The plaque at the base of the Statue of Liberty used to say, "Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, The wretched refuse of your teeming shore. Send these, the tempest-tost to me, I lift my lamp beside the golden door."
Now it says, "Abandon Hope, All Ye Who Enter Here."
We got the Bush Regime, arguably the most incompetent, corrupt and outright-treasonous Administration in American history. A regime so reckless, savage and gleefully bestial that it made the career-Nixon-hating Hunter Thompson actually pine for the good old days of Tricky Dick: "I miss Nixon. Compared to these Nazis we have in the White House now, Richard Nixon was a flaming liberal."
And, like Nixon, it is more than likely that not a single one of the smirking traitors who nearly wrecked this country will ever spend a day in jail. Instead they remain lodged in our flesh like so many ricin pellets, oozing their poison into our national bloodstream, waddle from one fawning audience to another, worming their way into major media outlets, or dispatching their degenerate children and underlings out into the world the keep their poison pumping.
They soiled our good name, bankrupted the country, shredded the Constitution and kicked the crutches out from under the global economy on their way out the door, and while it is sometimes hard to focus on them through the flames of the world they set on fire, we must.
America could have had justice.
But America didn't get justice.
America got Hopey McChange, who said he wants to look forward, not backward. Who said there must be no "retribution", no "vengeance", no "payback", who said the era of "divisive partisanship" must end.
In a lengthy interview on Democracy Now! with Amy Goodman, Congressman Dennis Kucinich explained why he would not vote for the present health care bill and defended his position against attacks from people on the left like Markos Moulitsas. He also spoke about the subjects of Afghanistan, campaign finance, and the passing of activist Granny D.
I mean, I have a responsibility to take a stand here on behalf of those who want a public option. There's about thirty-four members of the Senate, at least, who have signed on to saying they support a public option. If I were to just concede right now and say, "Well, you know, whatever you want. All this pressure's building. Just forget about it," actually weakens every last-minute bit of negotiations that would try to improve the bill. So I think that it's really critical to take this stand, because without it, there's no real control over premiums. Without it, we have nothing in the bill except the privatization of our healthcare system.
Anybody who ever reflected on the evidence for as much as a minute knows that Barack Obama, Bill Clinton, and George W. Bush all smoked pot. Obama admitted it, Bush never really denied it, and Clinton (ha ha!) "didn't inhale."
So if smoking pot doesn't mess you up too much to be President, then what's the problem with pot?
The problem is shameles and hypocritical politicians sucking up to tight-assed low-IQ no-info hoodoos in Alabama and South Dakota, who fear that their little Barbies and Kens will end up in the gutter if they sample the demon weed, although...
Since 1992, your chance of getting elected President without a whole lotta preliminary tokin' has been zero.
But while Obama is prancing around the Oval Office and laughing at the net-roots because they made legalizing marijuana and ending the "War on Drugs" #1 and #2 on Obama's own bullshit website Ideas for Change in America...
While Obama is prancing around the Oval Office and enforcing even the very few drug-laws that he promised not to enforce...
Meanwhile the "War on Drugs" continues to decimate black communities, as described in a excellent new book by legal scholar Michelle Alexander...
AMY GOODMAN: Nearly half of America's young black men are behind bars or have been labeled felons for life? That's an astounding figure. Also, what does it mean in terms of their rights for the rest of their lives?
MICHELLE ALEXANDER: Yes, thanks largely to the war on drugs, a war that has been waged almost exclusively in poor communities of color, even though studies have consistently shown that people of color are no more likely to use or sell illegal drugs than whites. The war on drugs waged in these ghetto communities has managed to brand as felons millions of people of color for relatively minor, nonviolent drug offenses. And once branded a felon, they're ushered into a permanent second-class status, not unlike the one we supposedly left behind. Those labeled felons may be denied the right to vote, are automatically excluded from juries, and my be legally discriminated against in employment, housing, access to education, public benefits, much like their grandparents or great grandparents may have been discriminated against during the Jim Crow era.
