Daily Kos

Via C&L, Sen. Mark Warner (D-VA) in an embarrassingly bad display of public policy understanding:

WALLACE: But the Democratic leader in the Senate, Harry Reid, said this recently: "Social Security has contributed not a single penny to the deficit. So, we can talk about entitlements as long as you eliminate social security from the discussion."

First of all, isn't that wrong? Social Security is already paying out more than it takes in and that's just going to get worse as the baby boomers retire. Isn't that as a fact wrong that it doesn't contribute the deficit? And secondly, can Social Security really be off the table?

WARNER: Well, Chris, until recently, Social Security has actually been running major surpluses. In effect, we've been borrowing from Social Security to finance the government. Now that's clicked over on an annual basis -- as you said, we're paying out more than we're taking in.

What the debt -- what our proposal puts out is not taking Social Security proceeds any longer and paying off the deficit. It's saying let's make sure Social Security is solvent for the next 75 years. If we don't do it - -

WALLACE: But you're also talking about, first, is raising retirement age.

WARNER: Well, my sense is, you know, remember Social Security was put in place back in the '30s. They set 65 as the period -- the start, because life expectancy was 64. Now, Americans, thank goodness, are living towards closer to age 80.

And the idea that we're going to slowly raise the retirement age a couple of years over the next 40 years -- nobody, you, me, Saxby, we're not going to be effected at all. Folks under 35 might see a slight bump in their age increase, but frankly, a lot of folks under 35 don't even think there's even going to be Social Security if we don't do something in this.

The retirement age has to be raised because people under 35 don't think they'll have Social Security anyway? Yikes. Put aside the fact that Mark Warner isn't going to be affected because Mark Warner doesn't have to worry about having a secure retirement. How about just the policy part, which Dean explained to Warner in a letter last month [pdf].

As can be seen from the Social Security Trustees’ Report, the normal retirement age for Social Security has already been raised to 66 and is already scheduled to rise to 67. Raising the retirement age further would amount to a cut in benefits with each successive increase in the retirement age. If the normal age of retirement is phased in to reach 70 by 2036, it would result in a 4.0 percent reduction in benefits for workers between the ages of 50-54 in 2007 and a 10 percent reduction for workers between the ages of 40-44 in 2007.

Another point worth considering is that if the normal retirement age rose further, many workers would find it increasingly difficult to work until they are eligible for Social Security benefits. Forty five percent of workers over the age of 58 work in jobs that are physically demanding or have difficult work conditions. It is hard to imagine construction workers, firefighters, or nurses working well into their late 60’s. Many would end up taking early retirement with a considerable reduction in benefits compared to currently scheduled levels.

Apparently Sen. Warner doesn't read letters from expert economists. That's probably why he also hasn't heeded a report from the GAO that found raising the retirement age would "disproportionately hurt low-income workers and minorities, and increase disability claims by older people unable to work, government auditors told Congress."

It's hard to keep a bad idea down with these "moderate" deficit peacocks. Maybe Sen. Warner would pay more attention to his constituents if they wrote to tell him what a bad idea it is.

On Saturday afternoon, more than 100,000 people marched to the Capitol in Madison, Wisconsin, to protest Governor Scott Walker's union-busting bill ... you may have heard about it online, and seen some great photo diaries here. But not if you get your news from the traditional media.

Because why would they bother to cover the largest labor rally in recent memory? After all, it didn't feature tricorn hats and people screaming about Kenya.

Blaring across Politico's front page atop a picture of Sarah Palin:

'She's becoming Al Sharpton, Alaska edition'

The quote comes from this piece by Jonathan Martin and Jim VandeHei about how conservative elites fear a Sarah Palin candidacy:

Palin’s politics of grievance and group identity, according to these critics, is a betrayal of conservative principles. For decades, it was a standard line of the right that liberals cynically promoted victimhood to achieve their goals, and that they practiced the politics of identity—race, sex and class—over ideas.

Among those taking aim at Palin in recent interviews with POLITICO are George F. Will, the elder statesman of conservative columnists; Peter Wehner, a top strategist in George W. Bush’s White House, and Heather Mac Donald, a leading voice with the right-leaning Manhattan Institute.

Matt Labash, a longtime writer for the Weekly Standard, said that because of Palin’s frequent appeals to victimhood and group grievance, “She’s becoming Al Sharpton, Alaska edition.”

