You Know Who ELSE Scrubbed The Memory Hole?

Any similarities to fascist dictators living or dead is entirely coincidental:

Kyl statement stricken from the record

Jon Kyl's statement that 90 percent of Planned Parenthood's activities are related to abortion -- which drew mockery when he explained it was "not intended to be a factual statement" -- has been stricken from the Congressional Record. From POLITICO Pulse:

Sen. Jon Kyl has quietly removed his infamous comment that 90 percent of Planned Parenthood's business is abortion from the Congressional Record. Senators are allowed to revise and extend their comments in record and his statement now simply says: "If you want an abortion you go to Planned Parenthood and that is what Planned Parenthood does." Kyl's office could not be reached for comment.

As more than one person has already pointed out, trying to scrub the memory hole in the age of the internet is beyond foolish. It’s pathetically out of touch. Just like Jon Kyl’s policies.

I Blame The Liberal Media

I’m not a big fan of polls, but I thought this new one from Pew Research was interesting:

• About half of Americans think the debate over spending and deficits has been "generally rude and disrespectful," including 48% of Republicans and Democrats as well as 57% of independents.
• The percentage of Americans who feel that the Republicans are better at handing the deficit dropped from 35% after the election to 21% currently.
• The percentage of Americans who feel President Barack Obama is better at handing the deficit has also dropped from 24% to 20%.
• About 75% of Tea Party supporters back the GOP budget plans after the election, that figure has dropped to 52%.

Hmm... maybe, just maybe, anti-Muslim hysteria and a focus on abortion might not have been the deficit reduction plan folks had in mind. Just maybe people are thinking that tax cuts to millionaires and corporations while cutting funds to schools and fire departments isn’t the solution they wanted.

What’s interesting to me is that Republicans and Tea Party leaders blame voter impatience. I’m thinking ... no, at least, not as far as budget deficits are concerned. I think people understand that you don’t vote in November, have your representatives sworn into office in January, and see results by March.

I’m thinking that people are pissed off that jobs and the economy still suck after so many years. It's really that simple.

It’s the same thing that pissed people off in 2004, 2006, 2008 and November 2010. And it will continue to piss people off in 2012 and 2014 and 2016 unless somebody, somewhere, goes after the real problem, which is outsourcing of jobs and wage stagnation and widening inequality between the haves and have nots. These are systemic problems that have no easy answers and they won't be fixed in three months, let alone two years. Tackling healthcare reform was a huge step in that direction but the institutional powers that be pushed back so hard against it, we ended up with very modest changes that really didn't reform much at all. This is a sign of what's to come, people: I'm afraid we're in a situation where we have to fight tooth and nail for tiny, incremental changes like this in everything, which means we're going to be in this situation for a long, long time.

It's kind of sad that the media doesn’t get it. We’ve been in a recession for a really, really long time -- since long before the market crash of 2007. I remember blogging about all the people left behind from the supposed “Bush boom,” and Republicans calling me “angry” and “negative” and a “blame American first” kind of person who suffered from “Bush derangement syndrome.” I mean seriously, am I the only one who remembers these conversations from 2004? Am I the only one who remembers arguing with Bill Hobbs every time he blogged about how terrific the economy was? Am I the only one who remembers George W. Bush telling a divorced mother that it's "fantastic" and "uniquely American" that she works three jobs? As if she wanted to?

America has been in a downward spiral for a long time, folks. This isn’t some new phenomenon that just popped up when the real estate bubble burst. And I think what surveys like this one from Pew show us is that Americans understand this yet don’t know what to do about it, because we have so little control over anything. We’re basically offered a choice between dumb and dumber every two years and people are getting frustrated and maybe a little frightened.

I know I am.

Rep. Jim Cooper On How To Fix Congress

Coop, my Congresscritter, recently gave a speech at Harvard on this topic. He pulled few punches in his lecture, to the point where during the post-speech Q&A he said he hoped his appearance “would not be a career limiting move” (and for those wanting parity, a Republican lecture on the same topic is coming in March). I found his speech enormously interesting and urge everyone give it a listen/watch.

Before you let the lecture’s apparent length deter you, Cooper’s talk is only about 30 minutes long (the rest is Q&A) and actually doesn’t begin until 4 minutes in. (Also, you can download it as a podcast and listen to it while walking the dog, should you be so inclined.)

Here’s the video:



What’s interesting to me is his contention that Congress has basically become a parliamentary system; for those of us who have decried our current partisan state and wondered what living under a real parliamentary system might be like, it’s a douse of cold water. And in fairness to Coop, he says we have the worst of both worlds: the parliamentary aspects without the accountability a party-nominated prime minister provides.

Cooper calls the state of our modern Congress “grim,” labels the institution “willfully blind to most of the nation’s problems.” I daresay you'd be hard pressed to find disagreement on that point, regardless of your political affiliation. His focus on the negative outcome of the Citizens United decision struck me as especially interesting, since he’s a Blue Dog and I thought being against Citizens United was unique to us DFH's.

Cooper had some intriguing ideas on how Congress can be reformed, including these two “quick thought experiments”:

1- What if Congress were paid on commission to cut spending or repeal obsolete laws?

2- What if Congressmen could only raise money from real people who lived inside their district, not outside interests?

What, indeed? A lot of Cooper’s talk casts the blame for our current overly partisan woes on the shoulders of Newt Gingrich, who politicized longstanding Congressional practices back in the ‘90s -- and the Democrats who failed to go back to Tip O’Neill-style rules and practices when they came into power in 2007. That lends a bit of an “offa my lawn” quality to Cooper’s talk but the information is still useful. For instance, how many people know that the political parties now require members of Congress to pay exorbitant dues -- or, as Cooper infers, that plum committee assignments are related to one's timely payment of said dues?

Cooper’s talk has received little attention but I think it’s something every political observer should watch.

But Let’s Talk About Marsh Mice

Ach. Tennessee’s Republican (and Democratic) representatives--with a few notable exceptions--apparently loaded up some recent bills with those loathesome “earmarks,” then voted against the bills, which passed anyway:

Republican Sen. Lamar Alexander sponsored or co-sponsored 40 requests totaling $83.2 million in 2009, by far the most of any member of the Tennessee delegation.

Republican Sen. Bob Corker put his name on 23 projects totaling $60.8 million, followed by Rep. Zach Wamp, R-Chattanooga, with 14 projects valued at $38.6 million. In Middle Tennessee, Rep. John Tanner, D-Union City, won $25.6 million worth of projects; Rep. Lincoln Davis, D-Pall Mall, had $23.1 million; and Rep. Bart Gordon, D-Murfreesboro, had $9.7 million.

More than half the value of the Tennessee projects came from requests sponsored by one or more members who, on final passage, voted against the funding bills containing the projects.

So now they get to take credit for being “fiscally responsible” by voting against the bills, and reap the rewards of the local “pork” they loaded them with. Sweet!

Look, I don’t have anything against earmarks in principle, and I don’t know the specifics of these projects that Alexander, Corker, Wamp, et. al. funded. For all I know, they’re worthwhile investments. I just think it’s a little hypocritical for Republicans and Blue Dog Dems to treat earrmarks as a big negative when liberal Democrats supposedly use them, then use them themselves and hide the evidence. It’s a little wishy washy.

If We Can’t Get Real Healthcare Reform At Least We Can Get THIS

OMG this goes so far beyond “pet peeve” for me. I’ve literally felt my heart skip a bit when HEAD ON APPLY DIRECTLY TO THE FOREHEAD comes screaming at me from the television set.

Watching the Titans game on Sunday it was so bad, Mr. Beale put the TV on mute during all of the commercials. You’d think that advertisers would realize that pumping up the volume on their ads is a surefire way to get people to turn them off and miss the message entirely. I guess you’d be wrong.

Anyway, apparently we can’t have decent healthcare reform or anything regulating carbon emissions, or a withdrawal of troops from Iraq and Afghanistan. But maybe, just maybe, our glorious Democratic majority that we all worked so hard to achieve can do something about this:

Congress goes after those annoying TV ads that are WAY LOUDER THAN THE PROGRAMS

December 14, 2009 |  4:44 pm

You know how sometimes those folks on TV -- even on our favorite Sunday political talk shows -- are conversing so softly that you turn up the volume a little. And then forget about it.

Until the commercial comes on and it's, WHOA! SO MUCH LOUDER THAN THE SHOWS?

So you scramble for the remote, fiddle with the volume button and curse the product being advertised, ranting about how these stupid things should be illegal.

Even though, come to think of it, there's a serious question about inviting the feds in to control television volume in individual homes.

Apparently, this loud volume has also struck the ears of Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse. He's a Democrat, of course. From Rhode Island.

He's now introduced legislation called the Commercial Advertisement Loudness Migration Act of 2009 -- the unnecessary "M" word obviously being thrown in to construct the cutesy acronym, CALM. Feels better already, right?

The bill proposes that the Federal Communications Commission regulate commercials, mandating that the sales pitches must remain at the same decibel level as the show that precedes them. Rep. Anna Eshoo, of Menlo Park, another Democrat, has introduced companion legislation in the House.

Actually, I thought we already had a regulation about this. Guess not.

Trust me, I'd much rather have healthcare reform, and our troops home for Christmas, and some kind of action on climate change, and a whole mess of other stuff. But clearly our Democrats in Congress are completely unable to do anything major so I would like to offer my wholehearted support for CALM.

Try not to fuck this one up too, okay?

Paging Mr. Orwell To The Red Courtesy Phone

There ought to be a law against linguistic gymnastics like this:

The US House of Representatives passed a bill on Friday proposing to triple the US non-military aid to Pakistan to US $1.5 billion per annum, but imposes strict accountability conditions on Islamabad with regard to its fight against terrorism and nuclear non-proliferation.    

The Pakistan Enduring Assistance and Cooperation Enhancement (PEACE) Act 2009 was passed by the House of Representatives by a roll call vote of 234 to 185, following a heated debate on this issue among US lawmakers.

The PEACE Act? You’re kidding, right?

No?

Does anyone remember what the USA Patriot Act is an acronym for? I’ll tell you: “Uniting and Strengthening America by Providing Appropriate Tools Required to Intercept and Obstruct Terrorism.“

This is so lame, Democrats. Don’t be pulling the same contrived linguistic bullshit that the Republicans did! Especially when your “PEACE Act” for “non-military aid” looks like this:

The PEACE Act authorises military assistance to help Pakistan disrupt and defeat al Qaeda and insurgent elements, and requires that the vast majority of such assistance be focused on critical counter-insurgency and counter-terrorism efforts. In addition, the bill requires that all military assistance flow through the democratically elected Government of Pakistan.

Don’t call this “PEACE.” This is just another shade of warmongering.

You Want Us To Do WHAT?

I am the first to admit that economics is not my forte. But handing a $700 billion blank check to the Bush Administration to dispose of as they wish, no strings attached and no oversight required, strikes me as the stupidest move anyone could make.

I agree with folks like Josh Marshall and Matt Stoller who point out that the discourse feels eerily, tragically, like what happened in the run up to the Iraq War. We’re in a crisis, we have to act now, there’s no time for serious debate or serious information gathering, the Bush Administration is saying TRUST US! and Congress is about to hand another $700 billion over to a bunch of crooks who should never have been trusted with taxpayer funds to begin with.

This is insane. Laughably insane.

Where are the grownups?

