Category: Congress

Diaperman Finally Loses

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Years after being implicated in the DC Madame scandal, it appears that it has finally cost David Vitter an election:

Sen. David Vitter (R-La.) announced Saturday night that he will not run for reelection after losing Louisiana’s gubernatorial runoff election.
Democratic state Rep. John Bel Edwards defeated Vitter, bringing an end to a rough campaign that saw Vitter fall short after entering as the heavy favorite.
The New Orleans Times-Picayune called the race for Edwards just after 10 p.m. Eastern time Saturday night, a little more than hour after polls closed.
………
Edwards and Vitter advanced to the runoff after finishing as the top two in the Oct. 24 open primary. In Louisiana’s “jungle primary” system, candidates of all parties run together, with the top two finishers having a runoff if neither one secures 50 percent of the vote.
The well-known Vitter, first elected to the Senate in 2004 after serving in the House of Representatives, was the prohibitive favorite during the early stages of the race. But after sustained attacks targeting his involvement in a 2007 prostitution scandal, he barely defeated two of his Republican challengers and finished in second behind the lesser-known Edwards by 14 points in the jungle primary.
Jay Dardenne, Louisiana’s Republican lieutenant governor, finished fourth in the jungle primary. He crossed party lines to endorse Edwards over Vitter in the runoff.

 ………
In a particularly ruthless ad, Edwards claimed Vitter had chosen “prostitutes over patriots” by skipping a vote to honor fallen soldiers in order to take a call from a prostitute.

I’m not sure why this scandal, which was reputed to involve diaper play on Vitter’s part, has taken so long to for him to pay the price.

My guess is that this is the first time that one of his opponents actually decided to bring it up.

Traitors

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And no, I am not talking about treason against the United States, which is, as I have noted before, very specifically defined in the Constitution, the only crime so defined.

Rather, I am suggesting that the House vote to exclude Syrian refugees is treason against the whole of humanity, which necessary has a less specific definition:

Responding to increased fears of terrorism in the United States following the Paris attacks, the House of Representatives passed a Republican-backed bill Thursday that would temporarily freeze Syrian and Iraqi refugees’ entry into the United States and revamp the vetting process. The bill passed 289 to 137, with near-unanimous support from Republicans and 47 Democrats backing the measure.

………

The bill “would immediately shut down resettlement of refugees from the Syria and Iraq region,” Rep. Adam Smith (D-Wash.) said Wednesday. “This rash reaction ignores the fact that all of the Paris attackers identified thus far are either French or Belgian, and that many terrorist threats are homegrown.” A Syrian passport was discovered by the body of one of the Paris attackers, but French officials said soon afterward that it was a forgery.

The bill does not explicitly halt admission of Syrian refugees, a response that some Republican leaders, including House Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wis.), called for this week. But it does require additional vetting of refugees by the FBI and the Department of Homeland Security, without specifying the procedures. Implementing the bill “would cause a pause” in the admission of refugees, Rep. Devin Nunes (R-Calif.), chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, told reporters.

It would also increase the FBI’s role in the screening process and require the secretary of homeland security, the FBI director, and the director of national intelligence to personally certify to Congress that each individual refugee is “not a threat” to the United States.

I’m sure that someone out there is going to talk about the reality of politics, but most of these districts are safe enough that the only way that a caught on camera eating babies.

When I make quick look at the list, a few names stick out;

  • Patrick Murphy, who was a Republican bankster until he wanted to run for Congress, and is now the establishment’s choice to run for Florida Senate.
  • Steve Israel, former Blue Dog who has been single minded in attempting to restore that caucus.
  • Marcy Kaptur, who defeated Dennis Kucinich in the primary after they were redistricted together.
  • Dan Lipinski, who inherited the seat from his father, and is the most reactionary Democrat in Congress.

There are a couple of Reps on this list who are not complete tools, like Louise Slaughter, but it doesn’t matter.

This vote is that bad.

After the break is a list of the Dems who voted for this.

  • Pete Aguilar (CA-31)
  • Brad Ashford (NE-02)
  • Ami Bera (CA-07)
  • Sanford Bishop (GA-02)
  • Julia Brownley (CA-26)
  • Cheri Bustos (IL-17)
  • John Carney (DE-AL)
  • Gerry Connolly (VA-11)
  • Jim Cooper (TN-05)
  • Jim Costa (CA-16)
  • Joe Courtney (CT-02)
  • Henry Cuellar (TX-28)
  • John Delaney (MD-06)
  • Lloyd Doggett (TX-35)
  • Tulsi Gabbard (HI-02)
  • John Garamendi (CA-03)
  • Gwen Graham (FL-02)
  • Gene Green (TX-29)
  • Janice Hahn (CA-44)
  • Jim Himes (CT-04)
  • Steve Israel (NY-03)
  • Marcy Kaptur (OH-09)
  • Bill Keating (MA-09)
  • Ron Kind (WI-03)
  • Annie Kuster (NH-02)
  • Jim Langevin (RI-02)
  • Dan Lipinski (IL-03)
  • Dave Loebsack (IA-02)
  • Stephen Lynch (MA-08)
  • Sean Maloney (NY-18)
  • Patrick Murphy (FL-18)
  • Rick Nolan (MN-08)
  • Donald Norcross (NJ-01)
  • Scott Peters (CA-52)
  • Collin Peterson (MN-07)
  • Jared Polis (CO-02)
  • Kathleen Rice (NY-04)
  • Raul Ruiz (CA-36)
  • Tim Ryan (OH-13)
  • Kurt Schrader (OR-05)
  • David Scott (GA-13)
  • Terri Sewell (AL-07)
  • Kyrsten Sinema (AZ-09)
  • Louise Slaughter (NY-25)
  • Marc Veasey (TX-33)
  • Filemon Vela (TX-34)
  • Tim Walz (MN-01)