Obviously, it's hilarious to see conservative elites freak out about Sarah Palin. I mean, for all her talk about how liberals want to shut her up, it's actually the elites in her own party that would like her to keep quiet. Most Democrats would pay her filing if she chooses to run for president.

But the really funny thing is that the conservative elites who are freaking out about Palin always playing the victim card are they very same people who came up with the southern strategy and who have reliably used cultural politics in election after election. I don't recall any conservative outrage over the Jesse Helms "hands ad," yet that was an even more severe form of identity politics than anything Sarah Palin has ever done.

Don't get me wrong. I'm not defending Sarah Palin. She's an utter joke, a total embarrassment to the GOP. But she's been a joke all along, ever since John McCain picked her as his running mate. And all the people now complaining about her on the right actually voted for her to become vice president of the United States. Now they are trying to claim a principled reason for opposing her, but the truth is the only reason they don't like her is because they think she's politically toxic. They are right, but there's nothing principled about it at all.

How very 2003 of this administration. U.S. State Department spokesman P.J. Crowley spoke out last week at a forum in Cambridge, Mass., saying that the Defense Department's treatment of Bradley Manning "is ridiculous, counterproductive and stupid." It's also in violation of the Geneva Conventions, and though Manning is not a prisoner of war, as Glenn says, the Geneva Conventions should provide "the minimal protections to which all detainees—let alone citizens convicted of nothing—are entitled." Indeed, reports of Manning's treatment at the hands of his own government have led to a United Nation's investigation. That was before the daily forced nudity regimen was imposed upon him.

So P.J. Crowley is forced out of the administration for telling the truth, for pointing out that the treatment of Manning is abusive. From the State Department's perspective, it's probably even more troubling. If the U.S. is willing to so blatantly and publicly abuse its own citizens, assurances from our diplomatic corps that we are still a nation of law must be more and more difficult for other governments to buy.  Which is precisley why Crowley spoke out. His resignation statement makes that clear.

My recent comments regarding the conditions of the pre-trial detention of Private First Class Bradley Manning were intended to highlight the broader, even strategic impact of discreet actions undertaken by national security agencies every day and their impact on our global standing and leadership. The exercise of power in today's challenging times and relentless media environment must be prudent and consistent with our laws and values.

The reviews at home should be worrisome enough for this administration.

Matt Yglesias wrote that "to hold a person without trial in solitary confinement under degrading conditions is a perversion of justice" and that it's a "sad statement about America that P.J. Crowley is the one being forced to resign over Bradley Manning."  Andrew Sullivan -- writing under the headline "Obama Owns the Treatment of Manning Now" -- said that Crowley was forced out "for the offense of protesting against the sadistic military treatment of Bradley Manning," that "the president has now put his personal weight behind prisoner abuse," and that "Obama is directly responsible for the inhumane treatment of an American citizen."  Meanwhile, Ezra Klein previews his denunciation of the President's treatment of Manning and Crowley by announcing that it's his first ever lede "that isn’t about economic or domestic policy" but rather is "about right and wrong," and then questions "whether the Obama administration is keeping sight of its values now that it holds power."  Those strong words are all from supporters of the President.

Elsewhere, The Philadelphia Daily News' progressive columnist Will Bunch accuses Obama of "lying" during the campaign by firing Crowley and endorsing "the bizarre and immoral treatment of the alleged Wikileaks leaker."  In The Guardian, Obama voter Daniel Ellsberg condemns "this shameful abuse of Bradley Manning," arguing that it "amounts to torture" and "makes me feel ashamed for the [Marine] Corps," in which Ellsberg served three years, including nine months at Quantico.  Baltimore Sun columnist Ron Smith asks:  "Why is the U.S. torturing Private Manning?," while UCLA Professor Mark Kleiman -- who only last year hailed Obama as "the greatest moral leader of our lifetime" and eagerly suggested on Friday (before Obama's Press Conference) that Crowley was speaking for Obama -- mocked Obama's defense of the Manning treatment as "clueless on the Bush level" and now says of Crowley's firing:  "The Torturers Win One," while lamenting Obama's overt support for a policy that he calls "unconscionable and un-American and borderline criminal."

President Obama told the nation in his press conference last week that he accepted the Pentagon's assurances that "the procedures that have been taken in terms of [Manning's] confinement are appropriate and are meeting our basic standards." With those words, President Obama took ownership of Manning's abuse, took ownership of actions that the UN could very well conclude are torture.

Forcing Crowley out for shining a light on the issue only compounds the problem this administration has with transparency. Its relentless war on whistleblowers and leakers—particularly in national security and civil liberties cases—is in direct contradiction to his campaign promises that whistleblowers would be protected because "such acts of courage and patriotism should be encouraged rather than stifled." It's also the last inheritance from the Bush administration Obama should have sought to uphold.

Ben Smith at Politico reports the "no duh" story of the century:

Aides to John McCain initially added Sarah Palin to his "short list" of potential running mates because McCain wanted a woman on the list, according to his campaign manager.

Of course John McCain's despicably cynical "let's put a chick on the ticket" move to appeal to dismayed Clinton supporters was plainly transparent from day one. And that was before the world discovered, 2.3 seconds after the announcement of her selection, what a disastrous choice she really was.  

Still, it's amusing to have this confirmed by one of the seemingly endless McCain aides who apparently never tire of letting it be known how little they all thought of Palin.

The only question now, of course, is whether Palin go all Mama Grizzly on McCain and his former aides for valuing her anatomy more than her, er, "résumé."

The ACORN video was a fake. The Shirley Sherrod video was a fake. So why should anyone be surprised to find that the NPR video is also a fake? James O'Keefe has absolutely no interest in the truth. Instead, his well-funded hit machine has only one purpose: to distort and manufacture controversy.

A closer look at his most recent video shows that the NPR hit piece includes lies of both omission and commission. At many points in the raw footage, former NPR fundraiser Ron Schiller can be seen rejecting attempts by the fake Muslims to buy favorable coverage. Instead, Schiller makes it clear that NPR's coverage is not for sale.

Tompkins also says that O'Keefe's edited tape ignores the fact that Schiller said "six times ... over and over and over again" that donors cannot buy the kind of coverage they want on NPR.

None of this material made the tape. Neither did several complimentary or thoughtful things that Schiller said about Republicans and conservatives. Unable to get Schiller to say what he wanted, O'Keefe resorted to creating statements in the best traditions of comedy sketches -- he stitched an answer to one question onto a completely different question.
 

One "big warning flag" Tompkins saw in the shorter tape was the way it made it appear that Schiller had laughed and commented "really, that's what they said?" after being told that the fake Muslim group advocates for sharia law. In fact, the longer tape shows that Schiller made that comment during an "innocuous exchange" that had nothing to do with the supposed group's position on sharia law, David reports.

That "innocuous exchange"? It's actually from earlier in the conversation. O'Keefe didn't just chop minutes out of the interview, he cut, copied, pasted, and rearranged the video to make Schiller into the parody of an NPR executive that the right expected.

The real scandal here isn't anything that Schiller said, it's that anyone treats O'Keefe and his video sausage grinding seriously. And that NPR, like the Obama administration in the last round of this unmitigated, bald-faced manipulation, reacts as if anything O'Keefe is producing can be trusted.

There may be no clearer marker of media's decline than in their treating O'Keefe as a legitimate source. Like Scott Walker's actions against the unions in Wisconsin, O'Keefe isn't out there to find the truth. He's out there to smash anyone not part of the conservative club, and if what that takes is an unending stream of sewage... he has no problem with that.

He's not a muckraker. He's a muck maker.
 

The White House released a statement Sunday offering support for the people of Japan which included this:

The U.S. Ambassador declared an emergency which opened up an immediate funding of $100K from USAID’s Office of Foreign Disaster Assistance. They set up a Response Management Team in DC and sent a Disaster Assistance Response Team to Tokyo, which includes people with nuclear expertise from the Departments of Energy and Health and Human Services as well the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC). The NRC members are experts in boiling water nuclear reactors and are available to assist their Japanese counterparts.

Reliable news on the precise state of Japan's Fukushima nuclear facilities has been hard to come by, suggesting solid info is scarce and what is available is subject to both spin and speculation. Throughout the weekend mixed reports of a possible fuel melt, and updates/corrections on same from Japanese officials and nuclear experts, swirled around the media landscape like smoke from the damaged unit. SciAm has a review of worst case scenarios, and Kbman wrote this nformative diary here on what a nuclear meltdown might mean.

Nuclear power brings up intense debate on a variety of fronts and touches on several fundamental energy vs environmental policy issues. My personal view is current commercial reactor designs are expensive, suffer from regulatory issues, and carry a potentially substantial and equally irreducible element of risk. In fairness, the same could be said of other energy sources we rely on such as oil and coal.

But even if newer designs were to prove viable and safer, the capacity of Big Business, and especially the energy industry, to arbitrarily write, rewrite, avoid, evade, and even ignore regulations on a whim is a real concern when considering the large scale implementation of next generation nuclear power.

• AZ-Sen: This is amusingly insane. I’m certainly all for it!

• CA-Sen: Our long national nightmare is finally over: Meg Whitman says she will "definitely not" run against Sen. Diane Feinstein (D) next year. Rather, she says she’s going to spend time campaigning for fellow rich guy Mitt Romney. (Also, here’s an amusing tidbit: Earlier this year, she joined the board of none other than Hewlett-Packard – the company her 2010 Republican ticket-mate Carly Fiorina nearly ran into the ground.)

• CT-Sen: In an interesting development, fans of magical realism have been making a push for Borges to enter the Connecticut Senate race. Ah, wait. What’s that? Fuck. So, um, former state Treasurer Frank Borges (D), who left office in 1993, says supporters are asking him to run, and while’s he’s thinking about it, he’s set no timetable for a decision. Borges is CEO of a private equity firm (so I’m guessing he’s pretty rich), and he’d be the state’s first black senator if successful.

• FL-Sen: Rep. Vern Buchanan (R) is starting to sound like a "no" for the Senate race. Now that he’s scored a spot on the Ways & Means Committee, he says he’s less likely to seek a promotion. In fact, he very explicitly said: "If this hadn't happened, I would have been looking to do something else." That sort of talk has to make you figure that the GOP's takeover of the House has actually been bad news for one Republican: NRSC chair John Cornyn.

In much sillier (and related) news, Cornyn told The Hill that he had tried to recruit former congressman and current MSNBC host Joe Scarborough to run against Bill Nelson. Undoubtedly, this made make Rep. Connie Mack a little hot under the collar, because the NRSC wigged out and Cornyn weirdly tried to claim the story was "not true," even though Scarborough confirmed it. Rather, said Cornyn, he had been asking Joescar about a potential Senate run in… New York. (The Atlanta-born, Alabama-educated, Florida-elected Scarborough's tv show is based in NYC.) Then, the NRSC took a dump on Joe, saying: "There are already a number of far stronger candidates looking at the Florida Senate race…." Whoops!

Also, there's a tenative Biden alert! - the VPOTUS supposedly will come down to Florida later this month to raise money for Bill Nelson.

• IA-Sen: Wingnut Bob Vander Plaats, who did surprisingly well against now-Gov. Terry Branstad in last year's Republican gubernatorial primary (with an assist from some Democratic ratfuckers), was asked whether he's contemplating a run against Sen. Tom Harkin in 2014. Said BVP: "I think about it daily. That doesn't mean I'm going to run against him, Ok. I don't know."

• IN-Sen: Now this is fucking interesting. I'm just going to let SSP commenter Bob Bobson summarize the situation:

WISH-TV's Jim Shella noted on his blog today that that there exists a hypothetical but plausible scenario in which state Democrats could sue to overturn the results of last year's election for Secretary of State by arguing that Charlie White wasn't a valid candidate for office. That's not really anything new, and has been rumored in the Hoosier political press for a while.

What is new here is that Shella points out that such a lawsuit, were it ruled in favor of the Democrats, wouldn't just remove White from office, but would also make the Republicans a "minor party" under state law. SSPers probably remember the whole [10]% threshold thing from the Colorado governor's race last year where Dan Maes' trainwreck candidacy nearly cost the Colorado Republicans their ballot position as a major party, and there's a similar regulation at play here. The difference is that in Indiana, it's the Secretary of State race that decides which parties are "major," and the threshold is [also] 10%. If White's candidacy is invalidated, though, that could mean that the Republicans, legally, received zero votes in the SoS race last year.

That outcome would also mean that their nominating process for statewide candidates for the next four years would be via convention and not primary. And that means Dick Lugar becomes the next Bob Bennett.

In related news, Sean Keefer, who as Deputy Secretary of State was no. 2 to Charlie White (and also served as his chief of staff, and before that, as his campaign manager) just resigned, and there's a report that White's spokesman will also quit. Even better: White staged a totally bizarro impromptu press conference on the courthouse steps after a hearing in which he pleaded not guilty to all charges. The presser only ended after White's attorney told him to "shut up" and led him away by the elbow. Fun times!

