Author: Gregg Levine

Yesterday, masaccio wrote about it. . . and today, you can sing about it.

If you thought “We never saw it coming” sounds like a bit of song and dance, well, as Jimmy Durante would say, You ain’t seen nothing yet.

This American Life, in coordination with Planet Money and ProPublica, produced a radio piece to explain how some not only saw the financial crisis coming, they found that if they helped it along, they could profit from it–like really, really profit from it.

Yesterday, masaccio posted about the Financial Crisis Investigation Commission’s rather pointed questions about credit default swaps issued on synthetic CDOs–and, honestly, the level of underhanded economagic made my head spin. . . but now my head can spin to music!

Both masaccio and Planet Money focus on one hedge fund that did ridiculously well in the last few years: Magnetar. It’s ugly stuff–and, here’s the real soul-stirrer, [SPOILER ALERT] Magnetar is still in business. Look at masaccio’s whole post, check out the video of Brooksley Born grilling Citi execs, and then take a listen to the whole TAL/Planet Money piece when it comes on line. Then watch the video above again, learn the lyrics, and amuse your friends. . . your nerdy but very socially aware friends.

 

The new Wikio blog rankings are about to be released, and an advance look indicates that FDL has jumped to ninth from eleventh place among all political blogs:

1	The Huffington Post
2	The Corner
3	Hot Air
4	Think Progress
5	Michelle Malkin
6	Horserace (CBS)
7	Political Punch (ABC)
8	Gateway Pundit
9	Firedoglake
10	NewsBusters
11	Instapundit.com
12	The Plum Line
13	Political Ticker (CNN)
14	Daily Kos
15	Crooks and Liars
16	fivethirtyeight
17	The Caucus – New York Times blog
18	Power Line
19	The Volokh Conspiracy
20	Redstate – Conservative News and Community

This is no small thing after a year of Democratic leadership that has left much of the recently mighty netroots treading water–or even sinking–as it tries to find its voice in relationship to the ruling majority. The Huffington Post still sits atop the list, but, since last October, Think Progress has been overtaken by both Hot Air and the Corner, sliding from second to fourth. (As the progressive netroots found at their genesis, it’s always easier to play opposition to the party in power.) Greg Sargent’s original reporting at the Plum Line is the other bright spot, jumping from #23 to #14 since last October, while Andrew Sullivan’s Daily Dish opinion site has dropped completely out of the top 20.

Wikio is closely watched as one of the most objective measures of blog influence on a month-to-month basis. Since they don’t count blogrolls, and the value of an incoming link decreases over time, the inherent advantage that older blogs have in other rankings disappears. By that metric, some of the old guard of the lefty-sphere are getting hammered right now.

I believe that FDL’s growth reflects our continued expansion into original reporting, our strong policy analysis, and our focus on preserving institutional memory. Those are all net value-adds as the blogosphere matures and the public grows skeptical of ad hominem attacks in the service of rigid party dogma. It is also a testament to the collective efforts of moderators, support staff, and all the commenters and readers who work tirelessly to make the site what it is.

Over the last 17 months, FDL has tried very hard to adhere to the same principles we held during the Bush years, separating policy from personality, welcoming people with divergent views, and favoring results over rhetoric. We’ve also tried to offer a home to both information and activism that could take this quadrant of the new media universe past simply writing about the change we wanted to a place where we could advance it.

The rapid, sustained growth of our readership, and now the latest Wikio rankings, are testaments to the success of those efforts. As FDL’s Managing Editor, I want to thank our entire community for the invaluable role they played in helping us get here.

 

. . . and counting. . . down.

Dateline: Pierre, SD [h/t Political Wire]—Hello. . . .

South Dakota Democrats have failed to find a candidate to challenge Republican U.S. Sen. John Thune.

Democratic Party officials had acknowledged earlier they might not find anyone to run against Thune, a popular politician who is seeking a second term in the Senate. The lack of a Democratic candidate became official Thursday when election officials posted the final list of candidates who submitted nominating petitions to run for statewide offices and the Legislature in the June primary.

State Senate Minority Leader Scott Heidepriem of Sioux Falls, the Democratic candidate for governor, said the party decided not to field a candidate in a futile race against Thune.

“We just concluded that John Thune is an extremely popular senator who is going to win another term in the Senate,” Heidepriem said.

Hello?

Yes, John Thune is a popular Senator—so popular, in fact, that he is widely believed to be considering a run at the Republican nomination for President in 2012. So, getting a pass on having to fend off attacks and spend money in 2010 is no doubt music to Thune’s ears—not to mention the RNC and Republican Senatorial Campaign Committee.

In the end, it is the decision of the South Dakota Democratic Party and its leaders to take their ball and go home, but you really have to wonder what the hell has happened at the national level. Tim Kaine, Bob Menendez, I’m looking at you.

Tim Kaine is head of the Democratic National Committee, and New Jersey Senator Robert Menendez is in charge of the DSCC, and both, if they had so chosen, could have played a significant role in making a contest out of the SD senate race. It is not like Dems winning state-wide office in South Dakota is unheard of—its other Senate slot and at-large House seat belong, at least nominally, to Democrats.

And it is not like the unexpected never happens.

Think back to 2005, 2006, when a brash, youngish Senator from Virginia was not only considered a lock for another term, but was thought a serious contender for president. Yes, ladies and gentleman, I give you Senator President private citizen George Allen.

George “macaca” Allen.

In other words, things happen—just as they did that same year in NY-23 and FL-16—and, like they say with the lottery, you gotta be in it to win it.

This was the belief and, indeed, the strategy of the Democratic Party under its previous chair, Howard Dean. Dean’s very public 50-state strategy was designed for both short- and long-term success. In the short-term, contesting every race meant that Republicans had to allocate something everywhere, even if only token amounts. It meant that popular “locks” still had to spend some time close to home, and so couldn’t do as much campaigning and fundraising for other GOP candidates. And it meant that should a candidate let his racist side show, or get caught sleeping with underage pages or beating his wife, there was an actual, living, breathing Democrat to take advantage of the change in fortunes.

In the long-term, intelligent, properly run campaigns, even if long shots, build the party. They make connections among the faithful, build infrastructure, bring new, energetic volunteers into the system, and lay the groundwork for the next race, and the one after that, when because of demographic or political shifts, the contest might not be so one-sided. Doing it that way surely beats the hell out of getting caught flat-footed, or trying to rapidly dump money and imported staff into a fast-evolving situation.

Of course, the 50-state strategy had its detractors—most notably, Rahm Emanuel, who spared no spittle when sparring with Chairman Dean back in ’06. It seems building the democratic wing of the Democratic Party can be unsettling. Spreading the resources around means less for rewarding the loyal “majority makers,” and new, state-focused blood might not be as predictable or as obedient. Democracy can be a bitch sometimes.

So, now that Rahm is in the White House, and the president’s guy, Kaine, has replaced Dean, you don’t hear as much about the whole fifty of our states—and that leaves a hole in South Dakota’s ballot.

Yes [sigh], the filing deadline for Democrats has passed in Pierre, but the filing deadline for independent candidates isn’t until early June. Surely, in such an independent-minded state as South Dakota, there must be an independent man or woman with some political savvy and ties to community organizations or local businesses that thinks John Thune doesn’t deserve a free pass—an activist, a teacher, a community leader, or a biker. . . or at least a disgruntled Democrat that can still count to 50.

 

Let it never be said that I would criticize a man for showing emotion. And I have nothing but praise for people in powerful positions who share the spotlight and give credit where credit is due. And, of course, we all have to appreciate honesty and transparency in this age of misdirection, obfuscation, and triangulation. So, let me rise and extend my compliments to Senator Max Sieben Baucus (D-MT), who, in the midst of a dewy-eyed tribute on the Senate floor, said just about all you need to know about the new health care reform law, and the 14-month fight to shape it:

SEN. BAUCUS: We all want to thank so many people, unless we start mentioning couple three names we’re in danger of offending people whose names are not mentioned. We all know that. And there will be appropriate time to make all the thanks and I will make mine so sincerely because I’m so grateful for all the hard work my staff has put in this.

And I want to single out one person. And that one person is sitting next to me, her name is Liz Fowler. Liz Fowler, my chief health counsel, Liz Fowler is, put my team together, my health care team, Liz Fowler worked for me many years ago, since left for the private sector then came back when she realized that she could be there at the creation of health care reform, because she wanted to, in certain sense that be her professional lifetime goal. She put together that white paper last November 2008, um, 87-page document which became the basis, the foundation, the blueprint from which almost all health care measures and all bills both sides of the aisle came from. She’s an amazing person, she’s a lawyer, she’s a PhD, she’s just so decent, she’s always smiling, she’s always working, she’s always, always available to help any Senator or any staff. And I thank Liz from the bottom of my heart and in many ways she typifies, she represents all the people who’ve worked so hard to make this bill such an accomplishment.

There isn’t really much to add, but in the interest of super-full disclosure, perhaps Maudlin Max should have mentioned that during the time Ms. Fowler was away from his senatorial side, she served as VP for Public Policy and External Affairs at WellPoint—one of the nation’s largest for-profit insurance providers.

It was the Fowler-authored Baucus plan that memorialized the secret deals that the White House cut with PhRMA, the AMA, the device manufacturers, the hospitals, and the insurance industry. We knew, even before Max’s Senate well confessional, that Fowler had written the bill because her name was mistakenly left on some pages of the electronic version of the document.

Now WellPoint, and most of its Big Med cohort, stand to profit quite nicely from the Obama-Baucus-Fowler plan that was signed into law on Tuesday. No doubt their CEOs and shareholders also wish to thank Liz from the bottom of their hearts. The rest of us? We’ll be thanking her from the bottom of our wallets.

Tags: Barack Obama, Health care, Liz Fowler, Max Baucus, phrma, private insurance, Senate Finance Committee, wellpoint, White House

 

Because it does, indeed, need to be noted, the House has just passed the amended reconciliation act that cleared the Senate earlier this afternoon. This concludes the entertainment portion of your health care reform flight. . . I mean fight—health care reform fight.

There are provisions in this bill that can, if implemented properly and enforced with authority, help some people by the end of this year, but I will continue to contend until shown otherwise that most Americans will discover their situation little changed over the next several years. That means increasing prices for decreasing care.

The ink is not yet dry on the original bill, and insurance industry has already begun to game the system. Meanwhile, the president and his party will call this a win, and Democrats will campaign with some strange mix of messages, implying that they overcame GOP obstruction to a bill that, in reality, is a Republican one at its heart. . . or something like that.

The final vote tonight was 220-207.

There have been many hardworking heroes in this multi-year struggle, and they deserve special thanks and recognition. Alas, in the end, the performance of our national elected representatives proved less heroic. This is nowhere near the last fight we will have to fight for universal access to quality affordable care–one would hope that when the next battle is joined, we will have a few more in Congress and the White House who show a little less deference to the industries that created this mess, and a little more allegiance to the people that put them in power.

Meanwhile, and with all the “excitement” I almost forgot, it should be noted that this reconciliation bill does contain a progressive victory. . . one that would not have likely happened without the efforts of many in this community. Included in the measure now on its way to the president’s desk is a degree of student loan reform that will remove wasteful private middlemen from much of the educational lending process. It is a reform that was championed by Obama, but only a few weeks ago looked like it was headed for the sixty-vote slag heap of Congressional inaction. Interested private lenders, like Sallie Mae, Nelnet, and CititBank, leaned hard on their appointed proxies in the Senate to get it removed from the reconciliation sidecar, and they might have pulled it off had it not been for a good deal of attention given their efforts and the lies they were using to buttress them. Thanks to Jane, Jon, Dave, Scarecrow, and masaccio here at FDL, and many concerned journalists and activists across the country for giving students and educational institutions—not to mention American taxpayers—a measure of victory tonight.

