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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

…

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

And as a result…

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

Lather, rinse, repeat – sigh…

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

…

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

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

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

…

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Tuesday Stuff

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



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

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



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

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

Monday Stuff

Hey, it could've been a lot worse; they could have found a way to delete our porn...


Al Qaeda Attacks Internet With Photo Of Adorable Piglet

...and a long time ago, Fred Rogers defended his PBS show before Congress, and I think it's a good idea to check this out once more (not sure if, had he lived, he would have been able to reach the fools and frauds currently taking up space in the House ruling majority and diddling over this question, among other "values issues" - hat tip to Talking Points Memo for this)...



...and RIP Jane Russell (gotta love that old-time movie-making - there are a lot of good reasons to watch "The Aviator," starring Leonardo Di Caprio, but his explanation before the Hays office that successfully avoided censorship over this pic is definitely one to remember)...



...and finally, thinking of Jane Russell put me into a "western" frame of mind, and somehow I came up with this...and by the way, they're coming back!

Monday Mashup (2/28/11)

Someone named James Pethokoukis tells us here that a shutdown of the US government, in the event that the “pain caucus” in the Repug-controlled U.S. House gets its way, is “worth it” (I’ll let you, dear reader, decipher the financial details behind his argument).

In response, allow me to point out the following from here…

During the last major shutdown (in 1995), the government closed 368 National Park Service sites, along with national museums and monuments.

In addition, 200,000 passport applications went unprocessed, and toxic waste cleanup work at 609 sites stopped. The National Institutes of Health stopped accepting new clinical research patients, and services for veterans, including health care, were curtailed.

Work on bankruptcy cases (slowed during the last shutdown). In the last shutdown, more than 3,500 cases were delayed.

…

It is unclear how many workers would be furloughed in a new shutdown. Each federal agency has its own plan to wind down operations, and administration officials have not released details.

…

During the Clinton-era shutdown, new Social Security claims weren't being processed because the agency furloughed 61,415 employees. As the shutdown wore on, the agency adjusted its plan and recalled workers to start processing new claims.

And this tells us more about how we got to this point…

After having stalled the funding bills until after the election, Democrats found their backs against the wall as they tried to pass an omnibus appropriations bill for the 2011 fiscal year. Republicans objected to billions of dollars in earmarks contained in the bill, and Democratic leadership ultimately relented, passing instead a temporary measure which will freeze funding for most government departments and will only last until March 4.

(More on earmarks in a minute, by the way.)

Meanwhile, The New York Times provides more of the reality point of view on this here, including the following…

The threat of a shutdown is a serious one. Once the stopgap measure now supplying money to the federal government expires, hundreds of thousands of workers would be furloughed, halting vital services like veterans’ health care and passport processing, and possibly slowing the distribution of benefit checks. Essential services would continue, but the impact on a fragile recovery could be devastating.

None of that has in the slightest deterred House Republicans — the fire-breathing freshmen and the older members who are afraid of them — from pursuing their single-minded goal of disemboweling the government.

They took advantage of the Democrats’ failure to pass a budget last year and approved a bill that makes nearly $62 billion in cuts just over the next seven months. Much of the effort pursued longstanding partisan goals like eliminating programs for disadvantaged minorities, rather than real deficit reduction.

The impact of these reckless, largely ideologically targeted cuts could be even more devastating for the recovery than a brief government shutdown. Hundreds of thousands of people would lose their jobs, and not just for a few days or weeks. Those at the bottom of the economic ladder would be hurt the most.

Oh, and while we listen to congressional Repugs preach to the Dems about their supposed fiscal rectitude, keep in mind from here that, in 2006, they pretty much walked away from 9 of 11 appropriations bills after they lost Congress.

I consider Pethokoukis to be pretty much a Repug-friendly corporate media stenographer anyway based on this (where he said “Country First” McCain didn’t want to privative Social Security – uh, no) and this, where Pethokoukis cited a study decrying “cap and trade” without noting that the study was funded by ExxonMobil.

And speaking of earmarks, the Times informed us yesterday here that The Orange One and Sen. Mr. Elaine Chao have apparently found “religion” on the subject, particularly the latter (the story tells us that Speaker Boehner has “battled” earmarks since he was first elected to the House in 1990, a claim which seems to be true as nearly as I can determine).

However, as noted here, there are always ways around the transparency that the Repugs claim to value so earnestly…

Lettermarking, which takes place outside the Congressional appropriations process, is one of the many ways that legislators who support a ban on earmarks try to direct money back home.

In phonemarking, a lawmaker calls an agency to request financing for a project. More indirectly, members of Congress make use of what are known as soft earmarks, which involve making suggestions about where money should be directed, instead of explicitly instructing agencies to finance a project. Members also push for increases in financing of certain accounts in a federal agency’s budget and then forcefully request that the agency spend the money on the members’ pet project.

Because all these methods sidestep the regular legislative process, the number of times they are used and the money involved are even harder to track than with regular earmarks.

As I’ve said more than a few times already, I have no issue with earmarks as long as they’re disclosed, partly because they represent about 1 percent of the annual budget anyway. However, claiming austerity on this is the parlor game played by the same life forms who also claim, despite the evidence here, that the health care law won’t lower the deficit.

And to talk about deficit reduction without pointing out the benefits of the health care law in cutting the numbers over the next ten years is about what you would expect from a bunch that railroads more of their stinking tax cuts into law for their “pay no price, bear no burden” puppet masters while also pretending to balance the budget on the backs of minorities, the poor, the elderly, and our kids (as Professor Krugman points out here).

Also, I stumbled across the latest dreck from Kevin Ferris of the Philadelphia Inquirer yesterday on the supposed virtue of school vouchers (here, and in his best “concern troll” mode, he tells us how wrong it is to vilify those voucher opponents)…

…voucher opponent does not equal Klansman. Race-baiting for political purposes is loathsome, whether by John F. Street and the Philadelphia congressional delegation during the 2003 mayoral campaign; the NAACP ad in 2000 suggesting George W. Bush was OK with lynching; the recent charges of Jimmy Carter et al that opposition to President Obama amounts to racism - or school-choice advocates today.

