Obama Facing Democratic Pressure on Warren Appointment

Since the Republicans have made it clear that they will block any nominee to head the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, a group of House Democrats is putting the pressure on President Obama to recess-appoint Elizabeth Warren to head the agency she herself created. Rep Barney Frank (D-MA) was blunt: it's now or never. Not only is the Senate minority vowing a fight, the House Republicans are attempting to defund and disempower the agency.  So Obama must make the choice of either caving to Republican extortion or appointing Warren during the Senate recess the first week in June. Under the Dodd-Frank Financial Reform Law, a permanent appointment must be made by a July deadline.

Here's the text of the letter to Obama, now being circulated in the House for signatures:

May 18, 2011
Dear Mr. President,
We appreciate your leadership last year in supporting the strong financial reforms in the Dodd-Frank bill that responded to the financial meltdown on Wall Street that led to the worst recession since the Depression.
A key element of that effort was the creation of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau with the goals of making prices clear, risks clear, making financial markets work for families and particularly protecting service members and their families from abusive financial practices. Since you appointed Professor Warren to "stand up" the bureau, she has laid the foundation as a strong advocate for consumers--something that seems to strike fear among those who are opposed to reform.
Regretfully, Republicans in the Senate have now made it clear that they oppose reform. They have vowed that they will not allow consideration of any nominee to head the CFPB until the bureau is weakened. They would rather hold your appointment hostage and obstruct the process than make sure consumers have a strong advocate on their side.
Since Republican Senators have said that no one is acceptable unless the law is weakened, we would urge you to nominate Professor Warren as the CFPB's first Director anyway. If Republicans in the Senate indeed refuse to consider her, we request that you use your constitutional authority to make her a recess appointment. We can think of no better person to be the first Director of this incredibly important consumer financial protection regulator.
Sincerely,

The letter was written by Carolyn Maloney of New York, Ralph Ellison of Minnesota and Brad Miller of North Carolina.  The White House, which has been less than enthusiastic about Warren, has declined comment.

 Warren herself is scheduled to testify before the House Oversight Committee on Tuesday. According to The Hill blog, Rep. Barney Frank (D-Mass.), the ranking member of the House Financial Services Committee, said Thursday he had not seen the draft of the Obama letter, but said he had no problem with the president using a recess appointment to name Warren as director.

“Not only no problem, but what’s the alternative?” he said.

Obama is in a squeeze play. He has had a year to make up his mind. His time is up. 

The Corporate States of America: Toxic Waste Edition

Only in a banana republic can a CEO of an anti-union corporation just found criminally responsible for polluting the earth with radioactive waste suddenly become a government-appointed expert on waste in health care spending.  David Cote has jumped on board yet another Obama Administration PR initiative, this one called Partnership for Patients.


This is the same David Cote, you may remember from a previous post, who locked out a Steelworkers Union local last year after members blew the whistle on dangerous conditions at the Honeywell plant in Metropolis, IL The company was found guilty and paid a hefty fine, but the money and accountability didn't come from Cote or any other human. Nobody went to jail.  In fact, the scandal (which received virtually no coverage in the mainstream media) did nothing to affect his close personal relationship with Barack Obama. Despite cries of anti-unionism from labor leaders, Obama invited Cote to join him on his India trade junket last year.  He had already tapped him for the infamous Deficit Reduction ("Cat Food") Commission which advocated "reforming" Social Security. 


And now, besides being a leader on foreign labor relations and the deficit, Cote is also apparently an expert on health care, and its runaway costs. To prove it, he co-authored, with HHS Secretary Kathleen Sibelius  an editorial in the Philadelphia Inquirer.  At least the opening sentence was somewhat honest, conceding that "many" Americans actually do get health care. I guess his definition of many excludes the 50 million-and-growing uninsured Americans who are just a drop in the bucket  out of a total 300-odd million citizens --  maybe only a fifth or sixth.


But back to PP, which may as well stand for the Public/Private Cabal.  Right off the bat, when you see the words Public/Private, the stench of the neo-fascist corporative takeover of the USA assails your nostrils. And now that the Cat Food Commission and its particular rancid odor has gone into the great circular file destination of all wasteful programs addressing waste, a new one will take its place in the wonderful world of Political Kabuki Theatre. From the editorial:

" That's why the Obama administration and employers such as Honeywell have joined doctors, nurses, hospitals, health insurers, and patient advocates to launch the Partnership for Patients, an unprecedented alliance that will promote innovations to improve hospital care and reduce wasteful spending nationwide".

