Tag Archives: Mitch McConnell

Lost in the ’50s

13 Monday Feb 2012

Posted by in Conservatives, health care, Politics

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Is this really the hill Republicans want to die on? Didn’t we already have this argument like…I don’t know…50 years ago? Do their campaign strategerists actually think that ‘Keep ‘em barefoot, pregnant, and in the kitchen where they belong’ is a winner in the 2012 race for the White House? What’s next on the GOP agenda? Repeal of the 19th Amendment?

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell yesterday:

“The fact that the White House thinks this is about contraception is the whole problem. This is about freedom of religion, it’s right there in the First Amendment. You can’t miss it — right there in the very first amendment to our Constitution,” McConnell said. “What the overall view on the issue of contraception is has nothing to do with an issue about religious freedom.”

McConnell went on to embellish the argument, claiming Obama is being “rigid in his view that he gets to decide what somebody else’s religion is.” He said that “this issue will not go away until the administration simply backs down.”

…“If we end up having to try to overcome the President’s opposition by legislation, of course I’d be happy to support it, and intend to support it,” McConnell said. “We’ll be voting on that in the Senate and you can anticipate that that would happen as soon as possible.”

That would be the legislation proposed by Sen. Roy Blunt (R-MO), the Blunt Amendment, which would, according to the National Women’s Law Center:

“[A]llow employers and insurance companies to refuse coverage of any health care service required under the new health care law based on undefined “religious beliefs or moral convictions.” This creates a huge loophole in the new health care law’s coverage requirements. For example, any corporation whose CEO opposes contraception based on his “moral convictions” could deny all coverage of contraception or any other service to the company’s employees. Even more disturbing, a CEO’s view of “morality” could potentially include concern for the cost of a particular benefit. Such broad, undefined refusals (without any protections for the insured) would result in millions of individuals losing vital health service coverage.”

The NWLC gives a few examples of what that might mean:

“A plan could claim a moral or religious basis in order to refuse to cover HIV/AIDS screenings or counseling.

A health plan in the individual market could refuse to cover mental health care on the grounds that the plan believes that psychiatric problems should be treated with prayer.
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A small employer could offer a plan that does not cover maternity care for unmarried women in its plan, claiming that such coverage violates its belief that sex and procreation are permissible only within the marital relationship

An individual could object to coverage of vaccines for children, so the plan could then not be required to do so.

An insurer could refuse to provide coverage of any health care service to an interracial couple because of a religious or moral objection to such relationships.

An insurer could refuse to cover routine sonograms during the course of a pregnancy for a single woman even if routine dental X-rays or PAP smears are covered, due to a religious or moral objection to pregnancies out of wedlock.”

Here’s another one. What if a Muslim employer refused to cover his or her employees unless the plan provided that, based on religious convictions, men cannot be treated by women doctors, and vice versa. Do you think Republicans would defend this Muslim employer’s right to religious freedom? I’ll go out on a limb and guess no.

I like this take from Bark Bark Woof Woof:

“Okay, let’s see; the Republicans have already dissed just about every minority there is: the African-Americans, the Hispanics, the immigrants, the Muslims, anyone who’s not straight, anyone who speaks another language besides English, anyone who believes in science, anyone who believes in climate change, anyone who likes Clint Eastwood, and anyone else who’s held a view that isn’t in line with the white, straight, evangelical Christian male patriarchy. Now they’re going after the majority of Americans — women — and anyone who uses any kind of birth control or contraception, which includes everyone in the above-mentioned list.

So who’s left?”

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Let the Railroading Commence

24 Sunday Jul 2011

Posted by in budget, Congress, economy, Medicaid, Medicare, Social Security

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I sense that the railroading of the American public will commence shortly. That August 2nd deadline for either raising the debt ceiling or facing economic crisis has now been moved up to 4pm today, so says Speaker Boehner and Treasury Secretary Geithner.

“House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) told his GOP rank-and-file that congressional leaders are working round the clock on a deal set for release before the Asian markets open on Sunday at 4 p.m., a source tells The Hill.”

“The speaker and other leaders started their day at the White House, where Treasury Secretary Timothy F. Geithner warned of possible trouble in the markets if policymakers don’t announce a viable plan for raising the debt limit before Asian exchanges open Sunday evening, according to people familiar with the meeting.”

Add that to remarks by John Chambers, managing director of Standard and Poor’s, in an interview last week:

“Chambers added…that even if the parties agree to raise the debt ceiling, it may not be enough to avert a [credit rating] downgrade. Chambers said the country must implement a plan to reduce the annual budget deficit by roughly $4 trillion over 10 years, which makes the debt manageable over the long term.”

Since when do the ratings agency crooks who aided and abetted the banksters—and profited handsomely from doing so—leading up to the mortgage meltdown, get to dictate economic policy? But I digress.

That sort of ‘we have to do something big and do it now, or else’ mentality leads to “solutions” like proposing a “Super Congress”:

“Debt ceiling negotiators think they’ve hit on a solution to address the debt ceiling impasse and the public’s unwillingness to let go of benefits such as Medicare and Social Security that have been earned over a lifetime of work: Create a new Congress.

This “Super Congress,” composed of members of both chambers and both parties, isn’t mentioned anywhere in the Constitution, but would be granted extraordinary new powers. Under a plan put forth by Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) and his counterpart Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.), legislation to lift the debt ceiling would be accompanied by the creation of a 12-member panel made up of 12 lawmakers — six from each chamber and six from each party.

Legislation approved by the Super Congress — which some on Capitol Hill are calling the “super committee” — would then be fast-tracked through both chambers, where it couldn’t be amended by simple, regular lawmakers, who’d have the ability only to cast an up or down vote.”

It would also require only a simple majority vote. Isn’t it amazing how that 60-vote filibuster thingy isn’t an obstruction when it comes to what Congress really really wants to do? Like screw us over.

If this all sounds a bit familiar, it’s because we’ve been here before. Remember TARP? Get ready for TARP 2.0. Yves Smith at naked capitalism:

“We commented last night on the parallels between the pressure tactics used to railroad the passage of the TARP and our current contrived debt ceiling crisis. The similarities have increased in a predictably bad way. Even worse than the economic toll radical budget cutting will impose on ordinary Americans is the continued undermining of basic democratic processes.

The foundation was set with the TARP’s radical power grab…[H]ere is the truly offensive section of an overreaching piece of legislation:

“Decisions by the Secretary pursuant to the authority of this Act are non-reviewable and committed to agency discretion, and may not be reviewed by any court of law or any administrative agency.”

[…]

As with the TARP, we have the drumroll of a purported threat to public safety, namely the possible Destruction of the Financial System as We Now Know It. John Boehner is stoking the panic by saying there needs to be a deal by the opening of trading in Asia or the Market Gods will take their vengeance. Turbo Timmie will no doubt warn of dire consequence of the failure to ink a deal by the supposed drop dead date of August 2 when he makes the rounds on Sunday TV.”

“I hear the train a comin’, it’s rollin’ ’round the bend…”

Senate Caves, House Soon to Follow

14 Tuesday Dec 2010

Posted by in budget, Congress, Democrats, economy, Obama, Taxes

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The Senate voted 83-15 yesterday to invoke cloture on President Obama’s sell-out compromise on the extension of the Bush tax cuts for the top 2%. Nine Democrats and Bernie Sanders voted “no.” The nine were: Jeff Bingaman (NM), Sherrod Brown (OH), Russ Feingold (WI), Kirsten Gillibrand (NY), Kay Hagan (NC), Frank Lautenberg (NJ), Pat Leahy (VT), Carl Levin (MI), and Mark Udall (CO). One of the poster children for duplicity and hypocrisy, Mary Landrieu of Louisiana, who previously said that the deal “borders on moral recklessness,” voted “yes.” I’m shocked.

The president is happy:

“For Mr. Obama, the Senate vote offered affirmation that his administration had made the most of what seemed to be a rough political predicament, in which it was [BS Alert] forced to negotiate a tax agreement with the Bush-era tax cuts set to expire at the end of the month and Congressional Republicans empowered by their big victory in the midterm elections.

