Archive for the 'Money-Grubbing' Category

It’s Been A Long Time Coming

Terri Whitehouse June 5th, 2008

Reading more national coverage about the posts below, it is clear that it’s not just us Kentuckians that are sick and tired of Sen. Mitch McConnell and his shenanigans. So I’d like to issue a little challenge for those of us who truly want to Ditch Mitch this November.

For every minute (~ 510) that it took a clerk to read the bipartisan climate change bill aloud, I’d like to urge you to to donate to campaign of Bruce Lunsford. At a rate of penny per minute, that would total a mere $5.10 donation. A nickel per minute would total $25.50. You get the picture. I know it’s not a great deal of money. But I think it would be a powerful gesture, regardless.

The people of Kentucky and of America are not pawns in Mitch McConnell’s political power games, and before we hit him at the polls, we must hit him where it *really* hurts - his pockets. The government’s business should never be political strategy. Not on my dollar. Not on my penny.

If you agree with me, please repost this blog entry wherever you think it may be welcome, and urge like-minded people to do the same. When a person such as Mitch McConnell makes it so crystal-clear that he has zero interest in representing the people of the Commonwealth, then we have no choice but to elect a person who does. And that person is Bruce Lunsford.

UPDATE: You can also sign up to volunteer for Lunsford’s campaign here. DO IT!

Bush Administration: Law-Breakers

Terri Whitehouse April 21st, 2008

So says the New York Times:

The Bush administration violated federal law last year when it restricted states’ ability to provide health insurance to children of middle-income families, and its new policy is therefore unenforceable, lawyers from the Government Accountability Office said Friday.

And I think it’s pretty clear what is at the heart of the matter:

The letter told states what steps they needed to take to be sure the children’s health program would not displace or “crowd out” private coverage under group health plans. The White House cited the policy as a justification for rejecting a proposal by New York State to cover 70,000 additional youngsters.

Remember back when Sen. Mitch McConnell pretended to give a flip about middle income families? That dog don’t hunt. Aren’t you ready to DITCH MITCH?!?!

(h/t: Feministe)

No Banker Left Behind

Terri Whitehouse March 15th, 2008

There is an excellent post on Greg Palast’s blog linking the Eliot Spitzer scandal with the recent bailout of Bear Stearns:

It was the night of February 13 when Spitzer made the bone-headed choice to order take-out in his Washington Hotel room. He had just finished signing these words for the Washington Post about predatory loans:

“Not only did the Bush administration do nothing to protect consumers, it embarked on an aggressive and unprecedented campaign to prevent states from protecting their residents from the very problems to which the federal government was turning a blind eye.”

Bush, Spitzer said right in the headline, was the “Predator Lenders’ Partner in Crime.” The President, said Spitzer, was a fugitive from justice. And Spitzer was in Washington to launch a campaign to take on the Bush regime and the biggest financial powers on the planet.

Spitzer wrote, “When history tells the story of the subprime lending crisis and recounts its devastating effects on the lives of so many innocent homeowners the Bush administration will not be judged favorably.”

But now, the Administration can rest assured that this love story – of Bush and his bankers - will not be told by history at all – now that the Sheriff of Wall Street has fallen on his own gun.

It looks like Gov. Spitzer wasn’t the only one getting screwed.

(h/t: Crooks and Liars)

Quick Hit: Recommended Reading

Terri Whitehouse March 10th, 2008

Law Student Jill Filipovic has two excellent posts up on Feministe this week, which follow up on that 1 in 99 statistic that was recently reported.

In “America Behind Bars”, Filipovic discusses the economic and social impact of the incarceration rate:

And entire communities depend on prisons for their economic stability. They have disproportionate political power — prison inmates count as residents, meaning that the areas are allocated greater resources that the inmates don’t benefit from and they’re counted in the population of Congressional districts. And inmates, of course, can’t vote — and in many states, they can’t vote once they get out, either.

Piggybacking on that post in “Judicial nominees, prison exploitation and discriminatory country clubs”, Filipovic takes a closer look at the prison-industrial complex and those who profit from it:

…like the private military contractors that the Bush administration pays to do our dirty work in Iraq, private prison employees were long not subject to the same laws that federal and state prison employees are…

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.

Ooooooh! Buuuuurrrrn!

Terri Whitehouse February 2nd, 2008

There is an excellent editorial in today’s Courier-Journal about Sen. Mitch McConnell titled, appropriately enough, “The Back Of His Hand“:

Millions of Americans are in economic trouble, while the Big Energy friends of George W. Bush and Mitch McConnell wallow in historic profits. Yesterday, Exxon Mobil Corp. posted the largest annual gain ever by a U.S. company — $40.6 billion. The rest of us are left to cower at the gasoline pumps.

Mitch McConnell feels he deserves re-election because he “does so much for Kentucky.” Never mind what he and his friend have done to America.

For real, though! Go read the whole shebang.

Is This Land Made For You and Me?

Terri Whitehouse October 30th, 2007

I don’t read DailyKos very often, but happened to look at it today and saw a great article about Appalachian coal frontpaged there.

Being a Western Kentuckian and not much of an environmentalist, I’m embarrassed to admit that I really haven’t known just how bad of a problem some mining tactics are for the communities in which they occur.

Incidentally, Sen. Mitch McConnell’s good budies over at Peabody Energy have just confirmed that they will build a coal gasification plant in the western part of the state. Good work, guhvnah.

McConnell quietly inserts money for British company under criminal investigation into bill; refuses to answer questions

Matt Gunterman October 27th, 2007

So, if you’ll recall, the response from Sen. Mitch McConnell’s office to questions about smears coming out of his office on 12 y.o. Graeme Frost — the sick boy whose only crime in the eyes of McConnell and Pres. George W. Bush was that he dared speak publicly of his gratitude to the American taxpayer for helping him and his family out in a time of need, rather than force them into bankruptcy — was to refuse to comment.

Well, guess what? McConnell has been caught inserting money for a British company under criminal investigation into a bill, and when reporters repeatedly contacted his office for comment, no comment was forthcoming.

I think we see a pattern developing. Here’s John Cheves writing in today’s Herald-Leader:

McConnell marks funds for contractor
FIRM UNDER INVESTIGATION FOR BRIBERY

Sen. Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., is pushing $25 million in earmarked federal funds for a British defense contractor that is under criminal investigation by the U.S. Justice Department and suspected by American diplomats of a “longstanding, widespread pattern of bribery allegations.”

