Archive for the 'Government Inefficency' Category

Mitch McConnell Holding His Breath ‘Til He Gets His Way

Terri Whitehouse June 4th, 2008

Well, actually, Sen. Mitch McConnell is holding a senate clerk’s breath until he gets his way. So says Politico:

McConnell has essentially shut down the Senate floor this afternoon by forcing the Senate clerk to read aloud the entire 500 page global warming bill. So if legislative language is your thing, turn on C-SPAN and watch the Senate at its best, or worst, depending on your perspective.

The Politico bit mentions judges and such, but we know this is all about his desperate need to help oil profiteers. DITCH MITCH!

(h/t: Page One)

UPDATE: This just in from the League of Conservation Voters:

Senators McConnell, Cornyn, Allard and Inhofe: the Exxon Delegation Stalls the United States Senate

Washington, DC – Senators Mitch McConnell, John Cornyn, Wayne Allard, and Jim Inhofe and their friends in the oil industry don’t want to talk about the Climate Security Act. Not only did McConnell, Allard and Inhofe vote against the Cloture motion to open debate on the bill, at this moment, the four Senators are forcing the Clerk of the Senate to read all 491 pages of the bill aloud. The bitter irony of wasting hours reading the bill aloud is that this bill addresses the urgent need for action on global warming and for viable alternatives to skyrocketing gas prices.

“Doing Big Oil’s bidding does nothing to address global warming or America’s energy crisis.” LCV President Gene Karpinski said. “McConnell, Cornyn, and Inhofe are running for reelection and American voters want action, not political stall tactics from the Exxon delegation.”

Senator McConnell has accepted $580,311 from oil and gas interests. Senator Allard has accepted $405,156; Senator Inhofe has accepted $999,023; and Senator Cornyn has accepted $1,197,305. (opensecrets.org)

The Early Bird Gets the Turd

Terri Whitehouse February 7th, 2008

Sometimes, I wonder why I don’t just stick cotton in my ears every morning:

The Army blocked help for wounded vets and then lied about it.

Sen. Mitch McConnell and his ilk stopped legislation that would actually help people in this dear-God-whatever-you-do-don’t-call-it-a-recession.

We’re paying more and getting less for our national defense.

Scientists Urge Congress to Quit Funding Ignorance

Terri Whitehouse December 2nd, 2007

A group of scientists sent a letter to Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid encouraging them to discontinue federal funding of abstinence-only sex education. Some highlights:

Withholding lifesaving information from young people is contrary to the standards of medical ethics and to many international human rights conventions...Governments have an obligation to provide accurate information to adolescents and adolescents have a right to expect health education provided in public schools to be scientifically accurate and complete.

The large-scale Mathematica evaluation of the Section 510 program, released in April 2007, found no measurable impact on increasing abstinence or delaying sexual initiation among participating youth or on other behaviors such as condom use…One of the few measurable impacts of the programs was a decrease in adolescent confidence regarding the ability of condoms to prevent HIV and other sexually transmitted diseases.

A spring 2005 longitudinal study by Bruckner and Bearman found that abstinence pledgers, when compared to non-pledgers, experienced similar rates of sexually transmitted infection. Pledgers did delay sexual intercourse for a limited period, but when they did start having sex, they were less likely to use condoms. They were also less likely to seek reproductive health care compared to non-pledgers.

Importantly, the emphasis on abstinence-only programs and policies appears to be undermining critical public health programs in the U.S. and abroad, including comprehensive sexuality education and HIV prevention programs.

We also note that a December 2004 Congressional report on federal abstinence programs from the U.S. House of Representatives’ Committee on Government Reform - Minority Staff found that 11 of the 13 most frequently used curricula contained false, misleading or distorted information about reproductive health - including inaccurate information about contraceptive effectiveness, purported health risks of abortion, and other scientific errors.

We would note that all of the mainstream organizations of health professionals that focus on the health of young people have strongly criticized federal support for current abstinence programs. These include the American Public Health Association, the American Medical Association, the American Academy of Pediatrics, the American Psychological Association, and the Society for Adolescent Medicine. We have also attached the weblinks to the policy statements from each of these groups.

The full letter, along with valuable links to sources, can be found at RH Reality Check.

And, while we’re on the subject of pound foolishness, WIC funding is in danger of being cut.

Republican Rag Washington Times unimpressed with Mitch McConnell’s first bipartisan effort in a long while

Matt Gunterman October 10th, 2007

Sen. Mitch McConnell (R) isn’t the most popular man in the “conservative” movement these days. You see, conservatives are spending an immense amount of time these days trying to convince themselves that it’s not their movement that’s failed, but their leaders.

Mitch McConnell is starting to take heat from all sides on the right. Essentially, they see McConnell stubbornly supporting every policy from the Bush administration that hurts the longterm prospects of conservatives and Republicans, and then endorsing every bloated spending bill that comes through the Senate — except, of course, when the billions of dollars included help American children.

Yes. I know. It’s strange.

Here’s the Washington Times blasting McConnell for more wasteful spending in an editorial. And, most importantly, it’s not the funds themselves that are at issue, but the very principle of the matter. It’s not a specific action from McConnell that they find troubling; it’s the age-old trend.

In fact, it appears the only time McConnell’s willing to be “bipartisan” is when there’s money to be had for his donors.

Airline ticket blues

Senate leaders should go back to the drawing board over a bipartisan measure to push through what may amount to free gifts from airlines. Last week Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and Minority Leader Mitch McConnell attached a completely unrelated airline travel measure to the Defense Department spending bill. The measure would allow senators, thousands of their aides and Senate officers to keep booking multiple tickets with airlines, although they would only end up paying for one ticket.

In practice, the bill will likely let lawmakers skirt the often tedious process plebeian travelers must wade through, allowing them to book flights without facing the costly fees and penalties slapped on regular travelers if they decide to make last-minute cancellations or changes. Senators acted in response to the Air Transport Association, which advised its members that multiple-ticket allowance essentially constituted gifts in-kind worth more than the $50 allowed under the Senate ethics package adopted this year. After receiving that advice, at least three airlines backed away from giving special treatment to lawmakers.

But senators decided to bypass the usual committee process for approving changes to the Senate ethics package, pushing the one-sentence amendment through the upper chamber at 5:45 p.m. Oct. 1, almost five hours after the leadership-imposed 1 p.m. deadline for submitting amendments. They allowed roughly 45 seconds to elapse before it sailed through on a voice vote, according to one Republican senator flummoxed by the process.

Now that the defense bill is in conference committee, this airline travel measure is likely to be deferred by House members, who haven’t yet approved a similar measure. Good for them. Instead of spending time on legislation like this, senators should bring up real reform to ethics rules — such as closing loopholes that permit earmarks while concealing from the public the identities of lawmakers who inserted them into legislation.

What’s McConnell Got to Say About This?

Terri Whitehouse September 9th, 2007

DM-KY reader Dee brought something to my attention that had flown under my radar in the past weeks. Via e-mail, she shared with me a letter she’d sent to Sen. Mitch McConnell recently, asking for his reaction to this article:

For daring to report illegal arms sales, Navy veteran Donald Vance says he was imprisoned by the American military in a security compound outside Baghdad and subjected to harsh interrogation methods.

…

For his trouble, he says, he got 97 days in Camp Cropper, an American military prison outside Baghdad that once held Saddam Hussein, and he was classified a security detainee.

Also held was colleague Nathan Ertel, who helped Vance gather evidence documenting the sales, according to a federal lawsuit both have filed in Chicago, alleging they were illegally imprisoned and subjected to physical and mental interrogation tactics “reserved for terrorists and so-called enemy combatants.”

If you’d also like a response from our senators about the reprehensible actions taken against these men and women, please contact them at the following locations:

Sen. Mitch McConnell
361-A Russell Senate Office Building
Washington, DC 20510
Phone: (202) 224-2541

Sen. Jim Bunning
316 Hart Senate Office Building
Washington, DC 20510
Phone: (202) 224-4343

To contact our senators at their regional offices, please refer to their websites.

Big Government? Big Lie! (And Other Matters of Note)

Terri Whitehouse August 1st, 2007

The Courier-Journal today ran an insightful piece written by E.J. Dionne Jr. on the myth of “big government.” Big government is, of course, a scare tactic used to justify lots of awful things, from lax gun control laws to not providing for the nation’s poor. Just exactly how big our government has actually gotten under the leadership of a Republican president, however, is worth a closer look.

In slightly unrelated news, Mark Hebert reports that nearly two-thirds of Kentuckians want some sort of U.S. troop withdrawal in Iraq.

Also, I’ve been meaning to blog about abstinence-only (mis)education for a number of weeks now, but Mary Q. Burton at the LEO does such a first-rate job in “Sex, lies and abstinence” that I’ll just quote in part:

Teri Lloyd was surprised when the sex education books her children brought home from school seemed woefully incomplete. The books omitted certain parts of the female anatomy — specifically, the clitoris.

“That’s got to be a shame, fear-based thing,” says Lloyd, 49, whose daughter, now 23, attended school at Myers Middle. “We just failed to educate them about their own bodies. What we leave out can be shaming, too. I wondered why that part wasn’t mentioned. I’m not opposed to teaching abstinence; what I’m opposed to is pairing it with shame or with lack of information about birth control and the human body.”

They can give enough of my tax money to fund religious anti-choice pregnancy centers, but can’t find a few hundred bucks for an accurate scientific rendering of the female anatomy? Nice.

KY GOP: A Real Class Act

Terri Whitehouse July 11th, 2007

Via the Owensboro Messenger-Inquirer, Joe Biesk reports that the KY GOP is making robo-calls to Kentucky residents criticizing the House’s decision to adjourn after Governor Ernie Fletcher called a special session.

The House claimed that issues including tax incentives for power companies, more than $400 million in projects and a ban on domestic partner benefits at public universities were not urgent enough to justify the approximately $60,000 per day cost to operate the legislature. The Senate disagreed.

Yes - how dare they adjourn when there is corporate welfare to dole out and people left undiscriminated against!

But as Fletcher was making his public plea for compromise, the state Republican Party was launching a telephone offensive of between 150,000 to 180,000 phone calls to voters across the state criticizing House Democrats for their actions. The calls, which Fletcher’s campaign knew about, started in the afternoon and carried into the evening night.

The Kentucky Republican Party on Monday night targeted more than 40 members of the state House — mostly Democrats representing coal constituencies — with automated phone calls, state GOP Chairman Steve Robertson said.

I especially like this part of the article:

State Rep. Jeff Greer, D-Brandenburg, said calls to his constituents near Fort Knox claimed he was antimilitary. The Senate passed legislation Monday that would give an income tax break to members of the military.

Because, you know, the Republican Party has such an outstanding track record for giving a flip about military personnel.

As for KY Democratic Party Chairman Jonathan Miller, kudos for stating the obvious:

Nevertheless, Miller said the calls were evidence that Fletcher’s motivation for calling a special session was an attempt to spur his re-election campaign. Fletcher, a Republican, is seeking a second term against Beshear in the Nov. 6 election.

Dang, Fletcher. You’re about as transparent and substantive as a piece of saran wrap.

The Gay Bomb Post

Terri Whitehouse June 12th, 2007

So I vaguely remember hearing about the “gay bomb” some time ago, and figured it was probably one I needed to Snopes. As it turns out, it was for real:

As part of a military effort to develop non-lethal weapons, the proposal suggested, “One distasteful but completely non-lethal example would be strong aphrodisiacs, especially if the chemical also caused homosexual behavior.”

The documents show the Air Force lab asked for $7.5 million to develop such a chemical weapon.

I may be way off base here, but do you think the the “gay bomb” conversation preceded the Pink Floyd/Wizard of Oz discussion and subsequent run for the border.

If We Ignore It, Maybe It Will Go Away

Terri Whitehouse June 7th, 2007

Sex, that is. You know, that dirty thing that men and women do together on their wedding nights and maybe a few other times throughout years of marriage in order to populate their congregations or whatever? Dirty. Dirty dirty despicable sex. Gross nasty people touching each other in their bathing suit areas. Eww, right?

No worries, though. House leadership today increased its extremely popular and effective abstinence-only education by nearly $30 million:

“Let’s face it, with friends like these, who needs conservative Republicans?” said James Wagoner, President of Advocates for Youth. “By continuing to fund these ineffective programs, the House Democratic leadership has signaled that the health and well-being of America’s teens are not their priority. Young people and their parents should be outraged.”

[…]

“The tragedy is not simply the waste of taxpayer dollars, which this clearly is,” added Wagoner, “but it is the damage done to the young people who have been on the receiving end of distorted, inaccurate information about condoms and birth control. Democrats are officially on record as promoting ignorance in the era of
AIDS — that’s not just bad public health policy, it’s also bad ethics and it’s just bad leadership.”

Salt ‘n’ Pepa, we need you now more than ever!

It’s All Your Fault. Just like Katrina.

Terri Whitehouse May 8th, 2007

Amid growing criticism that National Guard deployments have strained response to tornado-devested Greensburg, Kansas, White House press secretary Tony Snow has swiftly pinned the “blame” on Kansas Governor Kathleen Sebelius. It’s so good to know that, in times of natural disaster, covering your ass is paramount.

Daviess County Asks: What’s this Money For?

Terri Whitehouse May 8th, 2007

For a couple of years, Kentucky Governor Ernie Fletcher has been catching heat over his alleged practice of hiring and firing state employees based on politics. More recently, Fletcher has come under scrutiny for using taxpayer dollars on the campaign trail. I keep up with the goings-on in my hometown almost daily, and so I raised an eyebrow last week when Governor Fletcher showed up in Owensboro to hand out a ceremonial check. As it turns out, officials in Daviess County aren’t quite sure which project the $350,000 check is supposed to fund, as James Mayse reports [the Messenger-Inquirer is subscription only, so no link]:

Fletcher gave Fiscal Court $350,000 on May 1 for road resurfacing projects. But Judge-Executive Reid Haire said the county received no direction as to how, or where, the money could be spent.

Since the county has applied for state funds for several projects, officials are awaiting word about which project or projects are covered by the funds.

…

Keith Todd, a spokesman for the Transportation Cabinet’s Madisonville office, said the number of road projects the county has submitted for state funding is causing the confusion.

I am not sure if the gaffe holds any political significance, but if the process if being reimbursed by the state for road projects is as efficient as signing up for traffic school after a speeding ticket, it could take weeks to find out where that money is supposed to go. (Months, even.)

And speaking of Owensboro, it’s that time of year again!

UPDATE: According to the 5/10/07 M-I, the money is for the Graham Lane project. East side, ya’ll! No more being run off the road to go to Larry’s Little Giant! As I said, I’m a bit reluctant of Fletcher passing out road money checks while in the middle of a hot primary campaign, but that road was unsafe when I was a kid, and I can only imagine it’s gotten worse over the years.