Posts by Ryan Powers

Ryan Powers is a former intern of the Center for American Progress and a senior at the College of William and Mary.

Reid to Baucus: Stop Chasing Republican Support for Health Care Reform
Posted by Ryan Powers, Think Progress on July 8, 2009 at 6:00 AM.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) has “ordered Finance Chairman Max Baucus (D-MT) to drop a proposal to tax health benefits and stop chasing Republican votes on a massive health care reform bill.” Roll Call reports:

According to Democratic sources, Reid told Baucus that taxing health benefits and failing to include a strong government-run insurance option of some sort in his bill would cost 10 to 15 Democratic votes; Reid told Baucus it wasn’t worth securing the support of Grassley and at best a few additional Republicans. …

“This was discussed in the weekly Democratic leadership meeting,” one Democratic source confirmed Tuesday afternoon. “These concerns were relayed to [Baucus] later on.” … “The longer Baucus takes, the trickier it gets,” the senior Democratic Senate aide said.

If Baucus’s attempts to secure Republican support delay the process any further, the “planned merger” of the Finance Committee’s health reform proposal with that of the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee could be “scrapped in favor of allowing each one to move to the floor on its own.” The lack of a public option is a deal-killer for some Democratic Senators because, as Igor Volsky explains, it is perhaps the most effective way to reduce the cost of health care, while ensuring affordable coverage for all.

Rush Limbaugh Calls Obama a "Colonial Despot"
Posted by Ryan Powers, Think Progress on June 27, 2009 at 12:00 PM.

 On his radio show Friday, conservative talker Rush Limbaugh quoted at length from a new article in the American Thinker entitled, “Obama, the African Colonial” by L.E. Ikenga who identifies herself as a “first generation born West African-American woman.” In the article Ikenga argues that Obama is best understood through his “identification with his father” and his adoption of a “political mindset rooted in post colonial Africa”:

Like many educated intellectuals in post colonial Africa, Barack Hussein Obama, Sr. was enraged at the transformation of his native land by its colonial conqueror. But instead of embracing the traditional values of his own tribal cultural past, he embraced an imported Western ideology, Marxism. I call such frustrated and angry modern Africans who embrace various foreign “isms”, instead of looking homeward for repair of societies that are broken, African Colonials. They are Africans who serve foreign ideas.

Read the rest of the post on the flip side »

Lieberman Hates Transparency, Flips Over Detainee Photos
Posted by Ryan Powers, Think Progress on June 9, 2009 at 4:31 PM.

Yesterday, Jane Hamsher reported that the detainee photo amendment sponsored by Sens. Joe Lieberman (I-CT) and Lindsey Graham (R-SC) was stripped from the war supplemental in committee. The amendment would have allowed the Obama administration to suppress any “photograph taken between September 11, 2001 and January 22, 2009 relating to the treatment of individuals engaged, captured, or detained” after 9/11 by U.S. forces. This afternoon, Graham and Lieberman held a press conference to register their objections to dropping the measure and announce that they had “added our original legislation as an amendment to the FDA regulation of tobacco bill that’s on the floor right now”:

LIEBERMAN: [W]e’re going to vote against cloture on the bill, and I’m going to do everything I can to see if I can convince other Democrats to do that.

We’re just not going to roll over because some folks in the House don’t like this amendment. [W]e’re going to do everything we can to hold up the supplemental appropriations bill until we’re sure that this amendment prohibiting the release of these dangerous photographs is on that bill. And then we’ll continue to do everything we can to attach it to other legislation, to slow up the process.

Graham said the amendment was needed because “These photos, if they’re released, will be used by the enemy to incite violence as they walk down these streets.” A “senior Democratic aide” told the Weekly Standard that the two senators would “attach [the amendment] to every piece of legislation that comes down the pike.”

Conservatives' New Sotomayor Opposition Stategy Same as the Old One
Posted by Ryan Powers, Think Progress on June 4, 2009 at 9:32 AM.

Republicans in Congress and conservative activists spent last week attempting to paint President Obama’s Supreme Court nominee, Judge Sonia Sotomayor as a racist. Newt Gingrich, Tom Tancredo, and Rush Limbaugh all made the charge explicitly, while Rep. Lamar Smith (R-TX) and Sen. James Inhofe (R-OK) appeared to come to the same conclusion using softer language. At different points, others attacked her temperament, her intellect, and misrepresented her record on the bench.

