Eideard

The U.S. Treasury and Federal Reserve have delayed the implementation date for a new Internet gambling payment ban for six months, a move that gives lawmakers time to overturn it or end confusion over illegal practices.

In a joint statement, the Treasury and Fed said the December 1 implementation date for the law passed in 2006 would not be achievable for some financial institutions. They set a new compliance deadline of June 1, 2010.

“Commentators expressed concern that the act and the final regulation do not provide a clear definition of ‘unlawful Internet gambling,’ which is central to compliance,” the two agencies said.

In addition, they said certain members of Congress have “expressed an intent to consider legislation that would allow problematic aspects of the act to be addressed.”

The 2006 law, which cost European Internet gambling companies billions of euros in lost market value, prohibits credit card, check, and electronic fund transfer payments by U.S.-regulated financial institutions in connection with “unlawful Internet gambling.”

But rather than define what types of gambling are illegal online, the bill relied on existing federal and state laws to answer that question.

Congress passed the anti-gambling legislation in 2006, when Republicans still controlled both the House and Senate. The final regulations issued to enforce the ban were issued by the Treasury and Fed just before former President George W. Bush left office in January.

In America you have the right to be stupid as long as it’s not immoral. You can vote for a moron but not play bingo online.

Republican, Joe Wilson, SC – too lazy to change a single word

In the official record of the historic House debate on overhauling health care, the speeches of many lawmakers echo with similarities. Often, that was no accident.

Statements by more than a dozen lawmakers were ghostwritten, in whole or in part, by Washington lobbyists working for Genentech, one of the world’s largest biotechnology companies.

E-mail messages obtained by The New York Times show that the lobbyists drafted one statement for Democrats and another for Republicans.

The lobbyists, employed by Genentech and by two Washington law firms, were remarkably successful in getting the statements printed in the Congressional Record under the names of different members of Congress.

Genentech, a subsidiary of the Swiss drug giant Roche, estimates that 42 House members picked up some of its talking points — 22 Republicans and 20 Democrats…

Members of Congress submit statements for publication in the Congressional Record all the time, often with a decorous request to “revise and extend my remarks.” It is unusual for so many revisions and extensions to match up word for word. It is even more unusual to find clear evidence that the statements originated with lobbyists.

The only reason it’s unusual to find such clear evidence is that not only have the corporate flunkies in Congress spent the last eight years unconcerned about oversight from the White House, they’ve become accustomed to the prying eyes of the Great American Free Press being tightly shut or averted from any challenging gaze.

RTFA. The odds of bumping into it elsewhere aren’t especially likely.

Daylife/AP Photo used by permission

President Obama and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi achieved a stupendous – but still incomplete – victory Saturday, winning House passage of the biggest expansion of health care coverage since Medicare’s creation in 1964, in the face of nearly unanimous Republican opposition…

“This bill is change that the American people urgently need,” Obama said Saturday in a Rose Garden speech. “This is their moment, this is our moment to live up to the trust that the American people have placed in us – even when it’s hard; especially when it’s hard…”

The House bill promises to expand coverage to 96 percent of Americans, but many key provisions, including a new insurance exchange where those without insurance could choose between a government option or private plans, would not take effect until 2013, after next year’s midterm elections and after the 2012 presidential election…

Part of the delay is due to the complexity of implementing changes to a $2.6 trillion industry that consumes $1 of every $6 Americans spend; part is due to budget maneuvering that delays expenditures to meet Obama’s pledge not to add to the burgeoning federal deficit within a 10-year budget window.

Just one Republican voted for the Democrats’ bill, Anh “Joseph” Cao, a Vietnam immigrant from Louisiana. All but Cao continued a GOP boycott of the Obama agenda that began with last fall’s $787 billion fiscal stimulus.

Democrats emphasized coverage expansions and the new security promised to millions whose employment-based coverage is threatened by rising premiums. The legislation would also impose new regulations on insurance companies, banning such practices as cancellation of policies when people get sick, and strip the industry of its antitrust exemption.

All overdue.

