Yesterday I caught up on comments and visited the entire blogroll. Last night, two neighbors got into a four hour screaming contest outside my window, leaving me with virtually no sleep, so please forgive me that my own commentary on today’s articles will be greatly abbreviated and that there are no Short Takes today.
Jig Zone Puzzle:
Today’s took me 4:03. To do it, click here. How did you do?
Cartoon:
Have a great day!
One of the foremost parrots of the GOP Reichsministry of Propaganda, Faux Noise, Hannity has displayed his solidarity with standard GOP support for our troops.
We have long had our suspicions about how much money from Sean Hannity’s highly-touted Freedom Concerts actually go to scholarships given out by Freedom Alliance, the charity run by Hannity’s pal, convicted liar Oliver North. Now, it appears as though our worst suspicions have been confirmed.
We saw red flags in 2006 and 2007 – especially in 2007, when we found that no portion of the ticket price was deemed tax deductible, and that only $4 of the ticket price for a ticket in San Diego that year went to the overall charity Freedom Alliance (not necessarily its scholarship fund).
Now conservative Debbie Schlussel has put out damning blog post about the paltry sums that actually went to vets and scholarships. We hardly think of Schlussel as a reputable source and she has a long-standing grudge against Hannity. But with a little help from my sister, the former accountant, we concluded that Schlussel’s basic conclusions about the Freedom Alliance are correct.
Only 7% and 12% in 2007 and 2008, respectively, (links to Freedom Alliance’s IRS forms that have the numbers can be found in Schlussel’s post), of Freedom Alliance’s revenues went to "grants and allocations," which, presumably, means vets and scholarships. That means that out of Freedom Alliance’s $12,459,317 total revenue in 2007, it gave $895,347 in total. In 2008, Freedom Alliance received $8,781,431 and it paid out $1.060,275.
For comparison purposes, United Negro College Fund gave out 56% and 45% in 2007 and 2008, respectively, of their total revenue. That means that UNCF received in 2007 $197,435,560 and gave out $111,260,696 and in 2008, its revenue was $240,455,525 and it gave out $108,354,765… [emphasis added]
Inserted from <Newshounds>
It has long been SOP for the GOP to be long on pseudo-patriotic claims, while using out troops as cannon fodder to further their own agenda and provide profit for corporate cronies. Whenever it came to providing our troops with the equipment they need, insisting they get R&R time at home, providing them the health care we owe them, giving them education benefits, raising their pay, etc., Democrats have to accomplish those goals over GOP objections. We may disagree with the wars, and I do, but when someone puts their life on the line for this nation, we owe them. The GOP evidently does not agree.
So we should not be surprised that Hannity and North lie to donors and rip off our vets. But that still leaves one question. What happened to all those millions of dollars? Perhaps Sean and Ollie spent them at the GOP Family Values Retreat, aka The Bunny Ranch.
Off topic: Catch the video in today’s Open Thread. It’s a hoot!
In all the hubbub of recent weeks, it slipped my mind completely that the reconciliation bill also reforms student loans. John “Limpy” Boehner didn’t forget. He went ballistic.
This weekend, Democrats plan to vote on their health care reform reconciliation package, which also includes student loan reform. The Student Aid and Fiscal Responsibility Act (SAFRA), which would cut billions of dollars in senseless subsidies to private student lenders, passed the House last year. As of yesterday, it has a corresponding senate counterpart, which will be included in the reconciliation bill.
Currently, the federal government gives billions of dollars to student lenders to originate loans, and then guarantees loan repayment up to 97 percent, so the lenders are essentially useless middlemen that aren’t exposed to any of the loan risk. This is corporate welfare at its finest. So in order to build opposition to the bill, both the lenders and Republicans in Congress have been borrowing a tactic from the health care debate by falsely characterizing student loan reform as a “Washington takeover” of lending.
But House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-OH) took this a step further last night, saying that student loan reform would actually “eliminate every bank in the country [Faux Noise delinked] and all student loan lenders,” replacing them with the government:
Well, if you look at this student loan provision in there, they eliminate every bank in the country and all private student loan lenders so the government can do it instead.
This is just astoundingly wrong. On a very basic level, it could only be true if the sole thing banks did was make student loans, which is obviously not the case. The day after student loan reform passes, banks will still be there, cashing checks, taking deposits, making home loans, and on and on.
