congress

A lot of us were totally expecting this, but not this fast:

Today, U.S. District Judge Nina Gershon granted a preliminary injunction against the United States for unconstitutionally withholding funds from ACORN. In its decision, the court found that there is a likelihood the plaintiffs will be able to show that Congress’ targeted defunding of ACORN violates the Constitution’s prohibition against Bills of Attainder, legislative acts which single out a specific person or group for punishment.

The Court’s ruling stated, “The plaintiffs have raised a fundamental issue of separation of powers.  They have been singled out by Congress for punishment that directly and immediately affects their ability to continue to obtain federal funding, in the absence of any judicial, or administrative, process adjudicating guilt... The public will not suffer harm by allowing the plaintiffs to continue work on contracts duly awarded by federal agencies...”

This whole issue came to fruition because the weak-kneed Democrats once again caved to the very small minority of the right. Hopefully this case will go all the way up to SCOTUS and they will uphold the ruling.

Here’s Conrad’s latest:

Kent Conrad is pushing to decouple this Medicare buy-in from Medicare. Conrad wants to make it fake Medicare. He wants people in this fake Medicare to pay much higher reimbursement rates. and be placed in a separate risk pool. The people in fake Medicare might not even be able to use the Medicare provider network. This will make the premiums for Medicare buy-in dramatically higher, and might make the entire fake Medicare program unworkable. Already, the Federal Association of Hospitals is pushing for something like this change to gut the proposal.

Conrad is nothing but an insurance industry whore. Maybe it’s time to start calling his office and ask who he really represents – the people or the corporations?

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I keep thinking back to the Bush years and every time someone in Congress wanted someone from the Bush administration to testify the Republicans would give cover to Bush by arguing about “executive privilege”. At that time so many of us on the left kept thinking “I wonder if they will do the same when we have a Democrat in the White House”. Well now we know:

Rep. Peter King, a New York Republican, joined Sanchez in demanding Rogers' testimony on Friday, a day after Secret Service director Mark Sullivan took responsibility for the incident in an appearance before the House Homeland Security Committee.

Peter King was one of those that constantly helped Bush with cover from congressional testimonies. Apparently to King the White House should only be exempt if a Republican is in it. Forget what the actual issue is, because he sure didn’t want Bush officials to testify when it was about Walter Reed or the failing wars. Those issues are no where as important as someone showing up uninvited at the White House.

Statistics like this in the richest nation on the planet are totally unacceptable:

The number of Americans that have trouble putting food on the table shot up last year in an unprecedented spike to a record 17 million households, the government reported on Monday.

The Department of Agriculture report, which has been released annually since 1995, said the number of Americans that were hungry rose to 14.6%. In 2007, 13 million households or 11.1% of Americans had trouble getting enough food.

The one-year jump is all the more significant, given the number of hungry Americans had never been higher than 11.9% since these surveys began.

And what do we hear from our leaders on statistics like this? Nothing but crickets. I’m not going to single out one party or another here, as the issue of hunger is non-partisan. Instead the deafening silence from Congress and the White House as a whole should be considered a crime. All they seem to worry about is their buddies on Wall Street, while turning a blind eye to the American people. Again – that is a crime.

Given the Ft. Hood tragedy, a bill authored by Richard Burr (R-NC) is coming into light:

Sen. Richard Burr (R-N.C.) says his "Veterans 2nd Amendment Protection Act" will protect veterans' gun rights. But the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence calls it a "dangerous" proposal that could allow "over 100,000 mentally incapacitated or incompetent persons" to buy guns—people who would previously have been barred from doing so by the Veterans Administration (VA).

Absolutely amazing. That’s what we need – more unstable people with guns. And here is the real irony. Burr opposes healthcare reform, something that could have saved the lives of over 2,200 veterans last year. If he was truly concerned about veterans rights then he would work to protect their right to affordable healthcare. As matter of fact we should all take a moment and tell Burr to do exactly that:

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Not really thanking them or honoring them directly, just asking them to go to his campaign website to view this:

Yet somehow Gresham overlooks the grueling fact that over 2,200 veterans died last year and didn’t have health insurance. Gresham was also another “no” vote for healthcare this past weekend.

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How nice of him! And here is the picture he is sharing:

Maybe he is explaining how he can’t support a health care bill that would have helped provide coverage to the 2,200 veterans who couldn’t afford it and died last year? Nah…I doubt it.

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