Streams of Consciousness, Dec. 23

A couple days ago we reported on the smoldering controversy over hexavalent chromium, or chromium-6, seeping into most cities' drinking water in serious enough quantities to make the water carcinogenic. Yesterday California Senators Barbara Boxer and Dianne Feinstein asked the EPA to set national safety standards for chromium-6.

Meanwhile, concern is mounting across the country that drinking tap water regularly will increase the chances of getting stomach cancer and leukemia, while also increasing the risk of potentially fatal liver and kidney damage. The chemical industry and their Republican allies have vowed to fight any attempts to pass legislation taking away the freedom to pollute and the liberty of water consumers to poison themselves and their families if they decide to. That kind of Freedom and Liberty is very important to Republicans. In their universe, it's the heart and soul of the free market. You see, in GOP-land, those who can't afford bottled water deserve to die anyway-- and if enough people do die from drinking tap water, the survivors will drink something else instead... like Coca-Cola, beer... even urine is less toxic. Industries say it would be too expensive for them to keep chromium-6 out of the drinking water and they need it for tanning leather and making some stainless-steel products. You know what they say about the bottom line!

Let's take rubber-stamp Republican Congressman Lee Terry of Omaha, for example. Terry almost never varies from John Boehner. Their voting records are nearly indistinguishable, and both are committed to defending the freedom of chemical companies to poison the population. Omaha, alas, is one of the cities badly hit by the chromium-6 disaster. While the proposed limit in the state of California is .06 parts per billion, Omaha's water tested at 1.07 ppb-- not nearly as bad as Norman, Oklahoma's 12.90 ppb, but enough to kill plenty of Omaha's poor people in a variety of very unpleasant ways.

The chemical industry has given Rep. Terry $36,000 in thinly veiled bribes to keep him on the reservation and not have him do anything crazy-- like look out for his constituents back in Nebraska. In 2008, his constituents nearly threw him out of office; he beat Democrat Jim Esch by a mere 10,000 votes out of over 273,000 cast-- 52-48%. This year he did much better against Tom White, whom he beat 61-39%. Terry isn't doing anything about safe drinking water standards at all. Perhaps he thinks his seat will be safer if more working people just die.


Arsonists Prosecuting Firefighters

Krugman was talking about the fact that the the rating agencies, in sucking up to the pooh-bahs of finance, brought the current financial crisis on the world. He makes a great point, but I jumped right to Tom Coburn and his crazy right-wing Republican allies, particularly Mike Enzi (R-WY), selfishly and obstinately blocking health care for 9-11 first responders. Most of the Senate just stared at Coburn like the freak he is and then voted to pass the widely popular legislation. In fact, by the end of the day support was so overwhelming that Coburn was pressured by relatively saner Republicans to just back down and let it pass by unanimous consent.

The increasingly deranged and stubborn Coburn insisted the reimbursements for the firefighters and other first responders are "an entitlement," a bad word, not related in his mind to the fact that they actually are entitled to this help from society for the job they did on the front lines after the 9-11 disaster that Coburn did nothing to prevent. Coburn is also pissed off that the costs of the bill are being covered by closing foreign corporate tax loopholes, loopholes that Coburn favors.

And The Senate Ratifies START By A Landslide

After all that sturm und drang from Kyl and his cronies looking for another Waterloo for Obama, the Senate overwhelmingly ignored the dominant obstructionist faction of the Senate GOP caucus and approved the nonpartisan treaty between the U.S. and Russia that mandates new reductions in both nations' deployed strategic nuclear weapons. The final vote was 71-26, with 13 Republicans ignoring McConnell, McCain and DeMint and their hysterical politicization of national security. All the adult types among the Republicans voted for ratification.

And that was the end of the 111th Congress. Both houses adjourned. Here's a video montage of some of what was accomplished, although that Obama bullshit about Afghanistan and his and McConnell's tax breaks for millionaires and billionaires kind of spoils the whole thing:



GOP Front Groups Still Hope To Milk Homophobia For Donations

Yesterday President Obama signed the repeal of DADT, which passed by a wider margin in the Senate than anyone expected, even far right Republicans like Richard Burr (NC) and John Ensign (NV) abandoning Miss McConnell and the Mean Sisters, McCain and Graham-- two closet queens and a bitter, nasty old man-- to be party to history instead of getting run over by it.

But as Right Wing Watch pointed out, the Family Research Council, a Republican Party hate group, is already threatening to sue to prevent repeal from being enacted. They're in cahoots with McCain in trying to undermine implementation of the new law. And then there's this:



President Obama, after signing the bill yesterday, had something very different to say, something that will probably resonate more forcefully with normal Americans:

Sixty-six years ago, in the dense, snow-covered forests of Western Europe, Allied Forces were beating back a massive assault in what would become known as the Battle of the Bulge. And in the final days of fighting, a regiment in the 80th Division of Patton’s Third Army came under fire. The men were traveling along a narrow trail. They were exposed and they were vulnerable. Hundreds of soldiers were cut down by the enemy.

And during the firefight, a private named Lloyd Corwin tumbled 40 feet down the deep side of a ravine. And dazed and trapped, he was as good as dead. But one soldier, a friend, turned back. And with shells landing around him, amid smoke and chaos and the screams of wounded men, this soldier, this friend, scaled down the icy slope, risking his own life to bring Private Corwin to safer ground.

For the rest of his years, Lloyd credited this soldier, this friend, named Andy Lee, with saving his life, knowing he would never have made it out alone. It was a full four decades after the war, when the two friends reunited in their golden years, that Lloyd learned that the man who saved his life, his friend Andy, was gay. He had no idea. And he didn’t much care. Lloyd knew what mattered. He knew what had kept him alive; what made it possible for him to come home and start a family and live the rest of his life. It was his friend.

And Lloyd’s son is with us today. And he knew that valor and sacrifice are no more limited by sexual orientation than they are by race or by gender or by religion or by creed; that what made it possible for him to survive the battlefields of Europe is the reason that we are here today. That's the reason we are here today.

So this morning, I am proud to sign a law that will bring an end to “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell.” It is a law-- this law I’m about to sign will strengthen our national security and uphold the ideals that our fighting men and women risk their lives to defend.

No longer will our country be denied the service of thousands of patriotic Americans who were forced to leave the military-- regardless of their skills, no matter their bravery or their zeal, no matter their years of exemplary performance-- because they happen to be gay. No longer will tens of thousands of Americans in uniform be asked to live a lie, or look over their shoulder, in order to serve the country that they love.

As Admiral Mike Mullen has said, “Our people sacrifice a lot for their country, including their lives. None of them should have to sacrifice their integrity as well.”

Streams Of Consciousness, Dec. 18

The Obama Administration definitely sees passage of the job-killing/Social Security-harming tax break for billionaires as a way station on the path to Obama's reelection. They're very much in tune with right-wing polemicist Charles Krauthammer, who has convinced himself that by turning sharply right and repeatedly spitting on the base that elected him in 2008, Obama is headed for a win in 2012. How anyone can fall for that in light of what happened in November to the House Democrats who played that game-- Blue Dogs like Bobby Bright (AL), Travis Childers (MS), Jim Marshall (GA), Zach Space (OH), Gene Taylor (MS), Michael Arcuri (NY), Stephanie Herseth Sandlin (SD), Kathy Dahlkemper (PA), Lincoln Davis (TN), Glenn Nye (VA), Frank Kratovil (MD), Betsy Markey (CO), Earl Pomeroy (ND), Harry Mitchell (AZ), Walt Minnick (ID) and plenty of others, plus conservatove fellow-travelers like John Adler (NJ), Suzanne Kosmas (FL), Tom Perriello (VA), Rick Boucher (VA), Michael McMahon (NY), Ann Kirkpatrick (AZ), Ike Skelton (MO), etc. Every one of them played that game-- voting for the anti-family Republican agenda and leaving Democratic voters high and dry-- and every one of them was defeated, some resoundingly, for the same reason: Democratic voters and left-leaning independents did not come out to vote. Republicans and right-leaning independents did-- but, of course, they voted for Republicans.

