Daily Kos founder Markos Moulitsas last night threatened to support a primary challenger against Rep. Dennis Kucinich (D., Ohio) if he doesn't support the health-care bill. "What he is doing is undermining this reform," he said. "He is making common cause with Republicans. And I think that is a perfect excuse and a rational one for a primary challenge."
Filing deadline for federal candidates in Ohio for the 2010 election: February 18. Best be working on that filing right quick, there, Markos.
Posted by: Mike ||
03/10/2010 16:28 ||
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#1
"How dare his own personal convictions contrast with groupthink! Quick...to the bag of weed!"
Committee members find ways to excuse colleagues' bad behavior.
What does it take for a member of Congress to get in real trouble with the House ethics committee?
Quite a lot.
In fact, only one lawmaker -- Rep. Charles Rangel, D-N.Y. -- has merited even a wrist slap since Democrats were swept into the majority in 2007 on a wave of voter revulsion to scandals engulfing Republicans in Congress. Back then, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi pushed through more stringent rules, vowed stricter enforcement and famously promised to "drain the swamp."
Well, she's going to need a bigger pump.
So far, the supposedly invigorated bipartisan House ethics committee has:
Handed down its limpest discipline, an "admonishment," after finding that Rangel had taken two free trips to Caribbean conferences even though he should have known that big corporations indirectly financed them in violation of House rules.
The committee has yet to finish reviewing Rangel's more serious ethical problems, such as glaring omissions on his congressional financial disclosure statements. (Pending the outcome, Rangel has taken a "leave of absence" from his powerful post as chairman of the tax-writing Ways and Means Committee.)
Exonerated five others who took the same trips as Rangel. The committee bought their stories that they didn't know about corporate sponsorship. Funny, conference photos show lawmakers standing in front of a bunch of corporate logos. Maybe they were blinded by the Caribbean sun.
Essentially gave lawmakers a go-ahead to solicit campaign donations from business executives and lobbyists who apparently believe they're paying for federal contracts. Last month, the committee cleared seven members despite the findings by an independent investigative panel that two of them -- Reps. Peter Visclosky, D-Ind., and Todd Tiahrt, R-Kan. -- might have tacitly tied requests for campaign donations to legislative earmarks profiting specific companies.
Visclosky, according to the panel's report, solicited contributions from a lobbying firm and its clients and gave the companies special access to himself and his staff one week before an earmarking session. Even though the committee found nothing wrong, federal prosecutors are investigating.
Issued guidance telling lawmakers how to get around one of the more hated of the new ethics rules, which was supposed to end the practice of lobbyists throwing lavish parties to fete members. In 2008, the 10-member ethics panel said such parties are OK if they honor multiple members.
All of this is a far cry from the Democrats' vows to improve the Republicans' old see-no-evil ethics apparatus. The Democrats like to point out that they created an independent Office of Congressional Ethics (OCE) to investigate allegations, recommend action to the ethics committee and issue public reports. But they promptly emasculated their new creation by failing to give it subpoena power and ignoring its findings in several cases, despite evidence that members violated House rules.
Sadly, there is nothing new about ethically challenged lawmakers or ethics committees that act more as enablers than policemen. The solutions, too, have been obvious for a long time. The House needs an OCE with real investigative powers, an ethics committee that actually cares about ethics, and a speaker willing to stand up for strict rules when powerful members get caught breaking them.
Until honest, ethical members take a stand, the sleazy behavior so accepted on Capitol Hill will continue to tar them all.
#4
She didn't intend to drain it. She has dredged it so now it's deeper and the water "cleaner" so as not to endanger the Dems that are wallowing in C Musso's hot tub.
Just seven minutes into Glenn Beck's hour-long interview of Eric Massa on Tuesday evening, things had already gone very wrong.
Conservatives had hopes that the now-former Democratic congressman from Upstate New York, who resigned abruptly under an ethics cloud, would deliver the goods about corruption and strong-arm tactics in the Obama White House and Congress. But instead, Massa served up an icky new confession.
"Now they're saying I groped a male staffer," he volunteered. "Yeah, I did. Not only did I grope him, I tickled him until he couldn't breathe and then four guys jumped on top of me. It was my 50th birthday."
