Dems discussing immediate health care reform package that helps uninsured but not the rest of us

Some Democrats have thought of a novel way to put some health care reform on to the stimulus package:

The general idea -- again, this is very preliminary -- is that a stimulus package of $300 billion or more, which is being suggested in some quarters, would be very hard to spend. So around $150 billion of it could go to health care reform, perhaps in the form of a big tax credit to employers covering employees for the first time, among other things.

Another stimulus plan that only helps some people. Surprise. And, yes, the uninsured need to be helped desperately, and this is a good thing. But can Democrats ever do anything that actually benefits everyone else too?

I have worried for a while that Democrats are going to eventually cave on health care reform, in that they may push for more coverage for the uninsured - and again, that's great - but they won't push for any help for anyone else. The result? More people will be insured in a system that is woefully broken. A system in which catastrophic illness will kill you because the insurance companies won't cover you. A system where you lose your health care coverage if you change states. A system where I lost my prescription drug coverage for two months this year because apparently I'm just too expensive.

Again, to be clear, helping the uninsured is necessary and good, and it's a good starting point for health care reform if the ending point is instituting changes that help everybody. This plan does nothing to help the self-employed, nor to help those with insurance who still face all the problems I listed above. My concern is that Democrats will do this fix, and then little else. Time will tell. Read More......

SC priest: No communion for Obama supporters

Special place in hell for people like this.

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Hillary being considered for Sec of State

Good, I like that. I think someone with a "Clinton" name could do a lot of good restoring the world's faith in America.

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Treasury rejects credit card debt, only Wall Street debt matters

As much as I am against credit card debt, I'm fed up with the double standards of Paulson and Bush. There are plenty of Americans who pushed debt onto credit cards because they were struggling to keep up and put food on the table or heat their homes. In the eyes of the Republicans, tough luck. For Wall Street millionaires Paulson can't do enough to help them out including his sneaky tax breaks that have been part of the GOP agenda for decades. I'm still waiting to see blood ooze out of the pores of Wall Street superstars and quite frankly, I don't see it ever happening. They're total failures yet people like Paulson can't stop coddling them and stepping on everyone else to make sure their bank accounts are properly balanced and bonuses arrive on time.

Federal bank regulators have rejected a request by banks and consumer advocates for a program to let lenders forgive huge portions of credit card debt.

The Office of the Comptroller of the Currency rejected the request for a special program that would allow as much as 40 percent of credit card debt to be forgiven for consumers who don't qualify for existing repayment plans.

An unusual alliance of financial industry interests and consumer advocates, represented by the Financial Services Roundtable and the Consumer Federation of America, made the request to the Treasury Department agency on Oct. 29. It demonstrated the urgency of the situation in a deepening economic crisis: consumers — even those with strong credit records — defaulting at high levels on their credit cards, while banks battered by the credit crisis bleed tens of billions from the losses.

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$20,000 Prop 8 donor confused that gays are so angry at him since he's a sponsor of the pride parade

Oh in that case...

"I'm frustrated by what's going on," said Dave Leatherby, owner of the Leatherby Family Creamery in Sacramento, commenting on the protests and court battles.

"Let's move on. I always told my children that once a rule was made, you have to abide by it. I think it should be the same in this circumstance."

Leatherby and his family donated about $20,000 for the passage of Proposition 8. A devout Catholic and father of 10, Leatherby supported the measure for religious reasons. He said his business has been targeted by bloggers as a result, and that he is particularly confused because his business has participated in the annual gay pride Rainbow Festival.

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Stevens Pollster: Race Is Over, Begich Will Win

From Huff Post:

Alaska-based GOP pollster David Dittman, who worked for Sen. Ted Stevens during this year's primary race, believes Democratic challenger Mark Begich is all but certain to expand his current razor-thin lead and snatch the seat.

"I don't think Stevens can come back," Dittman said, noting that he thinks the remaining trove of uncounted ballots will help Begich "increase his lead."

Even if Begich's advantage grows, however, Dittman believes it's highly unlikely that Stevens will concede the race until every last ballot is counted. "He's probably waiting in Washington," Dittman said. "I haven't talked to him since the evening of the election, when I called and just told him I was sorry for the way it turned out."

Dittman believes early and absentee ballots, which compromise the approximately 40,000 votes left to count, will likely reflect Begichs' overall advantage so far among those who took advantage of either process. Heavy early voting occurred in the period that directly followed Stevens' conviction on seven felony counts of making false statements on his Senate financial disclosure forms.

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Marc Ambinder [hearts] Joe Lieberman

Now that they don't have John McCain to buy donuts for anymore, it seems the media is all about lionizing Joe Lieberman.

Ambinder today wrote a piece about how Lieberman is only one Senator, and really, what can one Senator do to cause any problems. Uh, call any intern in the Senate and ask them what a Senator is and does for a living and even they could explain to you how one Senator is a king in that institution, at least when it comes to causing trouble. The Senate is not the House. There's this thing called the filibuster, and one senator can launch it, and one senator can even support it by not giving you the 60th vote to shut it down. Then there are holds (ask the interns about those too). And finally, the notion that Senate hearings have no sway, and that no one would pay attention to them should Lieberman chose to hold them, investigating Obama, is a simply bizarre thing to say for anyone who actually knows anything about politics.

The Washington Post's Chris Cillizza took a parallel tact at religitimizing Lieberman today. Cillizza suggested that Lieberman only "to a certain extent" may have crossed the line in his criticism of Obama. Well, Lieberman suggested that Obama had ties to terrorists, said that Obama tried to cut the money off for our troops (essentially leaving them to die, as good America-hating guys with the middle name Hussein like to do), he said Obama would harm our national security, and he called Obama a "celebrity." Oh yeah, and he was the keynote speaker at the other guy's convention. Which one of those doesn't cross a line?

The media loves Lieberman. It's not clear why, but it's clear that they do. There's a real effort here to portray Lieberman's crimes as some kind of high school prank that only silly "lefty bloggers" would care about.

We're talking about a sitting US Senator crossing party lines and public endorsing and campaign for the Republican presidential candidate, while savaging his own party and suggesting that his own party's candidate has ties to terrorists and tried to let our soldiers die. And all this while the biggest cross our party has had to bear for decades is the the lie that we're terrorist-sympathizing America-haters who would rather let our troops die than win a war. What part of that isn't more than a high school prank?

If Ambinder and Cillizza, and apparently Bayh and Durbin and even Obama, feel that defecting to the other party, helping their candidates win office, and calling your own party's candidate a terrorist sympathizer is really not that big an offense, then the next time the Republicans call the Democrats unpatriotic America-haters I don't want hear a peep out of the Democrats or the media. After all, what Michelle Bachmann did was really just a high school prank. And is it time to rehabilitate Zell Miller too? Read More......

Boomer passed away

Gang, Joe's dog Boomer passed away today.

I almost didn't post this, out of concern for respecting Joe's privacy, but I know how much it meant to him when he'd post about Boomer and 100 of you would respond with your own personal dog stories, so I thought you might want to leave him a little note. I think it would cheer him up. Here's a post Joe made two years ago, giving you a little background on Boomer:

"Boomer is my trusty companion. We've been together 6 1/2 years. He's around 13 or 14 -- I adopted him from the Washington Humane Society. Had a rough week with Boomer. On Tuesday, his vet thought he had an enlarged heart and congestive heart failure. On Thursday, we went to the Canine Cardiologist out in the suburbs. John came along for moral support and to ask questions. The cardiology people were great...and the good news is that Boomer's okay. No serious heart problem. Phew. I do love my dog."

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Republican MN governors calls John McCain a "crank"

As in "cranky old man."

At this afternoon's panel about the future of the Republican Party, Tim Pawlenty picked up where he left off yesterday, delivering some tough medicine for the party, calling for moderating the party's message and demeanor, including McCain's.

"People don't want to just hear I'm against earmarks, and 'we need to get back to things,'" Pawlenty said. That's nice, he added, but people are want to know, 'How can I pay for college, fill up my gas tank,' he added. "People are wondering, 'What are you going to do for me.' … Enough's enough."

He criticized the Republican Party's perceived negativity.

"When did you see Reagan get angry," Pawlenty said, adding that the 1980s president was positive and strong. "People want to follow mostly positive leaders; they don't want to follow cranks," he said, an apparent reference t

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Complaint filed against Mormon Church Prop 8 activities

Political expression is fine. But it has to be legal.

