Never for a moment in my life have I been "in love." I do not believe in the notion. Fireworks have not filled my heart. Flames of a fiery passion do not burn within me. Indeed, my soul has not been ablaze. Thoughts of a hot-blooded devotion seem illogical to me. Such sentiments always have. Fondness too fertile is but torture for me. I admire many, and adore none. For me, the affection I feel for another is born out of sincere and profound appreciation. To like another means more to me than to love or be loved. Excitement, an emotional reaction to another, rises up within me when I experience an empathetic exchange with someone who has glorious gray matter.
Today, it happened. I felt an a twinge that startled me. I stood still as he entered the room. I expected nothing out of the ordinary, or at least nothing other than what has become his recently adopted, more avoidant, routine. Although long ago, I had become accustomed to his face, his voice, and his demeanor, for I have known the man for more than a few years. In the last few weeks, while essentially he is who he always was, some of his stances have changed. Possibly, Barry has felt a need to compromise his positions, but I wonder; what of his principles.
I am a discontent and distressed taxpayer! "Disgruntled" is a word that might describe my deep dissatisfaction with how my tax dollars are spent. Yet, on April 15, 2009, typically thought of as "Tax Day," I felt no need to join my fellow citizens in protest. I did not attend a "Tea Party". I too believe, in this country, "taxation without representation" is a problem. One only need ponder the profits of lobbyists to understand the premise. Corporate supplicants amass a 22,000 percent rate of return on their investments. The average American is happy to realize a two-digit increase. Nonetheless, as much as I too may argue the point, assessments are paid without accountability, what concerns me more is my duty dollars did not support what I think ethical projects.
The Obama administration unveiled two major nominations on Monday: Kansas Gov. Kathleen Sebelius for Secretary of Health and Human Services and Nancy-Ann DeParle for health czar. The czar is responsible for shepherding healthcare reform legislation through Congress and the Secretary will be responsible for implementing the plan.
By Zach Carter, Media Consortium MediaWire Blogger
President Barack Obama rolled out his highly anticipated federal budget proposal on Thursday, and while the plan represents a dramatic departure from the priorities of the Bush administration, its ultimate impact may be crippled by a counterproductive bank bailout.
At the progressive media summit, Senate Armed Services Chair Carl Levin just said that "there needs to be an accounting of torture in this country." He was adamant that torture was a policy initiated at the highest levels of the Bush administration, and pointed the assembled media to a report on his website indicating as much. I cannot find this report on either the Armed Services website at this time, or on Levin's Senate page. If anyone else can find it, please post a link in the comments. Edit (Dan): Here it is.
Additionally, Levin insisted that he would continue his investigation on torture policies within the Department of Defense until it is completed. He urged the Senate Intelligence committee to do the same for torture policies initiated by the CIA. Further, Senator Levin indicated that he had urged Attorney General nominee Eric Holder to spend resources in the Department of Justice to finish the investigation.
Earlier, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid had indicated that he would provide all Senate committees with additional resources (money and staff) so that, among other things, investigations of the sort Levin was engaged in could be expanded and completed.
Finally, Senator Levin insisted that Eric Holder would be confirmed as Attorney General despite today's delay tactics by Arlen Specter. Also, while I did not have a chance to ask Senator Levin if he intended to introduce legislation to mirror House Judiciary Chair Conyers's bill on a commission to investigate Bush administration crimes, I should have a chance to do so later today. Stay tuned.
HR 104, a bill by House Judiciary Chair John Conyers to create a commission to investigate Bush-era crimes, took a step forward yesterday when House Speaker Nancy Pelosi signaled her support. From the Young Turks:
Pelosi who famously remarked in 2006 after Democrats won control of both Houses of Congress that "impeachment is off the table" indicated during an interview with Fox News she was willing to support legislation proposed by House Judiciary Committee Chairman John Conyers to create a blue-ribbon panel of outside experts to probe the "broad range" of policies pursued by the Bush administration "under claims of unreviewable war powers," including torture and warrantless wiretaps.