That doesn’t mean I’m going to register as a Democrat, this week. But, it surely is a good feeling to see some of our politicians begin to catch up with the people.

In documents filed this week in Alaska’s long-running political corruption investigation, the government’s lead witness said he had given thousands of dollars in gifts to “United States Representative A” — who could only be Republican Rep. Don Young.

Alaska, uh, only has one Congressional representative.

Bill Allen, a former oil services company executive, said he paid $10,000 to $15,000 a year from 1993 to 2006 out of VECO Corp.’s funds for the representative’s annual fundraiser in Alaska. The lawmaker, who has not been charged with any wrongdoing, did not list any such payments on financial disclosure forms…

Testimony and evidence provided by Allen, who is scheduled to be sentenced Wednesday on his 2007 guilty pleas to conspiracy, bribery and tax charges, has helped convict several Alaska state legislators and former Gov. Frank Murkowski’s chief of staff on corruption charges stemming from influence VECO wielded over pending legislation on oil taxes and other matters affecting the industry…

Young, 76, has never been directly identified by federal officials as a target of the probe, and he consistently has refused to publicly answer questions about it. His spokeswoman, Meredith Kenny, declined to comment, and Young’s lawyer did not return a phone call.

Young — Alaska’s only member of the House of Representatives — waved off a reporter for the Anchorage Daily News, which initially reported the new court filing. “Don’t bother me,” he said…

The House last year directed the Justice Department to look into a controversial earmark Young had attached to a 2005 highway bill, steering $10 million to study building an interchange of Interstate 75 in Florida near land owned by a major campaign donor and fundraiser for Young.

What? You thought corrupt politicians limited their crooked dealings just to their home states?

Fifty-three House Republicans have signed a letter to the Obama administration asking for the ouster of Kevin Jennings, an official charged with promoting school safety, because of his career as an advocate of teaching tolerance of homosexuality…

“These are not mainstream people,” said Representative Steve King, Republican of Iowa, who organized the letter about Mr. Jennings. “These are people on the fringe. And I think it is likely that there are others out there that are part of this administration.”

The sickness that is conformity lies within the bigots and fools who feel they are ordained to define morality. Nutballs whining about “these people” and “those people” might consider studying beyond their superstitions.

Mr. Jennings’s critics say his career’s focus on gay students ill-equips him for the broader portfolio of his job as deputy assistant secretary of the safety office, which oversees initiatives against guns and other threats.

And they disagree more broadly with his approach to talking about homosexuality, especially among pre-pubescent children. To some, Mr. Jennings’s efforts to combat bias sound like encouraging homosexuality.

In his laudatory preface to “Queering Elementary Education,” Mr. Jennings wrote, “We must address antigay bigotry and we must do it as soon as students start going to school.”

Is anyone surprised that Republicans hate someone whose ethical standards oppose bigotry?

Bachus [R] and Frank [D] receive the most million$ from financial sector
Daylife/AP Photo used by permission

Kicking off the latest chapter of this year’s Full Employment Act for K Street Lobbyists, representatives from a surfeit of industries descended on an influential Congressional committee as it began writing law overhauling the nation’s regulatory system.

In a lobbying season already booming with business from battles over health care, firms are also closely monitoring the debate over Washington’s response to the market crisis. The financial services industry has poured more than $220 million into lobbying in 2009, much of it in anticipation of this Congressional effort now beginning. As usual for major financial services legislation, lawmakers have heard an earful from small community banks and large Wall Street banks, as well as from insurance companies, credit card companies, credit unions, mutual funds and hedge funds…

Gazing across a hearing room jammed Wednesday morning with lobbyists and lawyers, Representative Barney Frank, Democrat of Massachusetts and the chairman of the House Financial Services Committee, made an observation about a proposed amendment that some lobbyists interpreted as a comment about the keen interest of their clients.

“Watching sausage being made and watching legislation being made isn’t always attractive,” Mr. Frank said.

Even though President Obama vowed to change the culture of corporate influence on Washington, the administration has contributed, albeit inadvertently, to making this a banner year for lobbyists. As the White House has awakened the alphabet soup of federal agencies from their deregulatory slumber of the previous eight years, lobbying shops have emerged to fight for their clients’ newfound interests.

In the case of financial overhaul legislation, the corporate interests have particular sway with moderate and conservative Democrats, whose votes are essential for the legislation to progress through Congress. So far the lobbyists have been moderately successful in influencing the contours of the legislation, judging by the ever-growing list of exemptions from tougher oversight of derivatives and from supervision by the proposed consumer financial protection agency.

In other words, as much as we hope to have gained by electing someone to clean house, we still have to remove the rest of the vermin from the nest.

Business as usual in Congress – since the 1994 Contract on America – is how we received the extra dose of “screw the citizens of America” from the lawyers and professional corporate pimps sitting in control of our government. Everyone from the Chamber of Commerce to your friendly neighborhood realtor is trying to prevent oversight of fraudulent practices.

I’m glad this guy isn’t on my side

Kelly Ayotte, the former attorney general of New Hampshire, was on Capitol Hill on Tuesday, reaping the benefits of being a favored Republican Senate candidate. She collected checks at a series of fund-raisers, including a reception that drew Senate Republican leaders eager for her to join them as a colleague come 2011.

Back in New Hampshire, Ovide Lamontagne, a potential Republican rival to Ms. Ayotte, was reaping the benefits of not being in Washington, hosting scores of supporters at a Manchester club and collecting canned and dry goods in a food drive.

The contrast was no accident. In New Hampshire, Florida, Colorado and other states, the push by Washington Republicans to identify preferred Senate candidates has stirred resentment and prompted competition from those not impressed by the Washington seal of approval…

The pushback on national Republicans is striking because it comes at a time when many in the party believe the political environment is rapidly improving for them and after party strategists were initially keen on the early effort to single out Senate choices…

To some, the resistance is an extension of the grass-roots distrust of the government that was on vivid display during town-hall-style meetings this summer and at the recent conservative protest on the National Mall. Though much of the antipathy was aimed at Democrats, there is unhappiness with Republicans at the national level as well, with home-grown conservatives citing them as part of the overall problem.

The leading Republican opportunists in Congress who have chosen to chase the nutball base – now find their shock troops coming back to bite them.

RTFA. I think it’s mostly good news. Let the egregious and arrogant divide themselves on grounds of purity of their bodily fluids.

In America, democracy follows the simple principle of one person, one vote, right?

Unless, that is, you live in Montana, where your vote carries a little more than half as much weight in the House of Representatives as that of someone living in Rhode Island. Or if you live in Utah, where your vote counts about two-thirds as much as it would in Iowa.

With the 2010 Census around the corner, Washington and the various state capitals will soon turn their attention to carving out congressional districts across the nation. And once again, political leaders are preparing to cobble together a patchwork quilt of districts that will leave some Americans underrepresented.

Redrawing the lines will address some of the population shifts over the last decade, but much of the disparity will remain, because it is built into the system. In theory, every member of the House represents roughly the same number of people. But because each state gets at least one seat, no matter how small its population, and because the overall size of the House has not changed in a century, the number of people represented by a single congressman can vary widely…

The issue traces back to the founding of the country. The Constitution stipulated that every 10 years, the House should be reapportioned so that each state had at lease one representative and that no Congressional district contained fewer than 30,000 people. But it was left to Congress to decide how many total House seats there should be…

But Congress refused to reapportion after the 1920 Census, as a wave of immigration threatened to shift voting power from the South and Midwest to the urban Northeast. Eventually, Congress voted to keep the House at 435 seats regardless of rising population. Except for a brief period when it enlarged to 437 because Alaska and Hawaii had joined the union with one seat each, the House has remained at 435 ever since.

Between racism and the other flavors of popular bigotry Congress has done a superlative job of representing American family values.

RTFA – for suggestions feared by the same people who make political hay from impeding change.

From CBS News

Thanks to WOK3 for the reminder

Our president said this – tonight.

Barack Obama in November 1991. He didn’t back down, back then, either.