Only a true hack like Ferris would try to make such a thoroughly disingenuous argument like this.

As noted here, the NAACP did indeed run an ad in the 2000 presidential election attacking then-Governor Bush of Texas for opposing a hate crime law that the legislature tried to pass in response to the racial-profiling murder of James Byrd, “who was chained to a truck and dragged three miles to his death in June 1998 at age 49,” as Salon tells us here (Salon also tells us that, “By the time his torso was ditched at one of Jasper County's oldest black cemeteries, Byrd's head had been severed.”).

And when Dubya was called out over it by then-VP Al Gore in a presidential debate, he responded as follows (as Salon tells us)…

Bush said Texas already had a hate crimes statute, and nothing more was needed, since Texas laws were tough on criminals regardless of the ethnicity of their victims.

"The three men who murdered James Byrd, guess what's going to happen to them?" Bush said, smiling. "They'll be put to death. A jury found them guilty. It will be hard to punish them any worse after they get put to death." In actuality, two of Byrd's three murderers -- John William King and Lawrence Russell Brewer -- have been sentenced to death, while the third, Shawn Allen Berry, was sentenced to life in prison, and will be eligible for parole after 40 years.

Reached over the weekend, members of the Byrd family said that they weren't surprised Bush got the details of the case wrong. Unlike other Texas public officials -- they cite local mayors, Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison, R-Texas, and President Clinton -- Bush was never remotely comforting to their family after Byrd's grisly murder, they say.

"I wasn't surprised that he didn't know," says one of Byrd's younger sisters, Betty Boatner, 46. "I wasn't surprised at all."

Bush "should have known" the details of the trial, says Stella Byrd, James Byrd Jr.'s mother. "But I wasn't surprised about his reaction." She says Bush showed no concern when her granddaughter talked to him in May 1999 to try to persuade Bush to support the James Byrd Jr. Hate Crimes Act, which would have increased punishment for criminals motivated by hatred of a victim's gender, religion, ethnic background or sexual orientation. "So I'm sure with that lack of interest, he didn't ask to see what was going on."

Gosh, the sneering condescension, the total unfamiliarity with the actual facts, the utter void in the empathy department from this supposedly “Christian” political figure – so unlike Former President Highest Disapproval Rating In Gallup Poll History, I know.

Besides, Elmer Smith of the Philadelphia Daily News wrote the following also about the voucher issue recently, including the following…

…in Harrisburg, Senate Bill 1 would divert $7,200 from the state's education budget for every pupil who chose to go to a private or parochial school. The bill would also add $25 million a year to a fund that offers tax credits to companies that invest money in students who transfer to private schools.

With the state facing a possible $5 billion budget shortfall, where do you think that money would come from?

It will be drawn from the same source that has funded seven consecutive years of improvement in test scores in Philadelphia.

Maybe it's time to get a few busloads of parents up to Harrisburg to advocate for that.

And of course no one would advocate for lax state standards that would permit all kinds of messing around with the data to fake progress, to say nothing of underfunding the schools anyway (oh, wait).

Finally, it seems (based on this) that the head of 3M Corporation, somebody named George Buckley, recently said that President Obama is “bad for business,” which is hilarious when you consider that Obama named William Daley of J.P. Morgan Chase as his chief of staff and Jeffrey Immelt of G.E. to Obama’s “jobs” committee.

Actually, I’m surprised that Buckley is even still in the picture, considering that, as noted here, 3M had to deny rumors recently that he was planning to retire early. Regardless, as the Minneapolis Star-Tribune story tells us, Buckley’s “compensation package last year totaled nearly $15 million,” and he “stands to make more than $32 million should he resign amicably, according to SEC filings.”

And as far as the company itself is concerned, 3M “has undergone a restructuring that trimmed several thousand employees worldwide, many during last year's recession when sales fell about 8 percent to $23.1 billion.” And as Wikipedia tells us here, “Minnesota sued 3M claiming they pumped PFCs, a very toxic chemical according to the EPA, into local waterways” last year, though the US EPA has been investigating 3M’s PFC pollution since 1999.

So maybe, according to Buckley’s definition of “good” business, Obama truly is “bad,” as Buckley says.

Which is a lucky break for us.

Update 3/1/11: More on Buckley here...

Sunday Stuff

Can you hear us now, Hosni Mubarak Walker? And by the way, check this out...



...and here's a tune to help us keep up the fight (and it partly explains how we got into this mess to begin with).

Saturday Stuff

This tells us what happened in Wisconsin yesterday, but the video below tells us how (and to do something about it, click here)...



...and on at least one level, I think this tune (no video) is appropriate.

Friday Stuff

More "past is prologue" stuff with Hosni Mubarak Walker (again, unbelievable that this somehow didn't come out in the campaign last year)...



...and this is a charming little film clip of a Koch Brothers stooge in action (I wonder if he realizes how he's unintentionally impugning the intelligence of the teabaggers with these remarks, saying you have to "break it down" for them as opposed to getting the racist-sign-and-funny-hat crowd to just yell about taxes...and "a funny thing happened in 2009"? Seriously? Private sector union membership has been falling off the proverbial cliff for decades)...



...isn't it a pity, though, that conservatives love to absolutely fellate in a metaphorical sense (and literally I'm sure if they could) The Sainted Ronnie R on most right-wing hagiography, but not when it comes to unions, as noted here...



...and finally, I have to explain this a bit...I'm totally clueless on the movies, performers, etc. nominated for the Oscars that will be handed out on Sunday, but if I were interested in seeing one movie in particular, it would be "The King's Speech," since anything with Geoffrey Rush in it is bound to be good (I'm sure "The Social Network" is enjoyable also, but I'll get to that one of these days).

So, for the occasion, I tried to find something with a royal theme of sorts, and I found this (and when it comes to the nominated songs, I really don't care...don't get me started on something like "Country Strong"; but not "strong" enough for The Dixie Chicks, of course). I fully realize that it has absolutely nothing to do with "The King's Speech," but I like it anyway, so here it is.

Friday Mashup (2/25/11)

I give you last week’s Area Votes In Congress from the Philadelphia Inquirer (here)…

House

Republican spending cuts. Voting 235-189, the House passed a Republican bill (HR 1) to reduce non-security discretionary spending by $60 billion below current levels in the remaining seven months of fiscal 2011. This amounts to a cut of 13 percent when averaged over the full year and 22 percent between March 4 and Sept. 30.

The bill awaits Senate action on a competing Democratic measure. The government is likely to be shut down March 4 if the parties fail to settle their differences by then.

A yes vote was to pass the bill.

Voting yes: Charles W. Dent (R., Pa.), Michael Fitzpatrick (R., Pa.), Jim Gerlach (R., Pa.), Frank A. LoBiondo (R., N.J.), Pat Meehan (R., Pa.), Joseph R. Pitts (R., Pa.), Jon Runyan (R., N.J.), and Christopher H. Smith (R., N.J.).

Voting no: Robert E. Andrews (D., N.J.), Robert A. Brady (D., Pa.), John Carney (D., Del.), Chaka Fattah (D., Pa.), Tim Holden (D., Pa.), and Allyson Y. Schwartz (D., Pa.).

Oh, and while the Repugs are congratulating themselves about trying to strangle the metaphorical baby of our non-job creating economic recovery in its crib, they might want to read this.

Planned Parenthood. Voting 240-185, the House acted to end federal funding this fiscal year for Planned Parenthood of America, a private organization that provides reproductive health services at 800 clinics nationwide. Planned Parenthood provides abortions, but in keeping with a prohibition in federal law known as the Hyde Amendment, it cannot use federal funds for that purpose. This vote during debate on HR 1 (above) would deny the organization $75 million or more in federal funding.

A yes vote backed the amendment.

Voting yes: Fitzpatrick, Gerlach, LoBiondo, Meehan, Pitts, Runyan, and Smith.

Voting no: Andrews, Brady, Carney, Dent, Fattah, Holden, and Schwartz.

So Mikey and his pals would send the ladies to God-knows-where for health care if their dreaded “lady parts” need some kind of icky medical treatment (with the Inquirer writeup already pointing out that no federal dough would be used for abortions due to that amendment named after a former House rep and serial philanderer).

But the Middle Ages brought us so much, like typhus, cholera and religious persecution. Onward Christian Soldiers!

(And by the way, kudos to Charlie Dent for bucking his party on this and acting like an adult.)

USA Patriot Act. Voting 279-143, the House sent President Obama a bill (HR 514) to extend for 90 days the only sections of the post-9/11 USA Patriot Act that are not yet permanent law. The three sections authorize roving wiretaps on terrorist suspects, allow surveillance of suspects not linked to terrorist organizations, and permit secretive searches of business, library, bookstore, tax, medical, and other records during terrorism investigations. Congress will use the 90 days to conduct hearings on right-of-privacy concerns raised by these sections.

A yes vote was to pass the bill.

Voting yes: Andrews, Carney, Dent, Gerlach, Holden, LoBiondo, Meehan, Pitts, Runyan, Schwartz, and Smith.

Voting no: Brady, Fattah, and Fitzpatrick.

Again, kudos actually to Mikey The Beloved for opposing this, as much as I hate to say that (and an utter pox on Andrews, Carney, Holden and Schwartz…disgusting).

F-35 fighter budget. The House voted, 233-198, to strip the fiscal 2011 military budget of its $485 million for continued development of a backup engine for the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter. The cut was included in a GOP bill (HR 1) to sharply reduce spending in the remaining months of the budget year. The Pentagon hopes to purchase more than 2,400 of the radar-evading F-35 fighters over three decades.

A yes vote was to cut military spending.

Voting yes: Brady, Dent, Fattah, Fitzpatrick, Holden, Meehan, and Schwartz.

Voting no: Andrews, Carney, Gerlach, LoBiondo, Pitts, Runyan, and Smith.

As an astute commenter noted here, this ends up costing jobs in both Boehner and Cantor’s districts, cutting off funding for a proverbial white elephant that our services didn’t want (and I know Mikey voted to cut it to placate the teabaggers, but this was the right thing to do – “swing and a miss” by Andrews and Carney).

Community police grants. The House voted, 228-203, to spend $228 million in fiscal 2011 for the Community Oriented Policing Services (COPS) program and reduce NASA's space-exploration budget by the same amount. This would continue a Democratic program targeted for elimination by the Republicans' budget-cutting plan (HR 1, above). The COPS program provides local police departments with grants for putting officers on the beat and buying crime-fighting technology.

A yes vote was to continue the COPS program.

Voting yes: Andrews, Brady, Carney, Dent, Fattah, Fitzpatrick, Gerlach, Holden, LoBiondo, Meehan, Runyan, Schwartz, and Smith.

Voting no: Pitts.

So Pancake Joe has no problem voting for a “money pit” of a jet fighter that nobody wants, but he does have a problem voting to support local crime fighters (how the voters in his district who keep sending him back to Washington can look at themselves in the mirror is something I’ll never know).

Internet neutrality. Voting 244-181, the House stripped the Federal Communications Commission of funding to advance its recent rule aimed at keeping the Internet equally available to all users. The FCC said the rule is intended to preserve "Net neutrality," in part by preventing different levels of broadband service. Critics said the agency lacks authority to regulate the Internet.

A yes vote backed the amendment.

Voting yes: Dent, Fitzpatrick, Gerlach, Holden, LoBiondo, Meehan, Pitts, Runyan, and Smith.

Voting no: Andrews, Brady, Carney, Fattah, and Schwartz.

As much as it pains me to admit it, this fight is slowly being lost because the telecoms have more money to fight it in court, and the Obama FCC appointees are wavering. This vote is just another Repug attack that voters should have anticipated last November, if more of them had the remotest clue of the importance of this issue.

Ever wonder why the cable and internet service in this country offers lousy selection and costs too much (as well as the fact that broadband is a rumor for waay too many rural places in this country, which hurts our economic competitiveness)? This is a big part of the answer (a recent news story is here).

Greenhouse gases. The House voted, 239-185, to sharply reduce funding for the Greenhouse Gas Reporting Program under which power plants, refineries, and other major polluters must disclose emissions data to the Environmental Protection Agency. The amendment to HR 1 (above) shifted $8.5 million of the program's $16 million budget to deficit reduction.

A yes vote backed the amendment.

Voting yes: Gerlach, Dent, Holden, LoBiondo, Meehan, Pitts, Runyan, and Smith.

Voting no: Andrews, Brady, Fitzpatrick, and Schwartz.

Not voting: Carney and Fattah.

Maybe some of those who voted for this amendment will finally get it when there’s three feet of water everywhere in the Capitol and most of their legislative districts have turned into deserts. Maybe.

And once again, Mikey does the right thing…fair is fair (how does that saying go…in a kingdom of the blind, the one-eyed man rules over all, or something?).

Senate

Federal aviation budget. Voting 87-8, the Senate passed a $35 billion two-year authorization of federal aviation programs. The bill (S 223) uses a combination of general appropriations and user fees such as fuel and passenger-ticket taxes to fund the U.S. aviation system.

A yes vote was to pass the bill.

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

Voting no: Pat Toomey (R., Pa.).

Not voting: Chris Coons (D., Del.).

I don’t agree with the teabagger aversion to spending a single solitary dime on “gumint,” but at least I understand it. However, it takes a particular kind of crazy to oppose funding the FAA (wonder if Wingnut Pat had a fever dream about The Sainted Ronnie R and the air traffic controllers?).

Aviation budget cut. Voting 51-47, the Senate tabled (killed) an amendment to S 223 (above) to cut the Federal Aviation Administration budget by more than $2 billion annually, to the fiscal 2008 level of $14.7 billion.

A yes vote was to kill the amendment.

Voting yes: Carper, Casey, Coons, Lautenberg, and Menendez.

Voting no: Toomey.

Yeah, you show ‘em, Pat – why does the FAA need more dough to spend on dumb stuff like equipment maintenance and upgrades so there are as few surprises as possible at 30,000 feet?

Air-service subsidies. The Senate voted, 61-38, to preserve the Essential Air Service program, which uses $200 million annually in taxpayer subsidies to provide commercial service to 1.1 million travelers in more than 150 small cities and rural outposts.

A yes vote backed the Essential Air Service program.

Voting yes: Carper, Casey, and Coons.

Voting no: Menendez, Lautenberg, and Toomey.

USA Patriot Act. Voting 86-12, the Senate passed a bill (HR 514) to extend for 90 days the three sections of the USA Patriot Act that have not yet been added permanently to the U.S. Code. Congress will determine whether to make the sections permanent or continue to subject them to periodic congressional review. The House later sent the bill to President Obama.

A yes vote was to temporarily extend the three sections.

Voting yes: Carper, Casey, Coons, Menendez, and Toomey.

Voting no: Lautenberg.

A good vote here by Lautenberg, as opposed to the rest.

Airport screeners' rights. Voting 47-51, the Senate refused to block an administration plan to provide Transportation Security Administration personnel with limited collective-bargaining rights. Under the plan, TSA employees such as passenger screeners would be empowered to bargain over working conditions but could not strike or bargain over pay. A yes vote opposed collective-bargaining rights for TSA employees.

Voting yes: Toomey.

Voting no: Carper, Casey, Coons, Lautenberg, and Menendez.

Ahhh, it looks like “No Corporate Tax” Pat is doing his best imitation here of Hosni Mubarak Walker. Which should come as no surprise whatsoever.

This week, Congress was in recess until the week of Feb. 28 (hey, by their standards, this was a ton of work – they need time to “hit the links” or meet with their Chamber of Commerce pals to catch their breath, or something).

Next, it looks like somebody had better call the WHAAAAM-BULAAAAANCE for former Dem and now Repug Senator Richard Shelby of Alabama (here)…

Sen. Richard Shelby (R-Ala.) ratcheted up the rhetoric surrounding Thursday's announcement that Boeing won a $35 billion Air Force tanker contest, saying "Chicago politics" was the difference.

Many defense insiders and congressional aides were betting Boeing's top rival, EADS, would capture the 179-plane tender. But Air Force and Pentagon brass announced Thursday that Boeing "was a clear winner."

“I’m disappointed but not surprised," Shelby said late Thursday, according to reports. "Only Chicago politics could tip the scales in favor of Boeing’s inferior plane. EADS clearly offers the more capable aircraft. If this decision stands, our warfighters will not get the superior equipment they deserve."

I will grant a small point in Shelby’s favor and say that Boeing didn’t do as good of a job as it could have on the original bid (which I noted here, along with a threat from “Country First” McCain to launch an investigation if Boeing ended up with the deal, influenced in no small part by a McCain campaign contribution from EADS, the company competing with Boeing). However, though I am not an aerospace expert by any means, based on what I’ve read on this, Boeing has built better planes of this type and likely will do so again. And had EADS gotten the contract, some of the work would have been done overseas; this way, it will all stay stateside.

However, it is nothing short of hilarious for Shelby to complain about politics allegedly being used to influence a contract award of this type, seeing as how he blocked Senate action on at least 70 of President Obama's nominations because Shelby wanted money for two projects in his home state, as noted here (and here is an example of Shelby talking tough against the automakers while sucking up to the “banksters” – more Repug fiscal nuttiness particularly in light of this).

Finally, Repug House wingnut Paul Broun is quite rightly taking a lot of flak here for, at best, blowing off one of his demented constituents who asked “Who is going to shoot Obama?” as opposed to giving this person verbally what he (I believe) deserved.