But the greater point Boehner was trying to make is that student loan reform is somehow a new expansion of government into the private economy. Sen. Mike Enzi (R-WY) echoed this sentiment yesterday, saying that student loan reform amounts to “seizing control of industries and squeezing out private competition.” But the government already provides the money for the loans and guarantees the lenders against loss, in addition to directly making millions of loans every year. So student lending is, for all intents and purposes, already a federal program.
In fact, the subsidized private program that Boehner and Enzi want to preserve is called the Federal Family Education Loan Program. By cutting the middlemen out of the process, the government will not only save billions of dollars to be used for deficit reduction, but will also have the money to increase Pell Grants and thus boost the number of college graduates. According to an analysis by CAP Senior Fellow Ulrich Boser, the boost in incomes due to student loan reform will top $100 billion.
And at the end of the day, the bill doesn’t even cut private lenders completely out of the loop, as they still would be contracted to service the loans (collect payments, etc.)… [emphasis original]
Inserted From <Think Progress>
Is there no lie so bold that these GOP hypocrites will not jump to tell it? I don’t think so. Profit from student loans without risk only provides corporate welfare for Banksters at the expense of America’s students. As our nation continues to fall behind in education, to continue this practice would be unforgiveable. Boehner and all his colleagues need to goose step behind former Fuehrer Bush into the ranks of the unemployed.
Yesterday I played catch-up. I replied to all the outstanding comments and returned visits to those who had posted them. I also visited the first half of our blogroll. I expect to stay up to date through Monday, but next week, you may see very little of me.
Jig Zone Puzzle:
Today’s took me 4:54. I was at a disadvantage. It’s a dawg. :-( To do it, click here. How did you do?
Short Takes:
From LA Times: The nation’s largest association of doctors [AMA] and the AARP senior citizens’ lobby are endorsing President Barack Obama’s revised health overhaul legislation.
I think this may be a done deal it the House, but frar the Senate process.
From Huffington Post: Hoping to assuage progressive Democrats who remain disappointed with the content of the health care reform bill, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) committed on Friday to holding a separate vote on a public option in the coming months.
In a letter to two of his more progressive colleagues in the Senate — Jeff Merkley of Oregon and Bernie Sanders of Vermont — the Nevada Democrat implicitly apologized for his inability to get a government-run insurance plan into the final piece of health care legislation and promised to keep working to get the policy into law.
That’s great if it’s a reconciliation vote. But if it’s the standard 60 votes to pass, it would be better to change the filibuster on the first day of the session next January and then vote on it.
From Think Progress: Rep. Paul Broun (R-GA), a far right lawmaker who has led much of the opposition to health reform, took to the floor of the House of Representatives last night to deliver a diatribe against health reform. Previously, Broun had compared President Obama to a dictator who would impose martial law. But last night, Broun out-performed his reactionary colleagues and even his own track record of absurdity. Bellowing into the microphone, Broun said that “if ObamaCare passes,” a “free insurance card” (which is not in the bill) will be “as worthless as a Confederate dollar after the “Great War of Yankee Aggression“.
No wonder the GOP can’t fathom that elections have consequences. These fools haven’t even come to terms with the consequences of the Civil War! Not only that, but wasn’t that ‘Yankee Aggression’ the GOP policy at the time?
From Crooks and Liars: This is hilarious!
It’s the first time I’ve ever heard truth from either of them!
Cartoon:
Whatcha doing this weekend?
One difference between how Democrats and Republicans react to scandal is that Democrats tend to resign, while Republicans hang onto power until the bitter end. The end may be coming soon for a prominent resident of C Street, operated by the Family, a secretive religious cult. C Street bribes Republicans and Blue Dogs by providing them luxury accommodations at a fraction of their market value.
A federal grand jury has issued subpoenas to a Republican campaign committee and companies in Nevada in a probe of Sen. John Ensign, who has been under scrutiny for his efforts to find lobbying work for the husband of his former mistress.
One subpoena went to the National Republican Senatorial Committee, which was formerly chaired by Ensign, a Nevada Republican, committee spokesman Brian Walsh said Thursday.
Sean Cairncross, general counsel for the group that is the campaign committee for Republican Senate candidates, said the committee has responded appropriately to questions concerning matters related to the timeframe of the 2008 election campaign.
Earlier Thursday, a Las Vegas television station reported that grand jury subpoenas in the Ensign probe went to six Las Vegas businesses that it did not name.
