Special Delivery

Did you know that there is not one Republican in any House of Representatives seat east of western New York State?

 

This is a grand testament to the failures of Republican policies in our region, as well as the marvelous job the leadership of the Democratic party has performed. It's sad to think that such former Republican bastions like Connecticut and New Hampshire and Vermont could switch.

 

But that was a different Republican party, one that was willing to sit down and negotiate and compromise and listen to the people it represented. A Republican party that, frankly, I miss.

 

Right now, there is one seat vacant in the northeast: the one that Kirsten Gillibrand gave up in order to serve out Hillary Clinton's term.

 

Competing for this seat are Scott Murphy, the Democrat, and Jim Tedisco, the Republican and current minority leader of the NY State Assembly. Tedisco had been enjoying a twelve point lead a few weeks ago, but Murphy has closed that gap to dead-even.

 

Which has Tedisco running some pretty nasty ads, naturally, including phonying up charges that Murphy failed to pay income tax on money he never even received. He is a Republican, after all. And like all Republicans, he suffers the slings and arrows of those who think he wasn't "Republican enough".

 

Tedisco has the advantage of running in a Republican district, but one that is more narrowly Republican than ever before because of his antecedent legislator. Gillibrand won in 2006 largely because her opponent, long term incumbent John Sweeney (R-Wifebeater) had a series of scandals (attending a fraternity party where he was photographed encouraging underage drinking, being investigated for domestic violence, and so on) leading to Tedisco being named one of the 20 most corrupt Congresscritters.

 

That's quite the accomplishment!

 

Gillibrand won also by being fairly DINO, in that she opposes gun control and gay marriage (altho she's softened that stance in recent months).

 

Murphy, meanwhile, has actively worked in his career as a banker and venture capitalist to create good-paying jobs.

 

In case it wasn't clear where my sympathies lie, I tend to be amenable to having someone in Congress who has actually, you know, been a boss and given a guy a break, particulary at a time when jobs are scarcer than hen's teeth.

The election is on Tuesday. If you can, give. If you can, vote for Murphy.

Politics Stops At The Border, Right?

Then explain this:

US intelligence analysts are putting the final touches on a secret National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) on Afghanistan that reportedly describes the situation as "grim", but there are "no plans to declassify" any of it before the election, according to one US official familiar with the process.

Officials say a draft of the classified NIE, representing the key judgments of the US intelligence community's 17 agencies and departments, is being circulated in Washington and a final "coordination meeting" of the agencies involved, under the direction of the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, is scheduled in the next few weeks.

According to people who have been briefed, the NIE will paint a "grim" picture of the situation in Afghanistan, seven years after the US invaded in an effort to dismantle the al Qaeda network and its Taliban protectors.

Lemme think, now...what happens in the next few weeks...*koffkoff* electionisonlyfiveweeksaway*koffkoff*

Ah, yes, and a grim picture of Afghanistan would play against the public image of John McCain on national security.

Or maybe not. If I'm the McCain campaign, I want this report released to make people understand that the past eight years have been a boondoggled blunderfest, that has to be fixed.

This issue plays to Obama, too, to be sure: the agent of change trope is tailormade for the case I made for the "Maverick". In other words, the declassification of this report would neither hurt nor really help either candidate.

Which is why it will likely remain conveniently classified until November 5, when miraculously it will be leaked to the Washington Post.

After all, it's important that the American people hear confirmation of what Admiral Michael Mullen said last week to Congress we're running out of time. "I'm not convinced we're winning it in Afghanistan," were his exact words.

Couple that with the story about the deteriorating situation Pakistan in last week's Time Magazine, and you have a now-regional fuck up on the part of the Bush administration.

All this is happening while the clown car that is the White House has distracted you with handwringing and bickering over the $700 billion bailout as proposed by Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson.

Fingerpointing seems to be the order of the day on the Hill. All eyes focused on McCain's support or lack thereof of Paulson's deeply flawed package, while Nancy Pelosi has demanded strong Republican backing in the House.

Give Pelosi credit. She's at least taking a stand. Harry Reid has all but dissappeared here. Can you say "Senate Majority Leader Clinton"? I knew that you could. So now we uncover the bargain Hillary and Barack came to.

Things are so bad in the House that even the Dark Lord of the Shits, Dick Cheney, can't keep his stormtroopers quiet, probably because they've deliberately kept their minions in the dark.

That's not to minimize the bailout or underlying economic troubles of the country. Bush and company have managed to do what Osama bin Laden, 19 terrorists and four airplanes could not: bring America to its knees.

What it does point out is, yet again, the Bush administration is deliberately paying lip service to an unfolding foreign crisis in order to let it fester to the point where the US is, once again, forced to go to war.

Only this time, it will be for the good of the economy, and not just the oil barons. You think jingoism was the order of the day in the early Aughts, wait till you seen what happens next!

It ain't gonna be pretty, folks.

The Haircut

One day a florist goes to a barber for a haircut. After the cut he asked about his bill and the barber replies, "I cannot accept money from you. I'm doing community service this week. " The florist was pleased and left the shop. When the barber goes to open his shop the next morning there is a 'thank you' card and a dozen roses waiting for him at his door.

Later, a cop comes in for a haircut, and when he tries to pay his bill, the barber again replies, "I cannot accept money from you. I'm doing community service this week." The cop is happy and leaves the shop. The next morning when the barber goes to open up there is a 'thank you' card and a dozen donuts waiting for him at his door.

Later that day, a college professor comes in for a haircut, and when he tries to pay his bill, the barber again replies, "I cannot accept money from you. I'm doing community service this week." The professor is very happy and leaves the shop. The next morning when the barber opens his shop, there is a 'thank you' card and a dozen different books, such as "How to Improve Your Business" and "Becoming More Successful.

"Then, a Congressman comes in for a haircut, and when he goes to pay his bill the barber again replies, "I cannot accept money from you. I'm doing community service this week." The Congressman is very happy and leaves the shop. The next morning when the barber goes to open up, there are a dozen Congressmen lined up waiting for a free haircut.

And that, my friends, illustrates the fundamental difference between the citizens of our country and the members of our Congress.

Things You Miss When You Read Blogs

When you spend your days reading blog after blog in Blogtopia (© Skippy, the Bush Kangaroo), you forget there's an entire moderate-progressive movement out there that makes you look like a left-winger.

Indeed, yesterday's thoughtpiece on Christ, Christmas and living life in the 21st Century made me cringe a little to post: it firmly placed me in the Ceiling Cat corner. Someone who believes in a traditional religious experience, not atheist, and not sardonically supporting the Flying Spaghetti Monster in some hipster rank-out on his upbringing.

Reading blog after blog, you find that Hillary is a criminal (or worse, a sell-out), Obama's cool, Edwards is even cooler but looks like he won't make it (but we should all support him anyway), and why in the hell don't the Democrats in Congress show some backbone and impeach the bastards?

And then, you take a breath and read a story like this, and you realize that so little of the left-wing of this country, nevermind the electorate, is represented on-line:

While they overwhelmingly support that agenda, the bloc of freshmen has begun casting votes against such minor procedural motions in an effort, Democratic sources and Republican critics say, to demonstrate their independence from their leadership. The number of votes that the potentially vulnerable newcomers to Capitol Hill cast against House leaders is tallied and watched closely by interest groups and political foes.

Such is the political life of many of the 42 freshman House Democrats, a sizable number of them moderates and conservatives who must straddle the fence between supporting their party's interests and distancing themselves from a mostly liberal leadership as they gear up for their first reelection battle next fall.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and other members of the party's leadership are happy to tolerate the independence on procedural matters. Less than three hours after opposing the late-October journal vote, the same six freshmen sided with Pelosi as Democrats tried, and failed, to override President Bush's veto of a bill to expand the State Children's Health Insurance Program by $35 billion over five years, legislation that Pelosi has called her "crown jewel."

And then you remember that, if it wasn't for these "conservative Democrats," there wouldn't even BE a chance to talk about the crimes of this administration: Democrats wouldn't be in charge, and we'd be watching the dodderings of Dennis Hastert and Trent Lott in the leadsership roles.

Try telling that to the more militant rabble on the left, however.

To give you an idea how valuable these freshmen are:

Protecting the 42 freshman Democrats, the largest partisan class since 73 Republicans took office in 1994, has been the top priority for key Democratic strategists such as Rep. Rahm Emanuel (Ill.). The freshmen get special treatment from leaders, including a weekly meeting with Pelosi and Majority Leader Steny H. Hoyer (Md.). And they receive frequent advice on how to vote from Emanuel and Rep. Chris Van Hollen (Md.), chairman of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee.

Those are some pretty heavy hitters. My suspicion is, there's an even smaller core that get direction straight from Pelosi.

This isn't about power. It's about preventing another 109th Congress, and watching the pickings of the American economy get plucked by Republicans and their cronies at the expense of the middle- and working-class Americans they would court for votes.

Imagine the recent sub-prime mortgage debacle as handled by Republicans, for example. It would have been hushed up and hidden until after next November, at which point a) it would have been too late to help ten million American familes and b) the banks would have gotten away wholly scot-free, whereas now there's still a chance that they'll be held accountable for their predatory lending practices.

It is a compromise, I know, but it's one that simply has to be done right now. There's not a lot of wiggle room. The Republicans aren't defeated and crushed yet.

This does bring a new dynamic to Congress in 2008. My guess is, keep an eye out for a lot of sub-committee and committee meetings on a variety of topics, just to put them on the table, like wire-tapping and other crimes against humanity and civil rights by the Bushies.

Just don't expect them to come to the floor until after November 4. Then look out.

Maybe, Just Maybe.....

...the Democrats are starting to get their acts together:

Item 1 - House panel backs Internet tax ban extension:

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A U.S. congressional committee on Wednesday endorsed legislation that would extend a moratorium on state Internet access taxes for four years.

The U.S. House of Representatives Judiciary Committee voted unanimously to endorse extension of the Internet tax ban after defeating Republican amendments that would have either extended the prohibition further or made it permanent, a committee spokeswoman said.

Curiously, I'm behind the Republicans on this one, but what the hey...we all know they did that to prevent the original bill from being approved, thus allowing states to impose a tax on Internet access.

Item 2 - House backs bill to end private tax collections:

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The House of Representatives voted on Wednesday to end a Republican-backed program allowing private debt collectors to pursue tax debts owed to the federal government.

The House voted 232-173 for a bill ending the program enacted in 2004 by the then Republican-led Congress.

Democrats, who now control Congress, and unions opposed the program, saying it was a costly way to collect tax debts that could more efficiently be collected by Internal Revenue Service employees.

This one is close to my heart at the present time. It's a lot easier for me to negotiate with the IRS, believe it or not, than with a private tax collection agency, simply because the tax collection agency has a threshold where it will no longer make a profit on any tax I might owe. The IRS has no such bottom line, and so I might be able to discount anything I owe them.

Since I'm currently being audited, this is a relief to me.

Item 3 (and the biggie) - House Democrats defy Bush, approve spy bill:

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Defying President George W. Bush, Democrats voted on Wednesday to bolster civil liberties safeguards in his anti-terrorism spying program and refused to shield phone companies from pending lawsuits.

Just hours after Bush warned Democrats they would be rolling back efforts to protect the United States, the House of Representatives Judiciary and Intelligence committees approved legislation to ensure congressional and court oversight of the surveillance of suspected enemy targets.

The party-line votes by the two panels were 20-14 and 12-7, respectively.

FINALLY, a spine begins to emerge from the fetal soup that Pelosi et co have been stewing in!

Mind you, there's a contingency, almost blackmail, to the bit about the phone companies:

Bush insisted the new bill "must grant liability protection to companies who are facing multibillion dollar lawsuits only because they are believed to have assisted in the efforts to defend our nation."

Democratic Rep. Bart Stupak of Michigan replied: "The president's remarks today raise further questions about how the administration might have pressured or induced telecommunications companies to participate."