McConnell tucked money for three weapons projects for BAE Systems into the defense appropriations bill, which the Senate approved Oct. 3. The Defense Department failed to include the money in its own budget request, which required McConnell to intercede, said BAE spokeswoman Susan Lenover.

BAE is based in Great Britain but has worldwide operations, including a Louisville facility that makes naval guns and employs 322. McConnell has taken at least $53,000 in campaign donations from BAE’s political action committees and employees since his 2002 re-election. United Defense Industries, which BAE purchased two years ago, pledged $500,000 to a political-science foundation the senator created, the McConnell Center at the University of Louisville.

In June, BAE confirmed that the Justice Department is investigating possible corruption in its Saudi Arabian deals. According to British media reports, BAE set up a slush fund with hundreds of millions of dollars in a Washington, D.C., bank to bribe Saudi Prince Bandar bin Sultan in order to win weapons contracts. Bandar, who heads the Saudi National Security Council, has denied the allegation.

BAE cannot discuss the allegation, Lenover said.

[...]

McConnell spokesman Don Stewart did not respond to repeated requests for comment.

Ethics watchdogs say they’re surprised McConnell, the Senate Republican leader, would continue to give earmarks and take donations from a corporation in hot water with his own government. McConnell should keep his distance, said Melanie Sloan, executive director of Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington.

“Most politicians decide that a scandal is a good time to stop doing business with a company, at least until the scandal is over,” Sloan said. “Particularly when we’re talking about a criminal investigation over bribery. You would think that a member of Congress would want to steer clear of anyone accused of bribery.”

Even without the scandal, it looks bad for a senator to earmark federal money for a corporation, as compared to a public university or a local government in his state, said Ken Boehm, chairman of the National Legal and Policy Center in Washington.

“Why did they need special favors from Senator McConnell instead of going through the usual open competition and budgeting process at the Pentagon?” Boehm asked.

Nor should McConnell take donations from a company to which he steers federal funds, said Boehm, a former Republican congressional aide.

“Contributions from entities that directly benefit from earmarks are a bad idea,” he said. “There’s a big difference between a company that just likes your general ideas and a company that stands to benefit from one or more transactions that you’re making on their behalf using public money.”

McConnell’s earmarks include $12.2 million for five-inch Naval gun mount overhauls; $8 million for Naval destroyer weapons modernization; and $4.8 million for ammunition pallets for Naval ships.

The defense appropriations bill awaits action by a Senate-House conference committee that will iron out differences between bills from the two chambers before sending one bill to President Bush for his signature. Members of the conference have not been chosen, but McConnell sits on the Senate Appropriations subcommittee that controls defense spending.

Action: McConnell Still Hiding

Terri Whitehouse September 27th, 2007

From the Sunlight Foundation:

Last April the Campaign Disclosure Parity Act of 2007, which would require Senators to file their campaign disclosure forms electronically, was blocked by a Republican Senator. The Sunlight Foundation launched a campaign called What’s McConnell Hiding? to find out who that Senator was and why they would object.

On September 24th, 2007, Sens. Russ Feingold and Dianne Feinstein offered the Senate Campaign Disclosure Parity Act of 2007 for Unanimous Consent again, however, it was blocked again by an objection from Sen. John Ensign (R-NV). Unlike previous objections to the bill, Sen. Ensign’s objection was not anonymous. This is likely due to the ban on secret holds, imposed by the recently passed Honest Leadership and Accountability Act of 2007.

Sen. Ensign objected to the bill and offered an irrelevant poison pill amendment. Ensign’s amendment would require outside groups filing ethics committee complaints to disclose their funding. Rather than vote on this unrelated amendment Sens. Feingold and Feinstein pulled their Unanimous Consent request. Sen. Ensign has since stated that he is unsure if he was the senator who placed the original anonymous hold on the bill. Staffers in his office claim he wasn’t.

A document circulated among Democratic Senate offices indicates that the efforts to block passage of the Senate Campaign Disclosure Parity Act originate from the office of the Minority Leader Mitch McConnell himself. The document, a Unanimous Consent agreement, labels the amendment offered by Ensign as a “McConnell amendment.” So, McConnell wasn’t hiding the identity of a fellow senator. He was hiding himself!

We still feel this bill is important to create a more transparent Congress. Please call Sen. McConnell and tell him enough is enough pass S.223 and stop hiding.

Washington Office: (202) 224-2541
Western Kentucky Office: (270) 442-4554
South Central Kentucky Office: (270) 781-1673
Louisville Metro Office: (502) 582-6304
Bluegrass Area Office: (859) 224-8286
Northern Kentucky Office: (859) 578-0188
Eastern Kentucky Office: (606) 864-2026

I’ll Give You A Nickel if You Wiggle My Trickle

Terri Whitehouse September 10th, 2007

In today’s New York Times, Pal Krugman sheds some light on the true impact of the Bush economy:

It’s true, as the Bushies never tire of reminding us, that the U.S. economy has added eight million jobs since that 2003 tax cut. That sounds impressive, unless you happen to know that a good part of that gain was simply a recovery from large job losses earlier in the administration’s tenure — and that the United States added no fewer than 21 million jobs after Bill Clinton raised taxes on the rich, a move that had conservative pundits predicting economic disaster.

What’s really remarkable, however, is that four years of economic growth have produced essentially no gains for ordinary American workers.

Wages, adjusted for inflation, have stagnated: the real hourly earnings of nonsupervisory workers, the most widely used measure of how typical workers are faring, were no higher in July 2007 than they were in July 2003.

Meanwhile, benefits have deteriorated: the percentage of Americans receiving health insurance through employers, which plunged along with employment during the early years of the Bush administration, continued to decline even as the economy finally began creating some jobs.

And one of the few seeming bright spots of the Bush-era economy, rising homeownership, is now revealed as the result of a bubble inflated in part by financial flim-flam, which deceived both borrowers and investors.

Now you know why 66 percent of Americans rate economic conditions in this country as only fair or poor, and why Americans disapprove of President Bush’s handling of the economy almost as strongly as they disapprove of the job he is doing in general.

Yet the overall economy has grown at a reasonable pace over the past four years. Where did the economic growth go? The answer is that it went to the same economic elite that received the lion’s share of those tax cuts.

Is anyone surprised at all by this? Here at DM-KY, we’ve highlighted several items which illustrate the hostility with which regular working Americans are treated by the GOP. McConnell and Co: we’re on to you and you should be very afraid.