In fact, in 2005, four out of five drug arrests were for possession. Only one out of five were for sales.
AMY GOODMAN: Yes, I just wanted to bring it up to President Obama, because this piece you wrote, very interesting, at tomdispatch.com called "The Age of Obama as Racial Nightmare." Explain.
MICHELLE ALEXANDER: What is the system designed to do? The system is designed to send you right back to prison, which is, in fact, what happens to the vast majority of people who are released. About 70 percent of former prisoners are returned within three years. And the majority of those who are returned are returned within three months, because the obstacles, the legal barriers to just surviving on the outside, are so great. I'm often-you know, people often say to me, "Well, I know somebody who is a felon and who managed to get a job. You know, it's possible to get a job," they say.
Well, it may be possible, but what kind of job? Why is it that, you know, our young kids, young black and brown kids, are expected to be locked into low-wage jobs for life, if they're lucky enough to get them, but kids in other communities are given the opportunity to go on to college, to compete for a full range of job opportunities? During the Jim Crow era, the problem wasn't that black people couldn't get jobs; it was that they were locked permanently in a lower tier of jobs. And that's the reality.
Considering the shameless hypocrisy and downright idiocy of politics in America, maybe it isn't surprising that after 40 years of failure, the "War on Drugs" is still fully funded and still destroying the lives of hundreds of thousands of black Americans...
But how many people who voted for "Hope and Change" with Barack Obama foresaw that they were only electing a new Enforcer-in-Chief of the new Jim Crow?
Michael Walzer's piece entitled "Missing the Movement" is so relevant and smartly written that I felt inclined to read it through four times before beginning to thinking about formulating an adequate response that would do it justice. I am overjoyed to find someone who has managed to put forth a strong, sound hypothesis as to why recent reform efforts tied to a resurgent liberalism have been so limited while setting out cogently what we ourselves ought to do to fix the problem. Having identified what went wrong, let us now proceed to take on the hard work and soul searching necessary to get past it. For as it is written, "Prepare your work outside; get everything ready for yourself in the field, and after that build your house."
Walzer writes,
Liberalism is the American version of social democracy, but it lacks a strong working-class base, party discipline, and ideological self-consciousness. None of these are in the offing, but we need to be aware of what we are missing, and we need to begin at least the intellectual work of making up for it. European social democrats are on the defensive right now, but they have a lot to defend. Liberals here are in catch-up mode, and not doing all that well. We know more or less what we have to do, but we haven't managed to give the American people a brightly colored picture of the country we would like to create. There is a lot of wonkishness on the liberal left, among American social democrats, but not much inspiration. We haven't found the words and images that set people marching. As an old leftist, I can talk (endlessly) about citizenship, equality, solidarity, and our responsibility to future generations, but someone much younger than I am has to put all this in a language that resonates with young Americans-and describe a "city upon a hill" that may or may not be the same hill that I have been climbing all these years.
It is this section in particular which resonates most strongly with me. I notice this kind of stultifying dullness among those who have, for reasons unknown, exchanged wonkery for truly impassioned discourse and inspirational rhetoric. The result produced is robotic and bloodless, for one. For another, it's downright Pharisaical. In this circumstance, Dictionary.com defines Pharisaical as "practicing or advocating strict observance of external forms and ceremonies of religion or conduct without regard to the spirit." I have noted, sometimes with anger, sometimes with frustration, never with satisfaction, that this is true not just in gatherings of religious liberals, but also quite evident in multiple settings and causes comprised of vocally secular liberals. Going through the motions without understanding the passion will never serve anyone's cause well and indeed, it is partially why we find ourselves in the mess in which we are now. Layering laws upon laws, formalities upon formalities, and procedures upon procedures might seem to be helpful upon first glance, but they end up separating ourselves from each other, not pulling us together.
Are you sick and tired of just sitting back as the Democrats intentionally sabotage any possibility that you might be able to afford health care one day?
Or maybe you are just sick. I mean literally sick. "Sick" as in you need to go to the nephrologist right fucking now for that expensive dialysis treatment you've been putting off to pay for luxuries like canned peas and rent. Have you been unable to afford dialysis for so long that people have started calling you Frosty the Yellow Snowman because of that 4 inch layer of Uremic Frost covering your whole body?
I can only imagine how pissed (no pun intended) you must be! After all, you did exactly what you thought was right. On November 4, 2008 you stumbled half dead into that voting booth, cast your vote for Hope and Change, and promptly collapsed into a yellow heap right there on the floor of your local precinct.
As the paramedics carried you away--ignoring your desperate pleas for them to "get the fuck away from me you motherfucking bastards I can't afford a goddamn ambulance ride and another ER bill because I'm almost out of canned peas you little bitches, your father sucks cocks in hell"--you slowly started to lose consciousness with visions of affordable dialysis dancing in your head. "Everything is going to be fine now because Change is coming," you thought right before you fell into a coma that lasted three months.
After waking up in an alley somewhere in Cleveland to the odd sensation of a rat gnawing on your earlobe--the hospital dumped you there after 2 days once they discovered you had no insurance--you were feeling mighty low. You pulled what you hoped was a hospital needle out of your right hand and began aimlessly wandering the streets, trying to figure out what city they had dumped you in this time, and that's when you saw it!
Over at Daily Salem Witch Trials, where Jane Hamsher has been burned at the stake so many times they've run out of stakes, someone set their torch down long enough to deliver a sermon about the dangers of fire . . .
President Obama told progressives that if this healthcare bill fails, not only will the democrats go down in flames but his presidency. I think those who are not satisfied with this bill need a come to jesus moment. We democrats need to realize that we can't get everything we want.
I'll have a come to Jesus moment if you stop sniffing glue. While drinking a case of beer. While posting a diary from a rabbit hole somewhere deep beneath the surface of Obamabot Land.
Someone needs to understand the basic difference between flying and never getting off the ground. You can't go down in flames when you never even got the damn plane into the air. It didn't even make it to the runway, because there aren't any runways. It's still in the hangar. At the No We Can't International Airport. Where there's no runways, where there's no control tower, where there's no departure gate because nothing ever departs, where the only thing in the air is Rahm's middle finger.
Did I mention the plane doesn't even have a pilot? No? Well then I'd better mention that.
THE DAMN PLANE DOESN'T EVEN HAVE A PILOT.
Hopey McChange talks about flying, he talks about it all the time, he talks about soaring high up into that Sky of Change, soaring high above the status quo, high above those red states and blue states, way up into that Heaven of Bipartisanship, where the Centrist Angels play their harps and halos glow above every Republican head.
He talks so much the wind never stops blowing . . .
Idiot wind, blowing every time you move your mouth . . .
Blowing down the backroads heading south.
Idiot wind, blowing every time you move your teeth,
You're an idiot, babe, it's a wonder,
That you still know how to breathe.
"Why are Obama and the Democrats so incompetent/such wimps/such 'pussies'? They control the White House and both houses of Congress, yet they haven't even managed to [insert embarrassingly modest and/or reformist liberal/progressive goal here, e.g., "pass health care reform that includes a public option", "end the Iraq war", "enact strict regulations on Wall Street", etc.]! Obama needs to 'grow a pair' and start acting more like the Republicans did when they were in power! You know, like a man. I mean, Bush never cared about bipartisanship and consensus-building when he was president. He was willing to use his power to enact his agenda, and he did so without giving the Democratic opposition in Congress a second thought."
The Left's™ persistent broadcasting of variations on the Democrats-as-incompetent-"pussies" (Bill Maher's word, not mine) meme reeks of a highly sophisticated and finely-tuned advertising campaign. The corporate owners of Brand Left™have so thoroughly saturated the nation with this message that even Apple's marketing department has started taking notes.