According to one subpoena obtained by the Las Vegas television station, recipients were ordered to testify March 31 in Washington, D.C., and to turn over documents relating to the Republican senator. The station posted one subpoena on its Web site with the recipient’s identity blacked out.
Ensign’s affair and the legal problems it has engendered have derailed talk that he might make a run for the Republican presidential nomination in 2012 and forced him to resign his position as chairman of the Senate Republican Policy Committee.
Asked about the subpoenas, Ensign spokeswoman Rebecca Fisher said, "Sen. Ensign is confident he has complied with all ethics rules and laws and will cooperate with any official inquiries."
The FBI and Senate Ethics Committee are investigating whether Ensign tried to limit political damage from an affair he had with the wife of one of his Senate aides by conspiring to help the aide find a new job as a lobbyist, which might have violated restrictions on lobbying by former congressional staff.
Federal criminal law prohibits congressional aides from lobbying their ex-bosses or office colleagues for one year after departing their Hill jobs… [emphasis added]
Inserted from <AP>
I am among the first to recognize that people have feet of clay. I do. I donate considerable time helping people that do. I believe that people who rehabilitate themselves deserve a second chance. So if I seem to have a double standard, here’s the difference. When someone takes responsibility for their crimes and accepts the consequences, they should be allowed to rebuild. I would have no objections to Elliot Spitzer or John Dean returning to public service. But when someone does not take responsibility for their crimes and tries to evade responsibility beyond the issuance of a brief theatrical mea culpa, especially when trying to pretending to be holier than the rest of us, that person is not fit for public service.
Rachel Maddow and Rev. Welton Gaddy discussed the issue:
Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy
Wow! It’s not often that I agree with a Baptist preacher.
Yesterday I pulled a dumb move. I forgot to check my Oxygen before I left for pulmonary boot camp. It ran out right after Lady Torquemada (She’s really a sweetheart, and I tease her without mercy.) put me through my paces. In completing my errands, I walked over a mile without oxygen and by the time I returned home, I was fried. So my backlog of comments is still waiting and will be answered today. I hope to put a dent in visiting as well, because I have a hellacious week coming up next week. I had something special planned for today’s lead article, but it’s not available yet. If it becomes so, I shall add a third post.
Jig Zone Puzzle:
Today’s took me 4:28. To do it, click here. How did you do?
Short Takes:
From The Washington Independent: CBO estimates that enacting both the Senate-passed health reform bill and the reconciliation bill (which contains the fixes to the Senate proposal) would cut the federal deficit by $138 billion over the next decade.
Needless to say, Republicans continue to parrot the lie that the bill costs too much. Michael Steele, referring to the CBO report, said, “It’s a lie.”
From TPM: A few hours after Rep. Dennis Kucinich switched his support to become a critical vote for the health care bill, he took to the House floor to ask wavering colleagues to join him. Astonished colleagues pointed to Kucinich (D-OH) darting from member to member on the House floor yesterday, saying privately they’d never seen him get so involved in whipping a vote.
Go, Dennis, Go!!
From Think Progress: Fox News host Glenn Beck on his radio show this morning — said the timing of the vote is unholy. He warned that Democrats intend to “take away the liberty that we have right from God” on “the Sabbath, during Lent.” Beck agreed, calling the Sunday vote an “affront to God,” and something “our founders would have never” done “[o]ut of respect for God”.
If the Faux Noise goose steppers in the House object so much, they should honor their convictions and not attend. 😀
Cartoon:
TGIF!!
As of this writing, there is still no final score from the CBO, so the final vote will be on Sunday at the earliest.
Louis Gomert made the claim that ‘Deem and Pass’ is really ‘demon pass’, because there are demons involved. He exaggerated. I have found only one single demon involved in this debate, and I have the picture.
Last Friday, Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-MN) began freaking out that House Democrats are considering the use of a common parliamentary procedure known as either a “self-executing rule” or “deem and pass” to finish health care reform. “If they do that then American citizens have standing to sue against this bill,” said Bachmann on Friday. The next day, Bachmann suggested that citizens “don’t have to follow” the health care law if it passes using that procedure. (In fact, there will be an up or down vote on the bill.)
On Sean Hannity’s radio show yesterday, Bachmann went even further by accusing the media of “treason” [goose steppers delinked] for “not telling this story” that Speaker Nancy Pelosi “would even consider having us pass a bill that no one votes on.” Bachmann then suggested that if health care passed through “deem and pass,” it would warrant calls of impeachment:
BACHMANN: Well, yeah, and the other thing is treason media. Where is the mainstream media in all of this not telling this story? This is a compelling story.
