Liberal Media Elite

Frankly, I think the “stunning loss” the Dems suffered in MA could…could…be a good thing.

It seems that it is now in vogue for folks on the left to attack the filibuster rules in the Senate as unconstitutional and blahblahblah. Personally, I love the filibuster. For those Dems that want to kill it, remember, we’ll be the minority party again someday.

What I don’t love about the filibuster is how it’s used by Harry Reid and, indirectly, President Obama. If they have a piece of legislation and cannot get 60 votes they don’t bring it to the floor. They negotiate and water it down and bribe enough moderates to get their 60 votes which, I think, in most cases leads to a dramatically sub-optimal legislative outcome. I don’t blame the Republicans, nor am I pissed at the Blue Dogs. If all I had to do was threaten a filibuster to kill a piece of legislation or to get myself on the pork train, I’d do it.

What’s maddening about Mr. Reid is, given his long tenure in the Senate, he knows filibusters are rare and they are extremely difficult to pull off. You have to get enough Senators willing to rotate 24/7 to keep it going long enough to get the other side to give up. It’s really, really hard to do.

Imagine a filibuster on the stimulus plan. Imagine enough Blue Dogs and Conservatives actively holding up legislation that would have a real, material, and immediate positive impact on their constituents. This isn’t quietly voting against something…it’s actively telling the people who voted for you to go suck wind. Imagine those folks on the fence who wouldn’t filibuster but for various reasons don’t want to vote for the stimulus getting hammered by consituents with real life horror stories of how the Great Recession was killing ‘em. What do you think the likelihood is that they’d vote for cloture? Quite high, I should think.

The problem isn’t the filibuster. The problem is that the mere threat of one forces all meaningful legislation to have a super-majority. That’s not a process or a structure problem…that’s a failure of leadership and courage by Reid and Obama.

No longer having a guaranteed 60 votes may well force them to force Republicans to make good on their filibuster threats. How would you like to be a Republican in an election year and be either directly guilty of or indirectly supportive of bringing legislation, like healthcare, that a majority of Americans want (according to pools, anyway) to a state of complete gridlock? I’m pretty sure the Dems could use that as one hell of a campaign issue. It’s time for Obama and Reid to take off the kid gloves and force the obstructionists to actually obstruct as opposed to theoretically obstruct. And let them live with the consequences.

Tom Tancredo (R-CO.) is already hard at work losing the 2010 vote for the Republicans by alienating all Latino’s (unlike the significant majority he pissed off with his immigration stand) by declaring La Raza to be “the Latino KKK without hoods or nooses”.

Watching the dumber wingnuts scramble over the next few months to make their party trivial is gonna be kind of fun. The Tank doesn’t represent the majority of congressional Republicans but given that the party has no real leader at the moment, with the closest thing to one being Rush Limbaugh, you gotta figure that the boneheads among them are going to run wild. The Tank lives in a district where this kind of stupidity seems to play well. There are other representatives in that category. In improving their own chances in 2010 by issuing such absurdities they are going to drag the rest of their party down farther than they already have.

Good Times!

When I took AP US History in high school I had this giant tome of history. It was the same text used in survey courses at Yale. It was almost 4″thick. I learned some history. Not quite so randomly, here are some things I learned:

The Smoot-Hawley Tariff was a major policy initiative of Herbert Hoover. Authored by Senator Reed Smoot (R-Utah) and Representative Willis C. Hawley (R-Ore) was signed into law on June 17, 1930 by President Hoover, and was in fact the law of the land for almost 3 years before FDR was sworn in as president on March 4, 1933.

In 1976, during Gerald Ford’s last year in office, there was a Swine Flu scare leading from the death and hospitalization of several Army recruits at Fort Dix, New Jersey. President Ford ordered nationwide vaccinations beginning the following fall. However the innoculations led to serious health problems, and 30 deaths and were discontinued in December, 1976, roughly a month before Jimmy Carter took the oath of office.

For the record the Hoot-Smalley Tariffs are entirely fictional, and sound amazingly like something from an SNL skit featuring (Senator) Franken.

As a coda on a discussion at the bar last night, the accomplishments, to date, of our 44th President:

Signed into law:

Lilly Ledbetter Equal Pay Act.

SCHIP

An 800bn Stimulus Bill

The FY 2009 Budget

Omnibus Public Lands Act (I’m a big fan of this one, protecting over 2 million acres of public land, and over 1,000 miles of rivers, and other waterways. Awesome!)

