Category: Wanker

Remember Always that the Cossacks Work for the Czar

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Go to the very gifted cartoonist’s website for a full size image, and buy some of his stuff

So when a political appointee of Barack Obama’s decides to use the King holiday to say that Martin Luther King, Jr. would have supported the never-ending war in Afghanistan, because it is somehow or other a “just war”:

Jeh C. Johnson, the Defense Department’s general counsel, posed that question at today’s Pentagon commemoration of King’s legacy.

In the final year of his life, King became an outspoken opponent of the Vietnam War, Johnson told a packed auditorium. However, he added, today’s wars are not out of line with the iconic Nobel Peace Prize winner’s teachings.

“I believe that if Dr. King were alive today, he would recognize that we live in a complicated world, and that our nation’s military should not and cannot lay down its arms and leave the American people vulnerable to terrorist attack,” he said.

I understand that Mr. Johnson knew Dr. King, and went to school with his son, but seriously, using Dr. King to pimp the war in Afghanistan is so deeply appalling that it buggers the mind.

It is absolutely ludicrous when juxtaposed with the before and after pictures of Tarok Kolache.

Don’t Let the Door Hit Your Ass on the Way Out, Joey

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Joe Lieberman makes his retirement official:

Referring to Mr. Lieberman’s plan to forgo re-election, Bill Curry, a prominent Democrat who served with Mr. Lieberman in the State Senate, said, “It’s the first thing he’s done in 10 years to make Connecticut Democrats completely happy.”

I don’t really have much to add to this, except for the fact that Ezra Klein has clearly been assimilated by the Beltway Borg™, and has become yet another thought free spewer of conventional DC wisdom, since he is wondering if Joe Lieberman is some sort of Democratic Hero:

That [Obama’s disgraceful lobbying on behalf of Lieberman to keep his seat and seniority] kept Lieberman in the fold, and after Arlen Specter switched parties and Al Franken won his election, gave Democrats the 60 votes they needed to break a Republican filibuster against health-care reform. Lieberman’s behavior during the debate was often erratic and seemingly unprincipled. Among other things, he skipped the meetings where Democrats were trying to work out a compromise on the public option, and then he killed the Medicare buy-in proposal they’d developed — despite endorsing that exact proposal months before. In doing so, he doomed a great piece of policy, and by doing it at the last minute, endangered the rest of the bill, too. But the reality is that the legislation simply wouldn’t have passed without his vote. And after extracting his pound of flesh, he voted “aye.”

This ignores the fact that the Democrats really had 60 votes for only a few weeks, because Ted Kennedy was busy dying, and the displays of narcissism, petulance, self importance, and wounded pride that made Lieberman determined to inflict as much damage as possible while keeping his committee chairmanship.

If Lieberman could have found a way to vote “No”, and keep his position, he would have, because he was all about petty vengeance.

What the F$#@ is Wrong With Barry?

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He just penned an OP/ED in the Wall Street Journal, saying that the big problem in our economy is too much regulation:

From child labor laws to the Clean Air Act to our most recent strictures against hidden fees and penalties by credit card companies, we have, from time to time, embraced common sense rules of the road that strengthen our country without unduly interfering with the pursuit of progress and the growth of our economy.

Sometimes, those rules have gotten out of balance, placing unreasonable burdens on business—burdens that have stifled innovation and have had a chilling effect on growth and jobs. At other times, we have failed to meet our basic responsibility to protect the public interest, leading to disastrous consequences. Such was the case in the run-up to the financial crisis from which we are still recovering. There, a lack of proper oversight and transparency nearly led to the collapse of the financial markets and a full-scale Depression.

Well, at least he is not talking about repealing the Clean Air Act or child labor laws, Yet,, but when juxtaposed with his executive order calling for our regulations to become even more friendly to companies that rob us and pollute our environment. (full text after break)

I guess we had better be the change that we are looking for, because Barack H. Obama is way too interested in sucking up to the people who wrecked this country, like Goldman Sachs and JP Morgan.

I am not looking forward to his State of the Union Address, because you can be sure that he will have some sort of initiative that further betray the people who voted for him.

The White House
Office of the Press Secretary
For Immediate Release                                               January 18, 2011
Improving Regulation and Regulatory Review – Executive Order

By the authority vested in me as President by the Constitution and the laws of the United States of America, and in order to improve regulation and regulatory review, it is hereby ordered as follows:

Section 1. General Principles of Regulation. (a) Our regulatory system must protect public health, welfare, safety, and our environment while promoting economic growth, innovation, competitiveness, and job creation. It must be based on the best available science. It must allow for public participation and an open exchange of ideas. It must promote predictability and reduce uncertainty. It must identify and use the best, most innovative, and least burdensome tools for achieving regulatory ends. It must take into account benefits and costs, both quantitative and qualitative. It must ensure that regulations are accessible, consistent, written in plain language, and easy to understand. It must measure, and seek to improve, the actual results of regulatory requirements.

(b) This order is supplemental to and reaffirms the principles, structures, and definitions governing contemporary regulatory review that were established in Executive Order 12866 of September 30, 1993. As stated in that Executive Order and to the extent permitted by law, each agency must, among other things: (1) propose or adopt a regulation only upon a reasoned determination that its benefits justify its costs (recognizing that some benefits and costs are difficult to quantify); (2) tailor its regulations to impose the least burden on society, consistent with obtaining regulatory objectives, taking into account, among other things, and to the extent practicable, the costs of cumulative regulations; (3) select, in choosing among alternative regulatory approaches, those approaches that maximize net benefits (including potential economic, environmental, public health and safety, and other advantages; distributive impacts; and equity); (4) to the extent feasible, specify performance objectives, rather than specifying the behavior or manner of compliance that regulated entities must adopt; and (5) identify and assess available alternatives to direct regulation, including providing economic incentives to encourage the desired behavior, such as user fees or marketable permits, or providing information upon which choices can be made by the public.

(c) In applying these principles, each agency is directed to use the best available techniques to quantify anticipated

present and future benefits and costs as accurately as possible. Where appropriate and permitted by law, each agency may consider (and discuss qualitatively) values that are difficult or impossible to quantify, including equity, human dignity, fairness, and distributive impacts.

Sec. 2. Public Participation. (a) Regulations shall be adopted through a process that involves public participation. To that end, regulations shall be based, to the extent feasible and consistent with law, on the open exchange of information and perspectives among State, local, and tribal officials, experts in relevant disciplines, affected stakeholders in the private sector, and the public as a whole.

(b) To promote that open exchange, each agency, consistent with Executive Order 12866 and other applicable legal requirements, shall endeavor to provide the public with an opportunity to participate in the regulatory process. To the extent feasible and permitted by law, each agency shall afford the public a meaningful opportunity to comment through the Internet on any proposed regulation, with a comment period that should generally be at least 60 days. To the extent feasible and permitted by law, each agency shall also provide, for both proposed and final rules, timely online access to the rulemaking docket on regulations.gov, including relevant scientific and technical findings, in an open format that can be easily searched and downloaded. For proposed rules, such access shall include, to the extent feasible and permitted by law, an opportunity for public comment on all pertinent parts of the rulemaking docket, including relevant scientific and technical findings.

(c) Before issuing a notice of proposed rulemaking, each agency, where feasible and appropriate, shall seek the views of those who are likely to be affected, including those who are likely to benefit from and those who are potentially subject to such rulemaking.

Sec. 3. Integration and Innovation. Some sectors and industries face a significant number of regulatory requirements, some of which may be redundant, inconsistent, or overlapping. Greater coordination across agencies could reduce these requirements, thus reducing costs and simplifying and harmonizing rules. In developing regulatory actions and identifying appropriate approaches, each agency shall attempt to promote such coordination, simplification, and harmonization. Each agency shall also seek to identify, as appropriate, means to achieve regulatory goals that are designed to promote innovation.