House Democrats say they will not consider retroactive immunity unless the White House hands over records of detailing what the companies did. The House bill would protect the firms from future lawsuits, but not from pending ones.

In other words, "Bush? Your cronies are on the chopping block unless you start ponying up material in our investigations."

Based on how this administration is responding and cooperating with Congress, you begin to get the sense they feel Nixon didn't fight hard enough to create the imperial Presidency and that Ronald Reagan was a wimp.

Of course, those two men labored under the apparent delusion that the Constitution was more than a piece of parchment hung on the wall of the Skull & Bones frat house.

Item 4 - House panel OKs Armenian genocide resolution:

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A U.S. House committee approved on Wednesday a resolution calling the 1915 massacres of Armenians genocide, brushing aside White House warnings that it would do "great harm" to ties with NATO ally Turkey, a key supporter in the Iraq war.

The House of Representatives Foreign Affairs Committee approved the resolution 27-21. It now goes to the House floor, where Democratic leaders say there will be a vote by mid-November. There is a companion bill in the Senate, but both measures are strictly symbolic and do not require the president's signature.

OK, this one I might have a bit of a problem with, not for the sentiment expressed (it's pretty clear Turkey owes Armenians an apology and acknowledgement of the slaughter, at the very least), but for the timing:

ANKARA (Reuters) - Turkey's prime minister will ask parliament next week to authorize a military push into north Iraq to fight Kurdish rebels amid Turkish anger on Thursday at a U.S. vote branding Ottoman Turk killings of Armenians genocide.

Analysts say a large Turkish cross-border incursion remains unlikely, but Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan's government will seek authorization for it after a public holiday which ends on Sunday, a ruling party member told Reuters.[...]

Ankara says 3,000 rebels from the outlawed separatist Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) are based in northern Iraq from where they stage deadly attacks into Turkey.

We need to prevent this, somehow, and hobbling Bush and Condoleeza Rice with this wet towel that Erdogan can smack them around with is probably not helpful.

Too, Turkey is a vital pipeline into Iraq for munitions, troops, and fuel. Pissing them off is effectively cutting funding for the troops, which while a noble goal, needs to be done some other way, more directly, instead of this passive aggressive bullshit featuring a staunch Muslim ally.

So, we'll score yesterday's session a B+, with plenty of room for improvement, but its clear they've started to take their jobs seriously.

Neener Neener Neener!

I'm not sure Bush really wants to push this too far:

July 24 (Bloomberg) -- The beauty of the White House's latest claim about executive privilege is its simplicity. All President George W. Bush has to do is utter those two words and his underlings can ignore congressional subpoenas without fear of jail.

Why? Because the president says so. Who decides whether the claim is constitutional or bogus? He does. Who can challenge it? Nobody.

No check. No balance. No way to bring in a judge. See? Simple.

Of course, it's not so popular with Congress.

Yea....ya think?

Executive privilege is one of those apocryphal things that means more in theory than it does in practice. In an enlightened and honest government, executive privilege allows a president to get advice and to explore avenues to solutions unfettered by an oversight.

This is not necessarily a bad thing in, say, opening negotiations to settle a dispute with a nation that is outwardly not talking to us. When it's used to subvert justice on what amount to essentially administrative matters, it's a horrible idea, and one that a democracy ought to shun.

And had. Nixon claimed executive privilege, and had that claim tested all the way to the SCOTUS, where he was smacked down. Clinton claimed executive privilege with respect to his paramourations in the White House, and likewise (whether you agree with the investigation or not) got smacked down here, as well.

Both men, ultimately, respected the law of the land, which no man is above.

Not Bush, and I should think conservatives across the land ought to be shunning this masterpiece of obstructive justice, full stop. After all, no one party will have a stranglehold on governance, and this will devolve into a game of parliamentary chicken, until ultimately, there will be no government anymore, just a series of tyrants. After all, you know, law and order implies law at all levels.

Bush has the mechanisms in place to thoroughly subvert any investigation by Congress. Save one. I'll get to that in a moment.

