Category: Hypocrisy

I Am So Glad That I Do Not Live 15 Miles Further East

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Because if I did, the biggest wanker in Congress would be my Congresscritter:

A conservative Maryland physician elected to Congress on an anti-Obamacare platform surprised fellow freshmen at a Monday orientation session by demanding to know why his government-subsidized health care plan takes a month to kick in.

Republican Andy Harris, an anesthesiologist who defeated freshman Democrat Frank Kratovil on Maryland’s Eastern Shore, reacted incredulously when informed that federal law mandated that his government-subsidized health care policy would take effect on Feb. 1 – 28 days after his Jan. 3rd swearing-in.

“He stood up and asked the two ladies who were answering questions why it had to take so long, what he would do without 28 days of health care,” said a congressional staffer who saw the exchange. The benefits session, held behind closed doors, drew about 250 freshman members, staffers and family members to the Capitol Visitors Center auditorium late Monday morning,”.

“Harris then asked if he could purchase insurance from the government to cover the gap,” added the aide, who was struck by the similarity to Harris’s request and the public option he denounced as a gateway to socialized medicine.

Andy Harris campaigned non-stop against government run healthcare, but that’s only for people who aren’t him, I guess.

Buh Bye Bean

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Melissa Bean has conceded the election to her Republican opponent Joe Walsh, and honestly, it makes me happy.

I’d feel different if she were the margin for control of the house, but she isn’t, and she is arguably the worst Democrat in Congress, because she sold her soul for campaign donations to the financial industry, and she was the most effective force on Congress for gutting financial regulations.

While she is (until January) was a member of both the Blue Dog and New Democrat Caucus, she was always about raking in the campaign dough from banks, pharma, etc. so that they can stay in office, which shades her more toward the New Dem side, as opposed to the Blue Dogs, who tend to be motivated more by their own misguided philosophy or a desire to appease constituents.

Give me an honest reactionary over a pseudo-moderate careerist any day.

In related news. Lisa Murkowski beat Joe Miller in her write-in bid.

In your face, Sarah Palin.

So If Timidity and Capitulation Created a Disaster, then We Need More of That!

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So Barack Obama held his post election news conference, and he decided to double down on capitulation and weakness, and call it civility:

More conciliatory than contrite, Mr. Obama used that phrase, “take responsibility,” six times but rejected the suggestion that his policies were moving the country in the wrong direction. He conceded that legislation to limit greenhouse gases was dead and said he was “absolutely” willing to negotiate over the extension of tax cuts, including for the wealthy. But he drew the line at any major retreat from signature priorities, saying he would agree to “tweak” his health care program, not “relitigate arguments” over its central elements.

……

“I do believe there is hope for civility,” he said. “I do believe there’s hope for progress.”

Honestly, I understand that Barack Obama has spent his entire life trying to avoid being the stereotypical “angry black man,” because the perception is politically toxic in our not yet post-racial America.

But he’s leading with the chin again.

Barack Obama will ask what they want to preserve the sup $250K tax cuts, and they will say make the whole package permanent, and because Obama is afraid not being liked, and because he made a promise, which he wants to keep (Unlike his promises on prosecuting war crimes, closing Guantanamo, ending Don’t Ask Don’t Tell, etc.) he’ll cave, either on the $250K+ rates, or on eliminating the inheritance tax, or everything, because that’s how he rolls.

The standard line in Washington, and I’m sure that it’s one that Obama has swallowed, hook, line, and sinker, is that between the economy and “liberal overreach,” the Dems lost.

The Dems lost because they looked weak, and the Dems looked weak, because they were weak, and they were led by a weak leader, who sees his weakness as an independent good.

Just Desserts

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Bummer of a birth mark, ConservaDems

In looking at the elections, there is a trend here:

While a part of this is that liberal Democrats tend to have safer seats, though one of the Blue Dog losers, Gene Taylor, had polled at more than 75% in prior elections, what this is about is the fact that the Blue Dogs and the New Dems created the groundwork for this.

When people thought that they had to vote against Nancy Pelosi as House Speaker, it was because the Blue Dogs gave credibility to this Republican talking point by campaigning against her too.

When people complained that the Congressional Democrats were in the banks pockets, it was because the New Democrat Coalition was in the pockets of the banks, and trading loopholes for campaign contributions.

When people complained that nothing was getting done, it was because the Blue Dogs and the New Democrats were slowing things down, because the Blue Dogs and the New Dems wanted time to get insurance company and banking lobbyists geared up and donating.

When they claimed that the stimulus did not work, they validated the Republican storyline.

To a very large degree, they validated the Republican attacks, and weakened legislation and policy, and contributed to the losses that we saw.

In fact, if these folks had held on, which was their argument for their positions, that it made them more electable, Nancy Pelosi would still be speaker in January.

Payback is a bitch, ain’t it?

It is best to remember what Harry S Truman said:

Given the choice between a Republican and someone who acts like a Republican, people will vote for the real Republican all the time.

I’d much rather have a Democratic majority in the House, but I think that they are marginalized.

Let’s keep it that way.

They Really Are Sociopaths……

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No, I don’t mean the Teabaggers, I mean the beltway pundits.

Case in point, David Broder, who is suggesting that Barack Obama start a war with Iran, because it might be good for the economy and his election prospects. (No direct link, we should not reward such behavior with eyeballs.)

As Scott Horton notes (link above), this clearly demonstrates the, “strongest evidence yet of the moral depravity and sheer nuttiness,” of the WaPo editorial page.

And I am sure that Broder was very proud of what he came up with, it seems so clever, and counter-intuitive, and it means that young men will die.

I bet that it gave the octogenarian psychopath his first stiffie in weeks.

Here is hoping that Keith Olbermann thinks to put him on his “worst” list tonight.

So Not the Next Sarah Palin

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Say what you will about Sarah Palin, but she does not currently get drunk and engage in one night stands:

Three years ago this week, an intoxicated Christine O’Donnell showed up at the apartment of a 25-year-old Philadelphian and ended up spending the night in his bed. Here’s his story—and photos—of his escapade with the would-be Delaware senator.

When one finds a public who makes their mark with sexual “morality,” it does appear that they are railing against what they want to do themselves.

I wil note that the source is Gawker, with all that that entails, and the account is fairly stomach churning, not because of anything that Ms. O’Donnell did or said, but because of the attitude of the source.

Lines like, “When her underwear came off, I immediately noticed that the waxing trend had completely passed her by,” do not make kindly disposed to whoever he is.

In fact, it makes me feel a bit, and only a it, of pity for Ms. O’Donnell.

Getting drunk on Halloween and getting to 2nd or 3rd base really should be nobody’s business …… Unless, of course, you are a very public campaigner against any form of sexual activity out of marriage under all circumstances.

Still, it reads like a bad letter to Penthouse forum.

I Hate The Onion

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Click for full size

Not only does the truth hurt, it leaves a nasty mark!

Their headline, “Democrats: ‘If We’re Gonna Lose, Let’s Go Down Running Away From Every Legislative Accomplishment We’ve Made’“:

WASHINGTON — Conceding almost certain Republican gains in next month’s crucial midterm elections, Democratic lawmakers vowed Tuesday not to give up without making one final push to ensure their party runs away from every major legislative victory of the past two years.

Party leaders told reporters that regardless of the ultimate outcome, they would do everything in their power from now until the polls closed to distance themselves from their hard-won passage of a historic health care overhaul, the toughest financial regulations since the 1930s, and a stimulus package most economists now credit with preventing a second Great Depression.

“There’s a great deal on the line, and we know it isn’t going to be easy for us,” said Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV), speaking from the steps of the Capitol. “But if we suffer defeat, we will do so knowing we cowered away from absolutely anything we produced that was even remotely progressive or valuable in any way.”

If you’ll excuse me, I will now hit myself in the head repeatedly with a hammer, because that is more pleasant than facing this reality.

Here is a hint for the Democrats: If The Onion is writing an article, and it describes your campaign strategy, you are being a f%$#ing moron.

Payback is a Bitch

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When you look at the Democratic Party Congressional caucus, the people who are most threatened with losing their jobs are the Blue Dogs:

More than half the members of the Blue Dog Coalition—the organization of moderate to conservative Democrats in the House—are in peril in next week’s election, a stark indicator of how the balloting could produce a Congress even more polarized than the current one.

The author of the article says that this is worrying because the Blue Dogs are, “a kind of human bridge, connecting left and right in the House,” but my take is rather more positive: It’s these rat f%$#s that were in large part for blocking and weakening every serious policy initiative that the Democratic party, and it is this perceived lack of accomplishment that has put off voters.

Truth be told, it’s not that payback is a bitch, it’s that payback is making them it’s bitch.

People don’t want to vote for Democrats because they are perceived as timid, and the people who forced this are reaping the whirlwind.

Heh.

The Mortgage Fraud Goes Max Bialystock*

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It turns out that some of the banksters have simultaneously sold mortgages to multiple people (see also here for the court fiuling):

In a complaint filed this month in Washington, D.C. federal court, Bank of America said the FDIC has wrongly denied claims by Ocala noteholders to recover from Colonial Bank and an Illinois lender also in receivership, Platinum Community Bank.

Bank of America accused executives at Taylor Bean, Colonial and Platinum of having fraudulently schemed to “double- and triple-pledge mortgages and steal assets” to hide their faltering conditions as the housing market declined.

So these banks, and a number of others, probably repeatedly sold the same mortgage to different trusts.

This is Max Bialystock level fraud. There is no gray area here, but predictably, the Obama administration is maintaining that somehow or other the problems are not systemic at the same time that they have convened a task force to see if laws were broken.

We have a system where banks simply ignored the law over what amounts to about a $30 dollar cost per loan transfer, MERS, we have banks destroying the chain of custody of the loans, and the solution of the Obama administration is to wave a wand and grant absolution.

That’s the message of these conflicting messages: There is a task force, but that is just politics, and all will be forgiven on November 3rd.

Un-dirtyword-believable.

*Just F%$#ing Google it.

Damn!

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A 3 judge panel of the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals just stayed the injunction against the enforcement of Don’t Ask Don’t Tell.

Thankfully, this is only a short term stay, basically it’s a stay until the panel has a hearing on the stay next week:

A federal appeals court on Wednesday temporarily stalled the landmark court decision allowing openly gay recruits to be accepted into the military.

In response to an emergency request from the government, a three-judge panel of the Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, in San Francisco, issued a one-page order late in the day allowing the Pentagon to continue enforcing the “don’t ask, don’t tell” law, which bars openly gay, lesbian and bisexual service members.

The decision, which returns the law to the status quo before a Federal District Court judge in California declared it unconstitutional, will be in effect while the appeals court considers whether to issue a longer stay, until February, when the Ninth Circuit will hear the full appeal. A decision about the longer stay could occur as early as next week; the parties have been told to prepare briefs on the issues by Monday.

So the witch hunts continue.

This stance is both morally wrong, it’s bigotry, creates security problems, because people forced into in the closet are subject to blackmail, and politically stupid, because it demoralizes a large portion of the base less than 2 weeks before the election.

As I have said before, when you are doing something that is so transparently wrong and stupid on so many levels, it isn’t because you are interested in process, it’s because you really do oppose gay rights.

This is not the actions of someone who wants to, “repeal the law that denies gay and lesbian Americans the right to serve the country they love because of who they are. It’s the right thing to do.” This is the actions of someone who does not believes that gays should serve openly in the military.

Good Riddance

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I was listening to a hagiography on Michelle Rhee, now former Chancellor of the DC public schools on NPR today, and I had to change the channel.

She got test scores up by focusing on nothing but, and the evidence is that, in one of the most disadvantaged school districts in the nation, she had no interest at all in early education, basically ignoring it in her 5 year plan.

As Matthew Yglesias noted 2 years ago, “A certain type of person isn’t interested in any education improvements that don’t involve picking fights with teacher’s unions, and this seems to me like perhaps an example of Rhee suffering from that affliction.”

Basically, she spent a lot of time being an asshole, because that’s what got her the good press, and teaching to the test, along with a headlong embrace of gentrification, were what caused the bump in her numbers.

Not Feeling Hopey Changey

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The Obama administration has lifted the moratorium on deep water drilling in the Gulf.

Well, at least this means that Mary Landrieu has dropped her hold on Obama’s OMB chair, right?

Wrong.

It appears that she wants to be sure that the EPA and the Department of the Interior are sufficiently compliant:

“I am not going to release my hold on Jack Lew. Instead, I will take this time to look closely at how [Interior] is handling the issuing of permits and whether or not drilling activity in both shallow and deep water is resuming. When Congress reconvenes for the lame duck session next month, I will have had several weeks to evaluate if today’s lifting of the moratorium is actually putting people back to work,” Landrieu said in a prepared statement Tuesday after the Interior Department announced the lifting of the deepwater ban ahead of schedule.

You just got called a c*cks*ck*r by Mary F%$#ing Landrieu, and you are supposed to be the umpire, to mangle a Bull Durham moment.

What are you going to do now?

This is what happens when people know you have no guts.

Judge Enjoins Don’t Ask Don’t Tell, Obama Defends DOMA

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A month ago, Judge Virginia Phillips ruled Don’t Ask Don’t Tell unconstitutional, and today, she issued a permanent injunction against the policy, forbidding the military from conducting investigations or proceeding with separations:

A federal judge in California issued a permanent ban Tuesday on the Pentagon’s “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy on gays and lesbians in the military, ordering the Defense Department to immediately halt any efforts to remove personnel because of their sexual orientation.

The government has 60 days to appeal the ruling, which gives the administration until after the midterm election next month to make a decision. But it also presents a problem for President Obama as he tries to rally his Democratic base.

As a presidential candidate, Obama said he would work to do away with the policy. But should the Justice Department appeal the ruling, it could anger many of the president’s liberal supporters, something Obama and congressional Democrats can ill afford.

In a separate case that posed a similar problem, the administration decided Tuesday to appeal two court rulings in Massachusetts that found unconstitutional the federal definition of marriage as between a man and a woman.

The administration filed a notice of appeal to protect the 1996 Defense of Marriage Act, or DOMA, which bars gay marriages, although Obama opposes the law. A Justice Department spokeswoman told the Associated Press that the administration was obligated to defend federal laws when challenged in court.

So we know where this is going. On November 3, when there is no immediate electoral consequence, the DoJ will file an appeal, because, to paraphrase Kanye West, Barack Obama doesn’t care about gay people,

If Congress wants to change the law, there will be no support from the White House, and we know this because there has been no support from the White House, but rest assured he’ll probably sign a repeal if it hits his desk, because it’s the easy thing to do.

Least Surprising News of the Day

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Former HHS Secretary nominee, and enthusiastic free rider Tom Daschle* has let slip that Obama cut a deal with pharma and insurers to kill the public option at the start of the healthcare reform process.

Eleventy dimensional chess, my ass. We are dealing with someone who has created faux reform because he does not want real reform.

*The great Matt Taibbi noted, when he talked about his lobbying activities, “Tom Daschle would suck off a corpse for a cheeseburger.'”

Senators Ask the Right Question

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And the question is, “why aren’t the people who broke banking and our economy going to jail?”

Senators pressed investigators on a lack of prosecutions of top Wall Street executives in the wake of the most severe financial crisis since the Great Depression.

“I will say right now that I’m frustrated,” Sen. Edward Kaufman, a Delaware Democrat on the Judiciary Committee, said on Wednesday.

“We have seen very little in the way of senior officer or boardroom-level prosecutions of the people on Wall Street who brought this country to the brink of financial ruin. Why is that?”

The reason that there have been no prosecutions is because the the Cossacks work for the Czar, and the Czar, Obama, does not want the prosecutions, and instead wants to “look forward.”

The technical term for this is “cowardice reinforcing rewards for moral hazard.”

Non-Combat Role My Ass, Part XVII

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Barack Obama’s claim that combat troops are of Iraq is a lie, as is made clear by a letter from a soldier:

“The reason I’m sending this out is because I have had a few people ask if I left Iraq early because all of the combat troops are out of Iraq and I wanted to let everyone know the real deal.

Take our Brigade for example. We were originally called a HBCT (Heavy Brigade Combat Team). Well, since Obama said he would pull all of the “combat” troops out by Aug, all they did before we left was change our name from a HBCT to an AAB (Advise and Assist Brigade). We have the same personnel/equipment layout as before and are doing the same missions. The ONLY difference is that they changed our name from a HBCT to an AAB and that’s how we pulled all of the ‘combat’ troops out.

There are other Brigades just like ours that are doing the same missions that are still over here. So anyway now you know the REAL story, so that’s why I’m not coming back early.”

Obama does not realize that being commander-in-chief of the military means to command.

Unfortunately, he is dealing with a military which, like pretty much all militaries, is culturally incapable of seeing a conflict beyond the prism of “winning”, and so by compromising, we simply dig ourselves deeper.

Cloture Fails on DADT in Senate, Thanks Barry

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So the Republicans successfully filibustered the Defense authorization bill.

It’s not surprising given the full court press that we didn’t hear coming from the White House.

When one considers the fact that the Obama Department of Justice submitted a legal brief equating homosexuality with incest, his administration defied a judges order to provide health benefits for a same sex spouse, and his campaign had an anti gay bigot front a campaign concert, one begins to wonder whether is inaction on DADT is more than cowardice, or whether he actually has a problem with “th ghay”.

To paraphrase Kanye West, I’m beginning to wonder if “Barack Obama doesn’t care about gay people,” because it’s clear that the Obama administration antipathy to being seen as pro-LGBT at this point is both bad politics, it loses votes, and bad policy.

Barack Obama, Go Cheney Yourself

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So while talking at a $30,000 a plate fundraiser in Connecticut, he joked that the Democratic Party base is a bunch of whiny bitches:

Democrats, just congenitally, tend to get — to see the glass as half empty. (Laughter.) If we get an historic health care bill passed — oh, well, the public option wasn’t there. If you get the financial reform bill passed — then, well, I don’t know about this particular derivatives rule, I’m not sure that I’m satisfied with that. And gosh, we haven’t yet brought about world peace and — (laughter.) I thought that was going to happen quicker. (Laughter.) You know who you are. (Laughter.) We have had the most productive, progressive legislative session in at least a generation.

Well, Glenn Greenwald (at link) nails it when he makes it clear that Obama has failed big time in many ways he has not just fallen short, but embraced failure he condemned as a candidates, whether on state secrets, the rule of law on terrorism suspects, the surveillance state, using HAMP as bunco scheme to cheat desperate home owners, state sanctioned assassinations, gay marriage, DADT, or any move at all in support of organized labor.

All this is going on, and there is not even a moment of regret about what might have been. It’s like trying to appeal to the conscience of a house cat.

I am so ready to work my butt off for anyone who is willing to run against him in 2012.

I Still Think That The Appointment of Elizabeth Warren is an Exercise in PR, Not Real Change, But …

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Both Felix Salmon and Barney Frank seem to think that this is the real deal, with Felix noting that, “she has the authority to get the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau up and running as quickly as she can,” and Representative Frank is saying that, “There’s no possibility she would take something like this unless she was fully empowered to do the job.”

Me, I’m with On the other side Yves Smith’s analysis, which says that this is all theater to create the illusion of Obama as a financial reformer:

  • While the bureau is organized under the Treasury, and before it is placed under the Federal Reserve, it has no rule making authority.
  • The organization is operating for an organization, the Federal Reserve that is not only, “subservient to the regulator that is in charge of looking out for the industry,” but is in large part owned by the industry. (look at the structure of the regional Fed banks, they are owned by the big banks)
  • This is an admission that she will not be appointed to the position, so she is already a bit of a lame duck, and will be completely one as soon as someone is nominated for the post.
  • She has admitted that she has no intention of serving as head of the CPFB, which means that she is even more of a lame duck.
  • Many of the organizational and personnel decisions will be deferred to whoever is the appointee.
  • Once a nominee is named, she becomes completely irrelevant.
  • Geithner and Summers still run the show, and are who Obama listens to.*

I’m with Ms. Smith’s last ‘graph:

Needless to say, it would be better if I were proven wrong, but it looks like Warren has made a Faustian bargain. I can only hope if that is the case that she moves quickly to cut her losses.

Simply put, how many times has the Obama administration taken the side of Main Street over Wall Street?

I’ll give you hint, it’s a non-positive integer.

She will be out in 6 months, and my guess is that she will discover that she cannot get her phone calls answered on November 3.

*But remember, the Cossacks work for the Czar.