Wednesday, April 10, 2013

A few guns, some butter

The week before the tax deadline is always the busiest for me. Here we go with some snips...


“We want to make sure … (chained CPI) is dead on arrival,” Democracy for American chairman Jim Dean told ABC News.

Dean’s organization is one of the many progressive groups that are part of the coalition to deliver the petition to the White House. Dean said that although he and his organization appreciate the president’s “forceful leadership” on issues like gun violence prevention, the CPI proposal is one that has caused them to be extremely disappointed in him.

“People understand that we are not getting everything out of this person,” Dean said. “This was never our way or the highway — even when he was elected in 2008. He’s crossed a line here.”

That was not unpleasant.

Look, it's time to end this ridiculous charade. The White House is proposing what's in the White House budget because that's what the White House wants. They'll fight just as hard to cut Social Security as they will for any of its other provisions. And that's because the White House, let's just face facts, isn't on the side of the American people. They should simply come out and speak with conviction: They don't give a shit about Social Security or anybody who is on it because they want a balanced budget with low taxes. That's the only explanation for passing another $3.4 trillion round of Bush Tax Cuts while cutting Social Security.

Chain, chain, chained...

They know it’s a loser and yet they persist.  That’s nothing I or most Democrats voted for in 2012.  There is a potential “right” way for chained CPI to be done, but there are so many caveats that it could never be done right in our current political system.

The truly stupid part is that we’re talking about debt when we’re still in a massive unemployment crisis. With the 78th anniversary of the WPA this week, that should remind us that we should be talking about jobs and not the deficit. 

Seriously, WTF?

But as always Obama negotiated against himself, made concessions without corresponding Republican ones, became the only elected official in Washington, D.C., to put Social Security benefits cuts in a formal proposal (thus owning them), and then ... what?

Republicans dismissed everything out of hand, progressive groups went to war against the White House, Congressional Democrats distanced themselves from the proposal save for House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (ever the loyal lieutenant), and seniors certainly weren't impressed.

If Obama's goal was to look weak and isolate himself, generating bipartisan scorn and ridicule while giving Republicans a chance to claim Democrats want to cut Social Security during 2014 elections, then sure, mission accomplished.

If he actually thought he was accomplishing something useful, however ... the mind reels.

Maybe Democrats could stop quarreling about whether Obama is a putz or not, and perhaps get Hillary Clinton on the record about where she stands on chained CPI. I'm guessing that she won't hold a presser put up a YouTube coming out in favor.

Okay, enough of that.

-- Look, somebody borrowed my headline. Meh. It's not like I had it trade-marked or anything.



-- Maybe some action on the gun safety bill today or tomorrow.

The U.S. Senate will take up gun control starting on Thursday, with a filibuster from Republicans the first order of business before weeks of debates over background checks and other measures begin.

Majority Leader Harry Reid had asked for a compromise on background checks from two senators, Joe Manchin of West Virginia and Pat Toomey of Pennsylvania, by Tuesday night. Manchin and Toomey will announce the bipartisan deal on Wednesday morning.

The approval of at least eight Republicans is crucial because Reid will need 60 votes in the Senate on Thursday to have a successful cloture vote to avoid a filibuster. So far, eight Republican senators say they will not vote to support a filibuster.

A group of Republican senators including Marco Rubio, Ted Cruz, Rand Paul, and Jim Inhofe have said they will filibuster “any legislation that infringe[s] on the American people’s constitutional right to bear arms.” 

Carnival Cruz canceled his presser this morning, whatever that means.

Back to work.

Monday, April 08, 2013

The Weekly Wrangle

The Texas Progressive Alliance celebrates bluebonnets, mudbugs, and the first week of the baseball season in bringing you this week's blog post roundup.

Off the Kuff takes a look back at the Democrats in the Legislature who voted for the anti-gay marriage constitutional amendment of 2005 and follows up to see where they stand on it now.  

WCNews at Eye on Williamson posts on the budget debate in the House this week, and the fact that there was little discussion of what Texans really need, in Still trying to find a way in...the budget version.

At TexasKaos, Libby Shaw explains why Senator Cruz Brings Plenty of Spite But No Bacon. Check it out.

The Republicans in the Texas House passed an amendment that kinda sorta endorsed the spirit of Medicaid expansion, but within a few hours got 'corrected' by their lobbyists and rescinded it. PDiddie at Brains and Eggs kind sorta expected that.  

CouldBeTrue of South Texas Chisme notes that Rick Perry implies Mexicans shot the Texas DAs. Didn't Perry get the Reince Priebus memo about gratuitous racist eruptions?

============= 

And here are some blog posts of interest from elsewhere in Texas.

The Lunch Tray is a food blogger against hunger.

Bob Cavnar explains some lesser known dangers of fracking.  And Texas Vox says that the pipeline spill in Arkansas calls into question the viability of converting other older pipelines for transporting tar sands, while the Tar Sands Blockade posted a dispatch from ExxonMobil's spill zone, including a WTF picture of a pipeline repair.

Juanita Jean has a question for the queen of True The Vote.

Equality Texas reminds us that it's always a good idea to get to know your legislator.

Jason Stanford has a strategy for coping with the STAAR tests, while Raise Your Hand Texas outlines an agenda for real school reform. 

Austin Contrarian publishes a response from Sen. Kirk Watson to an earlier post about one of his bills.
  
Texas Leftist talks to the city of Houston about plans to overhaul its development and density ordinances.

Harold Cook channels William Travis.

And finally, we wish fellow blogger Katy Anders a peaceful and short sabbatical.

Friday, April 05, 2013

Obama drops his pants before GOP again

I am so sick of this shit.

President Obama will release a budget next week that proposes significant cuts to Medicare and Social Security and fewer tax hikes than in the past, a conciliatory approach that he hopes will convince Republicans to sign onto a grand bargain that would curb government borrowing and replace deep spending cuts that took effect March 1.

When he unveils the budget on Wednesday, Obama will break with the tradition of providing a sweeping vision of his ideal spending priorities, untethered from political realities. Instead, the document will incorporate the compromise offer Obama made to House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) last December in the discussions over the so-called “fiscal cliff” – which included $1.8 trillion in deficit reduction through spending cuts and tax increases.

Now it's up to the Republicans in Congress to save us by saying 'no'.

While Republicans are certain to be skeptical of Obama’s call for more taxes, the president also is likely to face immediate heat over his budget proposal from some Democrats and liberal supporters. Obama proposes, for instance, to change the cost-of-living calculation for Social Security in a way that will reduce benefits for most beneficiaries, a key Republican request that he had earlier embraced only as part of a compromise. Many Democrats say they are opposed to any Social Security cuts and are likely to be furious that such cuts are now being proposed as official administration policy.

Obama isn't playing 3-D chess here with the Enterprise crew Congress members wearing red shirts. If they call his bluff, everybody that voted for him five months ago -- and some of us who did not -- are well and truly fucked.

Neither the president nor senior aides privately hold much hope that Republican leaders — Mr. Boehner and Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the Senate Republican leader — will compromise. So Mr. Obama’s strategy of reaching out to other Senate Republicans reflects a calculation that enough of them might cut a budget deal with the Democratic Senate majority. If that happens, the reasoning goes, a Senate-passed compromise would put pressure on the House to go along. 

That account suggests nothing significant is likely to happen, and places faith in the president's ability to outmaneuver the dim-witted conservatives by getting them to swallow a poison pill. I don't have that much faith in the president's ability, needless to say.

To me it seems as dangerous as flying planes over South Korea in order to help the North Koreans thoughtfully arrive at a decision to tone down their hysteria. What happens if the bad guys don't get the message? What if there are enough Republicans who decide to take the Faustian bargain of tax increases for social program cuts? Is Obama's Plan B to renege on the offer?

The president is too persistent in applying cosmetics to the swine.

I'm sick and tired of being sold down the river by Democrats trying to reason with Republicans. The pigs are annoyed with your effort, Mr. President, and so are a wide swath of your fellow travelers. Cut. it. out.

Update:

Now that Obama has fully embraced the cuts, no amount of White House spin is going to be able to permanently pin the chained CPI on Republicans, as the administration official is trying to do. Republicans have been demanding for months that Obama specifically spell out the cuts to social insurance programs he would accept; now he's done so, they will make sure he owns them.

The White House seems to believe that this will show the American public that he is Very Serious about both deficit reduction and working with Republicans, that "he is willing to compromise and do tough things to reduce the deficit,” in the words of a senior administration official. Because of course a willingness to compromise is all that it takes to make the Republicans come around. That and his charm offensive.

Republicans aren't going to come around, and now have a weapon. And what the American people will probably remember is that in 2008 candidate Obama promised that as president, he would not cut Social Security, a promise reiterated by Vice President Biden in 2012. In fact, we're probably not going to be allowed to forget that, once the Republicans get their ads running in congressional districts around the country saying that Barack Obama broke his promise and wants to cut your Social Security.

Update II: Boehner rejects president's proposal. Moneyshot...

A senior Senate GOP aide said Republicans are translating the White House budget proposal as a signal to Senate Democrats that they must accept benefit cuts.

“The fact that chained CPI is in there, Republicans will take that as a signal that the White House is willing to use chained CPI as an offset,” the aide said. “It seems to me that the White House is sort of telling Senate Democrats to get used to it.”

Texas House head-fakes on Medicaid expansion

Buried in the good news about the death of school vouchers coming out of yesterday evening's state budget marathon is the sad fact that House members passed -- and later rescinded -- consideration of a discussion about the possibility of Medicaid expansion.

If that description sounds convoluted, it's because the debate in Austin was also. To Olivia Messer of the Observer...

For a brief few hours on Thursday, members of the Texas House endorsed a version of Medicaid expansion—or at least some parameters for it—but then changed their minds.

The title of that piece has the words "flip-flop" in it. Which is an appropriate description of what happened.

As Becca Aaronson of the Texas Tribune reported, the amendment wouldn’t have even directed HHSC to expand Medicaid. Rather if the state negotiated with the Obama administration to expand eligibility, the amendment said, Texas would’ve had to reduce “uncompensated care costs, [promote] the use of private insurance plans and health savings accounts, and [establish] wellness, cost-sharing and pay-for-performance initiatives. It also called for creating customized benefit plans for different Medicaid populations. The Legislative Budget Board would have been charged with determining whether such a deal addresses those reforms.”

The House initially approved the amendment Thursday afternoon. But just a few short hours after the amendment passed, Rep. Geanie Morrison (R-Victoria) proposed that the House reconsider the vote. Though Morrison initially voted in favor, she later argued vehemently that she hadn’t been “clear on what the amendment does” and that other Republicans had been similarly confused. “I want to have a discussion and then make the decision.”

The amendment was sponsored by Burnham, the lower chamber's most progressive member, and supported by Republican John Zerwas, whom I have written about previously.

House Democrats and Republicans both rose to defend the measure and to prevent reconsideration—the parliamentary version of a do-over. Rep. Trey Martinez Fischer (D-San Antonio) said, “What we’re doing here might be the most we’re ever going to do on [Medicaid].” Burnam pointed out that the measure was actually quite similar to language  Sen. Tommy Williams (R-The Woodlands) had proposed for the Senate version of the budget (and which was approved) two weeks ago. Rep. John Zerwas (R-Simonton), who collaborated with Burnam on the amendment, took to the microphone to clarify that “it’s really not a Medicaid expansion at all.”

Rep. Craig Eiland (D-Galveston) said that the amendment would certainly not ensure passage of Medicaid expansion, since Gov. Perry has so clearly opposed it anyway. “The governor has stated quite clearly that there will be no Medicaid expansion as is proposed,” he said. “If he ever tells you that he will veto something, it’s not a threat, it’s a promise.”

Even still, the floor voted 93-54 to reconsider the amendment.

I'd really like to know the backstory here. I'm going to speculate that somebody (-bodies) got bum-rushed by the governor or some of his hoods at the right-wing think tanks. I can't tell from the coverage how many members voted to approve the amendment initially and then switched their vote, but that will eventually be revealed.

As Burnam notes, the proposal remains in the Senate's version.

“It’s still in the Senate amendment,” Burnam said. “It’ll go to conference and people will talk about whether we remain open-minded and try and figure out a way to work with the national government that’s throwing out some of this money or do we just kiss it off?”

But the stench of ignorance hangs in the air like a... well, you know.

