Posts by Howie Klein

Howie Klein is the creator of the blog Down With Tyranny!

McCain's Judgment On Trial: The Senator and the Governor
Posted by Howie Klein, Down With Tyranny! on October 3, 2008 at 2:22 AM.

As Howard Fineman said today, "what was on trial here is John McCain's judgment in picking her as his running-mate." He could have picked a parrot or a myna bird. Don't you wish there was someone to give her a little fruit and seeds every time she finishes one of her canned little speeches? I got the feeling she didn't understand a word of what was going on. When Mooselini doesn't have a canned answer to a question she just answers whatever question that pops into her head.

The Obama campaign created an extensive debate reality check which took her seriously and answered her bizarre claims and lies as though she were a serious candidate. So did the Washington Post.

It's clear that this person is even less qualified to be president than the cynical old fool who picked her. There's only one way they could win. But let's make sure this never happens again:



The CBS poll of undecided voters showed 46% thought Biden won and 21% thought Palin won. 33% thought it was a draw. The CNN poll has Biden 51% and Palin 36%.

Lieberman at the RNC: Lied When He Said He's a Dem and Never Stopped
Posted by Howie Klein, Down With Tyranny! on September 3, 2008 at 8:27 AM.

It isn't likely that a widely discredited Washington insider who was thrown out of his own party by Connecticut voters will persuade many Democrats or independents to vote for his closest crony and fellow deranged warmonger, John McCain. Ironically, the outgoing Republican Rep. in Maryland's first congressional district, Wayne Gilchrest, endorsed conservative Democrat Frank Kratovil over neo-fascist GOP candidate Andy Harris. That will have a great deal more impact than Lieberman's distorted presentation of his buddy McCain. "Distorted," you ask? Well I'm glad you did because I'd like to lay out some facts for you that counter Lieberman's most egregious lies from last night.

1- "When others were silent, John McCain had the judgment to sound the alarm about the mistakes we were making in Iraq."

Just last April ago McCain said "No one has supported President Bush on Iraq more than I have." And during a March 2008 interview on the Mike Gallagher Show, McCain stated, "no one has supported President Bush on Iraq more than I have," apparently a line he liked repeating a lot last spring when he was hoping Republicans would make him their nominee. I haven't heard him say it recently though. You? And we he visited O'Reilly at Fox on March 18, 2003 he was even more blunt and to the point saying he would have handled Iraq exactly as Bush had and that he didn't have even one Bush move he disagreed with. "Nothing. The president has handled this, in my view, skillfully."

2- In one of his frequent nasty attacks on Obama last night, Lieberman lied, "In the Senate he has not reached across party lines to get anything significant done, nor has he been willing to take on powerful interest groups in the Democratic Party."

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Insurance Should Benefit Consumers; Not Corporate Managers and Campaign Contributors
Posted by Howie Klein, Down With Tyranny! on June 12, 2008 at 6:12 AM.

Insurance shouldn't be a for-profit business. In fact, it has failed miserably as such. So far this year the insurance industry is the 8th biggest source of bribes "contributions" for congressional Republicans ($7,541,565) and the 11th biggest source for congressional Democrats ($9,126,935). (In 2006, when they were fight for their hero Rick Santorum, insurance executives doled out $13,277,247 for Republican candidates (62% of their total) and $7,705,797 to Democratic candidates (36% of their total). This year, with greasy Democratic thugs Schumer, Emanuel and Hoyer replacing greasy GOP thugs Santorum, Delay and Blunt as the enforcers with the power, Dems have gotten 55% of the insurance industry's bribe stash. Why? Well, it surely isn't because they have suddenly gotten that old time religion and realized that Democratic ideals, values and principles are best for the country. It's far more likely that SchumerEmanuelHoyer has assured them that Democratic ideals, values and principles will never get in the way of, you know... business.

