DebateGate

I'm hopeful.  It's a step in the right direction.  Why didn't the GOP do this all the while they were in control?  I like what I'm seeing.



Democrats Freeze Earmarks for Now
Leaders Want Lobbying Changes Enacted

By Shailagh Murray and Jonathan Weisman
Washington Post Staff Writers
Tuesday, December 12, 2006; A03



Democratic leaders declared a temporary moratorium on special-interest provisions known as earmarks as they attempt to cope with a budget crisis left by the outgoing Republican-led 109th Congress.

Congress adjourned early Saturday, having completed work on two of the 11 spending bills for the 2007 fiscal year that began Oct. 1. As a short-term fix, lawmakers extended current funding levels until Feb. 15. But the incoming Democratic chairmen of the House and Senate Appropriations committees announced yesterday that they would extend current levels until the 2008 fiscal year begins next Oct. 1.

The alternative was to attempt to finish work on the spending bills when the Democratic-led Congress convenes in January, a dreaded prospect that could have derailed Democratic legislative efforts and stirred up policy battles around the same time that President Bush is due to submit his fiscal 2008 budget to the Hill, along with a large supplemental spending request for the Iraq war.

The new chairmen, Rep. David R. Obey (Wis.) and Sen. Robert C. Byrd (W.Va.), said in a statement: "While the results will be far from ideal, this path provides the best way to dispose of the unfinished business quickly, and allow governors, state and local officials, and families to finally plan for the coming year with some knowledge of what the federal government is funding."

They also said they would place a moratorium on all earmarks until lobbying changes are enacted. Those special spending provisions included in the unfinished fiscal 2007 bills will be eligible for consideration next year, the chairmen said, subject to new standards.

"We will work to restore an accountable, above-board, transparent process for funding decisions and put an end to the abuses that have harmed the credibility of Congress," the chairmen said.

The unfinished bills account for about $463 billion in annual spending and include just about every domestic program other than defense and homeland security.

The announcement appears to be a victory for conservative budget reformers, such as Reps. Mike Pence (R-Ind.) and Tom Price (R-Ga.), who circulated a petition last week calling for a resolution that would extend funding through the rest of the year, but without earmarks. That petition, however, called for all domestic programs to be funded at the lowest levels called for in either the House or Senate versions.

In contrast, Obey and Byrd indicated that they would seek adjustments in spending levels to satisfy Democrats and moderate Republicans who were upset by the austere funding bills passed by the House Appropriations Committee. In particular, the measure to fund labor, health and education programs fell billions of dollars short of the Senate-approved levels, and the levels that even many House Republicans said were acceptable.

The biggest victory would be for those lawmakers who have crusaded against earmarks, or home-district pet projects. Virtually all of the bills that pass the Senate and House appropriations committees contain such projects. For the fiscal year that began in October and will end Sept. 30, the slate will be wiped clean.

Obey and Byrd noted that the last time Congress passed all appropriation bills separately and on schedule, and got them signed by the president in time for the next fiscal year, was in 1994, the last year they both served as chairmen. In November 1994, a month after the 1995 fiscal year began, Republicans won control of Congress.

For more or less every year since the takeover, the GOP has struggled to produce a smooth succession of spending bills, creating strained relations between the more ideologically minded Republican leadership in both chambers and their more practical-minded appropriations colleagues. Most recently, the Senate has been the stubborn obstacle, with Majority Leader Bill Frist (R-Tenn.) refusing to advance spending bills during a hard-fought election year.

Those tensions bubbled to the surface on the House floor as lawmakers wrapped up their business early Saturday. "The breakdown of regular order this cycle, indeed the failure to get our bills done, should be fairly placed at the feet of the departing Senate majority leader," said Rep. Jerry Lewis (R-Calif.), the outgoing House Appropriations Committee chairman.

Lewis noted that his panel passed each of the 11 subcommittee bills out of the full committee by June 30, and, with the exception of a giant bill that funds health and education programs, all of the bills off the House floor by the July 4 break. The Senate also passed each of its bills out of the full committee, only to see them run aground on the Senate floor.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/12/11/AR2006121101305_pf.html

Wow, the worm has finally turned hasn't it?  How it must eat at you guys to see your blessed GOP actually doing all the very things that they claimed the Dems were doing.  This is just pure sour grapes.  Even RR must be disgusted with this.  I doubt Sirs will though.



