swimming freestyle

New WaPo poll on health care

Details from the most recent Washington Post/ABC News poll will be published tomorrow, but the Post posted a couple interesting bits today.  Despite media reports to the contrary, two thirds of Americans want Congress to finish the job and get a health care reform bill passed. 

The poll also quizzed respondents on their expectations about political compromise:

The poll was conducted Thursday through Monday and probably doesn't reflect any bounce President Obama may receive as a result of inviting Republicans to a televised conference to hash out their differences on health care reform.  One might expect Obama to be viewed more favorably and, as a result of juvenile posturing over the proposed summit, the GOP to be viewed as intransigent and unreasonable.

Michele Bachmann doubles down

I'm really surprised there are some Republicans who are taking the Paul Ryan bait.  Following the release of Ryan''s "Roadmap for America's Future", high level Republicans were running for the hills trying to distance themselves from proposals to privatize Social Security and replace Medicare and Medicaid with vouchers that pay only a dwindling portion of health care expenses.  Given that Republican Party membership has been skewing older for several years now, the logic of taking away entitlements that their constituents rely on seems somewhat counterintuitive.

Perhaps not wishing to be out-crazied by Paul Ryan, Minnesota Rep. Michele Bachmann went one step farther.  Speaking at the Constitutional Coalition’s annual conference in St. Louis this last weekend, Bachmann came out for elimination of Social Security and Medicare.  Bachmann said:

"So, what you have to do, is keep faith with the people that are already in the (Medicare and Social Security) system(s), that don’t have any other options, we have to keep faith with them. But basically what we have to do is wean everybody else off. And wean everybody off because we have to take those unfunded net liabilities off our bank sheet, we can’t do it. So we just have to be straight with people. So basically, whoever our nominee is, is going to have to have a Glenn Beck chalkboard and explain to everybody this is the way it is." (Link)

Yeah, that will work.  All they'll need is one of those Glenn Beck chalkboards to make us understand that, as seniors, we just need to cowboy up and figure out a way to live without Social Security and contending with medical costs that can rise 39% a year.

John Murtha

From CNN:

Rep. John Murtha of Pennsylvania, a longtime fixture on the House subcommittee that oversees Pentagon spending, died Monday following complications from gallbladder surgery, according to a statement from his office. He was 77.

Murtha had represented Pennsylvania's 12th Congressional District since 1974, making him the chamber's eighth most senior member. According to his biography on the House of Representatives Web site, Murtha was the first Vietnam War combat veteran elected to Congress.

He was considered one of "the kings of pork" on Capitol Hill by taxpayer watchdog groups for requesting tens of millions of dollars in earmarks. On his House Web site, Murtha strongly defended earmarks, saying, "I believe that elected representatives of the people understand their constituents and districts best." Supporters said his efforts helped bring thousands of jobs to western Pennsylvania.

Before his death today, Murtha was running up against a number of ethics investigations in the House.  The most recent were charges that Murtha had influenced federal contracts benefiting his brothers business. 

Obviously no angel.  But John Murtha's forceful opposition to the Iraq War, at a time when opposition to the war was politically dangerous,  caused many to sit up and take notice.  Here was a ranking member of the House Armed Services Committee with deep relationships in the Pentagon, calling the Iraq strategy flawed, highlighted that American troop morale was close to collapse, and the U.S. was dangerously close to getting our ass handed to us.  It's fair to say John Murtha's concerns, thought by many to be shared by senior Pentagon officials, was the impetus that forced the Bush Administration to fire Donald Rumsfeld and modify U.S. strategy in Iraq.

GOP using terrorism for partisan purposes

I'm shocked!  Obama Administration Senior Terrorism Adviser, John Brennan, said Sunday he had informed senior Congressional Republicans of the status of the interrogation of Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab (aka The Underwear Bomber) and none had expressed concerns about Abdulmutallab either being given Miranda Rights or placed into the civilian judicial system. 

Brennan said that on Christmas night he had briefed four senior House and Senate Republicans about Abdulmutallab, who was "in FBI custody" and at that point "talking" and "cooperating." He said that at no point did any of the four -- Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), the Senate Republican minority leader; Sen. Christopher S. Bond (Mo.), ranking GOP member of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence; Rep. John A. Boehner (R-Ohio), the House minority leader; and Rep. Peter Hoekstra (R-Mich.), ranking minority member of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence -- raise concerns about Abdulmutallab being placed in military custody or being Mirandized.