“This proves that both parties can in fact work together to grow our economy and look out for the American people,” Mr. Obama said.”

Absolutely. Those tax cuts have done such a wonderful job growing the economy in the past decade, no reason to expect that won’t continue for the next decade and beyond. Oh, but I forgot. The president is going to fight to end these cuts in two years. And if you’ll buy that….

“Mr. Obama said he understood that there were lawmakers unhappy with parts of the plan on both sides of the aisle, and he and his aides have made clear in recent days that he [BS Alert, Part Two] still fiercely disagrees with the Republicans over extending the lower tax rates on annual incomes above $250,000 per couple or $200,000 per individual.”

Co-president Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell is also pleased:

“This bipartisan compromise represents an essential first step in tackling the debt — because in keeping taxes where they are, we are officially cutting off the spigot,” Mr. McConnell said in a floor speech.”

Cut off the spigot, aka starve the beast. Straight out of the Grover Norquist playbook for making government so small it can be drowned in a bathtub.

Don’t expect the final outcome in the House to be any different, after the dog and pony show, that is:

“By all indications, the anger and opposition to the deal among House Democrats shows no sign of abating. At the same time, however, House Dem leaders have sent very clear signs that despite their own unhappiness with the deal, they believe it would be irresponsible to sink the compromise and have no intention of thwarting the President’s will.

Here’s the challenge for House Dem leaders right now, as I understand it: Come up with a way for Dem members to vent their disapproval of the deal, so they don’t feel too stiffarmed and marginalized by the process, without it resulting in changes significant enough to cause Republicans to walk away.”

Heavens no. Let’s be sure we don’t do anything that might piss off the Republicans. Appeasement at all costs.

“The result could be a situation in which Dems hold a vote on amendments to the bill that are likely to fail… Dem leaders could hold a vote amending that provision, allowing Dem members to register disapproval. But the amendment would likely be opposed by almost all Republicans and some moderate Dems. So it would likely lose.”

Like I said. Dog and pony show.

Sen. Gillibrand had this to say:

“Although this deal includes important measures I have fiercely advocated for, extending Bush tax cuts for the very wealthy will saddle our children with billions of dollars of debt. With unemployment near 10 percent and a growing budget deficit, every dollar in this deal should be spent in a way that creates jobs and gets our economy growing, and tax cuts for millionaires and billionaires do not create jobs and will not help our economy grow.”

Creating jobs and getting the economy going. Not with more trickle-down bullshit, but the way China is doing it. Yes, China:

“The Chinese have doubled their spending on education – with stunning results – and continue to build the world’s best infrastructure. Reuters reports that Beijing is contemplating a plan to invest $1.5 trillion over the next five years in seven crucial industries. The targeted sectors are alternative energy, biotechnology, new-generation information technology, high-end equipment manufacturing, advanced materials, alternative-fuel cars, and energy-saving and environmentally friendly technologies…While China spends its money to invest in long-term growth, it lends us cash so that we can give ourselves [well, not all of ourselves, just the chosen few] one more big tax break. Someone in Beijing must be smiling.”

Not just smiling, laughing.

Senator Sanders on the Class War

11 Saturday Dec 2010

Posted by in budget, Clinton, Congress, economy, Financial Crisis, Obama, Politics, special interests, Taxes, too big to fail, Wall Street

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Just one small segment of Sen. Bernie Sanders’ marathon speech on the floor of the Senate yesterday, dealing with the class war and the winners and losers in that war:

“…in the year 2007, the top 1 percent of all income earners in the United States made 23.5 percent of all income. The top 1 percent earned 23.5 percent of all income–more than the entire bottom 50 percent.”

“From 1980-2005, 80% of all income went to the top 1%.”

Not much question who the winners are, and not much question now whose side President Obama is on. Charles Ferguson, director of Inside Job, wrote in Salon:

“It is…overwhelmingly clear that President Obama and his administration decided to side with the oligarchs — or at least not to challenge them. This raises the question of why they have made this choice, and whether it is a correct (in the sense of rationally self-interested) calculation on their part.

