GOP Senator blocks all Obama nominees until he gets his pork

Republicans have handed Democrats a gift. Only one week after the State of the Union when Obama again implored Republicans to work with him. This is a gift. Read the rest of this post...

Sanders and Franken browbeat Axelrod, say White House isn't leading on health care reform

Sam Stein at Huff Post:

Shortly after Barack Obama addressed a Senate Democratic caucus meeting and urged them to push health care reform forward, one of the chamber's most progressive members took the president's closest adviser aside and asked him why the White House wasn't doing more to help.

Sens. Al Franken (D-Minn.) put pointed health-care-related questions to senior adviser David Axelrod following Obama's speech, multiple sources tell the Huffington Post. He was echoed by Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-V.T.) The gist of their concern was that the administration has not shown enough leadership to get legislation passed through Congress in the wake of the party's defeat in the Massachusetts Senate election. Franken insisted that "he really needed to know if the White House was going to lead," according to one Democratic aide.

Axelrod, by several accounts, didn't give a response that Franken found sufficient. And as the two continued to talk, Sanders eventually jumped in.

Read the rest of this post...

Guess what? DADT repeal is quickly becoming a total mess

What is the point anymore? Read the rest of this post...

Reid wants Obama to do more to get nominees appointed

Reid seems to be signaling that Obama needs to do some recess appointments. Read the rest of this post...

Senate warms up to idea of taxing banker bonuses

If someone doesn't stand up to the bankers, they will only continue to walk all over Congress and the White House. The current proposal being kicked around would slap at 50% tax on anything about $400,000 for bailed out bankers. It's better than nothing but that figure ought to come down a lot more. A salary alone should be enough when you look at the damage that they caused.

You know it's bad when even Larry Kudlow is blasting the bailed AIG bonuses and arguing that they have nothing to do with free market capitalism. Let the bankers say "thank you" and consider themselves lucky. How long until the Republicans stand up and side with Wall Street, as they like to do?

Two Democratic senators on Thursday proposed legislation that would impose a one-time tax on bonuses paid to executives of companies bailed out with taxpayer money.

Senators Barbara Boxer and Jim Webb proposed a 50 percent tax on 2009 bonuses above $400,000 at any firm that has received more than $5 billion in government assistance.

Read the rest of this post...

GOP now distancing itself from top budget guy's plan to privatize Social Security and Medicare

I was reading an amazingly dumb proposal the other day, from the top Republican on the House budget committee, talking about how we needed to private Social Security and Medicare, so that we could save money. How? By making insurance more expensive for people, and cutting back on their coverage. Incredibly asinine, and vicious proposal. And coming from the top Republican on budget issues, who very likely would be chair of the budget committee if the Republicans take back the House - well, this is downright dangerous. Brian Beutler has more. Read the rest of this post...

Nasty unemployment numbers in Prez's budget

From Jake Tapper:

Whether you consider the president’s assumptions about unemployment bleak or realistic, they will likely not come as welcome news to the millions of unemployed and underemployed – or to Democrats hoping to win elections in the next decade.

In the supplemental volume “Analytical Perspectives,” the Obama administration estimates that the annual average rate of unemployment will remain at 10% for 2010, and dip only slightly next year, in 2011, to 9.2%.

In 2012, the year President Obama faces re-election, unemployment will average 8.2%, the budget projects. It will be at 7.3% in 2013.

The average annual rate of unemployment in 2008 was 5.8%...

Read the rest of this post...

Why did Republicans side with AIG bonuses instead of everyone else?

The Democrats - especially Timothy Geithner - may have their share of blame in the AIG bonus fiasco but the Republicans don't even try to hide their support. Whose side are they on? Why does the GOP prefer supporting AIG instead of average Americans?

“Representative Terry voted to protect bonuses paid to AIG executives with American tax dollars," DCCC national press secretary Ryan Rudominer said in a template hit on Rep. Lee Terry (R-Neb.), whom Democrats are hoping to target with a better candidate this fall than they had in 2008.

The release also seeks to tie the GOP lawmakers to "outrageous Wall Street bonuses paid for by President Bush's bailout," though a number of Democrats including the Democratic leadership in the House and Senate had worked vigorously to craft and pass the legislation behind the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP).

The House passed the clawback bill in a 328-93 vote last March, though the bill did not advance from there. Of the 93 members to vote against the bill, 87 were Republicans.

Read the rest of this post...

Obama addresses birther controversy, gay rights, at Prayer Breakfast

NYT:

The president also addressed something that he rarely speaks about: his citizenship. Questions were initially raised by conservative groups during his presidential campaign and continue to regularly flare up on talk-radio programs and Tea Party rallies.

“Surely you can question my policies without questioning my faith,” Mr. Obama said, “or for that matter my citizenship.”

And as Joe noted on AMERICAblog Gay, it's not terribly clear why the President brought up gay marriage, though it's good, and telling, that he felt the need to slap his hosts for ties to genocidal legislation in Uganda.

“We may disagree about gay marriage,” Mr. Obama said, “but surely we can agree that it is unconscionable to target gays and lesbians for who they are, whether it is right here in the United States or as Hillary mentioned more extremely in odious laws that are being proposed most recently in Uganda.”

Read the rest of this post...

GOP telling banks they're the 'best hope of preventing President Barack Obama and congressional Democrats from cracking down on Wall Street'

Even for the Republicans, this is rather over the top.

Republicans are stepping up their campaign to win donations from Wall Street, trying to capitalize on an increasing sense of regret among executives at big financial institutions for backing Democrats in 2008.

In discussions with Wall Street executives, Republicans are striving to make the case that they are banks' best hope of preventing President Barack Obama and congressional Democrats from cracking down on Wall Street.

GOP strategists hope to benefit from the reaction to the White House's populist rhetoric and proposals, which range from sharp critiques of bonuses to a tax on big Wall Street banks, caps on executive pay and curbs on business practices deemed too risky.

As Joe noted the other day, the GOP and financial industry have been growing closer over the past several months. Read the rest of this post...

The NY Times shines a light on 'The Family' and its 'National Prayer Breakfast'

Our nation's leaders are having breakfast today, courtesy of "The Family." It purports to be a "Prayer Breakfast," but it's much more. It's a political event for "The Family" and a way for them to network and accrue power. From today's NY Times:

For more than 50 years, the National Prayer Breakfast has served as a prime networking event in Washington, bringing together the president, members of Congress, foreign diplomats and thousands of religious, business and military leaders for scrambled eggs and supplication.

Usually, the annual event passes with little notice. But this year, an ethics group in Washington has asked President Obama and Congressional leaders to stay away from the breakfast, on Thursday. Religious and gay rights groups have organized competing prayer events in 17 cities, and protesters are picketing in Washington and Boston.

The objections are focused on the sponsor of the breakfast, a secretive evangelical Christian network called The Fellowship, also known as The Family, and accusations that it has ties to legislation in Uganda that calls for the imprisonment and execution of homosexuals.

The Family has always stayed intentionally in the background, according to those who have written about it. In the last year, however, it was identified as the sponsor of a residence on Capitol Hill that has served as a dormitory and meeting place for a cluster of politicians who ran into ethics problems, including Senator John Ensign, Republican of Nevada, and Gov. Mark Sanford, Republican of South Carolina, both of whom have admitted to adultery.

More recently, it became public that the Family also has close ties to the Ugandan politician who has sponsored the proposed anti-gay legislation.

This is not who Barack Obama, his wife, members of Congress and the cabinet should be dining and praying with today -- or any day.

Writing at Huffington Post, CREW's Melanie Sloan also gave this background on the Prayer Breakfast:

At past breakfasts, the Family has facilitated meetings between its foreign allies and the president as well as members of Congress, outside the reach of the Department of State and traditional U.S. diplomatic protocol. Past prayer breakfast attendees have included General Eugenio Vides Casanova of El Salvador, later found liable for the torture of thousands of civilians, and General Alvarez Martinez of Honduras, later linked to secret death squads in that country.

This is one of those times when I really do wonder WWJD? Unlike many who choose to speak for him, I don't. But, these don't seem like his kind of people. Read the rest of this post...

Thursday Morning Open Thread

Good morning.

The President, The First Lady, members of his cabinet, leaders in Congress and diplomats from around the world are all at the National Prayer Breakfast this morning. As CREW's Melanie Sloan wrote yesterday:

Unbeknownst to most, this seemingly innocuous event is hosted by a shadowy religious organization known as "the Fellowship," or alternatively, "the Family." They should not go.

They should not. I'm sure most attendees have no idea who or what "the Fellowship" is. But, the group's members in Uganda were pushing the "kill Gays" bill. This is really not about prayer, it's about power. And, abuse of power.

Here we go again. D.C. is under a "Winter Storm Watch" from Friday morning til Saturday evening:

ACCUMULATIONS... THIS STORM IS LIKELY TO PRODUCE 12 OR MORE INCHES OF SNOW IN THE WATCH AREA... WITH A GOOD CHANCE FOR LOCALIZED AMOUNTS OVER 20 INCHES.

At least I can cross country ski. That's going to be the best way to get around town.

UPDATED: It's now a "Winter Storm Warning":

* PRECIPITATION TYPE...HEAVY SNOW.

* ACCUMULATIONS...STORM TOTAL ACCUMULATIONS OF 16 TO 24 INCHES.

The DNC's Winter Meeting starts today and runs through Saturday at the Capitol Hilton. And, the teabaggers are holding their for-profit convention in Nashville this weekend.

Let's get threading... Read the rest of this post...

Man in vegetative state communicates with doctors

This is a great development. Both the patient and the family have to be thrilled.

They devised a technique to enable the man, now 29, to answer yes and no to ­simple questions through the use of a hi-tech scanner, monitoring his brain ­activity.

To answer yes, he was told to think of playing tennis, a motor activity. To answer no, he was told to think of wandering from room to room in his home, visualising everything he would expect to see there, creating activity in the part of the brain governing spatial awareness.

His doctors were amazed when the patient gave the correct answers to a series of questions about his family. The ­experiment will fuel the controversy of when a patient should have life support removed.

Read the rest of this post...

Murdoch's UK tabloid ordered to turn over evidence in phone hacking case

What's the deal with right wingers and alleged illegal methods of gathering information for "stories"? The Guardian:

The News of the World yesterday lost a court battle to keep secret evidence which, it is claimed, would reveal widespread use of illegal methods by reporters to obtain personal information about celebrities.

A high court judge ordered that the ­evidence should be handed over to Max Clifford. The celebrity publicist has begun a legal action seeking to prove that the Sunday newspaper unlawfully ­intercepted messages on his mobile phone. The result could put fresh pressure on David ­Cameron's media adviser Andy Coulson, the paper's former editor.

Mr Justice Vos ordered that Clifford was entitled to see three sets of evidence in order to establish the truth. The first set concerned documents uncovered by the information commissioner, the ­privacy watchdog, during a raid on a private investigator.

Read the rest of this post...