Of course, it is unsurprising when Brand Left's™ corporate mouthpieces help spread such a patently false characterization of Obama and the Democrats. The Leftists™ that have been anointed by our capitalist dictatorship -- Rachel Maddow,Keith Olbermann, Michael Moore, Ariana Huffington, and Bill Maher (to name a few)- have each done their part to perpetuate this dangerous lie about Obama and the Democrats. One should expect nothing less of such a distinguished cadre of amoral hypocrites.
Despite their faux-leftist rhetoric, they are cut from the same rotting, moth-eaten corporate cloth as Certainly Not News and Fox. The plutocracy has allowed them to express their "left wing" convictions for one primary reason: A few advertising firms conducted focus groups to figure out what kind of programming would best attract a coveted demographic to various media sources where they could be subjected to target marketing (i.e., mostly white limousine liberals who constantly reiterate their love for National "Public" Radio whenever they are going for progressive realness). Likewise, The Jersey Shore was created so that advertisers could target an equally repugnant demographic.
I've been poor, and I've been not so poor -- and not being Poor is better.
Finally after 50 years of treating those in Poverty, as a bothersome statistic, the Federal Govt has begun to acknowledge, that there ARE individual stories, in that invisible demographic group:
Federal Gov't Expands How It Measures Poverty The Census Bureau will expand how it measures poverty beyond just cash income to get a more accurate picture of what people actually have to spend.
Frank James, NPR -- March 2, 2010
NPR's Pam Fessler summed up the changes for network's newscast:
Things such as taxes, child care, housing and out-of-pocket medical expenses, along with the value of government benefits such as food stamps, will be included in the calculation. The official poverty measure, which is based on an individual's cash income, will still be used to determine eligibility for government programs. The supplemental measure will be used to study poverty trends and the impact of anti-poverty programs. The change is something that's been long sought by poverty experts. The new measure will be available next year.
Instead of writing a blog post and further destroying my wrists in the process, I figured I'd try something a little different.
Below you'll find a video that I cobbled together from pictures I found online and designs created by my partner, a talented graphic designer who was kind enough to take a few moments to indulge me. I am not a film director, nor do I desire to be one. It shows.
The song, however, is one that I think many people here will enjoy. It's called "Money Machine", and it was recorded live at Eddie's Attic in Atlanta. The album is entitled Jeff's Last Dance, by Kahler & Mullins. I was at this show. It's just two guys singing, one of whom plays the hell out of the congas. I suppose my affinity for this song results from the fact that I do possess an inner hippie (shhh!). The song is all about corporate greed & US militarism, but it actually manages to not sound cheesy. In fact, it happens to rock. I hope you enjoy my amateurish iMovie editing, which was intended to convey visually the sentiments expressed in the lyrics (with a bit of snarkiness). Even if you dislike the editing, I hope you'll enjoy the tune.
LANGUAGE WARNING: Today's story is uncharacteristically blunt, and from this moment forward we will be using lots of inappropriate language in making our points.
It is by now fairly well known that Rahm Emanuel, President Obama's White House Chief of Staff, had a bit of a blow-up with liberals who were ready to start running ads against "blue dog" Democrats who were working very hard to shut down the health care reform effort.
Now we're not gonna get in the middle of that argument today; instead, since we're finally getting a chance to talk, I figured me and Rahm could get a few other things out of the way that have been on everyone's mind for the past year or so.
The historic Conclave at Blair Castle has finally ended, the illustrious personages in attendance have shared their wisdom with us, and I have humbly transcribed their words, so serfs everywhere will be able to sleep well tonight knowing that all shall be well, and all shall be well, and all manner of things shall be well . . .
