US Congress

The House of Representatives needed 218 votes to approve the bill. It has passed with a final tally of 263 votes.

See my liveblogging at Liveblogging hearing of H. R. 1424 Revised Financial Markets Bill.

I was laughing during the night's news because there's a clip of this speech that kept being repeated over and over again, the one with the "the party is over" line.

The American people did not decide to dangerously weaken our regulatory and oversight policies. They did not make unwise and risky financial deals. They did not jeopardize the economic security of the nation. And they must not pay the cost of this emergency recovery and stabilization bill.

So we insisted that this bill contain several key provisions: This legislation must contain independent and ongoing oversight to ensure that the recovery program is managed with full transparency and strict accountability.

The legislation must do everything possible to allow as many people to stay in their homes rather than face foreclosure.

Thanks to Phil we have the breakdown. Make sure you also check out our coverage at The Daily Gotham.

Did the New York delegation really understand that the hell is going on with the manufactured economic crisis? I can most certaily attest to the fact that my Congresswoman, Carolyn Maloney, did nothing all of last week or during the weekend to let me know she was on the ball with this crisis.

So shame on the NY delegation for buying into the Paulson and Bush crap.

Yays
Ackerman
Arcuri
Bishop
Clarke
Crowley
Engel
Fossella
Hall
Higgins
Israel
King
Lowey
Maloney
McCarthy
McHugh
McNulty
Meeks
Nadler
Rangel
Reynolds
Slaughter
Towns
Velazquez
Walsh
Weiner

Nays
Gillibrand
Hinchey
Kuhl
Serrano

"Don't leave home without it."

Awesome!

I have to say, Dennis Kucinich is one of the nicest, most authentic politicians I have ever had the pleasure of meeting. He's the real deal as a progressive who, quite honestly, I'd rather have in Congress, the Senate or Supreme Court, not so much as President. He's too forthright to be President.

And yes, I'd love to see Congressman Kucinich in the Supreme Court. That would win Obama and the Democrats progessive credentials back with a vengeance.

Kucinich for Supreme Court Justice!

Yesterday I had a bit of fun at the expense of the Republican noise machines and their efforts to paint themselves already as a loud and marginalized minority in Capitol Hill. I was so caught up on the moment that I didn't blog about it until this morning but Kenneth Quinnell described it as a "Twitter Bomb" and has happy to spread the word :

Twitter Bomb

This wasn't my idea (although I came up with the cool name), I think Liza Sabater was the one who started it, but it's too brilliant to pass up.

Those of you who are on Twitter, send as many tweets as you can over the next few days with #dontgo in them. The conservatives are using this hash mark (like a tag) to spread misinformation about offshore drilling and their latest publicity stunt. What Liza and a few others started doing was to flood that hash with counter-commentary or irrelevant posts. Sort of like a google bomb, this can either disrupt what they're doing or, at the very least, annoy the crap out of them. We can all do this.

Whatever you're posting on twitter, try to fit #dontgo into it. And make sure you include the # sign, which is key.

If you aren't on Twitter, this might be the type of thing to get you into it.

And before I even start to explain, let me break down the lingo for you.

Here's the list of US Senators who dared to say "NO" to the war in Iraq:

Jeffords (I-VT)
Kennedy (D-MA)
Leahy (D-VT)
Levin (D-MI)
Mikulski (D-MD)
Murray (D-WA)
Reed (D-RI)
Sarbanes (D-MD)
Stabenow (D-MI)
Wellstone (D-MN)
Wyden (D-OR)

[NB: Emphasis mine]

In case you need a refresher, here's the list of Democrats who voted to give George W. Bush the power to spend $200 million a day in a war that gave us no "weapons of mass destruction" yet which has displaced as internal refugees more than 2 million Iraqis and forced another 3 million refugees to move to places like Jordan, Iran, Egypt, Lebanon, Turkey and Gulf States.

Baucus (D-MT)
Bayh (D-IN)
Biden (D-DE)
Breaux (D-LA)
Cantwell (D-WA)
Carnahan (D-MO)
Carper (D-DE)
Cleland (D-GA)
Clinton (D-NY)
Daschle (D-SD)
Dodd (D-CT)
Dorgan (D-ND)
Edwards (D-NC)
Feinstein (D-CA)
Harkin (D-IA)
Hollings (D-SC)
Johnson (D-SD)
Kerry (D-MA)
Kohl (D-WI)
Landrieu (D-LA)
Lieberman (D-CT)
Lincoln (D-AR)
Miller (D-GA)
Nelson (D-FL)
Nelson (D-NE)
Reid (D-NV)
Rockefeller (D-WV)
Schumer (D-NY)
Torricelli (D-NJ)

I've bolded some names for ponderable emphasis.

I am a member of The Open House Project, a collaborative and bipartisan effort organized by The Sunlight Foundation to bring practices of transparency and openness to Congress through the use of digital and internet technologies.

Today we are able to declare a huge win for bloggers and citizen journalists alike. This is what Beltway Blogroll reports :

C-SPAN To Offer Free Access To Hearings
Andrew Noyes, one of my senior writers, has been covering this breaking story for Technology Daily the past couple of weeks. It started when House Republicans criticized House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif. -- and then retracted that criticism -- for posting footage from House floor debates on her new blog, The Gavel.

The story sparked a movement to make more congressional video freely available, and C-SPAN quickly obliged.

Here's what two C-SPAN executives said about the change in policy:

-- Executive Committee Chairman William Bresnan, the CEO of Bresnan Communications: "The C-SPAN board sees this as helping us carry out C-SPAN's public service mission. The cable industry created this network to allow citizens greater access to their government, and this enhancement appropriately reflects the rapid changes in the online information world."

-- President and co-chief operating officer Rob Kennedy: "Giving voice to the average citizen has been a centerpiece of C-SPAN's journalism since our network's founding in 1979. As technology advances, we want to continue to be a leader in providing citizens with the tools to be active participants in the democratic process.

This is huge.

Government cameras film all Congressional proceedings. The footage though, is broadcast mostly through C-SPAN. It is not clear to me if C-SPAN is a 501c(3) --even though their tag line is "created by the cable companies, offered as a public service" nowhere in their site does it say they are a not-for-profit.

If they are indeed a non-profit, they have been quite bullish about the "copyright" they hold on the public domain footage they broadcast. Basically they've made it impossible to use congressional video footage by having a few seconds of original content a the beginning of all congressional videos, slapping their logo on it and claiming, then it's their original content.

As much as I would like to take at face value the comments made by the higher ups at C-SPAN, this admission of fair use shows they are scared of losing what made them precious : their role of gatekeepers.

Kudos to Talking Points Muckracker for picking up on what was so obviously ignored by Wolff Blitzer and the people of CNN : Keith Ellison pushing is way through the rowdy Congressional floor in order to meet the bigot who wants 'his kind of people' not only out of Congress but out of the country.

Here's the (somewhat after the fact) report from CNN:

You've never seen a whiter Pakistani

So Rahm Emmanuel has upgraded Mr. Van Hollen over at the DCCC.

How nice.

I'm sorry but I had a tad of a knee-jerk reaction when I saw his picture. Then I read this :

Van Hollen To Oversee Recruiting, Fundraising - washingtonpost.com:
On the Hill, Van Hollen is considered part of a younger generation of Democrats whom Pelosi is grooming through leadership opportunities. He is a member of the 30-Something Working Group, an informal team that helped spread the party's message from the House floor during the campaign. He is considered a reliable liberal and has voted against Bush tax cuts, a ban on "partial birth" abortion and drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Reserve.

Brendan Daly, a spokesman for Pelosi, said Van Hollen's appointment is a vote of confidence by Pelosi in his political judgment, ability to recruit candidates and raise money. He's one of "our bright young stars," Daly said.

He's is one of the "bright young stars" at the tender age of 47. Yup. He's a puppy. A puppy that represents the New America?

Right.

Why do I have a knee-jerk reaction? Well ... Right now the two most prominent colored people in Congress are two sexuagenerians who have about 50 years combined in office.