• MA-Sen: Deborah Shah, a consultant to Newton Mayor Setti Warren, sent around an email (I'm guessing to some listservs) looking for college kids interested in working on a potential Warren Senate campaign, set to be staffing up at the end of April. (Aren't most students stressing about finals at that point?) Shah says that "This is just the first step to make sure you’re prepared."

• MI-Sen: Pete Hoekstra hasn't yet said if one of these days a Congressman from Michigan's gonna come back home and run a Senate race, but he expects to decide this spring. One tea leaf suggests he's rather stay focused on his lame-ass-looking consulting firm: He just shuttered his House campaign account, which he could have instantly turned into a Senate fund.

• OH-Sen: In response to ex-Gov. Ted Strickland calling him "scurrilous," "bigoted," "reprehensible," and "laughable," the Cleveland Plain Dealer reports that Republican state Treasurer Josh Mandel "said Strickland is a good person." Maybe that makes Mandel look big, I dunno, but does it also make him look like a wuss to his biggest supporters, the teabag contingent? At the same q-and-a with other GOP elected officials, SoS Jon Husted (who has declined a run) said he'd like to see Mandel take on Sherrod Brown, while AG (and ex-Sen.) Mike DeWine much more amusingly said that a Brown-Mandel matchup would be "fascinating." Is that Mr. Spock fascinating, or a trainwreck fascinating?

• AZ-08: Rep. Gabby Giffords' doctors gave an update on the congresswoman's recovery on Friday, and they sounded very upbeat about her progress (though they noted that it's not a sure thing whether she'll attend her husband's space shuttle launch next month, contra what a staffer said last week). Meanwhile, 2010 Republican candidate Jesse Kelly, who very nearly beat Giffords, set up a new campaign committee for a potential rematch.

• CA-37: Though Rep. Laura Richardson (D) previously denied it, a letter of resignation sent by her former district scheduler suggests that the congresswoman is indeed the subject of an ethics probe, pertaining to misuse of staff. Now Richardson's office is simply refusing to comment. The staffer's letter is really brutal, citing "constant verbal and emotional abuse" and requests that she perform tasks "on the ethical borderline." I can't imagine Richardson has a very long future in Congress (she originally won office in a 2007 special with just 37% of the primary vote in this very blue district), so who do you think could replace her?

• NM-01, NM-Sen: State Sen. Eric Griego (D), who is considering a run for the House if fellow Dem Martin Heinrich decides to go for the Senate race, says he expects "the smoke to clear" by April or May, in terms of people making decisions about what they're gonna do.

• NV-02: Jon Ralston says that retired Navy Commander Kirk Lippold is "in" the race for Nevada's 2nd congressional district, which ought to have a very interesting GOP primary, at the least. Lippold, who was captain of the USS Cole when it was bombed by Al Qaeda a decade ago, was touted as a possible challenger to Harry Reid last year.

• NV-03: Freshman Rep. Joe Heck was the only Republican to vote against defunding the Federal Housing Administration Refinance Program (designed to help homeowners with underwater mortgages). Anticipating criticism, he put out a video press release (an actual video press release, not a "tv ad with a tiny buy designed to get free media attention") defending his vote. Could Heck be worried about getting teabagged?

• NY-26: Republican nominee Jane Corwin just received the Independence Party's nomination for the special election as well, and ya know, this is a pretty darn good demonstration of why the Democrats' dithering on selecting a candidate has been a pretty dumb move. I mean, even if the IP wanted to endorse a Dem, they couldn't! (Or at least, couldn't do so yet.)

Anyhow, 2010 NY-Sen-A GOP primary loser (in other words, the guy who couldn't beat the guy who got vaporized by Chuck Schumer) Gary Bernsten sent out an email asking supporters to help teabagger David Bellavia petition his way on to the ballot as an independent. I'd be surprised if this effort is successful, though – Bellavia has only until March 19 to collection 3,500 signatures. Crazy Jack Davis is doing the same thing, but at least he has a shot, since he's putting his millions to work for him.

• SD-AL: I linked this story in the Pete Hoekstra item above (see MI-Sen), but ex-Rep. Stephanie Herseth Sandlin has also closed her campaign account, suggesting that Steve Israel's efforts to woo her into a rematch with Republican Kristi Noem haven't been successful. The Fix has a long list of other Dems (and a few Repubs) who have shut down their FEC committees – click the link for the rest.