Here’s the real news behind Sen. Mitch McConnell’s iPods-for-Afghanis initiative

Matt Gunterman September 10th, 2007

So, while some in the press have been spending all their time deconstructing and parsing the words of the new Public Campaign Action Fund’s latest television spot that highlights the sketch way in which Senator Mitch McConnell (R) and his goons got $8.3 million of taxpayer funds allocated to a Kentucky-based corporation that sends $50 audio players to Afghanis with recorded messages about democracy and other civic lessons, others have been searching out the whole story about the operation behind this ludicrous scheme is coming out.

Here’s what CorpWatch had to say:

Pink “iPods” for Democracy!
by Fariba Nawa, Special to CorpWatch

The employees of Voice for Humanity, in a fever of righteous idealism, traveled six hours on donkeys and horses through the remotest parts of the Afghanistan countryside. They were on a mission: to deliver what they thought was an invaluable literacy tool for Afghans. Pink for women, silver for men.

They were custom digital audio players which function like the trendy iPod although they look more like generic radios or MP3 players. They are made in China and filled with public service messages on topics including human rights, women’s rights, Afghanistan’s election process, and health.

The aid workers distributed 65,800 recorders, which cost $50 each, to remote villages and some of the most dangerous and volatile areas in the country. The staff of Voice for Humanity, a non-profit humanitarian aid agency that claims to be dedicated to developing literacy in the world, says it has trained tribal chiefs and other community leaders to listen to the recorders and then pass them on to individuals and families.

The pseudo-iPods were funded by a group of U.S. government funders that included the United States Agency for International Development (USAID). An $8.3 million contract was awarded to Kentucky-based Voice for Humanity, a small group run by two Lexington businessmen, to use its audio players to “promote democracy” in advance of the 2004 Afghan presidential election as well as to similar projects in Nigeria

How VFH got the contract is a matter raising some skeptical eyebrows in the aid community. When the two founders needed to sell their idea to the federal government, they turned to a lobbying group run by Hunter Bates, the former chief of staff to Senator Mitch McConnell. McConnell, it turns out, chairs the senate subcommittee that controls the money allocated to USAID.

Critics say it was those connections that resulted in millions of taxpayer dollars going to an ineffective and laughable program of throwing trendy technology at serious international issues.

“It shows how foolhardy people can be when they’re not thinking practically,” said Patricia Omidian, an aid worker heading the American Friends Service Committee.

There are further questions about the propriety of the US government distributing “public service messages” about an election in which it openly backs one candidate over the others. VHF has gone to great lengths to ensure that the recorders “have no US footprint,” despite the fact they are funded by the U.S. government and distributed by an American NGO.

Assuming that the content of the recorded audio on the players was purely educational and did have value as a literacy tool, it would have been cheaper and more affective to provide these communities with radio transmitters, which cost about $500 total. Radio programming would have reached more people, and is already how most Afghans get their information. Further, the information could be updated on the fly, whereas the VFH recorders must be rounded up and fitted with new chips bearing new material, and then redistributed. Each new chip costs $10, plus the cost of labor and travel.

¨Why not radios?¨ said one aid worker critical of the deal. “You see this time and time again to what (the politicians) think makes political sense regardless of feasibility or viability.”

Yet Pete McLain, director of Voice for Humanity, said that Afghan focus groups and surveys have shown that the recorder has educated the public about pertinent material they had no access to before.

¨Some of the work can be done with the radio. We’re different because of the depth and the fact that it can be repeated whenever you want it, like in the kitchen, in the field. There’s an ability to listen to it as a group and rewind it. Radio is good for soundbites,” McLain said. “This is about training. We don’t want to compete with radio. It’s apples and oranges. This is supplemental. We see some synergy.”

VFH has hired Altai Consulting to audit the project for efficiency and effectiveness. Its results will be presented to USAID to bolster VFH’s claim that the program is successful.

In Kabul, VFH’s staff of 40 is entirely Afghan. The supervisor, Abdul Wakil, is a firm believer in the product and its utility. He recalled a case where the device was played at a wedding in front of 500 women in Logar province. The program included information on women’s right to vote, including instructions on how to go about it. Although the women had been warned by traditionalists not to vote, many of them had the courage of conviction to register upon hearing the messages, Wakil said.

“It’s a school for them,” he added.

The Women’s Affairs Directorate in Logar confirmed that the players had provided beneficial information before the election, but that it was an impractical means of educating their communities. At their offices, a child could be seen playing with one of the audio players, switching the buttons like it was a toy.

In Khoshi, one of the districts in Logar where the player was distributed before elections, men in shops said they had listened to the material on the tape and gained some insight into the election process but afterwards, the digital device became a toy for their children.

The color-coded idea for the players emerged when VFH learned that men had taken the devices from women and were using them for themselves. Then the Ministry of Women’s Affairs suggested changing the color of some of the silver recorders to pink so that men would be too embarrassed to carry them around. So VHF ordered more players, this time in pink.

Wakil sat in his guesthouse in his pressed black suit showing me the recorder’s features. It’s a set with a solar charger and a hand crank. The programming now includes informational dispatches and dramatic performances read in the Afghan languages of Dari and Pushto.

Wakil said VFH is now lobbying to receive more grants so that it can continue making new chips with additional information on health, counter narcotics and children and eventually, build a library of data.

But many at USAID aren’t buying it. “We had to play it politically so we gave them some money. But they could not leverage us to give them too much,” said another USAID source.

New Public Campaign Action Fund Ad takes on McConnell’s pay-for-play tactics

Matt Gunterman September 6th, 2007

First, I want to ask everyone reading this a question: Do you think it’s a good use $8.3 million of your taxes to send Chinese-made music players to Afghanistan with audio messages about democracy encoded on them?

How many of you out there think, like me, that 1) nobody ever listened to the damn things [would you?] and 2) no-one ever expected anyone to listen to the damn things because 3) it was all a gimmick to get $8.3 million of taxpayer money into the pockets of some crooked American fat-cat and a Chinese manufacturer?

So, that having been said, I have to say that Ryan Alessi’s article on the ad from Public Campaign Action Fund and the reaction of Senator Mitch McConnell (R) and his cronies to it misses the mark a bit.

The issue here is how corrupt McConnell’s operation is. The issue IS NOT whether the music players were used in Afghanistan to play music or play messages about democracy (because both are just plain silly, quite frankly).

Here’s how things work for McConnell:

Step 1: Hunter Bates, Senator McConnell’s underling, left the senator’s offices to become a fat-cat lobbyist.

Step 2: Bates was paid $200,000 from fat-cats to promote their $8.3 million earmark for the music players.

Step 3: Senator McConnell works to deliver American taxpayer dollars to the sham.

