Friday Mashup (1/22/10)

(And I also posted here - forgot the date...oh well.)

This item that appeared at Politico a couple of days ago (as well as the New York Times) tells us the following…

House Minority Leader John Boehner has tapped an old friend to be his new chief of staff: Barry Jackson, an architect of the Contract With America, a minor player in the saga of disgraced lobbyist Jack Abramoff and Karl Rove’s former right-hand man.

The Ohio native is a fierce, if low-profile, Boehner defender whom allies described as the obvious choice to succeed Chief of Staff Paula Nowakowski, who died suddenly of a heart attack on Jan. 9.

“He’s a loyalist,” said John Feehery, a Republican consultant and spokesman for former Speaker Dennis Hastert. “He was very loyal to Bush, and he will be very loyal to John. ... He’s always going to have John’s back.”

Actually I don’t know how “minor” a player Jackson was in the Abramoff scandal when you review this Daily Kos 2006 post, in which we also learn, among other things, that Jackson was the principal schemer behind Dubya’s privatization hustle on Social Security. We also learn the following…

From early on Jackson was GOP policy player. He helped form and sell the Contract with America. He was the Executive Director of the House Republican Conference from 1995 to 1998. This means that he has been at the table for every GOP scam over the last 16 years. He, like Boehner, was present at the birth of the K Street Project and they were both present when Jack Abramoff was chosen to be the point of the GOP spear for the Party's effort to control all Lobbying money in DC.

Back on April 17, 1996, the Hill published an article, (Repug CA U.S. House Rep Elton) Gallegly blasts GOP aides' trip to Saipan amid charges of labor abuses in Pacific territory by Marcia Gelbart and Eamon Javers. The article dealt the chairman of the House Resources Subcommittee on Native American and Insular Affairs and his anger at Congressional aides taking trips to Saipan without getting his approval.

Now this would have been at the very beginning of Jack Abramoff's efforts to block legislation that would end sweatshops on the US territory of CNMI. Organizing junkets for the GOP elite was key to protecting the labor abuse on Saipan from justice.

I have not found the article online (so I am posting much of it), but Rep. John Boehner's Chief of Staff, Barry Jackson, was one of the first to take a trip on Jack Abramoff's dime…

…

"I'm really disappointed" Gallegly said. "It is common courtesy around here that the chairman of the committee should know what's going on in his own jurisdiction," he added, noting that full committee Chairman Don Young (R- Alaska) was also unaware of the trip.

Daily Kos diarist dengre also tells us that Jackson was behind Dubya’s campaign for president in 2000 as a “reformer with results” (gag me), having wormed his way into Number 43’s “graces” since Boehner lost his chair in the House Repug Conference to former rep J.C. Watts – as a result, Jackson looked for a new benefactor and latched onto Karl Rove, hence becoming pals with eventual-President Nutball (before recently reuniting with Boehner, of course).

Oh, and did you know that Jackson was behind the Medicare Part D scam also?

And I mentioned the Social Security fiasco earlier; it turns out that one of the front groups involved was called the United Seniors Association, which links Jackson to none other than…yep, you guessed it, Jack Abramoff.

No one should have any illusions that the congressional Repugs, sensing a return to power this fall, are going to put back into place all of the players (or, at least, as many as they can of those who aren’t doing time) who flourished when they ran our government like the foxes raiding the proverbial hen house. This move to bring back Barry Jackson is a herald of such future bad tidings.

Also, last Sunday brought us more economics wankery in the New York Times from N. Gregory Mankiw (here)…

To be sure, we have large budget deficits and ample money growth. The federal government’s budget deficit was $390 billion in the first quarter of fiscal 2010, or about 11 percent of gross domestic product. Such a large deficit was unimaginable just a few years ago.

In response, I give you Brad DeLong (from February 2008 here)…

The Bush administration and its flacks and flunkies have long promised that the administration was going to "cut the deficit in half" by the time in left office in fiscal 2009. The press by and large reported this straight--not pointing out that the "cut in half" was from a highballed projected peak deficit number that was artificially inflated in order to set the bar artificially low, not pointing out that such a deficit still left fiscal policy far from where it ought to be, and not pointing out that the Bushies' policies would produce such a reduction only if everything broke right and we had four uninterrupted years of macroeconomic good news. Republican economists who cared more about pleasing White House communications than in informing their audience chimed in--why, I get 100 hits on Google for Greg Mankiw saying both when he was under and since he came out from under message discipline that George W. Bush's proposals were projected to reduce the deficit by half by 2009. Not under any projection that I would recognize as straight.

So if our deficit was “unimaginable,” it was probably because imagination was the only tool Mankiw used to crunch numbers who would please his handlers in power at the time.

And Mankiw does some more “navel gazing” here…

In light of the large fiscal imbalance over which Mr. Obama is presiding, it’s a good bet he will end up raising taxes for most Americans in coming years. Higher tax rates mean reduced work incentives and lower potential output. If the Fed fails to account for this change, it could try to promote more growth than the economy can sustain, causing inflation to rise.

Funny, but Mankiw said here that we need more inflation to supposedly speed the economic recovery, not less.

And get a load of this for a true laugh from Mankiw…

Yet, despite having the two classic ingredients for high inflation, the United States has experienced only benign price increases. Over the last year, the core Consumer Price Index, excluding food and energy, has risen by less than 2 percent.

Memo to Mankiw – I don’t know what planet you live on, but on the one upon which I reside, food and energy are probably our two highest costs, along with medicines. Why you would exclude food and energy from the CPI is something I cannot fathom, unless of course your intention is to fudge numbers and do nothing more than that.

Yep, this is some majorly fracked-up opinionating on the economy, I’ll grant you. But at least Mankiw doesn’t consider a gas tax as economic stimulus as he did here.

