Capitol Hill News Open Thread

by: CA Berkeley WV

Thu Dec 03, 2009 at 17:50:46 PM EST

Good afternoon, West Virginia Blue 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.

I have been posting this on Daily Kos and Congress Matters. I seem to be a glutton for punishment. If you like it, I'll keep crossposting.

This is the most important news of the day... okay, maybe only some of it. So if you disagree, go watch CSPAN2.

Here is the crosspost from Congress Matters.

First things first. Sen. Robert C. Byrd (D-WV) has been voting today.

And here are some of my own thoughts.

As the senior Republican on the Budget Committee, Mr. Gregg, who is retiring after next year, is one of his party's foremost experts on legislative war games. Party leaders, for instance, tapped Mr. Gregg to draw up their battle plan in the event that Democrats tried to fast-track the health care legislation using a hardball tactic called budget reconciliation, which would potentially allow approval of the bill by a simple majority.

So far, Democrats have said they hope to pass the bill under regular procedures, with full debate. And that means Republicans will have a hefty arsenal by which they can try to slow down debate and force the majority leader, Harry Reid, to miss his goal of completing the bill by Christmas.

Everything had been moving so smoothly this session. Even if you think everything you have read before has sunk in, read his memo.

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Let's get on the same page here. Either we do stuff or we don't.

"The important thing from my perspective, speaking for Steny Hoyer, is to get a jobs package that will work, not getting one right now," Hoyer told reporters. "In other words, we need to work on this, make sure we've got it right, make sure we think it will be effective, and if we adopt it in the next two or three weeks, or we adopt it in January, we need to make sure it will work."

Miller suggested that moving quickly was critical. "It's very important, because there is concern that parts of the stimulus start winding down," Miller said, referring to the $787 billion stimulus package passed earlier this year. "You'd like to have this come on-line as rapidly as possible."

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As David noted Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) has place a hold on the nomination of Fed Chairman Bernake's re-nomination. The hearing for his confirmation is today. Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchinson (R-TX) is asking about health care reform and think finally gets to some about banks, but not these.

. . . there are repeated boom-bust-bailout cycles that tend to get cost the taxpayer more and pose greater threat to the macroeconomy over time.  What can be done to break this loop?

. . . a lightly regulated financial sector can produce a boom, based on a high degree of debt, that causes major disruption when it crashes and leads to a Great Depression - even if the major banks are (initially) saved.  How should we modify the Aldrich system to remove such risks?

. . . the largest banks should be broken up, so they are no longer "too big to fail."  Paul Volcker and Alan Greenspan, in recent statements, have supported the same broad approach.  Can you explain why you differ from Mervyn King, Paul Volcker, and Alan Greenspan on this policy prescription?

Have you heard any other names out there for this job? I want him and Prof Elizabeth Warren in my corner.

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Remember when CIA Director Panetta found out about a program that no one thought Congress needed to be briefed about?

Erik Prince and some of his navy friends, it so happens, had been kicking around the idea of opening a full-service training compound to replace the usual patchwork of such facilities. In 1996, Prince took an honorable discharge and began buying up land in North Carolina. "The idea was not to be a defense contractor per se," Prince says, touring the grounds of what looks and feels like a Disneyland for alpha males. "I just wanted a first-rate training facility for law enforcement, the military, and, in particular, the special-operations community."

Business was slow. The navy seals came early-January 1998-but they didn't come often, and by the time the Blackwater Lodge and Training Center officially opened, that May, Prince's friends and advisers thought he was throwing good money after bad. "A lot of people said, 'This is a rich kid's hunting lodge,'" Prince explains. "They could not figure out what I was doing."

UPDATE2: In America's Metastasizing Intelligence Apparatus, danps explores this normally dark area from teh light of Pennsylvania Avenue

Taken together, these stories draw a picture of aggrandized intelligence and federal law enforcement agencies very quietly getting their hooks into more and more data streams with minimal accountability. Congressional Democrats have good reasons to flout the president's wishes on some policy issues, but the body as a whole would seem to have an interest in coming to grips with surveillance activities that are happening increasingly out of its sight. Institutional prerogatives would seem to trump ideology or party affiliation in these matters. It certainly has at the other end of Pennsylvania Avenue.

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We have a new Commander in Chief. The role of Congress is still the same, fund him or not.

Asked about whether an additional vote is necessary, White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs told ABC's Jake Tapper that "the president made really clear last evening" that the 2001 war authorization covers his decision to deploy more troops.

That's a position that Democratic leaders on Capitol Hill seem inclined to support. A senior Democratic leadership aide tells ABC News that no votes on war strategy are likely to come until some time in 2010 -- well after the surge begins -- when the administration is expected to come back to Congress for additional funds.

McGovern said he's not doubting the president's authority, as commander-in-chief, to send more troops to Afghanistan. But he said that basing such a move on the 2001 war vote would mean that Obama has "stretched" the meaning of that resolution.

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Remember when Leader Reid flashed the victory sign with regard to the passage of health care reform? Oh, wait, that was his count of possible bi-partisan support. Ezra thinks that may be, well, pretty good. Affordability was one of Pres. Snowe's concerns during the Senate Finance Committee markup.

The big exception is if Collins attempts to achieve affordability by watering down the basic benefits package. That doesn't make health-care insurance "more affordable" so much as it makes it "less useful," which really isn't the point of this exercise. But if Collins is willing to make insurance more affordable by increasing the subsidies, then that's all for the good.

Collins's support could lead to other improvements, as well. As Suzy Khimm notes, pulling Collins and Snowe onto the bill could leave you with a better bill. Ben Nelson, for instance, is drafting a "Stupak-like" amendment, while Collins and Snowe are both pro-choice. If one of them is willing to be the 60th vote, Nelson will have a tougher time taking abortion rights hostage.

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If Sen. James Inhofe (R-OK) and the ClimateGate email hackers had this kind of science regarding greenhouse gases to deal with, do you think they would have any success with their arguments? We all have to hydrate even in the dark. Maybe there would be less boycotts of hearings.

The nine-year study, conducted by the U.S. Geological Survey, provides the first nationwide count of intersex fish in American rivers. Overall, 44 percent of the largemouth and smallmouth bass dissected turned out to be intersex, but at some sites 91 percent of the male largemouth bass were affected. Biologist Jo Ellen Hinck's team found intersex males at 34 of 111 sites in eight of nine major river basins, including the Columbia, the Colorado and the Mississippi. The Southeastern U.S. was hit hardest, with intersex bass at every location sampled along the Apalachicola, Savannah and Pee Dee rivers. "Now we need to figure out why," says Hinck, the study's leader.

The discovery raises some tough questions. Scientists don't know whether the growing number of feminized fish could hinder reproduction enough to disturb the rest of the ecosystem or even drive bass into extinction. Even scarier, the culprit is still unknown. The prime suspect? Our toilets. Previous research indicates that wastewater treatment plants flush endocrine-disruptive compounds (EDCs), including pharmaceuticals, pesticides and hormones, into rivers. Even minuscule amounts of EDCs can trigger powerful hormonal shifts that deform male fishes' reproductive organs.

This may not be what Gloria Steinem, Betty Friedan and the movement for equality of the sexes had in mind.

UPDATE: Craig Ferguson fans will be glad to know the Sen. Roger WIcker (R-MS) wants the modified health care plan after today's votes be sent to "CBS".