House Armed Services Committee Chairman Ike Skelton (D-Mo.), a longtime advocate of a strong military with a robust budget, is considering a few ways to help Defense Secretary Robert Gates save some cash.

Beginning with a speech a stone’s throw from President Eisenhower’s boyhood home, Gates recommended the Pentagon begin finding ways to cut its own budget in order to save key programs and forces from the crippling cuts seen in the late 1980s and early 1990s.

With rising deficits, plans to draw down forces in Iraq and Afghanistan and a changing mood on Capitol Hill, even defense spending stalwarts such as Skelton are looking for places to trim.

Read the rest of this story at Politico byline Jen DiMascio.

Interesting story but DiMascio points out that Skelton remains supportive of a second engine for the F35 Joint Strike fighter.

My translation: We’re open to defense cuts. We’re going to do it next time. Recall that Congresswoman Betsy Markey voted to strip funds for this second engine that Defense Secretary Gates says is not needed.

Photo Credit: Politico

Posted by Gypsy Chief

The Insanity Offense

The Insanity Offense: How America’s Failure to Treat the Seriously Mentally Ill Endangers Its Citizens by E. Fuller Torrey. The book was featured on Book TV

Torrey has written frequently on this topic. The book opens with a description of the Lanterman-Petris-Short Act (LPS). This is a state law in California which had the effect of vastly reducing the patient population in state mental hospitals. The author says that LPS came from an unholy alliance of liberal activists concerned with folks being railroaded into mental hospitals against their will and conservative activists who believed that there is no such thing as mental illness.

Ronald Reagan as governor of California promised that mentally ill patients would be moved from state hospitals to community based treatment facilities. Funds were never provided so that this could happen. Instead, many mentally ill patients became homeless where they then became a huge problem for local police departments.

Torrey continues in this vein documenting what he calls the effect of LPS in California and similar ideas in other states. He recounts examples of mentally ill people who killed because they heard voices telling them to. These cases sound like the plot line of a Criminal Minds television show.

One of the most spectacular examples recounted is the Virginia Tech shooter. Torrey says that privacy laws prevent information sharing so that mentally ill people may go out and buy firearms which make their rampages just that much more deadly.

For public policy the question is who should be allowed to purchase firearms. Of course, if you believe there is no such thing as mental illness then anyone should be allowed to acquire weapons. I think this is an extreme position. Is the country destined to suffer more and more mass shootings by mentally ill people who exercised their Second Amendment rights? This is why “The Insanity Offense” is book of the week.

Posted by Gypsy Chief

California primary voters go to the polls on Tuesday, June 8 to pick their party’s candidates. Republicans will choose Carly Fiorina, Tom Campbell, or Chuck DeVore. for their US Senate candidate. Late polling suggests that Fiorina, former CEO of Hewlett-Packard, will be the nominee to run against incumbant Senator Barbara Boxer.

The following is from an L.A. Times story by Seema Mehta. Money and Anger Dominate California’s … Contests

Pushing forward

Near Sacramento, a confident Fiorina rallied her troops in the Senate race, thanking them for bypassing the beautiful weather to call voters on her behalf.

“With your help, we’ll be having a hell of a party on Tuesday night,” she said, flashing two thumbs up to about 30 volunteers gathered at a recreation center in Gold River.

Speaking to reporters, she criticized Boxer’s positions on national security, terrorism and immigration. “Her policies are part of what’s driving this state into bankruptcy,” Fiorina said.

Fierce battles ahead

With their lineup unofficially set, top-of-the-ticket Democrats and their allies in organized labor were also gearing up Saturday for a bruising general election battle against opponents with unprecedented amounts of personal money to spend.

With the battles brewing, “Boxer and Brown both realize they have real contests and are not going to wait,” according to Jack Pitney a Claremont McKenna College government professor and former national GOP official.

“For all practical purposes, the general election campaign has already started,” said Dan Schnur, head of the Jesse M. Unruh Institute of Politics at USC. “It doesn’t look like many people on either side are going to be taking summer vacations.”

Boxer proved that Saturday. After touring a new $13.5-million aircraft rescue and firefighting facility at Los Angeles International Airport that was funded mostly by federal stimulus money, the senator lashed out at Fiorina. She let fly a host of criticisms: Fiorina laid off tens of thousands of workers and shipped jobs overseas as head of Hewlett-Packard; she failed to vote for much of her life; she opposes abortion rights and supports offshore drilling – the opposite of most Californians’ views – and would allow people on the no-fly terrorism watch list to purchase handguns. See our previous article about Carly’s failure to vote.

