The Deal With The Devil Is Paying Off For Evangelical Voters

Did you watch Meet The Press Sunday? The highlight was Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez but Chuck Todd had another interesting guest as well, Maria Canwell, a standard issue Democrat from Washington (state and DC). Cantell had a warning for senators in regard to Trump's not-as-yet named replacement for Anthony Kennedy. "My colleagues," she said, "on both sides of the aisle know that this vote could be one of the key votes of their entire career. If they vote for somebody who's going to change precedent, it could be a career-ending move."

Remember, during his hate-filled campaign, Trump repeatedly said he would appoint nominees who would overturn Roe v. Wade, one of the top reasons over 80% of evangelicals voted for him and still support him, despite his obvious personal flaws.

On CNN yesterday, Susan Collins (R-ME) said she wouldn't support anyone who is against the Roe v. Wade. How will she know? By remembering what Trump said during the campaign? "I would not support a nominee who demonstrated hostility to Roe v. Wade because that would mean to me that their judicial philosophy did not include a respect for established decisions, established law."

CNN's top legal analyst, Jeffrey Toobin, also writes for the New Yorker and this week, he explained how How Trump's Supreme Court Pick Could Undo Kennedy's Legacy, although I think Kennedy already did that by retiring before the midterms. A conservative, Kennedy was considered the swing vote on the court because he departed from right-wing orthodoxy on some key issues: gay rights, affirmative action, the death penalty, and, in Toobin's opinion, "most notably, abortion rights. In the 1992 case of Planned Parenthood v. Casey, Kennedy voted to uphold Roe v. Wade, and he remained a reluctant but steady advocate for maintaining the precedent."

The whole purpose of Trump’s Supreme Court selection process has been to eliminate the possibility of nominating someone who might commit Kennedy’s perfidies of moderation. The activists from the Federalist Society and the Heritage Foundation who supplied the President’s list of twenty-five prospective nominees are determined to tear down the monuments, on select issues, that Kennedy has built. Their labors have already produced one soaring success, in the confirmation, last year, of Neil Gorsuch. His extremism has exceeded that of his predecessor Antonin Scalia and equalled that of his colleague Clarence Thomas, the Justice with whom he has voted most often.

Yet it’s far from certain that the public wants the kinds of rulings that a brazen conservative majority would produce. So the nominee and his or her supporters will avoid spelling out the implications of this judicial philosophy. As with Gorsuch, the nominee will be supported with meaningless buzz phrases: he or she will be opposed to “legislating from the bench” and in favor of “judicial restraint.” Like Gorsuch, the nominee will rely on airy generalities rather than on specific examples. It’s all the more important, then, to articulate in plain English what, if such a nominee is confirmed, a new majority will do.

It will overrule Roe v. Wade, allowing states to ban abortions and to criminally prosecute any physicians and nurses who perform them. It will allow shopkeepers, restaurateurs, and hotel owners to refuse service to gay customers on religious grounds. It will guarantee that fewer African-American and Latino students attend élite universities. It will approve laws designed to hinder voting rights. It will sanction execution by grotesque means. It will invoke the Second Amendment to prohibit states from engaging in gun control, including the regulation of machine guns and bump stocks.

And these are just the issues that draw the most attention. In many respects, the most important right-wing agenda item for the judiciary is the undermining of the regulatory state. In the rush of conservative rulings at the end of this term, one of the most important received relatively little notice. In Janus v. afscme, a 5–4 majority (including Kennedy) said that public employees who receive the benefits of union-negotiated contracts can excuse themselves from paying union dues. In doing so, the Justices overruled a Supreme Court precedent that, as it happens, was nearly as old as Roe v. Wade. (Chief Justice John Roberts, who has made much of his reverence for stare decisis, joined in the trashing of this precedent, and will likely join his colleagues in rejecting more of them.) The decision not only cripples public-sector unions-- itself a cherished conservative goal-- but does so, oddly enough, on First Amendment grounds. The majority said that forcing government workers to pay dues violates their right to free speech. But, as Justice Elena Kagan wrote in a dissent, this is “weaponizing the First Amendment, in a way that unleashes judges, now and in the future, to intervene in economic and regulatory policy.” She added, “Speech is everywhere-- a part of every human activity (employment, health care, securities trading, you name it). For that reason, almost all economic and regulatory policy affects or touches speech. So the majority’s road runs long.”

Anthony Kennedy didn’t spend his entire career on that road, and there is, in his best opinions, the kind of decency and empathy that characterized many of the moderate Republicans who once dominated the Court, such as Justices Potter Stewart, Harry Blackmun, and Sandra Day O’Connor. Kennedy’s words at the conclusion of the Obergefell opinion deserve to be his judicial epitaph. “It would misunderstand these men and women to say they disrespect the idea of marriage,” he wrote. “Their plea is that they do respect it, respect it so deeply that they seek to find its fulfillment for themselves. Their hope is not to be condemned to live in loneliness, excluded from one of civilization’s oldest institutions. They ask for equal dignity in the eyes of the law. The Constitution grants them that right.” But the Constitution grants only those rights that the Supreme Court says it grants, and a new majority can and will bestow those rights, and take them away, in chilling new ways.

Snopes: "A June 2018 news report accurately described the controversial reality of children facing deportation proceedings without legal representation."

What's the Cost to the American People of Keeping Senators Like Patty Murray in Office?

Democrats (!) who voted with Big Pharma and against prescription drug importation, along with "the amount they have taken from drug companies since being elected to federal office" (details here). How much longer should any of these "enemies of the people" be in office? Or do they get at pass because they're our "enemies of the people"?

by Gaius Publius

The answer to the headline question is — across all industries and monopoly protection schemes regulated and allowed by Congress, easily more than $100 billion per year. That's the dollar price of keeping "fake progressives" like Cory Booker and Patty Murray well-fed and happy in Washington, D.C. Over $100 billion. Per year.

Can Progressives Afford to Protect and Defend "Fake Progressive" Senators?

Let's look at the cost to the American people of supporting "fake progressives" like those listed above by looking at just one industry, one monopoly protection scheme — prescription drugs prices.

Readers of DWT recently learned that:

Cory Booker helped the Republican predators kill his drug reimportation bill, a bill killed by Cory and a dozen other Democrats putting their donors before their constituents. Matt Taibbi has been on fire lately. His newest Rolling Stone essay, Republicans and Democrats Continue to Block Drug Reimportation-- After Publicly Endorsing It, makes the not so subtle point that "the one true bipartisan instinct in Washington is caving to rich industries."

The piece accurately calls Booker a "fake liberal." That label also applies to several more on the list above. Patty Murray, for example, is a "fake liberal." So is Maria Cantwell. Both were instrumental, for example, in getting Fast Track, the needed precursor to the horrible TPP trade deal, passed in the Senate.

The question has to be asked. At what price do progressives defend corrupt senators like this and protect their Senate positions, simply because they are our corrupt senators— corrupt Democratic senators? At what point do progressives say No to people like these?

As Matt Taibbi points out in the referenced article (all emphasis mine):

In 2015, for instance, the 20 largest drug companies made a collective $124 billion in profits.

All the industry needs to protect those sums is the continued cooperation of Congress.

So naturally it spends money-- not a lot by industry standards, but a ton by the standards of the ludicrously cheap dates we call federal politicians-- to make sure they always have just enough dependable people in office to block change.

Most of that $124 billion — profit, mind you; not revenue — came out of our pockets. Taibbi again:

The entire pharmaceutical industry is floated by a protectionist racket. Drugs that are in fact very cheap to make are kept artificially expensive-- we have drugs that cost $1,000 a pill here in America that sell for $4 in India, for instance.

This is the price you pay ... per year ... to keep Patty Murray and her kind in office. Do you feel you're getting a fair return for your own investment in her career?

The ROI on Corruption — Are Politicians Like Patty Murray "Ludicrously Cheap Dates"?

Let's look at what Big Pharma gets from us in return for our keeping Patty Murray and her like in office. Taibbi's characterization of the people named in the graphic at the top was "the ludicrously cheap dates we call federal politicians."

Cheap dates indeed. The top dollar figure in the graphic above is "fake progressive" Patty Murray's $900,000. The aggregate number in the graphic is about $5-6 million. That's not even a per-year bribe to these people, but a "for the life of their time in federal office" bribe.

To the industry, these people are for sale for pennies on the dollar, or more accurately mils on the dollar, plastic coins worth less than a penny.

