CREW's Melanie Sloan makes Oprah's "Power List"

Very cool for Melanie and CREW.

In 2003 Melanie Sloan, then 38, left a plum position as assistant U.S. attorney to start running a new government watchdog group, Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW). Working alone for the first 18 months, she gathered evidence that then House Majority Leader Tom DeLay (R-TX) had violated House ethics rules; her efforts helped lead to DeLay's disgraced exit from government in 2006. Since then CREW—now with a staff of 17—has revealed dirty tricks by lobbyist Jack Abramoff, Rep. John Murtha (D-PA), and many others. Politicos, beware: No matter where you fall on the partisan divide, Sloan is looking over your shoulder.

I love Melanie's description of her job. She's a perfect example of what can be done if you're smart enough, and simply won't let others tell you it's not possible. Read the rest of this post...

Militias on the rise in US

And now they have a political party and a TV network. AP:

Militia groups with gripes against the government are regrouping across the country and could grow rapidly, according to an organization that tracks such trends.

The stress of a poor economy and a liberal administration led by a black president are among the causes for the recent rise, the report from the Southern Poverty Law Center says. Conspiracy theories about a secret Mexican plan to reclaim the Southwest are also growing amid the public debate about illegal immigration.

Bart McEntire, a special agent with the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, told SPLC researchers that this is the most growth he's seen in more than a decade.

"All it's lacking is a spark," McEntire said in the report.

Read the rest of this post...

The new US bubble?

Wall Street has been making great money moving stocks though for the rest of the country, not so much. The recent Wall Street run has been a concern for me because there seems to be very little reality behind the run. As great as a recovery may be, the hype may be too much and of course, you know who is going to get stuck with the next bill if this turns out to be yet another bubble. Is the Fed missing a brewing problem, again? CNNMoney:

But it's clear that bankers are loath to pull back on their support for the financial system before it's clear the economy has staged a stronger recovery. And the Fed has a long and painful history of ignoring asset price inflation.

"The central bankers have this textbook belief that the only inflation is the kind that appears in consumer price indexes," said Simons. "They don't believe what they're doing could cause an asset price bubble."

For now, Fed chief Ben Bernanke and other central bankers can console themselves for now with stable consumer price inflation readings in major economies.

But comparing the bankers with a driver pulled over for speeding for the umpteenth time, Simons said, "At some point, you have to say maybe your speedometer's broken."

Read the rest of this post...

Dorgan wants answers from Army on troops' exposure to carcinogen: “We know that multiple failures by contractor KBR lead to this exposure"

We really have to get those KBR bastards -- and anyone in the Army or our government who enabled them. Senator Byron Dorgan (D-ND) has been plugging away at this issue for awhile now. It is beyond appalling. From the Democratic Policy Committee's press release:

Dorgan chaired a hearing on August 3, by the Senate Democratic Policy Committee (DPC), which looked into the Army’s response to the 2003 exposure at Qarmat Ali in Iraq of hundreds of U.S. soldiers to sodium dichromate, which poses the highest inhalation risk for cancer of any of the 500 substances classified as a carcinogen by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.

The Senators wrote that they “believe that the conduct and/or inaction of KBR and the Army may have caused hundreds of U.S. troops to be exposed to dangerous levels of sodium dichromate,” and asked the Inspector General to investigate seven separate areas of concern.

“We know that multiple failures by contractor KBR lead to this exposure,” Dorgan said, “but it is also becoming clear that the Army’s multiple failures resulted in soldiers not being warned about the contamination, not being provided personal protective gear, not having t heir symptoms taken seriously, and not being tested in a timely manner.”

At the August 3rd hearing, the 20th hearing on waste, fraud and corruption in Iraq contracting conducted by the DPC since 2003, the Committee heard from four former soldiers who were exposed at Qarmat Ali and are now suffering health difficulties. A 21 year-old soldier from Oregon has already died from the exposure. [background on the August 3rd hearing is here.]

The former soldiers said neither KBR nor the Army took steps to protect soldiers from, or even warn them about, the deadly chemical.

We heard a lot of rhetoric from the Bush administration and GOP members of Congress about supporting the troops. Call me crazy, but I don't think exposing troops to carcinogens is very supportive. But, with Dick Cheney's friends at KBR in the mix, there was no way Bush or the GOP would ever hold KBR accountable.

This is really beyond appalling. Read the rest of this post...

Grassley is a deather. Yes, Senator Grassley. The guy working with Max Baucus on a bipartisan health care bill

Here's all you need to know about why there is no health insurance reform bill in the Senate Finance Committee: Chuck Grassley (R-IA) is a deather. Today he repeated the lie that health care reform would set up euthanasia death panels in order to kill senior citizens. Seriously, that's all we need to know about this brilliant "bipartisan" strategy.

Grassley has allegedly being working with Democrat Max Baucus to find the grand compromise that's supposed to save the day on health care. Right. And, Grassley has been to the White House several times to meet with Obama, too. He was there last Thursday, in fact.

But, today, Grassley showed his true colors to anyone who hadn't figured it out yet (a pool which appear limited to Max Baucus, Rahm Emanuel, Jim Messina and Obama.) Grassley was back in Iowa spreading the deather lies.

If Democrats continue working with Grassley, they're bigger fools than we could have imagined.

Grassley is a deather. Classic. Read the rest of this post...

A very angry Teabagger

A reader in the northeast sent us this video he took yesterday of a local patriot who was protesting outside of Obama's Portsmouth, NH townhall about health care reform. The local teabagger was very unhappy about health care reform, and socialism, and I think World War II. This is a must-watch.

Read the rest of this post...

Canada is like England, only different

Nate Silver does a brilliant and hilarious job of explaining to wingnuts the difference between Canada and England, and their respective health care systems. Read it, it's wonderful writing. Read the rest of this post...

Can you fight two wars with no one heading the Army?

Good question for two Republican Senators who apparently want al Qaeda to win. (Oh come on, you've been dying to throw that charge back at them too.) Read the rest of this post...

More on Bush firings of US Attorneys

Using the apparatus of state to target your political enemies. One might even call it un-American:

The dismissal of U.S. Attorney David C. Iglesias of New Mexico in December 2006 followed extensive communication among lawyers and political aides in the White House who hashed over complaints about his work on public corruption cases against Democrats, according to newly released e-mails and transcripts of closed-door House testimony by former Bush counsel Harriet Miers and political chief Karl Rove.

A campaign to oust Iglesias intensified after state GOP officials and Republican members of the congressional delegation apparently concluded that he was not pursuing the cases against Democrats in a way that could help then-Rep. Heather A. Wilson (R) in a tight reelection race in New Mexico, according to interviews and Bush White House e-mails released Tuesday by congressional investigators. The documents place the genesis of Iglesias's dismissal earlier than previously known.

Using the apparatus of state to help your political allies -- even if it breaks the rules. Might be called unethical and un-American:

A phone call from the top lawyer in President George W. Bush's White House may have prompted the Department of Justice to violate its own policy of silence and speak out about a criminal investigation targeting then-Congressman Rick Renzi, R-Ariz., according to deposition transcripts released Tuesday.

Read the rest of this post...

Putting a spotlight on the Maine campaign to save marriage

Just posted this over at gay.AMERICAblog.com, but it needs a lot of amplification. Maine is having a referendum in November on the state's new same-sex marriage law. A lot of attention of late has been focused on California's gay leaders, who continue to suck up a lot of energy trying to decide when and if to launch a campaign next year or in 2012. But, Maine's campaign is real. It's happening this November. And, we have to win.

Kerry Eleveld put the spotlight on the Maine campaign in The Advocate:

Marriage equality opponents led by Stand for Marriage Maine turned in 100,000 signatures -- 45,000 more than necessary -- at the end of July to qualify for the ballot. If they are certified by the state, as everyone expects they will be, Maine’s vote on a so-called "people’s veto" of the marriage law will be the first such vote on the right of gay couples to marry since California’s highly contentious Proposition 8 showdown, which banned same-sex marriage there.

The Maine picture is rife with both similarities and differences to California: Like Prop. 8, analysts expect the battle to be the most expensive referendum campaign held in Maine, though totaling closer to several million dollars rather than the $85 million spent in the Golden State; while it is also a popular vote, Mainers will be weighing in on a law enacted by their legislature rather than a decision rendered by their high court; and although the same company that led the successful fight to ban gay marriage in California -- Schubert Flint Public Affairs -- is also running the opposition's show in Maine, the landscape is a bit different, dominated less by air space than by word of mouth.

Maine is different in so many ways. The campaign to save marriage is being run by some of the best politicos in the state. I know them. They aren't messing around with in-fighting and turf battles, which was too often the case in California during Prop. 8. In Maine, they're focused and playing to win. And, we have to win.

Every dollar in Maine will go a long way towards achieving victory. Contribute to the campaign via our ActBlue page here. This quote from the campaign's finance director, Andy Szekeres, sums up the situation:

“But all roads for marriage are running through Maine right now,” he says. “If we want to make a statement to advance the gay rights movement forward across the country, Maine is a good place to start.

Maine is a good place to start. And, while the other side will have plenty of money, we can win. If you want to make a statement, contribute to No on 1/Protect Maine Equality. Read the rest of this post...

HHS: Insurance Companies Encourage Employees to "Revoke Sick People's Health Coverage"

Now health care advocates want to demonize the insurance industry. Now that everything's falling apart and it's quite possibly too late. How many times do we need to repeat this pattern before the administration takes issues head on from the beginning, and our "advocates" grow a pair? We harp on this because it's an ongoing pattern of behavior by all Democrats - this "waiting until all is nearly lost before finally fighting back" - and it needs to stop. Wash Post:

“When a person is diagnosed with an expensive condition such as cancer, some insurance companies review his/her initial health status questionnaire,” the HHS said in a posting at HealthReform.Gov. In most states, insurance companies can retroactively cancel individuals' policies if any condition was not disclosed when the policy was obtained, "even if the medical condition is unrelated, and even if the person was not aware of the condition at the time.” ....

WellPoint and Assurant told the committee that they automatically investigate the medical records of every policyholder with certain conditions, including leukemia, ovarian cancer, brain cancer, and becoming pregnant with twins, the committee staff wrote.

In November 2006, after a Texas resident was found to have a lump in her breast, Wellpoint investigated her medical history and concluded that she had been diagnosed previously with osteoporosis. The insurer rescinded her policy and refused to pay for treatment of the lump, the committee staff wrote.

Read the rest of this post...

Santorum is just another word for... nothing left to do

Politico:

Add former Sen. Rick Santorum to the list of potential 2012 Republican presidential candidates.

POLITICO has learned Santorum will visit first-in-the-nation Iowa this fall for a series of appearances before the sort of conservative activists who dominate the state GOP’s key presidential caucuses.

The Pennsylvanian, who lost his 2006 re-election bid, will visit Iowa on October 1st, appearing on a Des Moines radio talk show and speaking to a luncheon and workshop of Iowa’s Right to Life group before heading east to Dubuque, where he’ll headline a fundraiser for the conservative America’s Future Fund PAC and then speak about the future of the GOP to a public audience in the Mississippi River city.

God please make it so. Read the rest of this post...

Wake up, Democrats - the angry crowds aren't real

AP:

Jeers and taunts drowned out both Specter and McCaskill on occasion Tuesday. President Barack Obama was treated more respectfully at his town hall meeting in New Hampshire.

"You'll be gone, by God the bureaucrats will still be here," one man told Specter at a session in Lebanon, Pa.

"If they don't let us vent our frustrations out, they will have a revolution," Mary Ann Fieser of Hillsboro, Mo., told McCaskill at her Missouri health care forum. McCaskill admonished the rowdy crowd, saying "I don't understand this rudeness. I honestly don't get it."

The reason you don't get it is because these people came over from FOX News and the Rush Limbaugh show, mixed in with some Dick Armey astroturfing to boot. They're not real. They don't represent America. They represent the 20% of Americans who still call themselves Republican, who still think George Bush did a bang up job. They've been told to disrupt your sessions, and like the good mindless lemmings they are, they're doing just that. There is no logic behind it. They're rude, boorish far-right extremists who will never accept a Democrat as a legitimate elected official. The sooner the Democrats realize what they're up against, the better. But this kind of reaction only feeds the impression that these crowds are real. They're not. Read the rest of this post...

Wednesday Morning Open Thread

Good morning.

So, good work by Obama on health insurance reform in Portsmouth yesterday. Sounds like the White House is honing its message (finally.) Meanwhile, the GOP mob is still working its campaign of intimidation. Not sure thuggery is a good marketing strategy.

Later today, President Obama will hand out the Medals of Freedom. You'll recall that Harvey Milk is a recipient. It's a well-deserved tribute. But, now, we just need the President to follow through on his LGBT campaign promises. That White House cocktail party didn't really make things better. We need action. A good question for our "leaders" at this juncture is: What would Harvey do?

What else is going on out there? Read the rest of this post...

Prices in Japan plummeting

But the government says they're not in a deflationary spiral. Curious what Krugman will have to say. Read the rest of this post...

Tonight's sunset in Paris

Read the rest of this post...

Some things simply must be shared

Read the rest of this post...