Sec. 4. Flexible Approaches. Where relevant, feasible, and consistent with regulatory objectives, and to the extent permitted by law, each agency shall identify and consider regulatory approaches that reduce burdens and maintain flexibility and freedom of choice for the public. These approaches include warnings, appropriate default rules, and disclosure requirements as well as provision of information to the public in a form that is clear and intelligible.

Sec. 5. Science. Consistent with the President’s Memorandum for the Heads of Executive Departments and Agencies,

“Scientific Integrity” (March 9, 2009), and its implementing guidance, each agency shall ensure the objectivity of any scientific and technological information and processes used to support the agency’s regulatory actions.

Sec. 6. Retrospective Analyses of Existing Rules. (a) To facilitate the periodic review of existing significant regulations, agencies shall consider how best to promote retrospective analysis of rules that may be outmoded, ineffective, insufficient, or excessively burdensome, and to modify, streamline, expand, or repeal them in accordance with what has been learned. Such retrospective analyses, including supporting data, should be released online whenever possible.

(b) Within 120 days of the date of this order, each agency shall develop and submit to the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs a preliminary plan, consistent with law and its resources and regulatory priorities, under which the agency will periodically review its existing significant regulations to determine whether any such regulations should be modified, streamlined, expanded, or repealed so as to make the agency’s regulatory program more effective or less burdensome in achieving the regulatory objectives.

Sec. 7. General Provisions. (a) For purposes of this order, “agency” shall have the meaning set forth in section 3(b) of Executive Order 12866.

(b) Nothing in this order shall be construed to impair or otherwise affect:

(i) authority granted by law to a department or agency, or the head thereof; or

(ii) functions of the Director of the Office of Management and Budget relating to budgetary, administrative, or legislative proposals.

(c) This order shall be implemented consistent with applicable law and subject to the availability of appropriations.

(d) This order is not intended to, and does not, create any right or benefit, substantive or procedural, enforceable at law or in equity by any party against the United States, its departments, agencies, or entities, its officers, employees, or agents, or any other person.

BARACK OBAMA

THE WHITE HOUSE,
January 18, 2011.

The Grauniad* Lambastes Wikileaks for What the Grauniad* Published

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Glenn Greenwald details just how ridiculous the ongoing feud between The Guardian and Julian Assange has become, with the paper the paper accusing Assange of endangering lives because of cables that were released by The Guardian itself:

Last week, on January 3, The Guardian published a scathing Op-Ed by James Richardson blaming WikiLeaks for endangering the life of Morgan Tsvangirai, the leader of the democratic opposition in Zimbabwe.  Richardson — a GOP operative, contributor to RedState.com, and a for-hire corporate spokesman — pointed to a cable published by WikiLeaks in which American diplomats revealed that Tsvangirai, while publicly opposing American sanctions on his country, had privately urged their continuation as a means of weakening the Mugabe regime:  an act likely to be deemed to be treasonous in that country, for obvious reasons.  By publishing this cable, “WikiLeaks may have committed its own collateral murder,” Richardson wrote.  He added:  “WikiLeaks ought to leave international relations to those who understand it – at least to those who understand the value of a life.”

This accusation against WikiLeaks was repeated far and wide.  In The Wall Street Journal, Jamie Kirchick — the long-time assistant of The New Republic‘s Marty Peretz — wrote under this headline:  “Julian Assange’s reckless behavior could cost Zimbabwe’s leading democrat his life.”  Kirchick explained that “the crusading ‘anti-secrecy’ website released a diplomatic cable from the U.S. Embassy in Harare” which exposed Tsvangirai’s support for sanctions.  As “a result of the WikiLeaks revelations,” Kirchick wrote, the reform leader would likely be charged with treason, and “Mr. Tsvangirai will have someone additional to blame: Julian Assange of WikiLeaks.”  The Atlantic‘s Chris Albon, in his piece entitled “How WikiLeaks Just Set Back Democracy in Zimbabwe,” echoed the same accusation, claiming “WikiLeaks released [this cable] to the world” and that Assange has thus “provided a tyrant with the ammunition to wound, and perhaps kill, any chance for multiparty democracy.”  Numerous other outlets predictably mimicked these claims.