Finally, the New York Times told us the following recently (here)…

The nation’s police chiefs are finding an alarming increase in criminals’ use of assault weapons — the high-powered battlefield rifles that used to be banned, back when the federal government showed greater concern for public safety. The 10-year ban expired in 2004, despite the vows of presidential nominees from both parties to fight for renewal. Congress hasn’t mustered the guts to try, preferring to roll over for the gun lobby.

A survey of more than 130 local police chiefs and officials found 37 percent reporting an increase in assault weapons in street crime. Front-line police find criminals generally packing more powerful heat, with more than half of the chiefs citing increases in large-caliber handguns and high-capacity semiautomatics — the real-life stuff of tough-guy movie fantasies. Miami police reported that four years after politicians allowed the federal ban to lapse, homicides by assault weapons increased sixfold, including the murder of two police officers.

The findings were part of a police brass “summit on guns and crime” in Washington last November that was studiously ignored by the capital ruling class. Meeting as members of the Police Executive Research Forum, the attendees underlined the disheartening fact that “there seems to be little or no appetite for gun control legislation in the U.S. Congress or the Obama administration.”

In their frustration, the chiefs deserve credit for trying to come up with some local and state solutions — for example, requiring owners to immediately document lost or stolen guns as a deterrent to the current dodge of selling them as “lost” in the underground market.

The chiefs were collectively enlightened, discovering that in most states gun dealers are monitored not by state or local police but by federal firearm inspectors. They have a force of but 600 covering 115,000 gun dealers — who may be visited no more than once a year. Polls regularly show that the public, including most gun hobbyists, wants more realistic gun controls. But don’t tell that to the timorous politicians of Washington.

As I said here, the gun rules over all in this country.

Deal with it, America.

Thursday Stuff

I actually apologize for including this clip with Dr. Dean trying to talk sense to Tweety here and having to explain himself about a dozen times at least between about 2:30 and 7:00 to this loon on what the Massachusetts voters were saying in the election, but Dean makes good points as usual (and I liked that none-too-veiled dig by Dean at Tim Kaine...yes, the answer is to go to work and stop picking fights, but Kaine and DSCC chair Bob Menendez deserve a bit of a jab at least for the election result)...

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Update 1/23/10: God, what an idiot (at least I'm not a Hillary Clinton misogynist).

...and gosh, who would've thought that Biblical references on rifle scopes used to train Muslims would have "blowback" on us? You think maybe that would be a motivation to pretend to shoot at us instead (hopefully nothing more than pretend - and why did I suspect that Steve Douchey of Fix Noise was involved somehow)?...

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...and in a Special Comment tonight, K.O. tells us the latest havoc wreaked by our corporatist High Court - of all their horrendous rulings, one day this may be looked upon as the worst of all (Keith should get an Emmy for this, for what it's worth)...

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...and even though I am now thoroughly depressed and cursing Dubya once more, whose horrific acts continue to loom large (see above), let's check out this video anyway (oddly appropriate?).

As The MA Ashes Continue To Smolder

I probably should have my head examined for linking to this, but I'm doing it because, as Dr. Dean said last night, this is how we should respond to the loss of Ted Kennedy's Senate seat instead of participating in a circular firing squad (this is from Democracy for America)...

Yesterday, we released a poll we commissioned from Research 2000 taken immediately after voting ended on Tuesday night in Massachusetts. The results send a clear message to Democrats in Washington: Be bold, fight for more change -- not less, and pass healthcare with a public option.

The poll results are such a shock to out-of-touch leaders in Washington and talking-head blowhards on T.V. that they're still pushing back, instead of listening.

But DFA members, and our partners at the Progressive Change Campaign Committee and CREDO Action, got it immediately and took action. In less than 24 hours, we've already gathered 150,000 signatures demanding Democrats be bolder.

Can we get to 250,000 before we deliver this emergency petition and all the signatures to every Democrat in Washington?

CLICK HERE TO ADD YOUR NAME

So, what are out-of-touch Democrats saying in response to the MA poll results?

They're saying "the majority of voters for the Republican wanted to kill healthcare altogether, not pass it." Obviously, but of course, they're missing the point. This isn't about what the majority of Republican voters wanted.

This is about why the Democrat lost the election and it comes down to the new swing vote: Stay-at-Home Voters and Obama-Voting Independents who turned this election over to the Republican.

Both sets of swing voters don't think the current Senate bill goes far enough and over 80% of them want a public option. That's what the poll shows. If a public option was in the Senate bill then these swing voters would have delivered victory to the Democrats. It's as simple as that.

It's up to us to make sure Democrats in Washington not only get the message, but hear it. Turn up the volume and sign our emergency petition right now.

ADD YOUR NAME -- THEN PASS IT ON

After you sign, you can take it a step further and call the Democrat in Congress who represents your district (if you have one) or Speaker Nancy Pelosi and tell them where you stand.

We need to make a public whip count of who in Congress will stand up and demand the Senate use the special rules of "budget reconciliation" to pass healthcare and a public option with 51 votes. If enough Healthcare Heroes in the House of Representatives demand the Senate use Reconciliation then the Senate will be forced to listen.

But we can't win without your calls. We'll e-mail the phone numbers to call and reach your member of Congress after you sign the emergency petition.

PLEASE SIGN THE EMERGENCY PETITION NOW

We know getting Democrats in Washington to wake up and get the job done is a long shot, but the only way we can guarantee it never happens is if we never demand it.

The fight for real reform is not over unless we quit. But DFA members don't quit -- we always work to win.

Thank you for everything you do.

-Charles

Charles Chamberlain, Political Director
Democracy for America

Yes, I know there are way too many "corpocrat" Dems who don't deserve our support. However, giving up on these life forms only guarantees their flip over to the Republican Party (see Adler, John), in issue orientation and voting preference if not in an official, formal process.

The corporate media drum beat for "bipartisanship" with stories featuring how wonderful Evan Bayh, Holy Joe Lieberman and President Snowe supposedly are (and Bob Kerrey of course, who hasn't belonged to Congress for years) will only grow louder. That's why we have our work cut out for us.