According to Chilmark, a health care policy research group, PP is just another feel-good publicity stunt to appease the deficit hawks and pump up the Affordable Care Act.  It takes a problem we can all agree needs addressing: the shocking morbidity and mortality levels in American hospitals -- and then spends $1 billion to bring in Honeywell, G.E. and some other conservative-placating corporations to help figure out how to reduce physician reimbursements and trim Medicare and Medicaid costs. This is $1 billion that we can apparently afford to spend, while Home Heating Assistance and block grants to poor neighborhoods were deemed wasteful by this purportedly Democratic White House.  This is akin to the CEO-laden White House Commission on Jobs and Competitiveness taking the place of truly addressing the defacto 25 percent unemployment crisis in this country.


And speaking of jobs, those whistle-blowing Honeywell union members are nearing the first anniversary of their lock-out by Cote.  They recently traveled to New Jersey to confront Cote and the Board of Directors over their status.  From the Steelworkers' website, here is an update with video.


And speaking of Metropolis, home city of Superman, even our favorite comic book action hero is apparently fed up with the USA, and is renouncing his American citizenship.  It apparently has more to do with his disgust with American foreign policy than with the toxic sludge of Honeywell, but I'm sure once he gets wind of this latest public/private corporate hypocrisy he will petition to have the statue erected there in his honor removed as well.



Truth, Justice, and the Corporate Way



Comments

Due to a fairly large number of legitimate readers' comments being picked up by Google's automatic spam filter, I have decided to (at least temporarily) go the manual moderation route.  I am not always on the computer, so your comments may not see the light of day for hours, and they definitely won't be published in the middle of the night EDT.  

The moderation will also prevent some of the occasional "flaming" that is rampant on comment boards everywhere.

Meantime, if the system is giving you any other trouble, feel free to email me your comment at kmgarcia2000@yahoo.com.  I apologize for any inconvenience.

For those of you commenting on New York Times op-eds, let me direct you to RealityChex.com, or follow the link called Constant Comments under my blogroll to the right.  Marie Burns has set up a great "Off Times Square" feature for just that purpose.  All of us have experienced burial or outright rejection at the hands of Times moderators, so this is a wonderful way to get our comments published immediately.  Then, if the Times does publish them, you have gotten yourself some double exposure. It's win-win.  Thanks, Marie! 

The Pig Men Cometh

"The pig-man! I saw a pig-man! He was just lying there and then he woke up. He looked up at me and made this horrible sound, eeeeaaaahhh, eeeeaaaahhh." -- Kramer.

 " I wish there were pigmen. You get a few of these pigmen walking around and suddenly I'm looking a whole lot better. Then if somebody wants to fix me up at least they could say, 'Hey at least he's no pig-man!'"  -- George Costanza.


Well, George, you are in luck.  We are flush with pig-men these days.  Let's start with just two examples who will make even George Costanza and Seinfeld look like sensitive, post-feminist kinds of guys.


We'll get the newest one out of the way first. In what has got to be the oxymoron of the century, Socialist Banker Monsieur Dominique Strauss-Kahn of the International Monetary Fund  was busted for allegedly attacking a chambermaid in a posh $3000 dollar a night hotel. NYC cops actually dragged him off his cushy Air France first class seat and hauled him in.  Of course, there is always the possibility that he was set up, Eliot Spitzer-style, but the fact that Milord fled the scene without even taking his cell phone does not bode well.  Of course, the story is plastered all over the front page of The New York Times, which usually doesn't do tawdry unless it's elite tawdry.  Remember the Brooke Astor elder abuse case?  When the rich and famous commit crimes, or are victims of them, that gets the front page treatment. But the dozen prostitute corpses dumped on Long Island? Not so much.

What was pretty hilarious is that the Dominique story came out at the exact same time as Maureen Dowd's column on corsets, cleavage and fishnets.  She chronicled the new TV season, which is heavy on retro sexist treatment of women. Sad to say, it seems we are looking backwards. Women are again fair game.