There was just one small problem with all of this:  it was totally false.  It wasn’t WikiLeaks which chose that cable to be placed into the public domain, nor was it WikiLeaks which first published it.  It was The Guardian that did that.  In early December, that newspaper — not WikiLeaks — selected and then published the cable in question.  This fact led The Guardian — more than a full week after they published Richardson’s accusatory column — to sheepishly add this obscured though extremely embarrassing “clarification” at the end of his column:

• This article was amended on 11 January 2011 to clarify the fact that the 2009 cable referred to in this article was placed in the public domain by the Guardian, and not as originally implied by WikiLeaks. The photo caption was also amended to reflect this fact.

(emphasis original)

While I find The Guardian to be a top flight paper, this is inexcusable.

I get the impression that Assange is a bit of a jerk, and hard to deal with, but that does not excuse this crap.

*According to the Wiki, The Guardian, formerly the Manchester Guardian in the UK. It’s nicknamed the Grauniad because of its penchant for typographical errors, “The nickname The Grauniad for the paper originated with the satirical magazine Private Eye. It came about because of its reputation for frequent and sometimes unintentionally amusing typographical errors, hence the popular myth that the paper once misspelled its own name on the page one masthead as The Gaurdian, though many recall the more inventive The Grauniad.”

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Have you heard the latest thing that conservatives are seizing on to accuse Barack Obama of being a godless secret-Muslim socialist Negro?

Well it appears that Barack Obama’s speaking positively of the Latin phrase E Pluribus Unum, on the seal of the United States since 1792, has given them a new reason to be shrill:

The culture wars have a new battlefield, thanks to a letter this week from the Congressional Prayer Caucus to President Obama. To the religious right, the motto “E Pluribus Unum,” which has been part of the fabric of American democracy since it was emblazened on the national seal in 1782, has become a controversial, anti-God statement. See the Congressional Prayer Caucus letter:

http://forbes.house.gov/UploadedFiles/National_Motto_Letter_to_President.pdf

Obama referred, innocently enough, to the motto “E Pluribus Unum” in a recent speech, pointing out that the Latin phrase, first adopted by the Founders, means “out of many, one.” This beautiful motto perfectly captures the spirit of pluralistic America, where one country is formed out of many states, and where one people – the American people – are formed from a melting pot of immigrants from all around the world.

Out of many, one. Indeed, the wisdom of the Founders, in enscribing “E Pluribus Unum” on the Great Seal of the United States, can’t be questioned.

Or maybe it can. As the above letter shows, to Rep. Michele Bachmann and others on the Congressional Prayer Caucus, Obama’s reference to “E Pluribus Unum” borders on unpatriotic. They say he should instead be promoting the motto “In God We Trust,” which was adopted as the official national motto at the urging of religious conservatives in 1956, during the McCarthy era and at the height of the Cold War Red Scare.

Well, I get why they object to the phrase E Pluribus Unum. First, it’s another hammer to use against a figure that they clearly see as an uppity (*insert epithet here*), and second, the basic idea of E Pluribus Unum is the acceptance is that people who are different from them, either in philosophy, theology, or pigmentation, are legitimate Americans, which fulfills them with horror.

They are really deeply repulsive human beings.

David Zurawik is the Dumbest Muthahf%$#er on the Face of the Earth

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And considering the fact that he is the Baltimore Sun‘s TV critic, which means that he had to beat out other TV critics, this is a big hurdle to jump.

You see Zurawik was commenting on the fact that former CBS reporter, and former CNN anchor John Roberts, a generally well respected journalist, was moving from CNN to Fox, largely because Fox was willing to base him in the same town as his fiancee.

