does everybody know why we've been screaming about a certain George Walker Bush for as long as we all have here? NOW does everybody know that we WEREN'T EXAGGERATING when we called our prior ruling executive cabal a bunch of corporatist, power-hungry, moralist-pretending, Constitution-shredding PIRATES??!! And now, does everybody know why I and much of this country were SO DAMN ANGRY ABOUT THE CONGRESSIONAL DEM FISA SELLOUT??!!

Update 1 7/11/09: Here's more (h/t Eschaton).

Update 2 7/11/09: As Frank Zappa once observed, "the beat goes on and they're so wrooong" (here).

Update 3 7/11/09: Man, is Tony Auth on a roll! (hope it isn't too hard to read; the talking donkey in the pen says, "We were against unconstitutional wiretapping before we were for it").

In the matter of Leon Panetta vs. Pelosi (or, in this case, Rep. Jan Schakowsky of Illinois), with the typically clueless House Repugs looking for a way to stick it to the Speaker because they have not one thing better to do, I think it's important to remember two things: Pelosi wouldn't be where she is unless she were an expert at "saving face," as they say, and Panetta (who's been around longer than she has I'm sure, though I guess I should check on that) isn't going to "dime out" the people he needs to run his agency effectively by admitting she's right (even though she probably is). Aside from that, I don't know what else to say about this - I know there's an important principle here...namely, our intel services aren't supposed to break laws, even though they routinely do...but I'm afraid it's going to be lost amidst the flotsam generated by the corporate media-political-industrial complex in this country.

OK, now that that's out of the way, here's what I thought was a good interview Rachel Maddow conducted with chief NBC foreign correspondent Richard Engel last night on Iran...

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

...and I just love it so when moralistic, hypocritical, self-serving Repugs go down in flames...

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

...RIP Drake Levin of Paul Revere and The Raiders (God, the go-go dancers from "back in the day" are a hoot, and as a YouTube commenter pointed out, no, that's not Goldie Hawn - funny if it were, though)...



...and it looks like Mr. Plant got a "Whole Lotta (Royal) Love" here, so to speak (God, Bob, Prince Chuck looks better than you do!), so here's a Led Zep fave in honor of the occasion (from '73).

Friday Mashup (7/10/09)

(Cleaning out my "in" bin again...).

I’m almost glad I came across this opinion column in the Christian Science Monitor (an otherwise sensible publication) written by David Rittgers, an Army Special Forces veteran and attorney affiliated with the Cato Institute (a clue right there as far as I’m concerned), who tells us as follows…

Washington – Congress seems intent on passing new hate-crime legislation. It may sound like a surefire way to tamp down on hate crime, but it won't work.

The law would expand federal jurisdiction from crimes motivated by the victim's race, color, religion, or national origin to include the victim's gender, sexual orientation, gender identity, and disability.

…

Scott Roeder is accused of shooting abortion doctor George Tiller to death; he is sitting in jail awaiting prosecution. The same goes for Abdulhakim Mujahid Muhammad, who shot up an Army recruiting station in Arkansas and killed Pvt. William Long. As soon as Holocaust Museum shooter James von Brunn is out of the hospital, he can join them.

It would have been more apropos of Rittgers to note an example of an LGBT individual here (to be honest given the proposed modifications), since the late Dr. Tiller, the two Army recruiters and the Holocaust Museum guard do not fall into that category as far as I know (though no one should be penalized for being straight either, I want to emphasize).

The point I want to make, though, is noted here (from a factsheet linked to this post)…

The Hate Crimes Prevention Act of 2009 would direct federal resources to help local law enforcement fight violent hate crimes, and would let federal law enforcement step in when locals don’t.

Religious Right leaders choose to portray the hate crimes legislation as a “threat to religious liberty.”

They spread the lie that the churches will be silenced, and that church leaders and their supporters will be jailed for speaking out against homosexuality. The bottom line: This is all completely false. I urge my colleagues on the other side of this issue to stop bearing false witness against this legislation.

That was written by a member of African American Ministers in Action, a group that supports the legislation, by the way.

And as Think Progress notes from here…

…a federal hate crimes law already exists: Passed in 1968, it allowed federal investigation and prosecution of hate crimes based on race, religion, and national origin. The new law would simply add sexual orientation and gender identity to the protected groups,and allow local governments to get needed resources from the federal government for investigations and prosecutions.

As Think Progress tells us, the bill passed the U.S. House and awaits action from the Senate (where we can hope they take an altogether different view than Rittgers does).

This April New York Times editorial tells us the following…

In 1993, Congress passed the National Voter Registration Act, widely known as the motor voter law, to make it easier for eligible voters to register and to increase registration rates of traditionally underrepresented groups, including poor people.
In addition to requiring states to provide voter registration materials to people applying for and renewing driver’s licenses, the law requires states to offer registration forms at offices that administer public assistance such as food stamps and unemployment insurance.

States started out with some enthusiasm, but in recent years compliance has fallen sharply. Project Vote and Demos, public-interest groups that work for voting rights, studied the implementation of the motor voter law nationally from 1995 to 2007. In a 2005 study of 103 people leaving a Department of Jobs and Family Services office in Ohio, only three reported being given voter registration forms. Surveys conducted outside of public assistance offices in Arizona, Colorado, Florida, Maryland and other states found similar problems.

And an update from this week tells us the following…

Brenda Wright, director of the Democracy Program at the nonprofit group Demos, one of the groups behind (lawsuits filed by a coalition of groups across the country to force states to comply with the law), said 2.6 million people were registered through public assistance offices in 1995-1996, the first two years the law was in effect. But she said registration has dropped precipitously throughout the nation since then, as much as 90 percent or more in some states.

Wright said 2 million to 3 million more low-income people could be registered each year if all states followed the law.

The suits say that the states are violating the 1993 National Voter Registration Act, commonly known as "motor voter" because it requires states to offer voter registration when residents are applying for a driver's license or state ID. To reach low-income citizens who are less likely to own vehicles, the law also requires that voter registration be distributed along with applications for public assistance like food stamps and Medicaid.

The coalition of advocacy groups, which also includes the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now, Project Vote and the Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, say most states have programs for driver's license registration, but many are ignoring the public assistance requirement.

I’ll keep on the lookout for further developments here (unfortunate that it took legal action to try and make states comply with the law, but there you are - and yes, I know I just referred to ACORN - "ooga booga!," wingnuts).

This tells us that US handgun demand is driving the world gun trade, though fortunately, as noted here, those supporting “concealed carry” rights are having a difficult time trying to get their way on college campuses.

Meanwhile in the realm of sanity, this tells us that the one-gun-a-month bill has passed the NJ “lege” and is currently sitting on Gov. Corzine’s desk (the Garden State would be the fourth in the nation to limit gun purchases in this manner).

Election year or no, sign this, Guv.

Finally, in the “Friday Funnies” department, I give you Sen. Jim DeMint of South Carolina, who compares our country at this moment to pre-WWII Nazi Germany here.

I’m not going to give DeMint’s lunacy a spec of credibility here, but I will only point out that the National Socialists Party (as noted here) rose to power through development of a cult of personality invested in its leader (Adolf Hitler, of course) and a loathsome intolerance (and avocation of violence of course) against those thought to be outsiders or not of their own kind for one reason or the other. And though there are some who argue that our current president is endowed with a cult of personality of his own (and Dubya wasn’t?), I believe that is where the comparison ends.



However, if DeMint is actually right (and God, let us hope history proves him wrong), then I would say that the “road map,” if you will, towards a dictatorship conceived by the Nazis is being followed more closely by the individuals shown above because of the symptoms on display in the video (who have more common cause with DeMint than they EVER will with Obama); happily THEIR party is out of power at the moment (and let us do what we can each and every day to make sure it stays that way).

Thursday Stuff

I agree with Cenk of course, but I can assure you that the people of the Valley Swim Club who are responsible for this mess feel very little embarrassment (K.O. named John Duesler tonight as a Worst Person, but to be honest, I think he looks like nothing more than a naive chump here)...



Update 7/12/09: I grudgingly give the swim club credit for doing the right thing here - we'll see.

...and by the way, I've had a bunch of disagreements with Repug Sen. Charles Grassley, but boy was he spot-on here, particularly considering this...