Continued on Page 49
#1
Massa was just looking for another soap box. I don't get him; he was an Annapolis graduate and a career naval officer. Turns out he is kind of goofy. Perhaps what he had to say was true; maybe not.
#3
--This is now the 4th vacancy in the House with the potential to be a YES to the bill, just sayin? (Fl 19, Pa 12, Hi 1, now NY 29)--
(Senate bill officially expires 12/24/10)
#4
I get the storyline: like Tiger Woods all these incidents with the various D's were not common knowledge but well known so why are they all coming out now? New York snubbed the overauthority of KSM, various other deeds by the WH, this guy and others like Kucinich catching hell for being their own instead of blanks for the party vote. I get that, not a Beck fan, long shot interview to say the least.
It has been said well and famously that politicians only really commit a gaffe when they tell the truth without meaning to. Add House Speaker Nancy Pelosi to the list.
Speaking Tuesday to the 2010 Legislative Conference for the National Association of Counties, Pelosi began the windup of her healthcare pitch by alluding to the controversies over the healthcare bill and the process by which it has reached its current state. Then, just after saying, "It's going to be very, very exciting," Pelosi gaffed, telling the local elected officials assembled that Congress "[has] to pass the bill so you can find out what's in it, away from the fog of controversy."
This is the same Nancy Pelosi who, only weeks earlier, was bragging about the transparency of the process that produced the bill that is currently stalled in Congress. The same Pelosi who brushed aside concerns raised by organizations like Let Freedom Ring!--where I am a senior fellow--that members of Congress actually commit to reading the bill before voting for it and that it be posted online for at least 72 hours before any vote so that the American people can read it, too.
In fact, as supporters of the current healthcare bill will no doubt point out, the bill Pelosi and the White House are trying to move to the president's desk passed the Senate at Christmas. It has been on the Web for well over 72 hours; indeed it has been discussed and dissected by healthcare policy experts repeatedly over the last two months. But if that is the case, why is Pelosi telling the National Association of Counties that the bill has to pass before they--and the rest of us "can find out what's in it." What is she hiding?
#3
This is just outrageous! She wants the American people to buy a "pig in a poke." These people will do anything to pass this abortion of a bill. It is not about health care for the Amercian people but about a sheer, raw grab for power.
TUSCALOOSA, Ala. -- U.S. Chief Justice John Roberts said Tuesday the scene at President Barack Obama's first State of the Union address was "very troubling" and that the annual speech to Congress has "degenerated into a political pep rally."
Responding to a University of Alabama law student's question about the Senate's method of confirming justices, Roberts said senators improperly try to make political points by asking questions they know nominees can't answer because of judicial ethics rules.
"I think the process is broken down," he said.
Obama chided the court for its campaign finance decision during the January address, with six of the court's nine justices seated before him in their black robes.
Roberts said he wonders whether justices should attend the address.
"To the extent the State of the Union has degenerated into a political pep rally, I'm not sure why we're there," said Roberts, a Republican nominee who joined the court in 2005.
Roberts said anyone is free to criticize the court and that some have an obligation to do so because of their positions.
"So I have no problems with that," he said. "On the other hand, there is the issue of the setting, the circumstances and the decorum. The image of having the members of one branch of government standing up, literally surrounding the Supreme Court, cheering and hollering while the court -- according the requirements of protocol -- has to sit there expressionless, I think is very troubling."
Breaking from tradition, Obama used the speech to criticize the court's decision that allows corporations and unions to freely spend money to run political ads for or against specific candidates.
"With all due deference to the separation of powers, the Supreme Court reversed a century of law to open the floodgates for special interests -- including foreign corporations -- to spend without limit in our elections," Obama said.
Justice Samuel Alito was the only justice to respond at the time, shaking his head and appearing to mouth the words "not true" as Obama continued.
In response to Roberts' remarks Tuesday, White House press secretary Robert Gibbs focused on the court's decision and not the chief justice's point about the time and place for criticism of the court.
"What is troubling is that this decision opened the floodgates for corporations and special interests to pour money into elections -- drowning out the voices of average Americans," Gibbs said. "The president has long been committed to reducing the undue influence of special interests and their lobbyists over government. That is why he spoke out to condemn the decision and is working with Congress on a legislative response."
Justice Antonin Scalia once said he no longer goes to the annual speech because the justices "sit there like bumps on a log" in an otherwise highly partisan atmosphere.
Roberts opened his appearance in Alabama with a 30-minute lecture on the history of the Supreme Court and became animated as he answered students' questions. He joked about a recent rumor that he was stepping down from the court and said he didn't know he wanted to be a lawyer until he was in law school.
While Associate Justice Clarence Thomas told students at Alabama last fall he saw little value in oral arguments before the court, Roberts disagreed.
"Maybe it's because I participated in it a lot as a lawyer," Roberts said. "I'd hate to think it didn't matter."
#2
Roberts said he wonders whether justices should attend the address.
I'd say yes, don't boycott such charades although tempting. The power of the Supreme Court needs to be maintained within the Constitutional framework of our country. There is a need to maintain the balance of powers between legislative, judicial, and executive branches. Currently, the executive branch would probably love nothing more than to have this balance ignored.
#3
A good point, John; I was leaning strongly towards the "don't bother to attend next year" position but you've made me re-think that.
Posted by: Steve White ||
03/10/2010 9:34 Comments ||
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#4
Noobama wasn't considering that even if he does manage somehow to get HC Takeover through Congress, there will be constitutional challenges. His behavior at the SOTU will not tip the scales in his favor, that is for sure.
#5
The SOTU has become so silly that some brave POTUS should just send in a written SOTU, as was done in the early days of the republic. But the POTUS are such egomaniacs that they would never dream of doing this.
In many ways, it is like the stupid requirement that the Queen of England has to annually address parliament, even though they write her speech for her.
#7
Just as Obama and his comrades became dictators of US Congressmen, it was a barroom slam and intimadation tactic against another segment of US government that this tyrant wants to "rule over". Congress was viewed as Obama's hood, and the Supreme Court was on his turf and surrounded by his gang. It will get worse.
Posted by: Bob Gleanter3083 ||
03/10/2010 10:49 Comments ||
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#8
Obama could have voiced the same concerns about the USSC in another venue. It would have been in better taste, and more diplomatic. 0 has poor taste and is undiplomatic, but we already knew that.
With just 29% of likely Republican primary voters approving of his job performance, Gov. Charlie Crist's Senate campaign appears on the verge of defeat. A new Public Policy Polling survey finds Marco Rubio leading Crist in the primary by 32 points -- a stunning collapse of a candidate many assumed a year ago would be serving in the Senate in 2011.
Rubio's campaign is boosted significantly by his support among conservatives, who favor him by a 71%-17% margin. Crist wins among moderates, 49%-36%.
Rubio 60
Crist 28
Und 12
Rubio leads by 16.8 points in the RCP Average. The survey was conducted March 5-8 of 492 GOP LV with a MoE of +/- 4.4%.
Whoops, I think we just lost Crist. Even if it were true, he should be careful of accusing someone with that much testosterone of anything like this as he might just get his arms pulled out of their sockets.
Florida Senate candidate Marco Rubio has been taking heat for charging a $130 barber shop visit to his Republican Party of Florida credit card when he was the state House Speaker.
Now his GOP primary opponent, Gov. Charlie Crist, is insinuating that Rubio was paying for something other than a haircut. A back wax, to be precise.
During an interview Monday evening on Fox News, Crist attacked Rubio for "trying to pawn himself off as a fiscal conservative."
"And yet just in recent weeks, two weeks ago it has come out in news accounts he had a Republican Party of Florida credit card that he charged $130 haircut, or maybe it was a back wax," he said. "We are not sure what all he got at that place."
Host Greta Van Sustern interrupted. "Wait a second, stop. A back wax? Wait a second."
"I don't know what it was, you know," Crist continued.
Van Sustern responded, "I know, but was there a suggestion it was for a back wax? Or a haircut? Or are you being flip?"
"I don't know what it was," Crist replied. "Initially we were told it was a haircut. And then he said it wasn't a haircut."
"The detachment from reality is stunning to me," he continued. "And to try to say that you're a fiscal conservative, yet you spend $130 for maybe a haircut and maybe other things, I don't know what you do at a salon when you are a guy."
"I get my haircut for $11 from a guy named Carl the Barber in St. Petersburg, Florida where I grew up. And to me that's real fiscal conservatism."
Rubio has said he later paid for the personal charges on his party credit card, including the barber shop visit, out of his own pocket. While Rubio did charge for a haircut at the Miami barber shop, his campaign said his tab also included several other items purchased as gifts.