This week, however, prominent Republicans are attempting to distance themselves from last week’s smear tactics, with Politco reporting that they have embraced “toned down rhetoric on Sonia Sotomayor.” On the Sunday talk shows, Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-AL) and Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) urged Republicans to refrain from harshly-worded racism accusations. Sessions explained that “he would prefer fellow Republicans stop attacking Sotomayor over remarks about her background as a daughter of Puerto Rican parents.” Yesterday, Newt Gingrich wrote in Human Events that he should not have used the word “racist” to describe Sotomayor “as a person.”

But their new and supposedly more civil opposition strategy is no different than their old strategy. Republicans in Congress still appear to want the public perception of Sotomayor to be skewed by misinformation from the far right. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) told CNN’s John King on Sunday that he had “better things to do” than to denounce conservatives who called Sotomayor “racist.” And now it seems his office is encouraging the spirit of this and similar arguments. As the Hill reports today, “Senate Republicans have kept their distance from conservative attacks on Sonia Sotomayor, but behind the scenes, they have encouraged activists to keep their crosshairs trained on the Supreme Court nominee”:

Lanier Swann, an aide to Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), told a private meeting of conservative activists Wednesday to keep up their pressure on Sotomayor.

“Swann told us she wanted to encourage all of us in our talking points and that we’re having traction among Republicans and unnerving Democrats,” said an attendee of Wednesday’s weekly meeting hosted by Grover Norquist, the president of Americans for Tax Reform. “The point was we should keep it up,” said the source. “She told us at this meeting to put our foot on the pedal.”

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Guantanamo Bay Video Game in Development?
Posted by Ryan Powers, Think Progress on June 1, 2009 at 3:19 PM.

A British video game development firm is in the process of creating a video game based on the U.S. prison camp at Guantanamo Bay. Entitled “Gitmo: Rendition,” the game “depicts the prison in the near future — after its anticipated closing by the U.S. government — as a camp run by mercenaries who detain innocents sold off to their captors to serve as ‘lab rats’ in scientific experiments.” The game’s developer hired Moazzam Begg — a “British Muslim who was detained at the American military base at Guantanamo Bay for three years” before being released uncharged — as an adviser to help make the game “more realistic.” Begg and seven other Britons detained by the U.S. recently sued the British government, “claiming U.K. authorities were complicit in their abductions, detention and interrogations.” Watch the game trailer:

Pentagon: Obama Has Not Ordered Military to Work on Repealing 'Don’t Ask Don't Tell'
Posted by Ryan Powers, Think Progress on May 20, 2009 at 8:23 AM.

Pentagon spokesperson Geoff Morrell said today that it has had only “initial discussions” with the White House about repealing Don’t Ask Don’t Tell, and President Obama has “not asked for the 1993 policy to be scrapped.” “I do not believe there are any plans under way in this building for some expected, but not articulated, anticipation that don’t ask-don’t tell will be repealed,” Morrell said. He added that the Joint Chiefs and Secretary of Defense Robert Gates are “aware of where the president wants to go on this issue, but I don’t think that there is any sense of any immediate developments in the offing on efforts to repeal don’t ask-don’t tell.” Today’s remarks appear contrary to White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs’s claim last week that Obama is currently “working with…members of the Joint Chiefs” to repeal the policy. The Boston Globe reported today that 619 individuals were discharged last year under the Don’t Ask Don’t Tell policy.

Limbaugh Wants to Kick Colin Powell Out of the GOP
Posted by Ryan Powers, Think Progress on May 6, 2009 at 3:53 PM.

On Monday, former Secretary of State Colin Powell said that he believed the Republican party is in “deep trouble,” “getting smaller,” and being led by polarizing figures like Gov. Sarah Palin (R-AK) and Rush Limbaugh. Powell said further that the party must realize that “Americans do want to pay taxes for services.” Of Limbaugh specifically, Powell said, “I think what Rush does as an entertainer diminishes the party and intrudes or inserts into our public life a kind of nastiness that we would be better to do without.”

Today on his radio show, Limbaugh responded by calling Powell “just another liberal.” Limbaugh said Powell should “close the loop” and leave the Republican party instead of “claiming” to be interested in reforming it. Additionally, Limbaugh reiterated his previous claim that Powell endorsed Obama only because of his race:

LIMBAUGH: [Powell] is out there saying I am killing the republican party while he endorsed and voted for Obama. … He’s just mad at me because I’m the one person in the country who had the guts to explain his endorsement of Obama. It was purely and solely based on race! There can be no other explanation for it. What Colin Powell needs to do is close the loop and become a Democrat instead of claiming to be a Republican interested in reforming the Republican party.

Limbaugh concluded, “The only reason to endorse Obama is race. I don’t think Powell thought he could get away without with not endorsing Obama. … So I don’t care.”

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White House Reinserts Commitment to Repeal Don't Ask Don't Tell on Website
Posted by Ryan Powers, Think Progress on May 4, 2009 at 8:40 AM.

[For the earlier part of this story click here.]

On Friday, the White House website replaced its commitment to “repealing Don’t Ask Don’t Tell” with a commitment to simply “changing Don’t Ask Don’t Tell in a sensible way.” John Aravosis said that the change appeared to be “a backward step from a clear campaign promise” and looked to be the latest in increasingly vague promises from the Obama administration on its plans regarding DADT. But as Pro Publica notes, the White House has now “reinserted language saying President Obama supports the ‘repeal’ of Don’t Ask Don’t Tell. The new phrasing: ‘He supports repealing Don’t Ask Don’t Tell in a sensible way that strengthens our armed forces and national security.’”

Specter's First Vote as a Democrat: No on Obama's Budget
Posted by Ryan Powers, Think Progress on April 30, 2009 at 9:52 AM.

In a 53-to-43 vote tonight, the Senate followed the House in passing President Obama's budget. Not a single Republican voted in favor of the budget resolution, but a number of key Democrats including Sens. Evan Bayh (IN), Robert Byrd (WV), Ben Nelson (NE), and most notably Arlen Specter (PA) voted against it. Just yesterday, Specter reportedly said to Obama, "I'm a loyal Democrat. I support your agenda." The budget resolution that passed tonight allowed for health care reform to be implemented using the budget reconciliation process, which Specter expressed his opposition to yesterday.

The Washington Post Takes a Swing at Its Own Columnist
Posted by Ryan Powers, Think Progress on April 7, 2009 at 8:05 AM.

In February, Washington Post columnist George Will wrote a column calling global warming a “hypothetical” calamity. Among the various uninformed claims he made in his column, Will argued that because global sea ice remained near its 1979 levels, that global warming was not occurring. Despite Will’s widely documented errors, Washington Post’s editorial page editor, Fred Hiatt, did not believe Will’s column merited any corrections. Today, however, in an article regarding new Arctic sea ice data released yesterday by NASA, Washington Post reporters Juliet Eilperin and Mary Beth Sheridan attempted to correct the record:

The Arctic sea ice cover continues to shrink and become thinner, according to satellite measurements and other data released yesterday, providing further evidence that the region is warming more rapidly than scientists had expected. […]

The new evidence — including satellite data showing that the average multiyear wintertime sea ice cover in the Arctic in 2005 and 2006 was nine feet thick, a significant decline from the 1980s — contradicts data cited in widely circulated reports by Washington Post columnist George F. Will that sea ice in the Arctic has not significantly declined since 1979.

Will’s specious claims were specifically about “global sea ice,” not Arctic sea ice. Yet, the overarching point is still true: Will is woefully uninformed about the science of climate change.

Bayh: My Group of Blue Dogs 'Literally Has No Agenda' Other Than Blocking Obama's
Posted by Ryan Powers, Think Progress on March 26, 2009 at 10:19 AM.

Yesterday, MoveOn.org, Americans United for Change, and several other progressive groups began running ads urging “moderate” Democratic members of Congress to “get on board with the president’s budget.” The ads are, in part, a response to Sen. Evan Bayh (D-IN) and 14 of his Democratic colleagues who are creating what they call a “moderate coalition that will meet regularly to shape public policy.” Bayh responded to the new ads late yesterday, telling Politico that his group of “moderates” should not be targeted because they have “no agenda”:

Sen. Evan Bayh (D-Ind.) is also unhappy with the friendly fire. Bayh…found himself targeted by an ad accusing him of “standing in the way of President Obama’s reforms.” “We literally have no agenda,” Bayh shot back. “How can they be threatened by a group that has taken no policy positions?”

Bayh’s claim that his group has no agenda is hard to believe. Indeed, as the Wall Street Journal explained yesterday, the group’s “stated goal is to…protect business interests.” Even before the group was officially formed, their efforts dampened a number of progressive policy proposals and they clearly have aspirations to expand their portfolio:

Read the rest of the post on the flip side »

Eye on EFCA: Specter Makes a Huge Mistake
Posted by Ryan Powers, Think Progress on March 25, 2009 at 4:37 AM.

Yesterday on the Senate floor, Sen. Arlen Specter (R-PA) announced his intention to vote against cloture on the Employee Free Choice Act. Specter was the only Republican to vote for cloture when the measure was last considered in 2007. During his announcement, Specter noted his previous support for EFCA, but suggested that the current condition of the economy makes “this a particularly bad time to enact employee’s choice legislation”:

SPECTER: The problem of the recession make this a particularly bad time to enact employees choice legislation. … I am announcing my decision now because I have consulted with a very large number of interested parties on both sides and I have made up my mind. Knowing that I will not support cloture on this bill, Senators may choose to move on and amend the [National Labor Relations Act], as I have suggested, or otherwise.

Additionally, Specter suggested that he did not want to bear the political cost of being the “decisive vote” in favor of EFCA. Watch it:

Earlier this month, Sen. Tom Harkin (D-IA) noted, “In 1935, we passed the Wagner Act that promoted unionization and allowed unions to flourish, and at the time we were at around 20 percent unemployment. So tell me again why we can’t do this in a recession? … This is exactly the time we should be insisting on a fairer playing field for people to organize themselves.” As David Sirota commented, “Put another way, we don’t have the leeway to pass EFCA despite the bad economy, we have the imperative to pass EFCA because of the bad economy.”

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Hagel Rips Cheney for Attacking Obama
Posted by Ryan Powers, Think Progress on March 18, 2009 at 7:37 AM.

 Last night on MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow Show, Maddow asked former Sen. Chuck Hagel about former Vice President Cheney’s recent claims that President Obama is making the American people “less safe” by raising the “risk to the American people of another [terrorist] attack.” Hagel called Cheney’s comments “ridiculous” and “folly,” concluding “I’m sorry the Vice President said that“:

HAGEL: That’s ridiculous! It has no merit on fact or by any measurement. I mean come on, this guy hasn’t even been in office two months. The mess that the Bush administration left the Obama administration. I’m a Republican…we got America into two wars, we’ve done great damage to our economy, to our force structure, to our standing in the world. For a Vice President who participated in that, who led in that, to come on and say that this new administration has really put America in danger is just folly.

Michael Steele Rejects Calls for His Resignation: 'Not Me Baby!'
Posted by Ryan Powers, Think Progress on March 6, 2009 at 9:14 AM.

In a memo to her fellow RNC members yesterday, Dr. Ada Fisher said that their newly elected chairman, Michael Steele, is “‘eroding confidence’ in the GOP and that members of his transition team should encourage him to step aside.” She reiterated her argument on MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow Show last night. Fisher’s memo echoed reports in Politico that anonymous “key party leaders” are beginning to feel that “the GOP has made a costly mistake.”

This morning, Steele indirectly responded to the call for his resignation as he guest-hosted Bill Bennett’s conservative talk radio program Morning in America. A caller said to Steele, “I hope that Paul Bagalla and Emanuel and Carville don’t convince you to resign your position.” Steele responded, “Not me baby!“:

STEELE: It’s been a good week, it’s been an instructive week. That’s really what I take away from a week like this. … The instruction is particularly for republicans is that you need to stay focused, other wise you get scapegoated. […]

CALLER: I hope that Paul Bagalla and Emanuel and Carville don’t convince you to resign your position.

STEELE: Aww, trust me. Not me Baby! Nuh-uh. Not happening. No way, no how!

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Unemployment Benefit Claims Hit Highest Level Since 1982
Posted by Ryan Powers, Think Progress on February 26, 2009 at 10:30 AM.

Unemployment figures released by the Labor Department this morning show that 667,000 Americans applied for unemployment benefits last week, while the number of people "remaining on the benefits roll after drawing an initial week of assistance increased by 114,000 to 5.112 million." The Washington Post explains that the "new claims are the most since October 1982, although the labor force has grown by about half since then." Additionally, last week's figures were revised upward by 4,000 to 631,000.