Tags: Health care, House of Representatives, student loans

 

Ahhh, the power of the Democrats! To all of you who said that Dems couldn’t get anything done, to all of you that said Congressional Democrats couldn’t find the President’s desk with a map, a flashlight, and guided tour from Desirée Rogers, to all of you that said this White House did not know how to play political hardball, I say: Behold!

Just look what has happened in the last fortnight (or so): the president actually put his health plan on paper, the Senate leadership and the White House decided that budget reconciliation wasn’t such a bad idea after all, Democrats in both houses of Congress came together on a sidecar strategy, leadership has started whipping votes like there’s no tomorrow, President Obama has taken his show on the road in campaign-style events to sell his reform plan, and he, the president himself, is having one-on-one meetings with Democratic members (yes, that’s Democratic, not Republican) of the House to arm twist and horse trade. And, the great grassroots organizing forces of the left—from OFA to SEIU, from DFA to HCAN, from MoveOn to what the serious folks call “the liberal blogosphere” (not the marginal blogs, of course [smile])—have been mobilized in an all-out, no-holds-barred, damn-near scorched earth effort to move every last member of the House off the dime and on board the health care highway.

Hell, the White House is giving away NASA bases, and the SEIU is threatening primary challenges to anyone that votes against the “Senate-plus” health care overhaul—even if that means running kamikaze, third-party candidates. All to counteract the horrible, obstructionist, downright evil efforts of notorious Public Enemy Number One. . .

Dennis Kucinich.

Uh, yeah.

But, whatever—there are mountains to be moved here!

And look what they are moving mountains for.

It is strikingly educational to note that none of this was done last spring for single-payer. None of this was done last summer for a bill with a robust public option. None of this was done last fall for drug re-importation. None of this was done to stop the health care bill from containing the greatest threat to reproductive rights in a generation. Some yelled, some organized, some worked hard—a group here, a blog there (or vice versa)—but there was no massive, coordinated push, no hard sell, no “win one for the gipper,” and no demonizing of those who were then the obstacles to real, progressive change.

But, today—today everything is different. The White House has the bill it really always wanted. They have their deals with PhRMA, AHIP, and the Hospitals more-or-less unbroken (despite some of their protest-too-much carping); they have their real goal in sight.

The White House has their individual mandate—a law that will require those without coverage to buy from private health insurers under pain of penalty enforced through the IRS—they have their restrictions on drug re-importation and direct drug price negotiation still intact, and they have kept their word on the handshake deal that they made last spring with the medical industrial complex: no public option.

They have the Big Insurance Bailout and Medical Industries Profit Protection Act of 2010. If BIBMIPPA doesn’t sound good to you, it shouldn’t. This bill will not provide universal coverage, it will not provide universal access, it will not significantly bend the cost curve, it will not prevent draconian escalations in premiums or out-of-pocket expenses, and, upon signing into law, it will not do anything at all for the large majority of the 48 million uninsured for another four years.

What it will do is mandate an expansion of the customer pool for private insurance. What it will do is funnel taxpayer dollars into the coffers of the lobbying arms AHIP, PhRMA, and the various private hospital associations. What it will do is enrich and entrench the current powers-that-be at the expense of middleclass and poorer working Americans.

What it will do is make future efforts at reform much, much harder.

And for this, the Democrats have practically risen from the grave—and with the force of an army of hungry zombies, they will not stop until they have converted the whole village. And, today, it looks pretty much like they will.

So, behold: Democrats can get things done. When everyone comes together and whips in one direction they can take on any foe—FOX News, John McCain. . . even Dennis Kucinich. But is this really the battle Democrats should be fighting—is this the battle we should be proud of?

No, fair cousin. Today is not St. Crispin’s Day. (Or, at least, Obama is no Henry V.) Those that the White House and its legions are fighting for are the ones covetous of gold, Rahm doth care who feeds his cost, and too many in this new vanguard do covet honor. Rather, after a year of claiming to be on the side of real health care reform, it is those who have joined this final push for the Obama plan that should think themselves accursed and hold their manhoods cheap.

And, a note, too, to those that plan on complaining about and campaigning against Republican obstructionism—this week’s events render that strategy weaker by a furlong than that of the French at Agincourt. Even without the mythical army of 60 senators—or bipartisan support—the Democrats can get things done. Where there’s a will, there’s a way.

That this will was to serve corporate interests, over and at the expense of the public good, is as sad as it is signature. And, I believe, it will be noticed and remembered by voters, maybe not from this day till the ending of the world, but certainly through November, and likely long past. Behold, the power of Democrats—and for what and whom they would wield it.

Tags: AHIP, Barack Obama, Blogosphere, Democrats, Dennis Kucinich, DFA, drug re-importation, HCAN, Health care, health insurance, House of Representatives, OFA, phrma, public option, Rahm Emanuel, seiu, Senate, single payer, whip

 

I’ve been a little under the weather this month, and nothing gets a guy angrier at the American medical system than having to use it. And, right off, I’ll tell you, I have pretty good insurance. I didn’t used to, and I paid a high price for that mistake, so now I send off a hefty part of my monthly income for a private plan that comes very close to qualifying as a “Cadillac plan” under the merged Senate health care reform bill. Yet, even with this deluxe package—one that increased in price some 17% this year—I have paid a couple extra hundred bucks in co-pays and prescriptions in the last few weeks.

That is a quick recap of my personal ride on the cost curve—the cost curve President Obama and his health economists economist (singular) insist is going to get bent by the reform package we are now all supposed to get behind, pass, and cheer as if it is the magic inevitable we’d been working toward all along. But, of course, the things that have made my maladies so pricey—insurance and pharmaceuticals—are, by all accounts, going to be spared the rod of reform.

There is no drug re-importation, no direct drug price negotiation, no ban on “pay for delay,” and no way to accelerate generic competition for expensive classes of biologics. None of that is in the Senate bill that is now to be swallowed whole by the House, and it is all but certain that none of the PhRMA deal-busting provisions I just listed will make it into the reconciliation “fix” that is supposed to follow. The fact that a year’s worth of wrangling has been wasted trying to avoid upsetting Rahm and Barack’s BFFs in the Pharmaceutical lobby is now barely a blip on the radar.

Still at issue, though in a Kafkaesque way, is the other half of the equation: meaningful competition for the private insurance industry in the form of a viable public option. A majority of House members voted for it last year, Bernie Sanders claims he has a majority of votes for it in the Senate, and the President campaigned on its behalf throughout 2008, and yet, when all the votes are taken, who here is willing to bet that we will get a public option as part of comprehensive health care reform?

Assistant Majority Leader Dick Durbin claims he will whip for a public option in the Senate—if the House sends him one. Speaker Nancy Pelosi says she supports a public option, and would put it in the House sidecar if only the Senate had the votes to pass it. And, of course, President Obama says he would prefer a public option, but he doesn’t think it could get the votes.

But, behind the scenes, Durbin is actively whipping against a public option amendment coming to the floor; Pelosi will not allow the public option an up-or-down vote in the House; and, Obama has made a series of campaign-style appearances, and mobilized his minions, all to underscore that it is “time” (as opposed to year ago, when it was, I guess, not time) to pass a health care bill. . . and that would be the Senate bill. . . and, you know, whatever.

For some reason, a program that enjoys the support of overwhelming majorities of Democrats, independents, or Americans as a whole—slice it any way you like—has become synonymous with “hot potato.” No one wants to be the one who has to take the blame for killing it—but, bizarrely, absurdly, maddeningly, no one wants to be the one that gets the credit for passing it, either.

In fact, the whole issue of health care reform, what was expected to be and should have been the signal accomplishment of this Democratic majority, is now something everyone just wishes would be “done with already.” Every major vote has been buried—the House’s initial bill passed on a November Saturday near midnight, the Senate “got ‘er done” on Christmas Eve, and now, with a vote set for March 19 or 20, Congress and the president will get this dirty business out of the way during the first big weekend of the NCAA basketball tournament.

But, try as they might to hide it, many of us will notice.

Some will notice that, even though Democrats and the White House are calling it a “win” for Americans, their own lot—their insurance premiums, their out-of-pocket expenses, the barriers that keep them from getting quality care—is not improved, and, in fact, will continue to grow worse.

Some will notice when they first figure that it just isn’t worth buying junk private insurance in the state-based exchanges, and then—thanks to the bill’s “individual mandate”—find the IRS knocking at the door demanding enrollment or payment of a fine.

Some will notice this November, and several Novembers onward, when they are told by a variety of candidates and oracles that whatever it is they are experiencing when they deal with the US health system, they are experiencing it thanks to the Democrats. It may or may not be accurate in any given circumstance, but, no matter how much they try to bury it, no matter how much they try to run against “Republican obstructionism,” if this Congress and this president get their “W,” Democrats will indeed own health care for a long time to come.

So, it is time to own the hot potato, too. Nancy Pelosi, you have been, by most accounts, a very effective Speaker; you know how to move legislation. If you really want me to believe you ever wanted a public option, then put it in the House “fix.” Dick Durbin, if you really want me to believe you would whip for a public option (when I know that you are whipping against it), then publicly tell Pelosi you will guarantee a simple up-or-down vote on a bill with a PO or a public option amendment, should the House neglect to put it in the sidecar. Barack Obama, am I really supposed to believe that you couldn’t move a handful of Senate votes if you needed to? Well, I don’t. If you want to uphold a campaign promise, if you want to deliver this real cost-curve-bender, if you want me to believe any of your promises, then make a public pledge to get a public option into this bill, and then make a few damn phone calls.

And, you, you 60 representatives, you progressives that pledged to vote “no” on any health bill that did not contain the public option, I have not forgotten about you, either. Pledges on core issues are not sought for their theatrical value. Nor should pledges be broken or positions changed just because you want to, um, move on. Every flip, defection, or ham-handed backtrack now, renders your future promises and pledges meaningless, and makes organizing for real progressive change very much harder.

And, this goes for all the folks outside elected government, too. The struggle to keep the public option hot was a collective struggle; the effort now to drop the PO while trying to cool the potato, trying to pretend that it wasn’t really so very important, that it wasn’t once a make-or-break issue, also appears to be quite organized. I’m not interested in pie fights, and no one died and left me king of Lefty Valley, so I am not going to make a list of who does or does not get to call themselves Democrats, liberals, or progressives. However, if you argued that the Senate bill was unacceptable in December, but suddenly, now, are coming on like gangbusters for what is The Exact Same Bill—or are spitting mad at those that have maintained a consistent opposition to the lousy Senate language—then you are not much of a health care hero in my eyes, and, more importantly, you now own this counterproductive, miserable excuse for reform, too.

To recap, that goes for bloggers and pundits, unions and PIGs, Senate leaders and House progressives, and, most of all, it goes for Barack Obama, president. Pushing a bad bill when many quality options are not only available, but also possible and popular, is, as Chris Hayes says in his video above, a “maddening bit of political malfeasance on the part of the Democratic Party.” And it makes me especially mad tonight—not just because I’ve been sick, but because, well, it is madness.

Tags: Barack Obama, Bernie Sanders, Chris Hayes, Dick Durbin, Health care, House of Representatives, Nancy Pelosi, phrma, PhRMA deal, public option, Senate, Senate bill

 

Politico is reporting that Rep. Charles Rangel (D-NY 15) is “on [the] verge of losing [his] gavel; Chuck Todd is tweeting it is a done deal:

NBC News has learned Charlie Rangel will voluntarily give up his Ways and Means chairmanship, possibly as early as tonight.

[50 mins. later. . ]

More Rangel: He just told the press he’s still chairman RIGHT NOW of Ways and Means. But sources say he’ll agree to leave tmro

The obvious next in line for the chairmanship of the powerful House Ways and Means committee is Sander Levin, the Democratic Rep from Michigan’s 12th district (and older brother of Michigan Senator Carl Levin). Todd, however, is also tweeting both that Sandy Levin might only be a temporary chair and/or that the gavel will instead pass to Pete Stark (D-CA 13).

Rangel has been dogged by long-simmering ethics investigations and charges that he violated house rules. GOP House members have vowed to bring a resolution to the floor calling for the Harlem Democrat’s removal as chairman. When CBC member Artur Davis (D-AL 7) and 13 other Democratic representatives called on Rangel to step aside earlier today, leadership no doubt feared that additional defections in this election year could push the resolution over the top. Rangel and Speaker Pelosi met earlier this evening, where it is believed Rangel agreed to step aside.

Update: More Todd tweeting:

Stark or Levin for Ways & Means? If Rangel “temporarily” steps aside, Stark takes over; if it’s a longer term deal, expect Levin to get it

Tags: Artur Davis, CBC, Charles Rangel, Chuck Todd, Congressional Black Caucus, ethics, Nancy Pelosi, Pete Stark, Politico, Sander Levin, Ways and Means

 

NBC’s Kelly O’Donnell and Roll Call are reporting that the Senate standoff with Jim Bunning (R-KY) is over:

Under increasing pressure from Democrats and members of his own party, Sen. Jim Bunning (R-Ky.) Tuesday night abandoned his one-man filibuster of a one-month extension to unemployment benefits and other programs.

In the end Bunning agreed to a deal allowing him one vote on an amendment to pay for the bill’s $10 billion cost. That proposal was offered by Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) and Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) last Thursday at the start of his filibuster, but Bunning rejected it because he feared his amendment would not pass.

Reid has also agreed to give Bunning two votes on amendments to a larger, one-year extension bill that is currently under consideration in the Senate

The first vote is actually what was in the original deal between Majority Leader Reid and Minority Leader McConnell. The other two votes are indeed part of a compromise–basically giving GOP leadership what it wanted in exchange for giving Bunning the hook. This allows the short extension of unemployment and COBRA benefits, and public works funding to come to a vote, likely tonight. The extension through the end of the year is included in a much larger jobs package unveiled by Sens. Reid and Baucus earlier today.

I am assuming that the deal also includes Bunning lifting his blanket holds. . . if it doesn’t: headsmack!

Update (8:59 PM EST): Bunning’s funding ammendment has just been defeated. Vote on the short benefits extension coming up next.

Tags: Broken Government, filibuster, Harry Reid, Jim Bunning, Mitch McConnell, Senate, unemployment insurance

 

Embattled New York Governor (I don’t know, “embattled” seems like the wrong word here, but I’ll press on. . . ) David Paterson will not run for election this fall, the New York Daily News is reporting. Paterson, long suffering from low approval ratings, an uncooperative State legislature, and a fiscal crisis, has been dogged this month by stories of questionable conduct by a close aide, David Johnson—and earlier this week, that story escalated to include the Governor, himself:

Last fall, a woman went to court in the Bronx to testify that she had been violently assaulted by a top aide to Gov. David A. Paterson, and to seek a protective order against the man.

In the ensuing months, she returned to court twice to press her case, complaining that the State Police had been harassing her to drop it. The State Police, which had no jurisdiction in the matter, confirmed that the woman was visited by a member of the governor’s personal security detail.

Then, just before she was due to return to court to seek a final protective order, the woman got a phone call from the governor, according to her lawyer. She failed to appear for her next hearing on Feb. 8, and as a result her case was dismissed.

Though the drip, drip, drip of this story began several weeks ago, Paterson still chose just last week to launch his bid for a first full term as NY Governor. Paterson originally took office after the previous Governor, Eliot Spitzer, resigned.

Paterson swore to press on as recently as Wednesday, but several close aids have gone public in the last 24 hours with calls for Paterson to withdraw from the race. Notably, State Senator Bill Perkins, who holds Paterson’s old seat in Harlem:

Amid accusations that Paterson and the New York State Police intervened in a domestic violence case against one of Paterson’s top aides, Perkins said in an interview Thursday evening that the governor’s campaign has weakened, and this could be the final straw.

“Weak as the campaign was, this investigation has made it even weaker,” he said.

Denise O’Donnell, the governor’s Deputy Secretary for Public Safety, resigned on Thursday, saying she could not defend Paterson’s actions:

“The fact that the governor and members of the State Police have acknowledged direct contact with a woman who had filed for an order of protection against a senior member of the governor’s staff is a very serious matter,” she wrote. “These actions are unacceptable regardless of their intent.”

…

Ms. O’Donnell, a former federal prosecutor and social worker, wrote that she found the breach “particularly distressing” in an administration “that prides itself on its record of combating domestic violence.

“The behavior alleged here is the antithesis of what many of us have spent our entire careers working to build,” she added, “a legal system that protects victims of domestic violence and brings offenders to justice.”

O’Donnell’s office oversees the state troopers that are alleged to have participated in harassing the woman accuser of Johnson.

The governor has long been thought vulnerable to a primary challenge from State Attorney General Andrew Cuomo, though Cuomo has not officially entered the race. Whispers around New York suspect that Cuomo or his close associates have something to do with driving the story of Paterson’s aide to the surface, a rumor made public by announced GOP aspirant for NY Governor, Rick Lazio:

Republican gubernatorial candidate Rick Lazio released the letter below addressed to possible opponent AG Andrew Cuomo. In it, the ex-Congressman seems bent on fueling the rumor that Cuomo spread rumors about Paterson. Since he knows the Timesfolk aren’t about tell who they talk to off-the-record about anything — including Lazio, presumably — and Cuomo isn’t going to answer questions from his political detractor related to a pending investigation, the intended effect must be to make the rumor-spread accusation in the form of a “request.”

…

“The people have the right to know the truth behind the allegations that were reported in today’s New York Times. The people also have the right to know that your investigation into Governor Paterson and his involvement is conducted honestly and objectively.

“As you begin your investigation, I ask that you state publicly whether you or any of your associates, members of your office or campaign team aided or supplied the New York Times the information it published in any of its stories this past week attacking Governor Paterson, his staff and his conduct; or if you or any of your agents were involved in spreading the rumors about such stories. If so, common decency, if not the law, would demand you recuse yourself from this investigation to ensure an independent process free of your political ambition.

Paterson’s anemic fundraising has also cast doubt on his electoral viability.

Though suspending his run for a full term, Governor Paterson is not, as of now, resigning.

So, what is considered a socially acceptable amount of time for Cuomo to announce his entrance into the race?

Update: I should have known that David would have something on this. . . .

Update 2 ( 3:18 PM EST): In a just completed news conference, Governor Paterson confirmed that he is indeed ending his campaign for a full term. Citing political realities, Paterson said that he wants to get back to the business of the state, and that he looks forward to a full investigation of the accusations leveled against him and his administration.

Paterson is not, however resigning, “There are 308 days left in my term; I will serve every one of them. . . .”

Update 3: Governor Paterson called on the state AG, Andrew Cuomo, to investigate the improprieties of the state police and the governor’s office. Cuomo, of course, has been itching to run again for governor since his last failed attempt eight years ago. Back then, Cuomo was criticized for complicating matters for eventual Democratic nominee, H. Carl McCall, the first African American to run for NY governor. It was an open secret around the state that Cuomo was not eager to be seen as again trying to push aside an African American in his quest for higher office.

Since Cuomo is now tasked with investigating Paterson, the question arises: Does he go softer on the governor for having done him the favor of stepping aside, or does Cuomo now feel extra pressure to give extra scrutiny to the governor’s actions, in order to prove that no kind of deal was made?

Tags: 2010 Election, Andrew Cuomo, Bill Perkins, David Johnson, David Paterson, Denise O’Donnell, New York, New York Daily News, New York Governor, New York Times, NY-Gov, RIck Lazio, scandal, State politics

 

Representative Baron Hill (D-IN9) may have been gathering signatures in advance of today’s Democratic Senate primary filing deadline, so reports Joh Padget on The Seminal:

[I]t is possible that IN-9th District Congressman Baron Hill or another member of the Indiana Congressional delegation may have been quietly collecting the required 4500 signatures to get on the ballot for U.S. Senate for several weeks throughout all nine Congressional Districts.

Padgett and others have reported that White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel has made trips to Indiana in recent months, and, as is documented by Padgett, was seen meeting with Rep. Hill.

Also rumored to be under consideration, another conservative Democrat in the Indiana delegation, Brad Ellsworth. Should no one file the necessary signatures by today’s deadline, it would be up to the Indiana Democratic Party to pick a candidate to run in the general election.

Incumbent Democratic Senator Evan Bayh announced Monday that he would not be seeking reelection this year. Senator Bayh was presumed to have an easy path to his third term; established members of the Indiana delegation would not likely have planned to challenge him for the nomination. If Hill has been gathering signatures, it would suggest some prior knowledge of Bayh’s intentions.

 

Connecticut’s five-term Attorney General, Richard Blumenthal, made an appearance this week on WNYC’s The Brian Lehrer Show, and what he said (and the way he said it) reveals as much about the state of our national politics as it does about the rather dreary choice offered to Nutmeg State voters. Blumenthal is running to replace Senator Chris Dodd; he is essentially unopposed for the Democratic nomination, so his strategy, as much as he has one, is a general election strategy.

Those who know Dick tell me that he is the quintessential finger-in-the-wind politician. Hell, just listening to this short interview, I got the image of some classic Hollywood film caricature of the blowhard, entrenched, do nothing, say anything gasbag. So, what struck me while listening was which way this weathervane thought the wind was blowing.

Lehrer started the interview by asking Blumenthal if there was any lesson to be learned from the election of Scott Brown one state north; the CT AG gave a predictable though not inappropriate answer: “People are angry and frustrated—understandably and rightly so.” Blumenthal then went on to point out that he has “fought Washington” and “taken legal action against the Federal Government.”

OK, fair enough—it’s an anti-incumbent kind of year. This is what you do. It’s a little tough for a guy that has held elected office for two decades, but probably important to say. And, just to underscore his independence, Blumenthal added, “I am very independent as a public official. . . I am nobody’s protégé or look-alike. . . .”

Pathetic, but boilerplate. You have to say those sorts of things, I suppose. But listen to what comes next—listen to this relative non sequitur that Blumenthal volunteers without a prompting question:

I’m determined to chart my own course in Washington, different in many respects from the Administration. I’ve taken the position that the trial of Khalid Sheik Mohammed should be in a military tribunal away from the United States, or, I’m sorry, away from New York and New Haven, and on a number of other issues, for example opposing the reconfirmation of Bernanke as chairman of the Federal Reserve, I have charted my own course, I’m prepared to do it, and issue-by-issue debate either side in what I think is the right thing to do.

What this attorney general and former US attorney has to say about who supposedly is and is not entitled to their rights is pretty shocking, and I will provide more of that drivel after the jump, but I want to focus on Dick Blumenthal’s tack in this race.

It was only a little over a year ago that Barack Obama won the state of Connecticut 61% to 38%. A Democrat holds every single congressional seat. Connecticut has a PVI of D+7. In presidential approval numbers, it ranks among the top six states—two-thirds of nutmeggers still approve of the job Obama is doing. This is a very blue state.

Yet, just over a year after the inauguration of this theoretically still popular president, the candidate for US Senate in Connecticut just went out of his way to distance himself from the White House on two hot issues—a civil trial for KSM and the reappointment of Ben Bernanke as Fed Chair.

But wait, there’s more.

Blumenthal was next asked about whether Christmas crotch-bomber Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab should have been brought into the US criminal process, and the question turned to Miranda rights (I apologize in advance for the meandering quote, but I want to give the entire context):

Let’s talk in real terms about what Mirandizing means. It means reading somebody their rights as opposed to simply interrogating them. I think there’s a general consensus now that in that instance there may have been no real need to read Miranda rights before some interrogation took place. And, in my view, with a terrorist, with our nation potentially at risk, interrogation should be pursued, and the consequences may be that some evidence may be inadmissible, but there is obviously in that case, overwhelming evidence without whatever may be gained or gleaned from the interrogation. So, bottom line, interrogation should have been pursued by a specially trained group of agents without necessarily a lawyer being present, and if at some point there was diminished usefulness to the interrogation, other criminal interrogation should have been applied perhaps by other authorities.

Yes, this is utter garbage—in terms of what actually happened to Abdulmutallab, what Miranda rights actually are, and who is entitled to them by law—but stick with me:

Very often the reading of rights diminishes the usefulness of subsequent interrogation, the reason being simply that the defendant chooses to have a lawyer present, or chooses to cease talking. And I would have pursued the interrogation without the Miranda rights because I believe that the usefulness of learning about contacts from Yemen and elsewhere in the world and potential immediate attacks that may be known to this individual outweigh the benefits of having that at the trial

Yes, more inaccuracies and inanities in search of a position, so questioner Lehrer wanted to clarify, should Abdulmutallab be tried in civilian court? “Probably not in criminal court,” says Blumenthal.

Stupid, yes, but importantly here, also completely counter to the position of the administration of a president still thought popular in Dick’s state.

Even on the question of health care reform, where Blumenthal mostly mouths bipartisan talking points without making much of a point, the one place where the candidate gets really specific is when he discusses the need to speed generics to market. The state AG makes sure you know that he wants to crack down on brand-name pharmaceutical companies that use gimmicks to prevent their drugs from going generic.

I have to expect that Blumenthal knows that the Senate health care bill seemingly favored by the president is pretty weak on that front (it even extends brand-name protections for certain classes of biologics).

So, yes, Richard Blumenthal, less-than-thrilling presumptive Democratic nominee for Senate in Connecticut, opens himself up for much criticism here (check out the comments on the show page)—but the subtext, the criticism inherent in the way this blowhard blows is that his best bet is to position himself as something very other than Barack Obama.

You would think that a Democrat in a statewide race in a very blue state would want to court the president. Maybe solicit his help. Maybe tap into his giant, once powerful list/rah-rah section, OFA. But, just as the administration took what was an impressive Obama for America and turned it into the limp Organizing for America, the White House has taken the positive brand halo of the Obama presidency and turned it into what his very own party perceives as the rough equivalent of box-office poison. This is what it has come to after a year of ineffective, unmotivated, and un-motivating rule.

See Dick run—see Dick run away from Barack Obama.

 

I said this last week:

The White House has spent this last year insulating the president from the grit and grime of the health reform battle, thinking that if Obama stayed above the fray, he would be seen as more presidential—or at least would retain that “new car smell” and those lofty approval numbers.

And this week, it seems more and more people are noticing—or, perhaps, more accurately, they noticed a long time ago, but now they feel more comfortable talking about it.

Take, for instance, Senator Sherrod Brown (D-OH), who told Sam Stein:

The president was weighing in pretty heavily on the discussions between the House and Senate before the Massachusetts special [Senate] election–it’s dried up since.

Or the Democratic source that told Chris Frates at Politico that during a Thursday meeting between the Democratic caucus and Obama:

Pelosi expressed frustration with the pace of progress and the president’s decision not to weigh in publicly on a way forward, according to the source.

There are also similar leaks and statements about frustrations expressed by Senators Franken (D-MN) and Sanders (I-VT).

And then there’s Rep. Pete DeFazio (D-OR), appearing earlier tonight on The Ed Show, who was even more explicit:

The White House has really checked out of this debate—I mean, they have not been directive. I mean, the president came to our caucus and in response to one member said he supported the public option. Well that’s great, but where was the bully pulpit in support of the public option? . . . I haven’t seen them deliver at all in this debate. Remember, they started by cutting a deal with the Pharmaceutical industry—couldn’t have been a worse start.

But, in contrast, President Obama made a series of public stops yesterday where he made a point of urging Congress, like he did in his State of the Union, to pass health care legislation. Publicly engaging (after months of what many complained was an obvious absence from the debate) while privately stepping away. Is that a strategy for getting real health care reform, or is that a strategy for getting reelected?

I know what the White House is thinking, but I’ve got news for them: Not only will leaving Congress to “get it done” all by themselves—leaving the House to try to figure out some way to pressure the Senate into making sensible, productive changes—not produce a quality reform bill (or any bill at all), the president will not be insulated from the failure.

I expect the political team at 1600 Pennsylvania Ave. thinks that it might be a win-win. Either they get to sign a bill, no matter how ineffectual, and call it a victory, or they don’t get a bill, and can blame obstructionists in Congress or the flawed process during this year’s elections (and 2012, too). But it’s not going to go down that way.

Here’s John Nichols from the same Ed Show segment:

[T]he American people don’t care what a filibuster is, they don’t care what cloture is—there’s a new pew center poll that says that they don’t even know what those things are—what they care about is whether their kids, whether their parents, whether they have health care. And if the Democrats don’t get this—I start with Barack Obama, nobody gets off the hook, Barack Obama, Harry Reid, Nancy Pelosi, and the whole Democratic Party—if they don’t get that the issue is health care, not Senate rules, they are going to be beaten awfully badly this fall. They may not lose all their majorities, but they will lose their ability to function, and, in so doing, they will have sacrificed their ability to set this country right, that isn’t just bad politics, that’s bad morality.

The White House still does not seem to understand this, but it looks like many in Congress (such as those quoted above) now do. After a year of avoiding the spotlight—letting Congress work out their health reform plans in public while cutting his own deals in private—the president now tries to appear engaged in front of the cameras while trying hard not to have a hand in either a failed effort or the breaking of some of his secret deals behind the scenes. Instead of “The buck stops here,” Obama is positioning himself for “It’s not my fault.” From “agent of change” to “victim of circumstance.” Is that really how the president wants voters to think of him in November of 2010 or 2012? Is that really how he wants to be seen?

 

As I mentioned last week, Firedoglake has grown by leaps and bounds in the last few months. Our independent coverage of hot-button issues — from Jon Walker’s analysis of health care reform, to the unbelievable liveblogging of the Prop 8 trial by Marcy Wheeler, Teddy Partridge and David Dayen — has greatly expanded our audience, and presented new chances, and new challenges, for us to serve our community.

And so, we continue to seek the best and brightest to fill two great employment opportunities here at Firedoglake, which you can check out by visiting our jobs page. One opening is for a DC Political Reporter, who will have the exciting privilege of being our full-time political correspondent on Capitol Hill. The other is for a Deputy Managing Editor, who will coordinate, edit, and publish content from our wonderful team of writers.

Those of you who have already submitted your letters, resumes and writing samples–thank you! We are currently reviewing your applications. The process is still open, however, so we encourage all qualified applicants to jump to the jobs page, and get in the mix. We are especially interested in hearing from DC residents with journalism experience.

On behalf of the rest of the FDL team, I invite you all to check out our job postings and apply. We look forward to reviewing potential candidates over the next few weeks.

 

It might have taken the president over half an hour to get around to pushing health care insurance reform in his first State of the Union address, but it took a senator from his own party less than half a day to push it right back:

Landrieu takes swipe at Obama over health care

(CNN) – President Obama is taking heat from a Senate Democrat over how he dealt with the issue of health care in his first State of the Union speech.

“I think the president should have been more clear about a way forward on health care last night,” Sen. Mary Landrieu told reporters on Capitol Hill Thursday. “I’m hoping in the next week or two he will be, because that’s what it’s going to take if it’s at all possible to get this done.”

“Mailing in general suggestions, sending them over the transom is not necessarily going to work,” the Louisiana Democrat added.

Setting aside the “Democrats in disarray” trope that establishment scribes have been pushing since Will Rodgers wore short pants—and acknowledging that Mary Landrieu has been less than helpful for most of this effort—I’m going to take the Senator’s statement at face value and say, “You know what? I agree.”

President Obama used about six minutes of his speech to once again paint in broad strokes why there is a need for serious reform, but beyond referring to “the plan we’ve proposed” (and which plan is that, anyway?), he did not detail what “serious reform” now—after a year of wrangling—means. Beyond saying, “Do not walk away from reform. Not now. . . . Let’s get it done. Let’s get it done,” Obama did not give Congress any direction on what, where, or how to move forward.

This is not news, I suppose. The White House has spent this last year insulating the president from the grit and grime of the health reform battle, thinking that if Obama stayed above the fray, he would be seen as more presidential—or at least would retain that “new car smell” and those lofty approval numbers.

Of course, that did not turn out to be the result of this rose-garden strategy. Matters were not helped by the fact that Rahm Emanuel and the administration’s political team didn’t even make it to the White House rose garden, opting instead for behind-closed-doors negotiations, and cold-hard-cash political deals cut with relevant industry and union leaders. Rather than looking presidential, Obama was, at best, invisible. And, as America soured on the drawn-out process of getting to “yes” on the president’s signature issue, they naturally soured on the president—and his party—as well.

Now, midterms are on the horizon, and the writing is on the wall. Congressional Democrats are tired of carrying water for the White House, and Representatives are feeling especially soaked. The House sent up a bill, only to see it—and any possibility that their bill might be part of a negotiation with the Senate—disappear, first into the black hole of Connecticut, and then under fallout of an electoral A-bomb a few miles north. The Representatives had put it out there for the president, more or less, and the president left it flapping in the breeze. (more…)

The US Senate voted this afternoon to re-up co-architect of our misfortune, Ben Bernanke. The final vote was 70-30—but that is only part of the story. Seven senators—six of them Democrats—voted “aye” on cloture, allowing the final vote to proceed, before voting “nay” on the Fed Chairman’s final confirmation. While those seven votes wouldn’t have been enough to sustain a filibuster, a little more courage on the part of the Majority, and a little more political savvy on the part of the White House, could have easily stopped Ben in his tracks.

Bernanke’s “ideas” are all over the 2008 collapse of our economy—and his uncaring hand on the rudder has helped steer us into this “jobless recovery” (a term I am embarrassed by every time I use it). The American people know it, some senators know it, and the Obama Administration is foolish to pretend that they don’t know it.

Foolish, too, are Senators Barbara Boxer, Al Franken, Tom Harkin, Ted Kaufman, Sheldon Whitehouse, Byron Dorgan, and George LeMieux—all of who think that they can hide behind, and/or campaign on, the “I was against him after I was for him” strategy.

A spate of elections, most recently the special in Massachusetts, have shown that Americans are pissed off and scared. A vaguely rising Dow index matters little to the chronically unemployed or those forced from their homes by foreclosure. A move to replace Bernanke could have signaled to voters that those in power understood that and wanted to change course; this “heckuva job, Ben” moment just telegraphs “more of the same.”

Following the Massachusetts vote with the Bernanke OK means “more of the same” is likely what Democrats can expect in the coming midterms.

Dave has the day’s events, the vote totals, and much, much more over at the News Desk.

 

Firedoglake has grown by leaps and bounds in the last few months. Our independent coverage of hot-button issues — from Jon Walker’s analysis of health care reform, to the unbelievable liveblogging of the Prop 8 trial by Marcy Wheeler, Teddy Partridge and David Dayen — has greatly expanded our audience, and presented new chances, and new challenges, for us to serve our community.

So, we’re proud to announce the two latest employment opportunities here at Firedoglake, which you can check out by visiting our jobs page. One opening is for a DC Political Reporter, who will have the exciting privilege of being our full-time political correspondent on Capitol Hill. The other is for a Deputy Managing Editor, who will coordinate, edit, and publish content from our wonderful team of writers.

On behalf of the rest of the FDL team, I invite you all to check out our job postings and apply. We look forward to reviewing potential candidates over the next few weeks.