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Capitol Hill News Open Thread

by: CA Berkeley WV

Thu Feb 18, 2010 at 02:50:13 AM EST


CA Berkeley WV

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. We'll be here all weekend.

Some of the Hill news that's fit to blog is over the fold...

CA Berkeley WV :: Capitol Hill News Open Thread
I have been know to come up with tables and lists that are a bit long. This time I will spare you.

111 Lawmakers Block Recovery While Taking Credit For Its Success

Rep. Shelly Capito Moore (R-WV) Lauded $1.5 million In Stimulus Funds She Voted Against. Talking Points Memo reported: "There are copious other examples from Rep. Shelley Moore Capito (R-WV) lauding $1.5 million in neighborhood funds to Rep. Pete Hoekstra (R-MI) boasting on Twitter of the ''very generous'' stimulus incentive for first-time homebuyers. TPM, 2/10/09

   -Rep. Moore Voted Against The Recovery Package Twice
    Roll Call Vote #46; Roll Call Vote #70

Yup, that's our Shelley. Her Democratic challenger  this year is Virginia Graf, former religious sister. Notice the district: 20 miles wide and 300 miles long,stretching from the expensive DC metro area through three  other media markets to get  to the Ohio River. West Virginia has eight separate markets, California has fourteen.

Does anybody else have a critter with a track record like this too?

********
Is being the Party of No Enough?

It was a straightforward question.

"Name three bills or amendments that you have gotten passed that are the most beneficial to the people of the 6th Congressional District," GOP Rep. Michele Bachmann was asked by St. Cloud Times reporter Dave Aeikens.

The answer wasn't.

Maybe not not everyone in MN-06 is afraid of ACORN taking over the financial regulation.

********
Speaking of that Tea Party movement, it appears the Democrats aren't the only ones who occasionally form a circular firing squad. Patriots appear to like to talk to muckrakers.

"These few self proclaimed leaders are helping the GOP hijack the movement, despite Rasmussen polls that indicate the majority support a third party," wrote Knapp.

Meanwhile, yesterday, Everett Wilkinson, a South Florida Tea Party activist, launched Save Our Movement, a website warning that Steele, the RNC chair, "is trying to take over the 'Tea Party.'" The site allows users to send an email message to Steele "regarding the 'hijacking' of the Tea Party Movement by the GOP."

Wilkinson was acting in response to Steele's meeting with a group of around 50 Tea Party leaders. Many Tea Partiers have long warned of efforts by the Republican Party to seize control of the movement

Remember, they surround us.

But they just haven't figured out where.

If Ganley were to win the primary, his candidacy would pit one of Ohio's most successful car dealers against the politician who put money in his pocket. Sutton sponsored the legislation for the popular 2009 cash for clunkers program, which offered people rebates of up to $4,500 to trade in their old gas guzzlers.

Squeaky Latch is not amused. Smell the burn.

********
Not all bankers are against the idea of the Consumer Financial Protection Agency.

A Consumer Financial Protection Agency can be the vehicle that restores consumer confidence in our products, our services and our institutions. The customers we serve will always need credit and other banking products . . . What they want is simple, clearly explained products and the comfort that someone is looking out for their best interests when financial products are developed and marketed. . . .

But it seems all the Republicans in the Senate are, similar to the results in the House.

Indeed, Republicans are already treating the protection agency like poison. Senate Banking Committee Chairman Christopher Dodd (D-Conn.) may have abandoned his finance-reform talks with Sen. Richard Shelby (R-Ala.), an outspoken foe of a separate agency to protect consumers. But Shelby's replacement at the negotiating table is Sen. Bob Corker (R-Tenn.), who said recently that, just as Republicans were unanimous in opposing the public plan in the health care debate, so too are they united against an independent consumer financial protection agency, or CFPA - a proposal championed by Elizabeth Warren, head of the TARP oversight panel.

Frank Lutz is part of the wrecking crew. Don't forget it.

********
In The Most Important News of the DayTM, pair this with the terrible, no good, very bad health-care idea.

In reality, the ad was a recruiting pitch for a plan hatched by a prominent Rhode Island estate-planning lawyer, who believed he had discovered a way to use an investment product sold by insurance companies to make no-risk bets on the stock market. He recruited dozens of terminally ill people to, in effect, serve as paid fronts for purchases of the product, variable annuities. The lawyer and other investors put tens of millions of dollars into the policies, hoping to reap a profit when the recruits died.
.

Mrs. Palin? Paging Mrs. Palin.

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offense or defense (0.00 / 0)
either can win a game for you...in fact, it is a well known sports cliche that defense wins games...that bachmann hasnt done anything offensively is irrelevant, she is a superstar defensive player helping to stop on goal all the crap reid and pelosi tried to get into the net at the end of last year...playoff hockey is the best....