Wednesday Stuff

I had a quick post over here - also, on the subject of the Massachusetts debacle, Howard Dean sizes up matters effectively as usual here (these words were spoken before Brown won)...



...and I never thought of this as a mournful song until now.

A Word Or Two About Martha Coakley

It is inconceivable that the U.S. Senate Seat that belonged to Ted Kennedy for 47 years is now owned by a teabagger, but that is where we are.

I spent a good deal of time and energy recently doing whatever I could, in my own small way, to generate some "buzz" on behalf of Coakley, though of course it went for naught. And based on what I'd read, I'd suspected it was because, in addition to the anti-incumbency fervor, Martha Coakley was a certifiably bad candidate.

And after reading this post from Ryan Grim of HuffPo, I now realize how correct that appraisal is.

I cannot imagine the gall of a political campaign or candidate to blame President Obama for Coakley's loss, when Obama had just come to the state in an effort to whip "the faithful" into enough of a frenzy to try and propel her to victory, and in the process, make the emphatic case for her that she should have made for herself long ago.

You can legitimately blame Obama for not taking a harder line against the "banksters." But was it Obama's fault that the Coakley campaign appeared to fall into some sort of somnambulant trance for about a month but decided to respond to "the fierce urgency of sometime after the first of the New Year" when it realized the extent to which it had fallen in the polls?

Was it Obama's fault that the Coakley campaign didn't bother to run some kind of an ad with Ted Kennedy's widow endorsing her (I couldn't find one)? Was it Obama's fault that Coakley seemed to campaign like the deer in the proverbial headlights and show no fight whatsoever (and thus play into the slowly-building momentum for Brown...and let's not forget that the "racial divide" has basically fallen in our politics, but when it comes to the highest office, the "gender divide" hasn't...only trying to point out how hard it is for a woman in politics versus a man - not bitching about it, just stating a fact)?

Was it Obama's fault that Coakley made that utterly brainless remark about Curt Schilling, who of course used it to hammer her (she could have called Schilling a grand-stander and an opportunist after giving him his due as a great pitcher, and she would've been right, but no, she had to hand the opposition a nice, big, juicy piece of red meat by comparing him to the Yankees)?

Was it Obama’s fault that the Brown campaign ended up learning the lessons of social networking much better than the Coakley campaign did (substantially more “tweets” and lookups for Brown than Coakley)? Was it Obama’s fault that the Brown campaign was able to launch a “money bomb” when that apparently was something that the Coakley campaign realized it couldn’t pull off or didn’t even bother to try?

Was it Obama’s fault that the Coakley campaign slid to the point where it actually looked like Brown was taking the high road by criticizing his opponent for what looked like a campaign rally on the Martin Luther King, Jr. holiday?

Obama is President of the United States, not just Massachusetts, almost-Senator Coakley. If you don’t understand what’s going on in your own state, then you have no business in the U.S. Senate.

The problem, of course, is that Brown doesn’t understand either (or he understands enough to parrot marketing-approved talking points and not much else), but he managed to win the election anyway.

If nothing else, it will be an interesting three years.

And by the way, I have a word for all of those independent voters out there who propelled Brown to victory.

The Republicans were the ones who damn near wrecked this country, with Obama and the Dems trying to rebuild it from the shards left after the dark Bushco reign. And if you honestly think that Brown isn’t one of them, or that he actually has any interest in fixing the messes you pretend to care about, then you’re nothing but a bunch of goddamned idiots (and by the way, what kos sez here).

Update 1 1/20/10: I think this is food for thought, particularly concerning my prior comment.

Update 2 1/20/10: As surely as flatulence follows indigestion (here)...

Once More, Say Bayh To Dem Credibility

I don’t have a lot to say about this, but I just wanted to point out something.

I don’t know what’s going to happen in Massachusetts today in the way-too-close Senate race between Martha Coakley and Scott Brown (and more related videos are here), though I’ve been reading that the turnout is good, which usually favors the Dems. However, a story in the New York Times yesterday about this contest included the following quote from Sen. Evan Bayh of Indiana…

I do think there’s a chance that Congressional elites mistook their mandate,” Mr. Bayh said. “I don’t think the American people last year voted for higher taxes, higher deficits and a more intrusive government. But there’s a perception that that is what they are getting.”

“Congressional elites”? You serve in the U.S. Senate, dude. That’s about as “elite” as it gets!

And in the matter of supposedly voting for higher taxes, this USA Today story from a little more than a year ago tells us the following…

WASHINGTON — President-elect Barack Obama's $825 billion plan to jump-start the economy and create or save up to 4 million jobs includes twice as much money for spending as for tax cuts, setting up an early battle with Republicans in Congress who favor a different approach.

…

Much of the $275 billion in tax cuts would go to middle-income families in the form of $1,000 tax cuts ($500 for individuals). An array of business and other tax cuts would make up the remainder.

If anything, our economy continues to stumble after being pulled back from the precipice because there was too much of a tax cut at the expense of measures that would stimulate job growth (more substantial infrastructure investment, “cram down” relief for homeowners who could have restructured the principal amounts of their mortgages, possibly a second stimulus, using leftover TARP funds for job creation, etc.), not because there wasn’t enough of a tax cut. And as far as Bayh’s ridiculous comment about “higher deficits and more intrusive government,” such pants-wetting parroting of “conventional wisdom” doesn’t deserve a response.

It is a source of continual disgust to me that I have to share a political allegiance with life forms like Evan Bayh who, along with former Sen. Bob Kerrey, are apparently the Times’ most favorite Democrats when they are in need of a quote to validate their narrative (and another episode of “old gray lady” wankery involving Bayh is noted here).

Update 1/23/10: Of course this is more Bayh wankery (h/t Atrios), but pay particular attention to the shockingly sensible comments of Rob Andrews at the very end here; between this and calling out that tool Gregg Jarrett over Jarrett's "tenther" BS, Andrews has done a good job of working his way back into our good graces, IMHO (John Adler should take copious notes).

Update 1/31/10: More of the same from Bayh here...

Monday Stuff

I posted some videos about the Coakley/Brown campaign here, about which Markos Moulitsas has a sobering assessment below...

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...which is all the more depressing when you realize what Brown truly is, as K.O. tells us here...

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..."Worst Persons" (Karen Hughes tells us that Richard Reid, the shoe bomber, didn't have anything to do with al Qaeda, which is odd because that's not what the indictment said; somebody named Dean Zerbe casts aspersions about the rapper Wyclef Jean's relief effort for Haiti, baselessly so as it turns out...why do I have a feeling that Mrs. Graham is doing somersaults in her grave over this and other WaPo nonsense; but Sean Inanity gets it for his cavalier use of the word "earthquake" concerning political stories - yep, I think Sean's head is full of something, though not cheese, but it is something you would definitely find on a farm)...

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...and I dedicate this one to Scott Brown.

Remembering Dr. King

Here are here are prior posts honoring Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., and here is a link from philly.com to an excerpt from his speech at the Barratt Junior High School in South Philadelphia on October 26, 1967.

And here is the most memorable excerpt from his final speech.

The LMT “Supes” Sing A Sad Aria Song

(A local item coming up for folks in Bucks County, PA – also, I posted some “odds and ends” stuff over here.)

The last thing in the world I want to do is actually agree with an editorial in the Bucks County Courier Times (their pointless, idiotic slur against Italian-Americans notwithstanding, which you'll read shortly), but they said the following last Tuesday (here)…

Three Lower Makefield supervisors raised suspicion and stretched the law with secret out-of-town meetings.

Here are three rules elected officials should abide by: 1. Don't hold secret meetings. 2. If you do hold secret meetings, don't hold them at out-of-town restaurants. (It looks suspicious.) 3. Most importantly, don't hold secret out-of-town meetings at restaurants named "Guido's." (It looks really suspicious.)

Although it's a bit late, Lower Makefield Supervisors Pete Stainthorpe, Greg Caiola and Dan McLaughlin should stick the aforementioned rules on their refrigerators as a reminder that their secret meetings with Aria Health officials were a bad idea and should not be repeated - with anybody.

The editorial is based on this story in which we learn that a member of the group RAFR (Residents Against Frankford Relocation) discovered that Stainthorpe, Caiola and McLaughlin met with officials of Aria Health (Stainthorpe and Caiola at “Guido’s” on November 17th – McLaughlin isn’t providing details so far), with Aria wanting to move the hospital currently located near Business Route 1 in Middletown (next to Oxford Valley Mall) to Lower Makefield, next to Shady Brook Farm.

The story also tells us that Stainthorpe and Caiola remain opposed to the project, and the two note that they both “paid their checks,” which is nice information, though it hardly goes to the main point here, as noted in the Courier Times editorial (to me, meeting with Aria “on the sly” doesn’t pass the smell test - and in case anyone had any doubt, I personally oppose the relocation to LMT)…

While there's logic to their argument (of Stainthorpe and Caiola in favor of the meeting), it is still a flawed argument. That's because perception is reality and no matter how you view it the meetings look bad.

Not only should anything Aria has to say to the supervisors be aired in public, the manner in which the three supervisors met suggests a cynical effort to circumvent the law. Three supervisors make a quorum, a majority that legally can meet only after public notice - whether in executive session or openly. By dividing, the supervisors conquered the law.

It should be noted, though, that McLaughlin apparently met with Aria prior to his swearing-in as a Lower Makefield Township Supervisor. Would it have been too much to ask to wait for this to take place before he decided to “freelance” here?

As far as I’m concerned, the only LMT supervisor who got this exactly right was Matt Maloney, who said the following (from the news story)…

"I didn't know about this meeting involving Pete and Greg. I'm disappointed in that. It sounds like the meeting was completely innocuous. It doesn't sound like there was anything detrimental or hostile to the township in their conversations, but I think it's important going forward that whatever the board does in terms of real or perceived negotiations with Aria, that it does so in unanimity. I prefer going forward all five of us get on the same page and be aware of any meetings involving any of us ahead of time. I also think we have to be honest with the public as we go through this appeals process."

And the fact that the three supervisors technically constituted a “quorum,” as the Courier Times notes, could have detrimental legal implications as this whole process with Aria unwinds.

Also, while I’m on the subject of local area politics, allow me to go on record as supporting a tax increase to pay for more soccer fields (which, apparently, is going to be voted down, if it hasn’t been already). LMT Supervisor Ron Smith has alleged some kind of a “power play” by those supporting the increase. I don’t know anything about that. What I do know is that we’re friends with families whose sons and daughters play soccer, and they have to play most of their games out of the township because there isn’t enough space in Lower Makefield (if anyone thinks we’re not overcrowded around here, try navigating through the parking lots of Macclesfield Park on a fall afternoon with multiple sporting events taking place).

More Op-Ed Malpractice From Mikey And The C-T

This Guest Opinion from our former PA-08 U.S. House rep appeared about a week ago, on January 12th to be exact...

Recently I attempted to speak with Congressman Patrick Murphy about the disappointing votes being cast in Washington as the current Congress squanders an historic opportunity to improve health coverage for all Americans. He told me to call him later.

Bucks Countians have been waiting months for their representative in Congress to hear their concerns about the gaggle of bills under consideration in the Capitol. Despite repeated calls for a town hall meeting where constituents can meet their elected federal representative face-to-face, questions and concerns have gone unanswered.

As noted here, Murphy did meet face to face on health care in a “Congressman In Your Corner” event that Murphy stated was not a town hall meeting, so Fitzpatrick is technically correct. However, true to form as always, he omits the fact that Murphy held conference calls with constituents on health care reform to avoid all of the teabagger nonsense such as this (again, in which Barney Frank gives one of these life forms the treatment she deserves).



