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News and Views: Found on the Internets – Thursday, 11/21 UPDATE: Filibuster nuked.

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A series of tubes filled with enormous amounts of material

Privilege has its privileges …

Rep. Trey Radel To Take Leave Of Absence, Get Treatment

Just hours after pleading guilty on Wednesday to a misdemeanor charge of cocaine possession, Rep. Trey Radel (R-FL) announced that he would take a leave of absence from Congress and seek treatment to deal with his problems.

After entering his guilty plea in Washington, D.C. Superior Court on Wednesday, Radel was sentenced to one year of supervised probation and ordered to pay a $250 fine to a victims’ compensation fund. If he successfully completes the probation, the court would then dismiss the case.

Read More: Pelosi Takes Shot At GOP Food Stamp Policy After Radel Drug Charge

House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) said Tuesday that she hoped drug charges against Rep. Trey Radel (R-FL) could “humanize” Republicans’ approach to food stamps.

Speaking at a BuzzFeed Brews event, Pelosi noted that when Radel allegedly purchased cocaine from an undercover federal agent on Oct. 29, the buy came “on the heels of the Republicans voting to make sure that everybody who had access to food stamps was drug tested.”

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Good news from Massachusetts …

Massachusetts State Senators Approve Nation’s Highest Minimum Wage

The Massachusetts state Senate passed a bill on Tuesday that would raise the state’s minimum wage to $11 an hour and ensure future automatic increases tied to inflation. If it were to pass the state House and be signed into law by the governor, it would be the highest state minimum wage in the country.

Federal lawmakers have pushed for a minimum wage hike for the whole country, with President Obama recently coming out in favor of a $10.10 an hour wage, something that Democrats introduced in March but was unanimously shot down by Republicans.

A federal hike enjoys strong support, with one poll showing 80 percent in favor of a raise to $10.10, including two-thirds of Republicans, and another showing 76 percent support a $9 wage, including nearly 60 percent of Republicans.

Bad News for the Currently Hungry: Food Stamp Cuts Leave Rural Areas, And Their Grocers, Reeling

(More news under the fold …)

What’s this, Scottie? Did the Tea Party intimidate you?? …

Scott Walker Backtracks On Immigration Reform

Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker (R) appeared to back away from his support for a pathway to citizenship during an appearance on Morning Joe on Wednesday, telling the Huffington Post’s Sam Stein that he only supports “fixing the legal immigration system, not going beyond that”.

Read about the truly unintimidated:  UNINTIMIDATED.org The bullies won’t get us down

The Solidarity Sing Along, the longest running singing protest in history, has endured over two and a half years of Governor Scott Walker’s attempts to stifle dissent in the Wisconsin Capitol. It all started on March 11, 2011, when a few people gathered to sing songs of resistance near the bust of Fighting Bob La Follette. The Sing Along grew as citizens became more and more aware of Scott Walker’s full-blown attack on all that Wisconsin holds dear. As public voices were being shut out of hearing rooms, and corporate-sponsored legislation was being passed in the middle of the night, voices were being raised in the Rotunda. The people sang songs of peace, songs of justice, songs of solidarity.[…]

The story of the Solidarity Sing Along is now being told through the words and photographs of the people who lived it. Unintimidated: Wisconsin Sings Truth to Power includes a first-person account written by SSA participant Ryan Wherley, interwoven with photographs of people who have faced citations, harassment, threats, and arrests, and yet keep coming to the People’s House to express their dissent. The story isn’t over. The people continue to sing joyously, as they have each weekday from noon to 1 p.m. since that first day long ago.

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Today in Affordable Care News …

3 Signs That Obamacare Is Slowing Health Care Spending

The three years since the Affordable Care Act passed — 2011, 2012 and 2013 — have seen the slowest growth in health care spending since 1965, when the statistic began being consistently tracked, according to a new White House report.

When a reporter asked if Obamacare was responsible for 20 to 40 percent of the reduction in the rate of growth, [chairman of President Obama’s Council of Economic Advisors Jason] Furman,  said that “those aren’t unreasonable numbers.”

“The slowdown in health costs is indisputable,” he said. “A very important part of the story is structural, and a very important part of that structural story is the Affordable Care Act.”

Read More: Medicaid Enrollment Is Brisk Despite HealthCare.gov Troubles

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In Congress …

Gillibrand Continues Push For Military Sexual Assault Bill (VIDEO)

Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY) said Sunday that she is moving forward with her original bill that addresses sexual assault in the military, and that she is optimistic about the prospects of her legislation.

Despite a split in the Senate over how to address sexual assaults in the military, Gillibrand is confident that she will surpass the more than 50 votes she currently has in the Senate to pass her bill.

Read More: Reid Supports Gillibrand’s Military Sexual Assault Bill

Read More: McCain Faults Gillibrand’s Lack of “Background or Experience” in Military Sex Assault Fight

Read More: Military Commanders Have Already Failed Assault Victims — Why Trust Them Again?

