Nancy Pelosi Growing the Cajone's the Democrats Should Have Had Long Ago?

It seems Nancy Pelosi is finally, finally getting tough on this Republican Party President and his political party. First there was this, last week, in the Oval Office of the White House...

Trump spars with Pelosi, Schumer in Oval Office meeting

Mr. Trump was still wanting his wall on the Southern border--you know, the one he said Mexico would pay for? But now he wants the wall and wants us all to pony up the 5 billion dollars for it. 

Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer were having nothing of it and went toe to toe with him, so to speak, in the Oval Office itself.

Now, this is breaking news today, in the last hour, actually.

House Democrats to seek Trump's tax returns, Pelosi says

WASHINGTON — Democrats controlling the House next year will start trying to obtain President Donald Trump’s income tax returns from the Internal Revenue Service, the likely next speaker said Thursday.

From the sounds and looks of it all, Ms. Pelosi took people's advice that she needs to get tougher with the President seriously. She wanted and wants that House leadership position and badly. 

It looks like she's taking that advice very much to heart.

Funny thing about this last issue with Trump's tax returns, however. Remember what he said about them?

Thank goodness for videotape, huh?

Truly, which side do you support?

It's a great question.

With only one obvious answer.

That said, we still need to end campaign contributions so our representatives and their legislation aren't continually bought in Washington in either political party, I'll grant you that.

Link: American Voice of Reason

Happy anniversary you ingrates

A year ago this week, America, you got the Health Care Reform Act of 2011.  With it, we've already gained the following:

• If you are a young adult, you can now stay on your parents’ health plan until your 26th birthday, if you do not have coverage of your own.
• If you are among 4 million eligible small businesses, you can receive tax credits if you choose to offer coverage to your employees – covering 35% of the cost of coverage. 
• If you are a child under age 19, you can no longer be denied coverage by an insurance company for having a “pre-existing condition.”
• Your insurance company can no longer place a lifetime limit on your coverage.  Such limits have caused some families to declare bankruptcy.
• If you are a senior, you will now be receiving a 50% discount on brand-name drugs if you enter the Medicare Part D ‘donut hole’ coverage gap – a discount that grows until the ‘donut hole’ is closed in 2020.  
• You can no longer be dropped from coverage by your insurance company simply because you get sick.
• Your insurance company can no longer place restrictive annual limits on your coverage – with annual limits completely eliminated by 2014.
• If you are in a new plan, you now have free coverage of key preventive services, such as immunizations, mammograms, and other cancer screenings. 
• Your insurance company must now spend at least 80 percent of premiums on covering medical services – rather than administrative expenses, CEO pay, and profits. 
• Your insurance company must now publish on the Internet detailed justifications for any premium increasesthey are seeking that are more than 10 percent.

And that's just for starters, folks.

This health care reform was and is for you and me.  It's not for the insurance or health care or pharmaceutical industries for once.  

Our system doesn't work for at least 51 million Americans who have no coverage at all and many more millions of Americans who can't afford what coverage they've got and are paying for.

And what little improvements we got and will get out of this, the Republicans want to repeal.

More insanity.

Let's make sure we don't let them take this away, for starters.

Then let's add to it.  We still need the "public option" so we can give the health insurance industry some strong, honest competition.

This is one more way we can take back our country.

Link to original post:  http://www.democraticleader.gov/news/reports?id=0522

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2011/03/23/959334/-Boehner,-McConnell-recognize-health-reform-anniversary-by-vowing-to-destroy%C2%A0it

"You won't have Pelosi to kick around any more..."

Okay, now that that's over with, who will the Right demonize now?  They won't have the smiling feminine face to foist all their hate on.

But wait!  That's right!

They still have the Black guy!

Silly me!

(With thanks and apologies to the memory of Richard Milhouse Nixon).

