Will Congress ban gays from the NFL?

By Michael J.W. Stickings

Well, it's come to this:

Washington lobbyist Jack Burkman on Monday said he is preparing legislation that would ban gay athletes from joining the National Football League.

Burkman in a statement said he has garnered political support for the bill, though his statement didn't mention any specific lawmakers who are behind it.

"We are losing our decency as a nation," Burkman said in a statement. "Imagine your son being forced to shower with a gay man. That's a horrifying prospect for every mom in the country. What in the world has this nation come to?"

Burkman said he came up with the idea after college football star Michael Sam publicly revealed he is gay a few weeks ago. If drafted, Sam would be the first openly gay player in the NFL...

"If the NFL has no morals and no values, then Congress must find values for it," Burkman said.

You know what, I really hope this ends up being debated in Congress and put to a vote. Let's find out who's for it. Let's force Republicans to vote their bigotry or cower in fear of political retribution. And let's not just hear from politicians but from, well, everyone, including conservatives who side with Burkman. Everyone should take a side so that we know exactly who the bigots are, who the hateful homophobes are -- with sitting on the fence counting as siding with the bigots and homophobes, no excuses allowed.

This guy is clearly, and has a long record of being, a right-wing piece of shit. But let him have his day. Let him expose himself in full public glare for what he truly is, and let all those who agree with him to raise their arms so that we may condemn them to the extremist fringe and their views to the dustbin of history.

Even Paul Ryan realizes the latest Republican line of attack on Obamacare is bullshit

By Michael J.W. Stickings

Well, maybe "even" isn't the right word. Paul Ryan is a fairly smart guy, whatever you think of his atrocious views, and so one should expect him to understand the difference between the truth and partisan spin -- and his own party's dishonesty. He's no Louie Gohmert, after all, to name but one of his embarrassing colleagues. In a caucus full of morons, that is to say, Ryan does stand out as a man with some capacity for independent thought. Which isn't saying much, but still.

Anyway:

At least one Republican is setting the record straight on what the Congressional Budget Office actually said this week about Obamacare and its effect on jobs.

House Budget Chair Paul Ryan (R-WI) explained in a Wednesday hearing with CBO director Doug Elmendorf that the health care reform law wouldn't cost the U.S. economy more than 2 million jobs, as many of his colleagues alleged, but that Americans would choose to work less.

"I want to make sure we accurately understand what it is you are saying," Ryan said, before leading Elmendorf through a series of questions to explain the report and its findings.

Ryan and Elmendorf combined to explain that Obamacare would lead to a decrease in the number of hours worked by up to 2 percent in 2024. Most of that drop, the CBO said, would be the result of Americans choosing not to work, for various reasons, but not because employers would want to hire fewer workers on account of the law. Translate those lost hours into full-time employment and it equals up to 2.5 million jobs by 2024. But that's not the same as jobs being cut.

"Just to understand, it is not that employers are laying people off," Ryan said.

"That is right," Elmendorf said.

That's a pretty direct contradiction for the attack adopted by many GOPers following the report's release. Senate Republicans blasted out an email, saying that Obamacare would "print more pink slips." Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) and others alleged that the law would "cost" the country more than 2 million jobs. A number of conservative outlets framed the report as "pushing" Americans out of the workforce, rather than it being of their own volition.

It's a pretty easy thing to understand. There are people who only work because they need the health coverage. With Obamacare, that is, with access to affordable health insurance, they won't need to do that. Ryan opposes Obamacare, but at least he seems to grasp that. The problem is that many in his party either don't or don't want to, and so what we're getting from Republicans and their allies in the media (and even some in the "liberal media" who are too stupid to figure it out or who just regurgitate GOP lies) is yet more distortion, yet more dishonesty, yet more lies, which is pretty much all they've got in their ongoing assault on Obamacare.

It's a job-killer, they scream. Repeal, repeal, repeal!

That the truth is against them, as Ryan himself knows, hardly matters.

The Orcs are in trouble

By Carl 

Gee, you think the shutdown was a good idea for the GOP? I suppose you could if you think a permanent Democratic majority is a good idea:

Washington (CNN) -- In a sign of the political hangover congressional Republicans are suffering in the wake of the government shutdown, three-quarters of Americans in a new national poll say that most GOP members of Congress don't deserve to be re-elected.

A CNN/ORC International survey released Monday also found a majority saying that the Republicans' policies are too extreme. And according to the poll, Democrats have an 8-point advantage over the Republicans in an early indicator in the battle for control of Congress. But with more than a year to go until the 2014 midterm elections, there's plenty of time for these numbers to change.

Normally, numbers like this are meaningless, but here’s an interesting statistic out of the study

[N]early four in 10 saying even their own representative doesn't deserve a return ticket to Washington next year. Both figures are hovering around all-time highs in CNN polling.

See, the conventional wisdom goes that everyone hates Congress, and the people who infest it, but Congress has a 95-98% re-election rate.

Which means everyone hates everybody else’s Congresscritter. Except now, suddenly, people are waking up that the only way to clean house is to clean house.

Unfortunately, we don’t get state-by-state numbers, but the underlying data based on self-identifying political views seems to suggest that even conservatives states (PDF) are taking a very close look at their individual members of Congress with an eye towards replacing them. The question there becomes, are they thinking they should be more moderate and willing to work with Democrats and the president, or even more strident and obstinate? The jury is still out on that one, but it is safe to say that the current make-up of the House of Representatives is in play, and that the Democrats could steal enough moderate seats to claim a majority next year. 

The party that occupies the White House for a second term rarely if ever has gained seats in the Congress in the mid-term elections. It could happen next year. It has a very good chance.  

(Cross-posted to Simply Left Behind.)

The 12% Congress

By Mustang Bobby 

Say what you will about President Obama's approval rating falling to below 50%, he'd have to be somewhere on the same level as anthrax and galloping diarrhea to get to the level of the United States Congress:

The new NBC/WSJ results show Congress' approval rating at 12%, with 83% disapproving. When was the last time support for Congress was this awful? NBC/WSJ have been doing national polls for about two decades, and it's never been this bad.

Given that Obama's support is still lukewarm, and he'll never be on the ballot again, I'd argue that Congress' woeful approval rating is significantly more important.

Indeed, this number could get considerably worse if congressional Republicans kill immigration reform, force a debt ceiling crisis, and threaten a government shutdown.

Indeed, the closer one looks at the poll, the worse things appear for the legislative branch. Obama's personal favorability is 48%, while for House Speaker John Boehner, it's 18%. Only 22% believe congressional Republicans emphasize unifying the country, while 67% believe they prioritize partisanship. A 56% majority believe GOP lawmakers are "too inflexible" when dealing with the White House.

And a 51% majority wants Republicans to stop holding votes to repeal the Affordable Care Act.

As a practical matter, if GOP lawmakers wanted to be more popular, it'd be pretty easy — they could, in theory, pass a popular immigration-reform bill, turn off the deliberately harmful sequester, pass a measure to reduce gun violence, maybe consider a bill or two that creates jobs, or compromise on a budget plan.

The most maddening thing of all is that next year, fully 90% of these people will win re-election, and the Republicans stand a 50-50 chance of getting a majority in the Senate as well.

So explain to me why elected officials who have a lower approval rating than the dictator of North Korea can rest assured that they will never lose their job or face the consequences of basically bringing the country to a halt through a perpetual act of adolescent petulance.

Congress may suck, but we're the enablers.

(Cross-posted at Bark Bark Woof Woof.)

Sabotaging Obamacare: The reductio ad absurdum of Republican extremism and obstructionism

By Michael J.W. Stickings

As long-time Congress-watcher Norm Ornstein (a self-defined centrist who actually works at the right-wing American Enterprise Institute) writes:

When a law is enacted, representatives who opposed it have some choices (which are not mutually exclusive). They can try to repeal it, which is perfectly acceptable -- unless it becomes an effort at grandstanding so overdone that it detracts from other basic responsibilities of governing. They can try to amend it to make it work better -- not just perfectly acceptable but desirable, if the goal is to improve a cumbersome law to work better for the betterment of the society and its people. They can strive to make sure that the law does the most for Americans it is intended to serve, including their own constituents, while doing the least damage to the society and the economy. Or they can step aside and leave the burden of implementation to those who supported the law and got it enacted in the first place.