Step 4: In return, Bates raised $120,000 to grease McConnell’s political machine.

That’s the issue here: how corrupt Mitch McConnell and his operation are.

Oh, and — despite Alessi’s article’s claim — there’s plenty of roll call evidence that McConnell has voted against body armor for our troops. Here it is:

October 2003 vote on body armor:

On October 2, 2003, Sen. McConnell voted to table an amendment by Sen. Chris Dodd (D-CT), that would have added $322 million for body armor and battlefield clean up for U.S. troops. The amendment was to be attached to the $87 billion emergency supplemental bill.
[Source: U.S. Senate Roll Call Votes, 108th Congress, 1st Sesson, vote number 376, October 2, 2003.]

“Many American soldiers in Iraq have not been equipped with the latest body armor that can protect against high-caliber bullets. During the Senate debate on an $87 billion emergency supplemental bill, Dodd offered an amendment to shift $322 million in reconstruction funds to pay for modern safety equipment and battlefield clearance.
The amendment failed…”
[Source: Peter Urban, “Lieberman eyes war shakeup,” Connecticut Post, October 26, 2003, available online for fee.]

“Troop safety: Voting 49 for and 37 against, the Senate on Oct. 2 tabled (killed) an amendment to transfer $322 million in S 1689 (above) from nation-building to the Army for provision of additional survival gear for U.S. troops such as high-tech body armor, bullet-proof helmets and special water packs. […]

“Christopher Dodd, D-Conn., said he has heard of soldiers ‘paying hundreds of dollars out of their own pockets to buy the equipment’ because ‘the administration did not procure enough personnel equipment for these men and women.’ A yes vote opposed the funds transfer.”
[Source: “Roll Call,” Aberdeen American News, October 5, 2003, available online for fee.]

“The Senate late Thursday also voted 49-37 to table an amendment by Sen. Christopher Dodd, D-Conn., to add funding for soldiers’ body armor, communications and other equipment offset by cuts the administration requested in line items such as money to build prisons and purchase computers.”
[Source: “GOP Holds Line on Iraq Votes, But Key Test Still To Come,” National Journal’s CongressDaily, October 3, 2003, available to subscribers.]

April 2003 vote on body armor:

On April 2, 2003, Sen. McConnell voted to table an amendment by Sen. Mary Landrieu (D-LA) that would have added $1 billion to the 2003 supplemental bill for the National Guard and Reserves.
[Source: U.S. Senate Roll Call Votes, 108th Congress, 1st Session, vote number 116, April 2, 2003.]

In her March 26, 2003 press release about her amendment, [Senator Landieu] explained that her bill was meant to “fill any equipment needs of Reservists and Guardsmen currently training for service in the second wave of Operation Iraqi Freedom. While all troops in the field today are properly equipped, reports indicate that subsequent call ups may be hindered by a lack of equipment. The Marine Corps Reserve reports that before they could deploy a second wave of troops a shortage of helmets, tents, bullet-proof inserts, and tactical vests must be fulfilled. Likewise, the Army Reserve reports a shortage of rifles - both the M4 and M16 – would have to be replenished before deploying a second wave of troops. Landrieu’s amendment would increase funding for the Reserves and Guard by $1 billion…”

[Source: press release from Senator Landrieu’s office, March 26, 2003.]

I don’t know about you, but Larry Forgy sounds like a candidate to me

Matt Gunterman August 20th, 2007

When the Washington Times is running stories about Senator Mitch McConnell’s extreme vulnerabilities in Kentucky, you know the buzz on him is not good inside the Beltway.

Take a look at the comments in this article by Larry Forgy, a Lexington lawyer and former Republican gubernatorial candidate who came within a hair of being elected governor in 1995. He’s adopting a very Pat Buchanan-esque populist Republican message. I think he’s taking the possibility of a run against McConnell very seriously. What does he have to lose? The McConnell branch of the Kentucky GOP already hates him, and the Fletcher and Nunn branches of the party would rally around him (thus Forgy would have a ready and energized base). He’d humiliate McConnell in the process by at least taking 30 percent of the votes (hell, you’d better believe I’d switch my registration to Republican to vote against McConnell in a primary), and in a perfect storm the little bugger might actually win that primary.

McConnell’s unspectacular performance under the national spotlight shone on him in his capacity as Senate Minority Leader has only brought Washington elites to question whether McConnell’s deficiencies aren’t also largely to blame for the severe problems now rocking the Kentucky GOP that he fathered.

McConnell’s sort of a Senate equivalent of Karl Rove: mostly blow and very little substance. For the better part of a decade now, there’s been a cult around McConnell in Republican circles in Kentucky and Washington. He’s revered for his supposed tactical mastery of procedure and narrative, ruthless partisanship, and money-grubbing ability.

Yet, once the Kentucky GOP that Mitch built became pretty much the only show in town, McConnell’s mean and massive machine started to sputter, fast and hard. It all fell apart in scandal, amateurishness, and incompetence.

McConnell quickly cast the blame on the nascent Fletcher wing of the party, but it was McConnell who handpicked his minions.

I’ve said it many times before: even if Mitch McConnell somehow survives reelection in 2008, he will nevertheless inherit the legacy that he rightly deserves (and that’s not a good thing for McConnell). History will record that he was feckless and ineffective as a leader, that he was instrumental in bringing the corrupting culture of money-grubbing and influence-mongering to our nation’s capital, and that he cultivated the hyper-partisan atmosphere there that has totally paralyzed our institutions of government at a time when the American people most need them to be providing answers and solutions.

McConnell’s base of support erodes

August 20, 2007

By Ralph Z. Hallow - Sen. Mitch McConnell’s close backing of President Bush on immigration and the Iraq war is costing him support among Kentucky Republicans, and, according to some party members, hurting his chances for re-election next year.

He even could face a primary challenge from former Republican gubernatorial candidate Larry Forgy, who contends that Mr. McConnell’s in-state problems are compounded by job losses to producers beyond America’s borders.

“The average Kentuckian feels we are giving away this country with both hands — jobs are going, essentially the primacy of the people who made this country great is going, and Mitch McConnell is lumped with the Washington types on this,” Mr. Forgy said.

“And the war in Iraq is less troublesome in Kentucky than in many other places, but it is not popular here, and Republican voters see Mitch’s views as too close to the president’s on the war,” said Mr. Forgy, a Lexington lawyer.

It’s a troublesome assessment for Mr. McConnell, who as minority leader has found himself having to defend unpopular Bush administration policies.

