The Hill, January 13th, 2009

The House will vote Wednesday on legislation to reauthorize and expand the State Children’s Health Insurance Program (SCHIP).

The Democratic leaders of the Energy and Commerce and Ways and Means committees who introduced legislation Tuesday that they said would expand SCHIP benefits to 4 million children who have no health benefits and maintain coverage for the 7 million kids already enrolled in SCHIP.

The announcement came just minutes before the House Rules Committee was scheduled to begin its consideration of the legislation, which is the final procedural step to clear the way for a floor vote.

Congressional action on the popular SCHIP measure, which passed Congress with bipartisan votes twice in 2007 but died under President Bush’s veto pen, would give the incoming Obama administration a quick victory on health care, one of its major priorities.

Passing an SCHIP expansion also would stand as a down payment on the comprehensive health reform effort promised by President-elect Obama.

“I am very proud that our first healthcare bill being considering in the new Congress and with a new president is to ensure health coverage to vulnerable children,” said Energy and Commerce Committee Chairman Henry Waxman (D-Calif.).

Ways and Means Committee Chairman Charlie Rangel (D-N.Y.) said, “Congressional passage and swift enactment by President-elect Obama will demonstrate that change has come to Washington.”  More…

P.S. The House just passed SCHIP on January 15th!

Think Progress, January 8th, 2009

In April, reports revealed that former attorney general Alberto Gonzales was “unable to interest law firms in

Alberto Gonzales

adding his name to their roster.” Gonzales has previously said that law firms were hesitant to hire him because of “all the investigations and the possibility that I might be indicted.” But in an interview with the Austin-American Statesman this week, Gonzales blamed the “rough economy” for his lack of work:

“It’s a rough economy right now, and it’s a tough time for a lot of law firms right now. Obviously they are very careful about bringing on new people, and they are going to be careful about bringing on people where there are questions about things that may have happened in their past,” he said. “Over time, I’m confident those things will be resolved, and things will work themselves out.”

“Greater opportunities,” Gonzales, 53, said, “will present themselves once the stories are out there.”

Later in the interview, Gonzales mentioned that he did have some dream jobs outside of the legal profession. “I’m very fortunate that I’m at a point in my life where if I wanted to do something completely different — be baseball commissioner, for example, I would love a job in baseball, a plug there — I can do it,” said Gonzales.

Daschle was praised today by Senate Republicans and Democrats alike.  He is passionate about health care reform and we highly recommend his new book, Crisis.  The Washington Post reported today that he’ll have very close access to President Obama and that his confirmation hearings start today.

Daschle’s approach: Anything but Clinton

The Politico, January 8th, 2009

They might sit side-by-side in Barack Obama’s Cabinet room someday, but Tom Daschle didn’t much like Hillary Clinton’s tactics for fixing health care 15 years ago – so much so that he wrote a book critiquing them.

Now as Obama’s point-person on health care, Daschle’s approach is a simple philosophy of ABC – Anything But Clinton – that he’ll start to lay out at his confirmation hearing Thursday for secretary of health and human services.

Tom Daschle will lead Health Care reform

Daschle wants an overhaul plan moving on Capitol Hill by spring. Clinton waited almost a full year. Daschle wants lawmakers to take the lead in drafting it. Clinton kept the job inside the White House.

Perhaps the biggest change: Daschle is planning a major grassroots push to build public support for his plan outside Washington, possibly with spokesman-in-chief Dr. Sanjay Gupta of CNN at the helm as surgeon general. Clinton let opponents carry the day with their famed “Harry and Louise” TV spots.

“It is just a world of difference in so many ways,” said Sheila Burke, the chief of staff to former Senate Majority Leader Bob Dole (R-Kan.) from 1986 to 1996, who followed Clinton’s process. “You’ve got people paying close attention to what those lessons were, and they have already avoided some of the missteps.”

The stakes for Obama are high: his promises on health care were among the most specific of his campaign, setting a deadline of the end of his first term to provide universal coverage for “every single American.”

As Daschle sits down for the first confirmation hearing of the Obama Cabinet, senators on the Health, Education, Labor and Pension Committee are expected to press for details of the incoming administration’s strategy on the issue. The failure of Clinton’s plan was so politically traumatizing the last time around, Congress hasn’t attempted something as sweeping since.  More…

Burris: Out of the Rain, Into the Senate

The Nation, January 8th, 2009

With what is effectively an endorsement from President-elect Barack Obama, Roland Burris went to the Capitol this morning to arrange for his seating in the US Senate.

And, make no mistake, the Illinois appointee is now all but certain to be seated.

By wandering around in the rain for an hour on Tuesday, Burris grabbed all the media attention that was going to be afforded to the day when Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid should have been outlining the agenda of the new Democratic majority in the chamber.

In so doing, Burris beat Reid.

The majority leader, who had said that he would not seat an appointee of scandal-plagued Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich, was left with no alternative but to fold. And fold he did after meeting with a smiling Burris on Wednesday morning.

Reid hailed praised the Illinoisan’s intellect and hailed Burris as “candid” and “forthright.” Then the majority leader laid out a face-saving strategy — not for Burris but for himself.

He said that the appointee could be seated once legal wrangling in Illinois about whether Burris can be seated without Secretary of State Jesse White’s signature on a certification of his appointment. This matter is now being considered by the Illinois Supreme Court, although it could be resolved even more quickly if White decides to sign the document, as statements made by the Secretary of State on Tuesday seemed to suggest was a possibility.  More from The Nation…

Meanwhile Reid is seen as increasingly vulnerable in his home state of Nevada where his popularity trails.   Reid has been identified a “top target of opportunity for Republicans in 2010.”  And to put a fine point to it, many progressives are wondering if Reid is our most capable choice to lead Senate Democrats now that we are the Majority Party.  They point to the last congress where Democrats utterly failed to convert their majority status into signs of leadership.  Most observers think the Republicans out-maneuvered Reid at every single point.  Here is a story at The Politico…..

Crooks and Liars.com, December 24th, 2008

In Arizona, sheriff turns county meetings into an exercise in fascism

I’m spending my Christmas vacation in lovely Maricopa County, AZ, this week with my in-laws. And I have to tell you that, thanks to Sheriff Joe Arpaio and his gang of thugs deputies, I’ll be somewhat relieved when I leave.

After all, how would you like to live in a place where law enforcement actually arrests you for applauding briefly at a public county council meeting? Where they threaten and intimidate you just for showing up in the first place?

That’s what’s been happening here.

It all has to do with an anti-Arpaio group called Maricopa Citizens for Safety Accountability, which formed last spring in response to investigative reports and studies demonstrating that Arpaio’s insane obsession with illegal immigrants was destroying his office’s ability to actually deal with real law enforcement work.

MCSA’s members have been turning up at meetings of the county Board of Supervisors and trying to speak, but the board refuses to let MCSA do so except for brief comment periods at the end of its meetings. Moreover, the board meetings are now patrolled by a huge contingent of deputies who treat the citizens who attend like criminals. More…

Bush and Public Opinion

Reviewing the Bush Years and the Public’s Final Verdict

Pew Research Institute, December 18th, 2008

As George W. Bush prepares to leave the White House, the United States is in many ways dramatically different from when he took the oath of office in 2001. His first few months as president were largely unremarkable, despite the contentious 2000 election. But the horrific terror attacks of Sept. 11, 2001 greatly altered the course forward.

Least Popular President in Modern Times

The attacks transformed American public opinion and fundamentally reshaped Bush’s image. His job approval rating reached 86% by late September. The public expressed broad willingness to use military force to combat terrorism. But then controversies over the build-up to war in Iraq and other Bush policies started to take their toll – at home and abroad.

U.S. forces quickly ousted Saddam Hussein in 2003, but could not create a lasting peace. As the fighting dragged on, Bush won re-election by a narrow margin. In his second term, he failed in his bid to build support for a partial privatization of Social Security. American deaths continued in Iraq, the government bungled the response to the devastating Hurricane Katrina in late 2005 and political scandal reached directly into the White House.

Bush Popularity Graph

Soon, economic troubles started to mount, and in 2008, the economy went into a dangerous free fall that led to controversial and expensive government intervention in financial markets. The president’s approval ratings slid over time to historic lows. His approval last hit 50% as he started his second term. It stood at just 24% in early December.

Not surprisingly, the public’s verdict on the Bush presidency is overwhelmingly negative. In a December 2008 Pew Research Center survey, just 11% said Bush will be remembered as an outstanding or above average president – by far the lowest positive end-of-term rating for any of the past four presidents. Yet Bush’s impact on public opinion over the past eight years is seen in ways that go well beyond his personal unpopularity.  More…

Right Wing Watch, November 25th, 2008

The battle continues for the chairmanship of the Republican National Committee. One of the prevailing themes of the Republican Party at the moment is rampant finger-pointing in which just about every faction of the party is blaming every other faction of the party for the fact that they keep losing elections.

First you had moderates blaming the Religious Right while the Right was blaming the Republican leadership for being insufficiently committed to the right-wing agenda and others were blaming the anti-immigration “nativists.”