Yesterday Paul Krugman sounded the alarm:

The Treasury plan, by contrast, looks like an attempt to restore confidence in the financial system — that is, convince creditors of troubled institutions that everything’s OK — simply by buying assets off these institutions. This will only work if the prices Treasury pays are much higher than current market prices; that, in turn, can only be true either if this is mainly a liquidity problem — which seems doubtful — or if Treasury is going to be paying a huge premium, in effect throwing taxpayers’ money at the financial world.

And there’s no quid pro quo here — nothing that gives taxpayers a stake in the upside, nothing that ensures that the money is used to stabilize the system rather than reward the undeserving.

I hope I’m wrong about this. But let me say it again: Treasury needs to explain why this is supposed to work — not try to panic Congress into giving it a blank check. Otherwise, no deal.

No deal, indeed. Because it looks like the Treasury is trying to panic Congress into signing off on a blank check. That’s exactly what is happening, and yes, it does feel exactly like the run-up to the Iraq War. And no, the people responsible for the Iraq War and the Hurricane Katrina debacle should not be given a blank check.

We’ve been down this road before. Congress, please do not make the same mistake three times.

---------------------------------------
[UPDATE]:

Sound familiar, anyone?

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson acknowledged on Sunday an emergency rescue plan aimed at stabilizing a financial system in freefall will cost taxpayers money, but argued that costs will not be as high the $700 billion limit of the package.

"The taxpayer is at risk," he said on "Fox News Sunday" television program, but added, "It would be extraordinary circumstances, highly unlikely, that the cost will be anything like the amount you spend for the assets."

Yes, and the $60 billion the OMB estimated the Iraq War would cost in 2003 was "the upper end of a hypothetical," and anyway,

an attack by Saddam Hussein or a terrorist ally "would cripple our economy"

according to President Bush and the morning bobbleheads. Plus, the president’s advisors assured us it "would be a short war”:

"The idea that it's going to be a long, long, long battle of some kind I think is belied by the fact of what happened in 1990," [Rumsfeld] said on an Infinity Radio call-in program.

He said the U.S. military is stronger than it was during the Persian Gulf War, while Iraq's armed forces are weaker.

"Five days or five weeks or five months, but it certainly isn't going to last any longer than that," he said.

How does five years sound, asshole?

Yes, this rush to bail out Wall Street feels a lot like the last time the Bush Administration hit the panic button to resolve a crisis and an acquiescent press and scared Congress eagerly fell into line, refusing to ask the hard questions and even play the dreaded “blame game” so we could learn how we got here and how we need to get out.

That turned out so well for us.

Look, everything these people touch turns to shit. They are children. They need to be taken by the hand and led very slowly and carefully across the street by someone responsible. They simply cannot be trusted.

No blank checks for criminals.

Jumping To Conclusions

Re: the Farm Bill snafu, Ben over at Taxing Tennessee adds 2 + 2 and comes up with five:

Opps...Congress forgets 34 pg section of Farm Bill

so the vote to override Bush's veto is null and void. Hmmmm...this would almost lead one to believe that NO ONE ACTUALLY READ THE BILL!!!!!

These idiots pass legislation everyday without reading the bills!!

Um, not necessarily. It means a 34-page section of the bill sent to the White House was different from the one Congress passed. So while they hopefully read what they voted on (and who knows, right?) no one re-read it in the printed packet that was sent to the White House for the President’s signature. With all the many versions a piece of legislation goes through, I can see how that might happen.

But hey, Ben’s version certainly fits nicely with the “government doesn’t work” meme that is the anti-tax crowd’s mantra.

By the way, I would have told Ben this over at Taxing Tennessee but like many right-wing blogs he doesn’t allow comments.

Anyway, I don’t for a moment think our Congress critters read every piece of every bill. We all remember the huge stink that was raised after it become public knowledge that Congress didn’t read the Patriot Act before it was passed. But of course, that’s when Republicans were in charge of Congress. I don’t remember Ben raising a stink about that.