When all is said and done, I can agree that this was generally a net plus for Fox in terms of journalism, considering the fact that “Biff the Wonderdog” would be an improvement over the likes of Britt Hume, but then he unleashes this corker:

The channel doesn’t need more ratings magnets — it has all of them any cable channel needs right now. What Fox needs to do is continue to add journalistic strength and depth as it did in October with Juan Williams.

Yes, he said that the man who vehemently defended Clarence Thomas against accusations of sexual harassment while not revealing that he himself was accused of sexual harassment is a paragon of Journalist Strength and depth.

This is a guy who had an interview with George W. Bush, and said, on camera, that he prayed for him.

If this is what David Zurawik calls journalist strength and depth, I am Edward F%$#ing Murrow

Obscurity is not Security

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But this isn’t stopping banks from trying to suppress security research showing that their cards are insecure, as opposed to manning up and fixing the problem:

Cambridge computer scientists have become embroiled in angry exchanges with Britain’s banks and credit card lenders, accusing them of bullying and trying to “censor” a PhD student who was exposing flaws in chip-and-pin machines.

A leading Cambridge academic has now written to bankers’ representatives demanding that they stop pressing for the removal of a student’s doctorate work from the web.

Professor Ross Anderson, from Cambridge University’s Computer Laboratory, has previously researched glitches in chip-and-pin banking that allow withdrawals to be made from accounts without needing to know the holder’s PIN. As part of his thesis work, one of his students, Omar Choudary, exposed how easy it was to make such a withdrawal.

Then the UK Cards Association, a trade body representing leading banking organisations, approached the university asking it to remove the thesis from his website, which is accessible through a university site.

So, the knowledge is out there, and it is public, it has actually been discussed on the BBC, and the banks want to pretend that it never happened.

This is why you cannot rely on market mechanisms for this kind of stuff.

What a Whiny Bitch!!

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Blah, blah, blah!

Barack Obama once again, railing against the Democratic Party, and throwing in a couple of Republican memes in the process.

He slams FDR once again, and lies about he gets the facts wrong about the origins of Social Security and Medicare.

Seriously, he sounds like a Republican, and given his penchant of consistently attempting to find the most retrograde policies consistent with being a Democrat, I’ve come to conclusion, that he’s as much of a member of the Democratic Party as Vladimir Putin.

It is Worse Than a Crime, It Is A Mistake

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Well, the White House completely caved on tax breaks.
What the Republicans got:

  • A 2-year extension to all the tax cuts, including the tax cuts for those making more than a $¼ million a year.
  • Setting a new exemption on the inheritance tax at $5 million.
  • Dropping the tax rate on the inheritance tax at 35%.

What Obama got:

  • A 13 month extension to emergency unemployment benefits.
    • Which means that Republicans will kill extended unemployment benefits in January 2012, putting the economy in a tail spin as the presidential election rolls around.
  • A 1-year 2% holiday in Social Security, which will provide a family earning $50K about $1K.
    • The difference is supplied from the treasury, so it does not hit the trust fund, and this is probably the best tax cut for boosting the economy.
  • Continuation of the college tuition tax credit.
    • Which, of course gets taken back out by the financial aid department, which makes awards on the basis to pay.

It’s a remarkably one sided agreement, and Barack Obama followed this up with a lie:

Mr. Obama said he was insisting on a temporary deal on the tax rates for high earners and wealthy estates on the belief that he would ultimately prevail.

“I’m confident,” Mr. Obama said, “that as we make tough choices about bringing our deficit down, as I engage in a conversation with the American people about the hard choices we’re going to have to make to secure our future and our children’s future and our grandchildren’s future, it will become apparent that we cannot afford to extend those tax cuts any longer.”

Let’s be clear, Barack Obama has no intention whatsoever to raise taxes on the rich or on the inheritance of drooling rich heirs.

He’s a pimps harder for the well off than Bill Clinton ever did, and it should be noted that Clinton did it before the rich ratf%$#s on Wall Street blew up our economy.

When one looks at what Obama has done, one can only conclude that we got sold a bill of goods by a Blue Dog.

If he had even the smallest bit of a progressive bent, he would have bent.

He sells out to Republicans because he supports most of their policies.

I Am So Glad I Dropped out of OFA

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What Bender Says, Barry!

I had a post a while ago titled, “I Am Glad that I Pulled My Email(s) from the OFA Mailing List, and the latest bit of lame ass political activism has me even more certain in my decision:

A decade of irresponsible spending led to a projected $1.3 trillion deficit that President Obama inherited upon taking office — putting America on an unsustainable fiscal course.

From Day One, this administration’s top focus has been growing the economy and putting Americans back to work — and that will never change.

The economy is growing again, yet all across America families and businesses have been tightening their belts. The President knows their government must do the same.

Yesterday, he announced a proposal to freeze pay for non-military federal employees for two years — a plan that will lead to $60 billion in savings over 10 years. It’s one of many tough choices the President has made to cut costs in the upcoming budget to begin to put our nation’s fiscal house in order. And it follows directly from this administration’s dedication to stretching federal dollars and reining in the long-term deficit.

Now, if you listen to some talk radio hosts or a few of the talking heads on cable news, you’ll hear a very different assessment of our fiscal policies. These voices ignore the irresponsibility of the past while pinning the blame for “reckless spending” solely on this administration. It would make a good fairy tale if it weren’t so dangerously untrue.

But these voices — as loud as they are — are spreading bunk. Cutting costs and spending responsibly has been a cornerstone of this administration’s record. And we need your help to get the truth out there.

Will you take a few minutes and write a letter to the editor today to set the record straight?

Yep, you got that right, OFA, the DNC run successor to the Obama campaign is asking its members to write letters to the editor supporting cutting the wages of janitors, teachers, law enforcement, and regulators, so that the Republicans can ask for tax cuts for people like the Koch brothers, they Who Must Not Be Named, and the rest of the undeserving rich.

I am so glad that I live in Maryland, because in 2012, if my state is in play, then the Republican has already won the race, so I am under no compunction to vote for him ever again.

Bloody Typical

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So, in the face of GOP gains, largely on the back of the weak tea offered by Barack Obama on healthcare, and jobs, and pretty much everything, Barack Obama has decided that more capitulation to Republicans is in order:

President Obama is often blamed for not reaching out to Republicans. In truth, as Monday morning’s announcement that Obama wants to cut the pay of all federal employees illustrates, he has the opposite problem. Obama frequently proposes essentially Republican policies, which makes it impossible for him to use those ideas to buy Republican votes for bipartisan legislation.

(emphasis mine)

Note here that this already has John Boehner doing the victory dance, and suggesting that there should be a freeze on hiring new federal workers, which, unsurprisingly, would gut increased SEC enforcement, staffing the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, etc.

I am beginning to think that this guy is a Republican Plant.

If not, I really want to play some high stakes poker with him.

Our Man in Kandahar

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So, we have been holding high level talks with a high ranking representative of the Taliban, Mullah Akhtar Muhammad Mansour, and they plied him with many inducements, including no small amount of cash, only he turned out to be a con man scamming American negotiators:

For months, the secret talks unfolding between Taliban and Afghan leaders to end the war appeared to be showing promise, if only because of the appearance of a certain insurgent leader at one end of the table: Mullah Akhtar Muhammad Mansour, one of the most senior commanders in the Taliban movement.

But now, it turns out, Mr. Mansour was apparently not Mr. Mansour at all. In an episode that could have been lifted from a spy novel, United States and Afghan officials now say the Afghan man was an impostor, and high-level discussions conducted with the assistance of NATO appear to have achieved little.

“It’s not him,” said a Western diplomat in Kabul intimately involved in the discussions. “And we gave him a lot of money.”

American officials confirmed Monday that they had given up hope that the Afghan was Mr. Mansour, or even a member of the Taliban leadership.

We are not just non winning in Afghanistan, we are actively, and aggressively, losing there.

Things like this are a sign of a failed policy being pursued by desperate people.

H/t Atrios.

About Damn Time

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The FBI has raided at least 3 hedge funds on suspicion of insider trading:

The FBI has begun what is expected to be a far-reaching probe into insider trading with raids on hedge funds linked to some of Wall Street’s most high-profile and wealthiest players.

The sweep – which began with armed agents raiding the Connecticut offices of Level Global Investors and Diamondback Capital Management, both multibillion dollar hedge funds set up by former managers at Steve Cohen’s SAC Capital Advisors – is already affecting stocks: a collective $15bn was wiped off the valuations of Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, Citigroup, Bank of America and JP Morgan Chase. Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, Citigroup, Bank of America and JP Morgan Chase.

According to reports published in the Wall Street Journal, investigators from several law enforcement and regulatory agencies are looking into multiple insider-trading rings that reaped millions in illegal profits. An FBI spokesman confirmed last night that the agency was executing “court-ordered search warrants”, but declined to elaborate.

One focus is whether proprietary information is being passed from companies to hedge funds by network of independent analysts and consultants.

Well, this is refreshing: It appears that someone is beginning to look at “business as usual” on Wall Street, and they have noticed that it’s corrupt.

I also have to note that the coverage on the Marketplace radio program was repulsive.

They had an apologist fow wall street on, and he wrung his hands about how fuzzy the lines were, and how no one was really hurt.

This is bovine scatology. Just because they are robbing millions of.investors a few bucks at a time does not diminish the crime.

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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.

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And the Award for Lame Losers Goes to ……

You know that recovery that we seem to be having, well expect it to stop, suddenly, in just a few weeks.

Why, because somehow or other the House Democrats managed to lose a vote on extending unemployment benefits extension, meaning that roughly 5 million Americans will lose their unemployment benefits on November 30.

That’s 5 million Americans who will be unable to make car or house payments of buy much of anything at all.

Figure about $1.5 billion pulled out of the economy a week, or a little bit over ½% of GDP that would just go away.

Not only did they not manage to pass the bill, but it was only a 3 month extension that they managed not to pass, so they failed on a lame half measure.

For some reason known only to God, they tried to pass it under a “suspension of the rules” requiring a ⅔ vote, which it failed, by 258 to 154.

OK, I do know the reason why the Democrats tried to pass this under a procedure requiring a 2/3 vote: If it passes by a simple majority, then people can make a “motion to recommit”, which could kill the bill, and would not pass, or a “motion to recommit with instructions”, where it is sent back to committee with instructions to make amendments, which doesn’t kill the bill.

The problem is that the Democratic Caucus discipline is so lax that if the Republicans try to attach something that Democrats fear might be used in a campaign, like, for example, banning felons from getting UI benefits, then many of the Democrats, fearful for being cast as soft on crime in the next election, will vote for the measure and against the party, and the country, because they have no damn guts.

Of course, the reason that the Dems lost on November 2 was because they have no damn guts, so their solution is even more gutlessness.

Cthulhu on a cruller, it’s lame.

Wanktastic!

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Yeah, this gives me hairballs too

Everyone’s favorite NFL blowout, Heath Shuler, has decided to challenge Nancy Pelosi as minority leader in the 112th Congress.

This guy’s entire life has been defined by his trying to do things that he was manifestly unfit to do, whether it’s being an NFL Quarterback (top ten first round draft10 busts) a representative of the values of Democratic Party, or of pretty much anything he has done since he has gotten out of college.

Here’s hoping that Nancy Pelosi hangs him by his entrails on the Statue of Freedom on top of the Capitol Dome.*

I’m considering taking up a collection to have Gus Frerotte move to his district and run against him. After all, someone needs to replace this loser, and Frerotte has already proved that he has what it takes to do that.