That seems so odd, given that McConnell and Boehner have been so highly critical of the Obama Administration over its handling of the Abdulmutallab interrogations.

Brennan said "quite a bit of an outcry after the fact" led him to be "concerned on behalf of the counterterrorism professionals" that politicians are using the issue for partisan purposes, whether they be Democrats or Republicans. (Link)

But that just seems so unlike them...(heh)

Palin and her confusion over the TARP bill

Jed Lewison from Daily Kos has put together a video of Sarah Palin speaking about the bank bailout bill passed by Congress in the Fall of 2008.  As a vice presidential candidate, Palin spoke to Katie Couric about the importance of the bill and at last weekends Tea Party convention, Palin bashed the TARP bill as unnecessary cronyism. 

I know what you're thinking; what's the point?  And you're right.  Anyone who clicks "play" on this video already believes Sarah Palin is a know-nothing grifter, pulling a master scam on the Republican Party.  Conversely, her supporters believe any criticism of her is biased and issued only as a means of silencing her and her truth telling.

The whole crib notes, writing on the hand issue is more of the same.  Her supporters will argue public speakers commonly use crib notes, though they're usually written on note cards and writing on the palm of the hand is a trick typically abandoned with graduation from elementary school.  

The issue isn't really that she wanted or needed notes.  The real issue was what Palin felt she needed to jot down on her palm; her core principles.  As John Cole noted: "Put it this way, since this is Black History Month, this is akin to seeing “civil rights” written on MLK’s hand."

I know what you're thinking; what's the point?

Tom Tancredo insults over half of U.S. voters

Here's Tom Tancredo speaking at the Tea Party Convention last night:

I'm pretty sure Tom Tancredo just called 66,882,230 voters either stupid or illiterate.

Now, granted, we can't all be as brilliant as the folks at the convention...

Dems will ask House GOP to vote on Social Security privatization

Back around 2004 and 2005 when Republicans held majority positions in both houses of Congress, the GOP Congressional leadership would occasionally schedule votes on bogus resolutions only to embarrass Democrats.  An example was a resolutions expressing opposition to cutting funds for the war efforts in Iraq.  Republicans were no doubt hoping to find some Democrats who would refuse to make an unwavering, endless commitment to funding the Iraq war, allowing the GOP to then brand them as anti-military, putting our troops in harms way and yada yada yada.

This, however, could be far more interesting.  House Democrats plan to call for a vote on the privatization of Social Security, a component of the Rep. Paul Ryan authored GOP's "Roadmap for America's Future". 

Rep. John Larson (D-CT) and Rep. Linda Sanchez (D-CA) this afternoon introduced the resolution which "expresses the will of House Democrats to preserve Social Security and reaffirms our commitment to working in a bipartisan way to make common sense adjustments to strengthen the program for generations to come."

The House Republican leadership has been cool to Rep. Ryan's proposal.  Minority Leader Boehner threw Ryan under the bus when he said:

"Paul Ryan, who's the ranking member on our budget committee, has done an awful lot of work in putting together his roadmap," (House Minority Leader Rep. John) Boehner said. "But it's his. And I know the Democrats are trying to say that it's the Republican leadership. But they know that's not the case." 

When asked what, specifically, he objected to in Ryan's proposal, Boehner said "Off the top of my head, I couldn't tell you." 

Of course not.  But the GOP can't have it both ways.  They can't, on the one hand, continue to whine about how all their terrific ideas are not being fairly considered and, on the other hand, distance themselves when those ideas are subjected to a fair vote.

I'm looking forward to this.

Colorado Springs opts to cut basic services

There was a fascinating Denver Post story last week about the plight of Colorado Springs.  Like every other state and municipality during this recession, Colorado Springs has had to contend with declining tax revenues.  There are only a couple cards to play...

And Colorado Springs voted last November not to raise property taxes to plug the hole in the city's budget.  The consensus is that the city government can't be trusted to wisely spend a general tax increase, and they want other solutions proposed.

On Monday, the cold hard reality of those choices will become apparent:

More than a third of the streetlights in Colorado Springs will go dark Monday. The police helicopters are for sale on the Internet. The city is dumping firefighting jobs, a vice team, burglary investigators, beat cops — dozens of police and fire positions will go unfilled.