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Filiblustering? Or finally getting serious? …

Harry Reid Threatens ‘Nuclear Option’ — And Soon

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid on Tuesday threatened to “go nuclear” on filibuster reform in his strongest terms yet, one day after Republicans completed a triple-filibuster of President Barack Obama’s most high-profile judicial nominees.

“I’m considering looking at the rules,” said the Nevada Democrat. “All this [talk of the] sacred nature of the filibuster — I think what we need, and the American people want, is to get things done around here. I’m not talking about changing anything dealing with the Supreme Court or dealing with basic legislation. I am talking about executive nominations.”

Read More: Feinstein Comes Out For Filibuster Reform Via ‘Nuclear Option’

Read More: With Nominees Stalled, Democrats Reprise Filibuster Threat

Opinion: Charlie Pierce: A Call To Democrats To Stop Sitting Back On This Business With Judges

Opinion: Politico: Nuke ‘Em, Harry: Why Democrats Should Kill the Filibuster

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BONUS Story: Paul Ryan’s new anti-poverty plan!!

(and you thought he didn’t care about “the poors” … shame on you!!!)

Extreme Makeover: Paul Ryan Wants You To Believe He Will Help The Poor

The Washington Post’s Lori Montgomery reports on “an ambitious new project” Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI) plans to roll out next year: “an anti-poverty plan to rival his budgetary Roadmap for America’s Future in scope and ambition.”

While the proposal is still light on details, Ryan’s advisers promise “kinder, gentler policies to encourage work and upward mobility.” Ryan will stress volunteerism and working through existing federal programs. The new focus is a shift, Montgomery notes, that may be particularly critical for the Wisconsin congressman, who “rose to prominence as the author of an austere budget blueprint that calls for privatizing Medicare and sharply slowing federal spending on the poor.” […]

Overall, the House Republican budget’s vast spending reductions are overwhelmingly aimed at low-income Americans, so much so that nearly two-thirds of its cuts would come from poverty programs that aid the neediest people in the nation. That would mean steep reductions for child care, Head Start, job training, Pell Grants, housing, energy assistance, Supplemental Security Income (SSI), and Temporary Assistance to Needy Families (TANF), or welfare.

Oh, wait … I misread that! It is not an “anti-poverty” plan but an “anti-poor people” plan. Sorreeeeeeee!

And here is one more impoverished idea from a guy who is morally bankrupt:

Ryan’s views on poverty are inspired by his Catholicism. “You cure poverty eye to eye, soul to soul,” he says. “Spiritual redemption: That’s what saves people.”

Charlie Pierce weighing in on the “New” Paul Ryan: Once Upon A Time, There Was A Zombie-Eyed Granny Starver:

Paul Ryan is an opportunistic hack who never has earned a dime outside of the government-quasi-government bullshit industrial complex. He cares less about the poor than he does about Medicare, which he would like to shred, so that it no longer wrecks old people by keeping them alive. It should be noted that, ever since Ronald Reagan proved you could kick the poor and crush the middle class and still get elected, as long as you did it with a smile and were charmingly dim about it, the Republican party has come out with something like this latest scam every time the general electorate catches on to the fact that modern conservatism is growing nostalgic for the economic and social order of the 1880’s. There is nothing new in Republican charlatanism, not even Paul Ryan.

That is part of a lengthier piece by Charles Pierce and I recommend reading the entire thing. His conclusion:

All those years when my money and the money of millions of other Americans were helping this already well-off young man hold body and soul together while he went through college, how come his incentive wasn’t damaged by all the taking he was doing? How come he wasn’t crippled by “dependency”? How come his work ethic survived long enough to guarantee that he would never draw anything but a government salary for the rest of his life? How come, as a congressman, on my dime, he hasn’t felt the slow, stultifying hand of government strangling his individual initiative? How come the only people all this quasi-mystical horse-pucky applies to are the people too poor for Paul Ryan’s party to care about? If I do nothing for the rest of my career here than point out what a complete fake this guy is, while embarrassing the fatheads who still take him seriously, I will die a happy blogger.

Go get ’em, Charlie!



Feel free to share your own news stories in this open thread.


Categories: Uncategorized.

/ 22 Comments

22 comments

  1. JanF

    Sen. Carl Levin (MI), a consistent Democratic opponent of filibuster reform, said the GOP’s recent judicial blockade hasn’t changed his mind. “If the majority can change the rules, there are no rules,” he told reporters.

    NO, doofus. If the majority can change the rules, it means they are the MAJORITY and they have the right, given to them by the American people, to change the rules!

    There is nothing stupider than keeping your powder dry when the barbarians not only came through the gate but are raiding your refrigerator.

     

  2. JanF

    Harry Reid May Nuke The Filibuster This Week: Dem Sources

    Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) may invoke the “nuclear option” and reform the filibuster as early as Thursday, multiple top Democratic Senate sources told TPM.

    The move would likely scrap the filibuster for executive and judicial nominations, but not legislation or Supreme Court nominees, as Reid signaled earlier this week, and the sources confirmed. He has discussed the matter with his leadership team and members. […]

    Sen. Carl Levin (MI) is the only Democrat on record against invoking the nuclear option.

    Reid is set to meet with advocates for filibuster reform Thursday afternoon in the Capitol.

    He needs 51 Democratic Senators … or 50 plus Joe Biden.

    Do it for the children, Harry. Our kids deserve a judiciary that reflects the intelligence and thoughtfulness of twice-elected President Barack Obama.

  3. JanF

    When you go all-in on anti-Obamacare you have to live with the fallout: siding with those who want to repeal a popular program. All politics is local and Mitch McConnell is about to discover how the national Tea Party agenda will play in Kentucky.

    How Obamacare Could Become A Secret Weapon For McConnell’s Opponent

    McConnell, a longstanding critic of Obamacare, has also had to sharpen his rhetoric in order to protect himself from attacks from Republican primary challenger Matt Bevin and the well-funded Senate Conservatives Fund which has aggressively attacked McConnell as insufficiently opposed to the law.

    Democrats in Kentucky are eager to have Grimes embrace Kentucky’s health care marketplace and go on the offensive against McConnell with it.

    “I think we’re going to have a great story to tell here and be able to push back when the Republicans try to hit us with Obamacare,” Kentucky Democratic Party Chairman Dan Logsdon told TPM. “We’re going to be able to point to Kentucky and point to the governor and, again a Kentucky-based solution. We’re not going to run from it next year.”

  4. princesspat

    Knute Berger, at Crosscut

    When journalist James Fallows was in town a few weeks back to speak at the Crosscut Courage Awards, he had an optimistic message about our current political era. We are in a second Gilded Age, he said, with a wealth gap as bad as or worse than the robber baron era. But he reminded us that what followed that age was an incredible blossoming of citizen-led reform, from women’s suffrage to the Progressive movement that reshaped our democracy for the better.

    Capitalism is a “dirty word”: America’s new socialist council member talks to Salon

    But I would say more accurately that I have always been a socialist, but less consciously. From my very childhood, it was just the experience of growing up in Mumbai, India, and seeing just the ocean of poverty and misery all around me. And for me, it was not simply a question of outrage or fellow-feeling. Of course that’s the starting point, but for me it’s a logical question as well. Which is: How is it possible that there is so much wealth in society, and you can see that there are so many wealthy people who are just wealthy beyond measure, and you have such unimaginable poverty and misery, and just absolute horrendous conditions that human beings are living in …

    It just seemed very, just unacceptable to me logically that that situation was a natural one. I mean, I could see that it had nothing to do with resources or productivity. It was clearly a political obstacle to eliminating poverty.

    Kshama Sawant’s election to the Seattle City Council and her welcome by the local Democratic party is encouraging. She will be an articulate spokesperson for  progressive values and policies.

  5. creamer

    McCain Faults Gillibrand’s Lack of “Background or Experience” in Military Sex Assault Fight

     One might ask what ” experience” he thinks Senator Gillibrand might need.

     One might also ask Mr McCain what “background or experience” he has with sexual assault.

  7. creamer

    Carl Levin your a good guy, but its time to come home dude.

    When your dealing with children, sometimes you have to takeaway their toys.

  9. JanF

    Transcript

    1:59 P.M. EST

    THE PRESIDENT:  Good afternoon, everybody.  It’s no secret that the American people have probably never been more frustrated with Washington.  And one of the reasons why that is, is that over the past five years, we’ve seen an unprecedented pattern of obstruction in Congress that’s prevented too much of the American people’s business from getting done.

    All too often, we’ve seen a single senator or a handful of senators choose to abuse arcane procedural tactics to unilaterally block bipartisan compromises, or to prevent well-qualified, patriotic Americans from filling critical positions of public service in our system of government.

    So I support the step a majority of senators today took to change the way that Washington is doing business — more specifically, the way the Senate does business.  What a majority of senators determined by Senate rule is that they would restore the longstanding tradition of considering judicial and public service nominations on a more routine basis.

    And here’s why this is important:  One of a President’s constitutional responsibilities is to nominate Americans to positions within the executive and judicial branches.  Over the six decades before I took office, only 20 presidential nominees to executive positions had to overcome filibusters.  In just under five years since I took office, nearly 30 nominees have been treated this way.  These are all public servants who protect our national security, look out for working families, keep our air and water clean.

    So I support the step a majority of senators today took to change the way that Washington is doing business — more specifically, the way the Senate does business.  What a majority of senators determined by Senate rule is that they would restore the longstanding tradition of considering judicial and public service nominations on a more routine basis.

    And here’s why this is important:  One of a President’s constitutional responsibilities is to nominate Americans to positions within the executive and judicial branches.  Over the six decades before I took office, only 20 presidential nominees to executive positions had to overcome filibusters.  In just under five years since I took office, nearly 30 nominees have been treated this way.  These are all public servants who protect our national security, look out for working families, keep our air and water clean.

    And I just want to remind everybody, what’s at stake here is not my ability to fulfill my constitutional duty.  What’s at stake is the ability of any President to fulfill his or her constitutional duty.  Public service is not a game.  It is a privilege.  And the consequences of action or inaction are very real.  The American people deserve better than politicians who run for election telling them how terrible government is, and then devoting their time in elected office to trying to make government not work as often as possible.

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