Consider: The return on industry lobbying — let's round up and call it $10 million across several Senate terms — is $124 billion in protected profit per year. Looking at the drug price mark-up in the Taibbi article — from $4 to $1000 — gives a profit increase of 250 times the original (and still profitable) $4 price in India. Let's lower that increase, since I'm sure Taibbi picked an extreme example. Let's say that, on average, the protected U.S. profit is "just" a 100-times increase over what's profitable overseas.

If this is true, it's very safe to say that of that $124 billion in profit, at least $100 billion is bought by lobbying Congress for price protection.

So what's the ROI to the drug companies on its $10 million in bribes (sorry, entirely legal campaign contributions)? If it's $100 billion ... again, per year ... the ROI on campaign contributions is at least $10,000 in profit for each $1 spent to protect it, or more than 10,000 to 1.

If I'm off by a factor of 10, the ROI is ... 1,000 to 1.

Very cheap dates indeed. Corrupt Senators like Patty Murray need a better agent, or at least a union. After all, real agents get 10 percent. Acting as their own agents, politicians like Murray can't manage to squeeze one percent out of one of the most profitable industries in the world.

And her failure to extract more feathers for her nest is worse when you consider that Congress is the sole source for price protection at the national level. Corrupt Senate votes like Murray's can't be acquired anywhere else in the country.

Corrupt Democrats Keep Drug Prices High in Connecticut

Now comes David Sirota to tell a similar story (emphasis mine):

Why Are Drug Prices Going Up? Democratic Power Players Help Pharmaceutical Industry In Connecticut Battle

Wide majorities of voters want public officials to reduce American medicine prices, which are the highest in the world and have become a key driver of skyrocketing healthcare costs. And yet as politicians including Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders have continued to call for a crackdown, corporate power players have successfully blocked even minimal reforms — with the help, at times, of industry-connected Democrats, whose party portrays itself as a consumer-defending critic of the healthcare industry.

As Congress holds more hearings on the issue, the fight over drug prices has moved to [state] legislatures — and an intense debate in Connecticut most starkly illuminates the battle lines. There, the House, the governorship and all constitutional offices are controlled by a Democratic Party that has long criticized the pharmaceutical industry for its pricing practices. Connecticut, though, also has America’s highest number of insurance jobs per capita, and a cadre of powerful public officials with financial and familial ties to the insurance industry — a situation that adds to the influence the industry already wields through its campaign cash and lobbyists.

The situation:

Fresh off a presidential campaign that saw both parties’ candidates promising to make prescription medicine more affordable, Connecticut lawmakers in January introduced legislation to bring more transparency to drug prices. The bill, which mirrors similar initiatives in other states, also aims to stop insurance companies from effectively forcing their policyholders to pay more for medicine than it actually costs — a lucrative scheme that critics say allows insurers and their affiliated pharmaceutical benefit managers to pocket the difference.

Despite the pharmaceutical industry’s opposition, the Connecticut legislation initially seemed headed for approval: It was sponsored by the Senate Democratic and Republican leaders and was backed by high-profile officials like the Democratic state comptroller.

Who could make this go wrong? Industry-connected Democrats:

But a few weeks ago, bill proponents say, Connecticut’s insurance commissioner Katharine Wade pressed for changes that would weaken the penalties in the legislation and leave enforcement of its provisions to the healthcare industry itself.

Democratic Gov. Dannel Malloy, who appointed Wade, came to her defense. “We must take much greater care in considering the impact our actions have on Connecticut insurers,” he said. House Majority Leader Matt Ritter, a Democrat, suggested lawmakers were not sufficiently listening to insurers — and then sponsored an amendment to implement Wade’s proposals. He also backed an amendment to strip out a separate provision in the bill designed to compel insurers to more explicitly disclose all their fees to policyholders.

It goes on from there. Please read Sirota's good work for the rest. Among the revelations, you'll find a web of interconnected, industry-connected relationships among the Democrats that can only be described as corrupt, considering the outcomes.

For example, "As Wade’s department regulates Cigna and its PBM, her husband is an in-house Cigna attorney and her father-in-law, James Wade, is a partner in a law firm working for the PBM, OptumRX, named as a defendant in the Connecticut price-gouging suit. That same law firm lobbies for Cigna and for the health insurance industry’s trade association in the state."

Also, that Malloy "is the chairman of the Democratic Governors Association, which raised more than $6 million from donors in the health insurance and drug industries during the 2016 election cycle," and much much more.