The first time I met Howard Dean he talked to me about how health insurance was too crucial in people's lives to be left as a private industry out to make a quick buck and incentivized to deny peoples' claims whenever they can get away with it. Today's CongressDaily features a story by Shihoko Goto that makes it abundantly clear that many Democrats agree with the Republicans that insurance shouldn't just be a private industry, it should be an unregulated one with license to rip everyone off at will, the way they do now.

A bill seeking to create a federal office for insurance regulation within the Treasury Department is coming under close scrutiny, with lawmakers on both sides of the aisle questioning the need for it.

It started off as a bipartisan measure meant "to improve financial regulation by setting up an Office of Insurance Information that would collect insurance data at the national level and beef up the government's in-house expertise on insurance policy. In addition, the office would advise legislators on international as well as domestic insurance concerns." Pretty tame stuff, right? Listening to right-wing Republicans and their Blue Dog counterparts, you would think someone had just proposed socialism. "I believe in states' rights," said Rep. Ruben Hinojosa, D-Texas, adding that he needed more information to decide on whether he would support the bill. His sentiment was echoed by Rep. Carolyn McCarthy, D-N.Y." Why?

Some members of the insurance industry expressed concern about the bill and the possibility of adding red tape to the business.

"There is no crisis in the insurance industry" that warrants the establishment of a federal office, and change current business practices, said Brian Kennedy, a member of the Rhode Island House of Representatives and president of the National Conference of Insurance Legislators.

Even if legislators don't see it-- their own system is dandy-- health insurance is one of the problems Americans are most pissed off about. If Democrats can't go beyond talking about it and actual fix it, they will be as reviled as Bush and his rubber stamp Republicans.

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Republicans Obstructing Relief in Housing Crisis
Posted by Howie Klein, Down With Tyranny! on May 29, 2008 at 2:31 PM.

Republican governors tend to be less ideological and more practical than the extremists and fanatics their party routinely sends to Congress. They have to actually govern, something that is anathema to the Inside the Beltway GOP-- from Bush and Cheney all the way down to the very bottom of the barrel: naysayers Mean Jean Schmidt and James Inhofe. This morning the two heads of the National Governors Association-- Republican Tim Pawlenty (MN) and Democrat Ed Rendell (PA)-- urged, strongly urged, Congress and the White House to get their collective asses in gear and enact housing-stimulus legislation "so that states can rebound from decreasing tax revenue and increasing crime and neighborhood blight due to a record foreclosure rate."

Pawlenty, chairman of the association, noted that most governors are attempting to deal with the issue because 47 states in 2007 had a foreclosure rate that was at least 20 percent higher than 2006. "I find very little public resistance to using government money to help people who unwittingly got trapped in this," said Rendell, vice chairman, after appearing at an NGA summit on the crisis. "We're not looking to help people who took risks to buy McMansions."

Maybe they should also mention this to John McCain who has been going around the country stirring up hatred by telling Republicans that the only people who need help are undeserving and irresponsible losers who should get a second (or third) job and stop taking vacations. He never seems to get around to explaining his role-- and the role of his party-- in dismantling the federal regulatory agencies that were meant to protect ordinary Americans from unrestrained predatory capitalism. Earlier this month the House passed bills sponsored by Barney Frank and Maxine Waters to assist families that were victims of the Republican/Blue Dog deregulation craze. Bush promptly announced that if his boys McConnell, Shelby and McCain can't filibuster it to death in the Senate, he'll veto it. The only Republicans who voted for Waters' Neighborhood Stabilization Act of 2008 were a handful of announced retirees plus a few who are feeling the heat from enraged constituents back home and realize, like Mario Diaz-Balart and his crooked brother Lincoln, that they are in genuine danger of losing their seats.

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Recount: HBO's Election 2000 Nostalgia
Posted by Howie Klein, Down With Tyranny! on May 27, 2008 at 8:32 AM.

It was a strange feeling sort-of-watching HBO Films' Recount, a recounting of the 2000 Florida presidential election recount drama, last night.