...also, with all of the words recently written with the passing of former Defense Secretary Robert McNamara, it's easy to forget about another one to, to me, is demonstrably more vile, and it's this guy - happy birthday, you cretin (here is a fitting remembrance, particulaly in light of this)...



...and oh yeah, I thought this was catchy (YouTube, by the way, is saying they're going to stop supporting IE 6, which is an old, crappy MS browser I know, but it's what I'm running, and I have no intention of trying to upgrade to a new, crappy MS browser, or to go through the pain of converting to anything else - basically, it's buh-bye to the vids if YT does that except for MSNBC, just to let you know).

A New Day For The FDA

(Posting will be questionable for the foreseeable future, by the way – maybe tonight, but we’ll see).

This CNN story from Tuesday tells us the following (in light of the recent e coli outbreak)…

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- Top Obama administration officials outlined several new initiatives to safeguard the country's food supply Tuesday, saying the recent spate of food-borne illnesses is unacceptable.

The FDA intends to issue new guidance over the next three months regarding steps the entire food industry can take to more quickly detect contamination sources and remove the unsafe products from stores.

A new position at the agency -- deputy commissioner for foods -- will be created for the sole purpose of overseeing food protection. The commissioner will be part of a "unified incident command system" established to address contamination outbreaks and facilitate responses at the federal, state, and local levels, officials said.

In addition, they said, food safety information will be more effectively communicated to the public through a revamped Web site: www.foodsafety.gov.

The announcement was made near the White House by Vice President Joe Biden, Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius, and Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack.

…

J.D. Hanson, a policy analyst for the Center for Food Safety, called the initiatives a good first step. "They are the kinds of things we have been calling on previous administrations to do, and we're glad this administration is moving fairly quickly on these issues," he told CNN.

Hanson praised the creation of the position of deputy commissioner for foods at the FDA, saying it should have happened long ago. "You'd think an agency called 'Food and Drug' would have made food a priority a long time ago. They didn't until today."

But he said the government still isn't tough enough with the food industry. "Their goal of 90 percent compliance with their new guidelines is not good enough. It needs to be very close to 100 percent compliance."

And he said bureaucracy stands in the way of improvement. "Right now there are 13 federal agencies that deal with food safety. We would pull all of those functions into one agency."

And that explains why both HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius and Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack made the announcement along with Biden.

Also, this tells us about H.R. 2749, the Food Safety and Enhancement Act of 2009 sponsored by U.S. House Dem John Dingell, a bill that, if enacted, would provide a pretty comprehensive overhaul of much of our food management, dealing with registration of food facilities, adherence to performance standards, enabling a public notification and advisory system (don’t worry, though – I don’t think we’ll see a “color-coded” alert for foods like Tom Ridge’s notorious alert system at DHS), quarantine authority for foods, and civil and criminal penalties in the event of noncompliance, among many other aspects (a similar bill was introduced by Rep. Rose DeLauro in 2007, though I don’t have any update on that – could have expired at the end of the session).

However, as noted here about the Dingell bill…

(H.R. 2749) quickly passed out of a House subcommittee, but not before it was weakened by deal-making. Instead of phasing in a system that would track the origins of ingredients in processed foods, the measure now orders the FDA to study the issue. The mingling of foods from sources around the world is a significant factor in the magnitude of recent salmonella outbreaks, because a small amount of tainted food from one source can contaminate much more. This is why it was so difficult to trace the source of the salmonella in a 2008 case involving salsa that sickened more than 1,300 people.

Congress should restore the tracking provision to a bill that otherwise contains many of the elements for meaningful reform. The bill would tighten food oversight by requiring companies to develop safety plans and by funding more frequent FDA inspections through a fee on food producers. Before consumers get too excited, they should know that "more frequent" means once every four years instead of once a decade, and as often as once every 18 months for foods considered most at risk for contamination. The bill also would enable the FDA to issue recalls, a provision so obviously overdue that most Americans think the agency already has that authority.