Idaho Blue Dog Walt Minnick, for example, has accrued one of the worst voting records of any Democrat in the House, voting far more frequently with John Boehner than with Nancy Pelosi on contentious and substantive issues. But it did him no good. Democrats were disgusted by him and refused to even show up to vote, and Republicans and independents flocked to an obscure and extreme teabagger, Raul Labador, who beat him decisively, 126,055 (51%) to 101,870 (41%) and destroyed him in 10 of the 11 counties in this district, including in Ada County-- the big one-- by 10,000 votes, and in Canyon-- the second-biggest-- by an even bigger margin!

This week Minnick said he wouldn't even bother to try to win his seat back. In a farewell interview with the NY Times, Minnick, like most of the defeated Blue Dogs, blames liberal policies for their political demise rather than their own shortcomings as political leaders. He whines about Democrats having voted for cap and trade but never explains why he couldn't even explain his "no" vote to his constituents back home.

"Very little went well in energy and the environment," the 68-year-old representative said in an interview last week. "That was an area where we had a particularly tin ear and where the solution to the biggest issue-- global warming-- proposed by the party ... got transformed by its opposition from cap and trade to cap and tax and became politically toxic almost every place in the country."

Minnick calls the political misjudgments that led to House passage of the "American Clean Energy and Security Act of 2009" and the inability to then message the bill or have a fallback position "equally disastrous" to the way the Nixon administration tried to message Watergate.

The process, Minnick said, was an "absolute total failure."

..."It was a failure of Democratic leadership," Minnick continued.

In part that was due to the fact that the solution was so partisan and that there was no buy-in from the Republicans, he said.

Minnick faults Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) for running the House in a top-down style similar to that of one of her predecessors, Newt Gingrich (R-Ga.).

Minnick is a former Republican-- who worked for Nixon in the '70s-- and although he changed his T-shirt color to blue after the Watergate scandal, in his heart he's always been a Republican, with a typically anti-egalitarian, authoritarian perspective that always puts Big Business ahead of society, ahead of individuals and ahead of liberty. He sees the Democrats as being driven by the extreme left, having little idea what that even means. Like his doofus colleagues in the decimated, clueless Blue Dog Coalition, America is far better off without him in Washington. Actually, he's keeping his place in DC-- and obviously hopes to get a job working for one of the corrupt lobbying firms he served so well while he was a Member of Congress.

Sorry for the tangent; back to the Obama-Krauthammer vision of a conservative consensus that is already a proven loser. "[W]ith his stunning tax deal, Obama is back. Holding no high cards, he nonetheless managed to resurface suddenly not just as a player but as orchestrator, dealmaker and central actor in a high $1 trillion drama." Krauthammer slobberingly describes him as even shrewder and more nimble than the triangulating Bill Clinton.

Remember the question after Election Day: Can Obama move to the center to win back the independents who had abandoned the party in November? And if so, how long would it take? Answer: Five weeks. An indoor record, although an asterisk should denote that he had help-- Republicans clearing his path and sprinkling it with rose petals.

Obama's repositioning to the center was first symbolized by his joint appearance with Clinton, the quintessential centrist Democrat, and followed days later by the overwhelming 81 to 19 Senate majority that supported the tax deal. That bipartisan margin will go a long way toward erasing the partisan stigma of Obama's first two years, marked by Stimulus I, which passed without a single House Republican, and a health-care bill that garnered no congressional Republicans at all.

Despite this, some on the right are gloating that Obama had been maneuvered into forfeiting his liberal base. Nonsense. He will never lose his base. Where do they go?

They just showed America where they will go-- they'll stay home. But Krauthammer and other creatures of the Beltway think the whole country functions like their incestuous little tiny world. They don't understand that ordinary American families are hurting and that the billions McConnell and Obama just handed to Republicans was like pulling the scabs off their wounds and pouring tabasco sauce on.

Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid understand that. For although both did their jobs and helped Obama pass his dreadful tax giveaway, neither showed up for the signing ceremony yesterday. They left that for Obama, Tiny Tim Geithner and their new pal, Miss McConnell. Former Labor Secretary Robert Reich wasn't there-- probably wasn't invited-- and he sees the travesty as non-stumulative to the economy and embodying the essence of Reaganomics.

A disproportionate share of the $858 billion deal will go to people in the top 1 percent who spend only a fraction of what they earn and save the rest. Their savings are sent around the world to wherever they will earn the highest return. 

The only practical effect of adding $858 billion to the deficit will be to put more pressure on Democrats to reduce non-defense spending of all sorts, including Social Security and Medicare, as well as education and infrastructure.

It is nothing short of Ronald Reagan’s (and David Stockman’s) notorious “starve the beast” strategy. 

In 2012, an election year, when congressional Democrats have less power than they do now, the pressure to extend the Bush tax cuts further will be overwhelming.

Worse yet, the deal adds to the underlying structural problem that caused the Great Recession in the first place.

Since Ronald Reagan was president, median hourly wages have barely budged, and America’s vast working and middle classes have taken home a steadily smaller share of the nation’s income (adjusted for inflation). The typical male worker today is earning less than the typical male worker thirty years ago.

Yet the richest 1 percent of Americans is now taking home a larger percentage of the nation’s income than at any time since 1928. And we recall what happened in 1929.

Unless the vast majority of Americans has enough purchasing power to keep the economy going without going ever more deeply into debt, the economy will eventually go over a cliff.

That’s what happened in 1929 and 2008.

START Stop?

The Senate Republicans have the Democrats in a pickle again. There are enough votes to overcome the great homophobic filibuster against repealing the shameful Don't Ask, Don't Tell, and today is supposed to be the day. Susan Coleman, Ben Nelson, Scott Brown, Lisa Murkowski and Olympia Snowe are grudgingly on board with the Democrats. But don't start the big coming-out party just yet. Obama is far more-- like way far more-- concerned with the START treaty, and die-hard anti-gay Republicans are now saying, in a last-ditch attempt to screw the gays (or screw the Democrats with that part of their base) that if they repeal DADT, the GOP will defeat START. This strategy has been thought up by two Republicans in trouble with their own reactionary bases back home: desperate closet queen Lindsey Graham and quasi-once-in-a-blue-moon-maninstream conservative Bob Corker. Apparently it smells sweeter in Lindsey's closet, but he and Corker are determined to show the yahoos in South Carolina and Tennessee that they can be hostage-taking assholes too, national security be damned.

"I felt like momentum was growing for START," Corker said, adding that since Reid announced he was holding votes on DADT and DREAM, it has had a "chilling effect."

"I'm watching support for the treaty erode, because of highly partisan political issues being brought up solely because activist groups in the Democratic Party want this done," he continued.

Corker said he wasn't issuing a personal threat, and was merely commenting on the reaction of his Senate GOP colleagues. When I pressed Senator Corker on whether Republican Senators would really base their decision on START on whether Reid held a vote on DADT, Corker didn't answer directly.

"That being thrown into the middle of this debate is causing many Republicans to want to see START pushed back and candidly is causing them to oppose it," Corker said. "This is hardening them against passage of this treaty at this time."

The House Took Other Votes This Week Too

On Thursday evening, the House took up S. 987, a widely popular bill meant to help protect girls in developing countries through the prevention of child marriage. It failed to pass under suspension (two-thirds needed), the 241-166 majority in favor falling short. Although a dozen Republicans crossed the aisle to vote with all but 9 (reactionary) Democrats, a baseless whisper campaign that discouraging underage girls from being forced into marriages would somehow increase abortions killed the bill. Anti-choice fanatics on both sides of the aisle did their worst, the repulsive likes of Lipinski Jr, Gene Taylor, Travis Childers and Rick Boucher joining forces with Michele Bachmann, Louie Gohmert and John Boehner to make sure the world is a far more miserable place in the future.