Malloy is good on many issues (read about him here), but he works for people who want to rob you blind when you most need help — when you're sick and need medicine.

"Do You Want Nice Things, or Do You Want Democrats?"

That's a trick question. You can have Democrats or Republicans, but you can't get nice things like reasonably priced prescription drugs from either of them.

Until the Democratic Party is forced to kick corrupt politicians like "fake progressive" Patty Murray and industry lackey Dannel Malloy (and dozens and dozens more) to the curb, you can't have most nice things — Medicare for All, reasonable prescription drug prices, student debt relief, fair internet and telecom prices, all the rest — with or without the Democrats.

The choices are these: Corrupt, political-shipwreck-causing Republicans who will rob you blind — or corrupt, politically competent Democrats ... who will rob you blind.

Did someone say "brand new Congress"? The next chance is 2018.

In the meantime, it's up to you to decide if control of the Senate is important enough to keep the Senators listed above well-fed and free to swan about in D.C. like they own the place. They may indeed own the place, but they're buying it with your money — and in the case of sky-high drug prices, with many of your lives as well.

("Oh, it's you, Senator. Let me take you to your table — the best, of course, as you requested. Allow me to take your coat. Three people died in your state last week to finance how I'm greeting you now. Would you like to see the wine list, or should I decant your usual?")

Of the names listed at the top, only five are not up for re-election in 2018 — Bennet, Booker, Coons, Murray (unfortunately), and Warner. All the rest, including "fake progressive" Maria Cantwell, are vulnerable. If you live in one of the states they represent, their future is in your hands.

GP
 

Democratic Senators Who Need to Be Lobbyists in 2017

Each of these Democrats need to be turned into lobbyists at the earliest opportunity. For three of them, that's January 2017 (click to enlarge and share).

The Senate held its final cloture vote on Fast Track, and after a lot of wheeling and dealing over amendments — whose will get a vote and whose won't — the Democrats above voted to help grease the next NAFTA treaty's passage into law.

Pro-TPP writer Alex Rogers, in the National Journal (Ex-Im means "Export-Import"; my emphasis throughout):

Ex-Im Bank Deal Gets Trade Bill Moving

Last-minute floor trading on reauthorizing the bank secured the votes to proceed on fast-track measure.

The Senate advanced a major trade bill Thursday, after a last-minute deal on a vote to reauthorize the Export-Import Bank prompted Sen. Maria Cantwell and others to break away from a powwow on the chamber floor to say, "Aye." ...

The vote, 62 to 38, came over the objections of [anti-TPP] senators, who claimed that the Senate GOP leadership—President Obama's strange bedfellows on free trade—had throttled debate, allowing only two votes so far despite around 200 amendments filed.

"The last time we did fast-track legislation on the Senate floor it was three weeks of debate," said Ohio Sen. Sherrod Brown. "This is about three days."

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell had set up the procedural vote Thursday despite other time-sensitive deadlines determining the National Security Agency's bulk-collection authority and highway funding. But he seemed aware of the possibility of failing on Wednesday afternoon. "Well we're going to grind on and finish TPA," he said, "if those who say they're for it end up voting for it."

Those members included Washington state Sens. Maria Cantwell and Patty Murray as well as Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, who formed a tight circle with McConnell on the floor to hash out an agreement for a future vote on authorizing the Export Import bank, whose charter expires at the end of next month.

What's the Export-Import bank? A slush fund for companies like Boeing and the CEOs who draw their pay from them:

The bank, which helps finances U.S. businesses' exports, is synonymous with "crony capitalism" by conservatives and many House Republicans who wish to kill it. But the bank is also popular with many Senate Republicans, including Graham, who—like the Washington state senators—represents a state with a significant stake in the success of Boeing.

Fast Track is as good as done in the Senate. On to the House.

The Democrats' Trade — Your Rich People for Mine

So here's the trade Maria Cantwell, Patty Murray and the other pro-TPP Democrats made. They will vote to give money to rich people who will benefit from TPP. In exchange other senators will vote to give money to rich people who run companies like Boeing. There were a bunch of trades like this in the Yes-on-TPP camp. Who said there's gridlock in DC?

What did we get? If Fast Track passes the House, we get TPP, the next NAFTA, and the one after that, TPIP, the same bad deal on the Atlantic side. These senators, of course, will do quite well in any case.