• TX-LG: Texas Ag. Comm'r Todd Staples isn't ruling out a run for Lt. Gov., a seat which could become open if the current occupant, David Dewhurst, wins Kay Bailey Hutchison's Senate seat. Other possible aspirants include Comptroller Susan Combs and Land Commissioner Jerry Patterson. (And yes, since this is Texas and everyone I just mentioned holds statewide office, that means they're all Republicans.) While you might be wondering why we're going so far down into the weeds here, the LG job is considered one of the most powerful in Texas (some like to say even more powerful that the governor's), because the LG is also President of the state Senate.

• Wisconsin Recall: The DLCC just launched a TV ad against GOP state Sen. Luther Olsen, attacking him for flip-flopping to support Scott Walker's anti-union legislation – though it does not mention anything about the recall effort which Olsen is (among others) the subject of. The ad (which you can watch here) is running in Green Bay, and a spokesman tells me that the buy is "about 1000 points."

Also, check out this piece from the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel's Craig Gilbert, which begins:

Number of state lawmakers removed from office by recall in all of American history: 13.

Number of state lawmakers currently facing recall campaigns in Wisconsin: 16.

• Hawaii: In order to avoid another Charles Djou, the Hawaii House just passed a bill to institute instant runoff voting (aka IRV) for special Congressional elections. Of course, they could just hold primaries instead of jungle elections.

• WATN?: Scott Lee Cohen, the disastrous Lt. Gov. candidate whose utterly failed gubernatorial bid probably saved Pat Quinn's ass, is hoping to replace ex-state Sen. Rickey Hendon, who resigned last month. Given that the replacement gets picked by a panel of Chicago Democratic Party committeemen, I'm guessing that Cohen's chances are somewhere between zero and nil.

Redistricting Roundup:

• Idaho: At least one local expert is confirming what we observed last week: population shrinkage in the 2nd CD will likely require it to absorb the entire city of Boise, which is currently split between the state's two districts.

• New Jersey: Richard Lee has some interesting historical details about the 1990 round of redistricting, focusing on two politicians who are still part of New Jersey's congressional delegation today: Rep. Frank Pallone and Sen. Bob Menendez. Menendez's federal career was launched when New Jersey's loss of a seat led to the creation of an Hispanic-friendly district. Pallone, meanwhile, was targeted for elimination by his own party. Said one Republican: “I'd like to see Mr. Pallone defeated. But apparently I don't want to see him defeated as much as the Democrats do.” Obviously, Pallone lived to fight another day.

Meanwhile, Rutgers Prof. (and state redistricting tiebreak vote) Alan Rosenthal supposedly put out a memo outlining his vision for a fair legislative map, reportedly leading state Dems to believe their vision is much more closely aligned with Rosenthal's than is the Republicans'. But it doesn't seem like this memo, if it exists, has been released online.

In the House, courtesy of the Office of the Democratic Whip:

First Vote Of The Week: Monday 6:30 p.m.
Last Vote Predicted: Thursday 3:00 p.m.

House GOP Leadership has announced that votes are not expected after 3:00 p.m. on Thursday, March 17, 2011, pending Senate action on the CR.

MONDAY, MARCH 14, 2011
On Monday, the House will meet at 12:00 p.m. for Morning Hour debate and 2:00 p.m. for legislative business with votes postponed until 6:30 p.m.

Suspensions (2 Bills)

1. H.R. 793 - To designate the facility of the United States Postal Service located at 12781 Sir Francis Drake Boulevard in Inverness, California, as the "Specialist Jake Robert Velloza Post Office" (Rep. Woolsey - Oversight and Government Reform)
2. H.Con.Res. 27 - Providing for the acceptance of a statue of Gerald R. Ford from the people of Michigan for placement in the United States Capitol (Rep. Upton- House Administration)

TUESDAY, MARCH 15, 2011
On Tuesday, the House will meet at 10:00 a.m. for Morning Hour debate and 12:00 p.m. for legislative business.  No votes are expected before 1:00 p.m.

H.J.Res. 48 -Further Continuing Appropriations Amendments, 2011 (Rep. Rogers (KY) - Appropriations) (Subject to a Rule)

WEDNESDAY, MARCH 16, 2011 AND THE BALANCE OF THE WEEK
On Wednesday, the House will meet at 10:00 a.m. for Morning Hour debate and 12:00 p.m. for legislative business. No votes are expected before 1:00 p.m. On Thursday, the House will meet at 9:00 a.m. for legislative business with last votes no later than 3:00 p.m. On Friday, no votes are expected in the House.

H.R. 839 - The HAMP Termination Act of 2011 (Rep. McHenry - Financial Services) (Subject to a Rule)

H.R. 861 - The NSP Termination Act (Rep. Gary Miller - Financial Services) (Subject to a Rule)

H.Con.Res. 28 -Directing the President, pursuant to section 5(c) of the War Powers Resolution, to remove the United States Armed Forces from Afghanistan (Rep. Kucinich - Foreign Affairs) (Subject to a Rule or Unanimous Consent Agreement)

Consideration of legislation relating to the federal funding of NPR

In the Senate, courtesy of the Office of the Majority Leader:

Convenes: 2:00pm

Following any Leader remarks, there will be a period of morning business until 4:30pm, with senators permitted to speak therein for up to 10 minutes each.

At 4:30pm, the Senate will proceed to Executive session to consider the nomination of calendar #10, the nomination of James Boasber, of the District of Columbia, to be U.S. District Judge for the District of Columbia. There will be up to 1 hour for debate equally divided prior to a vote on the nomination.

Votes:
Senators should expect 2 roll call votes at 5:30pm in relation to the following items:

- Confirmation of the nomination of James Boasber, of the District of Columbia, to be U.S. District Judge for the District of Columbia, and
- Cloture on the motion to proceed to S.493, SBIR and STTR Reauthorization Act of 2011.

The central event of the week will once again be a continuing resolution, since the last two-week extension didn't result in any agreement on a longer-term solution. So, Republicans are back with a new, three-week CR, which the traditional media will tell you—with some justifiable claim to accuracy—continues the GOP's insistence that spending be reduced by $2 billion per week.

What do I mean?

The $2 billion per week claim is accurate enough. The thing is that the takeaway for the news consumer is supposed to be that Republicans are hardasses, are "making the tough choices," and forcing Democrats to agree. That's the genius of stringing things along two and three weeks at a time. You see, almost all of the cuts the Republican proposals have made are borrowed either from cuts recommended by President Obama's budget, cuts recommended by the Senate Democrats' alternative CR proposed last week, or are rescissions of earmarks made in the fiscal year 2011 spending bills. You'll recall that the president has taken much the same hard line on earmarking that Republicans said they wanted, so in some sense it could be said that the cuts Republicans are making in these two and three week CRs are ones that have been handed to them on a silver platter by Democrats, only by stringing things out this way, they've been magically converted into Republican-sponsored cuts.

And should they ever run out of those cuts to borrow, Republicans will then begin proposing their own, but also be able to insist that the failure of Democrats to agree to them—or propose their own alternatives—represents an unwillingness to compromise.

Brilliant, really.

In the meantime, Republicans will happily step out of the way to allow Rep. Dennis Kucinich (D-OH-10) to offer a resolution directing the president to remove U.S. troops from Afghanistan, under the War Powers Resolution, in the hopes of perpetuating the old "Dems divided" headlines in the traditional media. And they'll get them, too, despite the Kucinich resolution being cosponsored by Reps. Walter Jones (R-NC-03) and Ron Paul (R-TX-14).

Less worthy of attention this week, but surely due for it, will be an as-yet-unwritten bill dealing with NPR funding. As you know, whenever James O'Keefe releases a fake video, Republicans move to defund the target, and Democrats all too often go into the don't-hurt-me-I'll-be-good crouch and go along for the ride. ACORN, Planned Parenthood, and now NPR. Too bad O'Keefe can't secretly catch the Pentagon on video, admitting they don't need that second engine for the Joint Strike Fighter!

In the Senate... well, they'll be waiting for the House to send them a CR. For now, they're biding their time by continuing to drip, drip, drip out confirmation votes on more of those non-controversial judicial nominations that were part of the "gentleman's agreement" on the filibuster reform crisis earlier this year. This particular nominee has only been waiting since June of last year, and had to be renominated at the start of the 112th Congress. Speaking of the "gentleman's agreement," the vote after that one will be on a cloture motion—the third one already this year on a motion to proceed, which, you know, wasn't supposed to happen anymore, but actually is happening quite a lot anyway, because they didn't really reform the Senate hold.

Oh well!

Plenty happening in the committees this week. The schedule appears below the fold. Check out video of all the action, and join friends for a chat and perhaps the chance to point and laugh together, using the Main Street Insider Committee Dashboard.

From the GREAT STATE OF MAINE…

Brief Thoughts on Japan

>> Now we know: it literally takes a tsunami to knock Charlie Sheen out of the headlines.

>> The worst thing about unfolding disasters like this is knowing that whatever the "estimated" death toll is in the first few hours, you can usually safely add a bunch of zeroes to get the "actual" death toll.

>> You know a disaster's bad when the news goes from "Officials are trying…" to "Officials are desperately trying…"

>> The silver lining: miracles will happen.

>> Memo to Mother Nature: next time you want to give everyone in a country a new car, try doing it Oprah's way---just stick the damn keys under their chairs.

>> When the folks at The Red Cross heard about the tsunami, I'm guessing that, with all the disasters they've dealt with recently, their first thought was, "You've got to be shitting me." Donate here.

Cheers and Jeers starts below the fold... [Swoosh!!] RIGHTNOW! [Gong!!]

Jibber your jabber

Visual source: Newseum

Paul Krugman:

All of which goes to confirm that the rich are different from you and me: when they break the law, it’s the prosecutors who find themselves on trial.

There's an old Yiddish saying for when a bird poops on your windshield: for the rich, they sing.

For a good readable overview of the Japan reactor issues, see NY Times:  

Usually when a reactor is first shut down, an electric pump pulls heated water from the vessel to a heat exchanger, and cool water from a river or ocean is brought in to draw off that heat.

But at the Japanese reactors, after losing electric power, that system could not be used. Instead the operators are dumping seawater into the vessel and letting it cool the fuel by boiling. But as it boils, pressure rises too high to pump in more water, so they have to vent the vessel to the atmosphere, and feed in more water, a procedure known as “feed and bleed.”

When the fuel was intact, the steam they were releasing had only modest amounts of radioactive material, in a nontroublesome form. With damaged fuel, that steam is getting dirtier.

Nuclear reactors mixed with earthquakes, volcanoes and tsunamis — what could possibly go wrong?

WaPo:

The Democratic state senators who left Wisconsin to protest Republican legislation to weaken union rights for public workers returned Saturday to thousands of supporters who pledged to continue fighting.

Politico:

Democrats in Wisconsin are vowing to transform virtually every upcoming state and local election there into a referendum on Walker’s administration. Party leaders from Madison to Washington are gearing up for a major fight in the hope of sending an unmistakable signal to other ambitious GOP state executives.

Their efforts to make Walker and his supports pay a high political price for their victory has led Republicans to activate their own campaign machinery. Few expect the conflict will stay contained in Wisconsin.

Philadelphia Inquirer editorial:

Conservative public officials across the country are using deficits caused primarily by the recession as a pretext to weaken public unions and gain a partisan edge against labor's Democratic allies. Fortunately, people are seeing this ruse for what it is and banding together to stop this partisan scheme before it's too late.

Green Bay [WI] Press Gazette:

For all the unrest that's stemmed from the State Capitol this month — protests that attracted people by the tens of thousands, Capitol lockdowns with increased security and philosophical conflicts that have shaken communities — the fallout doesn't end with the passage of a provision that removes collective bargaining powers for most public employees.

It may just be the start.

Greg Dworkin (that's me):

While we all anxiously watch the Japanese nuclear facility damaged in the earthquake and tsunami and hope for the best from the aftermath, this is a reminder that regulation, preparation and preparedness are key, and the government has an important role in assuring the best possible outcome from a natural (Japan) or manmade (Chernobyl) disaster.

Those who want to starve the government of needed funds are simply wrong - let's keep the argument to unneeded funds, and while there are a lot less of those than conservatives claim, they don't include disaster preparation. Pandemics, hurricanes, tornadoes, floods and blizzards - outsourcing or underfunding FEMA and CDC is a really bad idea.

Politico:

Sen. Lisa Murkowski of Alaska has come out in opposition to the House’s attempts to defund Planned Parenthood, making her the first Republican senator to specifically support the beleaguered organization.

“I believe Planned Parenthood provides vital services to those in need and disagree with their funding cuts in the bill,” Murkowski wrote in a letter to Senate Appropriations Committee Chairman Daniel Inouye (D-Hawaii) and Vice Chairman Thad Cochran (R-Miss.). “I ask you to consider these programs going forward to determine if there is room for allowing continued funding.”