Back to Mikey…

The reason: Patrick Murphy is in favor of government control of healthcare. I know because he told me so.

And in his quest to vote for a "strong public option" (read: the beginning of the federal government taking over our health decision making)…

OK, time out – here is a video from former Clinton Labor Secretary Robert Reich describing the intent of the public option (which I’m sure will never be realized in part because of the utterly brainless demagoguery of those who opposed health care reform overall)…



Back to Mikey…

…he rushed headlong into H.R. 3962 which provides:

For individual taxpayers: Higher taxes on high-income filers, federal mandates to purchase health insurance or be subject to federal penalties and exemptions for non-resident aliens. In conjunction with the passage of HR 3962 (by the slimmest of margins and with Patrick Murphy's full support), Murphy also voted to pass HR 3961, increasing physician reimbursements and deficit spending, which adds to the federal debt.

As noted here…

HR 3962 is the big House health care bill. HR 3961 is the standalone bill that would spend $210 billion (latest CBO score for the bill) to cancel the Sustainable Growth Rate Formula cuts and pays for it by adding the full cost to the deficit. That proposal failed in the Senate a few weeks ago when only 47 Democrats supported it.

And the fact that HR 3961 was defeated in the Senate is hardly Murphy’s fault (with HR 3961 being the legislation to ensure the deficit neutrality of the health care legislation…and by the way, let’s see whether or not deficit neutrality is achieved in the bill which may yet go through reconciliation after all, as noted here).

Back to Mikey…

For employers: Practically every small business is now federally mandated to provide "qualified" coverage or be subject to a new, 8 percent tax. Employers are also limited in use of Flexible Savings Accounts, which I use to pay out of pocket medical expenses for my children and used for my own recent medical expenses in cancer recovery.

As for as Mikey’s supposedly onerous new tax, this from HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius tells us that employers “could qualify for a tax credit to help pay their premiums.[vii] An estimated 12 percent of people insured through small businesses will qualify for tax credits that lower premiums by 8 to 11 percent. This translates into $620 to $860 for individuals and $1,540 to $2,120 for families assuming that the coverage is comparable to what they get today.” And as far as Fitzpatrick’s “flexible savings account,” this tells us that “HSA/high deductible plans shift more of the health financing burden onto those using significant amounts of care, with negative ramifications for the low-income and high-need. Nor is it clear that cost-containment, higher value shopping, or reductions in the uninsured will follow.”

Back to Mikey...

For seniors: $571 billion has been slashed from your allocated Medicare funding; $170 billion has been cut from your Medicare Advantage Plans. Your Medicare D premiums will be increased to help pay for new federal programs your representatives deem nice to have.

I tried to “source” the claim about $571 billion being “slashed” from Medicare, as Mikey put it, and I know it was referenced in an article in The Hill from last November (which, to me, doesn’t automatically assure objectivity), and in looking this up, I found this link to the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services report where that $571 billion figure came from, and it tells us the following…

- The estimated Federal costs of the coverage provisions in HR 3962…would increase by a net total of $406 billion during (2010 to 2019) – a combination of $935 billion in net costs associated with coverage provisions, $571 billion in net savings from the Medicare provisions…

- Net Medicare savings are estimated to total $571 billion for fiscal years 2010-2019, with the majority of the savings arising from provisions in Title I of Division B (“Improving Health Care Value”).

- Total net savings from Medicare provisions would offset about $571 billion of the federal costs for the national coverage provisions.

Now I don’t claim to be an expert at crunching numbers, but can someone explain to me how all of this can be translated into “slashing” $571 billion in Medicare funding? Where is it written that the projected savings will come from cutting subscriber coverage?

And as far as Medicare Advantage is concerned, the whole damn thing is a scam anyway for private insurers who get a subsidy that they should pass along to their subscribers, but don’t. Also, Fitzpatrick has no room to criticize ANYBODY on Medicare Part D, which will close the donut hole Fitzpatrick originally helped create, as noted here.

Back to Mikey…

Murphy's bill is packed with problems too numerous to mention in my limited space available.

That’s a con-vee-nient excuse.

But Murphy's bad bill got worse in the U.S. Senate. Now we find out that, in addition to paying new Medicaid increases for Pennsylvania residents, we also are expected to pick up the cost for Nebraska residents because they "cut a deal" to buy Sen. Nelson's support. Still no comment from Patrick. Still no town hall meeting for his constituents.

Why the hell should Patrick Murphy feel obligated to conduct town hall meetings over a Senate screwup when he serves in the House? I think Mikey is losing his mind here.

And by the way, as long as Mikey is alleging that PA-08 residents have to pick up the tab for out-of-state malfeasance (in the case of Ben Nelson and Nebraska), this tells us that Mikey said not a word when government money (including that of PA-08 taxpayers) was used to fund no-bid contracts to firms accused of abuse, fraud, or excessive profiteering in the reconstruction of Hurricane Katrina (70 percent of the contracts were awarded on that basis, again, without a peep from Mikey in protest).

Back to Mikey…

Provide tax relief that makes it easier, not more difficult, for employers to provide health coverage. Reform the health justice system. Incentivize innovative solutions that fight healthcare fraud.

Mikey either doesn’t know that Patrick Murphy introduced this bill to fight Medicare fraud, or he knows but doesn’t want to admit it.

There is $250 billion in easy money - currently wasted - in the federal health programs. Recover the money and use it to cover pre-existing conditions and to reward health care clinics that already provide coverage to the uninsured: the Mother Bachmann clinic in Bensalem, HealthLink in Southampton and The Free Clinic at Doylestown Hospital.

I can’t think of a word to describe how ridiculous it is that Fitzpatrick doesn’t even acknowledge here that the health care reform bill will make it illegal for a subscriber to be dropped from coverage due to a pre-existing condition. And I’m not even going to bother sourcing that $250 billion figure because I’m tired of looking up numbers that Fitzpatrick is apparently too lazy to properly source himself.

