Category: Congress

Tedisco Murphy Tally: Racism and Law Breaking Edition

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The Tedisco campaign is objecting to student ballots, in violation of the law and established court cases, and they are striking absentee ballots of voters with “Jewish” Names, who are assumed to be Democratic voters, and many of the folks have been registered in, and voting in, the district for decades:

The Democrats plan to argue in court, citing precedent, that the votes are valid so long as voters with multiple residences don’t cast ballots in multiple places. Garry even went one step further, holding up his yellow pad and showing the names of those challenged, suggesting that Walsh was also acting with regard to ethnicity.

“Cohen, Pollack, Rosegarten, Winakor—there’s a pattern: they’re Democrats and they’re Jewish,” he said.

If you think that Jews have a home in the Republican party, you are an idiot.

Election Board Rules for Franken, Coleman Plans Appeal

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The three judge panel soundly rejected Norm Coleman’s arguments, using the term “absurd” in their opinion to describe some of his arguments, and hit his campaign with sanctions, requiring that the Coleman campaign reimburse both the election court and the Franken campaign for a portion of their legal expenses. (click image for full size)

Coleman has 10 days to appeal to the state Supreme court, and will probably use all of that time, since delay is what the ‘phants are paying for, and now everyone’s 2nd favorite Minnesota slimebag, Governor Tim Pawlenty, has signed on to the delay Franken at all costs camp, because it will help his bid to the the Republican nominee for President in 2012.

For weeks, he has said that he would sign the certification when the state courts ruled, and now he’s saying that he’s likely to wait for the federal courts, in contravention of Minnesota law.

HOGRC to Investigate Accusations that White House is Moving to Subvert Executive Pay Restrictions

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Rep. Edolphus Towns (D-N.Y.), chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, has sent a letter to Treasury Secretary Geithner demanding informanton on any special purpose entities that might be used to avoid executive compensation limits.

As I noted about a week ago, it appears that the Treasury is setting up dummy entities to avoid executive pay limits (scroll down), and now it appears that some of members of Congress are sitting up and beginning to sit up and take notice.

Stupid Senator Tricks

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For some reason, it appears that Senator Richard Shelby (R-AL) seems to be overrepresented in such metrics.

In this case, he has a hold on Ashton Carter to become the next Pentagon acquisition chief, because, wait for it, he has not received a guarantee from SecDef Robert Gates that the he would, “make the tanker decision on best-value grounds.”

He is concerned that Airbus, which would assemble the aircraft in his state, will somehow be cheated out of the contract.

Ummm…The Airbus A-330 won the contract because it had a larger, more capable aircraft that could be delivered sooner, and had a fly-away cost roughly equal to the Boeing 767.

This is not an issue. The issue is your colleague in the House and Senate, doing the same work for Boeing that you are doing for EADS, will attempt to sabotage the process and get the contract awarded to the Seattle aircraft manufacturer on political grounds.

You do not need a guarantee from Gates or Carter, you need it from your fellow legislators.

Senate Judiciary Committee Approves Patent Update

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It looks to me like the Patent Reform Act of 2009, is an improvement, the patent troll crowd are generally negative on it, and Senator Feingold’s statement in opposition suggests that it weakens patents too much, which is a good thing.

The real question is what happens in conference.

In my dream scenario, the patenting of software algorithms, tax deductions, business plans, genes, and species would be invalidated, and a litigant could file a suit against a patent as a plaintiff without having to infringe, as is done with civil rights suits.

Election Updates

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They have finished counting the 300 some odd absentee ballots in Minnesota, and Franken picked up 90 votes, which puts him ahead even if the throw out the lost ballots counted on election night, or any other scenario, except for Bush v. Gore judicial nullification, so it looks like the fat lady has sung.

In the NY-20 special election Murphy is setting up a legal fund for the clearly telegraphed legal challenges from Tedisco, hoping to get ahead of delaying tactics of the Norm Coleman variety.

Is Dick Cheney Working the Phones to Blackmail Obama?

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That’s my guess as to why Senate Republicans are threatening the nominationsof Dawn Johnsen as head of the Office of Legal Counsel in the Department of Justice and Harold Koh as the State Department legal counsel if more torture memos are released.

It has been reported that they have told the administration that they will filibuster/place a hold on the nominations unless Obama covers up the torture memos

The people directly involved in this, and hence the ones most likely to face legal or disciplinary action, Alberto “Abu” Gonzalez, John Yoo, David Addington, etc., have no reputation or political pull to get the ‘Phant Senators to do this.

So, it has to be someone who:

  • Is implicated in the memos.
  • Has political pull with the base.
  • Has some sort of rapport with Republican members of the Senate, possibly from their days in Congress.

Sounds like Cheney, and as his latest appearances on the Sunday gas bag circuit, it is clear that he is worried that one of his stalwart supporters of torture will roll on him if they are facing real jeopardy.

A Democrat You Should Not Make Donations To

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Senator Blanche Lincoln (R-AR), who has come out against the Employee Free Choice Act (Card Check).

Not only that, she is clearly signaling that she will support a filibuster.

Not only is this bad policy, it’s also bad politics, since union members vote Democratic, but being from Arkansas, Wal-Mart owns her.

Put your money elsewhere, and give to individual candidates, not the DSCC, which will doubtlessly funnel money to her race in 2010.

Gillibrand Announces Big Fund Raising Quarter

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Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY) raised in excess of $2.3 million since her Senate appointment.

I think that she is doing this to fend off/scare off a primary challenge from Rep. Carolyn McCarthy (D-NY-04), who is now polling ahead of her 33%-29% in the latest polls, though she is still below the magic 50% safe number for incumbents against Peter King, leading 40%-28% in the general too.

I think that Gillibrand will end up moving to the left over the next few months in order to fend of McCarthy, but time will tell.

Republicans Hate Honest Math: Census Edition

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It appears that Obama selection of Robert Groves as director of the US Census has gotten Republicans worried:

Republicans expressed alarm because of one of Mr. Groves’s specialties, statistical sampling — roughly speaking, the process of extrapolating from the numbers of people actually counted to arrive at estimates of those uncounted and, presumably, arriving at a realistic total.

If minorities, immigrants, the poor and the homeless are those most likely to be missed in an actual head count, and if political stereotypes hold true, then statistical sampling would presumably benefit the Democrats.

First, let me note here that the reporter does not have a clue: As a matter of settled law, the Supreme Court ruled that you cannot use a statistical sampling, but instead must use an actual count in Department of Commerce v. U.S. House of Representatives in 1999, so this is a non-issue.

What is not a non issue is that statistical sampling can find people and places that have been under-sampled, and can so create a more accurate census, and a more accurate census is probably a bad thing™ for Republicans, because white males tend to be the easy folks to count.

The ‘Phants don’t oppose him because he will, “Politicize the Census,” they oppose him because he will do the best job possible within his power.

They don’t want someone to do a good job, they want someone to do a piss poor job.

Patience My Ass…..

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You know, for some time, it seems that any time someone complains that Obama’s economic team is too close to the banks, the answer is that we are seeing some sort of chess game, and it’s just that the White House is 3 steps ahead of everyone else.

I don’t buy it. I think that Larry Summers just jumped the shark into accepting bribes, as this Wall Street Journal analysis of his 2008 disclosure forms shows.

Among other things, he got $5.2 million from hedge fund D.E. Shaw for his thoroughly part time (he was a full time professor at Harvard) position, and he got $2.7 million for speaking, with his fees ranging from, “$10,000 for a Yale University speech to $135,000 for an appearance paid for by Goldman Sachs & Co.”

So we know that the market rate for his speeches is about $10K, but Wall Street investment firms were paying more than 10 times that in a year in which the Democrats were favored, and he was likely to be on the team of either Democratic nominee.

A Tiny Revolution went through his disclosure form (PDF) and came up with the following, with Merrill-Lynch being a week after the election, and Charles River Ventures being the day before:

  • GIANT BAILOUT SECTOR
    • Goldman Sachs: $202,500 (two speeches)
    • Citigroup: $99,000 (two speeches)
    • JP Morgan: $67,500
    • Merrill Lynch: $45,000 (donated to charity)
  • DOMESTIC FINANCIAL SECTOR
    • Investec Bank: $157,500
    • State Street Corporation: $112,500
    • Pricewaterhouse Coopers LLC: $67,500
    • Lehman Brothers: $67,500
    • American Express: $67,500
    • Siguler Guff & Company (private equity): $67,500
    • TA Associates (private equity): $67,500
    • Charles River Ventures (Venture Capital): $67,500
  • FOREIGN FINANCIAL SECTOR
    • Skagen Funds (Scandinavian mutual fund): $180,000 (three speeches)
    • Centro de Liderazgo y Gestion (the Center for Leadership and Management, in Colombia): $112,500
    • Association of Mexican Bankers: $90,000
  • OTHER
    • Securities Industry & Financial Markets Association: $33,750
    • Pension Real Estate Association: $67,500
    • Hudson Institute: $10,000

It should be noted that the Hudson institute is a very right wing “think” tank which has consistently been dogged by accusations of racism and Islamophobia, and it’s at the same “market rate” as Yale.

I can’t see this as anything but bribe taking, with the various financial institutions paying forward to get favorable treatment.

What sort of treatment were the looking for? Well, there was probably not a specific request, a quid pro quo, if you will, but something like the White House coming up with phony entities to act as intermediaries in order to skirt Congressional limitations on executive compensation:

The Obama administration is engineering its new bailout initiatives in a way that it believes will allow firms benefiting from the programs to avoid restrictions imposed by Congress, including limits on lavish executive pay, according to government officials.

Administration officials have concluded that this approach is vital for persuading firms to participate in programs funded by the $700 billion financial rescue package.

You know, the threat of being frog marched out of their workplace in handcuffs would work better.

The administration believes it can sidestep the rules because, in many cases, it has decided not to provide federal aid directly to financial companies, the sources said. Instead, the government has set up special entities that act as middlemen, channeling the bailout funds to the firms and, via this two-step process, stripping away the requirement that the restrictions be imposed, according to officials.

Although some experts are questioning the legality of this strategy, the officials said it gives them latitude to determine whether firms should be subject to the congressional restrictions, which would require recipients to turn over ownership stakes to the government, as well as curb executive pay.

The administration has decided that the conditions should not apply in at least three of the five initiatives funded by the rescue package.

…

Enough is enough.

This is more than being too close to the financial sector, this is corruption, and it pervades Obama’s economic team.

Larry Summers, and possibly Timothy Geithner, need to spend more time with their families.

Senate Budget Bill Forces Fed to Name Names

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In response to the Federal Reserve impeding attempts to get information as to the institutions that they have aided, the Senate has inserted a provision in the budget that would, “require the Fed to identify each firm it has given assistance to, how much the assistance was worth, and what the firm is doing with the money..”

Unfortunately, it appears that it won’t make it to the President’s desk, at least not according to a, “senior Democratic Senate aide,” but it would be a good thing.

Colman-Franken: The Fat Lady is Warming Up

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The election court has ruled against the Coleman campaign’s request that 1,400 absentee ballots be reviewed, instead allowing only 400 to be reviewed, many of which were stricken by the Coleman team.

With a 225 point vote gap, this comes very close to being “game over” at least in the state courts.

I think that one of the interesting subtexts here is that the ‘Phants have donated very large sums of money just to tie this up, and that Cornyn is suggesting that they will continue to refuse to seat Franken, which does not bode well for Republicans in Minnesota.

But, great googly moogly, make it stop!

OK, More Wheels Within Wheels

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We now have Barney Frank calling for laws giving resolution authority for systemically important firms, which means FDIC style receivership powers to, “take over and unwind the businesses of big non-bank companies”, which could apply to bank holding companies like Citi and BoA, as well as their banks, and Peter Boone and Simon Johnson (the former chief IMF economist who is calling for kicking the corrupt banking elites out) are suggesting that are suggesting that this is exactly what Geithner’s plan is.

Honestly, I do not think that the White House is sandbagging the Congress and the public over this.

As I have said before, past is prelude, and for Geithner and Summers to sign off on such a thing would run completely counter to their entire professional lives.

I hope that I am wrong, but I fear that I am not.