A Tale of the Rich and the Rest

The TPP story isn't about the U.S. and the world. It's about the rich and the rest, also known as "capital and labor," as this excellent piece by Harold Meyerson explains:

A trade deal at what cost?

So what gives with the American people? Don’t they realize, as my colleague Charles Krauthammer argued last week, “that free trade is advantageous to both sides”?

The sides to which Krauthammer referred, of course, are nations. But perhaps those who’ve experienced such free-trade consequences as factory closings and lower-paying jobs are thinking about two entirely different sides — capital and labor. ...

When advocates make the case for Congress expanding free trade with Pacific Rim nations by passing the “fast-track bill” currently before it, they cite the U.S. industries that the deal will benefit. A recent Wall Street Journal editorial, for instance, acknowledges that, while U.S. exports to South Korea have hardly increased since we signed a trade accord with that nation in 2011, our service-sector growth there has been substantial. Our international law firms can now practice there, the Journal proclaims, and “American investors can now own telecom operations in that country.”

A great deal for international lawyers and investors — two groups of embattled U.S. proletarians who clearly needed our government’s help.

For other American workers, not so great. The treaty was promoted as benefiting the U.S. auto industry, but since its enactment Korean auto imports to the United States have boomed while sales of U.S.-made cars to South Korea remain all but nonexistent.

Is it any wonder, then, that virtually the entire base of the Democratic Party opposes the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) and the fast-track bill that would ease its enactment? From coast to coast, Democrats are doing their damnedest to raise the very wages that globalized capital has depressed.

But what about restraining the power of China? Meyerson delivers the knockout blow:

Of all the developments that led to the increase in China’s power and the diminution of ours, the one that definitively did both was Congress’s enactment of permanent normal trade relations with China in 2000. That led to a flood of U.S. companies shuttering their domestic plants and shifting production to China. When Beijing insisted that the price of doing business there was the transfer of proprietary high-technology techniques to China, many of those companies complied.

So a trade deal benefiting U.S. investors at the expense of U.S. workers created the rise in Chinese power, and now, we’re told, a trade deal benefiting U.S. investors at the expense of U.S. workers will help us keep Chinese power in check.

"A trade deal benefiting U.S. investors at the expense of U.S. workers" — an apt description in both cases. A tale of the rich and the rest (meaning us).

If Democrats Want to Lobby for Rich People, They Should Register

And you can help by moving them out of their current job and putting them on the labor market. These TPP Democrats are up for reelection in 2016:

▪ Patty Murray — 202-224-2621 — Now deep in Senate "leadership" and apparently hungry for more of that Schumer-Murray magic.

 

▪ Michael Bennet — 202-224-5852 — Mr. Bipartisan. As chair of the DSCC, he oversaw the 2014 election losses, then afterward said he worried that Republicans would be mad at him.

 

▪ Ron Wyden — 202-224-5244 — The worst. As Ranking Member of the Finance Committee, he was lead perp in the Senate, patient zero for the fatal infection. He deserves an expensive lobbyist office filled with very uncomfortable chairs — soon.

Their phone numbers are above. Do you vote in Washington, Colorado or Oregon ? Are you a donor to senatorial campaigns? Feel free to pick up the phone and speak your mind. They've certainly spoken theirs, or the minds of their "investors," to borrow Meyerson's phrase.

But What About the Senate?

But what about "the Senate," you ask? First, is this a Senate worth fighting for? Second, with votes like these, do you think candidates like these are more likely or less likely to continue the party debranding that led to the 2014 results?

U.S. trade deficit since 1960. That "steep NAFTA slide" starts in 1994, one of Bill Clinton's signature accomplishments.

Frankly, if you really want a better Senate (I do), abandon all twelve names on the graphic above — let their "investors" take care of them — and elect Blue America candidates like Alan Grayson, Donna Edwards, Russ Feingold and P.G. Sittenfeld. You can help by contributing here.

GP

Who's To Blame For High Gas Prices? Is It Qaddafi? Or Mitch McConnell?