I Would Call Chuck Schumer a Schmuck, but a Schmuck has a Head

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The distinguished gentleman from New York just came out publicly against allowing Syrian refugees into the United States.

I’m sure that if he had been alive in 1939, he would have been comfortably playing Mahjong with friends while the passengers on the MS St. Louis were sent back to die at the hands of the Nazis:

Sen. Charles Schumer (N.Y.), the third ranking member of the Senate Democratic leadership, on Tuesday said it may be necessary to halt the resettlement of Syrian refugees in the United States.

Republicans immediately seized on Schumer’s comment, which breaks with other Democrats who have argued against halting the program.

Schumer, however, declined to take the option off the table ahead of a special briefing scheduled for Wednesday afternoon on the process that is now used to vet refugees entering the United States.

“We’re waiting for the briefing tomorrow, a pause may be necessary. We’re going to look at it,” he said.

Schumer is widely expected to become leader of Senate Democrats in the next Congress, after Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid (Nev.) retires.

A spokeswoman for Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) highlighted Schumer’s statement as an example of “bipartisan concern” over refugees.

Centrist Democratic Sen. Joe Manchin (W.Va.) signed a letter to President Obama Monday calling on him not to allow another Syrian refugee into the country unless federal authorities can guarantee with 100-percent assurance they are not connected to the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS).

Other Democrats have rejected freezing Obama’s plan to resettle at least 10,000 Syrian refugees in the current fiscal year.

What a toxic combination of stupidity, cowardice, and evil.

His position is deeply wrong, and will be seized on by Islamist terrorists as a recruiting tool.

I wish that I was registered to vote in New York so that I could vote against him.

The Worst Job in Washington, DC

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The Zombie Eyed Granny Starver from Wisconsin has aggred to take the job of Speaker of the House, but he has laid out conditions that resemble those of a Heisman winning first round draft pick:

On Tuesday night, Rep. Paul Ryan announced that he’ll run for speaker of the House — if he gets the endorsement of every major Republican caucus by this Friday, and they agree to sign on to rules changes making it much harder for the far right to depose the speaker in the middle of a session.

 In a meeting with his House Republican colleagues, Ryan laid out several conditions that he’d want in exchange for taking the job. According to a statement issued by Ryan’s office, he said:

  • That the next speaker should be “visionary” and “needs to use the platform to create a clear policy choice for the country”
  • That rules should be changed to make it much more difficult to challenge the speaker’s leadership in the middle of a House term
  • That he wanted to spend “less time on the road” (meaning less than the three weekends a month Boehner spends fundraising)
  • And that the next speaker should be “a unifying figure across the conference”

The last of those is particularly important. The statement from Ryan’s office says he will only run “if he is a unity candidate — with the endorsement of all the conference’s major caucuses,” and that members should “make clear whether they support” him by Friday.

So I guess that we can add prima donna to his resume as well.

It’s kind of amusing, the Teabagger caucus finally gets Boehner’s scalp, and discovers that they are now at the point where no one is willing to take the job.

Charlie Pierce notes that Ryan wants to ignore the basic history and responsibilities of the office:

………
Comes now Paul Ryan, the zombie-eyed granny-starver from the state of Wisconsin, who apparently will deign to become Speaker of the House, but only if the entire Republican caucus in the House supports him, and only if the more recalcitrant members of the caucus agree not to turn on him. This very much includes the 40 members of the so-called “Freedom Caucus,” the prion-addled Patient Zeroes of movement conservatism, and the people who defenestrated John Boehner and also ended Kevin McCarthy’s aspirations. So far, these folks seem reluctant to accept the conditions proposed by “Uncle Paul” Ryan.

Ryan’s conditions include rules changes that would make it more difficult to overthrow a sitting speaker – a provision that Rep. Raul Labrador, R-Idaho, a leader of the Freedom Caucus, said is a “non-starter.” “We have to remember everything in the House and everything in Congress is about checks and balances,” Labrador said. “We have two houses of Congress for that reason. We have three branches of government for that reason, and one of the reasons that every board has the freedom to vacate (the chair).” And fellow Freedom Caucus member Rep. Mo Brooks said in addition to that concern, he takes issue with Ryan’s track record on immigration. “Paul Ryan’s support for amnesty and open borders, that is a significant factor,” the Alabama Republican said.