“The immigration issue is trouble for everyone in central Kentucky,” Republican state Sen. Tom Buford said. “The Iraq war is always difficult for all incumbents, even if they support pulling the troops out. It is a no-win situation when elections are at risk.”

Mr. McConnell registered a 48 percent approval rating last month in a SurveyUSA poll.

A county party chairman who supports Mr. McConnell but asked not to be identified said Mr. McConnell’s re-election next year is uncertain — despite the Capitol Hill clout he brings Kentucky — unless he shows the folks back home he understands their distrust of Washington on enforcing immigration laws.

The chairman said he has tried to tell Mr. McConnell that he needs to assure the party’s base that he opposes Mr. Bush’s immigration bill.

The Kentucky Republican Party, torn by the immigration issue, was further fractured when critics claimed Mr. McConnell had acted behind the scenes to back an ultimately unsuccessful primary challenge by former Rep. Anne Northup against Gov. Ernie Fletcher earlier this year. The Fletcher faction of the state Republican Party is backing the “draft Forgy” campaign.

Despite his role as Republican leader in the Senate, Mr. McConnell withdrew himself from much of the fight among fellow Republican senators over the Bush-backed immigration bill supported by Sen. Edward M. Kennedy, Massachusetts Democrat, and Arizona’s Republican senators, John McCain and Jon Kyl, among others. Besides border-enforcement provisions, the bill provided a path to citizenship for illegal aliens and a new worker program for foreign workers.

Constituent pressure began to peel other Senate Republicans from their support of the bill, and Mr. McConnell wound up voting against it, though he voted for a similar bill last year.

“His vote against the bill at the end showed his thinking and that he knew the bill was not going to be good policy for Kentucky or the country,” said Fred Karem, a Lexington businessman who went to law school with Mr. McConnell.

Mr. Karem said it’s impossible for him to imagine Mr. McConnell facing re-election difficulty. “Shortly into his new term after he is re-elected next year, Mitch will be the longest-serving U.S. senator in Kentucky history. He has been the heart and soul and leader of the Republican Party in this state,” he said.

Republican leaders in the state agree that immigration is a big issue with the party’s core voters, but some say it won’t hurt Mr. McConnell.

“I don’t know anyone who is more in touch with his constituency than Mitch McConnell,” said Jack Richardson of Louisville, party chairman in Jefferson County, the state’s most populous county and home to Mr. McConnell.

Mr. McConnell recently acknowledged grass-roots discontent over immigration.

“During the immigration debate, and ever since, countless well-informed Americans spoke up about the need to enforce our borders and our laws,” he said. “Their voice was heard in the Capitol and the White House. The billions we’ve added to the homeland security funding bill for border security and interior enforcement, and the administration’s enhanced commitment to cracking down on illegal immigration are necessary steps toward securing our nation — and living up to the expectations of our constituents.”

Another McConnell supporter, Bourbon County Chairman Andre Regard, said, “I would be surprised if McConnell faces a challenge because of immigration. I think we should give everyone amnesty and start over.”

Other party leaders in the state privately made it clear that supporting Mr. McConnell is important because of the benefits he brings Kentucky through his seniority — he is completing his fourth term — and as the Republican leader in the Senate.

Ballard County party Chairman Charley Martin said: “I know immigration is a very emotional issue with Republicans, but it’s not the fundamental issue. The party wants to continue the conservative views of Senator McConnell — the views he stood for through the years.”

Kentucky in 2007 is the national GOP’s canary in a coalmine

Matt Gunterman August 19th, 2007

With all the tragedy as of late in our nation’s coalmines and with Kentucky’s Senator Mitch McConnell and his wife Secretary of Labor Elaine Chao at the center of a web of money-grubbing and influence-mongering in Washington that has left these many coalmines the deathtraps that they are for the sake of the almighty campaign contribution and a few ticks on the profit margin, I think the analogy of Kentucky’s gubernatorial election this year being the GOP’s canary in a coalmine is a fitting one.

Watch this latest video from Jim Pence of DitchMitchKY and the HillbillyReport. What’s going on in the video with security personnel at the Kentucky State Fair trying to end an anti-war protest (until they’re set straight by the State Police) is fascinating enough, but what’s even more fascinating is what’s going on in the background: all those cars honking in support of the protest.

Recall that thirteen years ago in 1994, on the cusp of the so-called Republican Revolution, Kentucky served the Democrats in a similar capacity. Then the death in March of that year of Democratic Congressman William H. Natcher (KY-02)—who had represented the district since 1953 and who continues to hold the all-time record for consecutive votes in Congress at 18,401—set up a special election for the seat.

I was only 17 years old at the time, but I had been politically aware since the 1988 presidential campaign, when a longtime Democratic activist in my church started hauling me to rallies, the biggest of those being Democratic vice presidential candidate Lloyd Bentsen’s appearance at the Big Tobacco warehouse in Owensboro, today the largest city in the Second District. I don’t remember anything about the substance of what was said there, but I remember the energy, the pomp, and the confidence among the Democrats gathered.

Yet, a mere six years later the entire region of the Second District was seething against the political establishment and its status quo, its distance, and indifference. That establishment was Democratic.

Perhaps that environment is best encapsulated in a scene that has now been immortalized in Michael Moore’s latest film SiCKO. On August 29, 1994, at a rally in Owensboro, “Tobacco Rights Activists” burned an effigy of then First Lady Hillary Rodham Clinton in protest of President Bill Clinton’s health care plan. With a bluegrass band playing the back ground, Stan Arachikavitz, president of the Kentucky Association of Tobacco Supporters, chanted “burn, baby, burn,” as the effigy was doused in gasoline and two women set it ablaze. When asked for comment by a reporter, Arachikavitz replied, “Hillary didn’t last as long as my Marlboro.” The nation was outraged, but there was a quiet satisfaction among many across western Kentucky.

At that rally was Ron Lewis, the Second District’s newly elected Republican congressman. In what had been a shock to Kentucky’s political establishment—if no-one else—Lewis had defeated longtime Kentucky State Senator Joe Prather in the May special election to succeed Natcher. Lewis had won with 55 percent of the vote on a turnout of less than 20 percent. A fundamentalist Christian, Baptist minister, and religious bookstore owner, Lewis had been recruited to the race by Senator Mitch McConnell, who had been narrowly elected to his own seat ten years earlier in 1984 on the coattails of Ronald Reagan.