Like you I’m sure, I hope the Secret Service finds out who this despicable fool is and absolutely scares the fertilizer out of him. However, Broun has been trafficking in threatening anti-government rhetoric for years, so this really isn’t surprising.

Here, he said that health care reform and the stimulus will “kill people by denying care”; here, he said that Obama and the “Socialist elite” were planning to “declare martial law”; and here, in his book “The Backlash,” Will Bunch documented Broun’s ties to the “Oath Keepers,” a “fast-growing, ultraradical organization that spreads unsubstantiated fears of Obama confiscating guns and placing U.S. citizens in concentration camps.”

Hopefully, the incarceration of one of these America-hating (for real) cowards will go a long way towards clamping down on the garbage that seeps out of the darkest reaches of our discourse, pretending to pass for informed commentary. And that is a day that is long overdue.

And by the way, when I’m talking about incarceration, I’m referring to Broun, not his constituent.

Thursday Stuff

To do something about the ongoing travesty in Afghanistan, click here (and good for Michael Hastings to completely embarrass our bought-and-paid-for corporate media yet again)...



...also, you knew Jon Stewart would have something to say about Hosni Mubarak Walker and "David Koch," didn't you (here)?...

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

…and as I pointed out earlier, someone once asked what an uprising in support of democracy in this country would look like – to me, this answers that question (and every once in awhile I want to ring Dennis Kucinich’s neck, but he’s usually on the right side of the issue)…



…and I’m “one-for-two” with this song in elections (I used it and won in ’06 but used it and lost last year), but I’m bringing it back anyway; I believe it is appropriate.

Thursday Mashup (2/24/11)

It’s time for another “Foto Funny” from Fix Noise, as noted here.

Now before you get too steamed over the Milwaukee school district supposedly spending over $786 grand on Viagra for teachers, read the linked story at ABC News (which, unlike Fix Noise, is an actual news organization) to learn the following...

Two years ago, the Milwaukee school district decided that it was more interested in enhancing teacher performance in the classroom than the bedroom.

The district cut Viagra and other erectile dysfunction drugs like Cialis and Levitra from its health insurance plan, hoping to save $786,000 a year.

Officials said too many teachers were using the expensive drugs for recreation, swelling their insurance rates. An estimated 1,000 of the 10,000 school's staff, which includes employees, dependents and retirees, were using the drugs.

Notice how “Milwaukee School District Spent $786,000 on Viagra for teachers,” or whatever (and I wonder how much companies like, say, Halliburton, pay for the same prescription coverage for their employees?) has now become, well, “the Milwaukee School District is hoping to save $786,000 a year on Viagra for teachers.”

So basically, the Milwaukee School District doesn’t know for certain how much they paid to cover their teachers for Viagra (and for the record, I would say the same thing about similar prescriptions for women employees, which, if anything, is more important).

And besides, before we laugh too hard over the requisite snarky remarks about Viagra prescriptions for the teachers and their plan dependents, I would ask that you read this, particularly the following…

Many doctors recommend PDE-5 drugs as “rehabilitative” treatments for men following radical prostatectomy for prostate cancer. Human relationships are an essential part of good health, and sex is an essential ingredient to marriage. Erectile dysfunction is a devastating health problem and can cause relationships to end, which typically leads to a subsequent deterioration in overall health. And dont’ forget, erectile dysfunction is an early sign of heart disease. By making ED treatments accessible, we bring men into the health care setting and give them earlier treatment for heart disease.

Not that you’d learn any of that from Fix Noise, of course.

Next, it’s time once more for the tired old saw that the group Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) is really just a front group for George Soros, a charge alleged here, when in fact, as TPM tells us here…

Soros is a member of the Democracy Alliance, which has provided money to CREW, and his Open Society Institute has given money to the watchdog group as well, according to Media Matters.

So again, in the wingnutosphere, “has provided money to” equals “ownership” (concerning Dems, of course).

The really funny part of the post at The Weakly Standard, though, is here…

(Conservative uber-lobbyist Rick) Berman's Center for Union Facts is up front about its opposition to union leadership.

In response, Media Matters tells us the following here…

Berman runs at least 15 industry-funded front groups and projects, such as the Center for Union Facts and holds 16 "positions" in those organizations.

Each year, Berman, using his front groups to spread misinformation, spends millions of dollars distracting the public with misleading ads.

In a universe where Rick Berman is “up front” in anything he says or does, Flush Limbore should also be named chairman of the President’s Council on Physical Fitness.

In addition, I give you the following (here)…

While 92 Republican “budget cutters” voted alongside every Democrat against the (U.S. House amendment from Repugs Jim Jordan and Marsha Blackburn to cut $20 billion more from the budget), what was significant is that a single Appropriations Committee cardinal voted in favor, defying his majority leader, majority whip and his Appropriations Committee chairman, as well as every other Appropriations subcommittee chairman.

Which member took this courageous stand to not only defy his powerful colleagues but to stand on the principle that the federal government needs to cut its budget baseline to fiscal 2008 levels as a starting point to restoring fiscal sanity?

Denny Rehberg from Montana.

Rehberg distinguished himself this past week as a man who put his country before his own comfort, and made the tough vote that had others running for cover.

In response, I give you the following here (naughty word alert)…

Montana's Congressman is pushing fiscal snake oil. No surprise there. As Tyler Gernant put it a few weeks ago:

While Rehberg claims that fiscal responsibility is at the core of his being, Gernant said he voted for "a massive tax cut for the wealthy that completely eliminates our budget surplus and returns us to deficits."

Gernant said Rehberg voted to put two wars on the country's credit cards and voted for a pharmaceutical drug plan that lets the big drug companies charge the U.S. government whatever they want.

Rehberg doesn't give a shit about the deficit. He's either an idiot or a liar on this stuff. What he really wants is to destroy government, except when he can have a press conference to take credit for it.