HANNITY: Right.
BACHMANN: That the Speaker of the House would even consider having us pass a bill that no one votes on.
HANNITY: Yep.
BACHMANN: That should laugh her out of the House and there should be people that are calling for impeachment off of something like this. That’s how bad this is. I mean trust me, Dennis Hastert never could have gotten away with this.
Listen here:
Bachmann’s outrage is ridiculous. As AEI congressional scholar Norman Ornstein pointed out yesterday, former Rep. Dennis Hastert (R-IL) did get “away with this” when he was Speaker. “In the last Congress that Republicans controlled, from 2005 to 2006, Rules Committee Chairman David Dreier used the self-executing rule more than 35 times, and was no stranger to the concept of deem and pass,” wrote Ornstein… [emphasis original]
Inserted from <Think Progress>
In spite of Michelle Bachmann’s demonic rant, there is a simple explanation for “deem and pass”. The passage of the Senate bill is included in the reconciliation bill with the statement that the reconciliation bill deems the Senate bill passed. It is nothing but a lame mechanism to allow cowardly Blue Dogs to make the claim that the didn’t vote for the Senate bill. The claim is preposterous. By voting for the reconciliation bill they ARE voting for the Senate bill, and don’t think the Republicans won’t make that claim once the hellfire and brimstone emanating from the aforementioned demon and her infernal cohorts clears. Democrats would be better served to just vote for the Senate bill outright, followed by the reconciliation bill. This subterfuge just gives Republicans a handle to use process to distract Americans from substance.
On the Bart ‘Coat Hanger’ Stupak front, there appears to be a revolt within the Catholic Church.
Wow. On Monday, Catholic Bishops released a letter opposing the Senate health care reform bill because it didn’t contain the Stupak language. While they acknowledged differences with the Catholic Health Association, their message was clear: they were speaking as the official and authoritative voice of the Catholic Church.
This analysis of the flaws in the legislation is not completely shared by the leaders of the Catholic Health Association. They believe, moreover, that the defects that they do recognize can be corrected after the passage of the final bill. The bishops, however, judge that the flaws are so fundamental that they vitiate the good that the bill intends to promote. Assurances that the moral objections to the legislation can be met only after the bill is passed seem a little like asking us, in Midwestern parlance, to buy a pig in a poke.
In a clear break with the bishops, 60 leaders of religious orders representing 59,000 nuns have joined with the Catholic Health Association to support the Senate bill as written.
The letter says that "despite false claims to the contrary, the Senate bill will not provide taxpayer funding for elective abortions." The letter says the legislation also will help support pregnant women and "this is the real pro-life stance."
This is huge for a number of reasons. The nuns signing this letter are the ones in the trenches, serving in Catholic hospitals and health care clinics across the nation. They represent those who see the wreckage left behind when people are denied access to care until it’s too late, the damage done when poor women cannot get prenatal care, and when the sick are left to their own devices.
Even so, the word of the bishops is regarded as the word of the Church. For these nuns to stand in defiance because they are truly pro-life, before and after birth, is a stunning eye-opening development… [emphasis original]
Inserted from <Crooks and Liars>
I applaud their courageous stance.
Finally, I’m pleased to announce that Dennis Kucinich has returned.
U.S. Rep. Dennis Kucinich waited until Democrats had won last November’s health care reform vote before casting his ballot against it on the House of This time around — pressured by everyone from President Obama to Moveon.org — the Cleveland Democrat had no luxury to dawdle before taking a stance. He announced at a Capitol news conference this morning that he’ll vote "yes" on the bill’s latest draft.
"I have doubts about the bill," Kucinich said. "This is not the bill I wanted to support. . . However, after careful discussions with President Obama, Speaker Pelosi, my wife Elizabeth and close friends, I’ve decided to cast a vote in favor of the legislation."
Bill opponents pounced quickly. Said an e-mail alert from the National Republican Congressional Committee: "Left-wing icon flips from ‘No,’ exposes so-called moderates."
Kucinich’s move came after months of insisting he’d oppose the bill because it doesn’t do enough to curtail insurance company abuses. Kucinich advocates bolstering Medicare and expanding its coverage to include all Americans.
But he acknowledged this morning that his choice now is to either vote "no" on principle, and thereby possibly block the biggest (though imperfect) advance in health coverage in decades, or compromise for the good of the estimated 30 million more Americans who could gain insurance.