You missed the point. As usualy (0.00 / 0)
She is suppose to represent MN-06. And the local paper does not seem to think she is doing that.

NFTT: Support My Team or I Will Dance

[ Parent ]
i understood (0.00 / 0)
and you missed my point...by saying no to your ilk she is helping MN-06

[ Parent ]
You don't know her district that well do you? (0.00 / 0)
In 2008, Elwyn Tinklenberg, a very late Democratic challenger, took 43 percent to 46 percent for Bachmann and 10 percent for Independence Party candidate Bob Anderson, a dental technician. Bachmann did, nonetheless run well behind GOP presidential nominee John McCain, who took 53 percent of the district's vote to 45 percent for Obama.

The DFL controls both the state house, 47 to 87, and senate, 21 to 46.  What if Minnesota loses one seat in Congress? You think she will have many boosters, the "don't fill in the Census cuz Obama wants to stick you in a re-education camp"? Hmm?

NFTT: Support My Team or I Will Dance


[ Parent ]
And she is claiming to be a backstop? In the House the minority cannot stop anything. (0.00 / 0)
Want to know how the House works? Of course not. She is just putting forth an excuse for not being willing to work and why she is the media whore she is and off in far flung places.

NFTT: Support My Team or I Will Dance

[ Parent ]
Paygo the 'Publicans. (4.00 / 1)
Shelly Capito voted AGAINST the Obama/ Reid/ Pelosi stimulus package, saying that she didn't trust that the money would "go where it was needed most."

Hmmm. I wonder...

Democrat Recovery

I guess that answers that question.

It just so happens that the vote count on the Stimulus bill was 244-188, with House Republicans unanimous in their opposition, despite Obama's pleas for bipartisan support.

Many rightwing pundits praised the G.O.P's attempt to block any attempt at economic recovery, stating that the stimulus package would be used to "grow government", although the Bush/ Cheney regime grew the government by more than anyone since FDR!

At least FDR had a good reason to grow the government. Anyway, these rightwingers suddenly getting all "fiscally conservative" makes me wanna retch after the way they wrecked the economy. How can Capito ow claim to be a champion for fiscal responsibility when she also voted in lockstep with House Repubs to reject reinstating the Democrat's Pay-As-You-Go plan (PayGo) in 2004? At least they were attempting to put a lid on the Bush/ Capito outlandish spending spree. And not only that, she did it again on Feb 4, 2010, even though we all know that PayGo was exactly how Clinton produced the first budget surplus in decades!

This "just say no" crapola is the GOP's desperate attempt to preserve Bush's trillions in tax cuts for the rich while trickling down on the rest of us.

At the risk of appearing redundant, I hope you'll pardon me while I post one of Clem's favorite portrayals of our esteemed representative of WV's jerrymandered 2nd district.

http://tinyurl.com/cfgks7

I remember just before she ran against Mike Callahan she was on a "let's clean up Washington" kick.  It was the same time that she was involved with Jack Abramoff/ Tom Delay ponzi scheme.
Photobucket

 


Go read Michael Tomasky on the Deficit Commsion (0.00 / 0)
Taxes, Choices and Gridlock

Recently, and without announcing it, according to the excellent tax journalist David Cay Johnston, the IRS published a report showing that the top 400 earners in the US made around $345 million each in 2007, up 31% in just one year from 2006. These 400 people paid an effective tax rate (meaning, after deduction and all the other shenanigans) of 16.62%.

These people, who made about $39,000 an hour every hour of the year, paid a lower effective rate, according to Johnston, than a taxpayer in the $100,000 annual range, and also "enjoyed a 27 percent increase in their income, or nine times the rate of increase for the bottom 90 percent."



NFTT: Support My Team or I Will Dance

quit (1.00 / 1)
worrying about what others make...take care of your own toothache

[ Parent ]
Once again, you missed the point (0.00 / 0)
Social Security was created when people lived to 57. So the equation for paying supplements to 65 year old was not daunting. Medicare originally was created when capital gains rates were equal to the rates on labor. We decide on these under those conditions.

By the deficit scold theory with the ZERO estate tax we have now, jobs should be raining down form the sky and tax revenue should be exploding since there is blind faith in the Laufer Curve.

Your knee jerk reaction is just what Tomasky predicted. Both sides, taxing and spending, have to be on the table, silly person.

I made sure to quote the IRS statistics. It's not me. It is reality. One liners like yours are part of the problem. Warren Buffet does not think this grand experiment can be sustained if his secretary has a higher marginal tax rate than him.

NFTT: Support My Team or I Will Dance


[ Parent ]
i'll concede (1.00 / 1)
that my comment was a bit off point...but it felt good saying it, so i did...

[ Parent ]
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