Good afternoon, Daily Kos readers. This is your afternoon open thread to discuss all things Hill-related. Use this thread to praise or bash Congresscritters, share a juicy tip, ask questions, offer critiques and suggestions, or post manifestos.
As always, this is the crosspost from Congress Matters.
Here's some of my own thoughts.
This weekend is the Army-Navy game. If Army beats Navy, the Black Nights will go to the EagleBank Bowl. You really don't care, do you? Okay, okay, okay. We also have hot Senate action on C-Span again this weekend.
A final effort to avoid a weekend of votes fell apart Thursday evening when Senate Democratic and Republican leaders failed to reach agreement to consider an omnibus spending bill on Friday.
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) filed a motion to cut off debate on a $447 billion appropriations conference report on Thursday night. As a result, the Senate will vote on the motion to end debate on Saturday and likely vote to pass the spending legislation on Sunday.
So yeah. The Senate hasn't done much beyond squat all year and now they are whining about having to work weekends in December. I have very little sympathy.
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And they must be really, really busy these days. Chuck Grassley can't even take ten minutes to condemn a Ugandan law that would award the death penalty to people with teh gay.
In recent weeks, One Iowa, the state’s largest LGBT organization, has been pressuring Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-IA) to denounce the Anti-Homosexuality Bill currently being considered by the Ugandan parliament.
~snip
“I’ve got a fulltime job reading bills in Congress without reading the bills in another 190 countries,” Grassley said. “Surely nobody in Iowa expects me to keep up on issues that are in the parliaments of other countries. Besides I don’t know anything about it.”
I guess it would be going to far to ask him to catch The Rachel Maddow show once in a while.
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This item would make The Most Important News of the Day™ but I think she's dead serious about this.
A Christian civil liberties organization on Thursday asked centrist Virginia Rep. Tom Perriello (D) to move his home district office to a location more favorable to protesters.
The Rutherford Institute, which was founded by conservative constitutional lawyer John W. Whitehead, penned a letter to the freshman Perriello citing the concerns of a local tea party group and the University of Virginia College Republicans that the location of his Charlottesville office interferes with their right to protest there.
Shorter version: You can't hear our idiocy, so spend a bunch of tax money to move your offices.
Honestly, this group of morans is arguing that Periello is violating their right to protest, so he should move into new digs where his staff can be harassed all day and not get their casework done. If these people can understand legal reasoning, here's the memo: the government has no responsibility to facilitate protests. Thanks for playing.
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This really is serious. The House is looking at raising the debt ceiling by another $1.8 trillion.
House Majority Leader Steny H. Hoyer (D-Md.) said Friday that the government needs to borrow at least $1.8 trillion more next year to avoid defaulting on its debts.
Such an increase in the nation's debt ceiling is much larger than Democrats had contemplated earlier this year.
Hoyer's comment came as senior White House officials and House and Senate leaders planned to resume negotiations over the debt limit, with the three camps at odds over how to chart a course toward fiscal solvency.
When Dick Cheney George W. Bush was in charge, the Republicans managed to piss away a budget surplus. Instead of using that money to pay down the debt, they "gave it back" to the people. They also borrowed pile after pile of money to fund the Iraq War. Then they left the mess to the Democrats to clean up. We would all do well to remember that when we throw temper tantrums about giving up on the party and voting Republican in 2010.
Could the solution be (glup and shudder) a Value-Added Tax?
Members of Congress, like their constituents, are squeamish about such ideas, instead suggesting spending cuts or higher taxes on the rich. But with a lack of political will to do the former, and a practical ceiling to how much revenue can be milked from the latter, economists across the political spectrum say a consumption tax may be inevitable once the economy fully recovers.
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The Party of No has found something they actually want to do: irritate the unions.
GOP urges Obama administration to move on trio of trade pacts
House Republicans on Friday urged the Obama administration to press forward with three stalled trade agreements that have divided Democrats.
~snip
The three trade deals mentioned in the letter are with Colombia, Panama and South Korea. All three are vociferously opposed by labor unions, particularly the agreement with Colombia, which unions insist has not done enough to prosecute those responsible for violence against union organizers.
The Democratic Party has been deeply divided on the issue of trade, with nearly half the caucus signing legislation that would call for the renegotiation of existing trade deals. Other Democrats, including House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (Md.), have spoken out in favor of moving the deals.
Isn't that cute? The Republicans think they are relevant enough to "urge" President Obama to do their bidding.
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In health care reform news, Nancy Pelosi says she prefers the public option, but endorsed the Medicare buy-in.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi endorsed a proposal Thursday that would allow people in late middle age to buy insurance through Medicare, helping to sustain an idea that sprang unexpectedly from the Senate this week.
But the California Democrat reiterated that she would prefer to create government-sponsored coverage for Americans of all ages, and questions linger in the Senate about the politics and policy of expanding Medicare by allowing people ages 55 to 64 to buy into the federal insurance program for the elderly.
The speaker stopped short of embracing the broader contours of a fragile compromise worked out by liberal and moderate Senate negotiators in an effort to nudge forward broad changes to the health-care system. Still, she said: "There's certainly a great deal of appeal" to expanding Medicare.
Here's a better idea: Medicare as an option to everyone over 18 and SCHIP available to all parents. Bonus: no need to build a whole new publicly owned health insurance company.
Then again, maybe this it's such a hot idea. Remember that the whole point of reform is to make health insurance affordable. Then read this:
Senate Democrats have provided few details about their latest health care proposal, but this much seems clear: Anyone who wants to buy the same health benefits as members of Congress, or to buy coverage through Medicare, should be prepared to fork over a large chunk of cash.
~snip
That could leave the family earning $54,000, slightly more than the current median household income, with monthly premium costs of more than $825.
The Democrats’ proposal would also allow some people ages 55 to 64 to “buy in” to Medicare, starting in 2011. That could cost about $7,600 a year per person or $15,200 for a couple, according to a budget office analysis of an earlier version of the concept. No subsidies would be available until 2014.
Now we are getting close to an argument for scrapping the whole damned thing.
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More sanctions against Iran might be on the horizon.
Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates said on Friday that he expected the United States and its allies to impose more stringent sanctions against Iran, which has been increasingly defiant in recent weeks of the West’s demands to limit its nuclear program.
“I think you’re going to see some significant additional sanctions imposed by the international community, assuming that the Iranians don’t change course and agree to do the things that they signed up to do at the beginning of October,” Mr. Gates said during a question-and-answer session with American troops in Kirkuk, north of Baghdad.
Under a deadline imposed by President Obama, Iran has until the end of this year to show progress in engaging with the West to limit its nuclear ambitions before the United States would seek new sanctions. Mr. Gates’s comments were among the first from a senior member of the Obama administration to say that tougher sanctions were now likely.
Two other notes. Obama seems confident that Russia and China will join in the sanctions to make them effectives. Also, Gates ruled out military action against Iran.
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Here's an idea for long term sanctions against Iran. Find a way to use less oil. The latest bill is far from perfect, but it's a start.
Senators offer Copenhagen boost
Three senators crafting a compromise climate bill have endorsed a national greenhouse gas emissions cut of 17 percent by 2020.
The emissions target was included in a proposed framework on Thursday from Sens. John Kerry (D-Mass.), Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) and Joe Lieberman (I-Conn.). It mirrors House-passed legislation and represents the target President Barack Obama will offer on behalf of the U.S. at the international climate talks in Copenhagen, Denmark.
~snip
The three senators released a broadly worded "framework" of their plan to blend emissions caps with wider offshore oil-and-gas drilling, expanded federal support for nuclear power and other measures.
Ultimately, though, what we really need is funding for new innovations in clean fuels.
Check out Mother Jones today for a ton of coverage about the climate change talks.
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The political concern trolls Politico helpfully discusses all of the Democrats who are under investigation by the House Ethics Committee and the Justice Department.
This wave of ethics problems for Capitol Hill Democrats makes GOP strategists optimistic that they can do to Democrats what was done to Republicans in 2006: paint a picture of a majority party corrupted by its own power.
“Thanks to Nancy Pelosi’s lapses in judgment, the rap sheet on the Democratic-led Congress is getting longer by the day,” said Ken Spain, communications director for the National Republican Congressional Committee. “When the speaker promised to ‘drain the swamp,’ she probably didn’t think she’d be fighting off hypocrisy charges four years later heading into the 2010 elections.”
Hey, I have an idea. Let's step into the Way-Back Machine and remember when Republicans actively tried to block Ethics Investigations.
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And speaking of corruption, don't forget about TPM's Golden Duke awards. The deadline for nominations is Dec. 18 and we get to read the winners on New Years Eve. I guess that makes sense, because you never know when someone is going to do something stupid on Dec. 28.
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Rep. Lois Capps tears apart the Stupak Coathanger Amendment.
Samples:
Reality: The Stupak-Pitts Amendment goes well beyond current law by contracting access to abortion services and is in no way the simple extension of the Hyde Amendment its proponents claim.
Reality: It is highly unlikely that any insurance plan is going to go through the pain staking process of setting up two separate plans —one with abortion services offered and one without – to cater to less than 20% of the Exchange participants who are allowed to buy plans that include abortion services.
Reality: The Stupak-Pitts Amendment goes well beyond current law by contracting access to abortion services and is in no way the simple extension of the Hyde Amendment its proponents claim.
Reality: Under the Capps language the Exchange would have to ensure that there is at least one plan that does not include abortion services and one that does.
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And finally in The Most Important News of the Day™ The War on The War on Christmas has begun.
Yesterday, Steve Benen noted that 19 House Republicans had signed onto H. Res. 951, a resolution to honor Christmas and “strongly” disapprove of attempts to ban Christmas references. Today, ThinkProgress obtained an e-mail sent around to Republican and Democratic legislative directors by Rep. Henry Brown’s (R-SC) office, asking them to have their bosses sign onto the legislation.
So....
Oh yeah!
Jenny Sanford is finally divorcing the philandering jerk.
Have a good weekend, everyone.