I only sort-of-watched because, to begin with, I had forgotten about it until Howie mentioned it while we were talking, which turned out to be about 50 minutes into the thing. So then I set the DVR to record the 1am (ET) replay, but I also sort-of-watched the rest of the 9pm showing. And then this morning I watched some of the beginning.

Of course it's not difficult to get into the plot, whose outlines remain all too familiar even after all these years. At the same time, there's always that problem when you're watching a fictionalized version of real events--and you have to assume it's fictionalized when the re-creation is being presented as anything other than a documentary--the problem being that you never quite know what's God's-honest-truth and what isn't. (Howie suggests that this is like watching CNN. I can't argue.)

So you watch, sort of mentally checking stuff off: oh yeah, the Palm Beach ballot, and the Crazy Woman (I'd just as soon not mention her name) playing fast and loose with election law, essentially making it up as she goes, and the respectable-looking gangs of thugs sent by the GOP recount command to intimidate the Miami-Dade County recount, and on and on.

You get a sort of different response when there's a character or detail you don't remember. Did this or something like it really happen? For example, with Kevin Spacey clearly cast as the star of the show, you sort of figure there must have been a Ron Klain, who had been Vice President Al Gore's chief of staff until he was forced out by the machinations of later-to-be-ousted-himself campaign director Tony Coelho, at which point Ron was brought back into the campaign in a humiliatingly lower position, and wound up being the Democratic point man on the recount. They wouldn't have made that all up. Would they?

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There Is No Such Thing As Clean Coal
Posted by Howie Klein, Down With Tyranny! on May 23, 2008 at 12:00 PM.

"Most people know coal isn’t clean, but that hasn’t stopped the coal industry from trying to convince us otherwise."
-- Kevin Grandia of DeSmogBlog, introducing the website Coal is dirty!, a "Clean Coal Body Slam" created in collaboration with Greenpeace USA and the Rainforest Action Network to combat a massive P.R. onslaught from the coal industry

The magic words, it appears, are "carbon capture and sequestration." I don't think you want to know any more about them than I do, but I'm afraid we may be hearing them a lot, unfortunately from people who are trying to sell us bogus or at least wildly exaggerated science indicating that with these new technologies coal can be made clean and safe. It appears that they're prepared to spend tens if not hundreds of millions of dollars to sell their message.

This drives the folks we trust on environmental and energy issues bonkers -- naturally including our go-to webguy A Siegel, who's waxing rapturous today on his Energy Smart blog about the Coal is dirty! site and its star-studded roster of environmental researchers, activists, and journalists. As Siegel says, "Kevin might not have a $35 million budget but he has a team worth millions in terms of quality."

Kevin Grandia explains:

In essence, this site exists to sell the idea that coal is dirty. Pretty easy to do when you consider the facts and clear out the rhetoric. Like the fact that mercury emissions from coal fired-power plants continues to rise and that carbon capture and storage remains an elusive pipe dream that will take another 40 years to deploy on a commercial scale.

Siegel notes that the new site is already going gangbusters, with:

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House Overrides Bush's Veto on Farm Bill
Posted by Howie Klein, Down With Tyranny! on May 22, 2008 at 3:47 AM.

Republicans are so eager to distance themselves from Bush that even some of the very worst rubber stamps of the past 7 years will do anything to create a faux record to show the voters how they "stood up and opposed Bush." Today, more House Republicans voted to override Bush's veto of the farm bill than voted to sustain their clueless leader. The overall vote to override passed 316-108 with 100 Republicans joined the Democrats to finally stand up to the despised lame duck. Of course a handful of the most craven and repulsive Blue Dogs stuck with Bush on this-- as with everything-- especially Melissa Bean (IL), Jim Matheson (UT), Jim Cooper (TN), and Jane Harman (CA). The House needs a two-thirds majority to override a veto. They got it-- and more.

Senator Tom Harkin, the Iowa Democrat who heads the Senate Agriculture Committee, explained the bill’s bipartisan popularity shortly after the Senate approved it last week: “This is really a farm bill for everyone.”