Why the West Lost the Afghan War (guest post)

Please consider Why West Lost Afghan War by Michael Scheuer, the author of ‘Imperial Hubris’ and former chief of the CIA’s Bin Laden Issue Station. Recent events surrounding Afghanistan shouldn’t confuse anyone, as the reality of the situation still lies in one simple statement: The US-NATO coalition has lost a war its political leaders never meant, or knew how, to win. After nine years, it is utterly impossible to restart Western policy in Afghanistan. Too many Afghans are dead; too many Afghans and non-Afghan Muslims have joined the Taliban-led insurgency; too much pro-Taliban money is pouring into Afghanistan from wealthy donors on the Arabian Peninsula and across the Muslim world; too much Western funding has been stolen and sent abroad by Karzai’s cronies; too much popular support for the war in the West has been squandered; too many U.S.-NATO troops are dead or maimed; too much has been done by the West to push Pakistan toward the abyss by demanding its military do Western dirty work; and too much time has been wasted on counterinsurgency theories and policies that avoid killing the enemy and his civilian supporters. The one thing the West ‘can start over completely’ is a revision of the plans for withdrawal that moves up the departure date. The bottom line is that the United States and NATO stand defeated in Afghanistan. Under McChrystal, Petraeus, or Obama himself the counterinsurgency strategy now being flogged has been intellectually bankrupt from its inception. The tragedy of this reality is that it would have taken no highly classified intelligence data or deeply penetrating brain power to predict its occurrence. A week’s reading at the local library about the occupations of Afghanistan by Alexander the Great, the British Empire and the Soviet Union shows each empire was sooner or later defeated and evicted—Alexander lasted longest because he built Greek colonies—by the most basic Afghan trait which has been transparently and overwhelmingly dominant since the 4th century B.C.: Afghans refuse to tolerate foreign occupation and rule. We should declare the war won and get the hell out. Instead, even Democrats who fully understand how stupid this war is, are willing to vote for it after pressure from Pelosi. Is this insane or what? Mike "Mish" Shedlock http://globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot.com One day soon, maybe we can declare another, new "Independence Day"--that is, independent of foreign, pointless, costly, ugly, ignorant war and wars. Here's hoping. Enjoy your holiday and long weekend, everyone.

Thoughts from a Sunday morning

--Weekends are the best. But I state the obvious.

--The warning I wrote of a couple of times, about the Supreme Court ruling in favor of corporations and their ability to spend unlimited amounts on political campaigns has just gotten increasingly worse, as if I thought that were possible.

There is an article on page A4 of The Star today, explaining that the one thing that was said to be in the people's favor about this insane ruling was that the corporations would have to announce they were backing--paying for--whatever advertising they put out.

Surprise!

There's apparently a loophole big enough to drive a truck through, giving them the ability to remain anonymous after all.

Get ready, folks.

The elections this Fall will be the ugliest, most advertised, most bitter and divisive and finally, most expensive this country has ever known.

And the Roberts court made sure of it.

--Lightning has struck 3 times. I agree with Right-wing, Conservative Thomas McLanahan's column today for the 3rd time.

The $50 million "given" back to the Kansas City area last week, announced by Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood and Representatives Emanuel Cleaver and Dennis Moore for--sidewalks?--is almost silly.

We need to stop borrowing from the Chinese for this kind of nonsense.

Don't get me wrong, there are plenty of things we need taken care of and paid for for our infrastructure but sidewalks? Are you kidding me?

--Why doesn't some enterprising, admittedly opportunistic Senator or Representative propose a bill making financial "earmarks" to run our country and
come out of Congress illegal?

It would make huge news and a big benefit to the name of the person who did this. They'd likely be popular to all the American voting public
(except contruction company owners and employees), and virtually all people who consider themselves Progressive, Conservatives, Libertarians
especially Libertarians), Republicans, Democrats and, yes, even Liberals (socially liberal), like myself.

Demagoguic?

Yes, absolutely. But in a good way, for once.

--I'm a supporter, mostly, of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi--especially in her fight for us for health care reform--but I have to say one thing and that is, Can you really trust anyone who can keep a huge, frozen, seemingly artificial smile plastered on their face? (I don't think so).

And how in the heck does she do it?

(Her "people" should tell her to stop it).

--Charlie Rangel should step down.

Now.

--The Sunday morning news programs were "lily white" this morning, I believe, and that shouldn't be.

With the exception of Clarence Page of The Chicago Tribune on "The McLaughlin Group" on KCPT/PBS, there wasn't one minority represented on these programs today. (I have to note, I didn't see NBC's "Meet the Press" but the guests did include Marc Moral of the National Urban League and Nancy-Ann DeParle, White House Health Reform Director but these were guests, they weren't moderators and that's my point and issue/beef here).

And Clarence Page's presence doesn't even technically count because this is a rerun of the show, which is always originally done of Fridays, of course.

It's shameful.

ABC needs to get Donna Brazile on the show weekly, along with other minorities--certainly African-Americans but also Latinos, etc.

This country was never "all white" and certainly isn't now.

All the news needs to be covered and it will more likely be so if people of different backgrounds are there, reporting on us.

--Finally, it was so nice to not see or hear Monica Crowley's white, Right-wing, Conservative, Republican whining and ranting today, on "The McLaughlin Group."

It made a sunny, slightly warmer Sunday at the end of February all the more pleasant.

Enjoy your Sunday, everyone and have a great week.

At what point will elected politicians understand?

First, we get a report from The Kansas City Star, just earlier this week, that a bunch of our elected pols took a pretty good deal of corporate paid-for trips--junkets--and that they also, illegally, didn't report and now comes word--as if we're surprised--that "The House Ethics Committee says 20-term Democratic Congressman Charlie Rangel repeatedly violated ethics rules by accepting corporate money for lavish trips to the Caribbean."

And this is just the latest for Charlie Rangel: "Rangel, chairman of the powerful House Ways & Means Committee, also faces investigations into his use of office resources to raise money for a college center bearing his name and his failure to report hundreds of thousands of dollars in assets and income."

It's so frustrating.

All these people feel as though, apparently, that as long as the American people don't raise cane (cain?) about it, it's okay--that if they just "get by with it," even though it's illegal, that all will be well.

I assume they figure "If everyone else is doing it, I can, too."

How else can you explain such blatant disregard for ethics, the appearance of really poor judgement and virtually total disregard for law?

If a business or business person is paying for your trip to New York City or the Masters tournament or Japan (which is what Missouri representatives all did) or, as in the case of Charlie Rangel, a trip (trips?) to the Carribbean, how do you accept that trip as an elected representative and not know it's at least unethical, if not downright illegal?

What, are you stupid?

And we're sick of it.

It's not as though this is anything new, certainly, and we all know that but it just seems the graft and appearance of graft and unethical behavior is going beyond the pale in an atmosphere that, otherwise, needs a great deal of attention.

As taxpayers, as voters, as citizens, we are sick of our representatives taking care of themselves first, last and foremost, and then, incidentally doing a little of the public's business by voting on this or that, almost as a sideline.

They have fantastic health care, as elected officials--at least in the US Congress.

We certainly don't.

They have wildly lavish pensions to take care of them later in life, once they're off the public dole.

Again, corporate America has seen to it we don't have that option.

They have travel and franking (postage), both, budgets we don't have.

And in the meantime, America is kind of going to heck in a handbasket, economically and financially, in case they haven't noticed but who are they taking care of?

Themselves.

It's time for this party to be stopped.

We need to raise hell and get the kind of representatives and government we deserve.

Let's start by throwing Charlie Rangel out of Congress.

Where we are with health care reform right now--by Matt Taibbi

If you haven't read the latest article by Matt Taibbi from The Rolling Stone on health care, you're missing an important covering of where we've come from and where things seem to be going.

Very informative.

Just a little bit of the article--

Opinion:
"Without a public option, any effort at health care reform will be as meaningful as a manicure for a gunshot victim."

Conjecture that seems true:
"Nearly a third of all health care costs in America are associated with wasteful administration. Fully $350 billion a year could be saved on paperwork alone if the U.S. went to a single-payer system — more than enough to pay for the whole goddamned thing, if anyone had the balls to stand up and say so."

Fact with great, fun analogy:
"'Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell admitted that "private insurance will not be able to compete with a government option.' This is a little like complaining that Keanu Reeves was robbed of an Oscar just because he can't act."

It is 7 computer pages of material which isn't really that much and it is an excellent, important article.

Of particular attention is Senator Max Baucus' remarks, work and multi-million dollar contributions he gets from the health care industry. It is terrific reading.

The other thing that occurs to me is that Mr. Taibbi should write with just as much "anger" or energy and less expletives so more people can and would read his material.

We need to get this kind of thing out.

And the sooner the better.

Link to story:
http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/story/29988909/sick_and_wrong/

This isn't what we voted for

A news article came out Thursday evening, pointing out that Speaker Pelosi rather cowardly passed on the ability to do away with the automatic pay raises for Congress.

The article starts it best:

"Congress' automatic pay raises are in little immediate danger of being scrapped for good, even with the economy slumping and millions of Americans unemployed. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi on Thursday would not commit to holding a vote on a bill to do away with the annual cost-of-living increases. She pointed out that Congress recognized the economic crisis by voting this week to skip next year's raise."

You know what?

This isn't the kind of thing we voted for.

This isn't change.

This is more of the same.

This is cowardice.

And this is wrong.

This is everything we don't want and didn't want.

Letting pay raises automatically take place, if you vote for them yourself--voting for your own pay raise--is a perfect example of what we don't want.

We have a huge deficit and a crashing economy.

But Congress is seeing that they have a pay raise.

Let's raise some hell.

This should not stand.

It's bad enough they have full health care, a big, fat, juicy pension and aren't tied into the same broken Social Security program we all are.

Let's start to undo these clowns.

They're our representatives, after all.

Let's take our country back.
_______________________________________________
Link to original story:
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090313/ap_on_go_co/congress_pay

All of a sudden

I'm just beginning to watch the new President of the United States give his first address toCongress and I'm struck already.

President Obama just gets to the podium and I was hit by the female Speaker of the House welcoming the African-American President for his speech.

Holy cow.

If you don't think we've come a long way and that this isn't a completely new country, with these changes, you're badly mistaken.

Wow.

Truly a new day.

Are we, as a country, never going to allow a downturn in our economy again?

That's the question.

Are we never going to allow a downturn in our American economy again, no matter the cost?

There is word out right now, on the wires, that both President Bush and Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke are both quoted, saying they'd be for another "stimulus package" for the American people, to push forward the economy.
(Link to story here:
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20081020/ap_on_bi_ge/financial_meltdown)

Holy cow.

You gotta be kidding me.

Let's get this straight.

We already had the largest debt, ever, in the history of the country, going into this year, thanks to this President and his direction (I can't call it leadership).

Then the nation's banks start tanking and we come up with, oh, what was it? 700 billion dollars to bail out the banks (that actually may end up already being a trillion dollars or thereabouts).

That boosted our debt even larger and deeper by a fewfold.

And now, like they're running for office themselves, George and Ben want to spit out more money to us so we can go spending.

They want to make it at least as large as the last boost we gave ourselves so it would be in the range of 168 million dollars.

But wait. There's more.

Some economists are saying it should be twice that size.

Talk about short-term, shortsighted vision.

The one who started this talk was Barack Obama and he's running for office.

Now, I'm an Obama supporter but this part of his platform never got my support. I thought it was just panerding to win votes. It is short-sighted and would only have a very brief benefit to the economy and country.

Then House Speaker Nancy Pelosi chimed in, saying she'd support it. I thought that was purely to help her friend and fellow Democrat Obama. I thought it would go away.

Now this.

So it gets me back to my original question.

Do we not have any patience or allowance any more for a downturn in the economy?

Do we not realize that there are business cycles that have to be gone through?

You know, the old "Chauncey Gardner" statements from the movie "Being There" about there needing to be a dying season, in order to create the space for new growth.

I don't think we get it.

We all know we'll have to borrow--yes, borrow--this money, only to loan it back to ourselves.

And we'll probably have to borrow it from the Chinese, of whom we have no fondness, other than their propping up our economy.


Am I the only one who thinks this is blatantly stupid?