Bad Deeds for 11-3-2009

Joe Wilson: Pro-Swine Flu, Anti-Obama – In a June congressional vote on a supplementary appropriations bill , Rep. Joe Wilson joined 95% of Republicans and voted against the bill, which contained special funding to combat the H1N1 virus. However, in a new interview with the conservative-leaning CNSNews.com, Wilson says the Obama administration is “solely responsible” for the H1N1 vaccine shortage. Hey Joe, “You Lie.”

David Vitter: Pro-Rape, Anti Obama – Confronted by an impassioned rape survivor at a town hall Saturday night, Sen. David Vitter tried everything from sympathizing to deflecting blame onto the Obama administration for his decision to vote against an anti-rape amendment. Finally, amid shouts from protesters, the Louisiana Republican simply walked away.

Vitter was one of 30 Republican senators who voted against Sen. Al Franken’s amendment, passed in the Senate last month, that would de-fund government contractors who prevent employees from seeking justice when they have been raped.

At the town hall meeting Saturday, a woman identifying herself as a “rape survivor” confronted Vitter and asked him why he voted against the amendment.

“I’m a rape survivor, and it meant everything to me to put [away] the person who attacked me,” she told Vitter.

Vitter responded, “I’m absolutely supportive of any case like that, that they are prosecuted criminally to the full extent of the law.” (I guess he means as long as the law is very limited.)

“But there are rape victims that are being silenced,” the unnamed woman responded. “How can you support a company that tells a rape victim that she does not have a right to defend herself?”

“Do you realize President Obama was against that amendment, and his administration was against that amendment?” Vitter asked.

“But I’m not asking Obama, I’m asking you, senator,” the woman said.

At that point, Vitter walked briskly away from the woman and out of the town hall.

“What if it was your daughter that was raped, would you tell her to be quiet?” the woman shouted as Vitter walked away. “Would you tell your daughter to be silent?”

Vitter’s assertion that the Obama administration opposed the amendment is misleading. The Pentagon opposed the amendment because it argued it would be virtually impossible to enforce. The White House stated that it supported “the intent of the amendment,” but wanted to see it re-worked “to make sure it is enforceable.”

John McCain’s Former Health Care Advisor Having a Hard Time Finding Health Insurance – One year after Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) lost the presidential election, the man who was by McCain’s side as the campaign’s top health-care guru remains unemployed — and his COBRA health coverage is running out.

Irony of ironies, it gets worse. Holtz-Eakin, who is about to start shopping for insurance on the individual market, is 51. And he has one of those pesky “preexisting conditions” that insurance companies often cite in denying coverage.

“A right renal autotransplant,” he said, pointing to his abdomen as he described the 1990 transplant surgery he went through after one of his kidneys was damaged in an accident. “They got rid of the artery, moved my kidney and rebuilt me for the 21st century. If you look at my file, any insurance company would go, ‘Hmm . . .’ ”

Good luck.

Republican Health Proposal Will Not Prevent Health-Insurance Companies From Denying Sick People Coverage – Republicans are preparing to unveil their own health bill in the next few days. Minority Leader John Boehner (R., Ohio) said Monday that the plan wouldn’t seek to prevent health-insurance companies from denying sick people insurance — a key plank of the Democrats’ legislation.

GOP Holds Up Unemployment Extension, Nearly 200,000 Lose Their Benefits – In the world outside the Senate, time is money; inside it, time is everything. Senate Republicans are taking full advantage of that reality, using every parliamentary device at their disposal to slow down an extension of unemployment insurance benefits — even after Democrats added billions for big business to sweeten the pot.

The saga is both a case study in the difficulty of passing even popular legislation in the Senate and the lengths to which the GOP is going to slow down the process.

The extension overwhelmingly passed the House 331-83 in late September. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) made a motion to pass it by unanimous consent in early October; it was blocked by GOP objections.

After negotiations, Reid filed for cloture on Oct. 21 to break a GOP filibuster. On October 27, the Senate voted 87-13 on a motion to proceed to consider the bill, breaking the filibuster.

But under Senate rules, the GOP is still allowed 30 hours of “debate.” There actually isn’t much debate, but the clock is ticking while senators take to the floor to make speeches about whatever they like.

To get things moving, Democrats sweetened the pot, adding in billions in tax breaks for business — a net operating loss carry-back provision that the GOP has long favored — and an extension of the home-buyers tax credit. Reid introduced the goodies in a substitute amendment along with Sen. Max Baucus (D-Mont.), a champion of the business tax break.

“The two were put together as a means of greasing the skids. You know how things work around here,” said Sen. Tom Harkin (D-Iowa). “Could we have gotten UI through otherwise? Yes, we could have, but it would have taken us several days. And we don’t have that kind of time. And the minority is then able to, because of the time, demand certain things.”

The skids properly greased, Reid filed for cloture again on Oct. 29th. It came to a vote Monday night, Nov. 2nd, where it passed 85-2.

Still, the GOP fights, requesting that the 30 more hours of “debate” elapse. That’ll take the Senate to late Tuesday night. If Reid invokes cloture again to proceed to the underlying bill, another 30 hours would take the Senate to Thursday morning at the earliest for — at last — a vote on the bill itself.

Bobby Jindal Crippled Louisiana’s Ethics According to Chairman of Ethics Board – Louisiana’s ethics system has been “crippled” as a result of legal changes made during Gov. Bobby Jindal’s 2008 special session on ethics, the chairman of the Louisiana Board of Ethics said Monday.

“This is a convoluted and crippled ethics system we have today,” Ethics Board chairman Frank Simoneaux said. “It does not make sense. It does not work well.”

Simoneaux said the main culprit is a law that moved judicial power from the Ethics Board to administrative law judges, called ALJs. The ALJs are hired by an appointee of the governor.

Last Saturday, Fox News Reminded its Viewers to Turn Their Clocks Back 400 Years 😉

Regards,

Jim