But to do everything possible to undercut and destroy its implementation -- which in this case means finding ways to deny coverage to many who lack any health insurance; to keep millions who might be able to get better and cheaper coverage in the dark about their new options; to create disruption for the health providers who are trying to implement the law, including insurers, hospitals, and physicians; to threaten the even greater disruption via a government shutdown or breach of the debt limit in order to blackmail the president into abandoning the law; and to hope to benefit politically from all the resulting turmoil -- is simply unacceptable, even contemptible. One might expect this kind of behavior from a few grenade-throwing firebrands. That the effort is spearheaded by the Republican leaders of the House and Senate -- even if Speaker John Boehner is motivated by fear of his caucus, and McConnell and Cornyn by fear of Kentucky and Texas Republican activists -- takes one's breath away.

It does, and it may be unprecedented, but it's now par for the course for Republicans, the disloyal opposition.

A blow for bigotry: The Supreme Court demolishes the Voting Rights Act

By Michael J.W. Stickings

As you may have heard by now, the Supreme Court -- or, rather, the Supreme Court's right-wing majority, issued a ruling today that significantly undermines the efficacy of the Voting Rights Act:

The Supreme Court on Tuesday effectively struck down the heart of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 by a 5-to-4 vote, ruling that Congress had not provided adequate justification for subjecting nine states, mostly in the South, to federal oversight.

"In 1965, the states could be divided into two groups: those with a recent history of voting tests and low voter registration and turnout, and those without those characteristics," Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. wrote for the majority. "Congress based its coverage formula on that distinction. Today the nation is no longer divided along those lines, yet the Voting Rights Act continues to treat it as if it were."

The court divided along ideological lines, and the two sides drew sharply different lessons from the history of the civil rights movement and gave very different accounts of whether racial minorities continue to face discrimination in voting. 

There was -- and remains -- good reason for such federal oversight.

What the Roberts-led majority is basically saying is that racial prejudice is a thing of the past ("the nation is no longer divided along those lines") and that the success in overcoming such prejudice means there's no longer a need for voting rights protections of the sort that were enacted back in the '60s as part of the broader civil rights movement.

Which is ridiculous.

Conservatives have been waging war on voting rights for a long time, by which I mean forever, and this is the blow they were waiting to strike.

Read more »

"A pretty shameful day for Washington": Republicans block highly popular gun control measure to expand background checks

By Michael J.W. Stickings

Well, it was a bad bill (Manchin-Toomey, a bipartisan "compromise" that only a few Republicans supported), but it was something (expanded background checks mixed with various gun-"rights" provisions approved by the gun lobby (not the NRA, though, which is opposed to any and all gun control), and I suppose it was better than nothing (or maybe not), but it failed yesterday because of the Republican filibuster and the ongoing Republican demand that anything Republicans don't like requires a 60-vote supermajority in the Senate (to hell with democracy):

It failed by a vote of 54 to 46, with five Democrats voting against it. Only four Republicans supported it.

Democratic Sens. Mark Pryor (Ark.), Max Baucus (Mont.), Heidi Heitkamp (N.D.), Mark Begich (Alaska) and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (Nev.) voted against it. Reid supported the measure but voted against it to preserve his ability to bring the measure up again.

GOP Sens. John McCain (Ariz.), Susan Collins (Maine), Pat Toomey (Pa.) and Mark Kirk (Ill.) voted "yes."

Some are saying it's a major blow for President Obama, who of course, post-Sandy Hook, has made gun control a central policy commitment of his second term. I'm not so sure. Expanded background checks have overwhelming public support (even most Republicans support them), even if the country remains divided on more comprehensive reform.

Even this limited measure only failed because the extremist, NRA-indebted Republican Party used the filibuster and benefitted from the disproportionate representation of small, rural states in the Senate to block it. And, really, that's the story here -- so much so that the president can continue to take his case directly to the people while further isolating the Republican Party way out on the far right.

Obama called yesterday "a pretty shameful day for Washington," and that, too, is part of the story. The president's approval ratings aren't great, but they're way higher than Congress's, and he can now make the case that a Congress no one likes won't even pass a hugely popular measure that is pretty much the least that ought to be done in the wake of the Newtown massacre (not to mention every other instance, day after day, of the appalling gun violence that plagues the country).

Read more »

A platinum way to blow Republicans' minds

By Michael J.W. Stickings

The Hill:

The White House on Wednesday declined to rule out minting a "platinum coin" to avoid default if Congress fails to raise the debt ceiling.

Press secretary Jay Carney on Wednesday said there is "no substitute" for Congress raising the borrowing limit but declined to explicitly rule out issuing new currency to pay the government's debts.

