Category: Congress

Jobless Rate Dips to Lowest Level in More Than 2 Years: How Will the GOP Claim Credit? How with the Dems Not?

December 3, 2011
Barack ObamaCongressDemocratic News
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From the NYTimes:

 In the midst of the European debt crisis, lingering instability in the oil-rich Middle East and concerns about a Chinese economic slowdown, the American unemployment rate unexpectedly dropped last month to 8.6 percent, its lowest level in two and a half years.

The Labor Department also said that the nation’s employers added 120,000 jobs in November and that job growth for the previous two months was better than initially reported. That looks like good news for President Obama as he heads into the 2012 presidential election — especially since just a few months ago the picture looked bleak.

How will the GOP claim credit for this? And how, especially, will the GOP claim credit when the jobless rate dips below 7% before November of 2012?

After all, they do not hold the White House, and they have not agreed to anything the White House has done — via Congress, or, OMG, Executive Order, which, in the end, may be the only way meaningful reform has been accomplished.

Obama 2012.

Democratic Congress, 2012.

Tea Party Leader Joe “You Lie!” Walsh: Build Moats With Alligators to Regulate Immigration

November 29, 2011
ChicagolandCongressConservativesDemocratic NewsElectionsIllinoisimmigrationRepublicans
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Congressman Joe Walsh, who infamously shouted “You lie!” during one of President Obama’s State of the Union addresses, believes we can solve our immigration problem by building moats, and filling the moats with alligators.

What could possibly go wrong?

From the Daily Caller:

A freshman GOP congressman on the House Homeland Security Committee is telling President Obama he’s “game” for building an alligator-filled moat along the U.S.-Mexico border to counter illegal immigration.

“I actually think a moat might be a very good idea and I’m wondering how many alligators it would take to secure the entire border,” Rep. Joe Walsh says in a May 11 letter to Obama.

Read more: http://dailycaller.com

Here is Rep. Walsh losing it at a town hall meeting in front of his constituents:

Walsh is being challenged by Raja Krishna Moorthi, and I will support him in any way I can.

Can We Please Un-Elect Mark Kirk ASAP, Illinois?

November 28, 2011
CongressEthicsRepublicans
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Received the following pseudo-economic-concerned email from Mark Kirk today:

Illinois has 11 nuclear power plants, more than any other state in the nation. Currently, spent fuel is stored in dry casks and pools near urban areas and sources of drinking water. At the Zion Nuclear Station, 1,100 tons of waste is stored just yards away from Lake Michigan, the source of drinking water to millions of people. A nuclear waste contamination of Lake Michigan would be devastating to the Great Lakes region.

A continuation of the Yucca Mountain project would be an important step in finding a safe, permanent storage facility for our country’s nuclear waste and critically important for the State of Illinois. Click the image below to see a video on what I am doing to move nuclear waste out of Illinois.

Look, here is what I am doing to remove waste from Illinois.

Un-elect Mark Kirk.

Vote for his Democratic challenger. Whoever he or she is.

Mark Kirk is dancing with the far, far right, which, right now, controls his party.

And his party, the GOP, has put forward exactlyro, “0”, jobs bills.

None.

Zero.

Zilch.

And they have rejected every bill President Obama has proposed to increase the number of jobs in America.

Restore America to the center, center left.

Un-elect Mark Kirk.

Paul Krugman on Things to Tax

November 28, 2011
AmericaBarack ObamaBusinessCongressConservativesConstitutionEconomyJobsLegalRepublicansWhite House
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Let me start with the end, and then you go read the entire piece: “The point I’m making here isn’t that taxes are all we need; it is that they could and should be a significant part of the solution.”

Gotta love Krugman. From the New York Times:

The supercommittee was a superdud — and we should be glad. Nonetheless, at some point we’ll have to rein in budget deficits. And when we do, here’s a thought: How about making increased revenue an important part of the deal?

And I don’t just mean a return to Clinton-era tax rates. Why should 1990s taxes be considered the outer limit of revenue collection? Think about it: The long-run budget outlook has darkened, which means that some hard choices must be made. Why should those choices only involve spending cuts? Why not also push some taxes above their levels in the 1990s?

I hope the President is listening to this man. When I met David Plouffe at a book signing a couple of years ago, I mentioned Paul Krugman. David responded, “He certainly has his opinions.”

Yes, David, he does. But they’re informed opinions and the man has a Nobel Prize in ECONOMICS.

Someone at the White House, someone in Congress, PLEASE! Page Paul Krugman! We need the conscience of a liberal today, not narrow ideologies!

Sen. Mark Kirk SOLD! To The Highest Bidder: voted to let Big Oil keep taking our money

May 21, 2011
CongressConservativesEconomyEnvironmentEthicsJobs
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The following is from CREDO Action, and I urge you to take action:

This past week, 48 Senators, including Sen. Mark Kirk, put Big Oil before the American people and helped defeat a bill that would have ended tax breaks for the five biggest oil companies.1

How could anyone vote against a bill that would have kept $21 billion of American taxpayers’ money out of the pockets of cash-rich oil companies?

One big reason is oil money in our political process. A lot of it. Oil and gas companies spent $39.5 million lobbying congress in just the first quarter of this year,2 and have donated tens of millions of dollars directly to the political campaigns of current Senators, including $199,200 to Sen. Mark Kirk.3

Tell Sen. Mark Kirk: Stop putting oil company profits and campaign contributions ahead of the American people. Click here to automatically sign the petition.

In all, three Democrats joined all but two Senate Republicans to protect Big Oil tax breaks that even a former Shell CEO said weren’t needed.4

But make no mistake. Even though we didn’t get the 60 votes required for passage, our pressure to end oil subsidies is already working. More and more legislators are acting defensive about their support of Big Oil over the American people.

In February, similar legislation to repeal some oil subsidies got only 44 votes. This time, we got 52 votes. That comes after CREDO Action members sent more than 225,000 petitions to the Senate and made more than 1,000 calls to 11 key Senators, six of whom flipped their position and voted to end tax breaks to Big Oil.

Senate Majority leader Harry Reid said that despite this defeat, he will continue to push for ending oil subsides as part of negotiations on the budget and to raise the debt ceiling.5

We need to keep the pressure on. And one key to breaking Big Oil’s grasp on our legislators is letting Congress know that we know about the millions of dollars that Big Oil has given them — including the $199,200 to Sen. Mark Kirk.

Let’s make sure that voting to protect oil company profits doesn’t go unanswered by those of us who actually pay the price.

Tell Sen. Mark Kirk: Stop putting oil company profits and campaign contributions ahead of the American people. Click here to automatically sign the petition.

Thank you for taking action.

Elijah Zarlin, Campaign Manager
CREDO Action from Working Assets

P.S. — Want to find out more about the Big Oil money going to our elected officials? Our friends at the Dirty Energy Money campaign have the scoop. Click here to see how much dirty energy money your Senators and other elected officials have taken.

1. "Senate GOP Votes Down Bill To End Big Oil Subsidies," Huffington Post, May 17, 2011
2. "Senators Opposing End of Oil Subsidies Received Five Times More in Big Oil Campaign Cash," Oil Change International, May 17, 2011
3. Dirty Energy Money campaign data
4. "Ex-Shell CEO Says Big Oil Can Live Without Subsidies ," National Journal, February 11, 2011

Why, after all, should we continue to subsidize oil companies that are raking in record profits? And why, pray tell, would any United States senator, let alone one from the great state of Illinois, who claims to be fiscally prudent, stand up for Big Oil over the Illinois Tax Payers???

Right Wingers Selling ‘Liberal Hunt Permit’

January 9, 2011
CongressConservativesCrime and PunishmentEthicsgun controlLiberalsRepublicans
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Liberal Hunting Permit

You would think after yesterday, after a United States Congresswoman was shot through the head and struggles in recovery, after a federal judge and a nine-year-old girl were shot dead, you would think, after all of that, the right-wingers would catch on.  Would start to get it.

Apparently not.

The right-wingers at RightWingStuff.com are selling liberal hunting permits.

No expiration. No kidding.

Among other things, the stickers say, "Also Valid at School Board Meetings, Polling Places and City Council Meetings."

No kidding.

Another version adds, "No Bag Limit – Tagging Not Required. May be used while under the influence of Alcohol. May be used to Hunt Liberals at Gay Pride Parades, Democrat [sic] Conventions, Union Rallys [sic], Handgun Control Meetings, News Media Association, Lesbian Luncheons and Hollywood Functions."

Available for sale now at CafePress.org.

No kidding.

Liberal Hunting Permit

Welcome to conservative America.

On The Right, Hateful Words Are Fired Like Bullets

January 8, 2011
CongressConservativesCrime and PunishmentEthicsJohn McCainLegalPhilosophical
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Read this commentary, please, from the Washington Post.

After today’s horribly tragic events in Tucson, Arizona, read:

The governor of Ohio, James Rhodes, demonized the war protesters. They were "worse than the Brownshirts and the communist element. . . . We will use whatever force necessary to drive them out of Kent."

That was the language of that time. And now it is the language of our time. It is the language of Glenn Beck, who fetishizes about liberals and calls Barack Obama a racist. It is the language of rage that fuels too much of the Tea Party and is the sum total of gubernatorial hopeful Carl Paladino’s campaign message in New York. It is all this talk about "taking back America" (from whom?) and this inchoate fury at immigrants and, of course, this raw anger at Muslims, stoked by politicians such as Newt Gingrich and Rick Lazio, the latter having lost the GOP primary to Paladino for, among other things, not being sufficiently angry. "I’m going to take them out," Paladino vowed at a Tea Party rally in Ithaca, N.Y.

Back in the Vietnam War era, the left also used ugly language and resorted to violence. But the right, as is its wont, stripped the antiwar movement of its citizenship. It turned dissent into treason, which, in a way, was the worst treason of all. It made dissidents into the storied "other" who had nothing in common with the rest of us. They were not opponents; they were the enemy: Fire!

Yes, that Washington Post.

Read the full commentary.

The Carol Moseley Braun Theater

January 3, 2011
ChicagoChicagolandCongressDemocratic NewsElectionsEvangelicalsReligion
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I really don’t care for Chicago politics. Let me start with that disclaimer.

I don’t understand how there are churches in the Chicagoland area that can be so overtly political, while others work overtime to keep the pols out of the pulpit.

I don’t understand how Carol Moseley Braun can vanish so completely from the public eye affter leaving office, and then return only to be christened in a church as the leading black candidate for mayor in Chicago.

Don’t get me wrong. I supported Moseley Braun when she ran for the United States Senate. Even joined her and Senator Durbin for a morning gathering of coffee and rolls with others from Illinois.

That was more theater than substance.

And that is pretty much my impression of Carol Moseley Braun: more theater than substance.

I will watch the mayoral drama unfold from 30-and-some-odd miles south of the Loop.

No desire to be a part of it.

This Liberal Is Quite Pleased With President Obama

December 21, 2010
Barack ObamaBusinessCongressConstitutionDemocratic NewsElectionsLiberalsMilitaryPhilosophicalWhite House
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Barack Obama

We are not a patient people.

Liberals, conservatives, moderates: we want our pudding, and we want it now.

These past two years, I have been impatient, watching and waiting while my liberal dreams for the United States were postponed — or so I thought. Why did President Obama channel former President George W. Bush and simply push a liberal agenda through the United States Congress and let the conservatives be damned?

I held back, however, and refused to play along with the liberal cacophony screaming for everything and anything to happen yesterday. They collectively screamed "I told you so!" when Democrats lost seats in Congress, losing the House of Representatives. All this screaming in spite of the fact that such losses had long been predicted, indeed, from the moment President Obama was sworn in. That was an easy call. We may be impatient, but we Americans are quite predictable.

A wee bit more than two years into the Obama presidency, I have to say, I’m quite pleased with what the president has done.

Health insurance reform was a start. No, it did not go far enough. I’ve said this before and I’ll say it again: the best reform for the health of the country would be to simply forbid health insurance companies operating on a for-profit basis. Let them insure all the widgets they want to for profit, but hands off human lives.

Still, health insurance reform was long, long overdue. And over the past few weeks, we’ve seen some wonderful things happen. For one, "Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell" is on its way out. Next, today saw the near ratification of the START treaty, with a vote likely this week.

There’s more.

What do I appreciate most about President Obama?

His patience, a quality many of us in the media lack. From the insipid "Round Table" on ABC’s "This Week" to the endless drone of CNN, the media is so full of prognosticators who get it all wrong 99% of the time and more.

I’ve often said this in my elected life, and I’ll say it again here, "I don’t make predictions. I just work hard to achieve results."

President Obama is patient, looking, I’m convinced, two or three decades down the road. This is not a man likely to bark, "F— Saddam. We’re taking him out," as President Bush did in March 2002. If nothing else, the president is patient, weighing his decisions carefully because he knows — he knows — that everything he does has global repercussions.

I don’t know that he’s doing everything right, or wrong. I still remain careful. I remain critical. I still read Paul Krugman and hope for a Keynesian revolution in Washington.

But I like the President, even as I hope and pray for patience.

Sworn In November 29, 2010, IL Sen. Mark Kirk’s Default State Is West Virginia

December 19, 2010
CongressRepublicans
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Senator Kirk from ... West Virginia???

I am not even kidding.

If you go to U.S. Senator from the great state of Illinois’ Web site’s contact page today, you will see that his default "FROM" state is …

West Virginia.

Senator Kirk, who did you steal this contact page from?

Do you not know anyone in the great state of Illinois who knows a rat’s ass or so about Web design?