November 13, 2008

Chairman Ross Johnson
Fair Political Practices Commission
428 J Street, Suite 800
Sacramento, CA 95814

Attorney General Edmund G. Brown, Jr.
California Department of Justice
P.O. Box 944255
Sacramento, CA 94244-2550

Attorney General Mark Shurtleff
Office of the Attorney General
Utah State Capitol Complex
350 North State Street Suite 230
SLC UT 84114-2320

Dear Chairman Johnson, Generals Brown & Shurtleff:

Today we filed a formal complaint with the California Fair Political Practices Commission (FPPC) against the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS) aka the Mormon Church of Salt Lake City, Utah for not reporting various non monetary contributions to ProtectMarriage.com – Yes on 8, A Project of California Renewal I.D. # 1302592. The Mormon Church has been highly secretive about its massive involvement in the campaign, but we managed to piece together evidence of some of their more visible activities done directly to communicate with California voters, including:

Church organized phone banks from Utah and Idaho
Sending direct mail to voters
Transported people to California over several weekends
Used the LDS Press Office to send out multiple News Releases to promote their activities to nonmembers
Walked precincts
Ran a speakers bureau
Distributed thousands of lawn signs and other campaign material
Organized a "surge to election day"
Church leaders travel to California
Set up of very elaborate web sites
Produced at least 9 commercials and 4 other video broadcasts all in support of Prop 8
Conducted at least 2 satellite simulcasts over 5 Western states.

All of these unreported contributions by the Mormon Church were on top of its massive fund-raising effort; the largest ever undertaken on a social issue ballot initiative.

Under California Election Law organizations such as the Mormon Church are not required to report activities if they strictly constitute "member communication." We will explain why we feel that the activities of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints went far beyond "member communication," and were instead specifically targeted at California’s 17 million voters. By not reporting any of these non monetary contributions, the Mormon Church violated the Political Reform Act.

The only mention of compliance was a news story stating that the Mormon Church reported a single non monetary contribution of $2078.00 for Church Elder L. Whitney Clayton’s travel expenses for one trip to California. Was there only one trip? Were no other Church officials traveling to California for such an important campaign?

The Mormon Church made the Yes on Prop 8 campaign a national priority beginning on June 20, 2008 when Church President David S. Monson sent his now famous letter to be read in every church building, where he said, "We ask that you do all you can to support the proposed constitutional amendment (Prop 8) by donating of your means and time to assure that marriage in California is legally defined as being between a man and a woman." http://newsroom.lds.org/ldsnewsroom/eng/commentary/california-and-same-sex-marriage This was their call to action, and was undoubtedly designed to get members to begin the outreach to nonmembers.

Two other organizations that were also involved in the Yes on Prop 8 campaign, reported substantial non monetary contributions. The National Organization for Marriage of Princeton, New Jersey reported 49 separate non monetary contributions between 02/01/08 and 4/16/08 totaling $210,634,75. James Dobson’s Focus on the Family of Colorado Springs, Colorado reported non monetary contributions between 12/7/07 and 10/15/08 of $83,790.00.

Phone Banks

On October 8, 2008 the Associated Press reported that "Mormons Recruit Out-of-State for Gay Marriage Ban. Mormons living outside California have been asked to volunteer for a telephone campaign to help pass a ballot initiative banning same-sex marriage in the state."

The Mormon Church announced one week before the November 4, 2008 election that it was canceling its phone centers in Utah established to call California voters. Were these in operation before they were canceled? What were the costs of these phone centers? How many calls were made to California voters from these massive call centers?

News reports said that students at BYU – Idaho in Rexford, Idaho were using a call center in that town every Thursday evening to call voters in California. This type of interstate phone network requires a lot of setup, supervision, voter sheets, scripts, training and the price of the calls. Call centers are used to communicate with nonmembers. Phone centers in place to contact nonmembers would constitute a contribution. No contribution was reported.

Gary Lawrence – State LDS Grassroots Director

Veteran political operative Gary Lawrence http://www.zoominfo.com/Search/CompanyDetail.aspx?CompanyID=55969576&cs;=QHDVgcoxQ was based in Orange County, California. His title was State LDS Grassroots Director. Lawrence’s mission was to direct all Mormon activities in California (attached). He had a web site set up expressly for this purpose: http://yesonprop8.blogspot.com/2008/08/gary-lawrence-grass-roots-coordinator.html

Gary Lawrence’s operation had a timeline beginning on August 16, 2008 though election day of 12 Saturday precinct walks. All walkers were to be Mormons leading up to the election day surge of 100,000 Mormon volunteers and they went door-to-door to canvass nonmember voters. Was the Church actively involved in this massive recruitment? Here is a copy of the Mormon Organizational memo: http://wikileaks.org/leak/lds-proposition8-notes-2008.pdf

This directive from Church Elders Ballard, Christopheron & Clayton detail Church plans for yard signs, schedule, volunteers, out of state calling teams, speakers bureau and voter registration. More internet communications are available on this site: http://www.p8california.com/Job.html Did the Church participate financially in this massive voter outreach? If so, all of these voter communication activities to nonmembers constitute a contribution. No contribution was reported.

Saturday Rallies

These took place throughout California on the 3 Saturdays prior to the election. Thousands of yellow T-shirt clad Yes on 8 supporters were lined up for miles with signs in targeted areas of the state yelling, chanting and screaming at passing motorists. There were reports that these demonstrators were mostly Mormons, and that many were bussed in from Utah and surrounding states. We have heard that some of the busses had out of state license plates. Who paid for the buses, travel costs, meals and other expenses of all the Mormon participants? No contributions were reported.

Satellite Broadcasts

It appears that the first satellite simulcast was on October 8, 2008 and was beamed to 5 Western states. Apostle Robert D. Hales led this broadcast on various aspects of the campaign, including how to deal with the issues and how to conduct yourself. http://www.meridianmagazine.com/churchupdate/081010prop8.html
Another satellite broadcast took place at a later date, and was led by Church Elders M. Russell Ballard, Quentin L. Cook and L. Whitney Clayton. It addressed the Church's doctrine of marriage and participation in the Protect Marriage Coalition. Then the Newsroom of the Mormon Church issued a Press Release (attached) about this broadcast making it available to California voters and anyone with internet access. This video was not password protected and was promoted by the Church and available to nonmembers. Here is the press release about it as well as other Mormon activities: http://newsroom.lds.org/ldsnewsroom/eng/commentary/same-sex-marriage-and-proposition-8 Satellite broadcasts to hundreds of locations are very expensive, and by making it available to nonmembers, it is a contribution. No contribution was reported.

Multimedia Program

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints appeared to have done a tremendous amount of work in this area. A very slick web site (attached) http://www.preservingmarriage.org/ was developed specifically for the Yes on Prop 8 campaign. The title is "Preserving the Divine Institution of Marriage." This web site states that it is "An Official Web site of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints" c 2008 Intellectual Reserve, Inc. All rights reserved.

PreservingMarriage.com is primarily a showcase for 9 separate Yes on Prop 8 commercials that are very professionally produced. They feature mostly young people talking about why same-sex marriage is wrong. There is an email update request box, and another to send feedback. The viewer is encouraged to share this site and "spread the word." Site visits are not limited to just Mormons, and everyone is "invited to share these videos with others." There is even a very prominent "Vote Yes on Prop 8, Support Traditional Marriage" banner on the home page. Certainly this web site was put in place to reach California voters. It is on the internet, and therefore available to all.

This web page on PreservingMarriage.com has 13 very professionally made commercials and videos: http://www.preservingmarriage.org/videos.html .

All of these commercials as well as their web site were clearly designed to communicate with the public. No contribution was reported.

Church Denial

On November 9, 2008 Don Eaton a spokesman for the Mormon Church was quoted on ABC – KGO Television stating, "The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints put zero money in this (election)." When I personally spoke with him Monday, November 10, 2008 and asked him if the PreservingMarriage.com web site was sponsored by the Church, he quickly said that it was not, but was "a part of the campaign."

In 1998, the Mormon Church directly contributed $1.1 million to ban same-sex marriages in Alaska and Hawaii, and received widespread criticism for that. So this year in California it appears that the Mormon Church was trying to avoid any direct contributions to Yes on Prop 8, and instead raised millions from its member families. That is legal, but all the money spent to communicate with nonmembers must be reported if it exceed $100. Clearly the Mormon Church has vastly exceeded that threshold.

We ask that the Fair Political Practices Commission and the Attorneys General of California and Utah immediately begin a full and thorough investigation of all campaign related activities undertaken by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Salt Lake City, Utah to determine if there were any reporting violations.

Thank you very much for your prompt attention to this very important matter.

Sincerely,

Fred Karger
Founder / Campaign Manager
Californians Against Hate
http://californiansagainsthate.com/
619-592-2008

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Jobless claims jump to 516,000

Ug-ly.

The number of Americans filing new claims for unemployment insurance last week surged to the highest levels since the wake of the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks, and the number continuing to collect benefits rose to a 25-year high, the government said Thursday.

The U.S. Department of Labor reported that initial filings for state jobless benefits reached 516,000 for the week ended Nov. 8. That's the highest total since the week ended Sept. 29, 2001, two weeks after the attacks against New York and Washington, when 517,000 initial claims were filed.

Claims increased by 32,000 from the previous week's revised figure of 484,000. Economists surveyed by Briefing.com expected 479,000 claims.

The report shows the number of Americans continuing to collect unemployment benefits surged by 65,000 to 3,897,000, the highest level since January 1983. The data comes from the week ended Nov. 1, the most recent available.

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Obama making phone calls on behalf of Lieberman

Not like there's anything more important that Obama could be spending his energies on. From Roll Call (no link, subscription only):

Support for Lieberman appears to have been growing since Obama began making calls to several top Democrats to discuss the Connecticut Senator's status. Since then, several senior Senators began making statements that seemed to indicate a willingness to let Lieberman retain his gavel.

In addition to telling Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) that he would like for Senate Democrats to find a way to keep Lieberman in the Democratic fold, Obama has had similar conversations with other top Democrats – including Senate Majority Whip Dick Durbin (D-Ill.), Sen. Edward Kennedy (D-Mass.), Claire McCaskill (D-Mo.), and Lieberman's home-state colleague, Dodd, sources said.

Obama is close with all four of those Senators, each of whom endorsed him in his quest to win the Democratic Party's presidential nomination this year....

Still, many Democrats are wary of letting Lieberman walk away unscathed, given it could make Reid – and the whole caucus – look weak. Lieberman's transgressions against the party are multifold, his critics say, including aggressively criticizing Obama's candidacy while stumping for McCain, campaigning for Senate Republican incumbents and arguing that it would be dangerous for Senate Democrats to reach a filibuster-proof majority of 60 seats.

In fact, some Democrats said foes of Lieberman might argue next Tuesday that Lieberman went too far in campaigning against Senate Democrats this cycle – notably, stepping at the last minute to defend moderate Sen. Norm Coleman (R-Minn.) from attacks by Democratic challenger Al Franken. That race is now headed to a recount with Franken trailing Coleman by just a few hundred votes.

Here's what I think is going on. Obama (read: Rahm) has decided that:

1. Magnanimity shows "change" in action.
2. The Senate may very well get 60 Democrats after the races in Alaska, Minnesota and Georgia are decided. That is, if Lieberman caucuses with the Dems, we'll have 60.
3. 60 Dems helps Obama push his "change" agenda - with 60 votes we can beat a GOP filibuster. If Lieberman owes his political life to President Obama, he'll be more likely to vote with Dems, vote with Obama.
4. I wouldn't be surprised if Rahm hasn't sweetened the deal to promise Lieberman a cabinet post in Obama II, the second term, if Lieberman is a good lap dog during Obama I.

But here are a few problems:

Lieberman is untrustworthy scum. He tried to help Norm Coleman at the last minute in Minnesota. He associated Obama with terrorists, called him a "celebrity," suggested that an Obama presidency would compromise America's national security, said that Obama tried to cut off funding to the troops - Lieberman even appeared with McCain at his final campaign rally the night before the election. Lieberman helped perpetuate GOP blood lies against Democrats after he specifically promised not to. So trusting Lieberman now is an interesting prospect.

Short of abducting a small child, it's not clear what more Lieberman could do to be worthy of some sort of punishment.

Letting Lieberman off the hook not only risks Traitor Joe using his committee chair status, and money and staff, to investigate the Obama administration, and stymie Democratic efforts to fix the problem that is Iraq. But there's a larger concern here. Letting Lieberman off the hook for endorsing the other guy for president, and speaking at the GOP convention, no less, sends a message that Democrats have no backbone, that there is no price to paid for turning against your own party. It sends a message that no member of Congress need side with Obama, or the Democratic leadership, ever again. How are you going to punish any other Senator for voting the wrong way on any piece of legislation when Joe Lieberman tried to sabotage the entire party and got a committee chair out of it?

Or put it another way: How are you going to get 60 votes when there's no incentive for 60 Senators to vote your way? When there's no price to paid for voting against you? When in fact, you'll be far better off in the long run standing up to the Democrats and publicly shitting on them, only to have them lucratively woo you back into the fold to reconstitute that Magic 60. In fact, every Democratic Senator has just been given license to walk, fast, from every filibuster that ever happens. If you screw the party, if you tell Harry Reid you're not voting with him, if you publicly denounce Obama the night before the filibuster vote, you will reap a wealth of riches when Obama and the Democratic leadership desperately try to woo you back. Pull a Lieberman and the gates of Heaven are yours. Talk about mixed messages. Talk about killing the 60 vote majority by trying to save it.

There is no discipline. There is no backbone. There are no consequences for your actions. This is your Democratic party. Read More......

McCain surrogate Lieberman also campaigned for Norm Coleman

I linked to this article in this morning's open thread, but thought it warranted its own post. Last month, Joe Lieberman was aggressively undermining the Democrat's campaign against Norm Coleman. That race is set for a recount and Joe's pals in the GOP are doing everything they can to create controversy.

But, this piece in The Hill about Lieberman's political treachery was written just one month ago. It seemed to capture the prevailing wisdom back then. Yet, somehow, McCain surrogate Joe Lieberman has wormed his way back into the good graces of some of his Senate colleagues. One month ago, Lieberman was undermining one of the top Democratic prospects:

In his latest break from the Democratic Party, Sen. Joe Lieberman (I-Conn.) is defending Republican Sen. Norm Coleman (Minn.) from Democratic attacks in one of the nation's closest Senate races.

Lieberman, the 2000 Democratic vice presidential nominee who caucuses with Democrats and gives them their two-seat Senate majority, disputes partisan attacks that Coleman conducted inadequate oversight of the Iraq war as the top Republican on the Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations (PSI).

"Any suggestion Sen. Coleman stymied Democrats' investigations into Iraq-related matters is unfair and unfounded," Lieberman wrote this weekend in an op-ed in the St. Paul Pioneer Press.

The truth is that Lieberman never conducted investigations into Iraq-related matters in the first place. See, Lieberman is not only a political dirt-bag, he's an ineffective Senator and terrible chair of an important committee. For the past two years, it was Lieberman who stymied investigations.

From his perch as a Senate Chair, Lieberman has launched repeated attacks on his colleagues:

Since he lost the Democratic Senate primary in 2006, and later won a fourth term as an Independent, Lieberman has increasingly grown distant from his Democratic colleagues. As a foreign-policy hawk, he has repeatedly criticized the Democratic Party for trying to mandate a troop withdrawal from Iraq and for taking a "weak" stance on Iran.

Now, Democrats are taking a "weak" stance on Lieberman. In the way the Senate Democrats are capitulating to him, they're proving his point about being "weak.'

You'd think this would matter to the Senate Democrats:

He later alarmed his Democratic colleagues when he announced he would support Sen. John McCain (Ariz.) for president, and has increasingly angered Democratic leaders for becoming a leading surrogate for the Republican presidential nominee and his running mate, Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin. After speaking in September at the Republican National Convention, Lieberman decided to skip weekly Democratic lunches because of the growing tensions between himself and his former party.

While he has donated money to the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, he also has given cash to the reelection campaign of another endangered Republican, Sen. Susan Collins of Maine.

His advocacy for Coleman, who is locked in a tight battle with comedian Al Franken, may give Democratic leaders another reason to take away Lieberman's leadership position in the next Congress. Democrats expect that if they have a robust majority, the senator may lose the coveted chairmanship of the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee.

The Senate Democrats ask us all for help all the time. They ask us for money. They ask us to support their candidates. And, we do. Because we believe in them and share their values -- and naively believe they'll sometimes do the right thing. So who gets the reward for the work we do while he's been undermining it? Joe Lieberman

If you're not happy about this, call your Democratic Senators. The main switchboard at the Capitol is 202-224-3121. And, maybe those incumbent Senators should ask Al Franken how he feels about Lieberman campaigning against him. Read More......

Marriott or Sarah Palin? You decide

Apparently, Marriott is so flustered over the gay community's outrage over the passage of Prop 8 in Utah, and the spontaneous anger that has been directed at Marriott as one of the largest, if not the largest, Mormon-run business in America, that Marriott is now sending potential customers emails that sound as if they're written by Sarah Palin. To wit:

From: internet.customer.care@marriott.com
Date: November 12, 2008
To:
Subject: RE: Bill Marriott

Dear xxxx,

Thank you for your additional email.

While we can appreciate your passion towards such a controversial topic, the personal beliefs or affiliations of an individual does not have any bearing on how the business handles such matters.

We regret that our company's response providing details reflecting its commitment to diversity may not have disarmed actions concerning future patronage, but was offered in good faith hoping that it may redirect your attention to the root source of where your disagreement lies.

Thank you for sharing your concerns.

Regards,
Ricky Shae
Marriott Internet Customer Care

Maybe someone should spend a little less time trying to revoke the civil rights of gays and lesbians, and forcibly convert dead Holocaust victims to Mormonism, and more time on learning to how to speak English. Read More......

No oversight of $700 billion bailout: "it's a mess."

This shouldn't be a surprise. The Bush administration provided no oversight of Iraq. No oversight of the economy. No oversight of the country. So, this shouldn't be a surprise:

In the six weeks since lawmakers approved the Treasury's massive bailout of financial firms, the government has poured money into the country's largest banks, recruited smaller banks into the program and repeatedly widened its scope to cover yet other types of businesses, from insurers to consumer lenders.

Along the way, the Bush administration has committed $290 billion of the $700 billion rescue package.

Yet for all this activity, no formal action has been taken to fill the independent oversight posts established by Congress when it approved the bailout to prevent corruption and government waste. Nor has the first monitoring report required by lawmakers been completed, though the initial deadline has passed.

"It's a mess," said Eric M. Thorson, the Treasury Department's inspector general, who has been working to oversee the bailout program until the newly created position of special inspector general is filled. "I don't think anyone understands right now how we're going to do proper oversight of this thing."

The new administration can't get here fast enough.

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Thursday Morning Open Thread

Good morning.

Late last night, we found out that Mark Begich has moved into the lead against Ted Stevens in the Alaska Senate race -- by 814 votes. There are still some votes to be counted, but this is looking good. If Begich wins, the felon is gone, which is great. But, it also means we can avoid the immediate prospect of Senator Sarah Palin.

In Minnesota, sounds like it's going to get ugly. NBC's Lee Cowan just did a piece on the recount. As you might expect, the GOPers don't want the thorough recount mandated by law. They're basically lying and spinning wildly. Minnesota takes pride in its fair elections, but the GOP is trying to destroy that brand. (Note to NBC: John Lott is not an "election expert." He is a right wing hack.)

Also, for all the Senate Democrats who are anxiously watching the Minnesota recount, here's a fun fact to remember: Joe Lieberman provide support to Norm Coleman's campaign. Not that anything like that will matter to the august members of the Senate Democratic caucus. They're above politics.

Anyway, let's get started....

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Cuomo asks Bank of America for bonus details

This ought to be interesting and I hope more subpoenas to other banks are in the works. Using public money to enrich the people who dragged down the global economy is unacceptable. From Reuters:

New York state's attorney general, Andrew Cuomo, this week issued a subpoena to Bank of America Corp , asking for details on how it allocates its bonuses, the Wall Street Journal said, citing a person familiar with the matter.

In a letter to BofA, Cuomo's office said the company had responded inadequately to its informal request for information on executive compensation, the paper said.

Two weeks ago Cuomo told BofA and eight other banks receiving government money under the Treasury's Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP) that using the funds for bonus payments may be illegal under state law.

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Bush prepares G20 lecture on "principles of free market"

Ha. Yet another reason why the Republicans were crushed. They still have no idea how badly they botched the economy and they still think that the unregulated free market is what we all need to have in order to be saved. It's as if nothing has gone wrong in their minds. Obama was right to leave this summit to Bush and Bush alone. Let him look like a buffoon one more time on the big stage.

President George W. Bush today will urge leaders of the world's biggest industrial and developing economies not to abandon principles of free-market capitalism as they seek a way out of an international financial crisis, calling it the ``best system'' for delivering growth.

In a speech in New York before weekend talks among leaders from the Group of 20 nations, Bush will say policy makers ``should fix the problems we have rather than dismantle a system that has improved the lives of hundreds of millions of people around the world,'' according to statement released by the White House.

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Germany officially in recession

There's more where that came from. The UK is (officially) predicting a short, hard recession and while I'd like to believe it, I don't see it. The UK has been bubbling over with even more personal debt than the US and the City has been as nutty as Wall Street, but adds up to around 1/3 of the UK economy. I hope that I'm wrong, but I see this dragging on for longer than one year. From Germany:

New government data show that the German economy is officially in recession.

Europe's biggest economy recorded negative growth for a second consecutive quarter in the third quarter.

The Federal Statistical Office said today that gross domestic product contracted by 0.5% in the July-September period compared with the previous quarter.

The economy contracted by 0.4% in the second quarter - its first decline since late 2004.

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Retail economy in China points towards slowdown

It's becoming more obvious why Beijing launched a massive program to ramp up infrastructure construction. The rescue plan makes sense, but will it be enough? From Reuters:

A retrenchment in Chinese consumption would mark a sudden and, for the global economy, unwelcome reversal of a long-established trend of robust spending that had been supported by higher incomes and government policies to tilt growth away from investment and exports.

"Retail sales have been hit by the slowing economy and especially by falling asset prices," said Li Lihong, senior analyst at CITIC-Kington Securities in Hangzhou. "That situation will last for some time.

The bottom fell out from virtually every category that composes the retail index.

Sales of recreational goods in October were up 2.1 percent from a year earlier, down from an 18.0 percent annual rise in the first three quarters. Sales of home appliances in October increased just 0.8 percent from a year earlier, down from a 19.6 percent annual rise in the first three quarters.

"Anecdotally, it's clear that consumption growth slowed in September and October," said Stephen Green, an economist with Standard Chartered in Shanghai. "Pretty much all our customers are telling us that."

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GOP luminaries squirm when asked about Sarah Palin's qualifications

From the LA Times blog:

So, then came the follow-up question: Would you have been comfortable with Palin serving as president?

After an enormously pregnant but pro-life pause, [former eBay CEO Meg Whitman] responded that Palin was a “very fast study, incredibly enthusiastic.”

[Gov. Jon Huntsman of Utah]: “I don’t think it’s a simple yes or no.”

[Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty], who'd been mentioned as a prime VP pick himself, said it was McCain’s decision. “So in his judgment, she met that criteria and he felt strongly about that and we’re going to have to defer to his judgment and that process.”

See if you can follow this. Pawlenty ended with this:

“I think everybody will be looking back and second-guessing, triple-guessing this stuff for months and years… A lot of this is just like post-modern art. You can look at the painting and different people look at it and see different things…

"What you have to look to in the end is the data, an objective measurement of it. And so, politics as post-modern art analysis is fun and interesting but it doesn’t get you very far. So I would just steer you to the data.”

The data? You mean, like the Electoral College?

There, the tentative numbers right now are McCain-Palin 173, Brand X 365.

Or how about the popular vote? McC-P 58 million, Others 66.1 million.

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In Alaska, Democrat Begich is now ahead of Felon Stevens by 814

As of 7:33 PM Alaska Time, Democrat Mark Begich had increased his lead over Ted Stevens to 814 votes. A couple hours ago, Begich was up by 3 votes. When the day started, before the counting of absentees and early votes began, Stevens was up by over 3,000 votes.

Begich has 132,196 votes (47.41%) to 131,382 votes (47.12%) for Stevens. And, the counting isn't over. Waiting for a report on what's left. From the ADN:

The state Division of Elections tallied about 60,000 absentee, early and questioned ballots on Wednesday. The ballots broke heavily in Begich's favor, erasing the 3,000-vote lead that Stevens had after election night last Tuesday.

The state still needs to count at least 15,000 questioned ballots and an estimated 20,000 mailed absentee ballots that made it to the Division of Elections after election day last Tuesday.

The regional election districts centered in the Mat-Su Valley, Nome and Fairbanks will count their remaining ballots Friday. The Southcentral regional election district, based in Anchorage, plans to count ballots between Monday and Wednesday.

UPDATE: Markos reported that the remaining votes are in "Begich-friendly districts." This is looking good. Read More......