Fortunately, not even Boehner's best efforts were enough to kill S. 3874, the bill to reduce the level of lead in drinking water. Hard to imagine anyone would vote against this? Some industries want to keep polluting-- and they pay their congressional supporters well-- and besides, rich Republicans drink bottled water. The bill passed, on suspension, 226-109, only one scumbag Blue Dog, brine-taking champ Collin Peterson (MN), joining Boehner and his 109 GOP poisoners. Shockingly 31 Republicans just did not have the stomach to vote to kill their own constituents outright and crossed the aisle to vote with the Democrats and against Boehner and Cantor. Even knee-jerk right-wing kooks who never veer from the party line like David Dreier (CA), Frank Wolf (VA), Paul Ryan (WI) and Aaron Schock (IL) found this one too tough to vote against.

None of those Republicans, on the other hand, found it distasteful enough to vote against H.R. 5510, Marcy Kaptur's bill to aid families facing foreclosure. It needed two-thirds and only managed to win 210-145, not quite enough. Interestingly, 4 House Republicans from Boehner's own state of Ohio were among the half-dozen Republicans crossing the aisle on this one. But they were offset by 5 reactionary Democrats, conservative slobs John Adler (NJ), Dan Boren (OK), Jim Marshall (GA), Michael McMahon (NY) and Scott Owens (NY).

Oh, and there was this: Even if the House approved keeping more lead out of our drinking water, the Senate decided to make it eat-at-your-own-risk when it comes to food safety. Very sad that this is the quality of what passes for political leadership in our disintegrating nation:

Live-Blogging The Repeal Of DADT From Marrakech

Ron Wyden was on the Senate floor early this morning-- next week he gets the prostate cancer surgery-- and he said, quite sensibly, "Don't Ask, Don't Tell is wrong. I don't care who you love, if you love this country enough to risk your life for it. You shouldn't have to hide who you are. You ought to be able to serve. (Now there's a concept Miss McConnell, who was booted out of the Army after 10 days for groping a private's privates, Mark Kirk and Lindsey Graham will never understand. All three sickening, hypocritical closet queens are expected to vote no today.) "The history of our wonderful nation, continued Wyden, "is spotted with wrongs, but this institution is at its best when it corrects them. That's the opportunity we will have today." Speaking for the 3 closet cases, a nasty and bitter old John McCain grumbled on the floor of the Senate, "I'm aware that this vote will probably pass today... and there will be high fives all over the liberal bastions of America, and we'll see the talk shows tomorrow, a bunch of people talking about how great it is. Most of them never have served in the military or maybe not even known someone in the military."

No matter how bad much of a disappointment Obama has been, the only choice was between him and the bitter, nasty, bigoted creature quoted above. Bigoted conservatives have already defeated the DREAM Act. The only Republicans with the guts to do the right thing were William Bennett (UT), Richard Lugar (IN), and Lisa Murkowski (Alaska). Democrats running across the aisle in the other direction to vote with the GOP were Ben Nelson (NE), Max Baucus (MT), Jon Tester (MT-- big disappointment, but he's up for reelection and scared), Mark Pryor (AR), and Kay Hagan (NC). Gun-totin' macho man Joe Manchin (D-WV) hid under his, confused and desk trembling, and couldn't work up the courage to vote at all.

The repulsive Republican filibuster of equality for gay men and women in the armed forces was just defeated 63-33. George Voinovich (R-OH) and closet case Mark Kirk (R-IL) were the last minute GOP aisle crossers in favor. Now it will only take 51 votes to pass the bill and whoever is afraid to voted for equality can avoid it. The cowards afraid to vote on this one were Manchin again, plus Republicans who were expected to vote NO, Jim Bunning, Judd Gregg, and Orrin Hatch. I guess we should thank all 4 of them in a way. DNC Chair Tim Kaine, in an elegant slap at bitter old bigot John McCain, included the term "high-fives all around" in his congratulations statement. After the vote President Obama issued this statement:

Today, the Senate has taken an historic step toward ending a policy that undermines our national security while violating the very ideals that our brave men and women in uniform risk their lives to defend. By ending “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell,” no longer will our nation be denied the service of thousands of patriotic Americans forced to leave the military, despite years of exemplary performance, because they happen to be gay. And no longer will many thousands more be asked to live a lie in order to serve the country they love.

As Commander-in-Chief, I am also absolutely convinced that making this change will only underscore the professionalism of our troops as the best led and best trained fighting force the world has ever known. And I join the Secretary of Defense and the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, as well as the overwhelming majority of service members asked by the Pentagon, in knowing that we can responsibly transition to a new policy while ensuring our military strength and readiness.

I want to thank Majority Leader Reid, Senators Lieberman and Collins and the countless others who have worked so hard to get this done. It is time to close this chapter in our history. It is time to recognize that sacrifice, valor and integrity are no more defined by sexual orientation than they are by race or gender, religion or creed. It is time to allow gay and lesbian Americans to serve their country openly. I urge the Senate to send this bill to my desk so that I can sign it into law.

And they did. The final vote to repeal the heinous DADT was 65-31, two more than the vote to pass cloture and shut down the McCain hate-filled filibuster. Burr and Ensign were the two Republicans who switched sides and voted for LBGT equality at the last minute and once repeal was assured. More than Joe Manchin, still frozen in fear under his desk, did!

Streams of Consciousness, Dec. 17

South Florida voters can't blame DWT for not warning them before the election-- over and over-- about what a crook, an exceptional crook, David M. Rivera was, is and has always been. In the end FL-25 voters gave the open seat to Rivera over Democrat Joe Garcia 74,386 (53%) to 60,123 (42%). One has to wonder if they're starting to feel some buyers remorse now that it's come out that the Miami-Dade state attorney's office is investigating more than $500,000 in secret payments from the owners of the Flagler Dog Track to a company tied to Rivera and his mother.

Most of the money was paid in early 2008, weeks after Rivera-- then a member of the Florida House of Representatives-- helped run a political campaign backed by the dog track to win voter approval for Las Vegas-style slot machines at parimutuel venues in Miami-Dade County.

The dog track-- now called the Magic City Casino-- made three payments totaling $510,000 to Millennium Marketing, a company currently co-managed by Rivera's 70-year-old mother. Investigators are still trying to determine if Rivera himself received any of the money, or if anything about the transaction was illegal, according to sources close to the inquiry.

Rivera basically managed the pro-slots campaign and is widely rumored to have been paying off other Florida Republicans-- including teabagger Marco Rubio-- to support it. Rivera refuses to discuss the investigation with the media but his damage control p.r. firm issued a blanket statement, as they always do, denying everything.

In the statement, Rivera said he was "designated by Millennium'' to work on the slots campaign after the firm was hired by Flagler, and added he has not been contacted by investigators. At the time the contract was signed, Millennium's sole corporate officer was Rivera's godmother, Ileana Medina.

But Roberto Martinez, an attorney for the dog track, said it was Rivera who first approached the track owners in 2006 asking to manage the slots campaign, and it was Rivera who suggested that the contract go through Millennium, rather than to Rivera directly. Flagler's contract with Millennium was signed by both Rivera and Medina.

Flagler's owners "wanted to make sure they retained David's personal services,'' Martinez said. Flagler's owners never dealt with Medina or Rivera's mother, Daisy Magarino, who was named a corporate officer of Millennium days after the Flagler contract expired.

In a later statement to the Herald, Rivera confirmed that he suggested the contract with Millennium after Flagler's owners "expressed interest'' in pursuing the referendum.

