Interview with Alan Grayson

~ susie

David Dayen, one of my favorite journalists, interviews my favorite congressman:

Last question, going back to Syria for a moment, do you think your work with House Republicans this year, passing more amendments than any member of Congress, created a level of trust that allowed you to cross the aisle and get support for your opposition to military action?

Well, every time I walk over across the aisle, they’re happy to see me. Not because we’re good friends, but because I offer an interesting perspective. They appreciate it. At the committee level, I picked two committees where I would not get into death battles. I didn’t want to go back to Financial Services to lose every single vote. That’s not how it works on Foreign Affairs and the Science and Technology Committee. So I  read the bills, I find ways to bridge partisan differences, and make our stuff better. The other side is not so bent and crazy that they don’t appreciate that.

You have to find shared interests. There is this error that the Village makes over and over again, if I can use that term. It’s to think that Republicans are going to vote for Democratic objectives, and vice-versa, because they like each other. This leads to things like the President golfing with John Boehner. It’s this idea that if we play patty-cake, that will make everything better, and it’s not the case. Liberals vote and conservatives vote for the most part on underlying principles. The creative work that leads to someone like me, a 2nd-term Congressman with no leadership role, no position chairing a committee or a subcommittee, what gives me power is that I can understand how they look at things, find ways to make things better, not by compromising and meeting somewhere in between, but in a way that actually respects them and honors them and finds a way to make it better.

That’s not the only way, of course. I’ll give an example, I got a 50 percent increase forbilingual HUD housing counseling. The way Congress works these days, you can imagine how hard it would be to get a 50 percent increase on a cure for cancer. This matters a lot in my district, where 20 percent don’t speak English, and another 20 percent are bilingual. And they need housing counseling, it’s an area where housing values dropped 50 percent. So how did I get that? I said to Republicans explicitly, you can watch it on C-SPAN. I said “You claim you want to improve your image among Hispanics, put up or shut up. If you vote for this, it’s not much money, and you show you have a minimal concern for Hispanics; and if you vote against it, you don’t.” And they rolled their eyes, they said Grayson doesn’t understand, this would rob Peter to pay Paul. But when push came to shove, they accepted the amendment, they wouldn’t allow a roll call vote on it. They didn’t want to have their people vote against Spanish-language housing counseling. They didn’t do it because I made pals with them. I scared the crap out of them!

Summers’ end (exit Iago)

~ odd man out ~ 1 Comment

“Look, it’s Larry Summers,” said the swamp rabbit, pointing at an oil slick on the wetlands that surrounds my shotgun shack in Tinicum. “I think he’s heading north, maybe back to Harvard.”

“No way,” I said. “He gambled away a big chunk of Harvard’s endowment.”

We’d just read that Summers will not be nominated to head the Federal Reserve Board. One less malignant hustler using a powerful post to undermine the quality of life of Americans who aren’t rich. I can’t think of a better possible story out of Washington, D.C. Maybe if Summers had been knocked on his ass by someone who lost a home to one of the banks he helped bail out during the economic crisis he helped cause.

No surprise that Barack Obama, according to The New York Times, had wanted Summers for the job but apparently didn’t choose him because of the political risks:

…But as that Oval Office meeting last year also suggests, Mr. Obama’s one concern about nominating Mr. Summers has been the potential for a Senate battle — not only from Republicans spoiling for fights, but also from Democrats who view Mr. Summers as having been too friendly toward deregulating big banks when he was Treasury secretary in the Clinton administration…

“Too friendly” — how’s that for polite understatement? Summers played a key role in the repeal of Glass-Steagall. After the big banks went belly up, he saved them with taxpayers’ money, much of which should have been spent to replace millions of lost jobs, and on a large-scale foreclosure-blocking program. And now, even though he won’t head the Fed, the self-satisfied little toad is still playing Iago to Obama’s Othello.

Footnote: From a piece by Peter Beinart that explains why the Democratic Party will become even more like the GOP unless progressives fight to completely overhaul it:

From Tony Coelho, who during the Reagan years taught House Democrats to raise money from corporate lobbyists to Bill Clinton, who made Goldman Sachs co-chairman Robert Rubin his chief economic adviser, to Barack Obama, who gave the job to Rubin’s former deputy and alter ego, Larry Summers, Democrats have found it easier to forge relationships with the conservative worlds of big business and high finance because they have not faced much countervailing pressure from an independent movement of the left.

ROFLMAO

~ susie ~ 3 Comments

http://youtu.be/h-vwPuiILBc

This one goes out to Dr. S.:

Police in South Carolina arrested a North Charleston woman Monday night after she allegedly stabbed her roommate multiple times for refusing to stop playing music by the classic rock band The Eagles.

According to the official report, Vernett Bader, 54, became irritated with her 64-year-old roommate (and one-time boyfriend) after he rejected her pleas to turn off the Eagles and told her to “shut up.”

Bader then entered the kitchen and grabbed a serrated knife, which she subsequently used to stab her roommate several times in the arm, hand, and elbow.

The roommate and his brother managed to wrestle the knife away from Bader, but she quickly retrieved another from the kitchen.

All three were intoxicated at the time, per the report.

It’s unclear which of the band’s songs drove Bader over the edge, but police have narrowed down the possible suspects to “Witchy Woman,” “Take It Easy,” “Peaceful Easy Feeling,” “Take It to the Limit,” “One of These Nights,” “Tequila Sunrise,” and “Hotel California” on repeat.

Time magazine is puzzled

~ susie ~ 1 Comment

Why is everyone still so poor with the economic recovery?

The poverty rate and the number of people living in poverty haven’t budged since 2011 despite the slowly improving economy, according to a report released early Tuesday.

46.5 million people were living in poverty in 2012, according to new data from the U.S. Census Bureau’s 2012 Income Poverty and Health Insurance report. That translates into a national rate of 15% of Americans below the poverty line. Before the last recession began in 2007, the rate was 2.5 points lower and has been hovering around 15% since 2010.

Tuesday’s report represents the second consecutive year that neither the poverty rate nor the number of people living in poverty has shifted in statistically significant terms. In 2011, there were 46.2 million people living in poverty.

Hmm. Maybe a large news org (maybe a weekly magazine?) could put some of their reporters on the trail to look at the larger issues behind stubborn unemployment and perhaps figure out this baffling situation!

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