When asked if he bought the argument that Republicans truly didn’t understand what the amendment was about, Burnam said, “Unfortunately, that’s right. Unfortunately, they’re so closed-minded and bigoted and so not understanding about Obamacare that they just went along because the leadership was for it.”

So it seems that what we have here is legislators taking a vote on something that they apparently didn't fully understand. And when they got whipped by the "Obamacare is eee-vil" thugs, then they suddenly got themselves back in the far right line. So now, Medicaid expansion will probably die a slow death in some back committee room. That's a metaphor for what's going to happen to the poor, ill Texans who can't afford to get healthcare as it stands. This is the outcome I both dreaded and predicted.

Congratulations to the advocates of Texas education on finding some sanity in the Texas House with respect to vouchers. But as for the po' folks... too bad for you.

I suppose they should hire better lobbyists in the next session.

Thursday, April 04, 2013

Because no person is illegal

Another conservative meme falls down.

Starting now, you will never see the "lazy" words "illegal immigrant" in another AP story unless they're quoting someone important saying it. That faint sound you hear is Senate reporters from the AP, The New York Times, and beyond smacking their delete keys, rethinking their agenda setting aloud, and figuring out how we talk now, amidst a serious legislative discussion, about the millions of illegal immigrants people living in the U.S. without legal permission. AP Executive Editor Kathleen Carroll explains the timely style change
The Stylebook no longer sanctions the term "illegal immigrant" or the use of "illegal" to describe a person. Instead, it tells users that "illegal" should describe only an action, such as living in or immigrating to a country illegally.

Coe-rrectamundo. Adverbs shouldn't be nouns. Verbs increasingly become nouns, but not descriptors. This is important.

The caterwauling about Ill Eagles was nothing but a racist diatribe when it was birthed years ago by old, angry white Republicans. But they kept screeching about it until they finally got some media attention, and then it became part of the American discussion. But once "illegal" became people -- men, women, and children -- that's when the xenophobes oops, people with xenophobia lost the battle. Now they are losing the war.

The stricken phrase, as the AP's Carroll explained to Poynter, "ends up pigeonholing people or creating long descriptive titles where you use some main event in someone’s life to become the modifier before their name." She added that the use was a "lazy device."

Just as there are no longer schizophrenics or diabetics, but people with diabetes and schizophrenia. What, you didn't know that either?

Yes, we'll have to endure the whining and moaning of those who are outraged at the PC encroaching on their freedumb of speech. They'll point to George Carlin, alleged liberal icon, as evidence that political correctness has, like socialism, run amuck across this great land.


"Political correctness is America's newest form of intolerance, and it's especially pernicious because it comes disguised as tolerance. It presents itself as fairness, yet attempts to restrict and control people's language with strict codes and rigid rules. I'm not sure that's the way to fight discrimination. I'm not sure silencing people or forcing them to alter their speech is the best method for solving problems that go much deeper than speech."

Rest in peace, George. I'm still a big fan, even though you're wrong in this case.

At least in the documented and official history, the USA will no longer stigmatize economic refugees with a word that refers to criminal behavior. Will people without citizen status commit crimes? I feel certain they will, just as US citizens do every day. And like the Republicans who violated the speed limit on their way to work this morning, or tear the tags off their pillows, or cheat on their taxes, we won't be calling them "illegals". They're just people who violated the law. Some got caught and some got convicted, and some did not. They're all still innocent until proven guilty.

No person is illegal. Not in God's eyes, and now, not by the judgment of the Associated Press.

Regular folks -- along with the differently-abled people who can do so -- are standing and applauding.

Related: The only thing Republicans have to fear about immigration reform is the GOP itself.

Only 35 percent of Republicans support a path to citizenship for illegal immigrants, according to a Washington Post/ABC News poll. Among conservative Republicans, only 30 percent support it. Despite, say, Florida Sen. Marco Rubio doing a tour of conservative talk radio to pitch his immigration proposal, support among Republicans has actually declined since February. But Republicans don't just have to win over the Republican base. There are many groups within the GOP that are fighting immigration reform, or are ambivalent about it.

What the poll numbers reveal about immigration reform all depends on how the questions get asked. And while it is true that some in the GOP have sobered up about their chances of winning future elections and are coming around to the light, it's also true that some never will.