In October, while campaigning for Congress, Rivera told the Herald he only "helped'' with the slots vote, and denied having a management role in the parimutuel campaign or receiving any payment.

But under the October 2006 agreement with Flagler, Rivera was described as the "strategic director'' of the pro-slots campaign, and its "Top Leader of Chain of Command of All Campaign Consultants and Campaign Activities,'' according to the contract, which was reviewed by the Miami Herald.

Martinez said Flagler did nothing wrong, and the company's owners are cooperating with the investigation.

Rivera "was very good at what he did, at directing the political campaign. He worked very hard,'' Martinez said. "Our clients haven't done anything wrong. They have nothing to hide.''

But in an interview with the Herald earlier this year, a Flagler official denied any contract with Rivera. Flagler's vice president, Isadore Havenick, told the newspaper: "He gave us advice, but he was never hired by us.''

...Martinez said Havenick's statement is not inconsistent, because the payments from the company went to Millennium, not to Rivera directly. "We don't know where the money went,'' Martinez said.

The payments from the track to Millennium were never publicly disclosed. Millennium was paid directly by Flagler, not through a political action committee Flagler established with two other Miami-Dade parimutuels to finance the campaign. The committee's expenses, which totaled more than $6.7 million, were disclosed under campaign finance laws.

...According to records reviewed by the Herald, the track also agreed to pay Millennium another $500,000 in monthly installments of $20,000-- the remainder of a "success fee'' owed to Millennium after the referendum passed in the Jan. 29, 2008, vote. But neither Rivera nor Millennium ever collected on it.

Rivera did not report receiving any income from Flagler Dog Track or Millennium Marketing between 2006 and 2008 in financial disclosure forms filed with the state Ethics Commission.

In the forms, Rivera first reported that he worked during those years as a consultant for the U.S. Agency for International Development. the Herald reported in October that USAID had no record that Rivera worked for the agency; Rivera then amended his disclosure forms, omitting any reference to USAID-- but without listing any other source of income except his $30,000 annual salary as a state lawmaker.

Rivera did report working as a consultant through Millennium for other clients from 2002 to 2005. At the time, however, Millennium was not an active company, state records show.

Magarino, Rivera's mother, first founded a company called Millennium Marketing Strategies in 2000, but it was dissolved a year later. In 2006, a new Millennium was founded by Medina, a longtime business partner of Magarino's, records show.

Magarino reappeared as a Millennium officer in April 2008, four days after the final payment from Flagler. Rivera himself has never been an officer of the company.

Medina and Margarino could not be reached for comment.

With the election of Rivera and Rubio, Miami is now officially a Banana Republic.

Has Rahm Emanuel Ruined Chicago Yet?

Well, no; he hasn't been elected mayor yet. Voting is slated for February 22. In fact, it isn't even certain that he will be allowed on the ballot, since he's a non-resident and the Board of Elections hearings have dragged on for almost a week already. Chicago law says candidates for mayor must have lived in the city for 12 months before the election. Emanuel and his family live in DC and have no home in Chicago.

There are about 20 candidates trying to get onto the ballot besides Emanuel but the latest poll shows him the best known and, obviously the fave to win, beating out "undecided 32-30%. To win, one needs to get over 50%, so it's likely Emanuel will face a runoff. The other top-performing candidates so far are former Chicago Public Schools chief Gery Chico and U.S. Rep. Danny Davis each had 9%, state Sen. James Meeks at 7% and former Senator Carol Moseley Braun at 6%. According to the poll, Emanuel "is out front on the strength of his support from lakefront wards, white voters and the wealthy."

Obama Mania Has Died Down In Africa... Just Like In America

Right after Obama was elected, I was traveling around Mali. You could barely go to a tiny village in the middle of nowhere accessible only by sturdy 4-WD vehicle where you wouldn't find Obama pictures, campaign stickers and America flags. Mali was awash with them. All of Africa was. Everyone was in love with Obama and with America. That's over. Yesterday in the market here in Marrakech where some guy was selling a train set (made in China, of course) with Bush chasing bin-Laden endlessly around the track. I asked him if he had one with Obama and he said to just paint the Bush figure black because it's the only difference between the two.

I first ran into Sam Graham-Felsen when he was blogging up a storm for Obama during the 2008 campaign. I didn't know many professional bloggers back then. Today Sam is a blogging/new media consultant and earlier today the Washington Post published an OpEd by him asking Why is Obama leaving the grass roots on the sidelines?

In the wake of President Obama's deal to extend the Bush tax cuts to the wealthiest Americans, pundits have focused on how Obama has alienated the left. But the issue isn't the left - it's the list.

Obama entered the White House with more than a landslide victory over Sen. John McCain. He brought with him a vast network of supporters, instantly reachable through an unprecedented e-mail list of 13 million people. These supporters were not just left-wing activists but a broad coalition that included the young, African Americans, independents and even Republicans-- and they were ready to be mobilized.

I worked as Obama's chief blogger during his presidential campaign, and my primary focus was telling the stories of these supporters, many of whom had never been engaged in politics or were reengaging after years of disillusionment. There was a common thread in my conversations with the hundreds of people who gave time, sweat and small donations-- that amounted to $500 million-- to Obama's campaign.

They were inspired by Obama's promise to upend Washington by governing from the bottom up. "The change we need doesn't come from Washington," Obama told them. "It comes to Washington."

Yet at seemingly every turn, Obama has chosen to play an inside game. Instead of actively engaging supporters in major legislative battles, Obama has told them to sit tight as he makes compromises behind closed doors.

During the battle over tax cuts, Obama's grass-roots network, Organizing for America, was silent. An OFA spokesman said that the network would engage supporters when the time is "ripe." But many people feel the time is ripe now-- that tax cuts for millionaires in the midst of cuts in basic services and a spiraling deficit are unacceptable-- and they don't understand why Obama won't let them fight.

And when OfA has been given marching orders, more often than not, it's marching orders against the progressive ideals and values that helped sweep the little known 2 year Illinois senator into office out of the blue. People wanted "not Bush" and they could read into "hope and change" anything they wanted. Too few people looked at Obama's conservative voting record. He was consistently down at the very bottom of the Democratic barrel, worse than Lieberman, better than Ben Nelson... sort of the same as Max Baucus, Blanche Lincoln and Mary Landrieu. That's what we nominated instead of Hillary Clinton, who wasn't quite as identifiable with CHANGE.

If the White House wants to keep its grass-roots supporters at bay during major legislative fights, that's its choice. But there's a larger problem looming.

Obama needs this list in 2012-- and he needs its members to dig much deeper than in the last election. The Citizens United ruling has allowed campaigns to become an unprecedented corporate cash free-for-all - and Obama will likely need to raise far more than $500 million from the grass roots to be competitive.

While Obama's political team intensely focuses on independents, the grass-roots list seems like an afterthought. Every time Obama chooses to compromise behind closed doors, and keeps OFA quiet, he might win over a few independents. But he's also conveying a message that the grass roots doesn't really matter, that the bottom-up ethos of his candidacy doesn't apply to his presidency.

Personally I think the horse has left the barn. Most Democrats still don't realize that Obama's Conservative Consensus is all he was ever about... but they will. At that point, even Palin may be able to beat him as Democrats and left-leaning independents stay home on election day, just like they did last month.

Congresswoman Yvette Clarke is an African-American freshman representing Brownsville, Flatbush, Crown Heights, Park Slope in Brooklyn. It's one of the most heavily Democratic districts in America. Thursday she voted against the Obama-McConnell job-skilling tax giveaway to millionaires. She told her constituents that she voted against it because "at a time when our nation is facing a 9.8% unemployment rate, with Social Security recipients being denied a cost of living adjustment for the second year in a row, and the most obstinate economic down turn in a generation, I could not in good conscious vote to provide an estate tax give-away and extend the Bush era tax cuts to the wealthiest individuals in our nation. These are an extension of the same fiscal policies put in place under the Bush Administration that has dramatically increased our nation’s deficit as well as added to the challenges of the recovery of our nation’s economy... the damaging results these tax policies will have on the deficit will ultimately empower Republicans to attack and dismantle the social safety-net that residents of my district rely upon. I refuse to be complicit with policies that reward the greed of a handful of our nation’s wealthiest individuals, while hard working Americans and their families are left with policies that leave them struggling in the cold now and for generations to come.”