Since tomorrow is the big "virtual march" on Washington, when the so- called Democratic activists (yeah, I mean you, OFA) and interested others are supposed to flood the Congressional switchboards, faxes, and email to their Senators on the Eve of Destruction, er, the Thursday televised "Bipartisan" Health Care Summit Kabuki Theatre, to expedite the passing of the gallstone, er, The Health Insurance Bill, the Speaker of the House clarified the status of the President's bill tweak tonight. The bill tweak was posted online yesterday.
This was posted late in The Hill this evening:
Pelosi: House Dems can support Obama healthcare proposal
"We're very pleased with what the president put up on the Internet," Pelosi (D-Calif.) said Tuesday at a news conference.
Pelosi did not object to the absence of a Public Option in President Obama's version of the bill, altho she said it would be the preferred method, nor to putting an excise tax on on "high cost health care" plans to pay for it. (oh, nice message control there by the writer for not using the Reaganite "Cadillac Plans.")
The White House bill includes a modified version of the tax that seeks to protect middle-class union members from paying it.
Pelosi endorsed that proposal, stating that "the pay-for in it is something that Democrats in the House can support."
( If I had to make an educated guess, the unions that they have in mind here are the ones that work on government military contracts and projects such as the electrical, metal sheetworker, aerospace industry, shipbuilding, etc, and in turn donate to Democratic candidates. )
According to the wonk room think progress, with President Obama's tweak of the Senate bill, there is a delay in starting the excise tax. This is a combination of kick the can down the road to 8 years in the future, and upping the amount of exemption for each policy before the 40% excise tax on policies worth over a certain amount kicks in. A double barreled kick, as it were. Because it's very likely that policies are going to cost lots more in the near future, after we saw Wellpoint's 39% proposed rate hikes this month. http://www.marketwatch.com/sto...
Obama's Version- Excise tax - 'Labor agreement' for everyone. Changes effective date of the Senate policy from 2013 to 2018. Raises the amount of premiums that are exempt from the assessment from $8,500 for singles to $10,200 and from $23,000 for families to $27,500 and indexes these amounts for subsequent years at general inflation plus 1 percent.
There is also a payroll tax increase of zero point nine 0.9% percent on wages or salaries above a certain income, and a two point nine percent 2.9% assessment on unearned income. ("unearned" income is that which does not come from actual work performed for wages, but is from interest, dividends, investment gains, or things like rent).
According to The Hill story, the House will be voting on Wednesday on a repeal of the health insurance industry's Anti Trust exemption, which would allow the Federal Trade Commission and Dept of Justice to combat collusion (aka evil cooperation to fix prices) between health insurance companies. They've had the exemption since 1945.
In a post on Salon today, Glenn Greenwald reveals to readers the essential tactic of the Democratic Party leadership. It's not trying to get Republican support, it's not filibuster reform, it's not registering people to vote. It's much more manipulative than that.
It is an explanation for the "lack of spine" that Democrats are often said to have - which, we can now see, is merely a convenient illusion for prominent Democrats. It is a scapegoat that they can use so that progressives will continue voting for them even though we get nothing that we ask for, and instead have to take whatever crumbs are given to us.
So what is it?
This is what the Democratic Party does; it's who they are. They're willing to feign support for anything their voters want just as long as there's no chance that they can pass it.
Robert Pollin is Professor of Economics at the University of Massachusetts in Amherst, and is a founding co-director of the Political Economy Research Institute (PERI). His research centers on macroeconomics, conditions for low-wage workers in the U.S. and globally, the analysis of financial markets, and the economics of building a clean-energy economy in the U.S. His books include A Measure of Fairness: The Economics of Living Wages and Minimum Wages in the US and Contours of Descent: US Economic Fractures and the Landscape of Global Austerity.
Here Pollin talks with Paul Jay of The Real News Network and outlines a careful combination of job-generating public investments, incentives to mobilize private investment, and policies that protect economically vulnerable populations that can create the economic and policy environment that Obama could use to create 18 million jobs and lower the unemployment rate to only 4 percent by 2012.
It's the same old story. Another slap in the face to both organized labor and the entire middle class as both Craig Becker and the National Labor Relations Board are in limbo. Harry Reid called for recess appointments, The AFL-CIO sprang into action and the president's response is limbo continued. There is nothing this Democratic president can do for such close allies? As workers are wondering if a functioning NLRB is being saved for October of 2012 this all seems so 1994. But top that off with Obama's lust for the HCR excise tax and it gets so much worse.
In the debate over the finance of health insurance expansion it would be worth noting that the wealthy who voted for Barack Obama and supported the Democratic party fully expected that healthcare reform would be financed by a roll back the Bush tax cuts for Americans earning more than $250,000 per year. The union members who voted for, stuffed envelopes, reached into their pockets an organized fundraisers, were under the impression that they would see some much needed advancement from a Democratic president after eight years of Bush.
By now most progressive bloggers have moved way beyond these workers who have been losing ground since the 1970's. It has been rationalized to death so everyone could move on to the next action, followed by the next capitulation, followed by the next wild goose chase towards progress. Come November blue collar workers, like Massachusetts voters recently, might end up being framed as stupid for protecting themselves from harm.
Distrust for government seems to work for Republicans, not for Democrats. As the public option is being presented once again, probably another carrot on a string, a deeper look at this excise tax that will live in the memories of workers for many years is in order. How much trust will be left between the workers and Democratic leadership once this excise tax becomes law and in years to come?
Yesterday, I wrote about why it is a mistake for the Democrats to cling to the Senate Finance Committee's funding mechanism for their health insurance "reform" bill, which is a punitive, regressive excise tax on the working class's health insurance benefits themselves, which the White House persists in calling the "Cadillac tax."
Since Friday afternoon is always good for a newsdump, according to Chris Bowers at Open Left, Jillian Rayfield at TPMDC, and Greg Sargent at The Plum Line, we have the usual Democratic anonymous WH sources/leadership aides
telling us that the President intends to offer the excise tax and no Public Option to the "Bipartisan" health care bill summit next Thursday Feb 25 th.
Sargent:
Okay, I've got some more info for you on what the health care compromise proposal that Obama will bring to the summit next week is going to look like.
Bottom line: It's all but certain to have the Cadillac tax in it, even though House Dems oppose it, and no public option, aides say.
http://theplumline.whorunsgov....
Oh, goody.
Now, last night at Open Left, we had the breathless BREAKING! applied to this little nugget:
88% of Nevada Democrats and 61% of Independents favor a govt. admin health insurance plan "like Medicare" for younger people to be able to obtain as a choice to compete with private plans
89% of Nevada Democrats and 56% of Independents would prefer passing health insurance reform that includes a public option, and that would make them more likely to vote for Democrats in the 2010 elections, even if this meant the bill didn't get Republican votes.
88% of Democrats and 58% of Independents think Harry Reid should include a Public Option in Reconciliation.
Today, Friday, President Obama did a joint appearance with Senate Majority Leader Reid at a town hall in a high school gym in Henderson, Nevada. They hugged, they praised each other, they made boxing allegories.
"Health care has been knocking me around pretty good," Obama said. "It's been knocking Harry around pretty good."
The goal was to shift the emphasis from the unpopularity of some of Reid's votes to, in Obama's view, the courage it took to take expensive steps to save the economy. "Sometimes he takes his licks," Obama said of Reid. "But he gets back up. Harry Reid has never stopped fighting."
Yup. Harry's never stopped fighting. Fighting for what, we're not sure, and in what decade, we don't know, but he's still in there, swingin' away. Harry's sagging in the polls in his Nevada re election race. Nevada, with the highest percentage of veterans and retirees in the nation (think living on fixed incomes), and an economy that depends on tourism and entertainment, has been battered brutally in this recession, as it also has a 13% unemployment rate, and the 2nd highest foreclosure rates in the nation. Harry needs a Big Las Vegas Finale to pull this one off.
