Farewell Left-handed, Gay, Jewish, Congressman

Barney Frank (D-MA) will be leaving Congress after the 112th and will be remembered as master of the House floor.  Here is a little clip from December 11, 2009 at the end of House debate on the Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act (now “Dodd-Frank”).  Just a year earlier predatory lending and a gambling financial industry punished house prices, the stock market, and everyone’s retirement savings by 20% as unemployment skyrocketed. The bill on the floor was designed to ensure it doesn’t happen again. Here, Frank gets up to oppose the Republican motion to recommit the bill, a tactic offered to the opposing party to make a broad amendment at the end of debate:

Bygones Be Bygones

People handle humiliating mistakes if various ways.  Some use self deprecating humor to make fun of the situation, others will be absent from a scene until the incident blows over, or perhaps the best technique is to own up to the mistake and minimize the humiliation by showing it doesn’t bother you.  For some people, namely Bill Buckner, there is no right answer.  Nothing that guy did after letting a weakly hit ground ball through his legs to end game 6 of the 1986 World Series was going to change his destiny of becoming the nation’s prime exemplary of blowing it.

He returned the next season, was traded thereafter, returned to the Red Sox for a quick bit in 1990 with warm greetings by the fans in Boston.  But it didn’t change the fact that his name would forever be associated with those split seconds in the 10th inning from 1986.  In fact, it wasn’t until the Red Sox won two subsequent World Series that Buckner ever returned to Fenway in 2007.  So the good news for Bill is that he was able to move on and avoid the Ray Finkle path.

In fact, it turns out that when you lead your field in anything, even being the butt of half of baseball’s jokes, it’ll pay out.  Over the years, Bill Buckner and Mookie Wilson, have been signing pictures of that “memorable” moment and now they have stepped it up.  Should anyone really want to solidify Buckner for years to come you can get a signed painting of him, looking sullen, as Mookie drives home the winning run.  Seriously, its just $399 at http://www.theplay86ws.com/.

Morning Constitutional – 18 August 2011

Abercrombie and Fitch’s offer to pay MTV Jersey Shore’s “The Situation” not to wear their clothes has not been successful.  Now, your Morning Constitutional.

A Staff Sergeant in the Air Force who refuses to accept President Obama’s American citizenship and believes he has “ties to Muslims” has been discharged.

Residents of Joplin, MO return to schools.

The Justice Department is investigating whether Standard and Poor’s improperly rated mortgage backed securities in the lead up to the housing meltdown.  The real question is whether the government could do anything after confirming the answer is yes.

As conservative media outlets and Republicans continue to take pleasure in mocking the new Presidential bus, especially its $1.1 million price tag, the Secret Service ensure the Republican presidential candidate will ride in one as well.

China’s limitations on a free press began early into Vice Presdient Joe Biden’s trip - before he finished his opening statement.

Corruption in Afghanistan has led to an estimated $360 million in United States equipment and materials from being possessed by the Taliban and other criminals in Afghanistan.

President Obama and State Department officials might ask President Asad of Syria to step down.

And, IBM wants to create a machine with the capacity of the human brain.

Morning Constitutional – Friday, 5 August 2011

S&P is down, Asia markets are down, and job reports adding to Wall Street’s worries.  Is it too early to say the d–d word? But hey, gasses prices should get better as  a gallon of crude oil is going for $83 a barrel, a 27% drop since May.

Shell received conditional approval to drill in the Arctic waters.

Standoff over the FAA which has put 70,000 government, security, and construction employees out of work seems to have been settled by Congress.

Number of AIDS infections stays steady at 50,000 a year for past decade.

Army veteran is personally suing former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld for being tortured while in Iraq.

More police personnel bailing from towns in northern Mexico as drug cartels continue with the violence.

As bad as Americans think their government is, the Chinese government is in the business of kidnapping children and selling them.

And, a homeless guy could be staying above the poverty line by suing places that throw him out. Need for the money centers around health care.

Morning Constitutional – Wednesday, August 3 2011

Republican presidential candidate, Newt Gingrich, has made up empty twitter accounts to bump up the “number” of his followers, now your Morning Constitutional:

Moody’s and Fitch did not downgrade our rating after Washington narrowly defaulted on the nation’s $14.3 trillion in debt (but our outlook is “negative” so they probably will).  The Chinese on the other-hand has downgraded us. Still waiting on Standard & Poor’s analysis.

Possible overreaction  to salmonella could hurt the ground turkey industry shortly.

The racial wealth gap in America is the widest it has been since the tracking began in 1984.  Blacks and hispanics have been more negatively impacted by the recession and foreclosure crisis than whites.

McAfee reported it discovered the largest hacking job ever known to them, suspecting a nation state (read China), hacked the United States and other countries, over the last five years and stealing economic, military and diplomatic information.

Good time to remind people, the U.S. government especially Department of Defense, is always looking for talented cyber-security personal, aka hackers to counter the hackers.

Former Egyptian President, Hosni Mubarak, pleads not guilty to the murdering of his countryman during the riots which eventually led to him being ousted.

“It’s the first time in Norway that the popularity rating of an elected politician is higher than that of the King,” – quote from Bloomberg news article

President Bashar al-Assad and the government of Syria continue the destruction and attack on civilians, the United States and rest of the world weigh sanctions.

Not Surprised

No longer am I surprised by the antics of freshman Republicans though I am often amused, and occasionally saddened or worried. Poplicola had a good take on debt limit deal, and the more I think about it the more I become immeshed in trying to understand what happened and who are the new people governing (using that word loosely) our country.

Representative Kevin Yoder (R-KS), someone I have reason to believe is a very well intentioned and caring person, had this up on his facebook last Friday:

The ruse of course is that if you search “debit limit plan” at whitehouse.gov nothing comes up.  ”Hahaha, socialist Barry still doesn’t get it”. Normal people will not equivocate an empty website search as proof the President had, or has, no plan on the debt.  First, they probably would not discount the possibility not everything a politician thinks is dictated on their website. Second, they might realize that another search term could be in order, in fact a search for “debt”, “deficit”, “deficit plan” or even ‘debt limit plan’ (that is without any quotations) will find plenty on the White House website regarding the President’s position on the matter, including new releases and speaches the president gave on the debt. So even when the White House makes efforts to be open, transparent and clear on the President’s positions they not only go unrecognized but get criticized for never even addressing the issue.

This from Yoder who voted against the final debt limit deal which received a majority vote from his fellow Republicans.  What is his plan, default? Well, go to his website and search for “debt limit plan” and dang – nothing comes up.  Should we conclude he has no plan?

No, of course not, we think more rationale than that.  You can search his Congressional website for “debt”, you can google ‘Yoder AND debt’ to pull up news stories, you can visit his campaign and twitter websites to try and find more.  It would be assanine to quickly assume a sitting member of Congress didn’t have some general thoughts on reducing the debt and had never made any of them public, but that seems to be Yoder’s belief regarding President Obama. Perhaps he actually knows the President has had a plan to address the debt but just wanted to make fun of the website search (despite the irony his website also produces the same blank search), and for that I am just over reacting to his cruel humor.

But their antics just became a lot less funny, and it is hard for me to be amused any longer.  Yoder and others ignore facts, they misrepresent the truth, all in a false belief that they somehow are the only ones who care about the debt.

I care deeply about the debt but don’t accept the notion we can simply address it with big sweeping cuts to our spending and for that Yoder would have me, the President, and many other Americans are tagged as genuinely uncaring about this important issue.  It is hard to pinpoint where the extreme right went off the rails but it seems to me to have had something to do with believing all of government, the media, and registered democrats are in league together in some mystery cancer that is dragging down the nation. Sounds crazy to me, but Yoder and others act like they are the vaccine?  I think notion came about via gross misunderstanding of public polices, government functions, and economic theory but what would you do if you believed in the apocalyptic analysis?  Would you negotiate with the other side of the isle, would you listen to arguments by the President?  Probably not and that clearly has happened.  Political discourse has always played an important role and nudging stubborn elected officials into silent concessions.  The truth could always percolate through to one’s conscience given enough time.  There is no discourse with the freshman republicans in the House, they do not listen and can make their own conclusions (or jokes) based on what little information they have, mostly other false assumptions from their fellow thinking conservatives on the far right.

That is it for now, just further confirmation that the new governing republicans are here, and do not look to be changing their tune.

Morning Constitutional – Thursday, 30 June 2011

Former bachelor Brad Womack from the show, “The Bachelor” is a bachelor once again after the March 2011 engagement has been called off. Now, your Morning Constitutional.

Morning Constitutional – Wednesday, 29 June 2011

Arlene, the first storm of the 2011 hurricane season, is slated to hit Mexico’s shoreline late tonight. Now, your Morning Constitutional:

The Yemen Air Force accidentally bombed a bus, killing four innocent people and wounding twelve.

Omar al-Bashir, the President of Sudan who is wanted for genocide by many Western nations, was welcomed with open arms in China.

Greece passed legislation to pull them out of debt which includes large tax hikes and deep spending cuts.  Plenty of public unrest.

Palestine has a soccer team, and they beat Afghanistan 2-0 in the first round of World Cup qualifiers.

Bank of America agreed to set aside $14 Billion to pay investors whose portfolios tanked do to bad mortgages (No, this pot of cash is in response to the push to help stop foreclosures and assist the borrowers who got screwed).

After Michele Bachman used Tom Petty’s “American Girl” at her official presidential candidacy announcement, the all American rocker  requested she cease-and-desist from using the song any further. (Also, the lady has a way with facts, not sure Petty knows what he is in for)

NY Times/CBS Poll puts Obama’s approval ratings at 47 approve, 44 disapprove.  Also, republican voters are unhappy with lack of good candidates in their presidential primary.

The Supreme Court will hear a case to determine whether law enforcement can use GPS tracking devices without a warrant.

Medicare’s bill for hospice care rose to more than $12 billion in 2009 from $2.9 billion in 2000, one of many signs that health care costs will continue to rise.

And, monarch butterflies have a magnetic sense of orientation, so maybe you do too.

Morning Constitutional – Friday 10, June 2011

France  was punished on Thursday for not taking proper care of its hamsters, and now your morning constitutional.

Syria continues to murder its own people in the streets, as hundreds of refugees cross the border into Turkey.

Advertisement buys on the networks go up 8%, some economists think the short slowdown is a hiccup and the second half of 2011 is looking better, also Toyota estimates that its profits for the past year will be down 31 percent (because of the tsunami).

The Health Affairs and The Lancet journals say vaccines are a good bang for the buck if we want to save the world’s children.

Plenty of liberal organizations having nothing to do with telecommunications have come out in support of the AT&T acquisition of T-Mobile, might have something to do with money.

Here is a running list of colleagues calling on Weiner to vamoose, while a slim majority of his constituents think he should not resign.

Presidential hopeful Newt Gingrich’s staff says, “Smell ya later.”

Fluffy, a very blue lobster, was caught off the coast of Canada.

And, a court house which tries sex offenders puts in glass stairs leading women in skirts to take the elevator.

Nextelling your Alltel Boost

Send texts from you email.

* AT&T – cellnumber@txt.att.net
* Verizon – cellnumber@vtext.com
* T-Mobile – cellnumber@tmomail.net
* Sprint PCS – cellnumber@messaging.sprintpcs.com
* Virgin Mobile – cellnumber@vmobl.com
* US Cellular – cellnumber@email.uscc.net
* Nextel – cellnumber@messaging.nextel.com
* Boost – cellnumber@myboostmobile.com

* Alltel – cellnumber@message.alltel.com

Helpful for sending out a text to a lot of people, or for those who may not like texting with a phone.

Republicans Support Raising the Debt Ceiling

Treasury tried not to be ambiguous when they explained what the debt ceiling is all about:

Never in our history has Congress failed to increase the debt limit when necessary.  Failure to raise the limit would precipitate a default by the United States.  Default would effectively impose a significant and long-lasting tax on all Americans and all American businesses and could lead to the loss of millions of American jobs.  Even a very short-term or limited default would have catastrophic economic consequences that would last for decades.

Republicans support raising the debt ceiling, at least former elected Republicans who actually governed.

Ronald Reagan understood the situation, he gave the same warnings as the current Treasury and asked Senate Majority Leader James Baker (R-TN) to raise the debt ceiling, saying “the full consequences of a default — or even the serious prospect of default — by the United States are impossible to predict and awesome to contemplate.”

As for George W. Bush, he too understood the situation and addressed it in a the same way any government official who understands the gross responsibility of governing – he advocated for raising the debt ceiling.  Bush asked than Speaker Hastert (R-IL) and Minority Leader Gephardt (D-MO) to extend the same “bipartisan cooperation you have shown in our war against terror and creation of a new Department of Homeland Security” to avoid defaulting on the United States debt.

We shouldn’t be surprised that Republicans in the House today are using the need to raise the debt ceiling before August as a bargaining chip.  Principles have simply been removed from near every aspect of politics, but it is the poor manner in which they use the bargaining chip.

The House could pass a bill, raising the debt ceiling with all the cuts they want.  From their, perhaps there would be real negotiations to get something passed.  What is scary is the number of Republicans who outright say they oppose raising the debt – with the false arguments that doing so permits more spending, that spending cuts can be made to avoid raising the debt, or that defaulting on the debt wouldn’t be worse than a government shutdown.  All of these arguments are false.

Maybe they keep dismissing the issue because unlike Reagan and George 43. Its just another example that the Republicans in the House don’t understand they are governing this nation.  They’ll still in campaign mode, criticizing Obama, and appeasing their base.   I’m starting to get worried.

Congratulations UConn Huskies

Some say Jim Calhoun is getting a little too old for his profession, and that he’s likely to retire soon.  But the coach who led the UConn Huskies to their third national championship this year is looking pretty good by my standards.  Not only does he have a lot to look forward to with next year’s returning players, but he may want to consider a run for office.  Put Connecticut a little earlier in the primary season and the man has a legitimate chance.  There aren’t many who can cut through partisan hogwash like Calhoun, no one else with the respect, and no one else holds the trust of the people quite like he does.  If not President, perhaps Governor is in his future.

Yea, they got stats for that

In a press release yesterday the United States Postal Service cited cities where postal carriers were bitten by the most dogs. Houston topped the list in 2010 with 62 bites – total suck for all the good people delivering mail, right?. Although the numbers released can be a little misleading, Houston is a large city.  So, what we did for you at V&V is controlled for population of the top highest dog-on-mail-carrier cities.  Houston drops to twelve as St. Louis rises to the top of land of the dog bites.

City    ST LOUIS MO	# of People for each attack on mail man/woman  8,902
MINNEAPOLIS MN	10,652
CLEVELAND OH	11,692
LOUISVILLE KY	13,862
SACRAMENTO CA	15,126
PORTLAND OR	15,345
COLUMBUS OH	16,293
DENVER CO	18,289
SEATTLE WA	20,802
SAN DIEGO CA	27,932
SAN ANTONIO TX	33,248
HOUSTON TX	34,589
PHOENIX AZ	39,815
PHILADELPHIA PA	46,722
LOS ANGELES CA	87,486

Congratulations Plato, Missouri

If you missed it, Plato, Missouri has been crowned the population epicenter of the United States. Guaranteeing them notoriety status amongst other awesome places of nowhere such as Monticello, Indiana which hosts an over sized lawn chair, and Boys Town, Nebraska which is the home of the world’s largest ball of stamps.

Flower Bed

On my walk to work back on March 28 I noticed a couple bulbs sprouting and thought I had a good idea.  Here is a 30 second video of my 19 chronological shots over the course of 43 days.

Probably the closest thing to arts and crafts I’ve done since the 10th grade. Even though it is kinda crappy, I’m actually kinda proud of it.

Only Suckers Pay Taxes

Public Campaign monitors money’s influence in politics and pulled together some companies don’t pay taxes.  It is more than just GE who is not only paying no taxes, but getting refunds.  In fact, Carnival, a company that sends floating hotels out into the ocean so their customers can enjoy all-you-can-eat buffets, gambling and doing absolutely nothing, doesn’t pay taxes.  Point being, you are a sucker if you pay taxes.

Exxon
Profits in 2009: $19 billion
Taxes Paid for 2009: $0
Tax Rebate for 2009: $156 million

Chevron
Profits in 2009: $10 billion
Tax Refund for 2009: $19 million

Valero
Sales in 2009: $68 billion
Tax Refund for 2009: $157 million

Bank of America
Profits in 2010: $4.4 billion
Tax Refund for 2010: $1.9 billion

Citigroup
Profits in 2010: $4 billion
Taxes Paid for 2010: $0
Tax Refund for 2010: $1.9 billion

Goldman Sachs
Profits in 2008: $2.3 billion
Taxes Paid in 2008: $25 million (1.1 percent)

Boeing
Taxes Paid in 2010: $0

Carnival
Profits over Last 5 Years: $11.3 billion
Taxes Paid for Last 5 Years: 1.1 percent

Verizon
Profits in 2010: $12 billion
Taxes Paidfor Last 2 Years: $0

General Electric
Profits Over Last 5 Years: $26 billion
Tax Refund for Last 5 Years: $4.1 billion

You can find their full report here.  They try to connect it all to lobbying efforts, perhaps I guess.

Things in the News: Week-in-Review

School vouchers and breaking promises – The House Republicans made a campaign promise that there would be no new spending programs that increased the debt. Any new spending has to be offset by cutting spending in another program to ensure that over spending does not increase, they call it “Cut-go”. An emergency this week made them renege on that promise as they passed a 5-year $300 million bill to provide school vouchers. That is right, not jobs or national security, but another hot bottom policy issue to feed their base, they want to increase the debt for school vouchers. The Private School Vouchers for D.C. (H.R. 471) is opposed by current Washington, DC Mayor Vincent Gray. But even more egregious is the fact that House Republicans want to cut spending for public schools. Their full FY 2011 funding bill, H.R. 1, which passed a few weeks ago would slash education funding by $4.9 billion in FY 2011, including Pell Grants, Head Start, Title I, Special Education, Education Technology State Grants, and Mathematics and Science Partnerships. So clearly it is not education they care about, just the religious school.

Obama on Energy – The President gave a speech on energy and there is kind of a plan, check out the video. Something a lot of the “Drill, Baby, Drill!” people don’t know is that in 2010 the U.S. produced the most crude oil in any year since 2003, yup, more domestic production under Obama and the Gulf Coast than the majority of Bush’s tenor.

Constitution –

Every Bill which shall have passed the House of Representatives and the Senate, shall, before it become a Law, be presented to the President.  Article 1, Section 7

House Republican passed H.R. 1255, the Government Shutdown Prevention Act, which would deem H.R. 1 to become law if Congress failed to pass a full FY 2011 funding bill by April 6th forcing a government shutdown. This despite the fact that H.R. 1 failed in the Senate and was never presented to the President. H.R. 1 would cut $60 billion from the budget, including $4.9 in education mentioned above, cuts all funding for Planned Parenthood, and prevents the EPA from enforcing new Clean Air Act regulations amongst other goodies.

Unemployment – Department of Labor released unemployment numbers on Friday, jobs up, unemployment down, still not nearly enough, but don’t tell me things have been getting worse since Obama took office.

They are skipping the Senate, seriously

From when a bill is introduced to when it becomes law it must at some point pass the Senate and be presented to the President.  Well, apparently that is the old America, and your 4th grade textbook needs some updating.  Republicans in the House don’t like the Senate or the White House, because only the Republicans know what is best for America – you see the Democrats don’t agree on slashing spending during an economic recovery so you have to cut them out of the process to protect freedom. Freedom from those they represent, this isn’t socialism, it is a democracy and in a democracy we play it on the fly, ignore the Constitution and illegally cut half of the legislative branch out of the law making process.

I’m talking about H.R. 1255, the Government Shutdown Prevention Act, which was introduced on Wednesday which will be voted on Friday under a emergency closed rule without amendments allowed.

The bill would deem H.R. 1 to be law if the government does not pass a complete FY 2011 funding measure by April 6.  H.R. 1 passed the House but failed by a vote of 44 – 56 in the Senate.  H.R. 1 would cut $60 billion from FY 2011 spending compared to FY 2010.  Clearly, this deem-and-pass plot of House Republican is not Constitutional, so how could any “Read the Constitution!” Tea Party Patriot vote for it?

Talk about an illegal seizure of power by the House, talk about spitting in the face of democracy and cutting out 100 elected Senators and 1 President out of the process.  They many times has the other side accused Democrats of socialism and betrayal of country.  H.R. 1255 would be illegal, unconstitutional, and a power grab of historic proportion.  What if Democrats did this last year?  We’d have the public option, cap-n-trade, and 200 other bills.

Well, we know what will happen, the Republicans will vote for it and no one believes they don’t love America you know why?  Because they are Republicans, that is the party that loves freedom, surely it was a symbolic vote, we know they would never dishonor the Constitution, c’mon!

Morning Constitutional – Friday, 25 March 2011

Elizabeth Taylor’s funeral delayed 15 minutes at her request. Now, your morning constitutional.

North Korea is playing Monday morning quarterback on Libya’s nuclear program.

The death toll from Japan’s earthquake and tsunami is somewhere north of 10,000 and people are now encouraged to stay 18 miles, an increase from 12 miles, away from the Fukushima nuclear power plant.

Michelle Bachmann (R-MN) is forming an exploratory commission for President, and is expected to hire a birther from Iowa to help get her campaign off to a good start.  Meanwhile,  her former Chief of Staff is supporting former Minnesota Governor Tim Pawlenty.

Another Tea Party favorite from South Carolina opts not to run for President in 2012.

Some continue to march in Syria, and I imagine bad things are happening to these people’s families right now.

Meanwhile, protest in Yemen may have a shot at working to oust current President Ali Abdullah Saleh.

And, millions of basketball fans cheered, as millions of soul less Americans focused on their blown bracket as 5 seeded Arizona upset 1 seeded, and last year’s National Champion, Duke 93 – 77.

The Big Cheese

If you are the President of the United States, the past two months and especially the past week has been the most empowering time of your presidency.

Obama is limited in America, he has to deal with Congress if he wants to do anything.  The stimulus plan was a package of Congressional Democrat spending priorities slapped together with a huge piece of tax cuts to appease Republicans.  In the end Republicans didn’t even support it.  The health care bill was totally put together by Congress.  The framework of financial regulatory reform was put together by his Treasury Department staff but ultimately named the “Dodd-Frank Act” after the two lead congressional sponsors of the legislation.  While there is a list of important legislative items that could not have passed without Obama, none are truly his own offspring.

Then comes the unraveling of dictators in the Middle East.  When Obama sent envoys to Egypt and the U.S. began its attack on Libya he never addressed the nation, he never asked Congress for their opinion, he simply gave orders to the State Department and the Pentagon.  Fuck Congress – why bother with them?  Seriously, why would anyone want to involve 535 men and women with 535 opinions on how to move forward with a pancake breakfast, let alone a multi-state coordinated attack on a sovereign nation?

You just have to imagine that despite the nostalgic feeling of taking the oath of office, all the birthers, the entire health care debate, failure of cap-n-trade, Guantanamo, there lack of thanks from a tea party patriot nation who fails to see the economic growth and 14 months of private sector job increases that it all would make the President feel a little powerless.  Now, all of a sudden Obama realizes he can snap his fingers and order a $100+ million a day assault on an asshole that oppresses his people in the name of justice. The decision on Afghanistan might have been more important, but given the public and congressional scrutiny the President would have felt a lot of pressure on all sides .  With Libya,  he had the opportunity to act well before the majority of the nation had any opinion at all.

It must be a good feeling to act before people start to judge, and I imagine that for the first time Obama might feel like the President of the United States of America.