Now comes the Family Research Council complaining that Rep. Pete Sessions, incoming Chairman of the National Republican Congressional Committee, dared to meet with the Log Cabin Republicans and warning that any moves toward treating them like a legitimate element of the party will only undermine the GOP’s efforts to reach out to Black and Hispanic voters and will ultimately doom the Republicans to being in the minority for the foreseeable future:

According to a press release from the pro-gay “marriage” group, Log Cabin Republicans, one of the first stops for the newly elected Chairman of the National Republican Congressional Committee (NRCC), Congressman Pete Sessions (R-Texas), was the fundraising dinner for the homosexual organization. The release states that Representative Sessions said that the GOP cannot win elections and reach out to voters if it continues to oppose the issues that Log Cabin stands for, presumably including same-sex “marriage.” My team sought clarification from Sessions’ office and was told he did speak to the Log Cabin group, but that a copy of his remarks was not available. If the Log Cabin portrayal is true, it is disturbing on a number of accounts. One, Sessions’ new position as the head of the NRCC is to train and recruit new candidates for the Republican Party. If this is his idea of “campaign advice” then the Republicans better prepare for a longer term in the minority then they faced prior to 1994. Secondly, if the GOP is serious about reaching out to new voters, especially African-Americans and Hispanics, then it should look closely at the exit polls on issues important to families. Both minority groups strongly support traditional family values that embrace life and protect marriage, two things the Republican Party once stood for also. Under these circumstances, pro-family voters should reserve judgment about giving their financial support to either political party.

Family Reserch Council might soon actually have a lot more say in these sorts of matters now that Ken Blackwell, one of its own Senior Fellows, is contemplating his own run for the chairmanship of the Republican National Committee.

McCain Running for Re-election in 2010

Huffington Post, November 18th, 2008

WASHINGTON — Sen. John McCain, whose presidential bid was snuffed out two weeks ago by President-elect Barack Obama, is setting up a political action committee as a first step in running for a fifth term in the Senate.

A McCain spokesperson says the 72-year-old senator decided with his senior advisers Tuesday night to set up the fundraising PAC. The spokesperson spoke anonymously because the decision had not yet been made public.

This post is from Josh Marshall at Talking Points Memo.

Since the release of the new Iran NIE on Monday, we’ve been debating just when the president and his key advisors know the basic gist of what the new report would show. Take them at their own word and they really didn’t know anything until just this last week. As soon as they knew, we knew, they would say.

Sure Mike McConnell mentioned something to the president back in August. But he had no way of knowing that this “new information” would dramatically undermine the claim that Iran was on the brink of going nuclear. And as the president said yesterday, “He didn’t tell me what the information was.”

Yet I’m hearing from a lot of directions that the basic gist of the report — that the Iranians aren’t nearly as close to going nuclear as we’d been led to believe — has been circulating at least in intelligence circles for some time. In other words, this NIE has been sitting either literally or figuratively on the president’s desk for months.

Now, along those lines look at this September 22nd post from a site called Swoop, which I hear is put together by some pretty knowledgeable DC insiders.

In our last key judgment on Iran, we noted that the main driver of possible military action has switched from Iran’s alleged nuclear weapons program to Iranian activities in Iraq. This conclusion is hardening. Intelligence Community (IC) sources tell us that a new National Intelligence Estimate about Iran is near completion. This concludes that Iran remains many years – as much as 10 – away from a weapon. Thus, the WMD argument will not gain traction from the IC. Iraq, however, is a different story. Pentagon officials have told us that the stress on the Iranian threat to Iraqi stability in the Petraeus and Crocker testimony is entirely deliberate. These officials say that the Sunni elements with whom the US military has been cutting deals in Anbar province are violently “anti-Persian” and have convinced US commanders to see Iranian meddling as the source of destabilization. With Anbar representing the one clear success of the “surge”, the US military is highly motivated to protect it against the perceived Iranian threat. This was the source of Petraeus’ allegation that Iran is trying to build a “Hezbollah-like” anti-US militia in Iraq. A new US base is under construction near the Iranian border and checkpoints are being erected along roads leading from Iran. For immediate purposes, this does not change our assessment that military force against Iran remains unlikely in the short-term. But it does add a new source of tension alongside the WMD factor.

Just one blog post, definitely. But the key point is right there: word was out that the NIE deliver the goods for the Iranian bomb enthusiasts, that the “WMD argument” for war would not “gain traction from the IC (i.e., Intelligence Community).”

What it all comes down to is what the president says he didn’t know about until the beginning of December was already being chatted about on insider national security blogs back in September. Does anybody still believe he hasn’t known this for months?

Democrat Steve Beshear Seems Ready to Trounce Republican Incumbent

My Direct Democracy, Jonathon Singer, Oct 31st

If you’re an incumbent Governor trailing your challenger by a double-digit margin less than a week out from election day, you probably would rather not see your numbers drop from the upper-30s to 40 percent to the mid-30s. But such is the case for Kentucky’s Republican Governor Ernie Fletcher, who is polling way down in the mid-30s in two new polls matching him up against Democrat Steve Beshear.

The newest poll shows Democrat Beshear ahead with 60% versus 35% for Ernie Fletcher.

It really just isn’t so good for an incumbent to average nearly 20 points down against his challenger. Something could happen between now and Tuesday, when Kentuckians go to the polls — but it’s not terribly likely at this point. What does remain to be seen, it seems, it whether the Democrats will get enough momentum out of this gubernatorial contest to make good on their very real potential to go after Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell next fall.  Click here to read this story at MyDD (MyDirectDemocracy)