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Michele Bachmann and Hannidate had a wankfest over the mere thought that reconciliation might be used to pass health-care reform. Isn't it part of America's legislative process? Maybe Bachmann was talking about herself when she said members of Congress were anti-American.

Hannity: So, is the San Francisco Speaker, is she off-script, or is the bipartisan meeting that the president is orchestrating just a sham?

…

Hannity: Can we believe them? Are they just being disingenuous?

Bachmann: Well, that’s the question that we need to have addressed, because the president only let John Boehner, the Republican leadership, know that he wanted a health care summit just an hour he went on national TV with Katie Couric to announce this is what he wanted to do. No heads up, in effect. Then John Boehner sent a letter to President Obama, asking questions, ‘Are we going to start over? Or are we working off of your Democrat plan?’ The president was real clear – he said he plans to pass the Democrat plan, Robert Gibbs went to the microphone, said the same thing. And then as you said, Speaker Pelosi’s Number One health-care negotiator in the House said they’ve got a legislative trick, and they know exactly how they’re going to pass their plan. That’s after the president’s invitation. If they’re already saying they’re going to pass their bill, then what is this for, this summit?

…

Hannity: All right, so are you looking specifically for a promise? In other words, Mr. President, do you promise – and I saw the letter that John Boehner and Eric Cantor sent to the president – do you need a promise or a commitment that he will not use the reconciliation process before it would be wise enough to sit down?

Bachmann: I think the best negotiation would be one where the president says, ‘I will not use the reconciliation’ – the legislative trick, in the Democrats’ own vernacular. And where he says we’ll start from scratch, we’ll start over with a blank sheet of paper, and we’ll start new with our ideas and we’ll truly come together, with cameras, both sides, and come to a discussion. That’s really what the American people expect and that would be the best outcome.

Maybe Congress should just pass Paul Ryan's whacked out budget too.

IOKIYAR. Isn't that always the case? Ronald Reagan used reconciliation along with Clinton. George Bush used it to pas his tax cuts. And another of the wanker elitists is Judd Gregg who attacks it now but used it in 1994 for Newt and wanted to use it against ANWAR.

In 1994, he was a freshman Senator using budget reconciliation to move pieces of Newt Gingrich's Contract With America through the Senate. In 2005, he argued that budget reconciliation should be used to open the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to oil drilling.

And of course, George W. Bush made great use of the procedure with the help of Ben Nelson.

On May 26, 2001, Nelson was one of a dozen Democrats to support president George W. Bush's Economic Growth and Tax Relief Reconciliation Act of 2001: the massive tax cut package that defined the administration's plans for job growth. The bill was passed using reconciliation -- meaning it wasn't subject to a Democratic filibuster -- and received the support of 58 Senators. Two years later, Bush had introduced a second tax-cut package, this one entitled The Jobs and Growth Tax Relief Reconciliation Act of 2003. That too was passed through reconciliation with Nelson's vote proving even more critical.

(image courtesy of Mediaite)

It's no secret that CNN is tacking hard right, trying to pick up Fox News viewers. Hiring the likes of Bushie, Fran Townsend, and more recently, bringing right wing extremist "blogger" Erick Erickson on board and of course, their inexplicably positive coverage of the ongoing sham known as the Tea Party Express.

Tommy Christoper at Mediaite posted a story on April 4th respectfully refuting some claims made by C&L's Karoli, that CNN was actively pimping the tea party movement:

Upon closer inspection, however, it appears that while the effect of CNN’s coverage may be to promote the Tea Party Express, that’s not the intent. I think CNN is looking for another kind of gold in them thar Tea Party hills.

Fair enough. He disagreed with Karoli's opinion, but he kept digging and what do you know -- it appears that CNN is actively reaching out to far right propagandists like Newsbusters, touting how "fair and balanced" they really are:

A few days ago, I took a look at a Crooks and Liars post that suggested CNN was “pimping” the Great American “Tea Party Express PR and Propaganda Tour.” While I agreed with much of the post, I didn’t think CNN’s motivation was to promote the Tea Party tour, but rather, to be in the right place at the right time when something juicy happens.

As it turns out, reporting by conservative Newsbusters seems to confirm elements of liberal Crooks and Liars‘ thesis, or at the very least, that CNN is trying to have it both ways.

Apparently, CNN has become so desperate to boost ratings and attract Fox viewers, that they've actually stooped to wooing conservative bottom feeders like Michelle Malkin. (warning, link goes to her site) Christopher also posts an e-mail sent to Newsbusters from someone at CNN attacking their lefty critics:

“Clearly our critics from the left don’t think we should be covering the Tea Party movement in the way we are and clearly CNN thinks it’s a legitimate and important story.

If anyone from Newsbusters is interested in this angle – let me know.”

Well, this CNN employee is right - we lefties would definitely prefer that they not cover an illegitimate, astroturfed group of white, angry, racist fringe lunatics and militia nuts as though they were a legitimate, grass roots political organization. What next? Will CNN hire Charles Dyer as a "military analyst?"

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Hold back the jello. Jay Rockefeller was on this morning with Andrea Mitchell and complained about the Kent Conrad "co-op" plan which he said was basically unworkable. He then went on The Ed show and hit it even harder. Jay is a supporter of the public option and was pissed that the co-op proposal was inserted in the Baucus bill since it was never even talked about during the general election. Isn't it nice that Baucus has killed the public option just to work with Republicans? Conservatives don't even have to win elections to get what they want. That's some deal they have.

Ed: It's not going to work. There's really no successful model out there to support the basis of signing on to a co-op. Would you sign on to a co-op or is that unacceptable?

Rockefeller: That's unacceptable and I can almost prove it. We've been in touch with all the folks that oversee, represent all the co-ops in the country on all subjects and they point out that there are probably less than twenty health co-ops in the country. There are only two that really work that well. One in Puget Sound, one in Minnesota, except for those two, they are all unlicensed. All present health co-ops are all unlicensed, they're unregulated. Nobody knows anything about them, nobody has any control over them and nobody has ever said, which is stunning to me, no government organization or private organization has ever done a study to what effect they might have in terms of bringing down the insurance prices.

They are untested, they are unlicensed, they are unregulated, they are unstudied. Why would we even think about putting them in as a control on this massive insurance industry instead of the public option?

There aren't any co-ops throughout much of the country, but to appease the conservative Dems we're supposed to throw six billion dollars around and hope that the states will try to make them workable. Is this insane? Watch the whole clip, but you get the idea from this one statement. Kent Conrad's big proposal is a complete sham, but President Baucus is trying to cram that down the throats of the country, which will render all health-care reform useless. All hail bipartisanship!

This isn't an especially political story, but I was nevertheless amazed by what we learned at a hearing late last week of the House Transportation Committee. We're not allowed to fly with more than a few ounces of shampoo in a carry-on, but you might be amazed at what airlines can get away with.

In startling disclosures to Congress, federal inspectors overseeing Southwest Airlines say they were repeatedly thwarted by senior government officials from reporting critical problems that compromised the safety of passengers.

Federal whistle-blowers, other federal aviation inspectors and the independent investigator for the Department of Transportation testified Thursday that problems at Southwest were far more widespread than has previously been reported.

Transportation Department Inspector General Calvin Scovel said investigators in recent months found violations at the airline in addition to the breaches last year that prompted a $10.2 million fine against the carrier. Southwest violated four different crucial safety requirements on eight occasions since December 2006, including five this year, Scovel said.... Southwest knowingly flew 46 jets that had not received required inspections for cracks in the fuselage. When the inspections were finally completed, mechanics found cracks on six of the jets. Similar cracks caused a fatal air disaster on a jet in 1988 in Hawaii.

If this were simply a story of an airline trying to cut corners, and in the process putting passengers at risk, it would be startling enough. But in this case, we're talking about federal inspectors who were pressured by their superiors to allow an airline to put passengers at risk.

Continue reading »

Talking Points Memo: Josh looks at Saddam's hanging and declares it "a sham, of a piece with the whole corrupt, disastrous sham that the war and occupation have been."

Nitpicker: Writers who got Iraq right

David Sirota: Bush's "value life" talk is contradicted--again--by his actions

MaxSpeak, You Listen! The Social Security debate is getting dumber and dumber

Brad DeLong's Semi-Daily Journal: More journamalism from the WaPo

Today in Iraq: "Bring 'em on..."

On Hard Ball Friday, Woodward turned into anapologist and defended Novak in the Valeri Plame case while discussingJudith Miller. He says the case is a sham and Novak didn't know she wasan "operative," a code word to shield Novak and anyone else from anywrong doing. He specifically said that Novak ALWAYS uses the word"operative" to refer to anybody and everybody.

Download | play -WMP

Download | play -QT

Woodard also uses the word "intent" as a defense ofNovak which will expand to any government official that leaked theinformation. (We all know Robert's intent except Woodard apparently)

Talking Points Memo talks about Novak's role as the leaker:" A close look at the wording Novak used in his column and a careful reviewof previous Novak columns over the years shows he only ever uses theword 'operative' to refer to covert agents. And that's the word he usedto refer to Plame. So Novak knew she was covert. And that prettyclearly means his sources knew too. How else would he have found out?"

At TPMCafe,Josh uncovers the bogus claim about Robert Novak's use of the term"operative" and asks the question "why is Woodward shilling for him?"

How is a Hate Crime by Muslims in New Jersey Like WMD in Iraq?

via Eschaton/ via Mithras

Via this shithead, I learned that there has been an arrest in the murder of the Egyptian Coptic Christian family in New Jersey. You might recall that the right went crazy with accusations of Muslim terrorism when the murder story broke. Well, here's the report: read the post

So, apparently, no Muslim involvement at all. But the idea that Muslims are killing Christians in America has now irretrievably spread through the righteous call to arms of the right-wing fuckwits. So, I'd like to give a big F--- Y-u to Michelle Malkin (who posted a multi-part series entitled "HATE CRIME IN JERSEY CITY HEIGHTS"), Powerline, Adam Yoshida (or a reasonable facsimile thereof), Charles Bird, Junkyardblog, Silent Running, and more fringily (and scarily), American Jihad. I intentionally ignored the literally dozens of other minor fascist twits who ran with the hate ball, because I want to make a clear point: The prominent right-wing bloggers, the so-called A- and B-list, including Time's "Blog of the Year", spread hateful lies constantly. They should be called on it. Sham apologies are insufficient. These idiots should stay away from keyboards for the same reason drunks need to be steered away from bars: the results are never pretty, and innocent people may end up getting hurt.

(update Alll Spin Zone has more)

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In a press conference earlier today, House Democratic leaders unloaded on House Republicans for their hypocrisy on their effort to repeal health care reform. Rosa DeLauro (D-CT) was almost sneering when she made her remarks:

Connecticut Rep. Rosa DeLauro, addressing reporters at a news conference with other House Democratic leaders Tuesday, called the GOP move "disingenuous" and "nothing but political theater."

"It is a Kabuki dance," she said. "The fact of the matter is we're not going to repeal health care. It is not going to happen."

Outgoing House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-California, cited projections from the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office noting that the Democrats' overhaul will lower the federal deficit over the long term.
As a result, she argued, a GOP-led health care reform repeal would "do very serious violence to the national debt" -- undermining a central Republican pledge of fiscal responsibility.

The Republicans "will employ budget gimmicks" and "Enron-type accounting" to make the claim that a repeal of health care reform won't increase the debt, predicted Rep. Chris Van Hollen, D-Maryland. "That kind of flim-flam" is what people came to expect of Republicans the last time they ran Congress, he said.

Of course it's theater. They've got to play to the base, after all and hold a symbolic vote on a symbolic bill which will never go anywhere. The repeal bill uses the term "job-killing" at least 5 times according to Dave Weigel, and of course, it's named the "Repealing the Job-Killing Health Care Law Act", after all.

That title and this little act of foot-stomping on the part of Republicans makes me want to tell them all that it's nap time in Washington, hand out their pacifiers and blankies and turn out the lights.

Who will win the framing war on this one? Will it be the GOP, with their "job-killing" frame, or the Dems with their "Enron-type accounting" frame? GOP has long held that the health reform law is a 'job-killing' bill, but never put any statistics up to support that.

Also, as DeLauro notes, somewhere between the campaign and the draft of this bill, the word "replace" was forgotten. Repeal, yes. Replace? Not so much.