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Oh, C&Lers, you've picked a good one, and timely too. In 38th place, we have a March 4th rant about Republican family values as compared to everyone else's. Yes indeed, it's a timely reminder, given Newt's newly discovered piety and grace through the blessings of Catholic bishops and the lovely Callista.

But you see, It's OK If You're A Republican (IOKIYAR).

It's always helpful to review how hypocritical Newt Gingrich is when it comes to "family values."

Programming note: (I'll be on the Thom Hartmann show at 10 am PST today right after Sen. Bernie Sanders)

Murray Waas broke a story yesterday about the John Ensign scandal in Reuters which Nicole wrote about here. I've been pushing for the media to force Sen. Tom Coburn to explain his actions in the matter, since he was in the middle of the whole thing as some sort of a go-0between.

Well, he finally commented after Waas broke some news on Ensign:

The Senate Ethics committee report portrayed Ensign as intermediary in negotiating a potential seven figure payment from Ensign to his former campaign treasurer, Cindy Hampton, who he had the affair with, and her husband, Doug Hampton, who was Ensign’s closest friend and administrative assistant. The Senate Ethics committee quoted several people who gave sworn testimony in the case. Coburn said today that they were lying.

Regarding the Senate Ethics Committee report’s conclusions, Coburn said: “That’s a totally inaccurate characterization of what happened. What the story you hear is not an accurate reflection of what happened.” Ensign made the comments during an interview for C-SPAN’s “Newsmakers,” which will air Sunday.

Coburn told C-SPAN that he never negotiated on Ensign’s behalf, but instead simply passed information along from the Hamptons and their attorney and Ensign. He also said that he was proud of what he had done and would do “exactly” the same thing all over again:

“We put two families back together with multiple children — both marriages are stable right now,” Coburn said. “I’m proud of what I did and the way I did it. There’s nothing unethical about what I did.”

In fact, the Hamptons have said they are divorcing, and Cyndy Hampton recently filed for bankruptcy.

It is unclear why Coburn broke his long silence at this point in time and provided C-SPAN with his most extensive remarks on the entire matter since disclosure of the affair. One likely reason is that instead of the story fading, Coburn’s role might face renewed further press scrutiny if and when the Justice Department reopens its probe of Ensign.

Coburn has previously said that he was a witness about his role before the Senate Ethics Committee, but has never commented as to whether he was asked for information by the Justice Department.

How exactly did he put two families back together again? Does he believe divorce and bankruptcy is "mending the fences?' Will the media finally force Coburn to answer publicly for his involvement in this scandal?

You know, on one level, I'm happy that the DOJ is no longer the overtly partisan and retaliatory entity it was during the Bush years. However, I'm flummoxed by this seemingly overarching extension in the other direction. Reuters' Murray Waas breaks the story:

Ensign's once promising political career was over because of the disclosures, but he was no longer in any legal jeopardy.

The Justice Department had informed him in December 2010 that he would not face criminal charges. An aggressive Senate Ethics Committee investigation was still pursuing Ensign, but that probe would be shelved once he resigned.

As Ensign was preparing to leave the Senate, investigators for the Senate Ethics Committee were attempting at the 11th hour to obtain a trove of email correspondence concerning the payments to the Hamptons. The trouble for the committee was that Ensign's attorneys insisted the emails were privileged.

The committee had unsuccessfully battled for 18 months to obtain them.

A Reuters examination of the Ensign probe shows the case then took a sudden turn: Ensign reversed course and handed over more than 1,000 sensitive emails between himself and his attorneys and other top advisers. The decision "puzzled" congressional investigators who thought they would never see the emails and baffled even most of his own closest advisers, say people close to the case.

Those emails are apparently very incriminating, including ones by Ensign himself acknowledging that his coverup of the affair effectively ended his Senate career and by his attorneys that the payments to the Hamptons would inevitably trigger notice of the Senate Ethics Committee. Why Ensign released the emails is somewhat of a mystery. Did he assume he was out of the woods since the DOJ had already told them they were closing the books on this? Then he wasn't paying attention to his attorneys, who have warned him that this could instigate a re-opening of the investigation. If that's so, no investigation on Ensign's coverup could be complete without a full investigation of Tom Coburn and the part he played to broker the deal between Ensign, his parents and the Hamptons.

Ironically, this news comes the same week as the DOJ announced that they would seek an indictment against John Edwards for improper use of campaign funds to keep his own extramarital affair quiet. Of course, when you're a Democrat, you can expect much more stringent investigations by the Department of Justice.

The unexpected last minute developments in the Ensign case raise serious questions as to why the Justice Department closed its file on the Senator without first obtaining the crucial emails later seen by the Senate.

A senior Justice Department official told Reuters that the decision to publicly say that they were no longer pursuing Ensign displayed bad judgment, harmed the investigation, and will likely leave lingering effects on the Department's reputation in prosecuting public officials.

The Department is already smarting after the dismissal of charges against the late Senator Ted Stevens, a Republican from Alaska, after disclosures of prosecutorial misconduct.

My initial reaction was to roll my eyes at the lackluster and careless performance once again by Attorney General Eric Holder, but I've been corrected by journalists that this likely never did get to Holder's desk. I'm not sure if it is helpful, but here is the contact information for the DOJ, and certainly, having citizens demand that the DOJ re-open the case in light of these new revelations can't hurt.

So it's come down to this. On Saturday, David Stockman, the legendary Reagan budget chief who presided over the Gipper's supply-side tax cuts, announced that the "debt explosion has resulted not from big spending by the Democrats, but instead the Republican Party's embrace, about three decades ago, of the insidious doctrine that deficits don't matter if they result from tax cuts." The next day, the former Fed chairman Alan Greenspan, who famously helped sell the 2001 Bush tax cuts to Congress, declared them simply "disastrous."

Sadly, Stockman and Greenspan are just about the only voices in the Republican Party speaking the truth about the fiscal devastation wrought by the expiring Bush tax cuts. After all, the national debt tripled under Ronald Reagan, only to double again during the tenure of George W. Bush. And as it turns out, the Bush tax cut windfall for the wealthy accounted for almost half the budget deficits during his presidency and, if made permanent, would contribute more to the U.S. budget deficit than the Obama stimulus, the TARP program, the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, and revenue lost to the recession - combined. Of course, you'd never know it listening to the leaders of GOP.

And that's just the beginning. Here, then, are 10 Republican Lies about the Bush tax cuts:

• Lie #1: Democrats Plan Across the Board Tax Hikes on January 1st
• Lie #2: Democrats Want a $3.8 Trillion Tax Increase
• Lie #3: Tax Cuts Pay for Themselves
• Lie #4: The Bush Tax Cuts Didn't Add to the Deficit
• Lie #5: Expiring High Income Tax Cuts Will Hurt Small Business
• Lie #6: The Estate Tax Devastates Small Businesses and Family Farms
• Lie #7: The Bush Tax Cuts Helped All Americans
• Lie #8. Extending Bush Tax Cuts for the Wealthy is the Best Way to Stimulate the Economy
• Lie #9. Bush Tax Cuts Produced 52 Straight Months of Job Growth
• Lie #10: The Rich Pay Too Much in Taxes Already

For the details, data and charts for each, continue reading after the break.

Continue reading »

It wasn't even close.

I'd suggest that anyone who hasn't done it yet should find a small bank and move their accounts. Clearly, the people we elected aren't going to do anything about these monster banks:

A move to break up major Wall Street banks failed Thursday night by a vote of 61 to 33.

Three Republicans, Richard Shelby of Alabama, Tom Coburn of Oklahoma and John Ensign of Nevada, voted with 30 Democrats, including Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid of Nevada, in support of the provision. The author of the pending overall financial reform bill in the Senate, Banking Committee Chairman Christopher Dodd, voted against it. (See the full roll call.)

The amendment, sponsored by Sens. Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio) and Ted Kaufman (D-Del.), would have required megabanks to be broken down in size and capped so that their individual failure would not bring down the entire system.

Under Brown-Kaufman, no bank could hold more than 10 percent of the total amount of insured deposits, and a limit would have been placed on liabilities of a single bank to two percent of GDP.

In practice, the amendment required the six biggest banks -- Bank of America, JPMorgan Chase, Citigroup, Wells Fargo, Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley -- to significantly scale down their size. It was touted as a way to end Too Big To Fail.

Though top Obama administration officials have not publicly opposed the amendment, its leading economists have opposed ending Too Big To Fail simply by breaking up the nation's financial behemoths. Austan Goolsbee and Larry Summers have both fought back against this idea, as has Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner.

"This is certainly a defeat for those who are concerned about the dangers of financial concentration in this country," Kaufman said in a statement after the vote. "Some causes are worth fighting for, and for me, the concern about the risks 'too big to fail' banks pose to the American economy and people is deep and profound given the economic tragedy millions of American have endured. I believe the debate itself -- though failing to gain a majority of votes -- has helped to change attitudes about the degree of financial concentration and power these megabanks now represent."

OurFuture: "Anything Goes" capitalism destroys companies and workers' lives

Capital Eye: Aides, lobbyists and contributors among those left in the wake of John Ensign's ethics scandal

Lean Left: Don't know much about history, biology, science books, the French I took...or art. But I do know that I'm a right wing moron.

Where’s the Outrage?: Dr. Errington Thompson says..."Keith, thanks for letting America see the world I work in every day."

TAPPED: Congress' torture coverup

Welcome Back to Pottersville: Assclowns of the Week: Nattering nabobs of negativism edition

You heard the one about Senator Ensign's affair involving hush money, right? And you're surprised he's still got a job, right? Well, this Senator Ensign story may finally mean the end for him.

The NY Times has a long piece about it.

Early last year, Senator John Ensign contacted a small circle of political and corporate supporters back home in Nevada — a casino designer, an airline executive, the head of a utility and several political consultants — seeking work for a close friend and top Washington aide, Douglas Hampton.

He’s a competent guy, and he’s looking to come back to Nevada. Do you know of anything?” one patron recalled Mr. Ensign asking.

The job pitch left out one salient fact: the senator was having an affair with Mr. Hampton’s wife, Cynthia, a campaign aide. The tumult that the liaison was causing both families prompted Mr. Ensign, a two-term Republican, to try to contain the damage and find a landing spot for Mr. Hampton.In the coming months, the senator arranged for Mr. Hampton to join a political consulting firm and lined up several donors as his lobbying clients, according to interviews, e-mail messages and other records. Mr. Ensign and his staff then repeatedly intervened on the companies’ behalf with federal agencies, often after urging from Mr. Hampton.

While the affair made national news in June, the role that Mr. Ensign played in assisting Mr. Hampton and helping his clients has not been previously disclosed. Several experts say those activities may have violated an ethics law that bars senior aides from lobbying the Senate for a year after leaving their posts...read on

Harry Reid told the Las Vegas Review Journal that the bill coming out of Congress will have a public option.

U.S. Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev., said today there will be a "public option" in whatever health insurance reform bill comes out of Congress.

"We are going to have a public option before this bill goes to the president's desk," Reid said in a conference call with constituents, referring to some kind of government plan.

."I believe the public option is so vitally important to create a level playing field and prevent the insurance companies from taking advantage of us," he said.

Reid also mentioned the inclusion of incentives for healthy behavior, something suggested by Sen. John Ensign, R-Nev.

What form of a public option is something we don't know.

dday runs down the various types of proposals that are out there in his post: What's In A Name?

Well, we'll know one way or another soon enough and although many are not optimistic about the chances of a vibrant public option the fact that Reid has injected it into the dialogue after he has been unwillingly to do so only helps our cause. And all the online activism done by the blogosphere and health-care groups has been essential or it never would have gotten this far. We will continue to push and fight and scratch and yell to save the bill from the grubby hands of the health-care industrial complex. You can count on it.

The Huffington Post updates Reid:

UPDATE: Reid's office clarifies his remarks in a statement sent over from an aide to the Senator.

"Sen. Reid believes that health insurance reform must include a mechanism to keep insurers honest, create competition and keep costs down," the statement reads. "He feels that the public option is the best way to do that. While we don't know exactly what that option will look like, Sen. Reid, working with President Obama, will ensure that whatever is included in the final bill does just that."

This seemed somewhat inevitable as Reid has largely resisted going out on a limb when it comes to the public option.

This has been long overdue. From Murray Waas:

In an appointment that senior Justice Department officials say demonstrates the Obama administration’s commitment to reversing the Bush administration’s politicization of the Department, a U.S. attorney fired by President Bush was reappointed to his old job on Friday.

Daniel Bogden, who was fired in the fall of 2006 by the Bush administration as the U.S. attorney in Nevada, was offered his old job back by President Obama, and was formally nominated on Friday.

Bogden’s confirmation by the Senate is all but assured: He has spent his entire adult life in government service, and as a former U.S. attorney was confirmed by the Senate previously. He was also thoroughly vetted for his new position by the White House Counsel’s office prior to his most recent nomination, even though he was vetted during his first appointment as U.S. attorney by the Bush administration. Moreover, he has the backing of both his home-state senators: Harry Reid, a Democrat, and John Ensign, a Republican. That Reid is a Senate Majority Leader, and that Reid personally suggested to the President that Bogden get his old job back probably, won’t hurt matters.

Ironically, Bogden’s formal reappointment as U.S. attorney comes exactly one day after former Bush political adviser Karl Rove gave sworn testimony before the House Judiciary Committee regarding the firings of Bogden and eight other U.S. attorneys fired by the Bush administration. A federal grand jury is currently investigating whether Bush administration officials and members of Congress obstructed justice in pressing for one or more of the firings, and also, whether they misled Congress as to why the prosecutors were fired.

Bogden’s firing in the fall of 2006 is referred to by many in the Justice Department as the firing that came about as a result of some sort of Immaculate Conception: For two years, the Justice Department’s two watchdog agencies, its Inspector General and Office of Responsibility, spent 18 months investigating the firings of the nine U.S. attorneys. When it came to Bogden, however, the investigators were not only unable to determine why he was fired, but even who ordered his firing. Every single Justice Department official and Bush administration official interviewed by investigators disclaimed responsibility for his firing. Isn't that typical Bush/Cheney dealings?

Bogden’s appointment to his old job by Obama appears to a historical first: He will be the first U.S. attorney to be appointed and fired by the same President, only to be appointed U.S. attorney again by another President. How strange it all is and I believe as time goes by we'll see a lot more of these "irregularities" pop up, don't you think?

(co-written by David Neiwert)

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TalkLeft: Cheney wanted to use the Military to make U.S. terrror arrests

Mugsy’s Rap Sheet: A special place in hell for healthcare reform opponents

Raw Story: Spitzer: Federal Reserve is 'a Ponzi scheme, an inside job'

Hysterical Raisins: What Tom Coburn does when he's not birthin' John Ensign's babies

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