You may recalled that Lewis’s campaign commercials in the special election had famously morphed Prather’s head into that of Bill Clinton, who was then near the height of his unpopularity. The national GOP considered the technique a success and went on to use it widely in the general election that year. Meanwhile, rumors had circulated in the district that Joe Prather was in Washington to look for a house. Perhaps it was just a rumor spread by the McConnell machine, but it might as well have been true, such was the arrogance and sense of entitlement of Kentucky Democrats of the day.

McConnell went on to recruit Republican Ed Whitfield—who had just as much personal dynamism as Lewis—to run in the First Congressional District in the fall. Both Lewis and Whitfield won; Whitfield became the first Republican ever elected to the First District.

My point with all this is that the political establishment in Kentucky at that time—conservative Southern Democrats—was a bloated and opaque bubble. Its bloated-ness allowed the good old boys to make room for more of their own inside and its opaqueness kept their less-than-altruistic dealings hidden from the masses, but those very same qualities kept the good old boys from witnessing the trouble that was brewing for them on the outside–in the real world.

Mitch McConnell burst their bubble.

Unfortunately, the Kentucky Republican Party that Mitch McConnell replaced the good old boy Democrats with was a political machine that set about inflaming the ugliest elements of Kentucky’s own culture: its racism, its bigotry, its sexism, its churlishness, its phobias, and its anti-intellectualism.

The thing to remember about Mitch McConnell (and this is something that his fellow Republicans in the U.S. Senate are discovering now about him in his capacity as Minority Leader) is that McConnell always has McConnell’s interests first. He’s not at all concerned about the long-term consequences of his tactics and actions on the people of Kentucky. What he’s counting on is that Kentuckians and the state’s chattering class will never fully digest the disaster that was McConnell’s Senate career so long as there’s plenty of pork named after him spread around the state.

Mitch McConnell took Kentucky, a state already at the bottom of the cultural and economic barrel of the nation, and he exacerbated the very social qualities of the place that had kept true progress (making gains on its peers, rather than playing catch up) out of reach for so long. McConnell’s strategy was to spear his political legacy with a wicked trident of slash-and-burn partisan politics, redneck populism, and moneyed corporate interests.

McConnell’s Kentucky GOP is today the political establishment in the state, and you can see what sort of establishment it is by the criminal behavior and incompetence of the administration of Governor Ernie Fletcher (R).

As I write, that Republican establishment is bunkering itself deep beneath the political reality on the ground in Kentucky. While Ernie Fletcher and his minions ratchet up their language of fear on expanded gaming and hate against sexual minorities and while Mitch McConnell continues to cultivate the corrupt environment of campaign finance in Washington that he fathered and stands steadfast behind the reckless presidency of George W. Bush, neither Fletcher or McConnell is making headway among Kentuckians.

Both are indeed consolidating support among their conservative base, but that base is shrinking. Kentuckians are waking up to the reality of what Fletcher, McConnell, and conservatives truly are.

The people of Kentucky are once again seething against their political establishment, but this time there is an energized and organized progressive Democratic party waiting in the wings. Whereas last time when Kentuckians cleaned political house they replaced bad with worse, this time the alternative to entrenched Republican corruption is a Democratic party that offers the hope of change and a better future for us all.

Sen. Mitch McConnell Is a Heckuva Busy Man!

Terri Whitehouse August 2nd, 2007

Between hiring a stealthy campaign strategist for his 2008 reelection campaign, working to amend the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, and reluctantly voting for greater transparency in government, how on earth does Sen. Mitch McConnell find the time to draft some b.s. anti-family and anti-children legislation and find the nerve to call it the “Kids First Act”?

Being a literary sort of person, I should probably recognize this whole nonsense of cleverly naming legislation so that Americans will not be outraged at what the legislation really says and does as an ironic device. Fortunately, my low-brow aesthetic most always trumps my literary one, and from here on out I will refer to this practice (system, manner, or condition) as it occurs in politics, as “oppositism.” The noun “oppositicity” will describe the state or quality of being of an “oppositist” mindset. An “oppositist” shall henceforth refer to any politician who insults my intelligence by engaging in oppositism.

National Fundraising Strategy for KY’s Senate Candidate

Shawn Dixon July 28th, 2007

Ryan Alessi at the Herald Leader is going to run an interview with Greg Stumbo in the paper on Monday. In the mean time, he left a bit of a teaser on the blog at Pol Watchers.

Attorney General Greg Stumbo says he’s aiming to collect $100,000 to evaluate running for the U.S. Senate against four-term Sen. Mitch McConnell next year.

“We’re going to have plenty of contributors,” Stumbo said earlier this week after forming an exploratory committee. “I’m saying to people: ‘Don’t send me a lot of money.’ We’re looking for less than $250” from each donor.

Stumbo said the exploration process will also help him assess national Democrats’ interest in taking on McConnell, the Senate Republicans’ leader.

“This will be a test to see how much out-of-state dollars we can raise,” Stumbo said.

As the Dems choose a candidate next spring (assuming there is a primary) fundraising ability of contenders will weigh heavily on the minds of voters as they go to the polls.

We all know that Mitch McConnell has a lot of fundraising power and a national network of donors. However, as Stumbo correctly hinted, his opponent will also have access to a national network of donors. Mitch McConnell isn’t just unpopular with Kentuckians, most Americans don’t like him either. The national fundraising dollars will pour in, large and small alike, from all across America. Moreover, the DSCC has already made McConnell one of their top 4 targets and has promised to pump money into the race.

Keeping pace with the McConnell fundraising machine of course will be a challenging task, but his vulnerability in addition to the political environment in Kentucky and in America will help generate financial support from coast to coast.

Kentucky Senate Delegation Highlighted for Obstruction!

Shawn Dixon June 27th, 2007

Kos front-paged a really powerful You Tube Video about Republican obstructionism in the Senate. Since the Democrats took power last Novemeber, the Republicans have managed to block progress on every key bills the Democrats offer aimed at helping middle class families.

As you will see in the video, sadly, Mitch McConnell is leading the charge to block important legislation in the name of big business.

Well, That Was a No-Brainer

Terri Whitehouse June 21st, 2007

How’s this for an obvious headline: “Senate Republicans block tax hikes for big oil companies”? Meanwhile, Senators Mitch McConnell and Jim Bunning are wanting to funnel more money to Peabody Energy.

C-J: Group plans billboard to goad McConnell

Matt Gunterman June 1st, 2007

From today’s C-J:

And notice that you can win $500 on this one…

Group plans billboard to goad McConnell

By James R. Carroll

WASHINGTON — Weather permitting, a billboard will be put up today along Interstate 65 near the fairgrounds in Louisville asking: “What’s McConnell Hiding?”