​Plainly, Paul Ryan wants to be granted the authority and prerogatives of a being powerful Speaker without having to earn them through the process of persuasion that became a requirement of the office beginning with the breaking of [Despotic House Speaker from the turn of the last century] Joe Cannon. Now, having Paul Ryan two heartbeats from the presidency is a goddamn awful idea merely on its merits. But, beyond that, his demands seem to me to be based on a fundamental misreading of the current political landscape. For the past 30 years, through the deliberate development of the political identity that infected the party with the prion disease, no Republican politician ever will be allowed to be truly safe. The party handed the skunks the weapons, and the skunks learned how to use them. You’re their huckleberry now, sport.

This really is going to be the worst job in the world, and at the rate that this is going, I would expect half of the Republican Caucus to exhume the body of Ronald Reagan, and make him Speaker.

It is a f%$#ing mess.

More Truth from a Congressional Republican

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Is someone putting Scopolamine in their drinking water?

Because we just had a 2nd Republican Congressman admit that the Benghazi investigation is entirely a political ploy:

A second House Republican has now conceded that the overarching purpose of the House Select Committee on Benghazi has been to attack former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.

 In September, House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) argued that one of House Republicans’ successes has been using the Benghazi Committee to drive down Clinton’s poll numbers. Though McCarthy tried to walk back his controversial comments, Rep. Richard Hanna (R-NY) argued on Wednesday that the Majority Leader had it right to begin with.

 “Sometimes the biggest sin you can commit in D.C. is to tell the truth,” Hanna said in an interview on Keeler in the Morning, a radio show in upstate New York. The third-term congressman paused for a moment, perhaps recognizing the importance of what he was about to say, before going on to agree with McCarthy’s original statement.

 “This may not be politically correct, but I think that there was a big part of this investigation that was designed to go after people and an individual, Hillary Clinton,” Hanna said.

 He explained further why he believes the Benghazi Committee’s purpose has been in part to attack Clinton. “After what Kevin McCarthy said, it’s difficult to accept at least a part of it was not,” Hanna said. “I think that’s the way Washington works. But you’d like to expect more from a committee that’s spent millions of dollars and tons of time.”

Dr. Peter Venkman: This city is headed for a disaster of biblical proportions.
Mayor: What do you mean, “biblical”?
Dr Ray Stantz: What he means is Old Testament, Mr. Mayor, real wrath of God type stuff.
Dr. Peter Venkman: Exactly.
Dr Ray Stantz: Fire and brimstone coming down from the skies! Rivers and seas boiling!
Dr. Egon Spengler: Forty years of darkness! Earthquakes, volcanoes…
Winston Zeddemore: The dead rising from the grave!
Dr. Peter Venkman: Human sacrifice, dogs and cats living together… mass hysteria!

Weird that we are having a sudden outbreak of truth ……… from Republicans.

This is clearly a sign of the apocalypse.

If this continues, things should get very interesting.

F%$# Me. I Agree with Mitch McConnell

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He is looking at further restricting the filibuster.

Notwithstanding the assertions by Senators that the US Senate is “The Word’s Greatest Deliberative Body,” the filibuster, and its routine use has made it nothing more than a petri dish for psychopaths:*

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) is opening the door to changing the filibuster in response to growing pressure from Republicans angered that Democrats have blocked legislation from reaching the White House.

McConnell has appointed a special task force to explore changes to the filibuster rule and other procedural hurdles — including whether to eliminate filibusters on motions to proceed to legislation. That’s a tactic the minority often uses to shut down a bill before amendments can be considered.

McConnell has tapped his close ally, Sen. Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.), and Senate Rules Committee Chairman Roy Blunt (R-Mo.) to form a task force with Sen. James Lankford (R-Okla.) and two other freshmen to weigh various reforms. They hope to implement the changes at the start of next year.

“We’re going to take a serious look at whether Senate rules ought to be changed in order to make the Senate work more effectively,” Alexander said.

The filibuster is an accident of history, and it has done far more harm than good.

To the degree that the filibuster returns to the fetid swamps of history, it is a good thing, regardless of party.

*Understand that this is not a formal diagnosis. I am an engineer, not a doctor, dammit!†
†I LOVE IT when I get to go all Doctor McCoy!!!

My Expectations of Republicans Have Once Again Been Proven Too High

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It appears that Republicans need to get their hate on

A group of Republican lawmakers are reiterating their call for the Smithsonian National Portrait Gallery to remove a bust of Planned Parenthood founder Margaret Sanger.

Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) and 25 House members sent a letter to the museum’s director Kim Sajet Friday calling the display of the bust “an affront both to basic human decency and the very meaning of justice.”

The letter pointed to Sanger’s support of eugenics, but also blasted her for founding Planned Parenthood, which has been in the crosshairs of congressional Republicans and nearly prompted them to shutdown the federal government rather the reauthorize its funding.

It appears that I cannot set my expectations low enough to meet the reality that is the Republican Party.

Whiskey Tango Foxtrot?

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I’m not sure whether John Boehner is laughing or crying, but the fact that Congressman Malaprop, AKA current House Majority Leader has decided nto to run for Speaker is a bit of a surprise:

Representative Kevin McCarthy of California abruptly withdrew on Thursday from the race to succeed Speaker John A. Boehner, blindsiding his House Republican colleagues and throwing their already tumultuous chamber into deeper chaos with no clear leader in sight just weeks before a series of high-stakes fiscal battles.