Although America doesn't buy any oil from Libya, the problems there may be adding a couple of pennies to the cost of gasoline here. But what accounts for the fact that drivers in California are looking for service stations that are only charging $4/gallon-- looking and not finding. Is there someone to blame? There sure is! On July 25, 2008 the Senate took up a cloture resolution to break the Republican filibuster on S. 3268 (Stop Excessive Energy Speculation Act of 2008), which was meant to amend the Commodity Exchange Act in order to "prevent excessive price speculation with respect to energy commodities." Only two Republicans-- Olympia Snowe and Susan Collins, both of Maine-- voted to end the Republican fillibuster. The rest of them followed Mitch McConnell's lead in making sure speculators would have the "right" to manipulate the price of oil, manipulation that we are feeling at the pumps today. Even shameless oil industry shill Mary Landrieu had to draw the line on this one and vote against the speculators. But Orrin Hatch (UT), Dick Lugar (IN), Bob Corker (TN), John Barrasso (WY) and Roger Wicker (MS) all voted to continue the filibuster. Why mention these 5 galoots? They're all up for reelection next year and even if the price of gas hit $10 a gallon they represent constituencies that would never hold them accountable for their votes anyway.

The anti-speculation bill had passed the House with overwhelming bipartisan support, 402-19, every Democrat (including even the worst Blue Dogs) plus all the Republicans except 19 deranged extremists voting YES. Among the Republicans who put the rights of speculators over the rights of consumers-- and the economic well-being of the nation-- were the current Republican candidate for the open Arizona Senate seat, Jeff Flake, as well as fellow extremists Steve King (R-IA), Marsha Blackburn (R-TN), Jerry Lewis (R-CA), Mike Pence (R-IN), Pete Sessions (R-TX), Dan Rohrabacher (R-CA) and Jeb Hensarling (R-TX).

Nevertheless, I haven't heard a peep out of the DSCC about the Republican battle to protect speculators. This is a shame, since back in 2008, they certainly understood its significance as an issue. Here's a press release the DSCC put out then against McConnell:

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell voted against a bill today to lower gas prices by curbing excessive speculation in energy markets. Experts have noted that speculation is driving up the price of a barrel of oil, and a recent House committee report revealed that speculators-- institutional investors buying contracts with no intention of taking delivery of oil-- now account for 73% of all trading of crude oil contracts on the New York Mercantile Exchange, up from 37% in 2000.

"Mitch McConnell had an opportunity to lower the price of gas today, but instead he voted with the speculators who are profiting from Kentuckians' pain at the pump," DSCC spokesman Matthew Miller said. "Mitch McConnell's constituents deserve better than a politician who sides with Wall Street speculators over Kentucky families."

McConnell voted against legislation to guard against price manipulation just one day after the Commodity Futures Trading Commission announced its first case against a trading fund in the agency's probe of crude oil market manipulation. The bill will eliminate so-called "dark markets" to increase transparency and accountability in commodities trading, strengthen the CFTC's enforcement capacity, and close the "London Loophole" so all U.S.-based trading of American commodities is subject to American regulation.

Speculation is driving rising oil prices past where they should be, even with flat supply and rising demand. Economists and energy experts believe that speculation is helping drive the sudden spike in oil prices, which rose more than 50% between February and June.

Both OPEC (and the Saudis) and the White House are blaming the avarice of speculators. "The problem is," said President Obama yesterday, "is that oil is sold on these world markets, and speculators and people make various bets, and they say, you know what, we think that maybe there's a 20 percent chance that something might happen in the Middle East that might disrupt oil supply, so we're going to bet that oil is going to go up real high. And that spikes up prices significantly." Last month a dozen senators-- Sherrod Brown (D-OH), Maria Cantwell (D-WA), Barbara Boxer (D-CA), Al Franken (D-MN), Jeff Merkley (D-OR), Patty Murray (D-WA), Robert Menendez (D-NJ), Mark Begich (D-AK), Jay Rockefeller IV (D-WV), Carl Levin (D-MI), Barbara Mikulski (D-MD), and Bill Nelson (D-FL)-- called for a crackdown on the Wall Street gambling that is enriching them while draining billions out of the pockets of American consumers. They're asking the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) to crack down on oil speculation. Cantwell has taken the lead on this and wrote that “Washington drivers are paying at the pump for reckless Wall Street oil speculation. Last year, we gave the financial cops the tools they need to rein in rampant Wall Street speculation. Today, we’re asking them to put those tools to use. It’s time for Wall Street to stop the reckless gambling on what it costs for Washingtonians to fill up their gas tanks.” She points out that the price of oil has less to do with the traditional laws of supply and demand, and more with speculators artificially inflating the price-- and perceived demand-- of oil. Since the latest round of civil unrest began late January in North Africa and then the Middle East, oil trades by speculators have jumped dramatically 35% to 50% in some markets. During that same period, U.S. gas prices have soared by almost 40%. By the way, only 8 members of Congress have gotten over a million dollars in legalistic bribes from Big Oil so far. All 8 are Republicans of course:

Maria Cantwell manages To Get A Decent Health Insurance Amendment Passed Despite Blanche Lincoln

Sen. Cantwell goes for a more natural look than Blanche's cover up bit

The spectacle of a batch of pompous multimillionaires, who fancy themselves an American House of Lords, debating health care reform for working families tired of being preyed on by ravenous Insurance companies, is starting to wear a little thin on the country's collective consciousness. Yesterday Maria Cantwell threw the dog-- that would be us-- a bone.

In terms of bones, it's not a bad bone-- but it's a far cry from what we were looking for. All the Republicans-- and the worst Senate Finance Committee quasi-Dem, Blanche Lincoln-- voted against Cantwell's bone... even that being too generous for their corporate masters. It passed 12-11 and would "allow states to steer funds from the government from the healthcare measure to set up plans for those whose income puts them between 133% and 200% of the poverty line. The state plans would then contract with private insurers to provide the coverage." Like I said, a far cry from the public option most Americans say they want-- although John Boehner claims he's never met anyone (presumably on the golf links or his tanning salon) who favors a public option... and I doubt his circle is looking for single-payer.



The lobbyists representing Aetna, Humana, and the 2 criminal organizations, Cigna and United Health Care doesn't like Cantwell's plan-- which explains why Lincoln-- did I mention Blue America cable TV ads are up everywhere in Arkansas starting Monday again?-- joined the Republicans in opposing it.

States wouldn't be required to set up the plans. If they did, the amendment encourages them to offer "care coordination"-- or greater collaboration among health care providers-- as part of an effort to lower costs. Cantwell suggested that the states would have significant bargaining power with their own plans, pointing to an example in her home state, known as the Basic Health Plan.

"This is a way to help the whole nation move towards those kinds of efficiencies," Cantwell said.

Those that would eligible for coverage in a state plan - which Cantwell estimated would be up to 75% of the adult population currently lacking insurance - don't qualify for Medicaid in most states.

Cantwell's amendment could possibly be a backdoor way of getting most uninsured people into Medicare, not a public option-- and not single-payer-- but a lot closer to either than what's been offered by Baucus/Grassley. It actually smells pretty good to me the more I look at it.

How do you push back against Bush regime bullies? Well, you can start by standing up to the SOBs

1. THE BUSH REGIME'S INFORMATION SUPPRESSORS RUN INTO A "STRAIGHT-TALKING TEXAN" JUDGE WHO BELIEVES IN THE LAW

We know, of course, that there's practically nothing the Bush regimists hate more than facts. In that gorgeous Daily Show phrase, "The facts are biased." One thing they definitely hate more than facts themselves is those facts' escaping their vault-tight containment. Regimists' basic attitude toward letting go of information--of just about any kind--is approximately:

For us to know,
for you to go fuck yourselves.

Nobody has fought the regime's stranglehold on information--information that by rights belongs to us, the people who employ those criminal scumbags--more stalwartly than CREW (Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington). And yesterday U.S. District Court Judge Royce Lamberth (who, it might be noted, headed the FISA court from 1995 to 2002--in which connection he was described by CNN's Henry Schuster as "a straight-talking Texan") ruled in favor of CREW, handing the Bush regime a notable setback with a common-sense judgment that the Secret Service's White House visitor logs are public records subject to the Freedom of Information Act--just as they have always been considered to be.

As Michael Abramowitz reports in today's Washington Post:

A federal judge ruled yesterday that White House visitor logs created by the Secret Service are public records, and he ordered information involving the visits of nine conservative Christian leaders with Bush administration officials to be released to an advocacy group.

The dispute involved an effort by the administration to keep secret the records, which have traditionally allowed the news media and Congress to keep tabs on who has visited the White House or the vice president's residence. Administration lawyers have taken the position that the logs are presidential records, outside the scope of the Freedom of Information Act.