The words will be accompanied by the depiction of a hand turning on a light bulb, illuminating the face of Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky.

The billboard is aimed at bringing public attention to a fight over a financial disclosure bill that is tied up in the Senate.

And the sponsors of the billboard are offering a reward of $500 to the first constituent who captures McConnell on video responding or declining to respond to questions about who is holding up the bill.

“Because all politics is local, we want his constituents to know that he is responsible for blocking this valuable piece of legislation,” said Ellen Miller, executive director of the Sunlight Foundation, which is sponsoring the billboard.

The foundation is a nonpartisan group in Washington that advocates greater transparency in government.

At issue is a relatively simple measure that would require Senate campaign finance reports to be filed electronically. The reports currently are filed on paper only, and it takes six to eight weeks until they are converted to electronic form by the Federal Election Commission.

The legislation, called the Senate Campaign Disclosure Parity Act, is sponsored by Sen. Russell Feingold, D-Wis., and has 40 co-sponsors from both parties, ranging from Democratic Sens. John Kerry of Massachusetts and Hillary Clinton of New York to Republicans Lindsey Graham of South Carolina and John Cornyn of Texas.

Advocates say Feingold’s bill would save $250,000 a year in costs for converting reports from paper to computer and would make campaign finance information available more quickly — as has been the case in the House for years.

The bill had no opposition in committee, so it was put on a special Senate calendar to be passed by unanimous consent.

But twice in April, Republican senators rose on the Senate floor to object to the bill being considered. Sen. Lamar Alexander, R-Tenn., objected on behalf of “a Republican senator,” while Sen. Jim Bunning, R-Ky., objected on behalf of “the Republican side.”

In neither case was a particular senator’s name mentioned, and no senator has come forward to take credit. But the objections stopped the bill from being considered.

The holdup set off a wave of criticism from the Sunlight Foundation and other government watchdog groups, as well as newspaper editorial pages. They charged that an anonymous senator was holding up a measure promoting more open government.

McConnell is not one of the co-sponsors of the bill, but in a letter to The Courier-Journal on May 4, he said he did not oppose it.

Senators simply are insisting that there be an open debate on the bill, not a vote on the measure without debate or amendment, McConnell said.

“Sen. McConnell is on the record saying this bill will pass,” spokesman Robert Steurer said in an e-mail message yesterday. “Whether or not there is a hold — holds can’t stop the majority leader (Harry Reid, D-Nev.) from bringing the bill to the floor for debate.”

Steurer added: “The majority leader can schedule the bill for floor debate whenever he wants, and he hasn’t even raised the issue with McConnell. Also, a billboard in Kentucky won’t encourage the majority leader from Nevada to bring the bill to the floor.”

Reid’s office could not be reached for comment. Congress is on a break until next week.

Miller said McConnell is engaging in semantics to keep the bill from moving.

If the measure is removed from the unanimous consent calendar and made subject to debate and amendment, supporters fear it will be open to “poison pill” changes that will attack other parts of federal campaign finance law.

Feingold said in a blog posting in late April on DailyKos.com that no senator has raised an objection with him over the bill.

“This bill is not controversial,” Feingold wrote. “No one has given a single reason to oppose it, or even debate it. It is exactly the kind of good, non-controversial bill that should pass the Senate by unanimous consent.”

Miller said her group’s efforts to pressure McConnell have nothing to do with politics.

Miller’s foundation paid $8,000 for the billboard and $1,000 for an accompanying Web site, www.whatsmcconnellhiding.com. The billboard will stay up for a month, Miller said.

Commonsense Consumption: What’s Your Function?

Terri Whitehouse May 15th, 2007

Senator Mitch McConnell last week introduced a bill meant to curb fatties from suing the fast food industry:

To keep eating habits out of the courtroom and in the kitchen where they belong, my bill will throw out lawsuits that blame the restaurant or grocery store for what a customer chooses to eat.

Sen. McConnell has introduced this bill before, to which Senator Patrick Leahy replied last year:

This legislation does not create any alternative method for keeping a check on corporate misconduct that has a detrimental effect on the health of all Americans. If this bill passes, American consumers will only be left with the thin hope that suddenly the Bush-Cheney Administration will begin true regulation of corporations on behalf of American consumers.

I am unable to find full text of the Sen. McConnell’s current proposal, so I can’t say for sure whether or not Leahy’s former criticisms of the Commonsense Consumption Act still apply. However, I do think it’s telling that, once again, personal responsibility is given more weight than corporate social responsibility. People do need to be more conscientious of how they treat their bodies, for sure, but is it really the poor widdle industry giants that need protecting from the mean trial attorneys? Methinks not.

Sen. Mitch McConnell-related News bits

Terri Whitehouse May 2nd, 2007

Compromise enters Republican vocabulary.

Senator Mitch McConnell reacts to yesterday’s veto of the war funding bill.

Tim Grieve zings Sen. McConnell at Salon.com.

Sen. McConnell introduces legislation to protect, not the horsies, but the horsies’ wealthy owners. (They are so darn crafty when it comes to naming things, aren’t they?)

UPDATE:Janet Patton, in Lexington’s Herald-Leader, reports the following:

Sen. Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., has re-introduced a multimillion-dollar tax break for racehorse owners that could cost taxpayers more than a quarter of a billion dollars over five years…Similar legislation introduced in 2005 would have cut horse owners’ taxes by an estimated $18 million over one year and up to $267 million over five years, according to McConnell’s office. Congressional officials have not yet produced an estimate for 2007

Herald-Leader: Sen. Mitch McConnell an embarrassment

Matt Gunterman May 2nd, 2007

An editorial in today’s Herald-Leader calls out Senators Mitch McConnell and Jim Bunning for their roles in preventing increased transparency in campaign financing.

Voters ill-served by stalling electronic filing bill

Kentuckians have had prominent roles in the U.S. Senate’s embarrassing stall of long-delayed financial disclosure legislation.

Republican Mitch McConnell, the Senate minority leader, has not allowed a vote on Senate Bill 223, which requires campaign and other public financial documents to be filed electronically.

It’s the same rule that House lawmakers and candidates and presidential candidates must follow. It’s also a proposal that that has broad bipartisan support. But an anonymous senator has prevented a vote on the issue.

Sen. Jim Bunning, R-Ky., served as Senator X’s proxy last week, objecting to a vote on the legislation that makes information more accessible and saves taxpayers the cost of transferring information from paper documents.

It’s difficult to see the blocking strategy as anything but another of those too-clever maneuvers that serve only to undermine public support for Congress.