Another staunch Obama supporter, Florida Congressman Alan Grayson also voted against the bill. “This bill gives more money to the rich and their families, who do not need it. Large parts of it will not create a single job, but it will add hundreds of billions of dollars to the national deficit and debt. We cannot afford it and I do not support it... We got the bum rush. The President and Senate Republicans shut everyone else out of the negotiations. Congressional leaders shoved this bill through without a single hearing. We should not be giving away hundreds of billions of dollars to people who don’t need it, without asking questions in committees, marking up the legislation, or reading the bill." On top of that, he singled out 4 areas he was especially unhappy with:

·         Extending the Bush tax cuts for the richest of the rich, which will add an estimated $150 billion to the federal deficit over the next two years;
·         Revamping the estate tax to give six thousand of the richest families in the country an additional $23 billion to boost their children’s trust funds, without creating jobs or stimulating the economy;

·         Giving away $150 billion in corporate taxes, by allowing businesses to write off all capital expenditures in 2011 for items made in foreign countries, and items that they would have purchased anyway, which effectively will “zero out” the corporate income tax; and

·         Cutting the payroll taxes that fund Social Security, which creates the risk of weakening the program and/or forcing a reduction in benefits.

If Obama is losing Members of Congress like Yvette Clarke and Alan Grayson, he better hope there are a lot of Republicans out there who think like right-wing propagandist Charles Krauthammer... and figure out a way to get them to stop watching Fox and listening to Limbaugh.



The Health Care Bill Was Ruled Unconstitutional By A GOP Hack With An Outsized Ego And A Reputation As A Drama Queen

in 2007 Henry Hudson wrote a largely unread autobiography, Quest For Justice, in which he unmasked himself as someone primarily driven by a desire to be in the spotlight.

Throughout the book, he boasts of his ability to generate media coverage; describes relationships with celebrities in Washington and Hollywood; and recalls the boredom of legal work removed from the public eye. ("Perhaps it was ego," he remarks.) At one point, Hudson acknowledges that he was gunning for "a full-time gig as a network legal commentator." Hudson ultimately accepted that he "was never going to make it big in the broadcasting field," but he never lost his appetite for attention. And, if his ruling against President Obama's landmark health care law stands, Hudson might have finally completed his lifelong quest for glory.

The Ruling Elite vs The Real America

Let's end this episode with a discussion Jon Stewart had with some NYC 9-11 first responders on how they view the U.S. Senate's filibuster of their healthcare reimbursement. Notice John Boehner isn't the only weeping girly-man in the Republican congressional leadership... and if you think Hitler was somehow inately different from Arizona Senator Jon Kyl, watch the clip again:

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Streams Of Consciousness, Dec. 1

This evening the Congressional Progressive Caucus met to elect its leadership for the 112th Congress. Donna Edwards, Raúl Grijalva and Keith Ellison were the nominees and it was widely believed Edwards had the inside track. The only problem was that she was only interested in the chair if it was a solo deal-- no co-chair. But the Caucus first voted to keep the co-chair structure, which pretty much sealed the deal, despite the back biting from outgoing co-chair Lynn Woolsey who has been badmouthing Grijalva, claiming that he was impossible to work with. She's suffering from a back injury and is presumed to be seriously impaired from painkillers, almost on a Rush Limbaugh level. Wow, I just realized I can use that fantastic new Limbaugh masterpiece that WMXDesign worked up for us today.

Before the caucus meeting, Grijalva and John Conyers sent a letter to the Cat Food Commissioners urging protection for Social Security benefits, similar to the one they sent President Obama, who ignored it; apparently he only listens to reactionaries, not progressives.

“The prolonged and unnecessary debate about whether to slash Social Security benefits and yank the financial rug out from under millions of Americans should end now, and it can end as soon as members of the Commission announce they will not support any cuts,” Rep. Grijalva said. “Social Security has never contributed a dime to the national debt and should never have been part of the Commission’s conversation. The American people have spoken loudly and clearly about their wish not to see Social Security tinkered with, reduced or privatized. All the Commission has to do is catch up with reality. Announcing that it will not recommend any Social Security reductions would send a strong message about the importance of this fundamental program and give families the financial security they need and deserve, especially in this struggling economy.”

The letter was co-signed by 137 Members of Congress, not that Obama cares, since none of them were Republicans. Obama seems more attentive to letters like the one from Miss McConnell, threatening to prevent Congress from functioning until millionaires and billionaires get their tax breaks. As my friend Kagro X said today: "Irresistible force meets movable object!" Newsweek's Ben Adler did a good job this afternoon putting the whole GOP ransom attempt into context. The "compromise: the Republicans are "offering" is simple: "in exchange for giving the Republicans' the tax cuts for the wealthy they desire, Republicans would stop threatening us all with nuclear annihilation. If you care about the national security of the United States, as Obama apparently does, then passing a budget-busting inequality-increasing tax cut is a small price to pay. But what does a tax cut have to do with nuclear security?"

Greg Sargent was even more to the point:

With House Dems set to vote tomorrow on extending just the middle class tax cuts, Republicans are fanning out to denounce the move as a tax hike. The idea is that a plan to extend just the low end tax cuts would mean that the high end ones would expire at the end of the year. Presto: Tomorrow's vote is a vote for a tax hike.

But Dems have their pushback at the ready: They will point out that some House Republicans themselves said a few months ago that they would vote to extend just the middle class tax cuts, if given just that option.

Meanwhile House Ways and Means Committee Chair Sander Levin pushed forward with the Middle Class Tax Act (H.R. 6467) to extend tax cuts for the first $250,000 every family in America makes. It'll be voted on tomorrow. Levin:

“These tax cuts offer critical relief to middle-class families looking to rebuild their economic security as our nation continues to recover from the recession. Provisions in this bill represent a view that Democrats and Republicans share-- we must give these middle-class families certainty by extending this expiring relief. We must not let Congressional Republicans hold these families hostage while they insist on extending expensive tax cuts for the wealthiest few. So let us stand up and vote now to extend middle class tax cuts, extend AMT relief, extend the child tax credit and marriage penalty relief, extend the EITC, and extend critical education incentives to help more families afford higher education for their children.”

To The Victors, The Spoils... Only The Whole Planet Will Be Spoiled By This One

The shady Americans for Prosperity PAC was set up and funded largely by billionaire reactionary David Koch to kill climate change efforts. The PAC enforced a No Climate Tax pledge on candidates looking for financial assistance and among the winning Republicans, whose elections guaranteed the ascendancy of John Boehner to the Speakers chair, were dozens of pledge signers including radical right fanatics Bill Huizenga (MI), Daniel Webster (FL), Justin Amash (MI), Charlie Bass (NH), Frank Guinta (NH), Sean Duffy (WI), Rick Crawford (AR), Reid Ribble (WI), Morgan Griffin (VA), Tim Walberg (MI), Bob Gibbs (OH) and Dan Benishek (MI).

Koch got his reward today when Boehner announced he would be abolishing the Select Committee on Global Warming

At a hearing Wednesday, Rep. Jim Sensenbrenner (R-Wis.), the ranking GOP member on the committee who had argued against its disbanding, announced that it would be their final meeting.

"This hearing will be the last of the select committee," he said. "And while I was initially skeptical of the select committee's mission, it ultimately provided a forum for bipartisan debate, and an opportunity for House Republicans to share a different view on the pressing energy and environment issues that we currently face."

