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The health care summit took up most of my day, but the Earth didn’t stop moving off its axis for it…
• The other military leaders who testified on Don’t Ask Don’t Tell yesterday could have been a lot more damaging than they were. Basically everyone’s endorsing the Pentagon study to push the issue off a year or so. If you don’t see the setup of Holy Joe saying “let’s wait” and then losing the numbers needed to win a vote in the process, you haven’t been paying attention to recent Democratic politics.
• I like the newfound feistiness of Harry Reid, both at the health care summit and in this meeting with a bunch of CEOs, where he apparently stormed out.
• Democrats should probably make more of a show of the fact that John McCain had to cancel a fundraiser with health care lobbyists scheduled for the same day as the health care summit. Especially when he spent the whole time there excoriating “backroom deals.” Funny how it is about Republicans talking in populist language and then holding lobbyist fundraisers.
• The aide in charge of criminal justice for David Paterson resigned today because the state police allegedly lied about their involvement in that abuse case, where they tried to stop a brutalized woman from securing an order of protection against a Paterson staffer.
• I don’t often post about Keith Olbermann’s special comments, but yesterday’s was powerful and urgent. It begins, “Last Friday Night my father asked me to kill him.”
• Lots of polling today. Democrats look pretty good in IL-Sen and IL-Gov, look really bad in DE-Sen (though it’s a Rasmussen poll and Chris Coons has a long way to go in attracting the same name ID as Mike Castle), and hold a mixed bag in New Mexico, with leads for incumbents in two Congressional districts and an even race in the other.
• Sue Lowden, the likely candidate against Harry Reid on the Republican side, gave her husband a fat bonus while cutting jobs at her company.
• Ben Bernanke says he’s investigating the role of Goldman Sachs in that Greek debt swap case. I’m not exactly hopeful about a serious investigation. However, I’ll agree with Bernanke on one thing – I don’t know what Ron Paul is taking about either. The Fed laundered Watergate payoff money?
• The state Attorney General in Maryland ordered all out-of-state gay marriages to be recognized in the state. Inches of progress.
• This is pathetic from Lamar Alexander, promoting his vote against cloture and vote for the jobs bill on the same website within one link of each other.
• I’d been meaning to write about this effort by the LA Unified School District to let teachers run 22 out of a set of 30 new or poorly performing schools. This is a fabulous test case for the proposition that teachers know best how to create a positive learning environment for kids. Whether this is happening because of pressure from charter schools or not, if it yields good results the teacher’s union will have to be recognized as a leader. I can tell you this, no UTLA-run school will do something counter-productive and stupid like fire all its teachers.
• Why isn’t the Consumer Financial Protection Agency being accomplished in a separate bill? Democrats have to get better at putting Republicans on the record. Of course, the real answer here is they probably don’t want to be put on the record themselves.
• News of real justice in New Orleans: “Retired New Orleans police Lt. Michael Lohman has pleaded guilty in federal court to one count of conspiracy to obstruct justice in the Danziger Bridge shootings, which left two people dead and four others injured after police fired on a group of civilians trapped in the submerged city days after Hurricane Katrina.” Relentless journalism led to this moment.
• This Scott Brown profile is so syrupy I wouldn’t recommend diabetics read it. But it’s good to know that his “real reg’lar American” pickup truck was bought so he could use the trailer hitch for his daughter’s equestrian horse.
• Shorter Whirlpool: we have a blacklist and we know how to use it on meddling protesters of our factory shutdowns.
• Sally Quinn is now an online columnist like the rest of us. Richly deserved. Maybe she can get a Blogger page, too.
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Scott Brown only drove the trailer hitched to his truck once, though, because it was SCARY.
And how ’bout that Harry Reid, catching one break after another in his re-election race? First a teabagger indie candidate, now some slimy corruption on Sue Lowden. Wonder what Reid’s re-elect odds are now?
(PS I think I got some actual serious friends of Sally Quinn on my “Save Sally Quinn’s Job” Facebook group. At least we managed to save her online presence, though. Think she’ll write about proper Cheeto service next?)
Re: Ron Paul, take a look at this: http://news.google.com/news/url?sa=t&ct2=us%2F0_0_s_0_0_t&ct3=MAA4AEgAUABqAnVz&usg=AFQjCNHZrGSns15pAAnQWD3Ic7Fdo_vASQ&cid=8797508447861&ei=YRKHS-iGKobOlQS21t0S&rt=SEARCH&vm=STANDARD&url=http%3A%2F%2Ftrueslant.com%2Fjohnknefel%2F2010%2F02%2F25%2Fbernanke-should-have-answered-ron-pauls-bizarre-questions%2F
Ron Paul was a Congressman at the time the Fed was stonewalling those questions as well. He wasn’t making a point about Watergate, nor about Saddam. He was making a point about the lack of transparency at the Federal Reserve and the need for an audit.
There are a lot more ‘Bernanke owes Ron Paul an apology’ blogs circulating today, with more support for essentially the same points.
I think Ron Paul does deserve an apology, but would prefer an audit.
P.S. Ron Paul supporters in Nevada won’t vote for Lowden whose state GOP shut down the state convention when Ron Paul was on his way to getting the state delegates for the RNC. RP had beat McCain (came in second to Romney) in the primary there, but the state party simply turned off the lights and fled when the delegate votes started pouring in for Ron Paul. We don’t like Reid, but he didn’t disenfranchise every Republican who participated in the presidential primaries. Sue Lowden’s state GOP did. Even the RNC said what they did was ‘inept’. Our own views aren’t printable.
If the NYT actually used that phrase, someone, somewhere embarrassed them into removing it. Talk about redundant…
“I like the newfound feistiness of Harry Reid”
You’re kidding, right?
Yes, it’s good to know we have such ‘down to earth’ senators. /s
Re DADT, the commission was floated by Gates after the Senate and Levin started serious talk about moving it. It was obvious from the get-go it was a stalling tactic. As I wrote at the time, in such cases, you have to ask why Gates didn’t put a commission together if he thought he needed one back in the opening months of the Obama Administration. This is precisely kicking the can down the road to the next Congress and figuring that it will be more conservative and harder to get DADT through.
And look at http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2010/02/guest-post-economist-with-financial-services-committee-for-eleven-years-assisting-with-oversight-of-the-fed-may-lend-some-support-to-ron-pauls-questions.html
No, I am not a Ron Paul supporter, but some questions do need answers regardless. Plus I am a Henry Gonzalez supporter…
Judge orders back pay for some CA state workers who were furloughed. Hope his order prevails.
As opposed to a thoroughbred racehorse, was my point. Equestrian is a name of a sport, too.
Thanks for the link!