But told by Fox News' Chris Wallace that President-elect Barack Obama signaled his unwillingness to support efforts to investigate the Bush administration, Pelosi countered, saying, "I think that we have to learn from the past, and we cannot let the politicizing of the - for example, the Justice Department, to go unreviewed. Past is prologue. We learn from it. And my views on the subject - I don't think that Mr. Obama and Mr. Conyers are that far apart."(...)
Pelosi said issues related to the politicization of the Justice Department will require Congress to "look at each item and see what is a violation of the law, and do we even have a right to ignore it, and other things that are - maybe time spent better looking to the future rather than to the past."
The pre-season prediction of the House being more progressive than the Senate appears to be holding true to form. On Wednesday, the House will pass legislation to place increased transparency, oversight and conditions on TARP funds, even though the Senate, led in this case by Baking Chair Chris Dodd, is currently refusing to pass similar legislation. The same can be said of HR 104 as there is currently no equivalent legislation in the Senate to investigate Bush administration crimes.
"I think that there's a lot that remains to look at, and I appreciate that President Obama doesn't want to make it his purpose as a new president, with America in real distress in many directions, to go back and look at all this, but I think we in Congress have an independent responsibility, and I fully intend to discharge that responsibility," Whitehouse said.
I have placed a call to Senator Whitehouse's office on this matter, inquiring as to whether the Senator intends to introduce legislation similar to HR 104 in the Senate. I have not heard back yet, and I do not imagine that I will hear back before Wednesday given the holiday and festivities, but this is another great example of a piece of progressive legislation that needs a little help to get through Congress. As such, it is legislation we will work to try and pass.
She said it! I never thought this day would come. Change has truly arrived in America, even before the Presidential Inauguration. Today, on Fox News, Nancy Pelosi, Speaker of the House, the only person who could, the woman who for so long would not, stated, she is Open to the Prosecution of Bush Administration Officials. Oh joy! Oh, bliss. Never did I imagine this moment might become a reality. Even the idea that this could be a possibility eluded me. Today, on January 18, 2009, finally, I have hope. I believe in the future, as Michelle Obama expressed, "For the first time in my adult lifetime, I am really proud of my country, or I will be when I see an actionable censure.
Today, I placed calls into several congressional offices, looking into the stimulus package, investigations of the Bush administration, and the second phase of the Wall Street bailout. Here is what I found:
1. Foreclosure relief and bankruptcy reform not in the stimulus: With a draft outline of the stimulus package currently circulating, I contacted a congressional aide who confirmed to me that the provisions of HR 225 and S 61, allowing bankruptcy judges to re-write mortgages according to current home values, did not appear to be included and was overall unlikely to be included. Given our efforts on this front earlier in the week, this is unfortunate. However, the aide expressed optimism that this aspect of foreclosure relief and bankruptcy reform would be attached to a near-future, omnibus Foreclosure Relief bill that House Finance Chair Frank will be moving forward later in the session (aka, later this year).
One Democratic senator who sits on both the Judiciary and Intelligence committees said Congress does need to see the secret legal opinions drafted for Vice President Dick Cheney by the Justice Department's Office of Legal Counsel. Rhode Island's Sheldon Whitehouse considers those opinions a blot on the Justice Department.
"I think that there's a lot that remains to look at, and I appreciate that President Obama doesn't want to make it his purpose as a new president, with America in real distress in many directions, to go back and look at all this, but I think we in Congress have an independent responsibility, and I fully intend to discharge that responsibility," Whitehouse said.
I called Senator Whitehouse's press office to see if the Senator intended to introduce mirror legislation to HR 104, a bill by House Judiciary Chair Conyers to create an independent commission to investigate Bush-era crimes. The press office did not know at this time, but they would get back to me in a day or two once they have the answer.
3. Will there be new conditions, transparency and oversight on bailout funding? Finally, pursuant to a Politico article that Senate Banking Chairman Dodd might not introduce mirror legislation to House Finance Chair Frank's HR 384, which places tough conditions, transparency and oversight on the use of TARP money:
Obama's team will draft a letter laying out some assurances on how it would spend the money, and Dodd says it should be broadened beyond the financial sector to include commitments to help stave off home foreclosures, more accountability and tighter requirements on executive compensation for private companies that receive TARP funds.
Dodd said he's prepared to draft legislation, mirroring a bill proposed by Rep. Barney Frank (D-Mass) last week, to call for a broadening of the TARP program and for more oversight, but he said that a letter from Obama's team - instead of additional legislation - could be sufficient to alleviate concerns in Congress.
I called Senator Dodd's office and asked if Senator Dodd intended to introduce mirror legislation to HR 384 (which is currently being debated in the House). No response has been received at this time. I will have to keep trying.
****
These are three of the stories I am following right now. We have entered a new moment where not only are Democrats actually passing a huge amount of legislation, but where they are willing to talk to progressive media about it. As such, if you want me to look into other aspects of these stories, or into other congressional stories altogether, I can do so. Let me know what you want to see in the comments. The doors really are open right now. Let's take advantage of this.
Update: As per the comments, I have added broadband and high-speed rail funding as the next issues I will make inquiries about. And, keep in mind that I started asking Dodd's office about mirror legislation because of commenter debcoop, too. I really will take your concerns to the Hill. Just let me know.
One of the first items the new session of the Senate will vote on will be S 8, the vaguely named "Returning Government to the American People Act." The bill, which has already been placed in the Senate calendar and is thus eligible for action on the floor of the Senate, is a placeholder for a broad new Democratic effort to review, and then reverse, many of the regulations the Bush administration instituted during its final weeks. These include regulations such as a "conscience clause" allowing health care workers broad latitude to deny certain medications and procedures on the grounds of religious beliefs (read here: medications and procedures related to reproductive rights).
These and other right-wing landmines are being laid to help trip up the new administration, and progressive governance. Rooting out these last-minute regulations would be a great way to start cleaning up the mess left by the Bush administration. As part of that effort, S 8 reads (more in the extended entry):
"Will you appoint a Special Prosecutor (ideally Patrick Fitzgerald) to independently investigate the gravest crimes of the Bush Administration, including torture and warrantless wiretapping?"
This question has received a decent amount of media play, as it is featured by Keith Olbermann and George Stephanopoulos. The latter teases that he asked Obama this question in an interview for "This Week" tomorrow morning.
Change.gov's response to Fertik's question was a bit of a non-answer, quoting Biden from three weeks ago:
Vice President-elect Biden, 12/21/08: "[T]he questions of whether or not a criminal act has been committed or a very, very, very bad judgment has been engaged in is--is something the Justice Department decides. Barack Obama and I are--President-elect Obama and I are not sitting thinking about the past. We're focusing on the future... I'm not ruling [prosecution] in and not ruling it out. I just think we should look forward. I think we should be looking forward, not backwards."
While not ruling out investigation, Biden's response makes it clear that such investigations will not be a priority. It is a safe bet that Obama will provide a similar answer tomorrow morning.
This is an instance where we do not have to wait for the Justice Department, however. Given that, in the U.S. House, John Conyers has introduced legislation to set up commissions to investigate the Bush administration, this could actually be a perfect starting point for the progressive legislation monitoring project. Starting on either Monday or Tuesday, we could call the Democratic members of the four(!) committees to which the Conyers bill, H.R. 104, has been referred, and ask them if they support it. In so doing, we can find out who is blocking the bill on our end.
Now, I did not originally list H.R. 104 as one of the pieces of legislation for the project to start with, because it is just a commission rather than an actual investigation. If no one is actually going to be prosecuted, this might not rise above the level of a resolution condemning something or congratulating someone. However, it is something that a lot of netroots activists and media types are both interested in, so I am willing to make it one of the bills we start with if there is enough support here. To go along with it, I will try to find another piece of legislation that has been referred to each of the four committees in question, so that we are asking members about more than one bill. If we can find out about more than one piece of legislation with each contact, it would make the monitoring project much more efficient.
In my earlier diary, Midnight De-Regulation and the Myth of A 'Center Right Nation' -- Part 1: The Environment, I presented a list of Bush Administration midnight de-regulations of environmental protections, as an example of how unpopular center-right policies really are enacted in this supposedly "center-right" nation--so unpopular that they are done quickly and stealthily in the dead of night, with as few witnesses as possible-a dead giveaway of the real popularity of such policies. In this diary, I want shine a bit more light on the particulars of how this happens. I'll get into that on the flip. But first, just so you understand it's not just environmental protections that are being hit, here's a few other examples of last-minute changes Bush is pushing for on the way out the door:
Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (Department of Transportation) - The rule would allow truck drivers to drive up to 11 consecutive hours. Because of the effects of fatigue, longer hours-of-service periods put both truck drivers and other motorists at risk.
Department of Justice - The rule would expand the power of state and local law enforcement agencies to investigate potential criminal activities and report the information to federal agencies. The rule would broaden the scope of activities authorities could monitor to include organizations as well as individuals, along with non-criminal activities that are deemed "suspicious."
Employment Standards Administration (Labor) - The rule would limit employee access to family and medical leave. Among other things, the rule would make it more difficult for workers to use paid vacation or personal time to take leave and would allow employers to speak directly to an employee's health care provider.
Department of Health and Human Services - The rule could reduce women's access to federally funded reproductive health services. The rule would require health care providers to certify they will allow their employees to withhold services on the basis of religious or moral grounds or risk losing funding.
The myth of a center-right nation is kept alive like most myths are--by the simple act of endless repetition. But like most myths, it doesn't do so well when you try a little reality testing. For example, if this really were a center-right nation, would the Bush Administration have to do so damn much dirty work behind closed doors, in undisclosed locations, or contracted out to somebody's horse-trainer's cousin? Or, to put a little finer point on it, would the Bushies really have to wait until they were halfway out the door to enact a whole slew of environmental regulations like the following, without congressional input?
Office of Surface Mining (Interior) -- The rule would allow mining companies to dump the waste (i.e. excess rock and dirt) from mountaintop mining into rivers and streams.
Environmental Protection Agency -- The rule would ease current restrictions that make it difficult for power plants to operate near national parks and wilderness areas.
Environmental Protection Agency -- Under the rule, concentrated animal feeding operations, i.e. factory farms, could allow farm runoff to pollute waterways without a permit. The rule circumvents the Clean Water Act, instead allowing for self-regulation.
Environmental Protection Agency -- The rule would exempt factory farms from reporting air pollution emissions from animal waste.
...to remind you that the current administration will, in fact, be in power for several more months. Not to count chickens, but I don't see a strategic scenario in which John McCain pulls off a win on Tuesday, which means that we have two vital tasks to accomplish as quickly as possible. The first is the battle for Obama's soul, as JJ put it. The second, which is not entirely unrelated, is a full-fledged understanding of the damage that the Bush administration did to the country and to the world.
It would be far easier to follow in Bush's footsteps, to keep using the tools they forged, than to truly take the country in a new direction. Indeed, to abandon everything that they accomplished would be literally impossible: in the absence of something like 9/11 or Pearl Harbor, the United States is just not nimble enough to radically change its foreign policy over a single presidential term. To have a chance of salvaging the rule of international law, then, we need to know how they did what they did as soon as humanly possible. By January 20th, at the latest.
Scott Horton has a story on a documentary that will make the case that the highest levels of the Bush administration authorized torture, at the level of even authorizing particular techniques on individual prisoners. Problem is that PBS has refused to air it, until next year:
PBS would not run the show-at least not until President Bush has left office. The show delivers impressively on a promise to "connect the dots in an investigation of interrogations of prisoners in U.S. custody that became 'at a minimum, cruel and inhuman treatment and, at worst, torture'"
While this might lead one to indict PBS, I think the real story is more interesting, and highlights the importance of strong public media.
Yesterday, I complained about things that will continue to frustrate me after the impending Democratic landslide is complete. Today, I'd like to balance that out with a series of things that I won't miss after the huge Democratic victories this year. In the extended entry, I list a whole bunch of them.
Here is, as succinctly as possible, my rationale for opposing the bailout:
Politically speaking, any bailout bill passed between now and January 19th will require Bush's signature, and siding with Bush will do Democrats more political harm than good. Economically speaking, any bill that gives the Bush administration this much money and power will cause more economic harm than waiting 113 days to allow Obama to deal with the problem. As such, it is not just politically sensible, but it is also economically sensible to wait until the next administration in order to act.
My solution is simple: stop negotiating with Bush altogether and make the election a referendum on what sort of economic plan to pass. The public would overwhelmingly back such a move, as polling shows (more in the extended entry):
"As you may know, the Bush administration has proposed a plan that would allow the Treasury Department to buy and re-sell up to $700 billion of distressed assets from financial companies. What would you like to see Congress do: pass a plan similar to what the Bush administration has proposed, take action but pass something different from what the Bush administration has proposed, or not take any action on this matter?"
Similar to Bush Proposal: 22%
Different from Bush Proposal: 56%
Not Take Any Action: 11%
Not only does the public support ending negotiations over the Bush plan, the polling trends over the last two weeks make it clear that keeping this issue front and center is really, really helping Democrats. We will win a huge trifecta if this is the news for the next five weeks. And with a huge trifecta, we can pass a plan that will actually solve the crisis, rather than handing over even more money and power to the Bush administration.
It is more politically irresponsible and damaging to the economy to hand over that much money and power to the Bush administration than it is to wait another 113 days. And don't even talk to me about the regulations and oversight in the bill. People like Bush and Paulson caused this problem, ignoring regulations and oversight the entire way. They will ignore the regulations we tack on, just like they threatened to do so with any Iraq timeline, and just as the Treasury department is already admitting in public conference calls on this bill. And then, when Democrats in Congress get mad, the administration will ignore their subpoenas, just as they have done all along. The regulations and add-ons don't mean anything. You can't regulate the Bush administration.
So that's my argument. I think it is a good one. And, unlike Paul Krugman, I don't think that it makes us a banana republic to have so little trust in the White House that we refuse to give them more power. I think, after the last eight years, that it makes us eminently sensible, and starts moving us back on the road to becoming a better functioning republic.
Things are getting a little suspicious about this "crisis."
Why did the Bush administration suddenly declare a "crisis" during the final two weeks when Congress would be in session during his presidency? Is it maybe because, after the election, Congress would know it wasn't dealing with Bush anymore?
Why is Paulson urging that debate on the matter be held after the legislation is passed?
The burden of proof should always be placed on those who are demanding a huge government bailout, not upon those who are skeptical that one is needed. And yet the questions keep mounting, with no answers in sight.
I am not saying that there is no need for government intervention. I am saying that the case for a $700 billion bailout is far from having been made. Until the case is made, there is no need to go forward. We will elect a new President in 42 days. We swear in a new Congress in 103 days. What is the rush? Why does this all of a sudden need to be done while the Bush administration is still in charge? The case hasn't been made, and answers are slow in coming, if they come at all.
You have to remember, these are not all weak or troubled firms that own mortgage-backed securities. A lot of them are very successful banks and investment houses that have done very well, have been responsible, are holding performing assets that have value. They were not necessarily irresponsible players, and so you have to be careful about how you deal with them.
Um, then why are we bailing them out? I thought there was a crisis. Now the government has to step in and help out hugely profitable firms just because one aspect of those banks is as profitable as the rest? Whenever rich people make a mistake, taxpayers have to plug the gap, even if those rich people are still making huge amounts of money?
They are just lying, and looking to make the biggest single rip off in history. If there was a pitchfork and torch event taking place anywhere right now, I'd join in. This seems a helluva a lot like Louis the XVI demanding more money from the Estates General. When does the march on Versailles begin? It might seriously be time for a few hundred thousand people to start sleeping in two shanty towns, one surrounding the Capitol and the other surrounding the White House. If they can get away with this, then they can get away with anything.
Saving Earth from asteroids, constructing permanent Moon bases, traveling to Mars, launching climate monitoring satellites, discovering Earth-like planets in nearby solar systems, researching faster than light propulsion, engineering space elevators tethered to habitable cities with sustainable industries in geo-synchronous orbit--these are just some of the space-program related topics I discuss in the extended entry.
