(And I also posted here.)
1) In an otherwise shockingly sensible column in The Philadelphia Inquirer yesterday, Michael Smerconish said the following…
It occurs to me that something else was gaining momentum during (the era of the Clinton Inquisition, written about in a book profiled by Smerky): the rise of talk radio, cable news, and the Internet. And the convergence of the three against the backdrop of Monica Lewinsky and the impeachment proceedings gave rise to what we see today.
Well said (and to get an idea of how disproportionate the media coverage was for the Clinton stuff versus a story of actual Constitutional importance such as the NSA illegal spying scandal, read this from Jamison Foser of Media Matters).
However, given this item telling us how Smerky once called out to Roger Waters of Pinky Floyd, who was onstage performing a concert at the time (Waters being a proponent of the Palestinians, among other causes Smerky doesn’t like), I think the columnist doth protest too much. Let me know if and when he ever apologizes for that, and I’ll consider him an expert on civil behavior, but not before.
2) And speaking of Inky columnists (I’d say they were “right wing,” but that would be redundant), Torture Yoo was given more column real estate yesterday to inflict the following (here)…
This "individual mandate" forms the centerpiece of the federal government's latest, greatest intrusion into civil society. Obama staked his presidency on the nationalization of one-sixth of the economy, with measures requiring employers to offer insurance, regulating the policies offered by insurers, and eventually setting the prices for medical procedures.
There’s probably a lot more I could take issue with, but I’ll focus on this piece of wingnut fiction for now; as Paul Krugman tells us here…
The first of these myths, which has been all over the airwaves lately, is the claim that President Obama is proposing a government takeover of one-sixth of the economy, the share of G.D.P. currently spent on health.
Well, if having the government regulate and subsidize health insurance is a “takeover,” that takeover happened long ago. Medicare, Medicaid, and other government programs already pay for almost half of American health care, while private insurance pays for barely more than a third (the rest is mostly out-of-pocket expenses). And the great bulk of that private insurance is provided via employee plans, which are both subsidized with tax exemptions and tightly regulated.
The only part of health care in which there isn’t already a lot of federal intervention is the market in which individuals who can’t get employment-based coverage buy their own insurance. And that market, in case you hadn’t noticed, is a disaster — no coverage for people with pre-existing medical conditions, coverage dropped when you get sick, and huge premium increases in the middle of an economic crisis. It’s this sector, plus the plight of Americans with no insurance at all, that reform aims to fix. What’s wrong with that?
And in writing about the so-called “Commerce Clause” in the Constitution which (I would argue) allows the federal government to enact legislation that is largely beneficial, Yoo calls it “the Ryan Howard of federal power” (trying to sound “local”…ha ha), when he probably would have been more “spot-on” if he had invoked LA Dodgers Matt Kemp or James Loney, since Yoo is based at The Hoover Institution in Southern California.
3) Finally, this New York Times story yesterday tells us about the upcoming battle for financial reform…
One of the more public campaigns against the Democrats’ reforms does not come from Wall Street, however. It comes from an obscure, Republican-leaning group that is seeking to cast the plan as a boon to Wall Street.
The group, the Committee for Truth in Politics, has spent an estimated $5 million on advertising against the proposals, according to the Campaign Media Analysis Group, which monitors political advertising. The ads portray the financial reforms — misleadingly, the administration says — as a $4 trillion bailout for big banks.
The group’s membership and financing have been kept secret, and it has refused to divulge its donors; it is suing the Federal Election Commission, claiming the rules for disclosure in political advertising are an unconstitutional impediment to free speech.
James Bopp Jr., the lawyer and conservative advocate who represents the group in its lawsuit, said in an interview that the ads accurately reflected a section in the House bill that would allow the Federal Reserve to spend up to $4 trillion to stabilize the financial system in a liquidity crisis. He said characterizing the bill as anything other than a bailout “is a typical Washington lie where politicians do one thing in Washington, which is to advance the Obama socialist agenda, and lie about it when they go home because they don’t want anyone to know about it.”
But Representative Barney Frank, the Massachusetts Democrat who guided the bill through the House, calls the ad campaign “a complete mischaracterization” of the legislation, which he said would limit the Fed’s ability to support otherwise healthy banks during a liquidity crisis and prevent the type of bailouts that have gone to A.I.G. and other giant firms.
Buzzflash tells us more here, including the following…
Obviously, the Committee for Truth in Politics is a finely-tuned lie machine. In its short history, the Committee has spent the majority of its time and money on straight-up falsehoods. One anti-Obama ad wrongly claimed that the then-candidate supported early release programs for convicted sex offenders.
National Public Radio's Secret Money Project reported that the group is estimated to have spent at least $1.2 million on anti-Obama ads during the 2008 campaign. It's likely they've spent much more, but they're arguing with the Federal Elections Commission that they shouldn't have to disclose how much money they have or how much they've spent and on what. In the interim, they're flouting the law by refusing to file legally-required paperwork.
So, in addition to calling out the lies in the ad, (Montana Sen. Jon) Tester calls on the "secretive organization" to disclose its donors. The nonprofit corporation is registered with the Secretary of State in North Carolina as of September 2008, but it has failed to file with the Federal Elections Commission as well as the IRS.
Hence the lawsuit that kept the committee from fully functioning until after the Citizens United case was decided (Bopp is a member of Citizens United and had a lot to do with the legal challenge that led to the horrific decision by the High Court of Hangin’ Judge JR).
But the recent decision doesn't mean the Committee for Truth in Politics is out of hot water. Quite the opposite, really. The Supreme Court affirmed eight-to-one that disclosure laws should remain in place. That means that while Bopp's groups can spend whatever they want to spread their lies, they still should have to disclose who they're lying for.
So Bopp, ultimately, is the bag man for a bunch of corporate malefactors who want to keep ripping us off in secret with impunity. And Bopp will earn their favor as long as he can keep conniving legal tricks to keep it that way.