Republicans Set Obstacles for Incoming Democrats
"Like a retreating army, Republicans are tearing up railroad track and planting legislative land mines to make it harder for Democrats to govern when they take power in Congress next month," the Wall Street Journal reports.

"Already, the Republican leadership has moved to saddle the new Democratic majority with responsibility for resolving $463 billion in spending bills for the fiscal year that began Oct. 1... The unstated goal is to disrupt the Democratic agenda and make it harder for the new majority to meet its promise to reinstitute 'pay-as-you-go' budget rules, under which new costs or tax cuts must be offset to protect the deficit from growing."

http://politicalwire.com/archives/2006/12/06/republicans_set_obstacles_for_incoming_democrats.html

Incoming House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-MD), who will set the schedule for the 110th Congress, has told members they “will have to work five days a week starting in January.” If the current Congress departs on Friday as planned, it will have been in session for just 241 days over two years, 13 days less than the “Do-Nothing Congress” of 1948.

http://thinkprogress.org/2006/12/06/thinkfast-december-6-2006/

Aside from the fact that a five day work week for someone who is serving what should be a noble endeavor is simply a no-brainer, this is symbolic in a way that makes me feel they are going to be working.

It would really have me stoked if Hoyer informed the Congress they would have to be present for EVERY vote and EVERY debate on the floor.

Have you guys seen this?

This is one step away from being disappeared.  This is an American Citizen.  Basically being held incommunicado on the say-so of Bush.

The article is stomach-turning.  Imagine this was your spouse or child.  Even if he did commit crimes, this can only be seen as mental assault.  The guy is so damaged, he can't even have confidence in his own counsel! 

From the time Mr. Padilla was allowed access to counsel, Mr. Patel visited him repeatedly in the brig and in the Miami detention center, and Mr. Padilla has observed Mr. Patel arguing on his behalf in Miami federal court.

But, Mr. Patel said in his affidavit, his client is nonetheless mistrustful. “Mr. Padilla remains unsure if I and the other attorneys working on his case are actually his attorneys or another component of the government’s interrogation scheme,” Mr. Patel said.

Mr. do Campo said that Mr. Padilla was not incommunicative, and that he expressed curiosity about what was going on in the world, liked to talk about sports and demonstrated particularly keen interest in the Chicago Bears.

But the defense lawyers’ questions often echo the questions interrogators have asked Mr. Padilla, and when that happens, he gets jumpy and shuts down, the lawyers said.

Dr. Hegarty said Mr. Padilla refuses to review the video recordings of his interrogations, which have been released to his lawyers but remain classified.

He is especially reluctant to discuss what happened in the brig, fearful that he will be returned there some day, Mr. Patel said in his affidavit.

“During questioning, he often exhibits facial tics, unusual eye movements and contortions of his body,” Mr. Patel said. “The contortions are particularly poignant since he is usually manacled and bound by a belly chain when he has meetings with counsel.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/12/04/us/04detain.html?pagewanted=2&ei=5090&en=accb01df2436f791&ex=1322888400&partner=rssuserland&emc=rss





And here's a question.

How is this characterization of his "crimes" any different from what Reagan and Oliver North were doing?

Mr. Padilla is portrayed in the indictment as the recruit of a “North American terror support cell” that sent money, goods and recruits abroad to assist “global jihad” in general, with a special interest in Bosnia and Chechnya. Mr. Padilla, the indictment asserts, traveled overseas “to participate in violent jihad” and filled out an application for a mujahedin training camp in Afghanistan.

Anyone who continually votes for these bastards must be feeling the utter depths of shame.  Your congress is leaving without doing its job.  I feel for you guys, I really do.