Indeed, one could argue that the term “farm bill” is a stretch. Although it contains billions of dollars in subsidies for farmers, the five-year package provides far more money for nutrition programs like food stamps, and for land conservation and alternative-fuel programs.

Before Wednesday, only one of Mr. Bush’s vetoes had been overridden. Last November, Congress approved a $23.2 billion water-projects measure over his objection. That bill addressed Everglades restoration, flood control in California, hurricane recovery efforts and so many popular projects for individual states that most lawmakers did not want to vote “no.”

Let's hope this is the start of a new trend-- since Bush plans on vetoing everything that comes out of Congress from now 'til the end of his term. Ironically, this isn't a black and white issue and Bush-- although a hypocrite when he denounced subsidizing wealthy farms, his regime's middle name-- is right about some of the reasons the pork-laden bill sucked. But it's a result of compromise that would take a real leader to overcome, something that there is a dearth of among our current governing class. Alan Grayson, the Blue America-endorsed progressive in Orlando may sense the same thing. When I asked him, just now, about rubber stamp incumbent Ric Keller's vote to sustain Bush's veto-- which is generally judged as bad for Florida farmers-- Alan went right to the question of Keller's leadership qualities: "Whenever there is a choice between doing what's right, and doing what President Bush wants, you can be sure what Ric Keller will do."

In case you're counting, here's how the bill breaks down:

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Will Bob Barr and Ron Paul Out-Flank McCain on the Right?
Posted by Howie Klein, Down With Tyranny! on May 20, 2008 at 8:32 AM.

With GOP toe-sucker Dick Morris publicly urging McCain to shed his far right extremism and move to the center if he's going to have any chance at all to win a few states outside of the Old Confederacy plus Utah, Wyoming and Idaho, a very different kind of reality is closing in on McCain who, says toe-sucker, "has been dealt a terrible hand: a tanking economy, an unpopular war, a Republican incumbent whose approval ratings are at their all-time low and a gloomy national mood, with 82 percent of Americans saying in a Washington Post-ABC News poll last week that the country is on the wrong track." He offers the hapless Republican nominee a roadmap, a roadmap dependent of Jeremiah Wright-- "the honorary chairman of McCain's get-out-the-vote efforts"-- even though every voter in red, red, red Mississippi first congressional district was inundated with Jeremiah Wright and still voted against Bush and the GOP.

The growing fear of Obama, who remains something of an unknown, will drag every last white Republican male off the golf course to vote for McCain, and he will need no further laying-on of hands from either evangelical Christians or fiscal conservatives.

So McCain doesn't have to spend a lot of time wooing his base. What he does need to do is reduce the size of the synapse over which independents and fearful Democrats need to pass in order to back his candidacy. If the synapse is wide, they will stay with Obama. But if they perceive McCain as an acceptable alternative, there is every chance that they will cross over to back him in November.

But even as toe sucker/Fox News shill admits that McBush's endless war in Iraq agenda could kill the deal, another dynamic has arisen that negates whatever toe sucking meditations popped into Morris' demented little right-wing brain: Bob Barr.

Micah Sifry, a lot smarter and far more with it than Morris was even when he was relevant, thinks if McCain doesn't watch his right flank, he's a dead duck. He warns that if McCain follows the toe-sucker's strategy Barr will siphon off enough votes to insure a McCain loss, "not because Barr is such a compelling candidate, but because he could become the vehicle for the many disaffected Republicans gathered under Paul's flag."

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Modern Day GI Bill Passes in the House
Posted by Howie Klein, Down With Tyranny! on May 16, 2008 at 3:47 AM.

Although the fight that matters will be in the Senate, the House passed the bill to modernize the GI Bill today, HR 2642, 256-166. Those numbers are pretty overwhelming and the reflect the fact that 32 Republicans crossed the aisle to vote against Bush and their own reactionary leadership and for our military vets. At the same time, the Blue Dog caucus was unable to muster it's own members to bolster their Republican allies. Only 7 of the sleaziest and most Bush-oriented Democrats voted against vets today:

Melissa Bean (IL)

Dan Boren (OK)

Joe Donnelly (IN)

Brad Ellsworth (IN)

Nick Lampson (TX)

Tim Mahoney (FL)

Jim Matheson (UT)

Our newest conservative Democrats, Don Cazayoux (LA) and Bill Foster (IL) both voted with the Democrats on this crucial bill, Foster even stepping away from Bean's apron strings. This bill will allow vets who fought in Afghanistan and Iraq to go to college-- just what it was intended to do. McCain and McConnell have vowed to kill the bill in the Senate.

I took a look at the Blue America House races to see how the Republican opponents of our candidates-- all of whom support the bill-- voted Most of them voted against vets, as they usually do. Joining the dead-end minority today were Mario Diaz-Balart (R-FL), Tim Walberg (R-MI), Scott Garrett (R-NJ), David Dreier (R-CA), Ric Keller (R-FL), Randy Kuhl (R-NY), Michael McCaul (R-TX), Gary Miller (R-CA), Mike Pence (R-IN), Dave Reichert (R-WA), Dana Rohrabacher (R-OH), and Mean Jean Schmidt (R-OH). Heather Wilson (R-NM) is running for Senate and she stuck with Bush, as she usually does. John Doolittle (R-CA) is retiring under a cloud of corruption charges and he also stuck with Bush.

Interestingly, some of the tightest and most competitive races we're following saw die-hard reactionaries abandoning Bush, not because they wanted to or because they suddenly want to help vets, but because they are scared to death that they're about to lose their cushy jobs. John Barrow, a Georgia Blue Dog who almost always supports Bush on these matters is so frightened of the surging state Senator from Savannah, Regina Thomas, that he actually abandoned his usual stance and voted, reluctantly, with the Democrats. Same story in Iowa, where Leonard Boswell's fear of Ed Fallon voters caused him to vote like a Democrat for a change. Republicans Robin Hayes, Chris Shays and Charlie Dent are so worried about the likelihood that they will be defeated by, respectively, Larry Kissell, Jim Himes and Sam Bennett that each switched positions and voted with the Democrats today.

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The Profitable Dismantling of Civil Society
Posted by Howie Klein, Down With Tyranny! on May 13, 2008 at 3:54 PM.

Yesterday Scholars & Rogues featured a pretty ominous look at the serious deterioration of basic American infrastructure. The author, Dr. Denny, points out that our otherwise preoccupied government is normally only moved to action by catastrophes-- like the deadly bridge collapse in Minneapolis last year. So that bridge is nearly fixed. They're waiting for a spate of disasters before they do anything preventive. They may not have to wait long and we have far more than "failing bridges to find, fund and fix." Dr. Denny is left cold by the leadership abilities of the current presidential candidates to lead us successfully through a real crisis. Just to keep up, the U.S. would need to spend $225 billion per year for 50 years-- $11 trillion. McCain definitely has a couple wars he'd rather wage. But the country's infrastructure-- not just roads and bridges but also dams, sewage systems, drinking water systems, air traffic control, nuclear plants, electricity transmission lines, levees...-- gets a grade of D. Unfortunately, national politicians don't usually find infrastructure sexy.

Wall Street does, I found out on the radio yesterday. Tens of billions of dollars are coming out of the firms that brought us the real estate and mortgage collapse and going into buying up infrastructure. Alarm bells went off when I heard that the sleazy GOP vulture capital firm Carlisle Group-- whose real estate arm went belly up recently-- is buying up sewer systems and roadways. And they're only one of many.

Republicans want to reduce taxes and let the infrastructure go to hell so that the public supports selling it all off to for-profit companies. Democrats are too cowed to stand up for government functions that have been delegitimized by greed obsessed Republicans (and Blue Dogs and DLC Democrats). So... on to the predators. Today Morgan Stanley-- and I assure you a more unscrupulous and cut throat firm you will never find-- announced that it has raised $4 billion to target investments "that provide public goods or essential services in sectors such as transportation, energy and utilities, social infrastructure and communications." Global Infrastructure Partners (General Electric and Credit Suisse) have capped their infrastructure fund yesterday at $6.5 billion. A new Carlyle subsidiary, Carlyle Infrastructure Partners, formed specifically-- and under heavy political protection-- to rip off American taxpayers and ratepayers is investing $1.5 billion in transportation and water and wastewater facilities, including roads, bridges, tunnels, airport facilities, maritime ports, transit projects and other public benefit infrastructure in the US and Canada. Henderson Investors, CVC Capital Partners, Macquarie (Australia), Rreef, Citigroup, Ferrovial (Spain), Goldman Sachs, J.P. Morgan and Alinda are all up to the same thing.

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McCain's Not-So-Straight Talk on the Environment
Posted by Howie Klein, Down With Tyranny! on May 12, 2008 at 8:34 AM.

I was just reading some more of Lincoln Chafee's fascinating book, Against The Tide, the chapter about how the Senate dealt with environmental issues in light of Cheney's success in persuading Bush-- if it took much, or even any persuasion-- to do a 180 on his campaign promises to be an environmentally friendly president. When Cheney announced to a gathering of Republican senators that the Regime had decided to throw away all their environmental pledges, the crowd burst out into a chorus of cowboy whoops and cheers. But Chafee-- at least in the part of the chapter I finished over dinner last night-- named McCain as one of the small cadre of Republicans who helped save ANWAR from the oil companies (a passion of Chafee's).

Today's Washington Post gets further into the weeds. Basically McCain is significantly better than Global Warming deniers like Inhofe... but not as good as the worst, most reactionary Democrats, anti-environmental hacks Mary Landrieu, Ben Nelson, Blanche Lincoln, and Max Baucus. There are also 9 Republicans with consistently better environmental voting records than McCain (Olympia Snowe, Susan Collins, Judd Gregg, Gordon Smith, Arlen Specter, John Thune, John Sununu, Bob Corker, and Norm Coleman-- all of whom have barely mediocre environmental voting records).

The Post makes a point that McCain is "the most unpredictable, erratic" Republican who sometimes support pro-environmental policies.

McCain has made the environment one of the key elements of his presidential bid. He speaks passionately about the issue of climate change on the campaign trail, and he plans to outline his vision for combating global warming in a major speech today in Portland, Ore.

"I'm proud of my record on the environment," he said at a news conference Friday at the Liberty Science Center in Jersey City. "As president, I will dedicate myself to addressing the issue of climate change globally."

But an examination of McCain's voting record shows an inconsistent approach to the environment: He champions some "green" causes while casting sometimes contradictory votes on others.

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Bipartisan Majority Defies Bush Over Mortgage Crisis
Posted by Howie Klein, Down With Tyranny! on May 9, 2008 at 8:00 AM.

While Republican House leaders wring their hands and rend their clothes fretting over why voters are massively rejecting their candidates and worrying that the GOP minority could easily lose another 2 or 3 dozen House members in November, all they need to do is look in the mirror to figure it out. And blaming hapless schnooks like Vito, Vitter or Larry Craig isn't going to do the trick. They are the party of obstructionism and the party that is standing in the way of progress, preventing an end to the occupation of Iraq, preventing universal health care, preventing sound environmental and energy policies, preventing, in fact, everything that the American people want!

Yesterday their despised leader, George Bush, threatened to veto a foreclosure bill that would attempt to help families and neighborhoods that have been victimized by predatory lenders who have been enabled by out-of-control Republican deregulation mania. Today the House passed the first of two of the bills Bush was railing against, Maxine Waters' Neighborhood Stabilization Act of 2008. Only one Blue Dog, Kirsten Gillibrand (NY) voted with the Republicans. Eleven Republicans-- all of whom are either retiring or in grave danger of losing their re-election bids in November-- abandoned their party's reactionary leadership and voted with the Democrats (even including such inveterate rubber stamps as the Diaz-Balart brothers in Florida and Steven LaTourette of Ohio).

While Bush was eager to shovel hundreds of billions of dollars towards the predatory lenders to shore up their businesses and even to provide irresponsible and possible criminal executive with multimillion dollar bonuses for causing the collapse of the real estate market, he dug in his heels on Water's attempt to "make federal money available in loans and grants for the rehabilitation and eventual sale or rental of blighted properties."

And just moments ago, the House also passed the companion bill, Barney Franks' American Housing Rescue & Foreclosure Prevention Act, a responsible and comprehensive response to the nightmare of the Bush Economic Miracle. It seeks to assist families facing foreclosure keep their homes, help other families avoid foreclosures in the future, and, with Maxine Waters' bill, help the recovery of communities harmed by empty homes caught in the foreclosure process. The bill, which Bush swears he will veto and McConnell vows to obstruct in the Senate, provide mortgage refinancing assistance, which will help keep families from losing their homes and protect neighboring home values. Barney's bill was voted on in 3 parts and dozens of Republicans were too frightened of the constituents to oppose the bill. On Roll Call 302, in fact, 95 Republicans gave Bush and their extremist leaders the finger and joined all the Democrats to pass it overwhelmingly and with a veto-proof majority. In fact only 94 Republicans voted with Bush. It passed 322-94, one of Bush's biggest defeats since he stole the presidency in 2000. Only the most insane kooks and loons-- The Dana Rohrabachers, John Shadeggs, Michael McCauls, Mean Jean Schmidts, and Scott Garretts hung in there with Boehner, Blunt, Cole and Howdy Doody.

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It's Bare Knuckles Time at the Bush EPA
Posted by Howie Klein, Down With Tyranny! on May 8, 2008 at 9:03 AM.

As regular DWT readers know, we're big fans of Al Kamen's "In the Loop" column in the Washington Post. (Confusingly, other people also write under the "In the Loop" heading--but if it's Wednesday or Friday, it's really in the loop.) Al and his no doubt gleeful network of spies and informants haunt the back alleys and especially the back channels of D.C. for an often-hilarious view of the way our gummint actually works.

But often what he turns up isn't so hilarious. Often, in the way that a person may be better informed watching The Daily Show than anybody's Evening News, Al's column serves as the primary source for news that should be on every front page. Like this item from today's column, which by the way comes with the urgent recommendation of our go-to webguy on energy and environmental matters, A Siegel (whom we still have to thank for honoring us with a visit and a comment the other day):

Don't Do Any Environment Stuff

Loop Fans know to be highly skeptical of those political announcements that a top administration official is resigning "to spend more time with the family," or maybe to "return to his first love," coin collecting or weight lifting. These phrases are almost always euphemisms for getting the boot or being squeezed out.

But there was even greater skepticism Thursday at the Environmental Protection Agency when deputy administrator Marcus Peacock circulated this e-mail to senior officials at 5:06 p.m. about the resignation of EPA's administrator in the Chicago region.

Subject: Region 5 Personnel Announcement

As of this afternoon, Thursday, May 1, 2008, Mary Gade has resigned her position as Regional Administrator for EPA Region 5. I want to thank Mary for her many years of service to the people and the mission of EPA.

She has worked hard to help protect human health and our environment.

Mary plans to return to private life and spend time with her family.

Bharat Mathur, the Deputy Regional Administrator, will assume the responsibilities of Acting Regional Administrator. I thank Bharat for his continued service and leadership.

Problem was, the e-mail came 1 1/2 hours after the Chicago Tribune posted a story online quoting Gade, who said she had been forced out of her job because of her aggressive stand on dioxin flowing from Dow Chemical's Midland, Mich., plant into Saginaw Bay and Lake Huron.

Gade said two political appointees at headquarters told her to quit or be fired by June 1. The EPA confirmed she was leaving but declined to discuss a personnel matter.

Gade, appointed by President Bush 18 months ago, told the Tribune: "There is no question this is about Dow. I stand behind what I did and what my staff did. I'm proud of what we did."

Gade had been trying to force Dow to clean up several inland hot spots contaminated by the cancer-causing chemical. She told the Tribune that top aides to EPA Administrator Stephen Johnson repeatedly questioned her actions against the chemical giant.

Next thing you know, she "plans to return to private life and spend time with her family."

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Bush Rejects McCain's Gas Tax Proposal
Posted by Howie Klein, Down With Tyranny! on April 29, 2008 at 2:26 PM.

When I saw the name on the article I thought it was by John McCain's embedded publicist at the Washington Post. Then I realized it was in the NY Times and saw it was John Broder, not the Post's pathetic old hack with the same last name. The story highlights what Broder calls Democratic division over McCain's cynical summer gas tax holiday. As soon as Obama pointed out that it was a bad idea, Hillary jumped in to support their respective campaign's common enemy: the American people.

Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton lined up with Senator John McCain, the presumptive Republican nominee for president, in endorsing a plan to suspend the federal excise tax on gasoline, 18.4 cents a gallon, for the summer travel season. But Senator Barack Obama, Mrs. Clinton’s Democratic rival, spoke out firmly against the proposal, saying it would save consumers little and do nothing to curtail oil consumption and imports.

While Mr. Obama’s view is shared by environmentalists and many independent energy analysts, his position allowed Mrs. Clinton to draw a contrast with her opponent in appealing to the hard-hit middle-class families and older Americans who have proven to be the bedrock of her support. She has accused Mr. Obama of being out of touch with ordinary Americans who are struggling to meet their mortgages and gas up their cars and trucks.

Mrs. Clinton said at a rally on Monday morning in Graham, N.C., that she would introduce legislation to impose a windfall-profits tax on oil companies and use the revenue to suspend the gasoline tax temporarily.

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The Mortgage Industry Fights for Its Right to Party
Posted by Howie Klein, Down With Tyranny! on April 28, 2008 at 12:11 PM.

I went to a lovely party this weekend. And there were so many smart people there. Two who I was talking with-- both health care experts-- were absolutely positive than no matter who was elected president, there was absolutely no chance that there would be any transformational change in the way the people of this country receive health care. Gee, I thought that was part of the reason we were electing Democrats in a big way this year. But what do I know?

Today's NY Times has a story in the Business Section that probably belongs on page one. It explains why some things get done and why some things don't. It's only trying to talk about the mortgage industry. But the health care industry is much, much worse. Stephen Labaton, who has decided-- or was assigned-- to tackle the issue begins by mentioning that the mortgage industry is fighting back-- intensively-- against threats of regulation. Societies regulate industry when industry's greed gets out of control and threatens the well being of society. Despite Republicans, meat packing plants had to be regulated because... well, people were dying. The "free market" wasn't quite righting the wrongs fast enough. How many more families need to lose their homes before people start dragging mortgage bank executives out and hanging them from lamp posts? Do you think a jury would find anyone guilty? Not around here.

As the Federal Reserve completes work on rules to root out abuses by lenders, its plan has run into a buzz saw of criticism from bankers, mortgage brokers and other parts of the housing industry. One common industry criticism is that at a time of tight credit, tighter rules could make many mortgages more expensive by creating more paperwork and potentially exposing lenders to more lawsuits.

To the chagrin of consumer groups that have complained that the proposed rules are not strong enough, the industry’s criticism has already prompted the Fed to consider narrowing the scope of the plan so it applies to fewer loans.

The debate over new mortgage standards comes in response to a severe crisis in the housing and financial markets that many economists trace back to overly loose credit and abusive loans. Those practices, combined with low interest rates, led to inflated market values that have declined rapidly in recent months as investors have begun to lose confidence in the financial instruments tied to those loans.

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