Okay, Help Me Out Here

So far, we’ve been told by the Serious People that:

– Reconciliation is bad when it’s used to pass HCR with a public option

– Reconciliation is bad when it’s used to pass budgets, which is what it was expressly designed to do

– Reconciliation is GOOD when it’s used to ram through an HCR bill without a public option but with goodies for the health and insurance industries that are so rich that it’s causing them to continue their recently-enacted policy of giving far more to Democrats than to their historical allies in the GOP.

Have I got that right?

Just checking.

UPDATE: Well, that was a fast turnaround. Looks like reconciliation will be used after all.

CAF’s “Virtual Summit on Fiscal and Economic Responsibility for People Who Did Not Wreck the Economy”

As you likely know, billionaire Wall Streeter Pete Peterson, he who has essentially bought into (or off) the Washington Post with offers of free content, is trying to use bizarre and bogus propaganda like his film “IOUSA” to scare Americans into cutting programs like Social Security and turning over their treasuries to himself and his brokerage-firm and hedge-fund buddies. Peterson and his fellow travelers over at the Concord Coalition have been at this for so long and so insistently that they’ve managed to cow President Obama into giving them free publicity for their 04/28/10 “Fiscal Summit” bullpucky in the form of a “White House debt commission”, whose first official meeting is a week from today.

Fortunately, we can work to cut through the din created by even Peterson’s platinum megaphone. Today is the start of the Campaign for America’s Future’s “Virtual Summit on Fiscal and Economic Responsibility for People Who Did Not Wreck the Economy“.

This is one enterprise that Pete Peterson does not control. The people whose hinky and “creative” actions on Wall Street have trashed life on Main Street are nowhere to be found here.

Bookmark http://www.ourfuture.org/virtualsummit and spread the word. Let’s frame this before they can.

The Agent Proschlockateur Does It Again

On this, the 15th anniversary of Oklahoma City, when right-wing terrorists blew up the Murrah Building killing 168 men, women and children, I am reminded of Mitch Berg, the local right-wing agent proschlockateur who famously tried to have it both ways back in 2007 when he simultaneously tried to pre-emptively blame lefty protesters for any and all acts of violence at the upcoming Republican National Convention, while at the same time happily discussing the 2008 convention plans of himself and his buddies at “Protest Warrior“, whose members like to go around doing stupid things while pretending to be lefty protesters.

(By the way, I’m convinced that the “punch the hippies” climate of fear to which he and other local right-wing talkers and bloggers contributed, taken along with Bob Fletcher’s eagerness to act like a thug in the service of the Republican National Committee’s desire to be spared the sight of any protesters — which, since the RNC conventioneers never actually set foot outside of the Xcel Center without being immediately placed in a bus or limo that took them to downtown Minneapolis and environs whenever they wanted to go somewhere for lunch or dinner, was easily accomplished — is what led to the massive overreactions and mass arrests of people like Amy Goodman. But I digress.)

On this sad anniversary, Mitchie-poo’s managed to provide some unintentional comic relief, as Spotty of The Cucking Stool explains:

Apparently, Mitch Berg is claiming that The Uptake crew at the Tea Party rally, including me, did not identify itself to potential interviewees. But here is a brief video clip of the introduction to the interview of Mitch himself.

Heh.

A Little Anniversary

Remember what happened as a result of right-wing media mouthpieces fanning hatred fifteen years ago today?

I do.

Oklahoma City, April 19, 1995. Never forget.

PBS: Past and Beyond Saving

Dr. Margaret Flowers, one of the few heroines of this fallen age:

It was with a sense of deja vu that I watched the latest Frontline documentary about health care. “Obama’s Deal” endeavored to reveal the significant influence of health industry dollars on our political process. However, as in Frontline’s “Sick Around America,” the producers did a disservice by their failure to educate the public about the bigger picture of the health care situation in this nation and the range of possible solutions.

Curiously, just as it was in the health “debate,” single-payer, improved Medicare for all was also excluded from the film….

“Obama’s Deal” contained a segment on those who oppose health reform, but nowhere were single-payer advocates given a chance to explain their proposal or motivations. Neither was it noted that the hatred and fear seen at the summer town halls and that factored into the election of Massachusetts Sen. Scott Brown were assisted by the stealth organizing efforts of ultra-conservative Dick Armey of FreedomWorks and others.

Bill Moyers, gone at the end of the season. NOW, gone at the end of the season. Frontline, turned into propaganda.

There’s so little left of what was once an operation that could make all Americans proud, I don’t think it’s worth saving.

A Note For My Fellow Cyclists

I was tootling home on Wheelock Parkway, riding my bike at my standard slowpoke pace, when a pack of male spandex apostles zipped by me as I approached the intersection with Arlington; they then turned right down Arlington, right in front of me, chatting amongst themselves but without a word to the middle-aged female person they’d nearly run down.

These were the sort of folks who used to be called “road weenies” back in the 1980s, but actual road weenies would have known to say “on your left” before contemptuously passing the untermensch on the bike in front of them. The current version doesn’t notice you enough to consider you anything as advanced as an untermensch; you’re just this slow-moving obstruction to get around.

Now, granted, I should have been checking my rear-view mirror more frequently, so I could have seen them in time to have slowed down enough to have allowed them to pass me safely en masse. But it would have been nice if the leader of the club ride had sung out “On your left!” or even dinged a bike-bell.

And then they wonder why a lot of motorists hate us.

Disbar Caroline Hunter

Via Avedon Carol, an update from Raw Story on Federal Election Commissioner Caroline Hunter, who helped the Ohio State Republican Party in its voter suppression efforts of 2004. A complaint has been filed with the DC Board of Professional Responsibility by Velvet Revolution. An excerpt:

During the run-up to the election, Hunter participated in a September 30 conference call during which “Voter Reg Fraud Strategies” were developed. Her name appears near the top of the list of conference call participants. [see attached 9-30-04 RNC email copied from Page 3 of 43 of Court document 23-7; Filed 11/01/2004 in Case 2:81-cv-03876-DRD-SDW]

Subsequently, six days later as Exhibit 7 reveals, Hunter received at least one email from top-level GOP/RNC Party officials directly engaged in the process of vote caging in Ohio, where the interveners filed the injunction. Hunter’s email address is the only one tagged “Legal” in threads where senior party organizers concern themselves with GOP ‘fingerprints’ on their voting caging activities. [See pages 17-18, Document 23-7]

No emails released by the GOP in evidence in Exhibit 7 reveal any legal concerns or issues raised by Ms. Hunter despite her clear involvement as part of a high level team within the RNC developing and implementing explicit vote caging activities.

Republican concerns about voter fraud should be taken seriously, because if anyone doubts the legitimacy of election results, it weakens our nation. It would be nice if they would take Democratic concerns about electoral fraud– tampering with voter registration and voting results– just as seriously. But what cannot be tolerated is either party taking the law into their own hands, which is what the Republicans have done through “voter caging.” This is the conspiracy in which Caroline Hunter apparently participated in, either actively or passively, from a trusted position as officer of the court. It’s a shame that only disbarment is contemplated. Her voting rights should be taken away.

Please support Velvet Revolution’s petition.

Empire Rising

The tragically-misguided response of the United States to Honduras is a clear sign of a declining empire, sowing long-term enmities for short-term economic and tactical gains. But a new order is rising. In fact, they held a meeting. Beatriz Bissio, IPS News:

In the space of one day, Thursday Apr. 15, two meetings destined to have broad repercussions were held in Brasilia: the summits of the leaders of the IBSA (India, Brazil and South Africa) and BRIC (Brazil, Russia, India and China) groups.

The futuristic design of the Brazilian capital, which just turned 50, was the symbolic setting for the two conferences aimed at modeling a different future, with an emphasis on the defence of multilateralism and the need for reforms in the United Nations, International Monetary Fund (IMF) and World Bank.

The fact that Brazil hosted the BRIC and IBSA gatherings confirms the influence of Brazil’s foreign policy and diplomacy and this country’s vocation to push debates on issues that were wiped off the international agenda by the neoliberal storm.

Some questions that have reemerged on the agenda are development with social justice, South-South cooperation, and the steady weakening of the dollar as a reference currency in trade transactions among emerging powers.

The coordination effort can also be interpreted as a determination to safeguard national interests and seek a new role in the formulation of proposals for overcoming the global financial and economic crisis that broke out in 2008.

IBSA and BRIC “are two important manifestations of a new order that is taking shape,” said Williams Gonçalves, a professor of international relations at the Rio de Janeiro State University and author of several books on the question.

Brazil has advantages in becoming the next rising world power. India and China are natural rivals. While India is truly a continental power, China has had periods of expansionism and is accordingly distrusted by nations like Japan and Vietnam (Japan, of course, had its own little experiment with expansionism). Russia is another of China’s natural rivals. But the only real rival of Brazil is the United States. And if the influence of the United States is declining, Brazil is the most likely of the emerging nations to fill the vacuum.

This is not to endorse this development. No earthly empire is benevolent. Terna Gyuse, IPS News:

“A part of the idea behind IBSA is to push for reform, but the reform is not about empowering smaller countries,” says Shawn Hattingh, a researcher at the International Labour Research Information Group in Cape Town.

Friday Cat Blogging

This is her “You have food and you’re not sharing it with me” stare.

Kinda Says It All

From the Star Tribune:

Rep. Michele Bachmann solidified her place in the national spotlight in November when she gathered thousands of Tea Party activists in front of the U.S. Capitol for a “House Call on Washington,” to stop the Democrats’ health care bill.

Months later, official expense reports show that the boisterous, 10,000-person rally to rein in big government and stop runaway spending cost U.S. taxpayers nearly $14,000.