(And by the way, I have a question for Guy Petroziello, editorial page editor of the Bucks County Courier Times – why the hell do you continue to publish editorial content where writers don’t source their information?)

Back to Mikey...

I firmly believe that the best solutions already exist in the communities across America. Our representatives should spend more time listening to us and less time listening to the partisans inside the Beltway. An old-fashioned, town hall meeting back home in Bucks County would be a good start.

In a strange kind of way, I was curious to know what Mike Fitzpatrick was up to all of this time, and I genuinely hope his health has improved. That being said, after reading this assault on common sense, I now realize that he has not changed one bit and remains the arrogant liar he formerly was when he served in the U.S. Congress.

Mikey, shut up and get out of the way. Why don’t you join the teabaggers in their massive “pity party” over their perception of Caucasian disenfranchisement due to the election of an African-American president? That way, the adults will be able to fix, to some degree, the mess you helped create.

Friday Stuff

I don't want to shock anyone, but I may actually have an honest-to-goodness post ready to go soon (crossing my fingers - the ones that aren't casted, I mean).

For now, though, Rachel Maddow tells us about the horror in Haiti (NBC correspondent Kerry Sanders goes a great job here, I think, of "winging it" with the on-scene reporting)...

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...and K.O. reminds us that, despite the catastrophe on that ill-fated island, there is no rest for the wingnuts...

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...and Spencer Tracy, as the Clarence Darrow character in "Inherit The Wind," the re-creation of the Scopes Monkey Trial, tells us why at about 2:06 of this clip...



...and finally, for no particular reason, I give you this.

Thursday Stuff

I have a feeling I'll be repeating this ad every night until next Tuesday; Lawrence O'Donnell called Coakley/Brown in Massachusetts a "toss up" tonight on "Countdown" - this is what happens when voters elect a "hopey, changey" candidate with solid majorities in Congress, though those individuals collectively accomplish almost nothing when it comes to energizing their base (this is noteworthy also)...



...and RIP Teddy Pendergrass, perhaps the most famous star of the "Philly Sound."

Thursday Mashup (1/14/10)

Taking a break from PT to try posting - I'll stop if it becomes too agonizing (my arm I mean, not necessarily the content, though some of the news stories I’m commenting on are also)...

I know this blog is ostensibly about news and politics/activism, but I cannot ignore the battle going on at the moment between NBC, Conan O'Brien and Jay Leno.

I haven't regularly watched late-night TV for years, but speaking only for myself, what I did for a time was watch Leno for his monologue (he still has the best stand-up timing and delivery of anyone) and then watch Letterman for his interviews and skits, since Letterman was more likely to do something goofy or blurt out something unexpected in an interview. O'Brien kind of matches both forms of comedy and does either well and has clever ideas (anybody who gives time to Triumph The Insult Dog is OK by me).

NBC concocted the Leno 10:00 show first and foremost because they were too cheap to develop prime-time dramas for that slot, and they obviously had no "Plan B" in the event that Leno failed (of course, since Leno finished with strong ratings at his old slot, NBC thought those people would follow him, forgetting completely somehow that 10:00 and 11:30 audiences each have different tastes and expectations…guess they never learned from “That Was The Week That Was” all those years ago, which only lasted for a year). However, for all of Leno's positives, I don't think it was very forward-thinking by the supposed NBC programming geniuses to cater to Leno at the expense of O'Brien, with the latter clearly making hay, as it were, out of this mess as noted here.

Also, why throw O'Brien under the bus at the expense of Leno, who's more closely identified with a "boomer" audience that is only going to diminish over time? The people watching O'Brien should be the ones advertisers choose to pursue since they'll have more spending power simply because they'll live longer. And now, it looks like they'll pursue O'Brien on Fox instead of The Peacock Network.

Finally, I admire O'Brien and think he's a bright guy, but please spare me this nonsense from him that he cares about the integrity of the "Tonight Show" franchise. He got rooked by the suits and he's going to bail for a better offer. And by and large, nobody blames him. That's it.

Also (returning to more familiar stuff), with the news of the pending departure of John Shadegg from the U.S. House (noted here), I will await stories from our beloved corporate media of the supposed declining electoral fortunes of the national Republican Party; assuming basic fairness was a consideration in their coverage (and as far as I'm concerned, it isn't), I should see at least as many stories to that effect involving Shadegg, who served in federal government, as I saw about how Colorado Governor Bill Ritter's decision not to run affected the national fortunes of the Democrats, even though Ritter's job did not involve federal government in any way (and I know all I'll hear will be the sound of crickets).

And here is a memorable Shadegg moment that deserves a second look, I believe.

Finally, the New York Times told us the following in the very last paragraph of this story about U.S. contractors trying to make money off Iraqi oil…

Halliburton’s former subsidiary, KBR, which was once run by former Vice President Dick Cheney, has won contracts worth more than $24 billion since the start of the war, giving it vast responsibility for reinvigorating Iraq’s oil sector. Among many other criticisms of the company’s performance in Iraq, Pentagon auditors found that KBR had overcharged the government by more than $200 million.

Call me a filthy, unkempt liberal blogger who watched “Schoolhouse Rock” too much when growing up (here - actually, I never even saw the show once) or took too many hallucinogenic drugs (here - no comment), but as far as I’m concerned, that should be the lede.

Wednesday Stuff

Let's do what we can to help avoid a "Massachusetts Mistake" next Tuesday, OK...



...that being said, the Biblical ruin in Haiti is no doubt the biggest story and cause for concern...



...though, of course, that will never stop the right-wing idiots from spewing their garbage; no line these people will refuse to cross, truly...

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...and I had another video in mind for tonight, but I think the following (or some variation) is the only appropriate one instead.

Tuesday Stuff

(Someday blogging with return to normal, I hope, but I don't see that happening anytime soon.)

In the meantime, I'm not completely sure what's up with this business about Obama and his excise health care tax which is apparently D.O.A. in the House, but at least the Terra! Terra! Terra! thing seems to be going well, for now (no, I don't agree with what he's doing in Afghanistan, but he should be given at least the same chance to try something he thinks will work as his incompetent predecessor had)...

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...and happy 80th birthday to pop icon Glenn Yarbrough of the Limeliters (this song fits on a couple of different levels right now - interesting look with the '60s "furniture girls"...kind of reminded me of a Fellini movie).

Monday Stuff

I gotta tell ya', when it comes to pure, unadulterated political comedy, those teabaggin' wingnuts have it all over everybody else, and that goes for The Club for Growth also (and Mark Leibovich's story in the NYT Magazine yesterday was pretty good)...

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...and yeah, I was a little creeped out by this too.

Sunday Mashup (1/10/10)

I missed this Moonie Times screed from right-wing blowhard Cal Thomas probably because I was in year-end-wrapup mode and it escaped my attention; see, President Obama talked to grade-school kids and said something typically socialistic such as your spirit is more important than your wealth, or thoughtful words to that effect, and Thomas immediately conceived a plot by the redistributing-community-organizer-in-chief, of course.

What really got me, though, was the following…

We still have stuff - too much, in fact. Letting go of some of it has not caused people to die in the streets - despite the ludicrous claim by Senate We still have stuff - too much, in fact. Letting go of some of it has not caused people to die in the streets - despite the ludicrous claim by Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid that someone dies in America every 10 minutes because he or she lacks health insurance.

Well, I don’t know how “ludicrous” Reid’s claim is, but I do know that Nicholas Kristof of the New York Times wrote the following (from here)…

We may know intellectually that 18,000 Americans die each year because they don’t have insurance, but to confront one such person is still heartbreaking. And I just can’t believe that we will let this opportunity for health reform slip through our fingers, so that Americans like Nikki continue to die needlessly every 30 minutes.

So Reid says every 10, and Kristof says every 30. I wasn’t able to “source” either claim as effectively as I would like, though I would take Kristof’s word on this subject over Thomas any day of the week.

In addition, the Bucks County Courier Times reported the following today (and it turns out I may need this pic again after all)…

It looks as if Mike Fitzpatrick is about to enter the 8th District race for Congress.

Speaking on WNPV radio Saturday morning, the former Republican congressman from Middletown said, "I'm certainly considering it."

Gee, at this point, I wonder who else is going to get into this fray? What a far cry from two years ago when Tom Manion was the only individual willing to take a shot.

There is a serious side to this story, and that is the fact that Fitzpatrick appears to have recovered from colorectal cancer, which is good news. However, you can rest assured that, should Mikey decide to compete for his old seat, I plan to bring a wealth of posting material from a few years ago to bear against him.

Update 1/13/10: By the way, it did not escape my attention that Fitzpatrick wrote a typically tripe-filled Guest Opinion in the Bucks County Courier Times yesterday. I will respond at my earliest opportunity, though I don't know when that will be.

Finally, I give you some pundit wankery from The Old Gray Lady today, from Sheryl Gay Stolberg in particular here (yet another story about how the Dems are supposedly collapsing because of the Dodd, Dorgan and Ritter announcements)…

WASHINGTON — There are many ways for a politician to make an exit.

There is the resignation-in-disgrace exit (Richard Nixon) and the sex scandal exit (Larry Craig, Eliot Spitzer) and the kicking-and-screaming exit (Rod Blagojevich, the former Illinois governor who declared, “I will fight, I will fight, I will fight,” as he was about to be impeached). Some politicians (Hillary Clinton, Jon Corzine) have no choice but to make an exit — the voters rejected them.

Uhh…which voters rejected Hillary Clinton again?

Oh wait, I get it now. Stolberg is referring to Clinton’s loss to Obama in the Democratic presidential primary in 2008. I see.

Although Clinton could have resumed serving in the U.S. Senate and only left when Obama named her as Secretary of State, thereby creating the vacant seat eventually filled by Kirsten Gillibrand (after New York governor David Paterson made a hash of everything).

And besides, by Stolberg’s logic, the voters “rejected” John McCain in Arizona also, though he continues to serve as the senator of that state (as well as Ron Paul, who also ran for president and still serves in Congress, and Joe Biden, who was also “rejected” but is now vice president).

Here’s what’s going on: Stolberg and her brethren will waste absolutely no opportunity to take a shot at the Clintons, no matter how much of a stretch it may be (and Stolberg has shown no hesitation to create partisan mythology against the Democrats in the past also, as noted here).

Saturday Mashup (1/9/10)

(This is probably a first for me as it turns out, but this is what you do when juggling medically-related stuff such as what I’m currently dealing with...and again, posting will be sporadic, though I did manage to post over here also).

This LA Times post from last earlier this week tells us the following…

It's no secret that "Avatar" has been stunningly successful on nearly every front. The James Cameron-directed sci-fi epic is already the fourth-highest-grossing film of all time, having earned more than $1 billion around the globe in less than three weeks of theatrical release. The film also has garnered effusive praise from critics, who've been planting its flag on a variety of critics Top 10 lists (it has earned an impressive 83 score on Rotten Tomatoes). The 3-D trip to Pandora is also viewed as a veritable shoo-in for a best picture Oscar nomination when the academy announces its nominees on Feb. 2.

But amid this avalanche of praise and popularity, guess who hates the movie? America's prickly cadre of political conservatives.

...

To say that the film has evoked a storm of ire on the right would be an understatement. Big Hollywood's John Nolte, one of my favorite outspoken right-wing film essayists, blasted the film, calling it "a sanctimonious thud of a movie so infested with one-dimensional characters and PC cliches that not a single plot turn, large or small, surprises.... Think of 'Avatar' as 'Death Wish' for leftists, a simplistic, revisionist revenge fantasy where if you freakin' hate the bad guys (America) you're able to forgive the by-the-numbers predictability of it all."