McConnell says he will give the name of the objecting senator when the Democrats schedule the bill for a full House debate.

Democrats want the bipartisan bill approved without a floor debate to avoid efforts to kill it by attaching “poison pill” amendments.

One likely amendment, which McConnell supports, would allow more coordination between political parties and individual campaigns, which often leads to more negative attack ads.

McConnell has been hostile to campaign finance reform, and as GOP Senate leader, he looks for ways to assert his party’s clout.

Yet, it’s hard to fathom how it helps McConnell, the GOP or Bunning to be seen as unwilling for the Senate to use 21st century tools to provide voters information about those who want to represent us.

GOP desperation forms unlikely tandem of Sen. Mitch McConnell and Sen. Chuck Hagel (R-NE)

Matt Gunterman April 30th, 2007

The news late last week that Senator Mitch McConnell will be headlining a fundraiser for Senator Chuck Hagel (R-NE) got my attention (also of interest to me personally was the plug it gave to Scott Kleeb and his bright political future in Nebraska; a fellow product of the Yale history department, Scott is a great and charismatic guy — I can attest to that; a rancher by trade [yes, one with a Ph.D. in history], Scott even took the time to speak to my students at Yale this semester, and they of course loved him).

Those of you who’ve followed this blog from the beginning will know that Team Ditch Mitch KY has used Sen. Hagel and his willingness to buck the loonier impulses of the Bush administration and Republican wingnuts to blungeon Sen. McConnell for his blind loyalty to President George W. Bush. Examples of our use of the “Hagel as maverick” weapon can be found here, here, and here.

By no stretch of the imagination are Hagel and McConnell on the same wavelength. Judging how much Mitch McConnell absolutely hates Senator John McCain because of McCain’s years-long push for campaign finance reform, there’s no way that McConnell has any soft spot for the Bush-bucking, anti-war Hagel.

Back in mid March, E. J. Dionne, Jr. in the Courier-Journal included this little tidbit about Hagel’s take on the current position of the nation and the Republican Party relative to it.

[...]
Hagel was onto something when he spoke of the country “experiencing a political reorientation, a redefining and moving toward a new political center of gravity” and of our current problems “overtaking the ideological debates of the last three decades.” And he hinted that he might seek the White House as an independent. “This movement is bigger than both parties,” he said, tantalizingly.
[...]

Mitch McConnell doesn’t understand change. In fact, he outright fears it. It’s not secret that McConnell carries several neuroses in adulthood that are the products of his childhood bought with polio, where he was confined to a bed for an extended period of time. One of the lessons that McConnell thinks he learned through that personal struggle is that absolute, disciplined control is the only means to his fulfillment. The same qualities of character that made it possible for McConnell to overcome his illness (with the exception of the limp he still carries today) are the ones that guide him politically today. That’s why McConnell and the administration of Governor Ernie Fletcher had such problems from the get-go: McConnell wanted absolute control.

The problem for McConnell is that the bed he lay in as a child was a constant; it didn’t change. He conquered it through his sheer will. But the real world isn’t like that. It’s dynamic. It changes. McConnell is fighting with everything he can to preserve the political system and environment that he knows: one dominated by corrupt cash and Republican conservatism. And even with his entire political kingdom collapsing around him, McConnell still can’t force himself to adapt. He’s fighting tooth-and-nail to return this nation to the good old days of a Republican agenda of sexism, racism, bigotry, anti-science, homophobia, and xenophobia.

So that’s why it’s so odd that a reform-minded Republican like Hagel and an establishment Republican like McConnell are getting together. But for McConnell, Hagel’s ideology is unimportant. All that matters for the moment is that he’s a Republican.

UPDATE: ThinkProgress just posted this quote from a Robert Novak piece on Sen. Hagel:

Robert Novak on Chuck Hagel:“Over a dozen years, I have had many such conversations with Hagel, but not for quotation. This time, I asked him to go on the record about his assessment of what the ’surge’ has accomplished. In language more blunt than his prepared speeches and articles, he described Iraq as ‘coming undone,’ with its regime ‘weaker by the day.’ He deplored the Bush administration’s failure to craft a coherent Middle East policy, blaming the influence of deputy national security adviser Elliott Abrams.”

A Political Whodunit: Is Mitch McConnell Blocking S. 223?

Terri Whitehouse April 25th, 2007

Folk at Daily Kos are speculating that Senator Mitch McConnell is the mystery objector to a campaign transparency bill.

I will repost the following information:

..in Operation Bluegrass, you just call Sen. McConnell’s office at (202) 224-2541 and ask them: which one of your Senators is responsible for the anonymous hold? are you responsible for the denial of unanimous consent? Be civil, but be firm, and let us know what they tell you.

Now, I’m not one to go ’round spreadin’ rumors, but I think people have every reason to be suspicious that it could be Sen. McConnell that is holding up this measure.

ERRATUM: Haste makes waste, and I certainly did it this time. Sorry about that - the speculation is more about “why won’t McConnell tell whodunit?” As Majority Leader, Sen. McConnell does know who the sole objector is, but will not disclose, and his office is giving his constituents the runaround.

* * * * *

UPDATE (Matt: 04:45pm): I want to also give props to the Sunlight Foundation for leading this effort. The organization’s Outreach Coordinator, Nisha Thompson, left this message in the comments of the post:

The Sunlight Foundation has found out that Sen. Gregg from New Hampshire might have the hold on S. 223. But we don’t know for sure, the only person who would definitely know is Sen. Mitch McConnell because he is Republican leadership. So call his office and ask if he’ll reveal the secret holder!

Health Outcomes often better in Canada than U.S.

Terri Whitehouse April 25th, 2007

I was checking up on one of the cancer blogs I read pretty frequently and found this article linked in one of the author’s posts. The blog writer is Canadian, and though those of us in the U.S. always hear about how socialized health care is such a huge pain in the ass that doesn’t really work, the reality is, in fact, much different:

Some explanations for the results include the fact that U.S. health care has administrative inefficiencies that public funding — without multiple competing insurance companies — eliminates. Canadians also save on prescription drug costs because drug prices are controlled.

Few uninsured patients in the United States, who probably suffer the worst quality care, were included in the studies examined.

The full study is available from the inaugural edition of Open Medicine. Of course, as long as Senator Mitch McConnell and his GOP cronies are getting mucho dinero from the drug and insurance industries, don’t expect a change any time soon. We know that Republicans don’t really give a shit about poor and middle-class people not getting the health care they need, but aren’t they supposed to be against fiscal wastefulness?