Well worth the few million dollars oil billionaire poured into the effort.

Progressives Want Obama To Stop Caving In To Republicans... And Ponies For Everyone

Our pal Ari Berman, author of Herding Donkeys appeared on MSNBC last week to talk about Obama needlessly caving in to reactionaries again. What has to be remembered is that Obama is now and has always been-- at least for as long as he's held federal office-- a conservative. He wears a blue t-shirt but he seems more comfortable working with red-shirted conservatives, even though they have mostly moved so far to the right that they are reactionaries rather than conservatives. Obama utterly ignores progressives. That explains why millions of Democrats and left-leaning independents didn't bother coming out to the polls last month. Ignore corporate shill Susan Molinari in this clip but listen to Ari's explanation of what's going on in Washington:



And remember, Obama will get blamed for crap like this while he running around making kissy-face with Eric Cantor instead of standing up and fighting for the people who put him in office.

Unemployment benefits expired for millions of jobless Americans at midnight, marking the first time in four decades that Congress has failed to provide benefits with so many Americans out of work. Republican lawmakers who blocked an extension of benefits maintain that the country simply cannot afford to spend $12 billion on the unemployed, even as they fight to secure permanent tax cuts for the richest two percent of Americans, which will heap hundreds of billions on to the deficit.

On MSNBC's Morning Joe today, Rep. Mike Pence (R-IN) said that while he is "deeply sympathetic" to the plight of the unemployed, "we've got to make the cuts necessary to offset those costs." During the interview, Pence claimed that Republicans are "anxious to support" struggling Americans, "particularly in the holiday season." However, asked whether he would accept a compromise that paid for unemployment benefits by allowing tax cuts to expire only on income over $1 million, Pence insisted that the jobless are better off swallowing tax cuts for the very rich than receiving immediate relief.

Pressed further on his priorities by Time's Mark Halperin, Pence awkwardly joked that he's "not good at chess," before falling back on his talking points. "I think the minimum that we have to do right now for Americans that are struggling in unemployment in this economy is make sure that no American sees a tax increase," he said.

Streams Of Consciousness- Nov. 30

Let's Start With A Message From Lady Gaga



And On To The Senate's Hectic Schedule

Today the Senate passed S. 510, Richard Durbin's FDA Food Safety Modernization Act, 73-25. Only 25 hard core obstructionist Republicans, led by DeMint and Miss McConnell, opposed it. Crossing over to the saner side of the asylum were many farm state Republicans like Burr (NC), Grassley (IA), Johanns (NE), Kirk (IL), LeMieux (FL), Lugar (IN) and Voinovich (OH). Before the Senate could vote on it, though, they had to reject a couple of frivolous Coburn amendment, one of which to enforce an earmark moratorium, which only got 39 votes (it needed 60). Miss McConnell was working from behind his closet door to sabotage it. Although they've opposed ending earmarks in the past, cowardly Republicans facing teabagger primaries in 2012-- Kay Bailey Hutchison and Olympia Snowe-- both voted YES this time. Evan Bayh led 7 Democrats across the aisle to vote with the GOP.

Mark Foley Must Be Bored With His Life As A Socialite And Realtor

Perhaps he's feeling empowered by the swearing in of his old crony and fellow congressional closet queen Mark Kirk as a U.S. Senator yesterday, or by the rapid rise of his irresponsible page scandal enabler, John Shimkus, but Mark Foley has been dropping hints again that he wants to run for office. The plan is to run for mayor of West Palm Beach and than use that to... sit down for this... leverage another run for Congress! Presumably he wasn't talking about pages when he told a right-wing blogger today that "my passion has always been in D.C.... I have never closed a door that I wasn't able to re-open."

With about 1.3 million dollars residing in his federal congressional campaign account (money that could only be utilized for federal elections), Foley has the means to mount a comeback.  The open questions are-- does he truly have the desire to return, and will he be embraced by the public once again after leaving Congress under such ? Either way, Foley is considering  the notion of returning to Congress.

After reapportionment, there's no telling who he would be running against, but newly elected homophobic maniac Allen West is one possibility-- at least for a fun primary. As for the City Hall run, there's still a month to go before the filing deadline and Foley says he's waiting 'til the last day before announcing his intentions (December 27). "I do have the luxury that I can be the last man to file if I choose to, and still have the name ID," Foley told a local reporter. County Commissioner Jeff Koons might have been the favorite to win but he was recently convicted of extortion


Blue Dogs Behaving As Badly As Ever

Yesterday Ed Perlmutter (D-CO) introduced a resolution providing for consideration of the Senate amendments to H.R. 4783 to accelerate the income tax benefits for charitable cash contributions for the relief of victims of the earthquake in Chile, and to extend the period from which such contributions for the relief of victims of the earthquake in Haiti may be accelerated. Today Republicans voted against even allowing the resolution to come up for a vote, although it passed 223-168. Nine conservative Democrats, all but one members of the devastated Blue Dog Caucus, crossed the aisle to vote with the Republicans, including recently-defeated reactionaries John Adler (NJ), Bobby Bright (AL), Scott Murphy (NY), and Stephanie Herseth Sandlin (SD). Retiring alcoholic Marion Berry (AR), driven by his psychotic hatred of Barack Obama, also voted with the GOP and the other miscreants, who will need to be dealt with in the future, were Dan Boren (OK), Joe Donnelly (IN), Jim Matheson (UT), and Heath Shuler (NC).

When the actual amendments themselves came up for a vote late in the afternoon, it passed 256-152, 16 Republicans abandoning Boehner/Cantor obstructionism, while 3 ridiculous Blue Dogs, Gene Taylor, Jim Cooper and, as always, Bobby Bright, voted with the GOP minority.

Kentucky Gov. Steve Beshear Isn't A Blue Dog But...

Even if you didn't read Charles Pierce's brilliant book, Idiot America, just the graphic on the cover (on the right) would give you a good clue about the contents, particularly the riveting introduction, "Dinosaurs And Saddles," the story of the creationist theme park in southern Kentucky. I guess Kentucky thought everyone was laughing with them. Today the state's governor, a Democrat, announced that the museum's builders, Answers in Genesis, are building another creationist theme park, Ark Encounter, this one in northern Kentucky.

The attraction is envisioned as a full-scale wooden ark that would include associated museums, theaters, amenities, event venues and outdoor parking.

Preliminary indications are that the attraction could draw as many as 1.6 million guests per year and would cost at least $24.5 million to complete.

Answers in Genesis is an Apologetics Ministry that focuses on the absolute truth and authority of the Bible.

The Creation Museum, opened in May 2007, was estimated to draw about 250,000 visitors per year, but surpassed one million visitors in less than three years.

Its controversial exhibits represent the views of the ministry, including the belief that the earth is only about 7,000 years old and that dinosaurs were among the creatures on Noah’s ark.

...Beshear’s participation in the announcement suggests state incentives for the project may be included.

And... From The Ridiculous, To The Sublime

Streams Of Consciousness- Nov. 29

It's widely reckoned in the Senate that Arkansas ConservaDem Mark Pryor is the dimmest bulb in that body. He as much as admitted it in an on-camera interview with Bill Maher for the film Religulous 2 years ago when he excused his pandering to superstitious rednecks back home by smirking that there's no IQ test to be a Member of the Senate-- as if we didn't know. Watch:



Now as the lame duck session kicks in-- and Pryor thinks about his reelection bid in 2012 in a state that just decimated elected Democrats-- there is every reason in the world to believe that Pryor will be roosting on the other side of the aisle on the high-profile, divisive issues where Democrats can most use him. He's likely to vote against the DREAM Act, as he did in 2007, and he's telling the media that he'll oppose repealing DADT as well, possibly being the very vote to kill the effort, something that is sure to cause him the same grief progressives just gave Blanche Lincoln. The man who cynically claims he believes in talking snakes also says being gay is a sin. He told the Democrat-Gazette that "he opposes repeal; that he thinks homosexuality is a sin and that he has reservations about housing gay troops with straight troops (as if this hasn't occurred forever). He's been fully indoctrinated by the Religious Right's false arguments-- that military chaplains won't be able to continue to preach morally justifiable discrimination; that gays are just lying in wait to assault straight soldiers if only given the cover of open service."