John Podhoretz, the Weekly Standard's film critic, called the film "blitheringly stupid; indeed, it's among the dumbest movies I've ever seen."

Well, guess what? This tells us the following…

LOS ANGELES — Blue-skinned aliens are helping Rupert Murdoch's News Corp. see green.

The runaway global success of James Cameron's 3-D spectacle, "Avatar" – his first feature film since the record-breaking "Titanic" in 1997 – has prompted analysts to lift earnings estimates for News Corp., the owner of movie studio 20th Century Fox.

It's fairly rare that a media conglomerate's bottom line is affected by a single movie, but with more than $1.1 billion at box offices worldwide, partly boosted by higher 3-D ticket prices, "Avatar" has the potential to be the biggest of all time.

And if anyone out there believes that Rupert The Pirate (aarrrgghh!) gives a damn about right-wing ideological purity if it affects his profit, then I’m sure those individuals also believe that the Titanic (speaking of Cameron) will bob up to the surface any day now.

(And the answer to the question is no, I haven’t seen it – with the cost of a family night at the movies, I’ll probably wait until it comes to cable.)

Also, as the stories broke this week all over about the decisions by Dem U.S. Senators Byron Dorgan and Chris Dodd not to seek re-election, I found myself wondering why the decision by Dem Colorado Governor Bill Ritter to do the same thing was considered as part of a trend that forecasted supposedly diminishing fortunes for Obama and U.S. Congressional Democrats (how many stories were there with pictures of all three featured prominently with portents of doom and gloom?). Basically, my question is why anyone would think any gubernatorial race has that kind of national impact by itself.

This was the opening paragraph in the WaPo story on Thursday…

Democrats have long known that 2010 would be a difficult year politically, but the decision by embattled Sen. Christopher J. Dodd (Conn.) not to seek reelection, along with similar announcements by another longtime senator and a once-rising star among Western governors, brought home that reality with unexpected intensity Wednesday.

Now, let’s compare that with the coverage of a Republican governor who decided to step down not too long ago; here is the first paragraph of that story…

Sarah Palin, the Republican Alaska governor who captivated the nation with a combative brand of folksy politics, announced her resignation yesterday in characteristic fashion: She stood on her back lawn in Wasilla, speaking into a single microphone, accompanied by friends and neighbors in baseball hats and polo shirts.

And by the way, here is more comedy from the Palin story (particularly funny when you read this)…

Republican National Committee Chairman Michael S. Steele said later in a statement that Palin is "an important and galvanizing voice" in the GOP and will help the party's gubernatorial candidates this fall in Virginia and New Jersey.

And you have to read almost to the very end of the WaPo story to find the following…

The decision by one of the Republican Party's most popular grass-roots politicians to leave office sent shockwaves through the GOP, a party still reeling from its 2008 electoral losses and from the sudden falls of Sen. John Ensign (Nev.) and South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford, two stars once considered presidential hopefuls.

Talk about burying the lede!

And finally, this New York Times story from Wednesday tells us the following…

A federal appeals court panel on Tuesday strongly backed the powers of the government to hold Guantánamo detainees and other noncitizens suspected of committing terrorist acts.

In a sweeping opinion, a three-judge panel of the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit found that the presidential war power to detain those suspected of terrorism is not limited even by international law of war.

The story tells us that the individuals primarily responsible for this travesty (aimed directly at recent Supreme Court decisions favoring detainee rights, as the Times tells us) were Judge Janice Rogers Brown (who, as noted here, has shown a “persistent and disturbing hostility to affirmative action, civil rights, the rights of people with disabilities, workers' rights, and criminal rights,” and has ruled “based on extremist ideology that ignores judicial precedent, including that set by the U.S. Supreme Court”) and Brett Kavanaugh, who, as noted here, previously tossed a lawsuit from detainees alleging that they were tortured by U.S. military contractors.

Sadly, the foul, fetid Bushco reign lives on.

Friday Stuff

As a tribute of sorts to former NYC mayor Rudy 9iu11ani based on this, I present the following from Lois Griffin…



…and a hat tip goes out to Open Your Mind’s Eye for this (nice when a DFH wins for a change)…



…”Worst Persons” from Thursday (Michael Steele talks trash while he rakes in the dough from a book deal that is, in all likelihood, a violation of RNC ethics rules…didn’t know the RNC even had ethics rules – color me shocked!; Glenn Beck articulates more delusions about how Bushco supposedly conducted “open” press conferences – yep, those nice men in their white coats with the butterfly nets are surely closing in; but Sherman Frederick, publisher of the Las Vegas Review-Journal, gets it for mangling facts in an Op-Ed attacking President Obama – as Spencer Ackerman noted in the Think Progress post linked to previously, "You actually need to give President George W. Bush credit for this. The Bush people did a wonderfully effective job of making it verboten in mainstream political discourse to consider the deaths of 3000 Americans on 9/11 in any sense Bush’s failing" – sad, but true)…

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…and I present this number in honor of what would have been the 75th birthday of “The King.”

Thursday Stuff

I guess there really are no other serious options left, are there? (h/t The Daily Kos)...


Zombie Reagan Raised From Grave To Lead GOP

...and I guess the online award for a production such as this one from Jed Lewison of The Daily Kos would be a "Webby"; if so, he certainly qualifies (here)...



...and Rachel Maddow reports on typical Repug opposition to a new Consumer Financial Protection Agency aimed at trying to curb the excesses of our supposed financial wizards, led by Sen. Robert Bennett of Utah (yeah, I don't know about you, but golly, I sure miss that ocean sludge - everyone should listen to every single word that Harvard Law Professor Elizabeth Warren has to say)...

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...and is that Philly Mayor Michael Nutter playing "the ax" here???