Bush controls the Justice Department, headed by buttboy Alberto Gonzalez. Not going to be an investigation there, no matter how many appelate court judges insist. There's not enough time to go to the SCOTUS for relief, and besides, you know, 5-4, they'd rule for Bush, while insisting that ruling has no legal precedence in the future, just as they did when they handed him the Presidency in 2000.

Congress, in short, is fucked. Except they have one nuclear option, one that Bush wll not be able to stop, one that would immediately release an orgy of contempt jailings, right up to the door of the Oval Office:

There is an option the president can't take away from lawmakers. Congress has ``inherent contempt'' powers, which means that it can order the arrest of whomever it finds in contempt, bring them to Capitol Hill for trial and jail them if they are convicted.

This hasn't been done for 70 years, as it's a nasty process. That is why Congress wrote into law a different route: prosecution through the Justice Department.

Re-read that last paragraph: Congress agreed to allow investiggations of the Executive branch to be handled by the Executive branch, in exchange for not releasing this particular nuke.

Keep in mind as well that, as President of the Senate, Dick Cheney would oversee any contempt trial held in that chamber, which is notorious for being more moderate than the House. So it really would be up to Nancy Pelosi to initiate this action.

One more bright light on the horizon: Presidential pardons appear not apply to civil contempt procedures like the above, since it is not an "offense against the United States" or an offense against "the dignity of public authority."

This Is Very Distressing

Although not unexpected:

WASHINGTON - After promising unprecedented openness regarding Congress' pork barrel practices, House Democrats are moving in the opposite direction as they draw up spending bills for the upcoming budget year.

Democrats are sidestepping rules approved their first day in power in January to clearly identify "earmarks" — lawmakers' requests for specific projects and contracts for their states.

Rather than including specific pet projects, grants and contracts in legislation as it is being written, Democrats are following an order by the House Appropriations Committee chairman to keep the bills free of such earmarks until it is too late for critics to effectively challenge them.

Rep. David Obey (news, bio, voting record), D-Wis., says those requests for dams, community grants and research contracts for favored universities or hospitals will be added to spending measures in the fall. That is when House and Senate negotiators assemble final bills.

Such requests total billions of dollars.

As a result, most lawmakers will not get a chance to oppose specific projects as wasteful or questionable when the spending bills for various agencies get their first votes in the full House in June.

We did elect the Democrats to reform "business as usual" and to give government back to the people, but it seems all they've done is rearrange the furniture and lowered the moral mortgage payment they might have to make.

Very disturbing

Beware Of Greeks Bearing Gifts

President Bush, after six years of all but ignoring the Democrats in Congress...OK, actually, he's been pretty much a pig to them all along, is now forced to deal with them. In a bizarre show of "uniting, not dividing," Bush will attend a Demoratic...notice, George? It's "Democratic, not Democrat. As Harry Truman said about dropping the "ic": "If they’ll make a trade with us and let us call the Republican Party the Publican Party." (thanks, Dogg!) (Publicans were the rich Jews in Jerusalem in Jesus' time, the moneychangers)...Democratic Congressional retreat today, where he will give a speech and then field questions from some hand-selected Congresscritters:

For all the talk of bipartisanship, six years of political infighting between Democrats and Bush has taken a toll. Some House Democrats have been asking, "Why is he (Bush) coming" to their retreat, Hoyer said.

Why, indeed!

It's no secret that Bush is desperate, but he's also become more than slightly irrelevant to the process. While the Dems don't have a veto-proof Congress, on the larger issues like Iraq, minimum wage, ethics reform, immigration and so on, they clearly draw enough Republicans (see? I added back the "Re") to create an agenda that Bush is almost certain to have to go along with, anyway, if he wants to help his party regain control of Congress.

This has all the markings of a sham, and to see Nancy Pelosi suckle up to Bush's teat is a little off-putting:

While his appearance at the House Democratic retreat is rare, even more unusual is the joint news conference Bush has scheduled with Pelosi, a California Democrat who has been critical of Bush throughout his presidency.

I smell a Rove trap here. I only hope Pelosi has a contingency plan, or she's going to look mighty stupid.

tags technorati : Bush Nancy Pelosi Democrats Congress