Our whiny, lazy, tired GOP warriors

By: Glenn Greenwald @ 2:31 PM - PST      Last month, Republican Rep. Mike Pence of Indiana explained why he voted in favor of the 2006 bill which legalized "coercive interrogation" and indefinite detention:

It is the solemn duty of this Congress and this President to make sure we do everything within our power to protect the American people.  The war on terror is not like any war America has fought be before . . . Such extremism demands that America do everything possible to stop it.

The same Rep. Pence, in The Washington Post today:

Congress will convene on Tuesday for what some fear will be the lamest of lame-duck sessions, and GOP leaders have decided to take a minimalist approach before turning over the reins of power to the Democrats. Rather than a final surge of legislative activity, Congress will probably wrap up things after a single, short week of work. . .

"There is a lot of battle fatigue among members, probably on both sides of the aisle," said Rep. Mike Pence (R-Ind.), usually a reliable conservative firebrand. "Contrary to popular belief, members of Congress are human beings. They have a certain shelf life and a certain amount of energy to be drawn on. We're tired."

This is why this strong, brave warrior — lecturing us how we must do "everything possible" to win the "War" — is so tired and "fatigued" and doesn't want to work any more:

Operating most weeks on a Tuesday-through-Thursday schedule, Congress is poised to finish this year with just 100 working days under its belt — the fewest since 1948, when then-President Harry Truman famously blasted what he called a "do-nothing Congress."

The year is likely to end with no final action on a number of major issues, including Social Security and immigration reform and tighter ethics standards for lawmakers. . . . This year, Congress will probably end up meeting for about 100 days — an average of about two days a week in return for a salary of $165,000.


http://www.crooksandliars.com/2006/12/03/our-whiny-lazy-tired-gop-warriors/

Who knew that he spoke French so well?  Just another reason to love the guy even more.  Looks great.  Sense of humor.  Learned from his mistakes.  Just helped win an election for the Dems.  Where's my big rubber finger?





http://www.crooksandliars.com/2006/11/30/howard-dean-in-canada-wont-fox-news-hate-this/

http://movies.crooksandliars.com/Deansmall.mov

http://imdb.com/title/tt0058576/

Where has this movie been all my paranoid life?

Good gravy, I can't wait to read the book.

The whole movie is worth it to see President Lyman confront General Scott.  Here you've got the right vs the left in the simplest of terms.  These guys aren't talking about Scott's desire to run the country or protect America.  They're talking about Democracy around the world and the best way to help it along.  Lyman on the left advocating patience and process and leading by example within the system.  Scott on the right advocating enforcing it now with all the might of the American Military behind him ironically destroying the ideal that he thinks is so dear.

This film is so timely and prescient.  We are literally living through a reality of what Scott proposes in Seven Days In May.  And it clearly isn't working.

As an aside, this is one of Kennedy's favorite books.  He gave Frankenheimer and his crew wide open access to the White House in order to film it because he loved the book so much.  I want to know what Frankenheimer knows.  He does a movie about a coup detat in America and then one happens.  He does a movie about The Manchurian Candidate and the RFK gets killed later.  WTF? 

Of course, I'm the paranoid type and this parapolitics stuff appeals to me a lot.  When Lyman demands the Joint Chiefs of Staff resign, it reminded me of Kennedy's firing of Cabel, Bissell and Dulles.  Are imitating life?  Just a thought.

General James Mattoon Scott: And if you want to talk about your oath of office, I'm here to tell you face to face, President Lyman, that you violated that oath when you stripped this country of its muscles - when you deliberately played upon the fear and fatigue of the people and told them they could remove that fear by the stroke of a pen. And then when this nation rejected you, lost faith in you, and began militantly to oppose you, you violated that oath by not resigning from office and turning the country over to someone who could represent the people of the United States.

President Jordan Lyman: And that would be General James Mattoon Scott, would it? I don't know whether to laugh at that kind of megalomania, or simply cry.

General James Mattoon Scott: James Mattoon Scott, as you put it, hasn't the slightest interest in his own glorification. But he does have an abiding interest in the survival of this country.

President Jordan Lyman: Then, by God, run for office. You have such a fervent, passionate, evangelical faith in this country - why in the name of God don't you have any faith in the system of government you're so hell-bent to protect?

Great flick.