Oh, and did I point out that Rehberg is the guy who said that some “activist Federal judges” should be “on the endangered species list” here (yet another Repug who learned absolutely nothing from the Tucson tragedy)?

Apparently, Rehberg is going to challenge Dem Jon Tester for the latter’s U.S. Senate seat. Tester, despite spitting on the progressives who supported him by opposing the DREAM Act, may actually win re-election, given the fact that he may end up drawing a total wingnut like Rehberg as an opponent.

Continuing, Chris Wallace over at The Daily Tucker tells President Obama to stop saying that inaction in Libya is “unacceptable unless he’s prepared to do something about it” (here).

Anytime you want to give up your cushy gig as a Fox-PAC propagandist and go over there to fight yourself, feel free to do so, Chris (and the same goes for this nitwit).

At least Obama is talking at all about Libya, which is better than Wallace did, blowing off Egypt here on Super Bowl Sunday, saying in essence that the story will “still be there” after football is over (Wallace also brought us the hilarious claim here that discussing human rights and democracy "sound(s) more like President Bush," which is almost in bad taste when you consider the following from here).

What a shame that Wallace has devolved further from the individual who once brought us this moment.

Finally (and speaking of the Middle East), today is the fifth anniversary of the Dubai Ports World controversy, in which Bushco sought to turn over management of 22 U.S. ports (not just the 6 Dubya and his pals originally told us about) to a company based in the United Arab Emirates (a related post is here…a big part of the flap was based in the fact that we were still being ruled by a cabal that derived its power from yelling Terra! Terra! Terra! every chance it got, and on this occasion, it almost glibly decided to approve the sale despite the fact that the UAE was home to some of the 9/11 killers).

As Wikipedia tells us, the controversy subsided a bit when port operation was turned over to “a U.S. entity” instead.

And guess who the “U.S. Entity” turned out to be?

AIG.

Yep, the bunch that came up with the dreaded “credit default swap” con that had a lot to do with very nearly wrecking our economy.

…

So, why exactly were we so mad about DPW again?

Wednesday PM Stuff

Here is a link to both clips of Hosni Mubarak Walker getting punked by the "Buffalo Beast" phone caller (nice when our side does this stuff for a change...of course, Fix Noise is harrumphing all over the place - screw 'em).

However, I thought it more appropriate to take a break from all of this for a minute and instead express my admiration to Robert Cowie, who speaks in the clip below (more info is here, and I extend my sympathies for his loss - it happened in Florida, but it could happen anywhere)...



...and this might be some good advice for Walker the next time he thinks about saying something stupid (five, four, three...).

Wednesday Mashup (2/23/11)

I give you the following about Wisconsin:

- Gosh, Fix Noise is all in a snit over kids joining the protestors, as noted here.

Funny, though – they didn’t seem to have a problem when kids joined the teabaggers (and I just know this little girl keeps Ayn Rand on her shelf right next to “Little Liza Freeze and the Magical Ice Cream Cone Tree” and the Judy Blume series, right?).

- Also, according to this, it looks like Hosni Mubarak Walker is “worried” about people bussed in from other states to join the protests in the state capital.

I didn’t see him too concerned, though, when some person or persons unknown paid for some of those moronic teabaggers to do the very same thing last weekend, as noted here (and by the way, I think it's funny that the quote from Rep. Michael Capuano of Massachusetts is getting spun to be read as if it automatically condones violence against others, particularly in light of this).

- Finally, some dim bulb here over at The Daily Tucker says that Governor “Koch Addiction” Walker ought to just fire all of the striking teachers when, as it turns out, that’s impossible; that’s a matter for the local school boards in that state who employ the teachers, as noted here.

And I guess it was driving Governor Bully nuts to be left out of the headlines for a little while, so leave it to him to come up with this (and here and here are more updates).

Next, U.S. News and World Report gives us the seven reasons here why Americans aren’t saving enough for retirement, and they are as follows: 1) Living beyond our means, 2) Little employer help, 4) Not saving automatically, 4) Too much debt (yep, starting to get more than a little redundant), 5) Savings isn’t a priority (looks like the CD player is stuck – give it a good shove), 6) No emergency fund, and 7) Spending windfalls.

Well, I would add the following as, at least, Reason #8 (here)…

…the (George W. Bush) administration’s tax policies fostered the weakest jobs and income growth in more than six decades, and ignored alarming labor market trends in minority communities. This record of anemic job creation was accompanied by sluggish business investment and weak gross domestic product growth that characterized the period after the Bush tax cuts of 2001 and 2003 went into effect.2

…

Overall monthly job growth was the worst of any cycle since at least February 1945, and household income growth was negative for the first cycle since tracking began in 1967. Women reversed employment gains of previous cycles. And for African Americans, the worst job growth on record was matched by an unprecedented increase in poverty.

Am I going to tell you that Mrs. Doomsy and I have made financial choices that were 100 percent practical and sound at every moment? No, I’m not going to lie. But saving is difficult at best with anemic job growth, and shrinking income due to out-of-control health care costs and wages held down primarily due to the threat of offshoring.

I realize that the primary audience of U.S. News and World Report is the “pay no price, bear no burden” bunch. That still doesn’t excuse them, however, for substituting pejorative scolding towards the rest of us in place of reasonably coherent economic analysis.

And last but certainly least, I give you Former Senator Man-On-Dog here, who has spoken out in defense of the Crusades (taking on the powerful anti-Crusades lobby, I’m sure). And if you guessed that he blamed “the left” for this big supposed misunderstanding - “They hate Western civilization at the core. That's the problem,” PA’s former senator from northern Virginia intones- then you win a free DVD of “An American Carol,” since that’s just about what it’s going for on Amazon these days (for rent, anyway).

As I said about Governor Bully, it must tear up Little Ricky to see everyone getting the headlines but him (with this being another despicable “dog whistle” to his beloved base).

Have fun losing your party’s presidential primary, you holier-than-thou fraud.