His campaign called Crist's interview "disastrously bizarre."
"Today, Charlie Crist is the sitting governor of the 4th largest state who has fallen so far and so fast that he's now reduced himself to making up stories about his opponent's grooming habits," said Rubio spokesman Alex Burgos.
#1
I am a fiscal conservative - I spend other people's money carefully. With my own money, I am sometimes profilgate - extravagant, even.
Posted by: Bobby ||
03/10/2010 5:50 Comments ||
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#2
for someone who uses enough spray-on tan to look like an Ooompa-Loopma, he should refrain from criticizing others' grooming habits. He has no idea what the charge was for, and is just flinging feces throwing mud. What a putz. Bye Charlie
Posted by: Frank G ||
03/10/2010 7:57 Comments ||
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#4
I haven't followed the Florida press on this, and am certainly no fan of the Governor, but regardless of whatever Mr Rubio spent, has anyone asked why the chief law enforcement officer of the state is discussing someone's credit card receipts? And why that person should become a Senator opining on all matter of financial reform, privacy, and security issues?
Back wax, back rubs, back to the future Mr. Fusion machines - it hardly matters given how tone deaf and amateurish the Crist campaign is proving itself. You'd think this guy had never run a competitive race. Come to think of it . . .
#7
The only question is: will he go third party and throw this senate seat to the Dems.
Or he could just endorse the Dem. That's happened and more than once: a moderate Pub, defeated in the primary, endorses the Dem instead of the conservative Pub.
Frankly if I were the Florida state party chair, if Charlie does anything other than endorse Rubio after the primary (assuming Rubio wins, of course), I'd spend the rest of my political days ensuring that Charlie loses at everything he tries.
Posted by: Steve White ||
03/10/2010 12:35 Comments ||
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#8
That's happened and more than once: a moderate Pub, defeated in the primary, endorses the Dem instead of the conservative Pub.
If you are referring to Scozzafava, she is not a moderate Pub, she is a full blown Liberal pretending to be a moderate Pub.
The twisted scheme by which Democratic leaders plan to bend the rules to ram President Obama's massive health care legislation through Congress now has a name: the Slaughter Solution.
The Slaughter Solution is a plan by Rep. Louise Slaughter (D-NY), the Democratic chair of the powerful House Rules Committee and a key ally of Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA), to get the health care legislation through the House without an actual vote on the Senate-passed health care bill. You see, Democratic leaders currently lack the votes needed to pass the Senate health care bill through the House. Under Slaughter's scheme, Democratic leaders will overcome this problem by simply deeming' the Senate bill passed in the House - without an actual vote by members of the House.
An article in this morning's edition of National Journal's CongressDaily breaks the story, starting with the headline: SLAUGHTER PREPS RULE TO AVOID DIRECT VOTE ON SENATE BILL.' Excerpts:
House Rules Chairwoman Louise Slaughter is prepping to help usher the healthcare overhaul through the House and potentially avoid a direct vote on the Senate overhaul bill, the chairwoman said Tuesday.
Slaughter is weighing preparing a rule that would consider the Senate bill passed once the House approves a corrections bill that would make changes to the Senate version.
Slaughter is weighing preparing a rule that would consider the Senate bill passed once the House approves a corrections bill that would make changes to the Senate version.
Nothing in that statement says that the Senate has to vote again, which means that the 'corrections' are passed by the House only. Indeed, Harry Reid can stop any effort in the Senate to protest since he controls the calendar there.
We all think that's blatantly unconstitutional and would take it to the courts.
Possibilities:
1) the federal courts right up to the USSC decline to review citing separation of powers. Certainly possible, though the SC has to know that the reasonable respect they're currently held in by the public would disappear if they did this. The consequences are the same as in option #2.
2) the USSC eventually reviews and judges the maneuver to be constitutional. This opens up a real can of worms and would, if grabbed by all parties, mean the end of legislation. After all, if one house can pass something that the other house doesn't have to agree to, why bother with the legislative process? Should the Pubs get power back, why not have one house (e.g., the House of Representatives) pass a bill banning BambiCare? The Democrats who control the Senate refuse to call along, but who cares -- a precedent has been established. But which way?