*In a purely metaphorical, “He needs to be slapped down in a parliamentary kind of way.”†
†The reason that I do not wish him to be threatened with actual physical harm, is that when he is threatened with the possibility of physical harm, he throws a pass to the opposing team, which in this case, is the Republican Party.‡
‡I think. All things considered, I’m not sure which team he is really playing for in Congress.

Oop Ack! This is an Insult to Cat Food!

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Yeah, this gives me hairballs too

So, now that the election is over, the two co-chairmen of Barack Obama’s catfood* deficit reduction commission, Erskine Bowles and Alan Simpson, have released the plan that they came up with together.

On their own.

Without consulting with anyone else on the commission.

Which needs to get affirmative votes from 14 of the 18 members to actually issue a report.

It makes it pretty clear that these folks are idiots.

Remember now, that this commission was given one charge, to reduce the deficit in the long term, so let’s see what they came up with:

  • Cutting social security benefits, even though they themselves have said that this will not count against the deficit, because it has its own trust fund, and because they would be laughed out of town if they did.
    • They cut this by means testing social security, changing the way that the benefits base is figured from average wage to CPI, which will cut benefits by over 50% over the next to years, and by raising the retirement age, which, as Paul Krugman notes, “Oh, and they’re talking about raising the retirement age, because people live longer — except that the people who really depend on Social Security, those in the bottom half of the distribution, aren’t living much longer. So you’re going to tell janitors to work until they’re 70 because lawyers are living longer than ever.“
  • Limiting government revenues to 21% of GDP.
  • Cutting taxes, with the top tax rate dropping to 23%.(!).
  • Torte reform.

Note that these are clearly not part of the committee’s charge, which was to reduce the deficit, but they decided to go wingnut to start off.

Additionally, in areas where they are acting within the scope of their committee they want to:

  • Cut military spending.
  • Cut many tax deductions, including the home mortgage interest deduction (not gonna happen).
  • Charge co-pays for veterans to get services from the VA.
  • Magically making healthcard costs increase by no more than 1% more than GDP.

No wonder that (still) Speaker Nancy Pelosi calls it, “simply unacceptable.”

Felix Salmon is scathing about the plan, and shows just how silly it is:

Meanwhile, some of the small savings have to be seen to be believed. The deficit commission, charged with coming up with a bold plan to bring the nation’s finances into order, really does propose:

  • Increasing the amount of time spent on instant messenger, to reduce travel costs;
  • “Reduce copying use by putting the default option on copiers to double-sided”;
  • Merging the Commerce Department with the Small Business Administration;
  • Charging a fee to Smithsonian visitors.
  • Etc.

Really, they are suggesting that we have the Smithsonian charge admission, and changing copiers to copy both sides of a sheet of paper by default.

This was foreseeable. Both Bowles and Simpson have been advocating privatizing Social Security for years, and Bowles almost had a deal cut with Gingrich in the 1990s to do so.

Not surprising, BTW, since Bowles is an investment bankers, and those folks have been salivating for decades about the possibility of getting fees for (mis)managing all that money.

This is not a deficit reduction plan. This is a slash fanfic wet-dream from the denizens of some warped right wing think tank.

I would note that the way is playing in the press will be disastrous for the Democrats, because it’s all, “Obama Commission proposes cutting Social Security” (or the mortgage deduction, or veterans’ benefits, etc.), and that was clear even before wankers Bowles and Simpson were appointed.

It was intended to be yet another excuse for Obama to preen about how he was post-partisan and reasonable he is, and once again, what emerged from this bit of narcissism is cataclysmic blow back, both in terms of the policy and the politics.

<Facepalm>

*In the interest of health, I would suggest that people eat dog food, and not cat food. Cats because they are one of the few true carnivores, do not need the complex carbohydrates and fats that people, and dogs do. As such, dog food is better for you than cat food because it provides carbs and essential fatty acids. A dog can go blind if it is fed on cat food, but a cat lives just fine on dog food. The phenomenon is known as rabbit starvation.