"The option here is for Congress to do its job and pay the bill," Carney said. "There is no Plan B, there is no backup plan. There is Congress's responsibility."

It is, but it's not really up to Congress, it's up to the Republicans, who have decided to hold the economy hostage over the debt ceiling, something neither party did until this band of right-wing terrorists took over the House and decided to use the filibuster to pursue its obstructionist anti-Obama agenda in the Senate.

So, there may not be a Plan B, but... it's possible, right?

And while it seems like a crazy idea, minting a $1 trillion coin... you know what, I'm all for it. With Republicans prepared to risk economic disaster, bluffing or not, Dems have to get a bit creative, and aggressive, and that means the White House keeping all options on the table.

Read more »

Worse than Nickelback: A sad statement on the state of American democracy

By Michael J.W. Stickings 

Jennifer Granholm (@JenGranholm) tweeted at 5:35 PM on Tue, Jan 08, 2013: 

Congress favorability rating lower than cockroaches & Nickelback. Don't worry, still higher than the Kardashians (link) 

Thank you very much:

-- decades-long right-wing assault on the federal government;

-- domestic terrorism of the extremist, absolutist, and obstructionist GOP; and

-- spineless cowardice of the Dems.

You're making the Founders ever so proud.

When you're worse than fucking Nickelback, you truly suck.

Good riddance to the 112th Congress

By Michael J.W. Stickings

As Think Progress notes, "it will go down as one of the least productive and most partisan legislative classes in all of American history."

And that's saying something.

Now, not to excuse the many spineless Democrats on Capitol Hill, but obviously it's the Republicans who are the problem.

They're the disloyal opposition -- a party of right-wing extremism, uncompromising absolutism, crushing obstructionism, shameless opportunism, bigoted theocratism, and blatant anti-Americanism (for all their claims of patriotism, they always put party/ideology before country, as in their opposition to economic stimulus and raising the debt ceiling, for example).

The 112th was indeed very bad. Just don't expect the 113th to be much better. Remember, the GOP still controls the House, and the crazies are still very much in control.

The new Congress

By Mustang Bobby

Today is the constitutionally mandated day that the new Congress is sworn in, and it's about damn time, too. The 112th sucked; they were the least productive since the 1940s, and they went out with a couple of howlers, like refusing to vote on disaster relief for Sandy and failure to pass the Violence Against Women Act.

For pure entertainment value, the rants by Republicans Chris Christie and Peter King were fun to watch, and I'm sure that there are some Democrats who are happy to have them sound like Democrats, except for the fact that both men are pretty much jerks and in spite of their trashing of their own party, they're still jerks.

But if you're holding out some kind of hope that this new Congress will be any better than the last one, then you might as well be out in the back yard looking for unicorns, because if anything, this gang will be just as dickish as the last. And that's the optimistic forecast. They will still have to deal with the debt ceiling, spending cuts, and the hundreds of other things that come along, and with about 50 to 75 of the membership still hardcore Tea Partiers who will shriek from the rafters about everything from repealing Obamacare to vaginal probes all in the name of the sacred job creators, John Boehner will find yet another excuse to start drinking at noon.

The only hope for any progress is that the GOP will continue to self-destruct and continue to marginalize themselves into oblivion. 

(Cross-posted at Bark Bark Woof Woof.)

Paul Ryan is no deficit hawk

By Michael J.W. Stickings

So you know how Paul Ryan has a reputation -- pushed self-aggrandizingly by the man himself, as well as by his party, and spun by a willing, kowtowing Beltway media establishment -- for being an uncompromising deficit hawk, for being ever so willing, unlike most of his Capitol Hill colleagues, to make the tough fiscal choices that are required at this time of urgent fiscal panic?

Yeah, well, here's a shocker. Seems that reputation is completely undeserved:

A Center for American Progress Action Fund analysis shows that Ryan voted to add a grand total of $6.8 trillion to the federal debt during his time in Congress, voting for at least 65 bills that either reduced revenue or increased spending.

From 2001 to 2008, Congress passed legislation that increased the national deficit by a total of $4 trillion — the number grows to $6 trillion if you add in the how much those policies have cost through 2011. Ryan voted for 90 percent of these deficit increasing bills. 

Of course we knew this already. It's just good to have a number attached to it.

And that number is $6.8 trillion. That's trillion. With a T.