Yep, I have to admit that I thought that also, though I suppose our lawmakers were no doubt influenced by right-wing pabulum on this subject such as the following (from here)…

Most of this food--whether produced at home or imported from abroad--is perfectly safe. Market competition and consumer choice provide the incentives that drive producers to supply high-quality products in return for market share and profits. While markets are the best defense against tainted food, there is still some risk that unsafe products may reach America's kitchens--accidents can happen.

Thus, as a complement to the market, govern¬ments implement food standards, testing require¬ments, and inspection procedures in an attempt to reduce the risk of harm to zero. The U.S. government may be able to do more to catch the occasional tainted product by restricting and controlling the market with costly regulations, but only at great expense to con¬sumers and companies. High food prices and less food will not bolster America's food security.

Instead, government should take a balanced approach to food safety by keeping markets free and limiting the scope and cost of government intervention to establishing minimum accepted quality stan¬dards and implementing science-based methods of detecting tainted domestic and foreign products before they reach U.S. consumers. Even though the focus of legislative reform is currently on import safety, domestic food sources should face compara¬ble government scrutiny.

So…our government is supposed to let “the markets” make decisions on food safety absent those “costly government regulations”…but somehow provide scrutiny of our foods while “limiting the scope and cost of government intervention”?

I have to admit that I’m a bit curious to find out how much these Heritage flunkies are compensated for concocting this doubletalk.

Even though the Dingell bill could use some work, we should be grateful for the steps taken by the Obama Administration to protect our food supply particularly because of the sad record of former President Highest Disapproval Rating In Gallup Poll History on this score in particular (this tells us of FDA scientists intimidated by the prior regime during a tainted tomato scare – hence the pic – this also tells us that there was no requirement under Bushco to notify us in the event of a recall of genetically modified foods, this confirms once more that the Repugs are “the party of unregulated meat and poultry,” and this tells us, among other things, that Bushco’s FDA operated under a $135 million shortfall in 2006).

And given all of that, I’m not sure what would turn my stomach more thoroughly – an ingestion of tainted food, or the thought that we could still be in the dark days of Bushco noncompliance with even the most basic food protection measures (and I emphasize that I don’t plan to find out any time soon).

A Meta Post On The Valley Swim Club Story

(And I also posted here.)

This doesn’t have anything to do with politics (not directly anyway), the Iraq war, or any other national news. It doesn’t have anything to do with George W. Bush either, or President Obama (actually, I’m in the middle of a wholly other topic more typical for this site that I want to post on before the day ends, and hopefully I’ll get to it).

To back up for a minute, I first heard about this story here at Eschaton (I’m pretty sure NBC 10 here in Philadelphia, to be honest, broke it first). Basically, here’s what happened (as Adam B tells us here); some kids from the Creative Steps Day Camp in Northeast Philadelphia bussed to the Valley Swim Club of Huntingdon Valley, PA to go swimming (the Creative Steps kids being African American and the Valley Swim Club being private with mainly a white membership, though I believe it has advertised itself as public to attract new members, but I’m not 100 percent sure about that…and by the way, the Valley Swim Club took $1900 from Creative Steps to let the kids swim).

Well, when the Creative Steps kids arrived, Adam B recounts what happened (from Philly news reports)…

According to 14-year-old camper Dymir Baylor, with whom I spoke yesterday, some of the comments were heartless.

"I heard a white lady say, 'What are all these black kids doing here? They might do something to my child,' " recalled Dymir, who says he lives in a neighborhood so diverse, he'd never heard anyone speak like that before. "It was rude and ignorant."

His mom, Sharrae Thompson, was appalled that an adult would behave so terribly.

"I was just shocked," she said. "This is 2009. You can't believe people would carry on like that."

(Creative Steps director Alethea) Wright was adamant that (Valley Swim Club President John) Duesler make things right.

"I told him, 'The parents don't want their money back. They want a good place for their children to swim, which is what they paid for. Please, let's try to work this out.' "

…

…Wright says memberships were arranged through e-mail and paid for in advance, but when the kids showed up at the club, she says members made racially insensitive comments and took their kids out of the pool:

"One of the members was shouting out, 'We're gonna see to it that they don't come back anymore.' And two days later, Dr. John called me and said, 'Miss Wright, I truly apologize, I'm so embarrassed, but the membership has overthrown me in votes and you're not going to be able to come back to the club.'"

I’m sorry that I don’t have anything particularly brilliant to add here, partly because this story has been covered much more thoroughly by news professionals who do this sort of thing for a living. But though I didn’t grow up in Somerton as Adam B did, I did grow up in the Bustleton section of Northeast Philadelphia, which is right next door (to Somerton and Huntingdon Valley).

And not for a minute am I going to defend the vile words and actions of those who denied access of the Valley Swim Club facilities to the Creative Steps kids. I don’t give a damn what the color of their skin happened to be; the Valley Swim Club should have done what is best for the kids, figured out what their mistakes were and made things right for next time.

Instead, they have stupidly chosen to mistreat the Creative Steps kids by accusing them of “doing something” to the white kids who comprise much of the club’s membership. And they have opened the proverbial Pandora’s Box which will generate consequences that will only grow worse over time (in terms of any possible good image the Club once held or tried to maintain).

I guess I’m posting about this because I’m feeling equal parts anger, disgust, and sorrow, and I’ll try to express these feelings through some reasonably intelligent prose.

The fact is that I know these people. And many of them are truly hard working and good in many ways; they took care of their homes, participated in the typical neighborhood and family functions, served their communities as well as this country, and on and on. My parents interacted with them, and we all grew up together.

But way, waay too many of them are stone racists (and I’m not going to absolve myself completely either – I’d like to think that I grew out of that over time, but I won’t kid you; I definitely get that impulse also on occasion, wrong as it is).

Now if I were to say that to any of them (or if I had done so in the past), at least one of two things would have happened: 1) They would have done their very best to utterly kick my ass and would have likely succeeded, or 2) They would have expressed hurt and indignation over what they considered to be my thoughtlessness.

And it would have eventually occurred to me that these individuals (in the Philadelphia suburbs, in this case, though you could find people with this shared experience throughout this country) landed in the suburbs due to the “white flight” in this country from the cities that took place primarily in the 1950s (indeed, in Bucks County where I live, people who arrived over the last 10-15 years from Philadelphia, including your humble narrator, were often stigmatized on the pages of the Bucks County Courier Times, though not so much any more). And that experience had a lot to do with coloring their racial perceptions.

But that doesn’t absolve any of them (or anyone who has grown up in that area, or anywhere in this country where such tacit racism is allowed) of their actions.

This also reminds me of the presidential election last year. I heard more than a few white people who were peers of mine or family friends express some truly stupid, and in some cases vile, racial contempt towards Barack Obama. It truly was just like they turned on a “stupid” switch somewhere in their brains when it came to the election.

Am I trying to bestow some saintly character on African Americans by saying this? Of course not. Stupidity, greed, vanity, thoughtlessness, criminality, and every vice you can name come in all shapes, sizes, genders, races and ethnicities. But I suppose I feel compelled to say all of this about this story because it has utterly laid bare a dirty aspect of my upbringing, to say nothing of that of probably millions of other Americans.

A while back, I teed off on Attorney General Eric Holder because of some phrasing from him that I genuinely didn’t like about race relations in this country (here).

However, given this story, I think the main reason I feel this way is that I’m starting to believe that he could be right.

Update 7/10/09: I'm not a bit surprised that Keystone Progress has now gotten involved - kudos to them (here).

Update 7/12/09: I grudgingly give the swim club credit for doing the right thing here - we'll see.

Update 7/18/09: And while I was away, I believe Creative Steps said "thanks, but no thanks" to the offer to come back from the swim club - smart move (here is an update).

Update 11/14/09: Surprised?

Wednesday Stuff

"Worst Persons" (the blog Freedom Works gets the bronze for decrying lobbyists, when the person in charge of FW, Dick "Barney Fag" Armey, is a lobbyist extraordinaire for AIG and GM - you can cut some of this with a knife, my fellow prisoners; Jim Inhofe gets it also for calling Al Franken a clown - yes, I know I already gave him the treatment for that here (last item), but why not again, I ask?; but Repug State Senator Sylvia Allen of Arizona gets the nod for proclaiming that the earth is 6,000 years old in the course of a hearing about uranium mining - ummm, OK)...

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

...and now, time for a musical interlude.