The parks department removed trash cans last week, replacing them with signs urging users to pack out their own litter.

Neighbors are encouraged to bring their own lawn mowers to local green spaces, because parks workers will mow them only once every two weeks. If that.

Water cutbacks mean most parks will be dead, brown turf by July; the flower and fertilizer budget is zero.

City recreation centers, indoor and outdoor pools, and a handful of museums will close for good March 31 unless they find private funding to stay open. Buses no longer run on evenings and weekends. The city won't pay for any street paving, relying instead on a regional authority that can meet only about 10 percent of the need.

Of course, the cuts are more than aesthetic.  While parks with brown grass and strewn trash may be unsightly, streetlights are proven to reduce crime.  Fewer streetlights plus fewer cops and firefighters can only mean one thing.  Tourism is expected to suffer as people stay away from a city without recreational and cultural options and understaffed public safety forces.  Parents are wondering what their kids will do this summer when the parks and municipal swimming pools are closed.

Colorado Springs won't be the only city having to make these choices.  But it may be the first to demonstrate what it actually means when tax dollars disappear and there's no interest in either paying more or changing the tax code.

Sen. Shelby blocks ALL Obama appointments

I believe this is called extortion.

Sen. Richard Shelby (R-AL) has put an extraordinary "blanket hold" on at least 70 nominations President Obama has sent to the Senate, according to multiple reports this evening. The hold means no nominations can move forward unless Senate Democrats can secure a 60-member cloture vote to break it, or until Shelby lifts the hold.

According to the report, Shelby is holding Obama's nominees hostage until a pair of lucrative programs that would send billions in taxpayer dollars to his home state get back on track. The two programs Shelby wants to move forward or else:

- A $40 billion contract to build air-to-air refueling tankers. From CongressDaily: "Northrop/EADS team would build the planes in Mobile, Ala., but has threatened to pull out of the competition unless the Air Force makes changes to a draft request for proposals." Federal Times offers more details on the tanker deal, and also confirms its connection to the hold.

- An improvised explosive device testing lab for the FBI. From CongressDaily: "[Shelby] is frustrated that the Obama administration won't build" the center, which Shelby earmarked $45 million for in 2008. The center is due to be based "at the Army's Redstone Arsenal."

This hardly seems like the kind of principled opposition that would earn Shelby any respect.  In fact, it just seems like another all too common example of a prima donna senator throwing a temper tantrum when their delicate ego was bruised.

The GOP squirms over Paul Ryan's budget proposals

Rep. Paul Ryan is the ranking Republican member of the House Budget Committee.  He's was also commissioned to develop the Republican plan for health care and deficit reduction.  Titled "The Roadmap for America's Future", Ryan's plan no doubt shocked some Republicans when it was unveiled this week.

Well, it's sure not lacking in boldness.  Ryan's plan would privatize Social Security, exempt employer health-care benefits from taxation, and replace Medicare and Medicaid with a voucher system that even Ryan admits would not keep pace with the health care costs.  Sure enough, Ryan's budget plan reduces the deficit.  Sure enough, Ryan's budget screws the poor and seniors, placing the burden on them to figure out a way to pay out of pocket for uncontrolled health care costs.

I noted the other day, "In so many respects, Rep. Ryan's proposal is the pure embodiment of modern Republican orthodoxy: Privatization and vouchers and tax credits to replace federal services and reimbursement."

One might imagine the GOP, given the pressure Republicans have been under from Democrats to either put up or shut up, would welcome Rep. Ryan's ideologically pure and relatively detailed plan.  Uh, no.

"Paul Ryan, who's the ranking member on our budget committee, has done an awful lot of work in putting together his roadmap," (House Minority Leader Rep. John) Boehner said. "But it's his. And I know the Democrats are trying to say that it's the Republican leadership. But they know that's not the case." 

Well, duh!  What Republican in his right mind is going to advocate for screwing over seniors to balance the budget?  It's just not gonna happen, regardless of how much the Republicans may secretly admire the Ryan plan.

Republicans now seem to agree with Barack Obama that escalating health care costs are destabilizing and the key to long term deficit control.  I suppose that's a step in the right direction.  But why does this have to be sooooo hard?  The great majority of industrialized nations have already tackled and, at least partially, solved this problem.

Heaven forbid we might emulate France's, by all accounts, superior health care system.  I guess the Republicans would rather see seniors unable to afford care than stoop to that.