As lawmakers ate barbecue and sipped sodas during what was expected to be a pro forma vote to select Mr. McCarthy as their nominee, he did an about-face, saying that he had concluded he could not unite the increasingly fractious Republican majority.

“I am not that guy,” said Mr. McCarthy, with his wife and family by his side, according to members who were in the room. Moments later, Mr. Boehner, who learned of Mr. McCarthy’s decision only minutes before he announced it, declared the vote postponed and the meeting adjourned even though there were two other candidates in the running, underscoring the weakness of the field.

Some Republicans, including Mr. Boehner and Mr. McCarthy, are pressing Representative Paul D. Ryan of Wisconsin, the party’s nominee for vice president in 2012, to step up. Mr. Ryan, however, has repeatedly said he does not want the job, a point he reiterated Thursday even before his colleagues had left the meeting.

I’ve heard that there were some Republican Representatives crying in the coat closet crying after the announcement.
I love me some sweet Republican tears, but we are in for a really bumpy ride.
If someone like Jason Chaffetz ends up speaker, we will get of the Benghazi-Planned Parenthood-Fast and Furious freak show.
In fact, I would guess that it is even money that they will try to impeach Obama.
Actually, I would think that there is a 10% chance that they will try to retroactively impeach Bill Clinton.
About the only good that might come of this is if it ends up killing the TPP, because nothing else is going to get done.

Gawdammit, Florida!

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I am a firm believer in the principle that there should never be any sort of religious requirement for holding any position of public trust.

Still, when I heard about candidate for US Senate who admits to having sacrificed a goat and drinking its blood, I shake my head, and say, “Only in Florida”.

A lawyer who is standing for the US Senate in Florida has admitted killing a goat and drinking its blood as part of a sacrifice “to the god of the wilderness”.

Augustus Sol Invictus, who changed his name to the Latin phrase which means “majestic unconquered sun”, has accused critics of running a smear campaign against him.

The 32-year-old is a member of the Libertarian Party in Florida and said he carried out the sacrifice as part of a pagan ritual.

He said: “I did sacrifice a goat. I know that’s probably a quibble in the mind of most Americans.

“I sacrificed an animal to the god of the wilderness … yes, I drank the goat’s blood.”

Mr Invictus was responding after the chairman of the Libertarian Party of Florida, Adrian Wyllie, resigned, calling on party leaders to denounce his candidacy.

Florida, Whiskey Tango Foxtrot?

I’m waiting for them to elect Marilyn Manson governor.

Props to Charles Grassley

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Yeah, I cannot believe that I said this either.

He has gone on mdeieval on Red Cross efforts to stonewall a GAO investigation:

Sen. Charles Grassley is demanding more information about the American Red Cross and its “apparent unwillingness to fully cooperate” with a government investigation into its disaster relief work.

Grassley asked the head of the Government Accountability Office for a list of material the Red Cross refused to provide to investigators, as well as the names of officials who didn’t cooperate and any communications in which the charity explained why it was not cooperating.

“The lack of transparency is cause for concern as the Red Cross is a federal instrumentality created by Congressional charter and receives millions of dollars every year from donors across the country,” Grassley, an Iowa Republican, wrote in a letter today to the head of the GAO.

The GAO report, released earlier this month, explored the Red Cross’ government mandated role in responding to disasters. It found that there is no regular oversight of the Red Cross despite a string of flawed disaster responses. It also recommended Congress find a way to fill that gap.

………

The head of the GAO inquiry said earlier this month that the Red Cross had not given “unfettered access” but that investigators were able to get the information they needed “to sufficiently answer our research questions.”

Seeing as how the American Red Cross seems to have a long history of inefficiency in the execution of large scale disaster aid, as well as bait and switch in their fund raising,* there seems to be some justification in heightened oversight, particularly given their federal charter.

This sort of crap has been going on since the late 1980s, when Red Cross refusal to properly test their blood products killed a significant portion of the US hemophiliacs.

*And there is that whole thing in Haiti, where they took in nearly ½ billion dollars for Haiti aid, and built a grand total of 6 homes.

The Mask Slips

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The leading candidate to replace John Boehner as speaker, Kevin McCarthy just accidentally told the truth about the House’s Benghazi investigations:

So now we know: One of the principal reasons Republicans spent so much public money investigating the tragic Benghazi episode was to bring down Hillary Clinton’s poll numbers.

Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.), the likely successor to House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio), told Fox News’s Sean Hannity explicitly on Tuesday night that the Clinton investigation was part of a “strategy to fight and win.”

He explained: “Everybody thought Hillary Clinton was unbeatable, right? But we put together a Benghazi special committee, a select committee. What are her numbers today? Her numbers are dropping. Why? Because she’s untrustable. But no one would have known any of that had happened, had we not fought.”

The Republican-led House hasn’t been particularly good at governing, but perhaps governing has never been the point. Why govern when there’s a future election to influence?

That the Benghazi investigation is a crock of sh%$ is not a surprise.

That a Republican party leader basically admitted that it was all a politically motivated freak show on a public program is a bit of a surprise.

John Boehner Just Issued a Big F%$# You to the Teabaggers

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I guess that it’s one way to have some fun as he is heading out the door:

House Speaker John Boehner said Sunday that there will be “no” government shutdown over Planned Parenthood funding, and signaled plans to pass the Senate stop-gap funding bill with help from Democrats.

“I expect my Democratic colleagues want to keep the government open as much as I do,” Boehner, R-Ohio, said on CBS’ “Face the Nation.”

The interview was Boehner’s first since announcing his resignation Friday.

The announcement came as Republican leaders spar over how to handle a series of budget extension proposals to keep the federal government operating past Sept. 30, the end of the fiscal year. Moderates within the House GOP caucus had been pushing for any plan that will avoid a shutdown while more conservative members had vowed to strip funding from Planned Parenthood programs at any cost.

If Boehner was still trying to remain speaker, he would not have done this.

Never underestimate the the power of someone who has given his last f%$#.

He Didn’t Jump, He Was Pushed

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In a surprise announcement, the worst Speaker of the House in the history of ……… well ……… history, John Boehner, made a surprise announcement that he will be resigning from Congress:

Speaker John A. Boehner, an Ohio barkeeper’s son who rode a conservative wave to one of the highest positions in government, said Friday he would relinquish his gavel and resign from Congress, undone by the very Republicans who swept him into power.

Mr. Boehner, 65, made the announcement in an emotional meeting with his fellow Republicans on Friday morning as lawmakers struggled to avert a government shutdown next week, a possibility made less likely by his decision.

Mr. Boehner told almost no one of his decision before making it Friday morning. “So before I went to sleep last night, I told my wife, I said, ‘You know, I might just make an announcement tomorrow,’ ” Mr. Boehner said at a news conference in the Capitol. “This morning I woke up, said my prayers, as I always do, and thought, ‘This is the day I am going to do this.’ ”

His downfall again highlighted the sinewy power of a Republican Party faction whose anthem is often to oppose government action. It also made vivid the increasingly precarious nature of a job in which the will and proclivities of politically divisive body must be managed. No House speaker since Thomas P. O’Neill Jr., who held the gavel from 1977 to 1986, has left the job willingly.

As much as I appreciate the standard line that Boehner left under his own power, I kind of doubt it.

If this was really about him being tired of a restive Congress, he would have left when he realized that he lacked the skill of vote counting, which is essential for a legislature.

I have repeatedly referred to him as the worst Speaker ever because, in the House of Congress most amenable to steam roller politics, he was constantly back on his heels, because he wanted the job of Speaker so badly that he was unable and unwilling to actually manage the house.

It simply makes no sense that he left left because he got tired. He left because some of his colleagues had “the talk” with him.

Still, if you favor the “left under his own power” theory, I would suggest that you read ​Charlie Pierce’s take on this:

Way I figure it is this. In their private chat yesterday, Boehner explained to the pope the problems he was having with the flying monkey caucus, and Papa Francesco who, after all, heads a bureaucracy with a long history as a seething cauldron of ambition, scandal, murder and betrayal, as well as a unique tradition of crazy institutional proceedings (See: Cadaver Synod), listened to Boehner’s plight and said, mildly, “Jesus H. Christ in a Fiat, my son, these people crazy. Get out while you can.” That’s the way I’m going to figure it, anyway.

It is a sane theory, but sanity does not apply in this situation.

Sanity has almost been as rare as competence during the Speakership of John Boehner.

Zombie Ideas

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The New York Times editorial board notices that Republicans are trying to privatize IRS tax collection yet again:

Buried in the Senate-passed version of the big highway bill is a provision that would require the Treasury secretary to use private debt collectors to collect unpaid back taxes.

The provision, added to the bill by Republican leaders, is ostensibly intended to help pay for highways. But it’s a bad idea that should be kept out of the House version of the bill and out of any final compromise version.

Private tax collection was tried in the 1990s and in the 2000s. Both times it lost money. It increases the cost of handling complaints and appeals at the Internal Revenue Service, and it is far less efficient than simply increasing the collection budget of the I.R.S.

Worse, it fosters taxpayer abuse. The debts involved are ones that the I.R.S. has not been able to collect, in part because the taxpayers are too hard-pressed to pay up. A private company is probably not going to have better luck unless it uses abusive tactics.

And yet, private tax collection is an idea that keeps resurfacing. Why? One reason is that it would be a cash cow for the four companies likely to win tax-collection contracts, two in New York, one in California and one in Iowa.

Senator Chuck Schumer, Democrat of New York, has argued in the past that using federal money to pay private companies for tax collection would create jobs at those companies. But it would be better to increase the I.R.S. budget to create middle-class public-sector jobs in professional tax collection than to throw money at low-paying private-sector contractors who cannot do the job as well.

 Thank you Senator Schumer for whoring for your debt collector campaign contributors.

This sh%$ is just evil.

34

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34 Democrats have now said that they will oppose any Republican attempt to override the nuclear deal with Iran, which means that they cannot override a promised veto:

Just before the Senate left town for its August break, a dozen or so undecided Democrats met in the Capitol with senior diplomats from Britain, China, France, Germany and Russia who delivered a blunt, joint message: Their nuclear agreement with Iran was the best they could expect. The five world powers had no intention of returning to the negotiating table.

“They basically said unanimously this is as good a deal as you could get and we are moving ahead with it,” recalled Senator Chris Coons, the Delaware Democrat who lent crucial support to the deal this week despite some reservations. “They were clear and strong that we will not join you in re-imposing sanctions.”

For many if not most Democrats, it was that message that ultimately solidified their decisions, leading to President Obama on Wednesday securing enough votes to put the agreement in place over fierce and united Republican opposition. One after another, lawmakers pointed to the warnings from foreign leaders that their own sanctions against Iran would be lifted regardless of what the United States did.

It is the proverbial, “Big f%$#ing deal.”

The reality is that this is as good a deal as can be expected, and if it gets reversed, our allies will not return to the sanctions regime, so it is basically a done deal, but I still expect a Terri Schiavo type political clusterf%$# for the organization formally known as “The Party of Lincoln.”

This is Just F%$#ing Evil

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And, of course, the targets of such an action are the poor, the mentally ill, and minorities, so the fact that the Senate version of the transportation bill will includes a measure that will cut off social security benefits to everyone who has an outstanding warrant:

The large transportation funding bill moving through the Senate would end Social Security benefits for 200,000 people who have an outstanding felony arrest warrant—but have never been convicted by a court, or have a warrant for violating probation or parole, according to disability rights advocates tracking the legislation.

………

“There are two key issues here,” said T.J. Sutcliffe, income and housing policy director for The Arc, a national disability rights organization. “One is that the Social Security Trust Fund should not be used for unrelated purposes, no matter how important. And the other is Congress is considering cutting off benefits to 200,000 people who rely on Social Security and SSI [disability] benefits, who, in the case of arrest warrants have never been convicted.”

The proposal surfaced in the Senate on Tuesday in a package of amendments (page 949, Section 52303) being added to a transportation bill. The House’s version of the bill only would have extended funds for several months, while the Senate is looking at a six-year proposal—which becomes a vehicle for many other languishing bills.

Slightly different versions of a bill to punish people with outstanding felony warrants, or warrants for violating probation or parole, were introduced in both chambers. Disability and low-income advocates were quick to criticize the proposals, saying that they will punish people who rely on Social Security with little law enforcement benefit.

“It would not help law enforcement secure the arrest of people they are seeking for serious crimes,” explained Justice In Aging. “Law enforcement is already notified of the whereabouts of every person with a warrant for a felony or an alleged violation of probation or parole who turns up in the Social Security Administration (SSA) databases.”

The anti-poverty law group listed 10 reasons why the proposal was unduly punitive and would have very draconian consequences:

  • “Those most likely to lose benefits are generally those most in need.
  • A significant number of people will become homeless when they lose their benefits.
  • Some people have had benefits cut off while residing in nursing homes.
  • A very high percentage of those who will lose their benefits are people with intellectual disabilities or mental illness.
  • An unusually high percentage of those who lose benefits are African-Americans.
  • Many will lose Medicare outpatient (Part B) coverage because of inability to pay the quarterly premium.
  • Eliminating what may be their only source of income does not help resolve these issues.
  • Many people never know that a warrant has been issued for them as warrants are often not served on the individual.
  • These warrants are often not easily resolved since many of those who lose benefits live far from the issuing jurisdiction.
  • SSA will have increased administrative costs for processing appeals and requests for waiver of recovery of overpayments.

“A majority of those affected who are receiving benefits based on disability fall into these categories,” it said. “Large numbers of those who will lose benefits had warrants routinely issued when they were unable to pay a fine or court fee or probation supervision fee.”

OK, it’s not, “Just F%$#ing Stupid”, it’s evil AND stupid.

What the hell is wrong with these people?

I Have an Endorsement for the Florida Senate Race

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Rather unsurprisingly, it is Alan Grayson, who formally announced his entry into the Democratic primary:

The 2016 Democratic primary for the U.S. Senate in Florida just got interesting.

 U.S. Rep. Alan Grayson, the liberal firebrand whose unpredictability enthralls progressives and worries moderates, announced Thursday that he will run against the more centrist U.S. Rep. Patrick Murphy for the Senate seat that would be vacated by current Sen. Marco Rubio, a candidate for the presidency.

 “People understand what I stand for,” Grayson said on the WKMG television station in Orlando on Thursday. “They know I am a champion for justice, equality and peace and I do my best to help people in need.”

 He plans to campaign on giving seniors a Social Security raise, expanding the services covered by Medicare, reducing student loans and expanding access to healthcare.

 “I don’t think Obamacare has gone far enough,” he told the Miami Herald after his announcement.

 The race pits polar opposites against each other.

 Grayson, 57, from Orlando, is known for his raucous style. In 2009, he described a proposed GOP healthcare plan as “if you do get sick, die quickly” and once compared former Vice President Dick Cheney to a vampire.

The Democratic Party establishment is supporting Patrick Murphy who, “Was a Republican until he ran for Congress in 2012,” who voted for the Keystone Pipeline, the House kangaroo hearings on Benghazi, corrupt for profit colleges, donated to Mitt Rmoney in 2007, and is a member of the corporatist “New Democrat” caucus.

Hmmm…..The DSCC, which is effectively run by Chuck “Wall Street’s Bitch” Schumer, is supporting a Wall Street loving faux Dem.

What a surprise.

Needless to say, Alan Grayson is now on Matthew Saroff’s Act Blue Page.

Looks Like the Congressional Delegation in Florida Will Be Changing

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The Florida Supreme Court has ruled that at least 8 Congressional districts must be redrawn:

The Florida Supreme Court took a wrecking ball to Florida’s political landscape Thursday, throwing out the state’s carefully crafted congressional districts drawn by the GOP-led Legislature and ordering a new map within 100 days.

In the historic 5-2 ruling, the court not only ruled the maps were the product of an unconstitutional political gerrymandering, it signaled its deep distrust of lawmakers and provided detailed instructions on how to repair the flawed map in time for the 2016 election.

“This is a complete victory for the people of Florida who passed the Fair District amendment and sought fair representation where the Legislature didn’t pick their voters,” said David King, lead attorney for the League of Women Voters and the coalition of voter groups which brought the challenge. “The Supreme Court accepted every challenge we made and ordered the Legislature to do it over.”

The new maps are likely to reconfigure nearly all of the state’s 27 congressional districts, open the door to new candidates, and threaten incumbents, who will now face a new set of boundary lines and constituents close to the 2016 election.

………

But the justices reversed the trial court’s order approving the Legislature’s revised redistricting plan “because we conclude that, as a result of legal errors, the trial court failed to give the proper effect to its finding of unconstitutional intent, which mandated a more meaningful remedy commensurate with the constitutional violations it found.”

The court concluded however, that the plantiffs didn’t show enough evidence to support revisions to the whole map but ordered changes to eight districts “and other districts affected by the redrawing.”

The court also ordered the Legislature to turn over all documents related to the redrawn maps and urged lawmakers to refrain from conducting secret meetings and “consider making all decisions on the redrawn map in public view.”

In siding with a coalition of Democrat-backed voter groups, the court majority concluded that lawmakers violated the Fair District amendments to the Florida Constitution. The amendments were approved in 2010 by more than 63 percent of voters — over the objections of the Republican-controlled Legislature — to prohibit lawmakers from intentionally drawing districts that favor incumbents or political parties.

The court gave the Legislature 100 days to meet in special session to complete a new map, and ordered the trial court to issue an order that opens the door for it to review the final product. House and Senate leaders have not responded to the ruling.

It’s only 8 out of 27 seats, necessarily, some of the other districts will have to change because of the facts of simple geometry.

It won’t be enough to flip the house, but I could see the Dems go from the current 10 to 12-13seats in Congress, particularly since 2016 is a Presidential year.

Shoot Me, I Agree with the Republicans

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Republicans in the House want to repeal the ethanol mandate for gasoline:

A new Republican bill introduced Tuesday would completely repeal the federal mandate to blend ethanol into the nation’s gasoline supply.

Sen. Bill Cassidy’s (R-La.) legislation would completely do away with the renewable fuel standard, which first took effect in 2005 and now requires increasing levels of ethanol and biodiesel to be put into traditional fossil fuels.

The mandate invites frequent criticism from Republicans, the oil industry and sectors that complain the demand it creates for corn ethanol increases agricultural prices.

“Workers, refiners, producers, farmers and ranchers across the country are affected by the renewable fuel standard,” Cassidy said in a statement. “More mandates mean less jobs. It means families are paying more for gas and groceries.”

Cassidy represents Louisiana, one of the largest states in terms of fuel refining capacity. Refiners say that buying ethanol or fuel credits increases their prices, and they must pass those costs onto consumers.

The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has had trouble keeping up with the annual volume mandates amid a decrease in fuel use. The agency proposed mandate levels for 2014 through 2016 last month.

The proposal would increase ethanol levels, though not to the goals set out in the law, leading to criticisms from both supporters and opponents of the mandate.

Republicans want this for a different reason than I do, though.

They object, because they believe that any imposition on the big oil is a crime against God, while I believe that ethanol, at least corn based ethanol as generated in the United States, makes little to no savings in CO2 emissions when all inputs are considered, and serves primarily as a way for Presidential candidates to pander to Iowa farmers so as to improve their performance in the Iowa caucuses.

Biodiesel is another matter, and unlike Cassidy, other proposals to eliminate the ethanol mandate do not eliminate a biodiesel mandate, which is the path that I favor.

Even the Hawks in the US Congress Are Concerned about the Ukrainian Nazis

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The flag flown by the Azov Battalion


Actual iconography on Azov Battalion helmets

It appears that the behavior of the Ukraine’s far right militias that Congress has explicitly forbidden giving them funding:

It’s easy to see why Representative John Conyers, a Michigan Democrat, would have a problem with the military unit commanded by Ukrainian legislator Andriy Biletsky: Conyers is a founding member of the Congressional Black Caucus, Biletsky is a white supremacist.

The House of Representatives has unanimously approved an amendment to the U.S. military budget, proposed by Conyers and Florida Republican Ted Yoho, banning support and training for “the Ukrainian neo-Nazi paramilitary militia ‘Azov Battalion.'” Azov was set up in May 2014 to fight pro-Russian separatists in eastern Ukraine. Here’s how the group’s Facebook page describes the circumstances:

In the first weeks after the Putin invasion of Donbass began, the authorities and law enforcers were confused and demoralized. Nationalists had to take initiative. The Patriot of Ukraine organization and allied unofficial groups of right-wing youth rallied around Andriy Biletsky and challenged the separatists.

By now, though, the Azov Battalion has become a regiment of the Ukrainian National Guard and enjoys the enthusiastic support of Interior Minister Arsen Avakov.

Biletsky had run Patriot of Ukraine since 2005. In a 2010 interview he described the organization as nationalist “storm troops” with its biggest unit in Kharkov, Biletsky’s native city in eastern Ukraine. The group’s ideology was “social nationalism” — a term Biletsky, a historian, knew would deceive no one.

………

The war in the east gave Biletsky’s storm troopers a chance at a higher status than they could ever have hoped to achieve. They fought fiercely, and last fall, the 400-strong Azov Battalion became part of the National Guard, receiving permission to expand to 2,000 fighters and gaining access to heavy weaponry. So what if some of its members had Nazi symbols tattooed on their bodies and the unit’s banner bore the Wolfsangel, used widely by the Nazis during World War II? In an interview with Ukraine’s Focus magazine last September, Avakov, responsible for the National Guard, was protective of his heroes. He said of the Wolfsangel:

In many European cities it is part of the city emblem. Yes, most of the guys who assembled in Azov have a particular worldview. But who told you you could judge them? Don’t forget what the Azov Battalion did for the country. Remember the liberation of Mariupol, the fighting at Ilovaysk, the latest attacks near the Sea of Azov. May God allow anyone who criticizes them to do 10 percent of what they’ve done. And anyone who’s going to tell me that these guys preach Nazi views, wear the swastika and so on, are bare-faced liars and fools.


………

Now, Conyers and Yoho have almost succeeded in making Azov ineligible for any form of U.S. assistance. “These groups run counter to American values,” Conyers told Congress. “And once the fighting ends, they pose a significant threat to the Ukrainian government and the Ukrainian people. As we’ve seen many times, most notably within the Mujaheddin in Afghanistan, these groups will not lay down their arms once the conflict is over.”

As Robert Parry, who was given the Polk award for his work on Iran-Contra observed:


………

The conservative London Telegraph offered more details about the Azov battalion in an article by correspondent Tom Parfitt, who wrote: “Kiev’s use of volunteer paramilitaries to stamp out the Russian-backed Donetsk and Luhansk ‘people’s republics’… should send a shiver down Europe’s spine.

“Recently formed battalions such as Donbas, Dnipro and Azov, with several thousand men under their command, are officially under the control of the interior ministry but their financing is murky, their training inadequate and their ideology often alarming. The Azov men use the neo-Nazi Wolfsangel (Wolf’s Hook) symbol on their banner and members of the battalion are openly white supremacists, or anti-Semites.”

Based on interviews with militia members, the Telegraph reported that some of the fighters doubted the reality of the Holocaust, expressed admiration for Adolf Hitler and acknowledged that they are indeed Nazis.

Biletsky, the Azov commander, “is also head of an extremist Ukrainian group called the Social National Assembly,” according to the Telegraph article which quoted a commentary by Biletsky as declaring: “The historic mission of our nation in this critical moment is to lead the White Races of the world in a final crusade for their survival. A crusade against the Semite-led Untermenschen.”

In other words, for the first time since World War II, a government had dispatched Nazi storm troopers to attack a European population – and officials in Kiev knew what they were doing. The Telegraph questioned Ukrainian authorities in Kiev who acknowledged that they were aware of the extremist ideologies of some militias but insisted that the higher priority was having troops who were strongly motivated to fight. [See Consortiumnews.com’s “Ignoring Ukraine’s Neo-Nazi Storm Troopers.”]

But a rebel counteroffensive led by ethnic Russians last August reversed many of Kiev’s gains and drove the Azov and other government forces back to the port city of Mariupol, where Foreign Policy’s reporter Alec Luhn also encountered the Nazis. He wrote:

“Blue and yellow Ukrainian flags fly over Mariupol’s burned-out city administration building and at military checkpoints around the city, but at a sport school near a huge metallurgical plant, another symbol is just as prominent: the wolfsangel (‘wolf trap’) symbol that was widely used in the Third Reich and has been adopted by neo-Nazi groups. …

“Pro-Russian forces have said they are fighting against Ukrainian nationalists and ‘fascists’ in the conflict, and in the case of Azov and other battalions, these claims are essentially true.”

You can find Conyers’ statement on his amendments banning any aid the Azov battallion, as well as prohibiting the transfer of shoulder launched SAMs (Manpads) to anyone in the Ukraine, here.

I think that the prohibition against the missiles is particularly significant, because it not just a measure of concern about neo-Nazi elements in the Ukrainian establishment, it is a vote of no-confidence in their entire military establishment, and arguably the entire government, with regard to securing portable SAMs.