The Obama administration is announcing Thursday a new initiative for joint action by the Democratic Party and the Republican Party against American working people, when the leaders of a new bipartisan commission to slash the federal deficit are introduced at the White House.
Yesterday, I reported on the incredulous national reaction fellow Democrats had to Senator Dianne Feinstein's (D, CA) proposed amendment to the upcoming Jobs Bill, the one where she wanted to suspend the Endangered Species Act protections to migrating baby salmon and Delta smelt in the Sacramento & San Joaquin River Delta, with the excuse that increased water pumping out of the Delta to her billionaire water broker donors would "increase jobs."
This ignored the fact that the salmon fishing season has been suspended the past 2 years on the CA coast and may be heading for a 3rd year of cancelation because of the collapse and crash of the salmon population.
I found a letter from CA Assemblyperson, Chair of the "Water, Parks, & Wildlife Committee," Jared Huffman, to Mark Corwin, Director of the CA Dept of Water Resources (DWR) from 1 week ago, Feb 10th. In it, Chairman Huffman asks why the CA Dept of Water Resources (DWR) is flouting the CA Endangered Species Act (CESA) with regards to Judge Oliver Wanger's opinion Feb 5, 2010, that Delta water pumping extraction must decrease to protect Delta Smelt and migrating salmon. In 2008 and 2009, the US Fish and Wildlife Service and the National Marine Fisheries Service said that if water agencies such as CVP + SWP pumped high amounts of water out of the Delta at certain times, it was going to drive Federally listed endangered fish in the Delta to extinction. (state rules need to comply with Federal listings) In the summer of 2009 the Dept of Water Resources requested rules clarification, then turned around and started attacking the new rules in court.
Huffman to DWR:
{{{ On August 3, 2009, (the CA) Dept Water Resources (DWR) filed legal papers in support of a motion
by its water contractors seeking to invalidate the biological opinion - even though the effect would
be to invalidate DWR's own CA Endangered Species Act coverage for the SWP pumps.
Then DWR took aim at the salmon biological opinion. Last week, detection of salmon triggered an
obligation under the salmon biological opinion for the SWP/CVP pumps to reduce reverse flows in Middle
and Old Rivers. State and federal water contractors went to court seeking to overturn the heavily peer
reviewed salmon biological opinion and replace it with a previously invalidated Bush-era opinion.
Now, detection of smelt has triggered protections under the delta smelt biological opinion. As you know, a limitation on reverse flow to protect delta smelt would also meet your requirements to protect salmon and longfin smelt. Monday, Central Valley Project contractors filed for a Temporary Restraining Order on the delta smelt protections. And Dept of Water Resources, fully informed as to the deference the court gave its last letter, filed another "non-opposition" letter yesterday.
Having actively worked to create these problems, please explain how DWR intends to fix them. }}}
______________
a pdf download of Huffman's letter to the DWR is here:
http://www.lloydgcarter.com/fi... I expanded some of the acronyms above, so it would read more easily
I'm quoting this to to help illustrate the breadth of the problem Senator Feinstein created with so many levels of both state and Federal water and fisheries law, when she decided to play Top Water Distributress of the SacJoaquin Delta. The state of CA was trying to work this out with the Federal government, and she meddled to make a favor to Kerns County water brokers, and Westlake Mutual Water Company and billionaire donor Stewart Resnik, so they could sell a bigger water allotment to the highest bidder in Southern CA. And this is going to be tacked on to a JOBS Bill.
Congress has had this week off because of President's day. They had the previous week off because of 2 massive snowstorms. So they've had plenty of time to interact people who are either mad at them or wish to purchase their influence.
Today, The Hill is reporting that Majority Leader Senator Harry Reid doesn't have the cloture votes to even begin debate on the jobs bill.
March on Washington