U.S. District Judge Royce C. Lamberth rejected this argument, saying the records qualify as "agency records" subject to disclosure. He also rejected the claim that the records should be kept secret to preserve the confidentiality of presidential and vice presidential deliberations, noting that even a Cheney aide testified that the purpose of the visits is not apparent from the documents.

"Knowledge of these visitors would not disclose presidential communications or shine a light on the President's or Vice President's policy deliberations," Lamberth wrote in his opinion.

Officials with Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, which sued to obtain the records, expressed satisfaction. "CREW is pleased that the judge saw through the White House's transparent attempts to hide public documents from the American people. We look forward to sharing the documents we obtain through this lawsuit," said Executive Director Melanie Sloan.

2. MAYBE FINAL CONSOLIDATION OF THE CORPORATE CHOKEHOLD ON U.S. MEDIA WON'T BE SUCH A CAKEWALK AFTER ALL

With the clock possibly ticking on Republican control of the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), it becomes increasingly important for superstooge FCC Chairman Kevin Martin to ram through new rules accomplishing the Bush regime's desired acceleration of the consolidation of American media in the hands of a few right-wing propaganda (and money-minting) titans like Rupert Murdoch's News Corp. and radio monopolist Clear Channel. Today's news is the stirring of some organized pushback.

Sen. Maria Cantwell (D-WA) had a big day yesterday. In addition to joining nine Senate colleagues in voting against cloture of debate on proposed extension of the Protect America Act, she sent a stern letter to Chairman Martin, cosigned by a bipartisan group of 24 other senators, warning of congressional readiness to step in. Her office issued this press release:

WASHINGTON, DC--Monday, U.S. Senator Cantwell (D-WA) and a bipartisan group of senators wrote to Federal Communications Commission (FCC) Chairman Kevin Martin telling him that if the FCC proceeds to take final action on his proposed media ownership rules on December 18 without giving the public enough time to comment, she will immediately introduce and move legislation to revoke and nullify the December 18, 2007 rule. At a Commerce Committee Hearing last Thursday, Cantwell expressed to Martin her concern that the FCC’s proposed new rules will increase media consolidation and hurt competition, diversity, and localism.

“Congress is certainly not afraid to take action against the FCC,” said Cantwell. “Time and again we’ve told the FCC that if it moves forward without adequate feedback from the public, there will be consequences. There are consequences to ignoring the American public’s right to participate fully in the rule making process. In the Senate, we’re going to make sure that if we have to pass legislation stopping the FCC, we will.”

Martin introduced his proposed rules to eliminate the longstanding prohibition of common ownership between a daily newspaper and a television or radio station on November 13, 2007, four days after the FCC held a public hearing on media ownership in Seattle. At the hearing, nearly 800 Washingtonians spent nine hours sharing their viewpoints with the FCC-- the vast majority in strong opposition to increasing media concentration. Martin plans to bring the proposed rule up for a vote on December 18, 2007, even though the public has had only three weeks to comment on the proposed rule, and the FCC has had one week to review those comments.

Cantwell will also continue her work with Senators Byron Dorgan (D-ND) and others on the Media Ownership Act of 2007 to restore a deliberative process to the FCC’s rulemakings on localism and media ownership. A major piece of the Act strengthens the public’s ability to comment on proposed rules.

Cosigning the letter with Senator Cantwell were 20 Democrats, 1 Independent (no, not Holy Joe--don't be ridiculous), and 4 Republicans:

Ted Stevens (R-Alaska)
Byron Dorgan (D-North Dakota)
Daniel Inouye (D-Hawaii)
Trent Lott (R-Mississippi)
Hillary Clinton (D-New York)
Barack Obama (D-Illinois)
John Kerry (D-Massachusetts)
Ron Wyden (D-Oregon)
Olympia Snowe (R-Maine)
Kent Conrad (D-South Dakota)
Claire McCaskill (D-Missouri)
Mark Pryor (D-Arkansas)
Blanche Lincoln (D-Arkansas)
Robert Casey (D-Pennsylvania)
Dianne Feinstein (D-California)
Jack Reed (D-Rhode Island)
Bernard Sanders (I-Vermont)
Russ Feingold (D-Wisconsin)
Bill Nelson (D-Florida)
Joe Biden (D-Delaware)
Jon Tester (D-Montana)
Chris Dodd (D-Connecticut)
Larry Craig (R-Idaho)
Barbara Boxer (D-California)
Robert Menendez (D-New Jersey)

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