And then there is our own homegrown pig-man, John Ensign of Nevada, who finally quit the Senate when even the Senate couldn't cover for him any more.  The Department of Justice has known for over a year now what he was up to, but didn't prosecute him.  I suppose that it's all part of Barack Obama's Grand Plan of Always Looking Ahead and Winning the Future.... never looking back, or in this case, even sideways.  As an added bonus, there is now a third pig-man in the mix -- Senator Tom Coburn of the C Street Coven or Cabal or whatever right-wing front group lives and operates in that rent and tax-free den of religious iniquity.  Coburn was the alleged go-between in the payoff to Ensign's mistress (victim?) and her husband. Since Tom Coburn is the pig-man who held up the National Women's Museum and many other bills out of pure spite last year, I would love to see his rump in a grinder. It would absolutely distract me from all the other distractions.

Here is the full report in case it's raining where you live and you have an hour to spare.  It is sleazy and quite dramatic, even containing an intro with the cast of characters.  It seems it was much, much worse than your ordinary affair. The woman apparently was coerced into it by Ensign. My only question is what took so long for accountability to come into play.

Rancid Fake Mayonnaise on the Table

In the Spirit of Bipartisanship, which Washington politicians cluelessly seem to think is the nirvana of every unemployed, underemployed, uninsured, underinsured, struggling shlub in these United States, the two Senate Whips are going to sit down. At a table. With everything on it. Like adults. Let the nation rejoice while they feast, because just watching them stuff themselves on their own egos is reward enough for us, the little people.






They Put Excitement Back in the Baloney Sandwich!

 
Here is how it went down in what Fox News Sunday host Chris Wallace called a moment of Television Diplomacy. Senator Dick Majority Durbin told Jon Minority Kyl (pronounced Kyle, not Kill, but don't ask me why) that he would discuss not only "improving"  Medicare and Social Security and keeping all the Mexicans behind the border fence where they belong, if only his "friend across the aisle" would agree to talk about the DREAM Act. And Jon said OK, the two of them can have a visit, a prelude to a dreamy conversation.

Never mind that Kyl helped stop the DREAM Act (which would give amnesty to young undocumented immigrants who have lived, worked and studied here for at least five years) in the Senate last year. Never mind that he railed against Obama's "moat joke" during his El Paso visit last week. He called it "mocking demagoguery." 

 Let's face it-- Kyl knows how it feels to be mocked.  Everybody made fun of his own little bit of mendacious demagoguery last month, about that 97 percent of Planned Parenthood abortion business. And still being the junior senator from Arizona at the advanced age of 69? That has got to hurt. So he is taking a premature retirement.  In the Senate, few people have the grace to retire until they die, or are indicted. 

But, mind you, the retirement is only from the Senate. Kyl has taken the unprecedented (and some would say presumptuous) step of announcing he will be a candidate for Vice President in 2012. He is obviously thinking ahead and realizes that whoever gets the nomination is going to be a supreme lightweight. And if by some miracle a Republican nutjob actually wins the election, Mr. Miracle Whip will become de facto president. Dick Cheney proved that this could be done. Junior Senator is demeaning, Vice P not so much. 

Moreover, despite being an semi-lame duck senator, Kyl not only retains his power --  he is increasing it. He was tapped for a new job in current VP Joe Biden's Debt Ceiling Panic Room, which involves walking across the street every day in front of cameras, saying everything is on the table, and that they are having an adult conversation. Nobody is really telling the truth and calling out the "negotiations" for what they truly are: a blatant threat by Republicans to default on the national debt unless the New Deal is dismantled. The mainstream press still deems it politically incorrect to call the GOP an extortionist criminal mob, just as it used to be politically incorrect to call enhanced interrogation techniques torture. This might take a few years, and then there's always revisionist history to contend with.

  Poor Dick Durbin, on the other hand, is the sole token "progressive" on the boring old "Gang of Six." Those senators have been meeting forever, in secret, at Gazillionaire Mark Warner's posh Virginia townhouse over dinners at a very expensive table. From all indications, those discussions are just plain tabled, although they were very, very serious and adult. 

