Category: Congress

Bush’s Blue Dress ©2008 Emily Duffy Photo by Sibila Savage

Cross-posted at my blog (where you can see larger images) and on Docudharma)

Dimensions: 58″x40″.

Description: Dress sewn of cut parchment replicas of the U.S. Constitution with blood stain over heart. (Started in 2008)

A hanger with American flag fabric and an eagle on it.

Materials: Like a lovely framed painting one might see in the National Gallery, the background fabric is burgundy brocade with fringe, velvet edges and gold braid nailed onto the wall. Gold metal hooks and grommets (in background fabric) hold the fabric and hanger up.

While normal Americans were watching the Dodgers-Cubs game on Wednesday night, the Senate passed the bailout bill on a 74-25 vote.  The House was unable to pass the bill on Monday, but the Senate fixed the glaring problems of that bill and it breezed through with bipartisan support.  How did the Senate fix and pass the bailout bill?  They added a provision to repeal an excise tax on wooden arrows designed for children.  Now why didn’t the House think of that?

Senators attached a provision repealing a 39-cent excise tax on wooden arrows designed for children to an historic $700 billion financial-markets rescue that passed tonight by a vote of 74-25. The provision, originally proposed by Oregon senators Ron Wyden and Gordon Smith, will save manufacturers such as Rose City Archery in Myrtle Point, Oregon, about $200,000 a year.

(snip)

Representatives for Wyden, a Democrat, and Smith, a Republican, didn’t immediately return calls.

This wasn’t enough for Senator Wyden (D), who still voted against the bailout.  But it apparently swayed Senator Smith (R), who voted in favor of the bailout.

Hello, this is my first diary here. It has already been posted and did pretty poorly at DailyKos until being rescued. It is a story of pain and suffering and I believe it is a decent prediction of things to come.

This is an old story from 1994 that has some relevance today. It is a story from a Democratic administration but the victims were forced to deal with a Republican resolution. It is a story that I had to live through.

I live in a 3000 unit apartment complex in the Bronx. It is a massive dwelling on 22 acres that was built in 1961. There was a conversion from a rental property to a cooperative in 1987, the last breath of a housing boom. A complete renovation made the property much more desirable.  

In order to sell many apartments very quickly the holder of unsold shares steered new shareholders towards seven and ten year balloon mortgages. People believing in their own upward mobility put up ten percent and made smaller payments that paid down just a small amount of the principle.

When these balloon mortgages ended so many of those loans were with defunct savings and loans and many residents ended up at the mercy of the Resolution Trust Corporation. Not only were many tenant/shareholders in big trouble, because of the RTC it looked like the entire complex was going to fail.      

“The nation is on an unsustainable fiscal course.”

That is the prognosis of Peter Orszag, the director of the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office, which he gave in a press briefing coinciding with the release of a CBO report today on The Budget and Economic Outlook: An Update.

The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) estimates that the deficit for 2008 will be substantially higher than it was in 2007, rising from $161 billion last year to $407 billion this year.

The CBO’s report was written before the government announcd the takeover of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, so the impact of the cost of their bailout — a cost of up to $100 billion each — was not factored into the report.

The budget deficit projection gets worse.  

Since no one over at the main Kos site seems to care about anything other than Palin, here’s a cross post…

For those interested in the Native Americans of Southern LA, I’ll post on that tomorrow…however, this is another issue that burns me up, so here’s the rant on this…

It’s a complex issue, but I’ll try to make it short and bittersweet.  Mental health issues are not treated like physical health issues by insurance companies.  Despite the fact that neuroscience has now clearly linked many mental health disorders like depression, bipolar disorder, PTSD, ADHD, etc. to genetic issues or chemical imbalances, these are still considered conditions that do not merit the same level of coverage as physical health issues like cancer.  Why?  Because it would cost more money…the helath insurers generally treat these as they did in the 1970’s, offering limited..if any…coverage.

You can go to the National Institute of Mental Health website for the stats..I won’t bore anyone with them here.    However, they indicate that 13 million Americans have some form of debilitating mental health issue and nearly 60 million have a mental health issue of any form.  As with other forms of health care, minorities and the poor suffer more fro m these issues–often due to a lack of care–than other population groups.

Further, this should not be a Red or Blue issue, as anyone, from any background can develop a disorder.  For example, I have a good friend who developed schizophrenia while in college.  He was from a well-off family, had attended a very good private college prep school and was enrolled in one of the top universities.  He started developing symptoms in his sophomore year.  He dropped out, and fell into a spiral that eventually found him homeless or in jail.  He was eventually able to get help, and now lives a precarious, though stable, life on disability.  He is one of the lucky ones, as he had family and friends who gave a shit.  Others aren’t so lucky in their support.  

Disability Rights Advocates has been conducting an investigation into VA hospital access.

While their investigation is being targeted on the Veterans Care issue with the below recent report we can see that the Military Care issue, i.e. Walter Reed and More, is still having the same problems that finally came forward through great investigative reporting and shouldn’t have existed nor still exist as to care for the returning active duty Military Personal especially from these theaters of occupations.

Before entering the ballot box, you deserve to know. You have the right to know. Actually, you have the responsibility to know candidates’ positions on the critical issues before us and before the US. And, a new tool has emerged for doing so on critical energy and environmental issues.

Candid Answers provides a path for voters (for citizens) to query quickly candidates on five critical issues: Global Warming; Renewable Energy; Nuclear Power; Public Transportation; and Automobile Fuel Efficiency.  And, these queries, if they are made, will lead to a public record for candidates across the nation.

Does public pressure, personal contact with legislators, and protest matter in shaping public policy? After eight years of Bush and Cheney many might say no, our voices and opinions are ignored in Washington.  But read on.

Today’s exhibit: Representative Jan Schakowsky, Democrat of Illinois.  She appears to have had an awakening. As we used to say, she has had her consciousness raised.

Now Cong. Wexler is a victim of the same type of Republican attempts to run him out of office, the same that Kucinich suffered.

Impeachment Support Makes Wexler a Target

(Author’s note: Much thanks to Bondad for the data, without him, I could not complete this. )

It seems Congress is looking into getting the tax code to work in bringing jobs here.  Also, on the inflation front, Dow Chemical is reporting that material costs have become a financial tumor.  Folks, welcome to another edition of Manufacturing Monday!

As much as I aspire to be motivated by factors more noble than fear – like love and compassion – as a human being I do have fears, and they do motivate me.  My need to express and proactively confront these fears arises from my digestion of yesterday’s House Judiciary Committee hearing, Executive Power and Its Constitutional Limitations.

While I was left feeling more optimistic about some Committee members’ sincerity in restoring the rule of law, as well as the options presented by witness testimony, I also became more acutely aware of my fears. I agree with Elizabeth Holtzman that the need for bipartisan support of accountability – specifically impeachment inquiries – is essential to the success of the process, and quite probably to the future integrity of our Democracy.

I’ll get to my point:  some Republican members of the Committee stated that the primary role of Congress is to protect Americans, to focus on “national security”, rather than conduct oversight hearings.  They, of course, attempted to justify this position by mentioning threats from terrorists, which did elicit fear in me – but, I’m sure not in the way these members intended.

So, I listened to my fear, and I had a conversation with it: