I love the sound of Rachel in the morning. Sounds like…truth.

“Joe” “The Plumber” update.

thom hartmann did something very excellant with joe the plumber on his radio show

joe was advertised as giving an interview with thom, thom got him on the show and proceeded to ask him nothing but plumbing question!

it was really excellant

I have to admit, joe was a great sport about it, fielding every single plumbing question and not seeming to get disturbed at all he wasn’t tasked with politics

later on in the show when someone asked tom what he was doing with joe his answer was even more interesting;

one of the pre-requisits for the interview, tom was told he could not ask disrespecting questions (tom is never disrespectfull, he gives both sides of any debate equal credibility when in an interview)

anyway it was really a terrific method of dealing with joe the plumber

tom also gave joe some kudos, went on to talk about the fact that joe was given 15 minutes of fame and really made an industry about it, turning that 15 minutes of fame into quite a few months.

Tom Daschle backed the patron who paid him a million-dollar salary and supplied him with a free car and driver for a job inside the Obama administration, two Democrats said Monday.

goodnight Tom.

two Democrats said Monday

hmmm

in fighting to be sure

I wonder who is immune?

The Obama team left him an out though:

Obama’s aides rejected Daschle’s suggestion that a top job go to Hindery, for whose private equity fund Daschle had served as a rainmaker and adviser.

Karen Tumulty is a regular on Washington Week. Just another Rethug water carrier.

I don’t understand how a limo and driver for two years should cost that much. $128,000 tax would represent an income of $350 K plus. This for a 60K car and two years salary for a driver.

penalties and interest?

Did Morning Schmo just say nobody saw the financial meltdown coming??

He hired Michael Schumacher (19 Formula 1 championships) as the driver.

Yep..stick a fork in that guy…he’s done. And…calling Dr. Dean…calling Dr. Dean…please pick up the white phone…

lol!

please

Daschle was, and is, the embodiment of a broken Obama promise that no lobbyists would work in his administration. Strike One.

Failed to pay taxes? Strike Two.

Having car service worth a quarter of a million for a three-year period? Strike Three, though I sure would like to know what kinda “service” one gets for that kind of money.

There is no high moral ground to be found or re-purchased here. If Daschle doesn’t have the sense or dignity to withdraw, our President should quite quickly do it for him.

That might be 15 – 20K Still seems absurd.

excellent – that it’s all coming out now. better than later during the healthcare reform battles.

oh, and can we please get rid of gupta too? and put john conyers’ bill for single payer h.r.676 back on the table? i’m just full of hopeful thoughts this morning.

That should read 91 Formula 1 wins and 7 chamionships.

Kimberly Wallner is that person in the classroom who always reminded the teacher that there was supposed to be a test when it was obvious the teacher had forgotten.

That TBogg is a stitch! Making the aides go listen to Joe the Plumber. EWWW.

If he was not an ex Senator he would have had his nomination withdrawn by now. He is, like many of his colleagues, a scoundrel. He seems to think that there is one rule for the “in crowd” and one rule for the rest of us, a common failing for those that spend any time in the halls of Congress.

The Obama team mantra that he is “the best man for the job” is utter bullshit. Tom was thrown out on his ass by the voters of S Dk and now he wants back in to the power structure in DC and is willing to do or say anything to get there, not the kind of person I want to be guiding NAtional Health Care through the Legislature. He is in the pocket of the health care insurance business, as is Obama incidentally, and the chances of an actual comprehensive universal health care access bill is doomed. Why the hell do we not have a Doctor or someone from the health care business as Health sec.? Are there no qualified nurses?

yes! please add dean to my list of morning wishes. *g*

Can’t read, can’t count, can’t spell. Need more fuckin’ coffee.

I agree that it’s time for Howard Dean. Daschle just seems all sticky.

Yep. And I second dumping Gupta.

Daschle just seems all sticky.

*giving fingers a forceful lecture on the concept of ‘restraint’*

let’s hope members of the obama team still stop by the lake for advise

anyone know why obama is dissing dean in the first place?

LOL, me too. It was soooooooo ripe but…

re decent comprehensive and universal health care, did you know that john conyers’ single payer bill had over 90 cosponsors last congress? from pnph (see my comment this morning at Cujo359’s diary) h.r.676 has been:

has been endorsed by over 417 union organizations in 48 states

has been endorsed by the American College of Physicians

has the support of the largest Nurse’s Union (CNA/NNOC), and the largest Nurses professional association (ANA), and the National Association of Social Workers

has endorsed by the Assembly of the Urban Caucus of the Episcopal Church, General Board on Global Ministries of the United Methodist Church and the Presbyterian Health, Education and Welfare Association of the Presbyterian Church (USA) and the Unitarian-Universalists.

Daschle doesn’t even believe in universal health care. And he’s the guy Obama wants to craft health care reform? Laughable!

I’m baffled by the Gregg nomination. Truly baffled.

I wonder why Obama is dissing Dean too.

The more endorsements it gets the harder the Rethugs will fight it. The GOP is like a your normal homeowner’s association – a bunch of old, white, scared, bitter control freaks.

a truly great hitter doesn’t swing when somebody’s pitching underhanded…

heh.

And, don’t forget what a great majority leader Daschle was.

Did I miss something? Do you mean that he is being ignored or did Obama actually criticize him?
As to why he’s being ignored, that’s thanks to Rahm I would think.

Bah hahahaha! Hysterical Tbogg post about Joe the Plumber & Kimberly. Love it.

Early reports, not official, of voting in the province around Mosul show the Sunnis getting 60% of the vote, Kurds 20%. Headlines on community radio. Looking for a source.

TPM:

Daschle left the area without taking questions. His last words were almost wistful, given the media scrum that his nomination has become — Daschle reiterated his commitment to helping the White House give Americans “lower cost, higher value insurance … sometime soon.”

What cost, and how much value?

Interest can add up pretty fast — faster than you think:

The interest rate is determined every three months and is the federal short–term rate plus 3 percent. Interest is compounded daily.

Then there are the penalties . . .

If you file on time but don’t pay all amounts due on time, you’ll generally have to pay a late payment penalty of one–half of one percent of the tax owed for each month, or part of a month, that the tax remains unpaid from the due date, until the tax is paid in full or the 25% maximum penalty is applied. The one–half of one percent rate increases to one percent if the tax remains unpaid 10 days after the IRS issues a notice of intent to levy.

Even without that, the costs of a driver and car deal like this can mount up quickly on their own. Beyond the salary for the driver and the purchase price of the car, someone also typically has to pay for meals for the driver if they’re out at dinner time, hotel for the driver if it’s an overnight trip, fuel and upkeep on the vehicle . . .

It adds up fast.

Just that Dean was shipped to Chicago and then promptly left the DNC after the election. And his name hasn’t been floated for any position within the administration, let alone HHS Secretary. And he’s a doctor!

Regarding Gregg going to Commerce..

When Gregg learned that Obama was interested, he had only one request: please don’t make this a political choice for me. New Hampshire’s governor, John Lynch, might well appoint a Republican to replace him for the year and a half remaining until re-election, but if the White House intervened, Lynch might feel pressure to appoint a fellow Democrat. Assurances were made all around

Assurances? So is the Gov promising to appoint a Republican? Or is the WH just assuring that they won’t pressure the Gov either way? Anyone have a clarification?

EPU.

OT
Spouse if off to the NH Legislature today to talk/lobby/educate them about Choice (Shit head Lynch is trying, with the assistance of gooper attorney general chayotte(sp?) to require parental notification, again) so I will hear in detail the thoughts on Lynch appointing a gooper senator….we are so bloody pissed at him…

I will know more tomorrow.

Incidentally I was at an event the other day, just after the “announcement” about Gregg, with some very progressive friends and one of them was saying that Gregg was very good at getting funds for business projects in NH, he thought that Gregg was OK.

The provincial elections have led to significant changes in the balance of power in other parts of Iraq. In Nineveh province, whose 2.7 million people are mostly Sunni Arabs, the Kurds make up between a quarter and a third of the population but have been in effective control since a Sunni uprising in 2004. They also had a majority on the local council because the Sunni boycotted the poll in the January 2005 election. But the winner on Saturday was al-Hadba, a nationalist and tribal coalition, whose leader claims to have won 60 per cent of the vote. This Sunni success will make it more difficult for Kurdish parts of the province to join the near-independent Kurdish autonomous region.

In Anbar province, the cities and towns along the Euphrates river appear to have voted for the Awakening Movement, made up of former insurgents against the US occupation who switched sides in order to fight al-Qa’ida, though this is contested. In general, Iraqi voters want to get rid of those who they see as having misruled them at a local level since the last election.

From The Independent

The more endorsements it gets the harder the Rethugs will fight it.

the more endorsements it gets, the more the corporate wing of the dems will fight it too (if you read my comment and the first link, you will have some background on that). unfortunately, imo anyway, they’ve convinced a bunch of good people (see moveon and even possibly jane, but i think we can convince her to back single payer if we have a good enough case) that if the dem corporate version built around insurance companies isn’t passed we’ll get nothing, so we might as well sign up to support that one and ignore conyers’s bill (which people have been organizing around for years and are now making real headway on).

Another Coleman witness admits she was cherry-picked.

At what point will Franken be seated? How long can this go on? Coleman has a new job, for heaven’s sake.

And, don’t forget what a great majority leader Daschle was.

iraq war resolution?

Thom Hartmann: Citigroup’s Football Madness

Citicorp executives are using $45 million corporate jets for luxury family vacations in Baja at $12,000-a-night hotel rooms, all courtesy of bailout money from you and me.

The GOP is like a your normal homeowner’s association – a bunch of old, white, scared, bitter control freaks.

Perfection! *g*

I can see the MoveOn corporatists supporting a bill that funnels more money to the insurance companies. Both parties have their faces so far down into the corporate money trough. Got to break this cycle somehow.

ot – today’s hearing list at oxdown. michael greenberger, probably my favorite congressional committee hearing witness, is testifying today on financial derivative regulation (1pm). i probably won’t be around for the beginning of if, but will try to record the audio for later listening.

It’s hard to believe that Daschle was not in W’s pocket.

The Republicans will NEVER admit they lost. They are convinced they can manipulate the courts to hand the Senate seat to Coleman. After all the SCOTUS provides a precedent for their “optimism.”

” Dozens of secret Bush surveillance, executive power memos found; Could be made public “

http://rawstory.com/news/2008/….._0203.html

Daschle’s always been a wuss.

Off to swim in the great capitalist cesspool.

Be good to yourselves, and all other living things.

Namaste

The comments of the NYT editorial on Daschle are heavily in favor of him stepping down.

cujo’s really excellent diary includes this quote from the detroit news:

Alas, although CNN, Politico.com and other national news organizations have covered Conyers’ opposition to Gupta, they’ve failed to raise the public profile of Dr. Herbert Smitherman, the assistant dean at the WSU School of Medicine who is Conyers’ on-record pick as the surgeon general.

Smitherman, a Cincinnati native who has spent his career in Detroit, says Conyers contacted him immediately after Obama’s election, met with him, and said he would like to recommend him as surgeon general.

Smitherman does fit the Conyers profile of a surgeon general committed to helping those who don’t have access to health care.

The co-author of “Taking Care of the Uninsured: A Path to Reform,” Smitherman has degrees in engineering, medicine and public health and a medical practice providing care to the urban poor.

When he was named a 2003 Michiganian of the Year by The News, the headline read: “Sick, poor and think no one cares? Here’s the man who does.”

here’s a bit i got in my email from john conyers a little bit ago:

An apparent trial balloon has been floated to fill the post of Surgeon General in the name of Sanjay Gupta. He is a health commentator for CNN who dispenses medical advice with a breezy style appropriately suited to the brief two-minute segments of television. However, the TV Doctor has been criticized by many for his close ties to the pharmaceutical and health care industries and for not disclosing the sources of his speaking fees which command up to $50,000 per appearance. Morevoer, his strong criticisms of reform beg the question whether his cozy relationships with the health care industry would compromise his ability to lead the U.S. Public Health Service and serve as a vocal advocate for change.

it was a shame that the dem leadership made conyers take impeachment off the table. i hope we don’t let them make conyers take single payer off the table too.

Just because the Senator’s powder’s been compromised by her post partician wet dream, doesn’t mean mine has.

i wasn’t watching cspan then, so i don’t have the details. but i’m no fan – especially when there are so many other better choices for reforming healthcare.

I’m heavily in favor of him stepping down, too.

Marcy’s been on this already. (Surprise, surprise)

Her database/timeline is here (though, as she says, it’s not sortable like Propublica’s).

Christy’s up!
Living Easy, Living Free, In The US Economy

Whatever that means!!

DIGG is open

62 comments and nobody opened the DIGG ????

BINGO! on your link to new memos by BushCo discovered. We must make so much noise for release to the public that Holder has to act on his promise.

We must insist on investigations on the abuse of power crimes by Bush Admin if those do not set a pattern and precedent for future power-greedy Executive Administrations.