"I have taken this fight further" than many other Congress members, Kucinich said, citing his two presidential campaigns in which he advocated universal coverage and his bill introduction and other attempts in the House to get single-payer insurance… [emphasis added]
Inserted from <Common Dreams>
I didn’t know whether Dennis would come around or not. He can be uncompromisingly stubborn when it comes to principle, especially when he’s right. Single-payer, such as Medicare for all is the ultimate fix America needs. But we can’t get there from here. This is the best we’re going to get right now. As we have improved the original Social Security and Medicare, we shall improve this too. I’m glad Dennis saw the wisdom in that and congratulate him on his decision.
I expect this bill to pass.
Two days ago, I posted this analysis of Dodd’s financial reform plan. Compare it to this article by Robert Sheer.
If you think healthcare reform has been an unsatisfying test of the government’s ability to deal with our pressing problems, brace yourself for bigger disappointment in its attempt to bridle Wall Street. This is when the true heavies go to work, and, as opposed to the medical industry lobby, the moneychangers fear not the wrath of their clients or, as Scripture tells, any higher power.
Certainly not that of the Congress or the president whose powers they have so confidently purchased. That is how we got into this mess. The bankers wrote the rules of the road that allowed them to exceed all reasonable limits when Democrat Bill Clinton was in the White House. And when the crash came, it was the Republican George W. Bush who made their problems go away. Having survived that disaster of their own creation, they are not about to let anyone make them change their ways.
It will definitely take more than the likes of Connecticut’s lame-duck Senator Christopher Dodd, a likely candidate for more lucrative employment in the financial sector that he has served so faithfully. On Monday he made a big show of introducing legislation to rein in Wall Street, having failed to elicit a single Republican vote after months of caving in. He has abandoned his earlier proposal for a truly independent regulatory agency that would challenge the Fed, which got us into this jam. His bill rejects a public audit of the Fed, where he would house what remains of the president’s proposed consumer protection agency.
There is only a nod in the direction of a return to the Glass-Steagall Act’s separation of investment and banking firms, a regulation that Dodd, along with New York Democrat Charles Schumer, helped kill a decade ago. As the New York Times reported on October 23, 1999: "Dodd, whose state is home to the nation’s largest insurance companies, and Schumer, with strong ties to Wall Street, have long sought legislation to repeal the Glass-Steagall Act."
That’s what legally made possible the too-big-to-fail mergers of insurance giants like Travelers and AIG with banking companies. As Peter Eavis pointed out in Monday’s Wall Street Journal, Dodd’s current bill "still flunks the AIG test," in that "if the Senate bill became law, it looks like the government could still find itself making the sort of payments it made to AIG counterparties." And that’s before the lobbyists go to work.
The most glaring failure of his proposal is to fully come to grips with the enduring threat of unregulated derivatives. In this area the bill’s text is an unparalleled exemplar of the use of the run-on sentence in the pursuit of obfuscation. But what is clear is that the out-of-control derivatives market, which Dodd helped engineer ten years ago when he supported the Commodity Futures Modernization Act, will be at best tempered somewhat. Obviously aware that his current bill provides no serious answer to this most pressing of our financial industry problems, Dodd holds up the wan hope that "Senators Jack Reed (D-RI) and Judd Gregg (R-NH) are working on a substitute amendment to this title that may be offered in full committee." Yes, we know what such bipartisan efforts bring, and it does not bode well for getting a grip on a derivatives market that threatens to do us all in.
Warren Buffett wasn’t kidding when he called them "financial weapons of mass destruction," and by now most Americans are aware that the innocuous-sounding derivatives that he was referring to have done great damage to our way of life. It extends from foreclosed homes in Florida that are collected in collateralized debt obligations to credit default swaps on Greek airport revenue, and, as the New York Times reported Monday, massive corporate collateralized loan obligations that are "a potential financial doomsday."
The dubious security bundles are as vast as they are obscure and their notational value is staggering. As Dodd’s committee’s fact sheet stated, "The over-the-counter derivatives market has exploded–from $91 trillion in 1998 to $592 trillion in 2008." The current figure is $605 trillion and still growing… [emphasis added]
Inserted from <The Nation>
I am nowhere near vain enough to think that Sheer drew his conclusion from me that the key flaw in DARE (Derivatives Aren’t Even Regulated) is this failure, but it is nice to beat one of the pros to a story every once in awhile.
