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And Now For The Republican Freakout… by Steve Kornacki, salon.com | December 19, 2012
Yesterday began with President Obama’s base grappling with how to interpret the new concessions he’d offered House Speaker John Boehner in their fiscal cliff negotiations. There was – and is – serious question over the left’s willingness to abide the framework Obama proposed. But all of that may be moot because of what’s now playing out on the other side of the aisle. While it appeared that Obama had ceded considerable ground to the GOP, especially relative to the leverage he enjoys, the reaction from Republicans on Monday was jarringly negative. First came Boehner’s declaration that Obama’s terms were unacceptable and that he would begin pursuing “Plan B”. This wouldn't help resolve the standoff, since Senate Democrats say they’d never act on Boehner’s plan. There are also doubts about how much support Plan B has among House Republicans. Not that Republicans are any warmer to Plan A. read more »Capitulation Is Never Popular. Or Effective. by Markos Moulitsas, dailykos.com | December 19, 2012
If President Barack Obama has a flaw, it's his obviously overwhelming desire to appear reasonable and conciliatory and "work together" to find "compromise" and "get things done". Bipartisanly. With a sane, reasonable, conciliatory opposition, that approach would make sense. But after four years of getting slammed by Republicans eager to destroy his presidency, Obama still hasn't learned the lesson. He still thinks he's going to get rewarded for being the "adult in the room." Yeah, everything I've put inside scare quotes is a joke. A bad, painful joke. Capitulation is never a strength. A deal will obviously require concessions by the president, but you make those to FINISH the deal, not in the middle of negotiations, and not until after you've branded the opposition with the concessions they're demanding. read more »Obama's Offer on Fiscal Talks Is "Insanity" by Alex Seitz-Wald, alternet.org | December 19, 2012
President Obama and House Republicans appear to be closing in on a deal to avert the fiscal cliff, but liberals are not happy with it. Late last night, the White House offered a plan with two major concessions to Republicans. First, it would hike taxes on the wealthy, but only on income above $400,000, instead of the current $250,000 threshold. Second, and far more controversially, Obama offered to change the formula used to calculate Social Security benefits in a way that would cut outlays to seniors slightly while saving the program $225 billion over a decade. The reaction from liberals, who have been demanding all along that social safety net programs be off the table, was swift and fierce. read more »Michigan Republicans Deny Police Officers and Firefighters the Right to Work by Dean Baker, Huffington Post | December 18, 2012
That is what the headlines would say if anyone really believed that the anti-union laws passed last week in Michigan actually had anything to do with the rights of workers. When the legislature outlawed contracts requiring workers who benefit from union representation to pay for that representation, it explicitly exempted the police and firefighters' unions. If this law was actually about the "right to work," the Republican legislature and Governor Snyder were effectively denying the right to work to the state's police officers and firefighters. Of course this law has nothing to do with the right to work (RTW), as everyone involved knows; that is just the spin from the anti-labor coalition. This is why police unions and firefighters' unions were exempted. The Republicans were trying to buy off these workers with special favors, not singling them out for punishment. read more »Remember the Children by Robert B. Reich, robertreich.org | December 18, 2012
It seems as if every major interest has political clout – except children. They can’t vote. They don’t make major campaign donations. They can’t hire fleets of lobbyists. Yet they’re America’s future. Their parents and grandparents care, of course, as do many other private citizens. But we’re no match for the entrenched interests that dominate American politics. Whether it’s fighting for reasonable gun regulation, child health and safety overall, or good schools and family services – we can’t have a fair fight as long as special-interest money continues to poison our politics. read more »How Walmart Helped Make Newtown Shooter's AR-15 the Most Popular Assault Weapon in America by George Zornick, The Nation | December 18, 2012
When Adam Lanza entered Sandy Hook Elementary School on Friday, December 14, inexplicably bent on ending as many lives as possible, he was carrying a Bushmaster AR-15 assault rifle and several high-capacity magazines. Sadly, this isn’t the first time we’ve encountered an AR-15 in this context: only days earlier, it was the weapon of choice for a shooting at an Oregon mall that killed two people. Five months earlier, it was used by James Holmes in an attack that wounded fifty-eight people and killed twelve in an Aurora, Colorado, movie theater. And several years before that, a man and his teenage accomplice used a Bushmaster AR-15 to terrorize the Washington, DC, area with a series of random shootings. Although it is not yet clear where the Bushmaster AR-15 used by Lanza was purchased, the model is familiar to many Walmart shoppers. It’s on sale at about 1,700 Walmart stores nationwide. read more »Republicans Float Plan to Make Electoral College More Unfair by Jamelle Bouie, prospect.org | December 18, 2012
Since their across-the-board defeat in November, Republicans have talked a great game about reform and outreach, with presidential hopefuls Paul Ryan, Marco Rubio, and Bobby Jindal leading the charge. But the actual actions of the GOP belie this stated commitment to change. According to National Journal, for example, Republicans are planning a big push to change how states distribute their electoral votes. Currently, most states have a winner-take-all arrangement—if you win the majority of votes, you take all of the electoral votes. For all but voters in deep red or dark blue states, this is unfair. Some reformers want to solve this problem with a national popular vote, others with nationwide proportional distribution of electoral votes. Republicans, by contrast, want to “reform” the system by adopting the worst of all worlds—winner-take-all for Republican states, proportional distribution for Democratic ones. read more »Gun Owners Can't Hurt Democrats by Jamelle Bouie, salon.com | December 17, 2012
It’s hard to know what, exactly, the federal government can do to reduce the incidence of mass shootings. To a large degree, each shooting is sui generis—some shooters have been mentally ill, others haven’t. Some shooters have had concrete motivations, others, none at all. And while some shooters might have been stopped by tighter restrictions on guns and ammunition, others—like the shooter in Newtown—were able to rely on an existing and easy-to-access stockpile of weapons (in this case, his mother’s arsenal). With all of that said, Democrats shouldn’t be afraid of running with this issue. The common wisdom in the Democratic Party is that gun regulations—whether focused around control or safety—are an electoral loser; that they alienate the middle and working-class white men who are critical in Rust Belt and Midwestern states like Pennsylvania, Ohio, Iowa and Wisconsin. read more »Gas On The Debt Limit Fire by Brian Beutler, talkingpointsmemo.com | December 17, 2012
Lest you conclude that progress in fiscal cliff negotiations is symptomatic of a weakened conservative appetite for taking the debt limit hostage, allow me to dissuade you. The truth is quite different. See, for starters, the Club for Growth’s reaction to John Boehner’s latest budget offer. The nub of it is pretty straightforward: They don’t want Boehner to raise the debt limit, even temporarily. They’re still pushing a 2011 redux. Even if deep down John Boehner wants to avoid another debt limit fight, or doesn’t think it’s winnable this time around, he’s so constrained by the right that he only felt able to offer Obama a year-long reprieve from that particular brinksmanship. Preventing it altogether will require the kind of willingness to shut down the right that Boehner’s never exhibited as speaker. read more »War At Home by Bob Herbert, prospect.org | December 17, 2012
Perhaps the most breathtakingly obscene aspect of American society is our absolute and utter refusal to deal with the murderous gun violence that lays its awful blanket of blood and sorrow across the families of thousands upon thousands of victims each and every year. On Friday, even the presumed safe harbor of an elementary school in suburban Newtown, Connecticut, was defiled when the school was invaded by a young man armed with military-style assault weapons. He would kill a total of 26 people, including 20 children, before taking his own life. How many times will we allow these atrocities to occur before we find the courage and the will to intervene? What is the point of having a self-governing society if we can’t—or won’t—protect kindergarten pupils from the flood-tide of killing set loose by a gun culture that has gone stark raving mad? read more »
The Latest
Watchdog Digs Into Conduct At SEC, The Washington Post | May 18, 2009
A Securities and Exchange Commission official attempted "to intimidate and influence" a family member's broker on multiple occasions by invoking her position, potentially violating agency rules, according to the agency's inspector general. read more »
Rove To Be Queried On Attorney Firings, USA Today | May 15, 2009
Former top Bush White House aide Karl Rove, who has said he will cooperate with an investigation into the firing of U.S. attorneys, is scheduled to be interviewed by a special prosecutor, a lawyer familiar with the probe says. read more »
Food Companies Placing the Onus for Safety on Consumers , The New York Times | May 15, 2009
Increasingly, the corporations that supply Americans with processed foods are unable to guarantee the safety of their ingredients. ConAgra could not pinpoint which of the more than 25 ingredients in its pies was carrying salmonella. read more »
Obama To Expand Consumer Commission , Associated Press | May 5, 2009
President Barack Obama is turning to South Carolina's former school superintendent to head an expanded Consumer Product Safety Commission, an embattled agency that has been criticized by advocates for being too cozy with industry. read more »
Mobile Food-Safety Labs Get FDA up to Speed, USA Today | May 4, 2009
A month ago, three gleaming white trailers — the Food and Drug Administration's $3 million mobile food-safety lab — rolled into a major port of entry for people and goods coming from Mexico. They joined an alphabet soup of federal agencies sifting through millions of tons of goods in search of drugs, guns, invasive plants and tainted foods. read more »
Many States Lack Drug Supplies, MSNBC News | May 1, 2009
More than two dozen states, including Maryland, as well as the District, have not stocked enough of the emergency supplies of antiviral medications considered necessary to treat victims of swine flu should the outbreak become a full-blown crisis, according to federal records. read more »
Pandemic-Preparedness Money Stripped From Stimulus, USA Today | April 28, 2009
Congress stripped nearly $900 million to combat an influenza pandemic from the economic-stimulus package earlier this year as part of last-minute negotiations to gain GOP support for the plan. Now, with the spread of a potentially deadly strain of the swine flu, public-health advocates and liberal bloggers are sharply criticizing the move. Key Democratic lawmakers, including Iowa Sen. read more »
Food Inspections Vary By State, The New York Times | April 20, 2009
Congress and the Obama administration have said that more inspections and new food production rules are needed to prevent food-related diseases, but far less attention has been paid to fixing the fractured system by which officials detect and stop ongoing outbreaks. read more »
Homeland Security Chief Defends Report , USA Today | April 17, 2009
Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano dismissed criticism of her agency's intelligence assessments and defended a recent report that says some military veterans could be susceptible to extremist recruiters or lone acts of violence. read more »
Spice Recall Expanded Because of Salmonella Threat, Associated Press | April 16, 2009
Union International Food Co. is expanding a spice recall to include all Lian How brand and Uncle Chen brand sauces, oil and oil blends in various size packages because the products may be contaminated with salmonella, an organism that can cause serious and sometimes fatal infections, especially in young children, the elderly and those with weakened immune systems. read more »