Wednesday AM Stuff

More good stuff on Wisconsin here via Eschaton and First-Draft (and yes, I got the right day this time)...



...and I haven't featured any Indie stuff for a little while, so here goes (interesting imagination).

Monday Stuff

Sometimes it really is that simple...



...and the latest issue of Rolling Stone features another great report by Matt Taibbi, this time on how the banksters escaped jail, and it also features a story on a recording, the band's first in 24 years, by the surviving members of The Cars, minus Ben Orr, who passed away in 2000 - when I think of the group, this is one of the 3-4 songs that comes immediately to mind.

Monday Mashup (2/22/11)

Gee, I wonder how many people in our government are feeling stupid right about now for “normalizing” relations with Libya given some of the apocalyptic rhetoric from that country’s leader-for-life Moammar Gadhafi, saying that he intends to “die a martyr” here?

Yes, I know the process of normalizing diplomatic relations with him began under Clinton and full relations were restored under Dubya, but I still think we’ve cut this guy way too much slack for reasons noted here.

The bottom line is that we and other countries have cozied up to this guy because his country sits on the largest oil reserves in northern Africa (if he were sitting on the world’s largest reserve of thumb tacks, we probably wouldn’t give him the time of day).

And oh noes! It looks like voters are abandoning the Democratic Party, as Fix Noise tells us here…

ABC News' Amy Walter reports: A Gallup analysis of interviews of more than 350,000 Americans in all 50 states and the District of Columbia finds that fewer people defined themselves as Democrats in 2010 than did in 2008.

In fact, notes Gallup "every state and the District of Columbia had fewer residents identifying as Democrats, or identifying as independents but leaning Democratic, in 2010 than in 2008." States carried by Barack Obama in 2008, including New Hampshire, Maine, Wisconsin, Colorado, Florida, Indiana, and Nevada, saw some of the most significant shifts away from Democratic identification. Back in 2008, for example, Democrats had an 18-point lead in party affiliation in Wisconsin. By the end of 2010, however, that lead had shrunk to 2.6 percent.

Cautionary stuff to be sure – however, when you read the linked ABC story, you find out the following…

…as Gallup notes, “the Democratic losses have not led to major gains in Republican affiliation.” In other words, even as they are no longer identifying themselves as Democrats, Americans aren’t flocking in droves toward Republicans either. Still, party identification doesn’t always translate into votes. For example, in West Virginia, self-identified Democrats outnumber self-identified Republicans by 47.6 to 37.9 percent. A Democratic presidential candidate hasn’t won West Virginia since 1996.

Ultimately, it means that the Electoral College map looks much more dynamic today than it did at the end of 2008 or even 2009.

Yep, looks like more congressional seats will be in play in 2012, to say nothing of the presidential contest. And this time around, the House Repugs will have to play defense. And with their wretched performance so far, that should make things really interesting.

Finally, it looks like freshman (woman?) Repug U.S. House Rep Anne Marie Buerkle is all in a snit over the Senate Dems supposedly not “follow(ing) the House’s lead on cutting spending, even if it meant giving up their scheduled week back home,” as noted here.

And this is precious…

“I have only been here 40 days and may be new to the process, but I must wonder why the Senate is taking this week off if they are so concerned about a shutdown on March 4th,” Buerkle said in a statement.

The U.S. House under The Orange One and that sleazy weasel Cantor work, quite literally, two weeks on and one week off (name for me any other occupation that allows that), as noted here. And Buerkle has the gall to lecture Senate Democrats about work habits?

Besides, as noted here, Buerkle should really speak to the House Majority Leader on the matter of averting a shutdown…

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) announced Tuesday that he was taking two actions he said are aimed at averting a government shutdown after March 4.

He said he is introducing a bill temporarily extending federal funding for 30 days, to give time for spending talks with the Republican House, and that he has appointed an emissary to House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) to lead the talks over funding for the rest of the year.

Reid has tapped his chief of staff, David Krone, to begin negotiations with Boehner’s chief of staff Barry Jackson.

And in response…

House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-Va.) on Tuesday blasted a proposal from Democrats to keep the government running for another 30 days at current spending levels.

So basically, Cantor wants the Dems to cave before negotiations even begin (kind of like what Hosni Mubarak Walker wants the public sector unions to do in Wisconsin).

I will admit, though, that Buerkle is probably the perfect spokesperson for the U.S. House Repugs and their “down the rabbit hole” approach to “governance” based on this (at least Mikey had enough of a brain to oppose the Patriot Act, which is more than I can say for this cornflake).

More Partisan Mikey Musings On Wisconsin

I give you the latest from Bucks County, PA’s conservative newsletter (here)…

Congressman Mike Fitzpatrick said Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker is doing the "right thing for his state" and called government bureaucracy "the next bubble."

"I've got to tip my hat to any governor willing to take on that bureaucracy," Fitzpatrick said Monday night. "We can't just load that debt onto future generations."

Putting aside Mikey’s typical boilerplate idiocy about the situation in Wisconsin, I should ask the following: If Fitzpatrick is supposedly so concerned about the deficit, then why is he fighting tooth and nail to repeal health care reform, which would only add to it (and when even the Washington Times reports on that here, I would say that that pretty much eliminates any further wingnut argument).

(I should note, by the way, that Mikey The Beloved said that and some other ripe stuff at a “town hall” meeting in Philadelphia among local U.S. congressional Repugs in which the only Dem who appeared was Chaka Fattah.)

Continuing…

(Fitzpatrick) also spoke of the GOP's allowing debate on the House floor as a significant change from the last Congress; the need for tort reform to bring down health care costs; and why he voted to reduce funding for the Public Broadcasting System.

"I support public broadcasting personally," he said, adding that he has written checks to PBS. "Today there is less need for significant federal support as there was in the 1960s or '70s. We just don't have the money with a $1.6 trillion deficit."

The part about the Dem congress supposedly not allowing debate on the House floor is a typical lie (as if he would know since he wasn’t even there at the time). The process of submitting amendments was regulated, I’ll admit, but that’s because his party sought to gum up the legislative process by submitting amendments that had nothing to do with actual legislation, as they did here on April 20th, 2009 concerning a Washington, D.C. voting rights bill – the Repugs inserted an amendment to loosen the district’s gun laws (and what exactly does owning a gun have to do with voting?).

(Also, as far as trying to defund public broadcasting is concerned – yet another Repug “golden oldie” from the days of Baby Newton Leroy as House Speaker – I give you this.)

Returning to Wisconsin, though, it really tells you how out-of-touch Mikey is that he isn’t even conversant on the actual issues in that state and instead lapses by default into “GOP talking g point” mode when asked about it. If it were merely a matter of “bureaucracy” (meaning what, exactly?), then why are the unions of the police and firemen exempt from Walker’s efforts to strip collective bargaining rights of public sector employees? Oh, right – because, in their stupidity, they actually endorsed Walker in the last election (and. And by the way, here and here are more non-reported tricks by Walker in this fiasco, particularly timely with Mikey waxing stupid as usual on Medicaid, and here is another consequence of Walker’s prior union-busting activities – wonder how this somehow wasn’t prominently played up in the election?

Continuing with the “town hall,” I should note that I really got a hoot out of this…

Joey Vento, owner of the city's popular Geno's Steaks, told the crowd to clean up the fraud in the entitlement programs. He asked how you could give health care to 30 million people and save money over 10 years. "I've got a bridge to sell you if you believe that."

Fortunately for us all, nobody elected Joey Vento to a damn thing (try reading this, wise guy – and by the way, your sandwiches stink too…go here instead).

This is more typical non-reporting by Gary Weckselblatt of the Courier Times, and when I criticize him as I often must do, I usually implore him to make a career change. However, this time, I think I’ll try to expedite the process by linking here instead.

The Repug non-jobs agenda drags on...

Update 1: I originally said that the police and firemen in Wisconsin endorsed Walker, which, for the most part, isn't true based on this.

Update 2: And of course, Mikey is definitely on the wrong side of the issue as many believe based on this.

Monday Stuff

Truly, the whole world is watching Wisconsin, as noted here...



...and "every time you close our eyes," you can expect the Repugs and their pals (including chicken Dems) to steal more of our rights (here).

Sunday Stuff

Once more, I'm about a day or so behind on Rachel Maddow's fabulous reporting on what's going on in Wisconsin and how high the stakes truly are; here is her report from Friday.

(By the way, at about 11:00, she notes that part of the Repug strategy is to either discourage or disenfranchise younger voters who traditionally vote Democratic. In these parts, that was accomplished by the infamous Ciervo/Fitzpatrick letter in the last campaign, which basically provided confusing instructions that more or less encouraged entering the wrong address on the absentee ballot application which would result in the absentee ballot getting disqualified, one tactic employed by the Repugs as part of their "voter caging" strategy. The silence on this from the local media in these parts is deafening...as I've said before, a US attorney should be looking at that and that "PA Voter Assistance Office" stuff by the Dems)...



...and read whatever you want to into this, I just like the tune (and kudos to Colin Meloy for the item noted here at the bottom - heh).

More Anti-Obama Agit-Prop From Rummy The Liar

CNN lapped up the following garbage from our former Defense Secretary here (maybe he figured that everyone would be paying so much attention to Wisconsin that no one would notice)...

(Rummy) said there's no evidence to support the premise that the United States is "liked" more now that Obama is president, an idea touted by his supporters.

"No, and I don't think there's data that supports that," Rumsfeld said Sunday on CNN's "State of the Union." "I think he has made a practice of trying to apologize for America. I personally am proud of America."

As noted here from last June (the most recent data I could find)...

(Around the world) Obama is broadly popular. Majorities or pluralities in 16 of the 22 countries Pew surveyed expressed at least some confidence in the U.S. president to do the right thing regarding world affairs.

This includes 90 percent of Germans, 76 percent of Japanese, and 84 percent of Nigerians. Only 14 percent of Germans, 25 percent of Japanese, and 55 percent of Nigerians expressed confidence in Bush during his last year in office. After a spike in anti-Americanism during the Bush administration, the U.S. image abroad has recovered. America's favorability is now on par with that found at the end of President Bill Clinton's time in office, 1993 to 2001. Responders in 17 of the 21 foreign countries had a positive view of the United States, and favorability improved markedly in Russia, China, and Japan, all key players on the world stage.

Continuing with his CNN nonsense...

He said he's "deeply worried about the budget" and that the country needs to start saving money now.

"My goodness, every year the Congress was stuffing $10 billion down the Pentagon's throat that we didn't want," Rumsfeld said. "There's no question that there's money there."

If Rummy had an ounce of common sense (or a tad less egotism), he would know not to "go there." As noted here...

War funding appropriations began skyrocketing under the Bush administration, growing from $10 billion in 2001 to $189 billion in 2008. Facing mounting costs of the ill-considered Iraq invasion, then-Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld began using war appropriations as backdoor budgets to disguise the unexpected expenses.

Rumsfeld seemed to have become addicted to the secret spending. He realized he could hide other programs in the war bills. Since those bills were theoretically funding “emergency” battlefield requirements, they were barely scrutinized as they were sped through Congress. Without safeguards like due diligence and oversight, Rumsfeld’s Pentagon began routinely categorizing low priority programs as “emergency” necessities.

Given all of this, I guess it's appropriate that Rummy would call his tome "Known and Unknown," since he's plainly leaving it up to us to decide which is which (and as usual, with no help from the corporate media slaves fawning over him in zombie-like adulation).

Update: Oh, and my bad for not noting earlier Rummy's claim that Bushco wouldn't have invaded Iraq without WMD here, when this tells us that Former President Highest Disapproval Rating In Gallup Poll History was plainly intent on doing so regardless, claiming that Saddam Hussein "would still have the capacity to make weapons of mass destruction" (lather, rinse, repeat - sigh).