“This is the clearest choice in the nation,” Boxer said. “She is so out of step with California voters.”

mailto: seema.mehta@latimes.com

Times staff writers Robin Abcarian, Cathleen Decker, Shane Goldmacher and Maeve Reston contributed to this report.

Copyright © 2010, The Los Angeles Times

Photo Credit: Wikipedia

Posted by Gypsy Chief

F35 Joint Strike Fighter

The US House of Representatives voted 193 to 231 on a motion to strip funding from the Defense Authorization Bill of 2010 for a second F35 Joint Strike Fighter engine that the Defense Department does not want. Since the motion failed funds for a second engine stay in the defense bill. The rollcall vote on the motion may be found here

Congresswoman Helen Elizabeth “Betsy” Markey [D-CO4th] voted to strip the funds. 135 other Democrats voted to strip the funds along with 57 Republicans. House members voting to retain funds for a second engine included 115 Democrats and 116 Republicans.

After the vote Markey was critical of her colleagues for being hypocritical on budget deficits. See the story in the Fort Collins Coloradoan This story also ran on the ColoradoPols Blog

Photo Credit:KCBY TV Coos Bay / North Bend, OR

Posted by Gypsy Chief

Betsy Markey, CO 4th District Rep.

Most Democrats voted with the House leadership Thursday evening as the House passed the Patrick Kennedy amendment to the Defense Authorization Bill of 2010.

I got the news live on The Rachel Madow Show But how did my congressperson, Betsy Markey, vote? A rollcall of the vote can be found here

Turns out that Markey voted with that other Congressman Markey, the one from Mass., she voted yes. By voting yes she proved once again that she is no Marilyn Musgrave. In case you do not remember, Marilyn, when she was our congressperson campaigned for a federal constitutional amendment prohibiting same-sex marriage. Imagine how she would have voted on the question to repeal DADT.

In researching this story I went to a favorite source, ColoradoPols They didn’t have any details of interest until the next day when they had a story headlined Colorado Delegation Casts Party Line Vote. I will let you find the specific reference on that site. About the same time, i.e. the next day after the vote, Politico had a credible story House Votes to Repeal ‘don’t ask’

Speaking of Politico, they had an interesting story in mid May about five Democrats, Markey among them, whose flip from no to yes provided the margin of victory for House passage of Health Care Reform. The other four Democrats are Alan Boyd, John Boccieri, Scott Murphy, and Suzanne Kosmas. All five have been targeted by the GOP.

Now that I have the actual rollcall on DADT I decided to see if any of these ‘targeted’ reperesentatives voted no on the Partick Murphy amendment. The answer is that all five voted with the House majority. The one no vote that leaps out at you is Rep. Ike Skelton [D-MO] who is House Armed Services Committee chairman. Republicans voting yes include Ron Paul of TX, no surprise, the newest House member Djou of HI, and Cao of LA along with two others.

Posted by Gypsy Chief

Carly Fiorina

Carly Fiorina, leading candidate for the GOP nomination for US Senate in California explained to Sharon Ito of News 10, Sacramento, that it was wrong of her not to vote. See the interview here

Magellan Strategies Has Fiorina leading Tom Campbell 44% to 21% with Chuck DeVore in third place at 14%. The survey was conducted on or about May 25. See the Magellan story along with downloads and crosstabs here.

The California Primary election comes up on June 8.

Bottom line: Failure to vote does not seem to be a disqualifying factor in order to win GOP nomination in California this election cycle.

Photo Credit: News 10 Sacramento

Posted by Gypsy Chief

MSNBC Hostess Rachel

George H. W. ‘Poppy’ Bush says that you and Keith Olbermann have not been feeling well. He said that you two had gone to the veterinarian. Rachel, please do not hang out at animal hospitals. There are all kinds of diseases you could catch there.

For example, Dogma is known to be widespread and very contagious.

Please, I watch your show every night. I worry that if you hang out with vets, you could become sick puppies.

Posted by Gypsy Chief

reliably snarky

On November 7, 2009, the US House of Representatives passed HR3961, its version of comprehensive health care reform. The late Saturday night vote came after an all day debate which played out for the American people on C-Span.

For C-Span this was like the first game of the World Series.

The very next morning on his Sunday talk show, Reliable Sources, Kurtz quipped that the vote had come late on Saturday night ‘when no one was watching’.

I think this means that the vote came when Howard wasn’t watching. Sorry, Howard, real people out here in the hinterlands were watching. I put in a supply of low fat popcorn, took a break from reading Barbara Ehrenreich’s “Bright Sided” and planned my day around this event. For those of us in the Mountain time zone the vote came early enough.

I feel that Mr. Kurtz is not a reliable source on the C-Span’s audience size since he represents a commercial network, CNN, which competes with C-Span for attention.

I’m posting this now because, once again, we have a Saturday night event, this time in the US Senate, and this time on C-Span2, as Senate Democrats got exactly the 60 votes they neeed to bring their version up for floor debate. Will Kurtz display a similar degree of snarkyiness on his show this morning?

Posted by Gypsy Chief

Financial Services Lobbyist

The Center for Media and Democracy has awarded Scott Talbott of the Financial Services Roundtable its Golden Throne award.

Following is the press release announcing the award.

PRESS RELEASE: November 12, 2009
CONTACT: Mary Bottari at (608) 260-9713 or mary@prwatch.org

“GOLDEN THRONE” AWARD PRESENTED TO SCOTT TALBOTT OF THE FINANCIAL SERVICES ROUNDTABLE

The Center for Media and Democracy and BanksterUSA — http://www.banksterusa.org — are pleased to present a Golden Throne Award to Scott E. Talbott, the Senior Vice President for Government Affairs at the Financial Services Roundtable.

The Golden Throne Award salutes the behind-the-scenes lobbyists and spinmeisters of the financial services sector who have done their utmost to hold off any meaningful reform of their industry, even after collapsing the global economy and sending the U.S. unemployment rate above 10%. It invokes fond memories of the $1.2 million office renovation — with its $35,000 commode — ordered by Merrill Lynch’s CEO, John Thain, shortly before the firm lost $27 billion and was rescued from extinction by Bank of America.

Scott E. Talbott is a top lobbyist for the Financial Services Roundtable. The Roundtable lobbies on behalf of 100 of the top banks, credit card companies, insurance and securities firms operating in the United States. Its membership includes many bailed-out banks including: Citigroup, JPMorgan Chase, Bank of America, Wells Fargo, and PNC Financial Services Group, Inc.

“Few have done more to earn this place of honor. Through his work in the Financial Services Roundtable, Scott Talbott has been an influential advocate for the special rights and privileges enjoyed by the American Bankster,” said Mary Bottari of BanksterUSA.

The Financial Services Roundtable traces it roots back to 1912 when it was called the Association of Reserve City Bankers. It represented banks until the November 12, 1999 repeal of the depression-era Glass-Steagall Act. This repeal, 10 years ago today, tore down the fire walls between commercial banking, insurance and investment banking and created mammoth “too big to fail” firms. After fighting for the repeal of Glass-Steagall, the Roundtable transformed itself to also represent the largest securities, investment and insurance firms. Today the Roundtable is a powerful force against financial services reform in Congress and represents many of the largest bailed-out firms and financial institutions from around the globe including France’s AXA, London’s Barclays, Switzerland’s UBS and Germany’s Allianz. Click here to see its members.

TALBOTT’S LOBBYING

Talbott views his role as an important, even historic, one. “Washington is making changes that will affect the industry for the next 100 years, so we’re seeing a lot more interest from the C-suite. And our role is now more important than ever, because we’re in uncharted territory,” he told an admiring reporter who detailed his day including his 3:30 a.m. workout and his 1,000 calls. According to the report, Talbott is one of the few, the proud and the brave: “As finance lobbyists gird for one of their biggest battles, their ranks are growing thin. Slightly fewer than 2,600 people are now making the case for U.S. banks, insurers and investment shops — 300 fewer than last year.”

These few brave souls appear to be making quite the salary. According to Common Cause, commercial banks, finance and credit card companies spent nearly $42 million on lobbying during the first six months of 2009, about $1.6 million a week. According to the Center for Responsive Politics, Talbott’s group, the Financial Services Roundtable, has spent $5.1 million on lobbying so far in 2009. These recent efforts include undermining caps on executive compensation, fighting transparency requirements for risky derivatives trading, destroying various bills to help families facing foreclosure, preventing caps on credit card interest rates and bank fees, and of course leading the fight to kill the Obama administration’s signature pro-consumer reform — a Consumer Financial Protection Agency.

TIDBITS FROM TALBOTT

Subtlety is not Talbott’s strength. With regard to the Obama administration’s landmark reform proposal, a Consumer Financial Protection Agency, Talbott told the American Banker publication, “Our goal will be to kill it, or make it the least-worst way to do the wrong thing.” — American Banker, July 1, 2009.

While appearing on C-Span to discuss the Consumer Financial Protection Agency, Talbott was asked what type of regulation the Roundtable would support. Talbott let slip, “We’re not for any regulation.” — The Wonk Room, July 8, 2009.

Oblivious to the fact that the “too big to fail” banks held disproportionate responsibility for the financial crisis, Talbott fought to shelter them: “We think that it’s outrageous to disproportionately and unevenly impose the cost of new regulation on the top banks.” The largest banks, he added, “should not be forced by the government to … pay the larger share of the funding costs of the Consumer Financial Protection Agency and regulatory oversight.” — The Washington Post, August 14, 2009.

As the Roundtable geared up to do battle against a bill to limit overdraft fees bank fees which amounted to $38 billion last year, Talbott showed his sympathy for recession-battered consumers: it’s “unfortunate that low- and moderate-income Americans find themselves (using) overdraft services more often.” — USA Today, July 9, 2009.

When Congress discussed placing limits on lobbying for bailed-out institutions so that taxpayer money would not be used to lobby the government for more funds, Talbott wrapped the lobbyists in the American flag: “Our concern is with the limitations and new restrictions on free speech and the constitutional right to petition your government.” — The Hill, September 11, 2009.

Opposing breaking up the biggest banks, Talbott romantically opined that big banks — just like people — dream the American dream: “They provide a number of benefits across the globe. We have a global economy, and these institutions can handle the finances of the world. They can also handle the finances of large, non-bank institutions like General Electric or Johnson & Johnson. They need these institutions [that] can handle the complex transactions. Simply breaking them up … then you’re discouraging a company from achieving the American Dream, working hard, earning money, producing products, and getting bigger.” — The Baseline Scenario, October 12, 2009.

Talbott predicted calamity if the results of bank “stress tests” were revealed to the public (which they were): “I’m worried about the overreaction — people selling every bank short and pulling out all their deposits and hiding their money in the mattress.” — USA Today, April 24, 2009.

Talbott successfully fought against executive pay restrictions proposed for the 2008 TARP bank bailout bill: “We support the bill, but we are opposed to provisions on executive pay,” said Talbott. “It is not appropriate for government to be setting the salaries of executives.” — New York Times, September 23, 2008.

On the same topic, Talbott told ABC News that bank executives might quit their jobs if they were only paid only $500,000 per year. “The pay scale for Wall Street is different for the pay scale for America … I don’t think the issue is a dollar amount. It’s being paid what you’re worth …” — ABC News, February 4, 2009.

Fighting to kill a bill which would allow people facing hardship to discharge student loan debt as part of bankruptcy proceedings, Talbott said forgiving student loans: “will increase the cost of tuition.” — UPI, May 13, 2009.

ABOUT US

BanksterUSA — http://www.banksterusa.org — is a new project of the Wisconsin-based Center for Media and Democracy (CMD). CMD was founded in 1993 as an independent, non-profit, non-partisan, public interest group focusing on exposing corporate spin and government propaganda. CMD brought you the book “Weapons of Mass Deception” before the Bush team failed to find weapons in Iraq, and we exposed “Fake News” in the media and the “Pentagon Pundits” on cable news. With this new effort, we will debunk the spinmeisters of the powerful financial services industry and help ordinary Americans take positive action on the financial crisis and the real economy. CMD’s first Golden Throne Award went to lobbyist extraordinaire Edward Yingling, of the American Bankers Association who, for over 30 years, has been a top lobbyist and front man for the banking industry.

Posted by Gypsy Chief

Santa loading toys produced by slave labor.

Senator Max Baucus [D-MT] has introduced a bill, S1631, which among other things would ban the import of goods produced by child labor, convict labor, or slave labor.

The bill is co-sponsored by Senator Charles Grassley [R-IA] the ranking member of the Senate Finance Committee.

Business groups and the Heritage Foundation are working to relax this ban. A story by David Sirota gives the details. Search the Library of Congress website for text of the bill and its status.

Thanks to Rachel Maddow TRMS for bringing this to our attention.

The American people are smart enough to know that the goods they buy come from the store. So how could they be produced in any of these bad ways?

If you have moral objections to goods produced with child, convict, or slave labor, you might want to support this bill. If you believe goods produced this way compete unfairly with American workers, you might want to support this bill.

Posted by Gypsy Chief