Charles Grassley...one of the dimmer bulbs in the Senate (VIDEO)

...bullshitting his way through his job, yet again.

The President's entire Convention Week kickoff speech that he made yesterday in Des Moines, Iowa. (VIDEO)

The President's complete Speech from Iowa State University for August 29, 2012 (VIDEO)

Your everything-you-need-to-know-complete guide to Fast & Furious...

Lordy, this is gonna be a long one.

I’m getting a little tired of supposedly smart people like Jon Stewart screwing up the Fast and Furious story, so I decided to do a little research on my own. My starting point was the rather well-laid out timeline Randi Rhodes started with on her June 20, 2012 Broadcast. She used the Wikipedia listing for ATF Gun Walking which itself used a Washington Post Story from July 25, 2011 about Fast and Furious to get its facts. But even she missed some things that need to be highlighted. Lord knows, Stewart screwed this thing up in his last two appearances with an appalling Fox News level of accuracy.

So, after the jump, I’m going to open with the Wikipedia page before some NRA doucebag steps in and makes bullshit changes to it. It also happens to be the piece Randi Rhodes read pretty much word for word opening up her June 20, 2012 Broadcast.

Click here to see the whole thing.

How Jon Stewart and the fine folks at @TheDailyShow @#$%ed up Fast and Furious (VIDEO)

It started on June 20th:

The Daily Show with Jon Stewart
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Again, Jon's version of events demands you being stupid enough to believe Darrell Issa's version of events. Up until now, I never thought Jon was that stupid, but stranger things have happened.

Here's the thing, to believe Issa's version of events, you have to believe that the Acting Head of the ATF, by his own admission, knew nothing about what the ATF Phoenix Field Office was doing, but somehow the U.S. Attorney General did.

Oh, and did I mention that the Acting Head of the ATF is Issa's Star Witness, and thought he was going to get fired by the Administration, which is why he went running to Issa in the first place? Purely a coincidence, I'm sure.

And then, Jon doubled-down the next day, June 21st:

The Daily Show with Jon Stewart
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First off, it actually began with an Operation called Wide Receiver in the Bush Administration before being killed and record as Fast and Furious, and the stated purpose actually made some sense. The ATF wanted to allow these purchases to track the firearms as they were transferred to higher-level traffickers and key figures in Mexican cartels, in theory leading to their arrests and the dismantling of the cartels.

Problem was, ATF let the purchases happen, they tracked the guns to the people who were using them, who were hired thugs, not the major players in the Cartel.  Since the purchases didn't go high enough up the chain of command, ATF let the purchases keep happening, hoping they'd get someone better so they could make an arrest. In fact, indictments didn't start happening until Obama became President.

And, to be clear, we lost 1400 guns, still an appalling figure, but...c'mon, Jon, that's the kind of Bullshit Fox News engages in.

Then there's the letter. That was my major problem with the bit. Jon kinda left out the part where the Head of the Phoenix Field Office, may have...you know...lied to the Justice Department about the existence of the program.  That could be because Justice told him in 2009 not to engage in Gunwalking (but didn't do it clearly enough), and he went ahead and engaged in it anyway.

I know, details, details.

I would like to know why the hell did Stephen Colbert have a better grip on the damn story than Stewart did?

The Colbert Report
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A complete, unadulterated guide to my problems with what Jon Stewart said will be published in about 30 minutes.

"An Economy Built to Last" in Cedar Rapids, Iowa (VIDEO)

"So I hear you think you know something about Iowa..." (VIDEO)

Made me laugh my ass off it was so good.

The President's Backyard Town-Hall in Des Moines, IA (VIDEO)

Same deal.  The President talking the Economy and taking questions from a Backyard in Des Moines.  I seem to recall the President does very well in Iowa.

Okay, so maybe Mitt Romney won't be the GOP Nominee in 2012...Part 2

Why? Because Sarah Palin just endorsed Terry Branstad.

And who, might you ask, is Terry Branstad, and why could it have major consequences for 2012? Marc Ambinder of the Atlantic has the answer.

The President's Speech in Iowa City on Health Care Reform (VIDEO)

Full circle. He last came to Iowa City to outline his Health Care Reform Proposals, now...

Fort McHenry's first Star Wars reference... (VIDEO)

I don't believe I've managed that precious intersection of Politics and Star Wars. But, as Kevin Garnett once said, "anything is possible..."

More evidence pointing to "Thank you, Jesus..."

Rep. Lynn Wooseley, a Progressive Rep. who's been getting on my nerves lately, has finally struck the right (and overdue) note:

Rep. Lynn Woolsey, co-chair of the House Progressive Caucus, told ABC News in an interview that she’s “absolutely” certain that a health care bill will pass, but added that it’s “only a beginning.”

“The day this bill passes, and if it doesn’t have a public option in it, I’m introducing my public option bill,” said Woolsey, D-Calif. “On to the next.”

Bingo! This is what House Progressives should be doing. This is what Tom Harkin said a couple of weeks (months?) ago. With the passage of even the crappier Senate Bill, Health Care turns from a one a decade discussion to a yearly discussion. "How are we going to improve the Bill this year?"

“Once you break the [special interest] stranglehold and you get the architecture in place, then it is not a massive reform to change this or add this or modify that,” he said. “My hope is that we move ahead on this and as reforms are in place, people will begin to say, ‘Gee, I didn’t realize that was what they were talking about.’ As more and more of these reforms take place, people will say that this is good, but we need something else, to change this or do that.