Paul Ryan isn't a deficit hawk, he's an Ayn Rand-loving trickle-downer whose aim is to reduce the tax "burden" on the rich while screwing everyone else.

Remember that next time he's held up, including by Mitt Romney, as a serious, courageous man with serious, courageous "ideas" for America.

(The Republican-dominated) Congress sinks to 10% public approval

By Michael J.W. Stickings

A new Gallup survey shows Congress's job approval declining to a new record low of just 10% (with 86% disapproving, tying the record set in December).

Who says America's divided? Nothing seems to unite the country quite like anti-Congress sentiment -- which is getting so bad, it'll soon be in al Qaeda territory.

I would just note that while this pitiful showing likely reflects anti-Washington and, more broadly, anti-government sentiment at a time of ongoing economic uncertainty (even if the president's rating is quite high), this highly unpopular Congress, to be more specific, is made up of a Republican-controlled House and a Senate paralyzed by Republican obstructionism.

Let's just be clear about that. And about just what it is that is so deeply unpopular with the American people.

President Obama requests $1.2 trillion debt ceiling increase

By Michael J.W. Stickings

The Hill:

President Obama on Thursday made an official request that Congress raise the debt ceiling by $1.2 trillion over the objections of several House Republicans.

Obama's formal notification gives both chambers 15 days to vote on whether to approve the hike. The House plans to vote on this request on Jan. 18, a spokeswoman for House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-Va.) said.

The United States reached the $15.194 trillion debt limit on Jan. 4, according to Treasury statements. Since that time, Treasury has employed the "extraordinary measure" of tapping into its Exchange Stabilization Fund to avoid exceeding the limit.

Uh-oh. Another opportunity for Republicans to try to push America (and the global economy) off the cliff.

Thankfully, the Senate would need to vote against it as well, and the Senate, still under Democratic control, isn't about to vote for economic Armageddon.

Democrats capitulate to Republican demands, Congress averts government shutdown

By Michael J.W. Stickings

Last night, Congress reached a deal on a massive spending bill that will, among other things, keep the federal government running:

Retreating from their harsh partisan sniping, and perhaps fearing public rebuke, Congressional leaders said Thursday that they had agreed on a large-scale spending measure to keep the government running for the next nine months.

But an accord on extending a payroll tax holiday set to expire at the end of the month remained elusive, with Democrats weighing a possible short-term extension, setting the stage for another fight with Republicans over how to pay for it.  

And there's the problem, or at least the most glaring problem.

President Obama and (presumably) Democrats on Capitol Hill wanted to offset the extension of the payroll tax holiday, which would benefit 160 million workers, by imposing a surtax on income over $1 million, that is, on millionaires. Republicans love tax cuts but, plutocrats that they are, opposed any such tax increase on the wealthy. (Their priority is tax cuts for the wealthy, not tax cuts for everyone else.)

Instead of fighting for the tax cuts for 160 million people, though, Democrats capitulated, taking the surtax off the table and thereby giving up their main bargaining chip.

The spending bill will go through, but, needless to say, the payroll tax holiday battle will continue, with the GOP now holding the upper hand. Democrats are reportedly "considering a plan that would find savings in other ways, including fees on the federal housing finance agencies, and could seek to end certain deductions and other tax benefits for millionaires," but, with Democrats committed to the payroll tax holiday extension, it looks like Republicans will be able to get what they want out of this: not a surtax on millionaires and nothing else that would in any way increase the tax "burden" on millionaires but spending cuts of some kind.

How the hell did this happen? Over to you, Charles Pierce:

Oh, they have made a day of it. First, the pillars of Jell-O in the Senate roll over on the itty-bitty surtax they wanted to lay on the plutocrats to pay for a payroll tax cut for the rest of us. Then, the president announces that he's not going to veto after all the bill in which 400 years of Western jurisprudence is pretty much torn to ribbons and tossed to the wind, albeit slightly less deeply into the wind than the original monstrosity would have liked. And, finally, Ron Wyden of Oregon steps forward to give cover to zombie-eyed granny-starver Paul Ryan's latest attempt to "reform" Medicare in the same way that Arthur (Bomber) Harris "reformed" the building codes in Dresden. It's a Very Special Holiday Episode of the long-running hit comedy, Ah, Who Gives a Fk Anyway?

This is an outrage. This is borderline sociopathic. This is so gloriously suicidal that I keep waiting for an angel to come down from heaven to show David Plouffe and Harry Reid what Washington would be like if they'd never been born.

**********

It cannot be emphasized enough. Of the three issues under discussion, the polling data on two of them simply could not be clearer. The American people want taxes raised on the very wealthiest among us, and the American people do not want Paul Ryan's clammy hands anywhere near the Medicare program. Public opinion is (distressingly) ambivalent on the detainee provisions, but it's not overly popular with the people who have to implement it, and it has retired Marine generals throwing bricks at it, and, dammit, the president taught constitutional law, or so we are told repeatedly.

None of these "compromises" will solve a single one of the country's critical problems. None of these "compromises" will create a single job. All they will do is toss away almost every one of the major political advantages the Democratic party has going into the 2012 elections. My god, six months ago, Paul Ryan was a squawking albatross around his party's neck. (Remember how he said he'd "given up fear for Lent," and then proceeded to start charging people a fee to come to his town meetings, and setting the cops on constituents who showed up at his office while he was on vacation? Ah, thim was the days.) The "Ryan Plan" was well on its way to being an anchor. Now, thanks to the Democrats, and to a preposterously compliant elite political press, Ryan's rehabilitation is nearly complete. Nice work, fellas.

Here's a tip, gang: The American people are not angry at government because people yell at each other and nothing ever gets done. The American people are angry because people yell at each other and nothing the American people really want ever gets done. They want higher taxes on billionaires. They want Medicare kept out of the hands of the vandals. If they think about it a little, they even like their jurisprudence with a little habeas corpus sprinkled on top. Instead, they get endless platitudes, and the steady, futile placating of an insatiable political opposition.

Yes, well done. (And brilliantly put, Mr. Pierce.) Democrats willingly relinquish the advantage, to the extent they ever really had it, on winning issues (both in policy and electoral terms), and, while the government stays open, we end up with a convoluted appropriations bill that is heavily Republican.

Yeah, Merry fucking Christmas.

**********

I'm with my friend Libby on this: "I understand the need for pragmatic compromise. But this isn't compromise, it's the same devious cave-in to placate the plutocrats. It's not only spineless, it's stupid. I'm really sick of stupid."

Unfortunately, stupid is all we've got.

Rick Perry says he'd "uproot, tear down, and rebuild" Washington

By Michael J.W. Stickings

CNN:

Casting Washington as a latter-day Roman Empire, bloated and "mired in ruin," Texas Gov. Rick Perry unveiled a drastic plan to overhaul the federal government Tuesday in a policy speech in Iowa.

"It is time to tear down the monuments to bureaucratic failure, and in their place build a smaller, more efficient federal government that puts the American people first," Perry said at a manufacturing facility in Bettendorf. "The Washington insiders won't address Beltway decay, they won't try a totally new way, because they like things as they are."

And he'd do this how? Though the sheer force of his intellect and powers of persuasion? He talks as if he knows how Washington works, but he really seems to have no clue whatsoever. As Steve Benen writes:

Perhaps Perry hasn't thought about all of this. Perhaps he has and he doesn't care. After all, as E.J. Dionne explained this week, we're talking about a GOP presidential candidate whose platform is based on "mindless opposition to government."

Either way, the fact that Perry thinks his "uproot and overhaul" plan is a good idea speaks volumes about his vacuous ideology.

Vacuous. And unconstitutional.

And utterly at odds with the requirements of modern governance. If you actually want America to remain strong, and able to address the myriad challenges it faces both domestic and foreign, a part-time Congress filled with inexperienced and unqualified legislators isn't exactly the best place to start.

But, then, it's hard to take any of this seriously. All he's really doing is throwing yet more red meat to the right-wing carnivores who make up the hardcore GOP base, his core constituency, and his only shot at the nomination.

So you wanted proof that Republican priorities are all out of whack?

By Michael J.W. Stickings

Consider this:

President Obama invoked God on Wednesday as he criticized Congress for voting on commemorative coins and a resolution reaffirming "In God We Trust" as the national motto in all public buildings, public schools and other government institutions.

"That's not putting people back to work," Obama said. "I trust in God, but God wants to see us help ourselves by putting people to work."

Obama called on Congress to approve his jobs package.

"There's no excuse for 100 percent of Washington Republicans to say no," Obama said. "That means Republicans in Washington are out of touch with Republican voters."

Obama continued: "The American people are with me on this."

I don't share Obama's religiosity, but otherwise he's right about this. The country is in trouble. People are out of work and struggling to make ends meet, if they even have enough to struggle with. Obama is trying to do something about that. The overwhelming majority of the American people are with him, as are many Republicans. 

But Republicans on Capitol Hill, extremists and obstructionists the lot of them, are too busy trying to score cheap political points by playing up their theocratic "patriotism" -- the last refuge of the right-wing scoundrel.

Does John McCain take his orders from Rush Limbaugh?

By Nicholas Wilbur

Sen. John McCain supported the intervention in Libya. He heralded the killing of Osama bin Laden. He supports continuing the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. And he believes Syria should be the next target of a military intervention.

But those Africans who are being slaughtered by the Lord's Resistance Army?

Not. Worth. It.

After President Obama announced that he would be sending 100 military advisors into Central Africa, McCain had this to say:

I worry that with the best of intentions, that somehow we get engaged in a commitment that we can't get out of. That's happened before in our history and we need an explanation, and I’m very disappointed, again, that the administration has not consulted with members of Congress before taking such action.

Here's the explanation: The Lord's Resistance Army, "a notorious renegade group that has terrorized villagers in at least four countries with marauding bands that kill, rape, maim and kidnap with impunity," is currently killing, raping, maiming, and kidnapping with impunity.

Here are the facts about the Obama administration consulting Congress: In May 2010, the United States Congress sent the "Lord's Resistance Army Disarmament and Northern Uganda Recovery Act" to President Obama to sign into law, which he did, on May 24. The bill passed by unanimous consent in the Senate and by a voice vote in the House. 

Sen. James Inhofe (R-Okla.), a lead sponsor of the Senate measure, recently told The Hill, "We had 64 co-sponsors. That's the most in the history of the Senate on an Africa-related bill."

"I would have been disappointed" had Obama opted against sending U.S. troops there, Inhofe said, according to The Hill. "It's not that we mandated the president to act; we requested him to do it. I take full responsibility for that. I don't hang that on the president at all."

Got that? Congress already approved this mission – to the tune of $10 million a year through FY2013.

We know Rush Limbaugh thinks the Lord's Resistance Army is a group of "Christians" fighting to "remove dictatorships and stop the oppression of our people." But what Limbaugh thinks just so happens to be wrong.

What's your excuse, John?    

You supported liberating the people of Iraq and Afghanistan. You supported liberating the people of Libya. Now you want to liberate the people of Syria and possibly even Iran.

Why not the people of Uganda, Sudan, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, and the Central African Republic?

Are you taking orders from conservative pundits, or is the mass murder of black people just not that big of a concern? As I recall, you were against military interventions in Somalia in 1993 and Haiti in 1994, as well...

(Cross-posted at Muddy Politics.)

Bifurcated democracy

By Carl 

This was an interesting op-ed in yesterday's New York Times:

OUR nation isn't facing just a debt crisis; it's facing a democracy crisis. For weeks, the federal government has been hurtling toward two unsavory options: a crippling default brought on by Congressional gridlock, or — as key Democrats have advocated — a unilateral increase in the debt ceiling by an unchecked president. Even if the last-minute deal announced on Sunday night holds together, it’s become clear that the balance at the heart of the Constitution is under threat.

The debate has threatened to play out as a destructive but all too familiar two-step, revealing how dysfunctional the relationship between Congress and the president has become. 

The article talks about how presidents have decided to exercise power unilaterally, like Obama's Libyan adventures (although the practice goes back decades to Reagan and even Nixon,) while the Congress has been unable to rally itself to challenge the President's usurpation of power. Either the Congress is divided (like now) or reinforces the person holding the Oval Office (as under Bush the Younger).

This is what the punditry tells us we want, over and over again: divided government. Given what we've experienced for over three decades now (absent the six years of Bush the Younger) is this really what we want? An ineffectual Congress hamstrung by the tyranny of the minority and a Presidency who usurps power like a king?

Mind you, none of this is partisan: Republicans and Democrats have been to blame in BOTH branches. Clinton was forced to legislate by executive order, much as Obama is. Both Bushes declared wars without making a firm case to the American people as to the need for them (this wasn't dominoes toppling or any such credible threat.) Reagan tossed American troops around like candy and American armaments to enemies.