And Speaking About DADT...

The Senate got it's third-- after Lindsey Graham and Miss McConnell-- notorious Republican closet queen today, as Illinois' Mark Kirk was sworn in. ThinkProgress welcomed him by pointing out that, although he insists he never ran into any gays during his 21 years in the military, he did promise during the campaign that he might be open to repealing Don't Ask Don't Tell. As when Kirk often says something, he was lying. It's a trait most closet queens like Kirk have honed down to a science.

That's especially sad because poll after poll has been showing most Americans think DADT should be repealed. A new one released today by PEW confirms all the rest of them. Opposition to gays serving in the military has steadily declined from 45% in 1994 to just 27% now. And support for equality for gays serving our country in the military has risen in that time period from 52% to 58%.

Large majorities of Democrats (70%) and independents (62%) favor allowing gays to serve openly. Republicans are divided (40% favor, 44% oppose). Among conservative Republicans, far more oppose than favor allowing gays to serve openly (52% to 28%).

Nearly half (48%) of white evangelical Protestants oppose letting gays serve openly in the military, while just 34% support this proposal. Majorities or pluralities across other religious groups favor allowing gays to serve openly.

The balance of opinion across age groups is in favor of letting gays serve openly. Those 65 and older are the only age group in which fewer than half (44%) favors this; still just 28% of seniors are opposed to gays and lesbians serving openly while an identical percentage offers no opinion.

Two-thirds of college graduates (67%) favor gays and lesbians serving openly, as do more than half of those with some college experience (55%) and those with no more than a high school education (54%).

And, predictably, Know Nothings, currently called Tea Partiers, are in complete opposition to gays serving in the military. I guess that's part of smaller government or something... not the bigotry and hatred some people use to equate them to the Taliban.

Teabagger Congressmen Looking For Places To Sleep

Maybe they didn't expect to ever win or maybe they expect to be defeated in 2012, but the Wall Street Journal estimates that around 15% of the freshmen are planning to sleep in their offices instead of getting apartments in Washington. In 2008 it was kind of funny when we wrote about this in regard to Utah kook Jason Chaffetz (above with his cot, looking for a Capitol Hill office).

"Since I'm here on a temporary basis, I don't see any need to have a permanent kind of residence," says Rep.-elect Joe Heck, a Nevada Republican, who was thinking roll-out cot when he looked at office space this month.

Earlier this month, freshman lawmakers drew lots and chose the three-room suites they and their aides will inhabit in one of three House office buildings.

For many of them, a key selling point was not proximity to the House chamber, where they'll vote, but to the House gym, where they'll shower.

Rep.-elect Tim Griffin, an Army reservist, stood near the gym in the Rayburn House Office Building and used some compass software on his phone to navigate the paths to potential offices.

"We want to get as close to Rayburn as possible," Mr. Griffin, an Arkansas Republican, told an aide. "I've got to walk all the way down this hall in the morning."

He settled on a suite in the Longworth building with plenty of space for the six-foot sofa he says will be his bed for the foreseeable future. "I don't want to see you in your bathrobe," Rep.-elect Cory Gardner (R., Colo.), a non-office sleeper, told Mr. Griffin as freshmen rushed about Capitol Hill looking at available offices.

...Nobody seems to know for certain how many lawmakers currently dwell in their offices; estimates range into the dozens. The practice appears to crest after Republican wave elections.

In the mid-1980s, then-Speaker Tip O'Neill (D., Mass.) rousted the office sleepers, including Texas Republican Dick Armey, who later became House majority leader and is now a booster of the anti-Washington tea-party rebellion. "The theory was the offices weren't for sleeping," says Stan Brand, who was House general counsel at the time. "They were for transacting business."

Mr. Armey moved out briefly, then quietly started sleeping on his office couch again, according to a former aide.

After Republicans took the House in 1994, ending four decades of Democratic control, the number of office sleepers grew. The new speaker in 1995, Georgian Newt Gingrich, gave the practice his blessing.

...Freshman Todd Rokita (R., Ind.) was floored when shown a 600-square-foot, $2,000-a-month studio. He'll sleep in his office instead. "I'm not doing this as a political stunt," he says. "I'm doing this because I'm a cheap bastard." Most House members earn $174,000 a year and maintain homes in their districts.

Professor Cornbread

I got every question right. See if you do too-- and learn about why term limits should be on the table and up for discussion-- especially if read with Frank Rich's terrific NY Times column from yesterday in mind.



Two Execrable Choices For New House Appropriations Chair

The old guard wants career criminal Jerry Lewis (R-CA) and the right guard, lead by the hysterical Club For Growth is insisting on extremist Jack Kingston (R-GA). Lewis would have to get a waiver of GOP rules to grab the chair again and many of loathe to grant it since it is no secret Inside the Beltway that although Rove successfully defused the criminal investigations, Lewis was far more guilty of rank corruption than his less cautious sidekick Duke Cunningham, currently rotting in prison. In the end it will be, more or less, Boehner's decision and he and Lewis have worked very closely in the past.

Each of the three candidates running for the post have downsides for GOP leaders, making their decision all the more difficult.

Rep. Jerry Lewis (R-Calif.) is pitching himself as “battle-ready” and tested, but given his long record as a pork-barrel spender his selection could enrage tea party-backed freshmen. They might be more likely to support Kingston.

Kingston is marking himself as the outsider candidate since he sponsored anti-earmark legislation in 2007, though his record is not earmark-free. Taxpayers for Common Sense says Kingston obtained $66 million in earmarks in fiscal 2010 compared to Rogers’ $93 million and $97 million for Lewis.

But the fact that Kingston is more of an outsider could be a problem for leaders, since he could be more difficult to control.

An appropriations chairman can win loyalty for the leadership by pressuring agency officials to fund pet projects under threat of reduced funding for other projects. Some observers believe Kingston could balk at such requests from leaders.

Rep. Hal Rogers (R-Ky.) also has a long track record of bringing home the bacon and he therefore has similar liabilities and strengths as Lewis. But the Kentucky Republican helped himself by announcing his support for the GOP earmark ban. In letters to colleagues he has pledged to open up the appropriations process to the wider membership.

But some supporters of the other candidates say Rogers has not performed well in front of the media and that could be a liability given the importance of explaining GOP spending positions to the public. In response to the criticism, Rogers has promised to prioritize media outreach in letters to colleagues touting his candidacy.

Lewis’s track record as a fundraiser for GOP lawmakers is a mark in his favor. It was seem as the deciding factor when Lewis fended off a 2004 chairmanship challenge from Rogers.

Tom Fitton, president of Judicial Watch said that Lewis will be calling in his chits before the Nov. 30 meeting, reminding members of past favors.

The Senate broke a GOP filibuster on Tom Harkin's FDA Food Safety Modernization Act (S.510) today. Every Democrat plus 14 Republicans voted for cloture, which passed 69-26 in the face of mindless, ritual opposition from DeMint and his pack of hyenas. The bill gives the FDA the authority to proactively work on preventing foodborne illnesses instead of just reacting after an outbreak occurs.

"The statistics are that Americans are getting sick and they are dying because of food borne illnesses," said Sen. Tom Harkin, D-Iowa, a chief architect of the measure.

Food recalls are now voluntary, but the Senate-passed legislation would give the FDA the power to order food producers to recall their products, a step that could prevent tainted food from reaching consumers' tables.

