Tag: U.S. Senate

Crossposted at Daily Kos

THE WEEK IN EDITORIAL CARTOONS

This weekly diary takes a look at the past week’s important news stories from the perspective of our leading editorial cartoonists (including a few foreign ones) with analysis and commentary added in by me.

When evaluating a cartoon, ask yourself these questions:

1. Does a cartoon add to my existing knowledge base and help crystallize my thinking about the issue depicted?

2. Does the cartoonist have any obvious biases that distort reality?

3. Is the cartoonist reflecting prevailing public opinion or trying to shape it?

The answers will help determine the effectiveness of the cartoonist’s message.

:: ::

R.J. Matson, New York Observer, Buy this cartoon

http://act.boldprogressives.or…

Bernie Sanders has used a bit of Senate finesse to block the renomination of Ben Bernanke to head the Federal Reserve.  Chris Bowers over at Closed Left explains what’s happening, but what it all boils down to is that Sanders has managed to hold up the renomination of one of Bush’s creatures to a hugely important office.  Obama and Wall Street want Bernanke to stay and keep fucking up the economy.  Sanders is looking like one of the only senators willing to go on record and try to stop this from happening.

So please click the link above and thank Bernie for looking out for us.  And while you’re at it, use the Senate phone directory to call your own senator and demand a filibuster of Bernanke’s renomination.  We need someone in there who will actually represent the public interest.

http://www.senate.gov/general/…

I have seen a number of Diaries writtien over at DKos today that are just attacking Dennis Kucinich and making him out to be a villain, for having done the correct thing and voted no on the faux Health Care “reform” Bill.

As I feared, that whole site just blindly believes all the untrue soundbites, phony PR, exaggerated claims, and hype about the Health Bill, and DKos neither knows nor cares at all about the actual language of the Bill, and what this very bad Bill actually does, and what it does not do.

In fact, it is the Insurance Companies who are cheerleading even more wildly than the people over at DKos, which is a reflection of the ignorance, and dogmatic “anything the DParty or Obama does is great” mindset that DKos is hopelessly stuck in.

I am banned over at DKos.  I cannot write anything there. So this Essay is a plea and a request for someone here to write a Diairy over at the DKos site (on my behalf), that both defends Dennis Kucinich (and his no vote), and also educates the readship there on just how bad this Health Care Bill really is.

You do not have do write a new Diary from scratch.  I have already written one Diary right here at Docudharma on this very subject that you can just copy word-for-word verbatim, that detailed the reasons why the “reform” Bill deserves to be defeated.

Please See and Use this:  Why The Health Care Bill Deserves To Be Defeated!

You can just repost it word-for-word.  I also wrote a second essay here, containing an additional statement by Kucinich, that also helps provide some further background context for a no vote:

See: Statement by Kucinich on Health Care Bill

I wish Dave Letterman had forced President Obama to watch this clip on his show last night…

I’ll be posting this over on Daily Kos and Congress Matters tomorrow night. I wanted to give Docudharma the first preview.

Also crossposted at my own blog (for my ten or so regular readers).

Welcome to the fourth installment of “Considered Forthwith.”

This approximately weekly series looks at the various committees in the House and the Senate. Committees are the workshops of our democracy. This is where bills are considered, revised, and occasionally advance for consideration by the House and Senate. Most committees also have the authority to exercise oversight of related executive branch agencies. If you want to read previous dairies in the series, search using the “forthwith” tag or use the link on my blogroll. I welcome criticisms and corrections in the comments.

This week, Considered Forthwith will examine both the House Committee on Standards and Official Conduct and the Senate Select Committee on Ethics. These are two small committees with no standing subcommittees. For the sake of ease, I will refer to the two committees as the “House Ethics Committee” and the “Senate Ethics Committee.”  

Thanks to Glenn Greenwald for providing the information on this action alert.

Republican-in-Spirit Joe LIEberman has supported Republican dictators and right-wing policies for some years now.  In 2006, after losing a primary election to challenger Ned Lamont, LIEberman told Connnecticut voters that their will was irrelevant; he would run for re-election as an independent.  Lamont made a series of missteps afterward, losing out to his extreme right-wing opponent in the general election.  Since then, LIEberman has sided with Republicans on virtually every policy issue and used his caucus status with Senate Democrats to force them to adopt his position on legislation favorable to his Republican masters.

Now that there is an undeniable Democratic majority in the Senate, that political party no longer needs to coddle him by letting him keep the chairmanship of the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee.  According to Greenwald, president-elect Barack Obama is taking the official position of staying the hell out of Senate affairs.  This creates the opening we on the left require to pressure the Senate to dump LIEberman.