Durbin's sole function these days appears to be placing entitlement programs on rickety back room tables in imminent danger of collapse. They're pretending to improve the recipe after the goose has already been cooked. He sure doesn't sound like such a big major whip to me. Of course, all this talk of bipartisan slashing and lashing makes me wince anyway, especially since the regular people are the ones in chains.

Time to throw out the rotten phony mayonnaise and whip up a new batch from some new, fresh and nontoxic ingredients. These senatorial food byproducts are way past their sell-by dates.

Obama To Go Pure Grassroots, Will Accept NO Corporate $$$!!!

I had to rub my eyes this morning staring at Obama Campaign Manager Jim Messina's overnight email.  In a surprise stealth move, he announced the campaign is going purely grass roots this time.  Here it is, in bold print (his)--


This campaign isn't funded by lobbyists or corporate interests. We rely on donations from people like you. Please donate $15 today!


Uncork the champagne and blow up the balloons! (bold print mine).  Obama has seen the light.  He will not be accepting any dirty money from Goldman Sachs, no filthy lucre from G.E., no slimy checks from Big Pharma as payback for that back room deal that took the Public Option off the table.  He has listened to We the People at long last!  We held his feet to the fire about his big sell-out to the Oligarchy and he hopped up and down with the pain of our wrath. He will not let 2012 become the agony of defeat. He became humbled, and he had an epiphany.  Or FDR paid him a midnight visit in the Lincoln Bedroom.  I don't know and it doesn't really matter.  He has changed, transformed and become a card-carrying member of We are the Ones We Can Believe In!


Huh?  What was that you said?  Bait and switch?  There are TWO Obama re-election campaigns?  One for the little people, called MyBarackObama.com?  And the other one that really means something, where the President travels around and charges $50,000 a plate to do his charm offensive schtick and glad-hand the wealthy? Like the trip to Austin, TX last week where regular voters got barely a wave and a nod as he breezed into his fund-raiser?  And that new DNC group called Priorities First that allows anonymous corporate donations just like the Republicans do and so totally embraces the wisdom of the Supreme Court Citizens United decision?


Oh.  Never mind.


My Barack Obama.Con:  "Cmon Baby, Just Try and Light My Fire"




(PS: Kate Madison left a comment on the Messina Missive under the Breitbart Hoax post, below.  She was actually awake when she got the 2:35 a.m. email, titled "Something Happened".  Nothing like getting an email in the middle of the night with the subject "Something Happened" --  I was like, "who died?".  Anyway, read Kate's comment. It says it all.)


(Correction:  Kate lives in Oregon, PDST, so she got her Messina email at 11:35 p.m., not the middle of the night as I previously "misspoke".  I did not mean to imply that Kate was staring at her computer in the middle of the night.  I, on the other hand, occasionally do get up in the middle of the night just to check my email. I probably need help.) 

Snake Oil and Water

It's enough to make grown men (and women) cry -- with gleeful satisfaction.


First, we have a group of gazillionaire oil barons weeping to the Senate Finance Committee today that taking away their tax subsidies will just cut that whole "Drill Baby Drill" mantra off at the knees.  USA won't coddle them any more?  Then they'll just leave and find a new country to drill into.  All those windfall profits go toward investing in new sources of oil for the greater good, by golly!


And then there are the 42 Republican House freshmen who are sorely regretting their adventures in Mediscare and are begging -- begging! -- President Obama to make the Democrats stop rubbing it in already.  They wrote him a letter whining that "as the freshman class, we have the opportunity to wipe the slate clean and fulfill the mandate set by the people to strengthen our country for future generations — not continue the petty politics we have seen in the past, which only creates an environment of stalemate."


They want us to forget they voted for Young Serious Gun Paul Ryan's plan to kill Medicare by transforming it into a junk insurance voucher system for seniors.  They want us to forget the wrath of their constituents at Town Halls.  They can dish it out, but they sure can't take it.


NY Rep Nan Hayworth of affluent Westchester County, NY was among the freshman Tea Partiers decrying the nasty tone of the Democrats at a news conference Wednesday. She complained that the President was "playing politics" with entitlement reform.  As an ophthalmologist who gave up zapping  cataracts and had no trouble accepting a fortune in Medicare payments for same, she does the crocodile tears act supremely well.  And that familiar Republican facial expression that falls somewhere between a pout and a snarl...what elitists call a moue -- where have we seen that before?