“In the future, amending it and changing it isn’t going to be as tough as passing it in the first place. We amend Medicare and Social Security all the time. We are changing rates, fixing this, doing this to make sure that they are viable. That’s what we will do in health care. I’m absolutely convinced of it.”

And there is one other thing Harkin is convinced will eventually come to pass: A public option.

“At some point in the near future, and I don’t know exactly how long it is going to be, we are going to have some sort of a public option out there,” he said. “We might not get it in this bill, but it will come in as the years go by and as people begin to look at insurance companies and how much they are charging. I have no doubt in my mind that we are going to have to go to some kind of a public option, some type of a single-payer type system to bring the costs down. When the administrative costs of Medicare is somewhere around the 3 percent range, but the administrative costs of the private insurance companies are in the 15 percent range, there is a lot of money that can be saved by going to a better system such as a single-payer or a public option-type system.”

Fine by me. More (and quicker) Public Option, the better...

WaPo: True friendship

Erza Klein:

I actually find Grassley's behavior throughout all this a bit shocking. Grassley's friendship with Baucus is long and deep. And he has made Baucus look like a weak, ineffectual fool. He has absolutely hung him out to dry.

Baucus assumed enormous personal risk to try and secure Grassley's support. He formed the "Gang of Six," infuriating the other members of his committee. He blew through the White House's August deadline, angering Senate Democrats and harming the White House. He compromised on a raft of liberal priorities, infuriating the Democratic base. And he got ... nothing.

Less than nothing, in fact. Grassley went on TV to trash the Democratic bills and proclaim that he was closed to an actual compromise. He let Baucus end the process with a compromised bill and not a single vote of confidence from his Republican colleagues. He made Baucus look like a knave. If there was any evidence that Grassley hated Baucus and wished him ill, it would count as one of the truly masterful political defenestrations in recent decades.

The Hill: Hmmm....

On the one hand, we got (TPM Alum) Greg Sargent saying this:

While Obama did offer far more expansive support for the public option than expected, he hinted at the possible use of coops or a trigger, which are both unacceptable to liberals. Combine this letter with the fact that Tom Harkin, the chair of the Senate HELP committee, said today that a public option won’t be a dealbreaker, and you’ve really got a serious intra-Dem split in the works.

A serious what?

Looking at the...you know...actual article where Tom Harkin is quoted. He says this:

The new chairman of the Senate HELP Committee said a public option won't be deal breaker for moderate Democrats.

Sen. Tom Harkin (D-Iowa), who just replaced Ted Kennedy as head of the committee, said his centrist colleagues might accept a bill with a public option even if they aren't crazy about it.

"Some of my colleagues may not like a public option, but they like all the other things and I don't think they'll vote against the bill just because it has the public option in it," Harkin said on MSNBC.

Maybe Harkin's wrong. Granted, HELP shares jurisdiction with Finance over Health Care Legislation, and Max Baucus is out there saying there aren't the votes for a Public Option.

But maybe, the key word that's not being used is, there aren't votes for a Public Option...yet.

"It is liberating, however, to finally shed the dead weight of Grassley's know-nothingism and cowardice." (VIDEO)

From Joe Klein:

Looks like the charade of including Chuck Grassley and Mike Enzi in the health care negotiations is over. It is not impossible that other Republicans who are not Senators from Maine can be located to support health care reform. But it's also entirely possible that the Republicans will continue their kamikaze ways and oppose a reform that is likely to prove very popular with the American public when it's enacted (which is why, in truth, the GOP nihilists oppose it).

There are still some real problems the legislation is facing, especially if the rougher edges of the House bill--insufficient attention to cost controls, the public option--aren't sanded down. More than a few Democratic Senators and Representatives are going to have to summon a bit of courage to vote for any form of health reform, especially those from moderate to conservative states (like Arkansas where 55% prefer Rush Limbaugh's vision of America to Barack Obama's, according to a recent poll). But it should be possible to find a more plausible funding source now, like the President's wise proposal that tax deductions for the wealthy be limited to the same rate as paid by the middle class. My guess is that the final bill will enable the Democratic caucus to be fairly united on this, and that a few Republicans will join in--and that we will have health care reform this year. It is liberating, however, to finally shed the dead weight of Grassley's know-nothingism and cowardice.

From the White House, today:



Erza Klein of the Washington Post:

The question of whether Grassley wants to compromise on health care is increasingly being overtaken by the reality that Grassley is not leaving himself political room to compromise on health care. He is creating a campaign premised on his role in stopping Obama's health-care reform effort. It is not clear how he could pivot to save it, even if he wanted to do so. And given the unique role Grassley occupies as the senior partner in Max Baucus's bipartisan process, the bare-knuckled partisanship of Grassley's letter does not suggest that his political team is readying itself to sell a compromise.

HuffPo: Jawdropper of an Ad (VIDEO)

Republican goes after a Republican in support of the Public Option:

In going after one of the key Republican negotiators in the Senate their goal is twofold: To exert a political price for opposing President Obama's agenda and to persuade Democrats that Grassley is not negotiating in good faith.

To deliver the message, PCCC and DFA have an ideal narrator. Kevin Shilling of Greenfield, Iowa, starts the ad by noting that he "voted for Reagan, Nixon, George W. Bush and Senator Chuck Grassley too."

"I served my country for over 24 years in the army," he says. "I've talked to friends and neighbors around Iowa and one thing is clear. No matter what the politicians in Washington D.C. say, Democrats and Republicans back home want the public insurance option."

"I voted for Senator Grassley in the past," Shilling adds. "But when Grassley takes over $2 million from the big health and insurance industries that oppose reform and then says he won't give Iowans the choice of a public option, I have to ask: Senator, whose side are you on?"