As to the “why,” several explanations have been proposed. One is that the president, as a matter of individual psychology, is extremely conflict-averse, preferring to avoid fights no matter how important. A second hypothesis is that the president is simply doing the most he can, given the political climate and the furious lobbying effort with which he is confronted. This explanation, however, is belied by [his] personnel appointments, among other evidence.”

The latest example of this is in President Obama’s choice for director of OMB. The new one, Jacob Lew, came from Citigroup. The old one, Peter Orszag, went to Citigroup. More Ferguson:

“A more disturbing possibility is that the Obama administration has simply codified a new strategic equilibrium in American politics, one first devised by the Clinton administration, in which both parties are supine with regard to the financial sector and the wealthy.”

President Obama brought out former President Clinton yesterday to endorse his “deal.” Bill Clinton, whose “bi-partisan outreach” during his administration left two ticking time bombs in the economy in the form of the repeal of Glass-Steagall, which created “too big to fail,” and the Commodity Futures Modernization Act, which banned the regulation of derivatives.

Sen. Sanders brought up the subject of free trade. Just last week President Obama signed the South Korean version of NAFTA. I hear Ross Perot’s giant sucking sound again.  All you need to know about the South Korean “deal” it is that it got two thumbs up from those two staunch defenders of the middle-class and working people–the Chamber of Commerce and Mitch McConnell.

As good as it was to hear Sen. Sanders’ speech yesterday, I fear he is just a voice crying in the wilderness. The president’s “deal” is now being loaded up with enough pork to buy enough votes to win passage. In short, the fix is in, the wealthy and powerful will win again. We keep going back to George Carlin, “It’s a big club and we’re not in it.”

I Read the News Today, Oh Boy

19 Wednesday May 2010

Posted by in Afghanistan, BP, Clinton, Congress, Deepwater Horizon, Energy, Environment, Gulf Oil Spill, Obama administration, oil exploration, Politics

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I read the news today:

Arlen Specter switched parties because he couldn’t win the Republican primary, now he loses the Democratic primary to Joe Sestak. This just in Arlen, it’s not about party this year, the key word is “incumbent.” You’re 80 years old, you’ve been in the Senate for 30 years. Your time is up.

Mitch McConnell’s hand-picked candidate to succeed Jim Bunning got smoked by Tea Party favorite Rand Paul in the Republican senatorial primary in Kentucky. Once again, connections to the party establishment, regardless of which party, is the kiss of death this election season.

The latest example of why the anti-incumbent mood exists. Eight-term Congressman Mark Souder announced his resignation after an affair with one of his staffers was exposed.

I defer to the experts on the Gulf oil spill, but this smells like a cover-up to me:

“The Obama administration is actively trying to dismiss media reports that vast plumes of oil lurk beneath the surface of the Gulf of Mexico, unmeasured and uncharted.

But the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, whose job it is to assess and track the damage being caused by the BP oil spill that began four weeks ago, is only monitoring what’s visible — the slick on the Gulf’s surface — and currently does not have a single research vessel taking measurements below.”

As does this:

“BP, the company in charge of the rig that exploded last month in the Gulf of Mexico, hasn’t publicly divulged the results of tests on the extent of workers’ exposure to evaporating oil or from the burning of crude over the gulf, even though researchers say that data is crucial in determining whether the conditions are safe.

Moreover, the company isn’t monitoring the extent of the spill and only reluctantly released videos of the spill site that could give scientists a clue to the amount of the oil in gulf.”

Also on the spill:

“Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano acknowledged Monday that the federal government doesn’t have the resources or expertise to deal with an oil spill 5,000 feet below the sea, and must largely depend on oil companies to deal with an incident of such magnitude.”

So if the government agencies don’t have the “resources or expertise” to deal with the consequences of offshore drilling, why do they permit it to take place and just trust that the oil companies will be to “deal with an incident of such magnitude?” Sounds to me like expecting the arsonist to help put out the fire.

And finally, a grim milestone in Afghanistan.

“On Tuesday, the toll of American dead in Afghanistan passed 1,000, after a suicide bomb in Kabul killed at least five United States service members. Having taken nearly seven years to reach the first 500 dead, the war killed the second 500 in fewer than two.”

This following General McChrystal’s assessment that “nobody is winning” in Afghanistan and Secretary of State Clinton’s pledge to Hamid Karzai of “a long-term U.S. commitment” there.

Oh boy.

A Crucial Week for Financial Reform

26 Monday Apr 2010

Posted by in bailout, Congress, economy, Financial Crisis, financial reform, financial regulation, Obama, Politics, Republicans, too big to fail, Wall Street

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In what’s shaping up as a crucial week in the quest for financial reform there are some encouraging signs, some not so encouraging, and a demonstration by the executives at “the great vampire squid” (aka Goldman Sachs) give us an example of why meaningful reform is necessary.

First, the reasons to be hopeful. There appear to be some cracks in the Republican wall of solidarity. Sen. Olympia Snowe endorsed Sen. Blanche Lincoln’s tough stance toward derivative trading passed last week by the Agriculture Committee. (Sen. Grassley, another possible defector, was the lone Republican on the committee who voted for Lincoln’s proposal). In a letter to Majority Leader Harry Reid, Snowe wrote:

“I believe that strong derivatives regulation goes to the heart of an effective financial reform bill and that Chairman Lincoln’s legislation is a strong step towards realizing this fundamental component to financial reform……I believe that we should err on the side of caution and finally bring full transparency to these markets once and for all and allow regulators to preemptively identify these damaged firms.

“Accordingly, I believe the Senate should start with a comprehensive, strong derivatives reform proposal and defend attempts to weaken it, not the other way around and the legislation produced by the Senate Agriculture Committee includes the strongest safeguards and most robust transparency provisions on our expansive derivatives market.

I urge the Majority Leader to incorporate these provisions into the regulatory reform bill.”

On Friday, Sen. Chris Dodd, chairman of the Senate Banking Committee, “agreed to replace his proposed restrictions on derivatives with those of the Senate Agriculture Committee, chaired by Arkansas Democrat Blanche Lincoln.”

On This Week yesterday, Sen. Bob Corker said he intended to propose an amendment containing a “claw back” provision to the legislation “which would take away the personal earnings for the past five years of the corporate officers of failed institutions that fall under the government’s resolution authority.”

Another possible Republican defector might be the newly-elected senator from Massachusetts, Scott Brown. Will someone who was elected as a sort of “man of the people” want to be painted as a defender of Wall Street? Especially when he faces re-election in 2 years? Maybe not.

Also on the positive side, “President Obama and House Financial Services Chairman Barney Frank have personally urged Dodd not to cut a deal with Republicans…This is a welcome sign that Obama realizes that public opinion is moving in the direction of tougher banking reform, and that he learned from the health debate that bipartisan compromise on key reform issues is a snare and a delusion.”

Sen. Dodd has shown signs of weakening the legislation in order to compromise with Republicans leaders in the Senate, Mitch McConnell and Richard Shelby, who want to use the same tactics Republicans used on health care reform—stall and delay as long as possible. Hopefully, Dodd will be emboldened by support from President Obama and not dilute reform to try and pacify those whose intentions are to maintain the status quo.

Now to the crooks at Goldman. What were they doing as the housing market was collapsing and threatening to take the entire economy with it? Having a party:

“As the U.S. housing market began its epic fall nearly three years ago, top executives at Wall Street powerhouse Goldman Sachs cheered the large financial gains the firm stood to make on certain bets it had placed, according to newly released documents.

The documents show that the firm’s executives were celebrating earlier investments calculated to benefit if housing prices fell, a Senate investigative committee found. In an e-mail sent in the fall of 2007, for example, Goldman executive Donald Mullen predicted a windfall because credit-rating companies had downgraded mortgage-related investments, which caused losses for investors.

“Sounds like we will make some serious money,” Mullen wrote.”

To somewhat defend Goldman, what they were doing, “selling short,” (betting against certain investments) is something that happens on Wall Street every day. But, betting against instruments that they designed to fail, and which were sold to investors as AAA investments allowing Goldman to profit from on both ends, may not be illegal (although it should be) but it certainly shows that the execs at the “great vampire squid” have no interest in what’s best for the country. They have one party’s interests in mind—-their own.

Dumb and Dumber

18 Sunday Apr 2010

Posted by in bailout, economy, financial reform, financial regulation, Goldman Sachs, Politics, too big to fail, Wall Street

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Ron Beasley at Newshoggers has the appropriate image of Senator Mitch McConnell in his post yesterday entitled, “If He Only Had a Brain” :

McConnell continues to mindlessly repeat Frank Luntz talking points about “endless taxpayer bailouts of Wall Street banks,” talking points written before there was an actual bill. Rachel Maddow compares the similarity, purely coincidental I’m sure, between Luntz’s “words to use” and McConnell’s statements:

Speaking of mindless, there’s McConnell’s sidekick, Congressman John Boner Boehner. After Friday’s news that the SEC was suing Goldman Sachs for fraud, Boner Boehner released a statement, “calling the firm a “key supporter” of the president’s bid to reform the nation’s financial regulatory system.”

“These are very serious charges against a key supporter of President Obama’s bill to create a permanent Wall Street bailout fund,” Boehner said Friday in the statement. “Despite President Obama’s rhetoric, his permanent bailout bill gives Goldman Sachs and other big Wall Street banks a permanent, taxpayer-funded safety net by designating them ‘too big to fail.’ Just whose side is President Obama on?”

Steve Benen at Washington Monthly:

“To hear the dim-witted Minority Leader put it, the Obama administration and Goldman Sachs are close allies, and the administration-backed reform bill is intended to help firms like Goldman Sachs. And we now know for sure that administration officials are carrying water for Goldman Sachs because … they just charged Goldman Sachs with fraud.

What?

I’m trying to imagine the conversation in Boehner’s office when the statement was being written. Which genius on Boehner’s staff discovered that the Obama administration is going after Goldman Sachs, regardless of its campaign contributions to Obama, and thought, “A ha! Now we’ve got ’em!“

I would guess that genius was the Orangeman himself.

Whatever It Is, They’re Against It

17 Saturday Apr 2010

Posted by in bailout, Congress, economy, financial reform, financial regulation, Politics, special interests, too big to fail, Wall Street

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Senator Mitch McConnell (R-KY), speaking for all 41 Senate Republicans on the prospects for reforming and regulating the financial system:

That was after Susan Collins (R-ME) became the 41st signature on McConnell’s letter to Harry Reid which reads:

“We are united in our opposition to the partisan legislation reported by the Senate Banking Committee. As currently constructed, this bill allows for endless taxpayer bailouts of Wall Street and establishes new and unlimited regulatory powers that will stifle small businesses and community banks.”

All words straight out of a Frank Luntz memo, telling Republicans how to maintain the status quo while sounding like they are in favor of reform. In other words, just repeat the Luntz-inspired tactics from the health care debate, with “endless taxpayer bailouts” replacing “death panels” as the lie du jour. And a lie is exactly what it is. What will guarantee “endless taxpayer bailouts” is doing nothing. The proposed reform calls for applying the same process to the “too big to fail” institutions that the FDIC uses every day for dealing with banks that become insolvent.

Sheila Bair, head of the FDIC, and whose word I’ll take over McConnell’s 8 days a week, said as much in an interview published at American Banker on Thursday:

Would this bill perpetuate bailouts?
SHEILA BAIR: The status quo is bailouts. That’s what we have now. If you don’t do anything, you are going to keep having bailouts.

But does this bill stop them from happening?
BAIR: It makes them impossible and it should. We worked really hard to squeeze bailout language out of this bill. The construct is you can’t bail out an individual institution – you just can’t do it.

If this had been law prior to 2008, would we have seen the bailouts that took place?
BAIR: No. You could not do an AIG, Bear Stearns, or any of that…This bill would only allow system-wide liquidity support which could not be targeted at an individual firm. You can’t do capital investments at all, period. It’s only liquidity support. No more capital investments. That’s banned under all circumstances.

Do you see any way left for the government to bail out a financial institution?
BAIR: No, and that’s the whole idea. It was too easy for institutions to come and ask for help. They aren’t going to do that. This gives us a response: “Fine, we will take all these essential services and put them in a bridge bank. We will keep them running while your shareholders and debtors take all your losses. And oh, by the way, we are getting rid of your board and you, too.”

Here’s all you need to know about the dishonesty of Senate Republicans. One provision of the bill is for a $50 billion fund to dismantle the “too big to fail” banks. The fund is made up entirely of money which comes from the big banks, not one thin dime from the taxpayers. Republicans want this provision removed. But even if it goes, will they support the remainder of the legislation? I think you can guess the answer:

“McConnell suggested it wouldn’t be enough to satisfy Republicans.

“I appreciate the Obama administrations recognition of the need to substantively improve this bill,” McConnell said. “And I hope we can work with them to close the remaining bailout loopholes that put American taxpayers on the hook for financial institutions that become too big to fail.”

Oh by the way, how did the $50 billion get into the legislation to begin with? It was the result of negotiations between Banking Committee members Mark Warner (D-VA) and Bob Corker (R-TN). Needless to say, Corker now opposes the fund he negotiated to include.

Whatever it is, they’re against it.

Who’s In Control of the Senate?

20 Wednesday May 2009

Posted by in Obama, Politics, Uncategorized

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It’s beginning to look more and more like there was an even swap in the United States Senate, the Democrats got Arlen Specter and the Republicans got Harry Reid. No check that, after seeing Jim Webb on This Week this past Sunday saying there’s no need for a Truth Commission or an investigation into the activities of the Bush administration because “it’s not that big a deal” maybe the trade was 2 for 1.

In a press conference following the vote in the Senate not to fund the closing of Guantanamo, Harry Reid sounded more like an Abbot and Costello routine than a United States Senator.

REID: I’m saying that the United States Senate, Democrats and Republicans, do not want terrorists to be released in the United States. That’s very clear.

QUESTION: No one’s talking about releasing them. We’re talking about putting them in prison somewhere in the United States.

REID: Can’t put them in prison unless you release them.

QUESTION: Sir, are you going to clarify that a little bit? …

REID: I can’t make it any more clear than the statement I have given to you. We will never allow terrorists to be released in the United States.

QUESTION: But Senator, Senator, it’s not that you’re not being clear when you say you don’t want them released. But could you say — would you be all right with them being transferred to an American prison?

REID: Not in the United States.

Senator Reid’s words were a reiteration of what his fellow Republican, James Inhofe, said earlier this month:

“There are 245 hard-core terrorists that would be turned loose in the United States…You turn these people loose and they become magnets for terrorism all over the country.”

Senator Reid drew praise from Republican Leader Mitch McConnell for his efforts, which should tell Reid something.

“McConnell said Americans “ought to be pleased that our friends on the other side of the aisle are showing some flexibility on this issue and heading in our direction.”

Same old, same old from our politicians. Talk a good game about what a national disgrace Guantanamo is and then do nothing when it comes time to take action on closing it. The search is on for Senator Reid’s spine.

Then there was Senator Webb, who along with his asinine “no big deal” remark, glossed over torture by calling it “inappropriate behavior.” No Senator, the word is illegal.

Senator Webb also agreed with Newt Gingrich on the subject of the Chinese Uighurs, Gingrich saying they’re “not our problem” and Webb saying he doesn’t want them in Virginia. I guess we could always send them back to China where they would be subjected to torture, excuse me “inappropriate behavior” since that’s not a “big deal” any more.

Webb then complete his backflip on closing Gitmo, reversing an earlier statement he made by saying it should be done “at the right time.” I suppose the right time would be when those mean, old Republicans won’t say nasty things about you. Do you know when that will be, Senator? NEVER.