Executive Orders:

Opening Presidential Records.

Banning Torture

Closing Gitmo

Lifting the ban on stem cell research.

Presidential Memoranda, other actions.

Overturning the Mexico City Policy.

Fast-tracking fuel-economy standards to the 2011 model year.

I could go on. The complete list is found at Whitehouse.gov.

More progressive goodness has come from this man’s first 72 days in office than the previous 8 years. And he hasn’t been in the job for a full 3 months. I think all the hand wringing, consternation, doubt and concern are, at this point a little premature.

Let me be clear, I do have concerns. The Geithner-Summers duo have me concerned. They seem to be of the mindset that dragged our economy into this mess, and don’t quite appear to have any good ideas to get us out. Granted, the mess is so completely intractable, I don’t think anyone has all of the answers, but I’d at least like to see a Krugman or a Stiglitz at the table on this one.

I also fail to see how contracts with AIG are somehow infallible, yet contracts with UAW and other unions need to be revisited, revised, and reduced every time corporate America feels their profits being pinched. That seems to be a double-standard the Administration has embraced.

So far he’s accomplished a lot. The big fights are yet to come, and they will certainly take all of us keeping on him and Congress to get the job done right.

The opponents of the measure gloomily predicted that by unshackling banks and enabling them to move more freely into new kinds of financial activities, the new law could lead to an economic crisis down the road when the marketplace is no longer growing briskly.

”I think we will look back in 10 years’ time and say we should not have done this but we did because we forgot the lessons of the past, and that that which is true in the 1930’s is true in 2010,” said Senator Byron L. Dorgan, Democrat of North Dakota. ”I wasn’t around during the 1930’s or the debate over Glass-Steagall. But I was here in the early 1980’s when it was decided to allow the expansion of savings and loans. We have now decided in the name of modernization to forget the lessons of the past, of safety and of soundness.”

Senator Paul Wellstone, Democrat of Minnesota, said that Congress had ‘’seemed determined to unlearn the lessons from our past mistakes.”

”Scores of banks failed in the Great Depression as a result of unsound banking practices, and their failure only deepened the crisis,” Mr. Wellstone said. ”Glass-Steagall was intended to protect our financial system by insulating commercial banking from other forms of risk. It was one of several stabilizers designed to keep a similar tragedy from recurring. Now Congress is about to repeal that economic stabilizer without putting any comparable safeguard in its place.”

Source: NY Times, 11.5.1999

You may remember a post of mine from this spring. I had less than charitable words for Connecticut. Apparently my sample of about 6 people at apparently the wrong bar was somewhat unscientific. In the district I was in, the last remaining New England Republican House member was given his pink slip.

Jim Himes beats Chris Shays. (That’s wonky link, you have to select the “house” tab and scroll across the district in the far lower left hand corner. But it’s too late to search for a better link.)

It’s been a good great night. This is sort of like sprinkles on the proverbial sundae. Al Franken will be the cherry on top. Here’s to hoping the 9 remaining precincts in MPLS and and what’s left of the Range can do it. Given what’s still out, I like the chances.

Just off the wires.

Guilty. All Counts.

This makes me happy.

Allow me to introduce the junior Senator from Alaska. Mark Begich.

UPDATE: Bye, Ted. —Matthew

Perchance the smartest thing that James Carville ever said: “When your opponent is drowning, throw the son of a bitch an anvil.”

Time to fire up the ol’ Anvil Launcher. This year is shaping up to be an absolute ROUT of the Republican Party and all it stands for. For one thing take a look at current battleground states in this election:

West Virginia? So much for Obama’s “Appalachia Problem” Nate Silver at FiveThirtyEight is projecting about 360 EVs for Obama. I know most of us have donated. Some of us are volunteering. Barring Obama proposing a new Federal “Kill Whitey” Czar at the debate tonight, it’s not a question if he will win, but by how much.

McCain is Drowning.
Anvil’s Away!
Donation Anvils
Volunteering Anvils

But that’s not the really good news. The Democrats position in Senate races went in the last few weeks from awesome to HOLY EFFIN’ SHIT! Let me put it this way: Georgia went from Solid R, to Toss-Up over the course of about a week and a half.

Democrat Jim Martin isn’t just a Democrat, but a better Democrat, going against Saxby Chambliss. Recall that five-time deferred (bad knees) from Vietnam Chambliss ran the dirtiest campaign in history against triple-amputee and Vietnam Vet Max Clelland (no knees). Democrats everywhere should be salivating over this one. This is one son of a bitch that deserves nothing our finest anvils.

Anvils Away!

In our own backyard, Franken has taken the lead in the polls, needs our help to seal the deal. Because, seriously, who here wants to wake up on Nov 5. to 6 more years of Senator Coleman?

Donate.
Volunteer.

On to house races. There are too many to count. Dems could pick-up another 20 or so seats.
Break Their Backs. Crush Their Spirit.

Close to Home:
Ash Madia (MN-03) has a great shot at beating Eric Paulsen and picking up Ramstad’s old seat.
Elwyn Tinklenberg was just added to the DCCC’s Red To Blue list. There must be some movement in his campaign to knock off Minnesota’s favorite wingnut Michele Bachmann. Let’s lend a hand.

Farther Away:
Darcy Burner running in Washington’s 8th District came within a few votes of beating incumbent Dave Reichert. Recent internals show her with a slight lead this year, but the polling has generally been erratic.

We also have a chance to pick-up Cheney’s old seat. Yes, you read that right. A Democrat could be sitting in Dick Cheney’s old seat in the house. Meet Gary Trauner. He fell about 600 votes short in 2006. Could there be a better coda to the Bush/Cheney years than this?

I could add more to this list. But I think you get the picture.

Break Their Backs. Crush Their Spirits.

Anvil Time.

From The Wall Street Journal:

Mr. Paulson is resisting efforts to limit the pay of executives whose firms participate in the program and plans to fight it “hard,” according to a person familiar with the matter. He fears that provision would render the program moot, since many firms might choose not to participate

So the limit of executive pay is the one item Treasury Secretary Paulson is going to fight “hard”, because firms might “not participate” in the biggest free-for-all-after-a-massive-f***-up-of-cosmic-proportions ever? Riiiight.

Something isn’t sitting well. While the money for those vultures is certainly of enormous symbolic importance to all players, it is a “minor” issue - we are still talking BOATLOADS of money, I know - compared to the rest of what’s on the table, namely the more direct assistance to home owners and stricter oversight. Paulson knows that, too, and has already been signaling that he his ready to compromise on aid for homeowners, according to the WSJ article.

So, again, why is the executive pay so important to Paulson? Shouldn’t he be fighting the proposed oversight regulations and relief for Main Street much harder that the Democrats proposed over the weekend?

There are several possible answers to this:
a) Secretary Paulson is really trying to cover his friends in need and doesn’t care about the public reaction - after all, the man was previously the CEO of Goldman Sachs, or
b) Secretary Paulson needs to show his old buddies that he really, really tried, alas…, or
b) Secretary Paulson is trying to publicly blow a comparatively minor, but highly symbolic, matter out of proportion to retain bargaining power regarding the much more important items on the Democrats’ wish list, or
c) Secretary Paulson is playing a game of Chicken with the Congress of the United States of America and therefore the American people - and they should call his bluff

Neither explanation instills confidence in me that the man can be trusted with a $700 billion bucket of taxpayers money without any checks and balances in place.

Tim Walz. Love the guy. When the nets called it for him over Gutknecht in ‘06 I popped the bubbly. Now since then, he’s let me down a couple of times. Iraq funding. FISA business. But on the latter, I think he knows what he’s doing, and will do it better this time around.

I don’t like that some bloggers somewhere, regardless of how much I respect some of thier work, took to calling him a “Bush Dog” I don’t think it’s effective to start heaping such titles on freshman reps from a very close swing district. But then again, I’ve hung around in that district a few times, even canvassed and phone-banked it. I might have a better grasp on things than somebody who couldn’t point to, say, Caledonia on a map.

(Hat Tip: Master of all things Walz, Ollie)

Wow. That was a boring State of the Union.

The lies aren’t even shocking anymore. The double speak is just trite instead of insulting. The world truly will end with a whimper. I’m just glad I don’t live in Iran. And I thought for a second he was going to declare war on Colombia or something. He shouldn’t just mention countries like that. It scares us all.

At 9:08 on CNN’s live feed on the interwebs. Prez just said, “This is for Michele Bachmann.” And he passed something to some other elected officials to hand back to her. She didn’t get an aisle seat? Oh, sad! And she probably spent all day at Forever 21 and High Tech Nails. Worst. Prom. Ever.

UPDATE: At 9:11, child screams, “Mr. President, you know my sister, Sarah Tucker!” POTUS responds, “Yes I do. How she doin’?” THIS IS FASCINATING.

UPDATE: 9:25: I like this Gov. Sebelius. She’s like Helen Mirren. I would like her to be my mom, except that would mean I’d have to live in Kansas, and, you know, mmmmeh.

The two dudes with the worst jobs in America are Gen. David Petraeus and Ambassador Ryan Crocker. They’ve just gotten through getting grilled by the Senate and now they’re being ripped in the press and the blogosphere. Interesting. They work for the Prezzz. They were given a task with a set of parameters and they’ve set forth to achieve that task (stabilize) within those parameters (whatever it takes).

One thing worth pointing out with both of these gentlemen is that they’d been critical of the war and/or its execution and tactics since the initial blast into Iraq.

The most revealing part of the testimony to my mind was the inability or utter resistance put up by both men to answer the question “Tell me how this ends?” There is no defined mission beyond the short term one of stabilize the country (not the democracy, you’ll note). This isn’t surprising as there has never been a clearly defined mission. There were no answers to the long term questions…what’s the strategy to put the whole country back together and bring our forces home? None. Zip. Again, not surprising. The closest we ever had to such a strategy was “kick their asses”. Again, not a surprise, then, that there were no answers forthcoming from the two sacrificial lambs, nor will the Prezzz offer any in his speech tonight.

So when, then, will we leave Iraq? Certainly not during the Bush presidency. The Dems, despite their bluster, conceded the timeline through next June, during which the big change will be that the additional 30,000 troops who went over as part of the surge will come home. Leaving us exactly where we were in 2006.

The answer to that question?…When the Democrats find their collective spine and the Republicans find their collective conscience. In other words, no time soon.

…one of your guys falls down the stairs and dies.

As if things weren’t fucked up enough for the Republicanz, a story that hasn’t gotten much play in the news the last couple days is the quiet tragedy of the death of Rep. Paul Gillmor (R-OH), part of the ultra-conservative conservative Ohio congressional contingent. The 68 year-old congressman fell down the stairs in his DC area townhouse on Wednesday and died from injuries sustained in the fall.

It’s kinda sad that among all the various losses and scandals hammering the Republicans at present, a real live tragedy…the accidental death of a member of the House…gets almost no attention outside of his home state. I mean, the dude’s voting record fills me with terror but he wasn’t consorting with hookers, accepting bribes, rigging elections, horse fucking the Constitution, getting hummers in airport mens rooms, or hitting on underage kids. Near as I can tell, regardless of what I think of his politics, he served his constituents honorably. And I only found out about it ’cause I was at the Washington Post website and bored enough to scroll way down the page to the tiny, tiny print and found the article.

Anyone else out there old enough to remember when the death of a sitting congressman…even under circumstances that aren’t the least bit suspicious, woulda been the banner headline on the front page? I do, way back in my childhood days. But I’m the old guy around these parts so I’m bettin’ I’m alone amongst the LME contingent as far as experiencing it.

Mornin’ all. Last night’s storms jostled me out of bed around 3 this morning and I haven’t been back to sleep since. I took the morning hours to catch up on some reading.

I’ll just say it’s a good day to watch the ad and read just about everything at Salon. It’s a playbook of what the Democrats need to do, and why.

First up,Glenn Greenwald as always, has a well written piece about how the time for a fight is now.

Mark Benjamin tells us why.

And finally, finally, a psychologist shrinks the Democratic party and suggests they strap on a pair and go for it.

Allow me to second this notion. Democrats need to stand up to Mr. 25% and whatever might be going on in Chertoff’s gut on this one. Tis’ time we call Senator Klobuchar and tell her that while we appreciate her keeping the world safe from nefarious pool drains, it’s time for her to distinguish herself, especially after votes for FISA and the Iraq War capitulation funding bill.

I’m also going to be keeping my eye on our Presidential candidates from the Senate, and how they deal with this one. They’ve been pretty good, especially on the aforementioned legislation, and a tough posture on this upcoming fight would earn further praise, and quite likely a check from yours truly (and yes, I’m talking mostly about the Junior Senator from Illinois)

They say that one useless man is called a disgrace. Two useless men are called a law firm, and three or more become a Congress — John Adams, from 1776, the musical

Our Congress, that one with the Democratic Majority in both houses (little good that has done us) has once again capitulated. But this round is for a few more marbles than a funding bill with troop withdrawal deadlines. No, this one is a clear dereliction of duty. When Mr 26% got to deciderin’ that he wanted a new FISA bill, all he had to do was say “boo!” and our Democratic congressional “leaders” folded like clean laundry and gave him what he wanted. And all I (and basically all rational people left in the country) am left to ask is why? Why the fuck would you do that? Whatever reason the Congressional leadership has, it’s lame.

There is more in this than electioneering. There is more in this than being tarred as “soft on terrorism.” Whatever the fuck that means, to begin with. As others have pointed out, do you think Fox News is going to declare, trumpets blaring that the Democrats are suddenly strong on national defense? This is more than being partisan. It’s not about the fact that Commander Codpiece is quickly becoming the least popular and surely the most dangerous president in US history, yet you listen to him anyway. It’s about something bigger. The Republic. Remember? You people are trashing the Constitution. You have given a back-door amnesty to all the misdeeds this “administration” has carried out spying on it’s own citizens. GOD DAMN IT PEOPLE, IF YOU DON’T START DOING YOUR JOBS OF DEFENDING THE CONSTITUTION, THERE WON’T BE MUCH OF A CONSTITUTION TO DEFEND.

Others are articulating their frustration anger sheer revulsion over this bit of legislative surrender better than I. For instance Glenn Greenwald

The common, defining political principle here — what resonates far more powerfully than any other idea — is a fervent and passionate belief in our country’s constitutional framework, the core liberties it secures, and the checks and balances it offers as a safeguard against tyrannical power. Those who fail to defend that framework, or worse, those who are passively or actively complicit in its further erosion, are all equally culpable. With each day that passes, the radicalism and extremism originally spawned in secret by the Bush presidency becomes less and less his fault and more and more the fault of those who — having discovered what they have been doing and having been given the power to stop it — instead acquiesce to it and, worse, enable and endorse it.

And Meteor Blades at DKos:

Frankly, you epitomize weak. Your every pore exudes feebleness. You are surrender monkeys. And you’ve just casually tossed away a basic protection as if it were a banana peel.

I’m currently working on a production of 1776. Every night I watch actors portray the men that made our country a country. Men that risked the hangman. Risked their “lives, fortunes and sacred honor.” And what a cowardly lot our Democratic “leaders” are by comparison. Every time I think they are getting a back bone. Just when I think they’re ready to go after the pricks in the Executive Branch with both barrels, they promptly point said barrels at their feet and fire at will, more worried about what the ticker on Fox News might say, and with blatant disregard to what the Constitution actually says.

During the show I have a few big breaks. I’m taking advantage of these long breaks to do some reading. I’m currently absorbed in Al Gore’s The Assault on Reason. (It’s really great, and I’ll probably write about it at length when I’m actually done with it) In the midst of writing this post, I read this paragraph:

This administration simply does not seem to agree that the challenge of preserving democratic freedom cannot be met by surrendering core American values. Incredibly, this administration has attempted to compromise the most precious rights that America has stood for all over the world for more than two hundred years: due process, equal treatment under the law, the dignity of the individual, freedom from unreasonable search and seizure, freedom from promiscuous government surveillance.

Welcome to that club, Democrats. And you signed on why? To pander to. . . somebody. So the meanies on the other side of the aisle wouldn’t throw nasty mud at you next election? Cool, calm political calculation? Meteor blades is right. Surrender Monkeys. I supported, volunteered for, donated money to, and voted for a Democratic Congress that would finally stand up to this administrations power grabs–and that’s all this is, it has about as much to do with fighting terrorism as Iraq does–but in the end you’re all just chickenshit. So, Mr Reid, Ms. Pelosi, just how dry is that powder these days?

It’s time for a song. I dedicate this song from 1776 to our Democratic Congress. (Mind you, this song is sung by the Tories and Loyalists)

What we do we do rationally
We never ever go off half-cocked, not we
Why begin till we know that we can win
And if we cannot win why bother to begin?

Rutledge:
We say this game’s not of our choosing
Why should we risk losing?

All:
We are cool

To the right, ever to the right
Never to the left, forever to the right
We have gold, a market that will hold
Tradition that is old, a reluctance to be bold.

Dickinson:
I sing hosanna, hosanna
In a sane and lucid manner
We are cool

All:
Come ye cool cool considerate men
The likes of which may never be seen again
With our land, cash in hand
Self-command, future planned
And we’ll hold to our gold
Tradition that is old, reluctant to be bold.
We say this game’s not of our choosing
Why should we risk losing?

We cool, cool, cool
Cool, cool, cool
Cool cool men.

Good work guys, we’re all really proud of you.

(UPDATE) Now that I got that off my chest, I think Buffalo Girl is right. Bloggers need to get better at the whole legislative process, not just doing the election thing, and throwing a tea party every year.

Now we’re cooking with gas.

It may have been a long time coming, but we’ve (finally) got some Congressional oversight up in here. Following Harriet Miers non-appearance in front of the House Judiciary Committee, Chairman Conyers fires off a contempt citation for Ms. Miers and one for Chief of Staff Josh Bolten, just for good measure. This is actually has teeth, because, not honoring a subpoena is, well, you know, criminal. But that’s yesterday’s news, really.

(Update) Rumor had it that the DOJ wouldn’t prosecute the House contempt citation. Well, it’s official. This likely won’t come to a full vote until after the August recess, so we aren’t a total standoff yet. It might give Conyers time to dust off Inherent Contempt. Hasn’t been done since the 30’s but, options are quickly dwindling. (/update)

In case you missed Fredo’s ’stellar’ performance in front of the Senate Judiciary Committee here’s a quick recap of the proceedings:

At some point in this nonsense, a few Senators realized that the warm liquid on their shoes wasn’t in fact rain, and are now calling for a Special investigator for Fredo’s continued perjury.

And this only moments before Senator Leahy sent out the Subpoena for Turdblossom himself.

And just to pile on, Righty blog RedState is calling for Fredo’s ouster.

THIS is what I worked so hard for on our most recent elections. It may be frustrating that it’s taking so long for the truth to out and justice to be served, but, given that the shit is so deep in this “administration,” I need to have patience for Congress to sort through it all. Perhaps they need their own Poopsmith.

Remember the salmonella and e.coli outbreaks over the past year that resulted in the recall of a whole passel of peanut butter (Peter Pan and Great Value) and spinach? The FDA knew about the problems. So did the manufacturers.

It is a classic case of the failure of capitalism to regulate itself. As the number of food processors in the US have spiked, with a concurrent spike in the amount of imported food, the Bush Administration and its Congressional allies (through 2006) have gutted the budget and the enforcement authority of the FDA’s food safety organization. As a result there have been deaths and numerous illnesses specifically from (but not limited to) ConAgra’s peanut butter plant in Georgia (currently closed for updates, though the restart plans appear vague) and growers of spinach and other leafy greens from California’s Salinas Valley.

“We know that there are still problems out in those fields,” Robert E. Brackett, director of the FDA’s food-safety arm said in an interview last week. “We knew there had been a problem, but we never and probably still could not pinpoint where the problem was. We could have that capability, but not at this point.”

Before I hear any drivel about the market responding efficiently due to the damage to the Peter Pan brand and the drop in sales of California greens take into consideration the following:
1.) The loss of life and additional loss in productivity and reallocation of resources (money) to pay the medical bills associated with those who were merely sickened outweighs the loss to either of the large manufacturers involved (’cause you know, people were killed). It may not outweigh the dollar value of the loss to the offending companies. It outweighs it in the sense that the manufacturers outsourced the cost associated with safety to the people buying the products, and did so by fomenting an implication that their products were safe, an implication they knew to be false.
2.) The losses have not been limited to the guilty growers and manufacturers as the public freaks out and stops buying, for periods of time, all peanut butter and all spinach (sales of both, particularly of spinach, remain down). In this way the offending companies distributed the costs of poisoning the population across all companies in those particular markets. This is, officially, a market failure.
3.) In the case of spinach, both the FDA and the growers have known about problems and about increasing frequency of outbreaks since 1995 (enforcement was bad in the Clinton years, it has been deplorable under Bush) meaning that the offending growers were able to extract additional marginal profit off units sold for 12 years after becoming aware of the issue. Time value of money. Net present value. I’ll explain if needed. The same holds true of the peanut butter incident in which the plant guilty of killing people knew of the issue since, at least, 2004. Again, market failure.
4.) If some of the Dems in the House and Senate have their way not only will the FDA have its food safety budget dramatically increased and the parts of its authority that have been eroded under the Prezzz restored, but it’s a fairly safe bet they will shove some truly egregious regulation down the throats of the food processing industry. Guess what? The companies ain’t all bad. But the playing field will be leveled for the bad processors because the good processors will be saddled with the same compliance costs as the bad guys. Again, distributed risk. Again, market failure. With the ability to dress up any regulatory changes as a matter of national security (so the terrorists can’t poison the food supply) expect something that makes Sarbanes-Oxley look like a walk in the park.

This is, more than anything, a failure of the government to perform in its dual roles as a protector of the people and to supply the infrastructure and frameworks needed to regulate a market, any market (Adam Smith, y’all…markets need rules). Government, regulation, are in fact inherently inefficient in a market sense. In this case, the market was efficient all the way through the process…but so what? People died as a result of the endless worship at the altar of efficiency. Regulation can, however, be equitable (protect and enforce fairly), which is far more important… to me anyway. Though inefficient, government need not be incompetent. It is only incompetent when incompetent people run it. Kinda like now. The upshot is, due to the acts of a few bad players, good players face a very real risk of being saddled with overly harsh regulatory requirements because a new congress, appalled with the abdication of responsibility of the prior congress, will predictably over compensate.

As a Republican Congressman you know that the one sign that you are officially fucked is when the Wall Street Journal (aka. The Paper of Record for Incredibly Wealthy Campaign Donors) goes front page with an investigation of your corrupt dealings.

He was so blatant in an attempt to extort a large copper company by forcing them to buy an alfalfa field owned by a business partner that they (knowing he’s one of the main proponents for extractive industries in Congress) started cooperating with the FBI. His Chief of Staff was so freaked out that he resigned and started cooperating with the FBI. And Paul Charlton, the US Attorney overseeing the case being built against this lock-step supporter of the Prezzz, was one of the USA 8 that got whacked by Gonzales.

The one moment of pause I have in all this is a grudging admiration for the wiley structures of Republican corruption. The Dems got Jefferson of Louisiana hiding bricks of cash in the high five figures in a refrigerator. The Repubs got dudes like Renzi with a network of shell companies and money laundering fronts that wash ill-gotten gains from overpriced land sold in trade for his votes on various issues.

I mean…bricks of cash vs. multi-million dollar land swaps. We gotta pick up our game, y’all.

Two things, that dovetail. Sort of.

First off, did you hear Tim Walz on NPR’s Midday yesterday? I knew I liked the guy (I did volunteer for him, you know) but, man, is he good or what? He spoke quite clearly about the need for foriegn policy that focuses on more than just defense. I don’t often hear lawmakers speaking that keep me that interested for that long. Sadly I missed the Q & A session, but luckily there are livebloggers for that sort of thing. He makes me that much more proud of our Democratic Congress. As always, to keep up on what Tim Walz is doing at anytime of the day (a herculean task), check out Ollie over at Bluestem Prairie..

In other news, a(nother) Bush appointee, shockingly, is drowning in his own corruption. Paul Wolrowitz, who screwed the pooch with such breathtaking ease on the war, got a promotion to President of the World Bank! Because such wonderful pooch-screwing should be shared with the developing world. Anyway, Wolfowitz went on a crusade against corruption.

“Corruption is often at the very root of why governments do not work,” Wolfowitz argued in a speech in Indonesia in April 2006.

Wolfowitz, being one of the masterminds of our current situation in Iraq, decides to fight corruption, with (wait for it) corruption! He got his girlfriend a sweet, under-the-table spot on the World Bank payroll.

Someone tell me this was some kind of genius maneuver. A kind of corruption trojan horse, wherein he tricks African “strong men” and Banana Republic dictators into thinking he’s not that different from them, and then, when they least expect it, smacks ‘em upside the head with accountability and transparency. Anyone? Bueller?

Needless to say, the Europeans are “delighted” and I’m hopeful that they’ll run him out of town on a rail.

Oh and just in case you’re having trouble linking a name with a face, recall this priceless moment, thanks to Youtube.

Now, this highlights exactly what Tim Walz was talking about. Only in a world where security is lone focus of foriegn policy would a hawkish yet neo-con idealogue like Paul “comb-licker” Wolfowitz be appointed to the a humanitarian organization like the World Bank. And, of course, he screwed the pooch there, just like he did on Iraq. Way to go, team!