Last Call

Painfully cognizant of just how much of a disaster their Couponcare program is, ol' Mitch McConnell has decided that the only way they're getting out of this mess is to force Democrats to be the ones to burn Medicare down, or the GOP will default the country's debt.

In a Capitol briefing with reporters Friday, McConnell declared affirmatively that unspecified Medicare cuts are on the table in bipartisan debt limit negotiations, led by Vice President Joe Biden, and, he expects, will be part of the solution. But in response to a question from TPM, he went further than he has in the past in laying down a marker on that issue. Medicare cuts must be part of that deal to get his support — even if negotiators manage to find trillions of dollars in savings elsewhere, even if his other priorities are met.

“To get my vote, for me, it’s going to take short term [cuts, via spending caps]… Both medium and long-term, entitlements.,” McConnell said. “Medicare will be part of the solution.”

Steve Benen sorts it all out.

In fact, now that McConnell has admitted it, Democrats should probably let the public know. The talking point isn’t complicated: Senate Republicans will create a recession unless Democrats agree to Medicare cuts.

Of course, the talking point will ineffective if Dems decide to go along with McConnell’s hostage strategy and pay the ransom.

And there are more than a few Dems who I am sure will agree with McConnell, and will do so publicly.   Nancy Pelosi will fight this.  Will Harry Reid and President Obama do so as well before, say, Ben Nelson or Heath Shuler go on TV and say they're willing to "work with the Republicans on real entitlement reform" (and by that I mean scrapping Medicare like the GOP wants then acting all surprised when the GOP spends all of 2012 running ads that the Democrats are the ones wrecking Medicare)?

In other words, Democrats aren't really stupid enough to fall for this, are they?

And Now A Word From Our Sponsor

A federal judge in Virginia has struck down arguably the last piece of campaign finance restriction in the country, saying that corporations have the right to directly contribute to candidates.

U.S. District Judge James C. Cacheris’ ruling, which does not immediately apply to Georgia, grants corporations the same rights as individuals to give directly to candidates.

The Supreme Court, in 2010’s Citizens United ruling, had previously said that corporations had a First Amendment right to make so-called independent expenditures to support a particular candidate, but it stopped short of granting them the ability to contribute directly to a candidate’s campaign. That ruling roiled campaign finance precedents and struck down key sections of the McCain-Feingold Act.

In Georgia, corporations are allowed to give directly to candidates for state office, and this year lawmakers approved a measure that lifts a ban on giving by utilities regulated by the Public Service Commission. Those companies, however, are still barred from giving to PSC candidates.

Cacheris’ ruling, which is likely to end up before the Supreme Court, only affects companies in his Alexandria, Va.-based district. But Doug Chalmers, founder of Atlanta-based Political Law Group and expert in campaign finance law, said if the high court upholds Cacheris’ decision, companies across the country would be allowed to contribute to candidates for the U.S. Senate and House.

“It would be a sea change in federal campaign finance law,” Chalmers told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution.

"This judge has now extended the reasoning from Citizens United to say if corporations have the same First Amendment rights as individuals and individuals are allowed to make contributions to candidates within certain limits, then corporations have the same right," Chalmers said.

In other words, as soon as the Supreme Court gets a hold of this, at some point before the 2012 election I fully expect them to say that corporations will be able to give money directly to candidates without PAC groups or industry advocacy non-profits.  Oh, and I'm even more sure that they will be allowed to give anonymously and not have to publicly disclose doing so.

And then the floodgates will open to our lawmakers for sale.  Better get them while they're hot.

To The Shores Of Tripoli, Part 11

Still a third war going on, folks.  Qaddafi's getting "step down or else" statements from the G8 countries now.

The leaders of the G8 powers were to tell Libyan strongman Moamer Kadhafi on Friday that he has lost all legitimacy and must step down, according to a draft version of their summit statement.

The leaders were still meeting, and it was not immediately clear if they would authorise the strong language in the draft, with Russia in particular keen to promote a negotiated settlement to the Libya civil conflict.

But the language in the latest draft being circulated among the delegations in the French resort of Deauville early Friday was stark.

"We demand the immediate cessation of the use of force against civilians by the Libyan regime forces as well as the cessation of all incitement to hostility and violence against the civilian population," it said.

"We stress the need to hold to account those responsible for attacks on civilians. These criminal actions will not go unpunished," welcoming the decision of the International Criminal Court to probe Libyan regime leaders.

"Kadhafi and the Libyan government have failed to fulfil their responsibility to protect the Libyan population and have lost all legitimacy. He has no future in a free, democratic Libya. He must go," it warned.

He must go or...what?   This only works if you have something else in mind, guys.  Somehow I don't think it's going to be a French ban on Libyan oil, which would wreck France's economy overnight.  I don't think it's going to be "more Predator drones!" either.  Air power doesn't win wars by itself.

So what's the "or else" part?  A ground invasion?  Why...that would never happen.  Would it?

Oh, and P.S...Egyptian protestors are back in Cairo's Tarhir Square, Yemen is about to erupt into civil war, and in Syria people continue to be gunned down.

The Arab Spring is about to become the Summer of Blood, folks.

The GOP Big Government In Your Uterus Plan

So, after five months, the Republicans have finally gotten around to a "jobs proposal".

The plan calls for cutting taxes on corporations, individuals and small businesses to no more than 25 percent; allowing companies to repatriate foreign profits without being taxed; approving trade agreements with Colombia, Panama and South Korea; expanding domestic oil drilling; rewiring the patent process; requiring congressional approval of executive branch regulations that have a significant impact on the economy; and continuing to slash spending.

None of these proposals and none of the handful of others in the plan qualify as new ideas. Some were embedded in the GOP's 'Pledge to America' last year.

Even Politico is pointing out this is pretty much the same "jobs proposal" that the GOP has been pushing for years.  Cut taxes on businesses (making record profits anyway and paying zero in taxes thanks to loopholes) and cut spending!  This will magically create jobs, just like it's been doing for the last several years, right?

Well, since the GOP clearly hasn't been working on jobs, what have they been working on at the national and state level?  Why, the big government intrusion into millions of uteri, of course.

As Rachel Maddow points out, John Boehner and Eric Cantor and Mitch McConnell have said that jobs jobs jobs jobs jobs are the number one issue.  They have yet to write a single jobs bill, but they sure do have time to write four national bills and literally hundreds of bills at the state level (some of which have been passed into law) dealing with the government being able to tell women exactly what they should do with their wombs.

A number of states have now drafted bills to criminalize abortions completely and put doctors who perform them in prison for anywhere from six months all the way to 30 years.  In states with heavily GOP legislatures, these abortion ban bills are expected to pass and be signed into law and will face legal challenges.

Time and time again the GOP in these states and at the national level have proven that their number one priority isn't jobs, but overturning Roe v Wade in the Supreme Court.  That is what they have been working on since January.  They could give a rat's ass about jobs, the economy, the environment, the war on terror, the housing depression, Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, or yes, even the deficit (which they plan to make worse with more trillion dollar tax cuts for the wealthy and for businesses.) But abortion?  They have literally stopped everything to go after that.

As Rachel says above, anyone who tells you that a pro-choice Republican has any place in the party in 2011 has no idea what they are talking about.

Hacking Sour Grapes Into Mooseberry Whine Part II

After two years of stalled requests, Sarah Palin's emails from her time in office will be turned over:

JUNEAU, Alaska -- The state of Alaska wants more time to release potentially thousands of emails that Sarah Palin sent and received while she was governor.

In January, Attorney General John Burns granted an extension until May 31 with the "unequivocal expectation" that all records that aren't privileged would be released by then.

I find it ironic that David Kernell is still in a halfway house unless I have missed his release.  If they can't scrub all the stupidity and embarrassing exposure in two whole years, we have a real treat coming.

Westboro's Epic Fail Chapter 2

It appears the Westboro plan to be in Joplin, MO on Sunday to protest.  Obama plans to visit, and the attention-starved church will take full advantage.  Via my local paper:

The Westboro Baptist Church — known for its protests at the funerals of soldiers and people with HIV/AIDS — plans to picket in Joplin on Sunday, where at least 125 people have died in a tornado.

On its website, the church says “Thank God for 125 dead,” an echo of its common refrain crediting God with having people killed in retribution for the United States’ tolerance of homosexuality.

People here are raw in the face of so much loss.  One of these days Westboro will pull the wrong chain and get a much deserved butt kicking.  When it happens, they can hardly pretend to be surprised.  Whatever day that is, I will mark it as a personal holiday and celebrate it every day for the rest of my life, and I'm not kidding.   

Man(n)s At Work

Former Reagan and Bush 41 staffer Ed Rogers (now a lobbyist, natch) figures since the ticket of Serious Older Guy With Gravitas and Crazy Nutjub Woman worked so well for the Republicans in 2008, that 2012 should be all about that only better.

Huntsman and Bachmann should have a meeting of the minds and offer themselves as a Huntsman-led ticket before the Iowa caucuses next year.

Think about it. Unless there is a new dynamic to the 2012 campaign, Huntsman probably can’t win the nomination and Bachmann probably shouldn’t.

But beating Obama will require a fresh approach. He will not be weakened by a primary challenge, and as yet there does not appear to be a left-wing third-party candidate who could erode his support in the general election.

Republicans need to do something radical. If we go through the drudgery of the primaries with a weak field, produce a weak nominee, and face an impoverished spring and early summer of 2012, followed by a tiresome, cliched August convention, we will give Obama a huge advantage.

You know what's going to give Obama a huge advantage?  The GOP 2012 primary season assures that nobody to the left of Bachmann is going to be the nominee, and will most likely lose by 10 points.

I understand Rogers is putting forth a compromise ticket now in order to try to spare the GOP the Clown Car Nationals for the next 12 months, but if your best idea is "everyone's going to hate this ticket!" then Obama has nothing to worry about.

Last Call

Hundreds are still missing in Joplin, Missouri in the wake of Sunday's tornado.

Officials Thursday said 232 people were still missing four days after a tornado tore through a Missouri town, and had only managed to identify one of the 125 bodies found in the storm's wake.


Some of the missing from Sunday's disaster in Joplin may be among the unidentified remains being stored in a hastily constructed mass morgue.

But officials pleaded with anxious family members for patience while they undertake a lengthy identification process involving DNA testing and fingerprinting.

"The 232, we can't presume that all of those are deceased," Andrea Spiller, Missouri's deputy director of public safety, told reporters.

Some may simply have failed to contact anxious friends and family. There may also still be people trapped in the rubble who have not been officially reported missing, Spiller cautioned.

Asked why families were not being allowed into the morgue to visually identify their loved ones, she replied: "It is not 100 percent accurate, and 100 percent accurate is our goal."

Bon can tell you that the damage out there is pretty devastating.  Some 75% of the city is gone, thousands of building flattened.  If there's anything you feel you can spare, donating to the Red Cross can help.

The Single State With Single Payer

Today, Vermont Democrat Gov. Peter Shumlin signed legislation creating the country's first single-payer state health care system.

Last month, the Vermont Senate passed legislation, approved earlier by the House, that would establish a single payer health care system in the state. The legislation would make Vermont the first state in the nation to, as Gov. Peter Shumlin (D) said, make health care “a right and not a privilege.”

The governor’s office just confirmed for ThinkProgress that Shumlin signed the legislation into law this morning, making the state the first in American history to pass legislation that will establish a single payer health care system to provide care to all citizens. Now that the law is signed, Vermont will spend the next four years setting up the system and preparing it for implementation.

In order to actually enact the system, the state needs a waiver from the Affordable Care Act health reform law. Currently, the federal government will start handing out state waivers in 2017 — three years after Vermont wants to implement its system. Rep. Peter Welch (D-VT) has introduced an amendment that would move the waiver date up to 2014, an idea that President Obama has endorsed.

And many expect the waiver bill to pass, as many red state Governors want out of the PPACA completely in order to implement their own state systems.  Only Vermont is going to full single-payer route however.  If Vermont's system works, it should be the model for the entire country, frankly.  But the state has taken a huge step into the history books today, and more power to them.

The Arizona Job

As expected the US Supreme Court issued a ruling upholding Arizona's 2007 law that harshly penalizes companies in the state that knowingly hire undocumented workers.

“Arizona hopes that its law will result in more effective enforcement of the prohibition on employing unauthorized aliens,” Chief Justice John Roberts, Jr. wrote, adding that “the Arizona regulation does not otherwise conflict with federal law.”

The highly anticipated decision keeps intact the 2007 Legal Arizona Workers Act. Employers could have their business licenses suspended or revoked for hiring illegal immigrants, under the law.

The law also requires Arizona employers to use a federal program called E-Verify to check the immigration status of potential workers. Justices likewise upheld this provision, with Robert calling it “entirely consistent” with federal law.

The decision affirms the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals, which had likewise upheld the state law. It is a defeat for the politically powerful U.S. Chamber of Commerce and the Obama administration, both of which had opposed the Arizona law.

“Either directly or through the uncertainty that it creates, the Arizona statute will impose additional burdens upon lawful employers,” Justice Stephen Breyer wrote in dissent.

Breyer, joined by justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Sonia Sotomayor, added that fearful employers may now “erect ever stronger safeguards against the hiring of unauthorized aliens, without counterbalancing protections against unlawful discrimination.”

Justices Antonin Scalia, Anthony Kennedy, Samuel Alito and Clarence Thomas joined in the most of the majority opinion.

So now, expect a number of other red states to pass similar laws across the country that puts the burden of proof of verifying employment status upon the business, not the state or the employee. Errors or mistakes in the E-Verify system may be a nightmare to the worker and of course cause serious problems with no real way to fight it, and that's still a major issue with the law.

But I really can't argue against businesses knowingly hiring undocumented workers under the table, and now that they may actually pay a price for doing so, maybe they'll stop.

Home, Home I'm Deranged, Part 21

Time for our monthly check on the housing depression numbers, and the figures are grim for 1Q 2011...very grim.

U.S. homes in the process of foreclosure sold at an average 27 percent discount in the first quarter and purchases of distressed properties fell to less than half the peak set two years ago, according to RealtyTrac Inc.
 
The discount reflects the price of distressed properties relative to normal sales. A total of 158,434 homes that sold in the period received notices of default, auction or repossession, down 16 percent from the fourth quarter and 36 percent from a year earlier, RealtyTrac said in a report today. At that pace, it would take three years to clear the supply of distressed and bank-owned houses, the Irvine, California-based company said.

“While this is probably helping to keep home prices relatively stable, it is also delaying the housing recovery,” Chief Executive Officer James Saccacio said in the statement. 

So even if there were no more additional foreclosures, it would still take into 2014 to clear out the backlog and to start stabilizing housing prices.  Fewer people are buying homes because A) lending standards are tougher and B) prices keep falling.  Those who wait to buy will be rewarded with a lower price, plan and simple, and since nobody's buying and foreclosures continue to flood the market, you have a classic oversupply and nobody buys market...meaning housing prices will continue to fall for years to come.

No way out of the housing depression in this country, not anytime soon. And neither the Democrats nor the Republicans seem all that worried about the three-year housing collapse going another three years...

USA Lags Badly In Internet Speeds

U, S, A! We're number nine! Wait, nine? At least according to a recent broadband survey by the FCC, yes. The good ol' US of A ranked ninth (out of the 29 member countries of the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development) in fixed broadband penetration on a per capita basis, and 12th in terms of pure percentage -- behind the UK, South Korea, Iceland, the Netherlands, and plenty of others. Though, granted, these nations lack the sprawling amber waves of grain that America must traverse with cables. The US also trailed in wireless broadband adoption, ranking ninth yet again, behind the likes of Ireland, Australia and Sweden. Worse still, even those with broadband reported slower connections than folks in other countries. Olympia, Washington had the highest average download speeds of any US city with 21Mbps (New York and Seattle tied for second with 11.7Mbps), but was easily topped by Helsinki, Paris, Berlin, and Seoul (35.8Mbps). Well, at least we beat Slovenia... if only just barely.

We've been behind for years, and the gap is growing.  Considering this is the future of communication, we really can't afford to fall behind.  Our infrastructure is crumbling, and when we finally get around to fixing that, we should incorporate data pipelines that will grow into their potential.  I think we all know that won't happen, but it's a nice thought.

But oh wait, we knew this a few months ago, right?

You Can Trust Me... Really

While I am against regulation of the Internet, the recent comments by Facebook's Mark Zuckerberg and Google's Eric Schmidt against it are self-serving and hard to trust at face value.

Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg and Google boss Eric Schmidt have warned governments worldwide not to over-regulate the internet.

Mr Zuckerberg said governments cannot cherry pick which aspects of the web to control and which not to.

Mr Schmidt echoed his sentiments: "Technology will move faster than governments, so don't legislate before you understand the consequences".

The problem is, these two are the heads of the two companies that violate privacy and create the need for regulation.  Regarding the recent leaks and issues citizens have had with Facebook and Google, I had wavered on my stance to fight regulations and intrusions. I'm not saying I have changed my mind, but this problem has grown to the point that something is going to have to declare what is safe.

This is a wake-up call.  The guys saying not to regulate the web have the most to gain from it... at our expense.

You're Watching The Ed Joke

I've not been a fan of Ed Schultz, not since his "advice" to Dems in 2010 was to stay home and not vote.  I'm even less of a fan now that he's racked up a forced week off for calling right-wing radio host Laura Ingraham a "slut".



Yeah, sorry Ed, there's no excuse for this.  And frankly I wouldn't be terribly upset in the least if he didn't come back at all.  There are a number of liberal voices we could be supporting out there, but Ed Schultz is not one of them.

To his credit, he did apologize last night, and it seemed sincere and far more of an actual apology than any right wing media would ever deliver.  And it's a dirty, rotten double standard that right wing media figures say far worse on a regular basis.



But to his detriment, he has still yet to deliver an apology one-tenth as heartfelt for telling Dems to stay home from the voting booth in 2010.



When he apologizes for these words like he apologized Wednesday night for saying this last July...

And I'm announcing today, I'm not going to vote in the midterms. I'm not going to do it. You can say it's un-American. No, it's rather revolutionary is what it is. I'm at that point. I'm checking out.

I'm checking out of the Democrats because they are proving to me that they don't know how to handle these big babies over on the right that say no. You know what you do? You get in the driver's seat, you hit the throttle, and you run over them.

...someone get back to me.  Other than that, I could take or leave Ed.  I stopped listening to the guy then, so what he has to say about Laura Ingraham I could give a rat's ass about.

PS, way to give the Right Wing Noise Machine something to talk about other than Medicare, Ed.  Your timing is goddamn impeccable.

Zandar's Thought Of The Day

How long will it take Double G and the rest of the anti-Obama left to go after the President for "being to the right of Herman Cain on foreign policy"?

Herman Cain opposes targeting terrorists who are U.S. citizens for assassination. Expressing surprise and disbelief that the Obama administration has such a policy, the presidential candidate told The Atlantic that Americans accused of terrorist activity should be granted due process, unlike foreigners.

"This is the first that I have heard -- you're saying it's okay to take out American citizens if he suspects they are terrorist related. Is that what you said?!" the former Godfather's Pizza CEO said when queried on the topic. "I've got to be honest with you. I have not heard that. I don't believe that the president of the United States should order the assassination of citizens of the United States. That's why we have our court system, and that's why we have our laws." Cain's position put him at odds with the Obama administration policy to target, among others, Anwar al-Awlaki, who in the wake of Osama bin Laden's death has moved up the list as a major target for U.S. anti-terror efforts.

Though he suffers from low name recognition, Cain generates strong enthusiasm among voters who get to know him, and performed well in the first GOP candidates debate. A long shot for the nomination, he is all confidence, having declared last week that when he wins the presidency, "we'll all be able to say, free at last! Free at last! Thank God almighty, this nation is free at last, again!" In order to test that hypothesis, I probed the candidate's positions on executive power and civil liberties in a 22 minute conversation that covered lots of ground but left no time for followup questions.

Conor Friedersdorf here thinks Herman Cain "performed well" at the debate earlier this month and that gosh, he's not such a bad guy.  You know, except for all the crazy "government is enslaving black people" stuff.

I'm more curious as to why The Atlantic is interviewing Cain in the first place.  Then again...Megan McArdle works here, so I really shouldn't be wondering too hard about them trying to pass Cain off as "the black Libertarian Obama isn't".