The House might argue (especially since Tip O'Neill noted that the Senate was the 'enemy') that this turns the Senate into, essentially, a House of Lords -- useful but not necessary, and a group that can always be bypassed. But the Senate might try very quickly to turn the new rule around and pass something that Obama really wants that the House doesn't get to consider. What then?
Louise Slaughter isn't the sharpest knife in the drawer but even she has to see that such a new constitutional rule could easily mean the end of any progressive agenda. It creates so much instability that our system has to fail, fail quickly, and she certainly understands that the US is a center-right country (else why go through such maneuvers to pass the health care bill in the first place?).
Louise, reminder #1: who owns most of the firearms in this country?
Louise, reminder #2: if called upon to stop a march or insurrection, which way would our military break?
Finding this maneuver to be constitutional is the quickest way to a left-fascist state and subsequent Spanish-style civil war I know of. Pelosi, Reid and Obama can't be that stupid. That leaves option #3.
3) the USSC eventually reviews and judges the maneuver to be unconstitutional.
Ah-ha.
Who is happier, you or Louise?
If the SC says this can't be done, the progressives and Democrats (but I repeat myself) can go to their now enraged constituencies and say hey, we tried but the danged SC stopped us. Y'all have to give us money so we can get re-elected and replace the SC. Obama can do the same. We did our best but the evil insurers, Republicans, courts, etc blocked our agenda. Health care goes away as an issue and by November (they hope) the short-attention span public is fixated on other things -- any other things.
In other words, they get to kick the can down the road, game the mid-terms, and come back in 2011. Or 2013. Or 2023. They can keep trying.
For that scenario to help the Democrats, it's best to do it quickly. If the SC takes until October to rule, the Democrats are cooked in the mid-term election.
4) none of this happens because the House realizes that it risks the results of the previous options.
That means BambiCare goes down to defeat. If they can kill it quickly enough the Democrats can go back to their districts and campaign for the fall, hoping that by November the short-attention span public is fixated on other things. They minimize their losses, maybe even keep the House, and come back in 2011.
Louise and the Democrats suffer little for floating the idea. They suffer only modestly if they do it and the SC promptly strikes it down. They think they win if they do it and the SC doesn't strike it down, not recognizing the coming storm.
I'm betting this proposal dies a quiet death -- option #4. But it doesn't hurt Louise to try it; she's in a safe, safe district. That's why Pelosi had her be the mouthpiece on this one.
Just a thought.
Posted by: Steve White ||
03/10/2010 20:30 Comments ||
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#3
just a thought? better put than most of mine....
Louise's balloon was indeed a threat without promise because after this fall's destruction of teh Democrat party control they would be back to begging for precedence and parliamentiary rules they just obeyed.
Kick them in the teeth and stomp their necks if they go through with this, and make it clear now that you will do so. Let them feel the heat now and the "Whining" accusations next year. F*ck em
my thoughts.. as it were
Posted by: Frank G ||
03/10/2010 21:46 Comments ||
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Frank and Steve you're both overlooking the utterly predictable but absolutely-certain-to-occur scenario: the Dems ram this through via the Slaughter Solution; the S.Ct. takes the conservative view that bills were passed by both the House & Senate and that this isn't within their purview; and finally the Trunks take back Congress in the fall with enough RINOs immediately reaching across the aisle to guarantee the Dems a continued center-left agenda going forward and denying the conservatives any shot at deep-sixing Obamacare. We've seen this movie before.
she was a real piece of work and married to John Conyers (D-stolen frozen turkeys) who remains a Congressional Black Caucus and Demo party stalwart. Wish he could join her
Posted by: Frank G ||
03/10/2010 18:55 ||
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John and Monica. Pillars of the community.
Detroit deserves everything that happens to it.
A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
Jim Geraghty, "Campaign Spot" @ National Review
Committee members find ways to excuse colleagues' bad behavior.
It has been said well and famously that politicians only really commit a gaffe when they tell the truth without meaning to. Add House Speaker Nancy Pelosi to the list.
With just 29% of likely Republican primary voters approving of his job performance, Gov. Charlie Crist's Senate campaign appears on the verge of defeat. A new Public Policy Polling survey finds Marco Rubio leading Crist in the primary by 32 points -- a stunning collapse of a candidate many assumed a year ago would be serving in the Senate in 2011.