In Congress, John Boehner can't even get a centerpiece of legislation passed trying to keep the party's dog-and-pony show from tearing each other up. When Pelosi was in charge, she had to placate Blue Dog Democrats, rather than muscle them into line.

Hell, about the only thing any Congress since 1990 has been able to agree upon is that Bill Clinton needed to be impeached and a bunch of Asian deserts bombed!

This has effectively emasculated an entire branch of government. Power seeks a vacuum. It's almost understandable that the president would unilaterally legislate.

Plus, members of Congress don't have to take a stand on anything controversial. Take the EPA actions earlier this year to regulate greenhouse gases. Now, long time readers of this blog know there are few people more concerned with global climate change than me. Maybe Al Gore. So while I don't have a problem with Obama taking the bull by the fumes... so to speak... I worry about the fact that Congress didn't vote on this.

Note: it wasn't voted down. The bill stalled before a vote could be taken. It's probably still in the hamper, waiting to be aired out. Look at what this saves Republicans from, say, Montana, where people believe climate change is real and a problem. The party would insist they vote against the EPA actions. Their constituencies would say "We need a better Congresscritter." No responsibility, yet they can parade around touting how angry they are that they didn't get their say.

The more a controversial issue remains undecided, and the more critical that issue becomes, the less likely it is Congress will ever actually take action. And the more likely it is they will cede that issue to the Executive branch. Fine for a liberal like me when a semi-liberal like Obama is in charge, but what happens when another Dumbya hits the Oval Office? One a little more clever?

Congress will still feel this is expedient.

But it is unhealthy. It is unhealthy for an economy, it is unhealthy for a Constitution and it is deep unhealthy for a society and its people.

(Cross-posted to Simply Left Behind.)

CBO says GOP's negotiating skills MIA on budget deal

By Nicholas Wilbur

The Republicans' hard-fought battle to curb the "ballooning deficit" and "reign in excessive government spending" backfired in the worst kind of way this week.

The non-partisan Congressional Budget Office delivered the knockout blow to the party of fiscal conservatism on Monday morning, when it published an updated estimate of the actual savings agreed to in the bi-partisan budget deal that avoided a government shutdown in early April.

Republicans were already sour over the deal, which both parties claimed would cut $38.5 billion in spending from this fiscal year's budget (or approximately $78 billion compared to the president's budget request, which was never enacted). A quarter of the most conservative Republicans in the House voted against the measure on the basis that the cuts didn't come close to the $61 billion (or approximately $100 billion) they promised their constituency during the midterm election campaigns. Since the agreement was reached, the news has only grown more disappointing.

On the eve of Congress' vote to enact the "budget compromise," the CBO issued a report estimating that the actual savings from the alleged $38.5 billion in cuts would come out to more like $352 million (not billion). The discrepancy was due to lawmakers increasing spending for certain defense programs and including both unspent budget allocations and rescissions (programs whose funds were already cancelled by Congress) in their budget savings calculations.

Most recently, the CBO issued a revised report projecting that spending reductions actually would result in a net increase in government spending – to the tune of $3.2 billion. According to the report, the estimated cuts to non-military spending totaled only $4.4 billion, or approximately 90 percent below the $38.5 billion Republicans believed they were agreeing to, as a compromise, in order to avoid a government shutdown.

Rather than decreasing the deficit and cutting wasteful government spending, Republicans passed a bill that actually increased spending and added to the deficit.

So much for fiscal conservatism.

So much for campaign promises.

And so much for the ol' reliable campaign tactic of labeling Democrats as spend-thrift socialists bent on turning American into a broken and bankrupted welfare state. It will be painfully amusing to watch the GOP try to justify how they managed to fight for three months over a budget they claimed didn't do enough to address the country's apocalyptically high deficit, only to settle on a deal that actually increased the deficit.

On the other hand, if it's true that nothing in politics happens accidentally, then it's entirely possible that Republicans are gearing up for another massive swipe of Democratic seats in Congress, this time by appealing to the left-wingers who believe, with good reason, that government spending during a time of nominal growth is the best remedy for an ailing economy.

I wouldn't count on it, but that's a better justification for achieving the opposite of the party's stated intentions than walking up to the podium at a press conference and explaining in congratulatory prose how President Obama's negotiating skills are so monumentally superior to those of the GOP.

"We were as shocked as you were" isn't exactly a campaign motto that will rile the base in 2012.

(Cross-posted at Muddy Politics.)