Food producers would have to increase safety requirements and record keeping to keep the food supply safer. The bill would also increase safety standards for imported foods.

Some Republicans, including Sen. Tom Coburn, R-Okla., opposed the bill, saying it represented a government overreach that would create unnecessary burdens on food producers and increase food prices.

If The Afghan Police Are The Solution To Our Problem, We Might As Well Just End This Thing By The Weekend


Did you watch Peter Galbraith explaining the utter futility of trying to train an Afghan police force on 60 Minutes last night? He sounded like the only person in the report who wasn't on powerful Mazar-i-Sharif opiated hash. If you missed it, you can watch the segment below. Get through all the silly feel-good prpoaganda and listen carefully to Galbraith. And then think about what happened there today.

A gunman in an Afghan police uniform has killed six US service members in eastern Afghanistan, officials say.

The man opened fire during a training mission in Pachir Wagam district, Nangarhar province, said Nato. He was also killed in the incident.

US officials later confirmed that all six were Americans, but declined to give further details.
The Taliban issued a statement saying it was responsible for the killings, AP news agency reported.

Spokesman Zabiullah Mujahid said the gunman had joined the border police in order to kill foreign soldiers.

"Today he found this opportunity and he killed six invaders," he said.
Nato said the incident was being investigated.

"An individual in an Afghan border police uniform turned his weapon against International Security Assistance Forces (Isaf) during a training mission today, killing six service members in eastern Afghanistan," Monday's statement said.

Streams Of Consciousness

Someone at the DCCC told me they hire the same media consultants to make their ads-- and steer hapless candidates to those firms as well-- not because DCCC employees have ownership stakes in them but because they make the best ads anyone has ever made. Problem is that objectively, their ads are-- at best-- mediocre. They don't motivate people to vote for a candidate. They're just a giant money suck-- with millions and millions of dollars in commissions and rake-offs for the usual suspects. A recent U.S. Senate candidate told me today that he begged the DSCC not to waste money on more useless TV ads when he desperately needed the money for a GOTV operation. They ignored him; he lost. Above is a well-made ad that accomplishes what it sets out to do. It's done professionally, not by some clowns more concerned with 15% commissions than with winning elections.

Who's Hack Of The Year?

If David Broder is the 4th worst hack, I'm at a loss to imagine who numbers 3, 2 and 1 are. I know Jonah Goldberg, Peggy Noonan, Laura Ingraham and Marty Peretz already got their numbers but did George Will already get one? Do Palin's twitter and Facebook ramblings make her eligible?

He has a simplistic understanding of politics and no understanding of the electorate except as an abstract concept. His hatred of partisanship is actually a thinly veiled disdain for popular rule itself. He defines extremism as principled adherence to any sort of ideology. When he wants to understand what The Voters are thinking, he asks a think tank academic. Despite his disdain for the fiery populists that the idiot voters repeatedly send to our sadly broken Congress, he remains convinced that The American People are a wise and noble breed who long for sensible, bipartisan moderation in all things.

And then sometimes David just up and writes something truly insane, like his recent column about how President Obama needs to start a good old-fashioned war to get the economy humming again.

What Do Doctors Know?

I don't have much faith in what Republican politicians routinely call the "best health care in the world." They're good at broken bones and stopping bleeding. Beyond that... it gets dicey. And a study released today in the New England Journal of Medicine, says that efforts to make American hospitals safer over the past decade have largely failed. I always get the feeling that going to a hospital is a possible death sentence.
Researchers found that of 2,300 patient admissions in 10 randomly selected hospitals 588 patients "were somehow harmed as a result of medical procedures, medications, or other related causes... [and that] 63 percent of the incidents were avoidable."

"Of 588 harms that were identified, 245 (41.7%) were temporary harms requiring intervention… and 251 (42.7%) were temporary harms requiring initial or prolonged hospitalization," Landrigan and his colleagues wrote. "An additional 17 harms (2.9%) were permanent, 50 (8.5%) were life-threatening, and 14 (2.4%) caused or contributed to a patient's death."

...The results of the study show that "harm resulting from medical care was common" and that there is "little evidence that the rate of harm had decreased substantially" from 2001 to 2007, the researchers said in their report. They added that their findings "validate concern raised by patient-safety experts in the United States and Europe that harm resulting from medical care remains very common."

Republicans Aren't That Unique

In fact, they're just like Conservatives in the U.K.-- same bunch of piggish social parasites.

David Cameron was under pressure tonight to evict a new Tory peer from the party after he suggested that welfare changes would encourage "breeding" among the less well-off.

Labour and the Liberal Democrats denounced the "shameful" remarks by Howard Flight, who was rewarded with a peerage by the prime minister last week after helping to raise millions for the Conservative party in the runup to the election.

Downing Street was forced to distance itself from a second Tory peer in a week after Flight warned that plans to remove child benefit from higher-rate taxpayers would deter the middle classes from having children.

His remarks followed the claim last week by a former Thatcherite cabinet minister that most people were better off in the recession. Lord Young of Graffham was forced to resign as Cameron's enterprise adviser after suggesting that most voters had never had it so good as during the "so-called recession."

Flight told today's London Evening Standard: "We're going to have a system where the middle classes are discouraged from breeding because it's jolly expensive... But for those on benefits, there is every incentive. Well, that's not very sensible."

This is the second time Flight, a former Tory deputy chairman, has fallen foul of the party leadership. He was barred from standing as a parliamentary candidate by Michael Howard in 2005 after suggesting that Tory spending cuts did not go far enough.

And this post can only end one way, my favorite campaign commercial of 2010:

Streams Of Consciousness

It took the Austin jury 19 hours of deliberation but they decided unanimously that there was one Texas turkey who does not get a reprieve: Tom DeLay was convicted on money laundering charges.

The trial also opened a window on the world of campaign financing in Washington, as jurors heard testimony about large contributions flowing to Mr. DeLay from corporations seeking to influence him and junkets to posh resorts where the congressman would rub shoulders with lobbyists in return for donations.

Mr. DeLay faces up to life in prison on the money laundering charge.

The Palin Family Freak Show

The Queen of America's White Trash Nation struck back at Barbara Bush today for the remark she made on Larry King's show about how Palin was pretty but should stay up in Alaska. Palin "denounced the Bush family as 'blue bloods' in an interview posted Wednesday and remarked that a mentality like theirs helped to cause the economic downturn." She also mentioned she loves the Bushes.

And then, presumably because she was upset about Bristol's DWTS loss and how crudely she handled it, Palin declared some kind of an alliance between Alaska and North Korea, on the Glenn Beck Show. To his credit and without a script, Beck actually knew the North were the bad guys and the South were the good guys. Palin can take out her frustrations clubbing halibut until her ratings failing reality show is eased off the air.

Bill Owens Just Kiddin' About Voting For Boehner

In case you were concerned that conservative New York Democrat Bill Owens, who the DCCC had just rescued with $946,672.85 worth of Independent Expenditures (following the $882,473 they spent helping him win the 2009 special election), was taking his narrow 48-46% win and jumping the fence into Republicanville... well, he was just "blowing off steam." Yesterday he was threatening to vote for Boehner as Speaker but today he explained that "I was agitated that neither one of them [Pelosi or Hoyer] had responded to me" in regard to the Bush tax cuts. He says he'll vote for Pelosi "as long as she plans to govern from the center and focus on jobs." Since being elected last year his ProgressivePunch score is pretty abysmal. On the contentious votes dividing the two parties his 48.65 score indicates he voted slightly more frequently with... yes, Boehner. Was he blowing off steam then too?

Any Threats To Stability On The Distant Horizon?

Tonight's video... getting you ready for an obnoxious brother-in-law teabagger tomorrow-- in case foreclosures come up: