Category: Legislation

You have Problem with Corporate Communist Capitalism®©™, Comrade?

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North Carolina continues its trip off the deep end.

The Republicans who have control of the state are decided to make it a felony to reveal what fracking oil companies are pumping into people’s drinking water:

As hydraulic fracturing ramps up around the country, so do concerns about its health impacts. These concerns have led 20 states to require the disclosure of industrial chemicals used in the fracking process.

North Carolina isn’t on that list of states yet—and it may be hurtling in the opposite direction.

On Thursday, three Republican state senators introduced a bill that would slap a felony charge on individuals who disclosed confidential information about fracking chemicals. The bill, whose sponsors include a member of Republican party leadership, establishes procedures for fire chiefs and health care providers to obtain chemical information during emergencies. But as the trade publication Energywire noted Friday, individuals who leak information outside of emergency settings could be penalized with fines and several months in prison.

“The felony provision is far stricter than most states’ provisions in terms of the penalty for violating trade secrets,” says Hannah Wiseman, a Florida State University assistant law professor who studies fracking regulations.

The bill also allows companies that own the chemical information to require emergency responders to sign a confidentiality agreement. And it’s not clear what the penalty would be for a health care worker or fire chief who spoke about their experiences with chemical accidents to colleagues.

Seriously.

The Repubicans are beginning to give authoritarian corporatism a bad name.

Because the IRS Cannot Make Campaign Donations, I Guess

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A few years back, there was an experiment with allowing private contractors to go after people who owed taxes.

It was a failure, with abusive behavior, indifferent record keeping, higher costs, and lower performance, but the private debt collectors can make campaign donations, so the Senate is looking to bring back this clusterf%$#:

The Internal Revenue Service would be required to turn over millions of unpaid tax bills to private debt collectors under a measure before the Senate, reviving a program that has previously led to complaints of harassment and has not saved taxpayers money.

The provision was tucked into a larger bill, aimed at renewing an array of expired tax breaks, at the request of Sen. Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.), whose state is home to two of the four private collection agencies that stand to benefit from the proposal.

It requires all “inactive tax receivables” to be assigned to private debt collectors if the IRS cannot locate the person who owes the money or if IRS agents are unable to make contact within a year.

Some taxpayers would be spared the barrage of notices and phone calls, including innocent spouses, military members deployed to combat zones and people “identified as being deceased.”

But bereaved relatives could find themselves under siege for unpaid estate taxes under the proposal. So could people who incur a tax debt under the new Affordable Care Act — either because they owe a penalty for not buying health insurance or because the government was too generous in estimating the size of their health-care tax subsidy.

As the measure arrived on the Senate floor this week, Nina E. Olson, the nation’s taxpayer advocate, wrote a long letter to lawmakers, urging them to withdraw the proposal.

“Outsourcing the collection of federal tax debts is a bad idea,” she wrote. “It disproportionately impacts low-income and other vulnerable taxpayers, and despite two attempts [in the past] at making it work, the program has lost money both times, undermining the sole rationale for its existence.”

Moreover, “if debt collectors come to be seen as the public face” of President Obama’s health-care program, Olson wrote, “I am concerned that could make the IRS’s job” of administering the new health-insurance program “more difficult.”

But it’s back, like a bad penny.

Do you know why it is back? Because Schumer wants some local firms to to make money off the taxpayers, “$1.2 billion would be paid to the private debt collectors, potentially showering fresh cash on two companies based in Upstate New York: ConServe, of Fairport, and Pioneer Credit Recovery, of Arcade.”

To quote Declan Patrick Macmanus, “I used to be disgusted, now I try to be amused.”

Meanwhile in Annapolis………

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The Maryland legislative session has ended and they passed bills hiking the minimum wate to $10.10 and decriminalizing marijuana:

By the time confetti fell in Annapolis on Monday night, state lawmakers had loosened marijuana laws, made Maryland the second state in the country to raise its minimum wage to $10.10 an hour and whittled their way through more than 2,600 bills considered during the 434th legislative session.

The two major votes on marijuana decriminalization and increasing the minimum wage closed out the annual 90-day frenzy of lawmaking. Measures to create stricter penalties for drivers who cause fatal accidents while texting and to revamp Maryland’s stalled medical marijuana program also received final passage.

Martin O’Malley will sign both bills into law, though he did issue a veto threat over a recreational marijuana legalization proposal.

As a Free Stater, I am happy.

In terms of both the Democratic 2016 primaries, and the Veepstakes to follow, the minimum wage bill is probably a bigger deal.

Well, this is Chilling

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Former NSA Chief Keith Alexander is touting, “unspecified ‘headway’ on what he termed ‘media leaks’” was forthcoming in the next several weeks, possibly to include “media leaks legislation.“

One wonders whether some skullduggery he has gotten my distinguished cousin* to back some sort of draconian equivalent to the awful Official Secrets Act that is in force in the UK.

This is a very bad idea.

It’s a bad idea because it shreds the Constitution, and it’s a bad idea because, as Dan Froomkin so aptly notes, “History has shown time and again that secrecy and bad decisions go hand in hand.”

It will make us less safe, not more safe.

*Dianne Feinstein, whoser grandfather, Sam Goldman, and my great-grandfather, Harry Goldman, were brothers.

Senate Votes Down Sexual Assault Accountability and the Army’s Top Sex Crime Prosecutor Relieved for Sex Crime

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On the same f%$#ing day as a filibuster killed sex crime prosecution reform in the Senate,  Lt. Col. Joseph “Jay” Morse, the top sex-crimes prosecutor in the US Army, was Asuspended for alleged sexual assault:

The top Army prosecutor for sexual assault cases has been suspended after a lawyer who worked for him recently reported he’d groped her and tried to kiss her at a sexual-assault legal conference more than two years ago.

………

Morse was removed from his job when the allegations came to light, one source said. To date, no charges have been filed in the case.

………

Sources told Stars and Stripes that the Army lawyer alleged that Morse attempted to kiss and grope her against her will. The alleged assault reportedly took place in a hotel room at a 2011 sexual assault legal conference attended by special victims prosecutors in Alexandria, Va., before he was appointed as chief of the Trial Counsel Assistance Program.

So long as those ratf%$#s in the Senate are unwilling to protect the troops from the corrupt elements in our officer corps, this crap will continue.

Politics Trumps Good Policy

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Congress just voted to continue subsidizing morons who choose to build in flood plains:

The House of Representatives, in a bipartisan vote of 306-91 Tuesday night, agreed to limit premium rate increases under the National Flood Insurance Program.

 The bill must still pass the Senate or be reconciled with a version of flood insurance legislation that the chamber approved in January.

 If the House version becomes law, with President Barack Obama’s signature, the measure would eliminate some of the changes made in a 2012 law that required the Federal Emergency Management Agency to raise rates to reflect flood risk. The law was intended to reduce losses to the insurance program, which is $24 billion in debt.

 Conservative, libertarian, environmental and taxpayer watchdog groups opposed the bill, arguing that rates should be based on risk. Some said subsidies should be targeted only to people who couldn’t afford higher rates.

 Rep. Jeb Hensarling, R-Texas, said during the debate that he would oppose the bill because the flood insurance program was “one reason America is going broke.”

“It forces 96 percent of Americans to subsidize the remaining 4 percent, regardless of income or need,” Hensarling said.

You know, when Jeb F%$#ing Hensarling is one of the smarter people in the room, you are at a level of stupid that buggers the mind.

Of course, if I were in Congress, I would tell Mr. Hensarling that  the additional costs for the insurance program are a direct result of anthropogenic climate change, just to f%$# with him.

John Adams is Spinning in His Grave

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The Senate has defeated the appointment of Debo Adegbile’s appointment as head of the DoJ’s Civil Rights division because he defended a black man accused of murdering a cop:

Senate Democrats on Wednesday rejected President Obama’s nominee to lead the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division in an embarrassing rebuke of the president on the choice of a key legal adviser and one that left senior White House officials “furious” with members of their own party.

The nominee, Debo P. Adegbile, was litigation director of the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund when it represented Mumia Abu-Jamal on an appeal of his death sentence for killing a Philadelphia police officer decades ago. He could not overcome a campaign by Republicans, conservative activists and law enforcement organizations still infuriated by the murder of the officer, Daniel Faulkner.

But it was the votes of seven Democratic senators to reject Mr. Adegbile that doomed the nomination despite what White House officials described as a sustained closed-door effort by Mr. Obama and his top aides to save the nomination. The president personally appealed to Senate Democrats at a recent caucus meeting and made several calls to Democratic senators in the last week, officials said. Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. and Denis R. McDonough, the White House chief of staff, continued making calls Tuesday night and Wednesday morning.

I’m not blaming the Republicans here. They would oppose the appointment of Pope Francis to head the Office of Faith Based outreach.

Additionally, I can understand why they oppose Adegbile’s record of strong protection of civil rights, particularly voting rights.

After all, if there is a defining characteristic of the Republican party in the ‘Teens, it is that they want to stop n***ers from voting.

I do blame the 7 Democrats, who seem to find that the idea of a black man getting competent counsel is somehow a bad thing, and I do blame the various elements in law enforcement who seem to think that being a good lawyer should be a crime.

This is is evil, runs counter to the constitution, and hundreds of years of British jurisprudence before that.

It is a sacred duty for the defendant to have competent legal counsel. That is why John Adams defended the British soldiers who shot the demonstrators at the Boston Massacre.

If you have a problem with this, you should not be a lawyer, a legislator, or a cop.

Anyone involved in this effort, and the cowards who folded to it, are unAmerican, and need to have no further role in our public discourse.

The War on Drugs Goes from Dishonesty to Parody in Annapolis

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The Annapolis police chief testified about the 37 people who died of marijuana overdoses on the first day of legalization in Colorado.

There is a small problem with this testimony, it never happened.  In fact the source of the story was the satirical website the Daily Current:

Testifying against bills proposed in Maryland to legalize and decriminalize marijuana, Annapolis Police Chief Michael Pristoop cited a hoax story that claimed 37 people died the first day marijuana was legalized in Colorado.

“The first day of legalization, that’s when Colorado experienced 37 deaths that day from overdose on marijuana,” Pristoop said in testimony at Tuesday’s Senate Judicial Proceedings Committee hearing. “I remember the first day it was decriminalized there were 37 deaths.”

But Sen. Jamie Raskin, D-Montgomery, who has proposed a bill that would legalize, regulate and tax the drug, immediately fact-checked Pristoop.

“Unless you have some other source for this, I’m afraid I’ve got to spoil the party here,” Raskin said. “Your assertion that 37 people died of a marijuana overdose in Colorado was a hoax on the DailyCurrant and the Comedy Central website.”

Our drug penal/enforcement industry is a waste of resources, and people like Michael Pristoop should find honest productive work.

Liberals Win One vs. Barack Obama

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The “Grand Bargain” Is Officially Off the Table by Ed Kilgore | Political Animal | The Washington Monthly:

The White House budget to be released early next month will propose $56 billion in new spending on domestic and defense priorities and drop a proposal that was included in last year’s budget as a way to attract Republican support — a plan that would have included less generous payouts of Social Security benefits.

The budget would aim to reduce the emphasis on austerity that has been the preoccupation of American politics for the past four years and also highlights top Democratic priorities in a year when Democrats hope to save their majority in the Senate.

A White House official said President Obama decided to release a budget that fully represents his “vision,” rather than to continue to pursue a fiscal agreement, because Republicans have refused to engage in good-faith negotiations over the nation’s top priorities. Obama is planning to pay for fresh spending by closing tax breaks that disproportionately benefit the wealthy.

Make no mistake though, Obama and His Evil Minions™ REALLY wanted to do this:

………One of the White House’s most poorly kept secrets is that many of Obama’s economic advisers support Chained CPI on the merits………

Because hurting the poors is a good thing, because ……… I can haz bipartisanship!

When the f%$# is the Democratic party going to nominate a Democrat for President?

Congress Does the Right Thing, and then Scrambles to Repeal It

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I am talking, of course, about the attempts to repeal changes to the federal flood insurance program, so as to stop subsidizing people who choose to live in flood prone regions:

Setting aside objections from the White House and fiscal watchdogs, a bipartisan Senate majority voted Thursday to delay rate increases in federal flood insurance for coastal property owners from Maine to California.

The 67 to 32 vote reflected mounting political opposition to big insurance hikes that Congress passed in 2012 to prop up the nation’s nearly bankrupt flood insurance program. The bill, which faces an uncertain outcome in the House, would delay the increases for up to four years for hundreds of thousands of property owners across the country, including tens of thousands in Massachusetts.

The measure also postpones the adoption of a new set of official flood maps for coastal regions, which would have dramatically expanded areas designated as prone to floods and required thousands more to obtain costly insurance. In Boston alone, the number of properties encompassed in the new maps would rise from 8,000 to 18,000.

Floods are getting worse because of anthropogenic climate change, and the original maps were too conservative, and the rates were never appropriate to the level of risk.

The solution to ameliorating damage from flooding is not to pay people to live there.

Thank You Harry Reid

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The Majority Leader of the Senate has come out against fast track authority for trade deals:

President Barack Obama’s push for authority to fast-track trade deals has hit a big setback in the form of opposition from his top fellow Democrat in Congress, but it is far from dead.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid’s warning to policymakers on Wednesday “just to not push this right now” reflects concern about the domestic political agenda ahead of November’s congressional elections, when free trade could be a damaging issue for many Democrats.

The unusually blunt public opposition came less than 24 hours after Obama noted the need for fast-track power in his State of the Union address, albeit less forcefully than business lobbyists and pro-trade Republicans would have liked.

The White House called Reid’s office shortly after his comments to voice displeasure, a top Democratic party aide said.

“They were really upset,” the aide said. But the aide said the White House did not try to get Reid to shift his position.

These guys were really upset because they, like the staffers who negotiated NAFTA for Clinton and Bush I, made some serious bank as lobbyists and consultants.

I really hope that it’s not, as Yves Smith’s sources say,  “Another gambit is more likely: to make some cosmetic changes and try to get the bill passed during the lame duck session, on the assumption that some Democrats (particularly those who are leaving office) will use the cover and change positions.”

The TPP, and it’s European equivalent, the TTIP, are egregiously bad deals, not just for the United States, but for the whole world, because they are predicated on the idea that democracy and transparency must be almost completely eschewed in the interest of unregulated global investment flows and IP based looting through draconian copyright and patent provisions.

These are abysmally bad deals for everyone but banksters, big pharma, and the cocaine addicted brothers in law of senior studio and record label executives.

Here is an Amicus Brief I Fully Support

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There has been a fascinating friend of the court (amicus) brief on the latest Obamacare suits, the “ladyparts are icky” suits from Hobby Lobby and Conestoga Wood Specialties.

It argues that the “Religious Freedom Restoration Act” is an unconstitutional because it is an unconstitutional abrogation of the constitutional role of the courts in interpreting the law:

Arguing that Congress has gone too far to push aside the Supreme Court’s constitutional role in religion cases, a loose coalition of child welfare organizations, survivors of clergy child sexual abuse, and non-believers has urged the Justices to strike down the Religious Freedom Restoration Act when it rules on a new dispute over the federal health care law.

 The amicus brief, written by a prominent academic authority on religion and the law, Cardozo Law School’s Marci A. Hamilton, seeks to add a bold new dimension to the Court’s review of the Affordable Care Act’s “contraception mandate.”

 “RFRA,” the document contended, “is Congress’s overt attempt to take . . . over this Court’s role in interpreting the Constitution. . . . [T]his novel federal statute, which is one of the most aggressive attacks on this Court’s role in constitutional interpretation in history, has fomented culture wars in the courts like the one ignited” in the pending cases by for-profit businesses seeking a RFRA-based exemption from the mandate to provide health insurance for pregnancy-related services to workers.

Normally, I would not expect that this would have any bearing on the court’s decision, but the core of this argument is flattering the court as an institution, so that makes it a bit more likely.

Pravda on the Potomac Blames Ukraine For Enacting U.S. Like Laws

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The Washington Post is criticizing the Yanukovych government in the Ukraine for laws that exist in their hometown without any comment:

The lunatics writing the Washington Post editorials want to blame the Ukraine (and the Russian president Putin) for its remarkable patient defense against the foreign supported, neo-nazi vandals of the Svoboda party who try to storm and take over government buildings in Kiev.
One paragraph especially shows their unmatched hypocrisy:

The repressive new restrictions, which criminalize such activity as wearing helmets and setting up tents in public spaces, look a lot like the strategy the Russian ruler used to crush mass demonstrations against his regime in 2011 and 2012. Mr. Yanukovych even adopted the regulation Russia imposed on nongovernment groups that receive foreign funding — a product of Mr. Putin’s paranoid conviction that pro-democracy movements in his country and elsewhere are the result of Western government plots.

Wearing helmets and masks at demonstrations has been unanimously criminalized by the D.C. Council in the Washington Post’s hometown. Tents set up in public spaces by the Occupy movement have been outlawed and cleared by force all over the United States. The Russian and Ukrainian laws that regulate foreign money to political organisations are copies of the U.S. Foreign Agents Registration Act which is law of the land since 1938.

(emphasis original)

There is very little difference between how the Ukraine is using law as an instrument for crushing political protest, and how the United States s using law as an instrument for crushing political protest.

Elizabeth Warren’s Just Issued a Big F%$# You to Regulatory Business as Usual

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She, along with Tom Coburn,* have introduced a bill which would force disclosure of the details of sweetheart settlements:

Last week, Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) introduced a bill with Sen. Tom Coburn (R-Okla.) that aims to make government settlements with corporations more transparent and fair. It could end up saving taxpayers billions of dollars.

 When banks and other corporations are accused of breaking the law, the government often settles cases instead of going to trial. In the wake of the financial crisis, for example, the Department of Justice (DOJ) and government banking watchdogs have settled cases  against banks that helped tank the economy. Regulatory agencies have argued that settlements are adequate tools to enforce the law, but Warren has protested. She notes that many settlements are tax-deductible. Other deals are confidential, meaning the public has no idea whether the terms of the agreement are fair.

 Warren’s bill would discourage tax-deductible settlements by forcing federal agencies to explain why certain settlements are confidential, and to publicly disclose the terms of nonconfidential agreements so that taxpayers can see how much settlement tax-deductibility is costing them.

You can go to the link and get the link, but basically, it is typically something in the range of 30%-40% that is deductible.

Of course,  while recovery of this money is good, the real benefit is that it creates a profound disincentive for the sweetheart settlements that seem to the norm these days.

*Talk about the political odd couple.

Warren’s press release is after the break.

Washington, DC – United States Senators Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) and Tom Coburn (R-OK) today introduced bipartisan legislation to increase transparency around settlements reached by federal enforcement agencies. When federal agencies close investigations and settle cases, they often tout the dollar amount obtained from the offender, but in many cases that amount is misleading because of tax deductions and other “credits” built into the settlement that reduce the settlement’s true value. Worse, sometimes agreements are deemed confidential, with key details or even the fact of a settlement hidden from the public. The Truth in Settlements Act will require more accessible and detailed disclosures about these agreements to allow the public to hold regulators accountable for the true value of these deals.

“When government agencies reach settlements with companies that break the law, they should disclose the terms of those deals to the public,” said Senator Warren. “Anytime an agency decides that an enforcement action is needed, but it is not willing to go to court, that agency should be willing to disclose the key terms and conditions of the agreement. Increased transparency will shut down backroom deal-making and ensure that Congress, citizens and watchdog groups can hold regulatory agencies accountable for strong and effective enforcement that benefits the public interest.”

“Taxpayers deserve to know the settlement details corporations arrange with the government, and the best place for Congress to start is with policies that enhance transparency,” Dr. Coburn said. “Since agencies are not currently required to disclose the financial structure of government settlements, too often the true value of those settlements is not known because often companies are allowed to deduct part of the payment. Our bill gives taxpayers the transparency tools they need to access real information and numbers regarding enforcement settlements.”

Under the Truth in Settlements Act, all written public statements that reference the dollar amounts of settlements will be required to include explanations of how those settlements are categorized for tax purposes and whether payments may be offset by “credits” for particular conduct. Companies that settle with enforcement agencies will be required to disclose in their Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) filings whether they have deducted any or all of the dollar amounts of their settlements from their taxes; and federal agencies will be required to post basic information about settlements and provide copies of those agreements on their websites.

To address concerns about confidentiality, the Truth in Settlements Act also requires agencies to explain publicly why confidentiality is justified in any particular instance. The Act also directs agencies to disclose basic information about the number of settlements they deem confidential each year and directs the Government Accountability Office (GAO) to conduct a study of confidentiality procedures and to provide additional recommendations for increasing transparency. These and other provisions of the Truth in Settlements Act will increase the transparency of government settlements and permit greater public scrutiny.

###

Because ……… Freedumb!

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Specifically, Freedumb Industries, who just dumped massive quantities of 4-methylcyclohexane methanol-methylcyclohexane methanol into West Virginia’s Elk River upstream of the water treatment plant, leaving hundreds of thousands without water:

A chemical spill along a West Virginia river on Thursday triggered a tap water ban for up to 300,000 people, shutting down schools, bars and restaurants and forcing residents to line up for bottled water at stores.

 Governor Earl Ray Tomblin declared a state of emergency for nine counties following the spill of 4-Methylcyclohexane Methanol, a chemical used in the coal industry.

 The spill occurred on the Elk River in Charleston, West Virginia’s capital and largest city, just upriver from the eastern U.S. state’s largest water treatment plant.

Why did this Happen? Because ……… Freedumb!

Today, at the time they were shutting off water for all those people, the House of Representatives voted to gut the Superfund act.

Why, Because ……… Freedumb!

The House passed legislation Thursday aimed at easing Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) rules and requiring more cooperation between the EPA and states on environmental cleanup projects.

 Members voted 225-188 in favor of the Reducing Excessive Deadline Obligations Act, H.R. 2279. The bill is made up of three Republican bills that were combined together, and it includes some provisions that House Democrats found unobjectionable while they were considered in committee.

 The bill was supported by just five Democrats in the final vote, while four Republicans voted against it.

 Specifically, it removes a requirement that the EPA revise solid waste disposal regulations every three years, and prohibits the government from imposing solid waste regulations on states that overlap current state-wide rules.

 Other language in the bill would require all federally owned facilities to comply with state rules on hazardous substances, and require the government to consult more closely with states before imposing cleanup requirements under Superfund, the federal program that funds the cleanup of abandoned waste sites.

 The legislation would also ensure that if a state has rules requiring companies in polluting industries to post a bond or offer other financial sureties for possible cleanup costs, those rules cannot be affected by possible rules the EPA might develop in the future.

 ………

 But several Democrats criticized the legislation as an attempt to weaken current law. Many argued that the bonding language would let companies avoid the cost of cleaning up pollution, and pass those costs onto taxpayers.

 “The outcome of enacting this bill should be obvious,” said House Energy and Commerce Committee ranking member Henry Waxman (D-Calif.). “If polluters don’t pay to clean up their pollution, then it just becomes one more burden to the taxpayer, and none of us should want that.”

 Others argued that the bill could further confuse how the federal government and the states must work together on clean-up efforts, which could slow down that process. That argument was also made by the Obama administration earlier this week, in a statement saying President Obama would veto the bill.

 “H.R. 2279 would unnecessarily increase the potential for litigation between the Federal government and the States, negatively impacting the timeliness and number of cleanups,” the White House wrote.

Why are they doing such a stupid thing, and why are they doing it on the day of what looks to be one of the worst chemical spills?

Because ……… Freedumb!

Un-Dirtyword, Believable

So Debate has Started, but can They End It?

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Today’s vote to allow debate to begin on continuing emergency unemployment compensation is not the same thing as either voting for the bill, nor is it a vote to shut off debate.

Instead, it is posturing by Republicans with a dash of blackmail down the road thrown in:

If you think Tuesday’s vote in the Senate to extend unemployment benefits means that Washington has finally come to its senses, think again. Although six Republican senators broke with their party and joined Democrats in supporting the notion of preserving benefits for about 1.3 million Americans who have been out of work for more than six months, this was just a procedural vote that paves the way for a full debate on the measure. And Republicans, in both the Senate and the House, have made clear that they won’t approve any actual legislation unless the White House agrees to cut spending in other areas, to cover the cost of the extension—about 6.4 billion dollars over ten years.

From a political perspective, it’s easy to see the appeal of this maneuver. Going into an election year, the last thing the Republicans want is to be depicted as heartless goons with no sympathy for the millions of Americans struggling to find work, the blameless victims of the Great Recession and its aftermath. (Of course, this is exactly how the Democrats would like to portray them.) At the same time, though, the average G.O.P. congressman or senator lives in mortal fear of upsetting right-wing groups, such as Heritage Action for America and the Club for Growth, which are leading the fight against extending jobless benefits. (On Monday, Heritage Action said it would include the Senate vote on its “legislative scorecard,” which ranks elected officials on their fealty to the conservative cause.)

Personally, I would call the Republican’s bluff, and cut things like abstinence only education and oil company subsidies, and maybe tax private jets, but I am not an elected official, nor do I work for one.

Who Hit the Democrats with a Clue Stick?

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It seems that Democrats are looking to stop running away from Obamacare, (a good idea, the Dems own it whether they like it or not) and instead want to push for a minimum wage increase as their signature issue for 2014:

Democratic Party leaders, bruised by months of attacks on the new health care program, have found an issue they believe can lift their fortunes both locally and nationally in 2014: an increase in the minimum wage.

The effort to take advantage of growing populism among voters in both parties is being coordinated by officials from the White House, labor unions and liberal advocacy groups.

In a series of strategy meetings and conference calls among them in recent weeks, they have focused on two levels: an effort to raise the federal minimum wage, which will be pushed by President Obama and congressional leaders, and a campaign to place state-level minimum wage proposals on the ballot in states with hotly contested congressional races.

With polls showing widespread support for an increase in the $7.25-per-hour federal minimum wage among both Republican and Democratic voters, top Democrats see not only a wedge issue that they hope will place Republican candidates in a difficult position, but also a tool with which to enlarge the electorate in a nonpresidential election, when turnout among minorities and youths typically drops off.

“It puts Republicans on the wrong side of an important value issue when it comes to fairness,” said Dan Pfeiffer, the president’s senior adviser. “You can make a very strong case that this will be a helpful issue for Democrats in 2014. But the goal here is to actually get it done. That’s why the president put it on the agenda.”

This is good politics, and good policy, though having your hired guns run to the press (I’m talking to you, Mr. Pfeiffer) crowing about how this is such good politics does not serve to reinforce their message.

The minimum wage fight is an opportunity to create a space for the discussion about political values on a terrain that favors Democrats, it’s not about allowing self important political consultants crow about their genius.

They Really do Loathe Women’s Sexuality

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Hatred and fear of women actually enjoying sex, so they must be punished, even if it is a rape:

The Republican-dominated Michigan state legislature pushed through a bill on Wednesday requiring women to purchase separate insurance policies if they want to have an abortion, the Detroit Free Press reported.

“I don’t think elective abortion should be a part of insurance,” state Rep. Nancy Jenkins (R) told the Free Press. “This doesn’t affect access to abortion. It will still be legal when this law takes effect. Who should be required to pay? Not Michigan taxpayers.”

However, the law, which takes effect in early 2014, will also ban women from purchasing the policy after becoming pregnant under any circumstances, including rape and incest, causing opponents to refer to it as a policy on “rape insurance.”

The bill passed by a 27-11 margin in the Senate, and a 62-47 vote in the House, mostly along party lines. According to the Associated Press, state Senate Minority Leader Gretchen Whitmer (D) said during the debate that she was raped 20 years ago.

“Thank God it didn’t result in a pregnancy because I can’t imagine going through what I went through and then having to consider what to do about an unwanted pregnancy from an attacker,” Whitmer was quoted as saying. “If this were law then and I had become pregnant, I would not be able to have coverage because of this. How extreme, how extreme does this measure need to be?”

What is wrong with these people?

This is not ignorance, it is raw hatred and evil.

Vacation in Uruguay

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The final legislative hurdle has been cleared, and Uruguay legalized growing and selling marijuana:

The world’s most far-reaching cannabis law has been passed by the Uruguayan parliament, opening the way for the state to regulate the production, distribution, sale and consumption of the planet’s favourite illegal drug.

The law, effective from next year, will: allow registered users to buy up to 40g of marijuana a month from a chemist’s; registered growers to keep up to six plants; and cannabis clubs to have up to 45 members and cultivate as many as 99 plants.

A government-run cannabis institute will set the price – initially likely to be close to the current black market rate of $1 a gramme – and monitor the impact of the programme, which aims to bring the industry under state control and push illegal traffickers out of business.

Julio Bango, one of the politicians who helped draft the bill, said it would probably be four months until the first harvest of legal cannabis, by which time the government would have a licensing system in place. “We know this has generated an international debate and we hope it brings another element to discussions about a model [the war on drugs] that has totally failed and that has generated the opposite results from what it set out to achieve.”

I think that I’m getting old though, because if I went to Uruguay, I’d be excited about visiting the wreck of the Graf Spee.