As the lazy days of summer gradually wind down, our fearless...or should I say feared...leaders will be headed back to our nation's capitol to continue the business of partisan bickering, selling out to interest groups, and raising more money than you can shake a stick at. They'll probably also appoint someone to the Supreme Court, they have to pass their Appropriations bills, and they'll get the BRAC recommendation to approve.

My question to you is if you could put one thing on the national agenda for this next session of Congress, what would it be? How would you like to see your issue resovled?

I just got this from the National Low Income Housing Coalition's weekly newsletter. I though y'all might enjoy the read:

Housing as an Indicator of the Well Being of Children

Two recent reports track the well being of children in
the United States. Both provide indicators of children’s
housing along with measures of health, income, and
education.

The Annie E. Casey Foundation has released their
“Kids Count Data Book” as well as their “State-Level
Data Online” which has 75 different indicators for child
well-being in state-by-state format, including 10 indicators
from the study and 65 that are original to the
online format. The report concludes that out of the 10
study indicators, five worsened between 2000 and 2003,
including an increase in child poverty, an increase in
infant mortality and low birth weight, and an increase
in the rate of children with “persistently unemployed”
parents or guardians.

[This is another installment in a series I am working on which looks at the "priced out crisis" in America's housing market and the public policy options and politics for meeting that challenge]

As the prices of houses sky rockets and the wages of the American worker stagnate, more and more people are finding themselves without a home or in a substandard living environment [registration required]. America's effective and innovative nonprofit sector has developed proven strategies, but they lack the public investment necessary to expand their production enough to meet the need.

A few years ago a group of housing advocates struck on a new idea:
A National Housing Trust Fund

As the August recess draws near, Housing Trust Fund advocates worked hard to move the parent bill (“The Federal Housing Enterprise Regulatory Reform Act of 2005”) quickly out of the Senate Banking committee before the members leave D.C. All eyes were on S. 190 and a markup scheduled for July 28th. More after the jump.

257-171, it wasn't even close. There was nine hours of debate, however

The bulk of the back-and-forth centered on language making permanent 14 of 16 provisions that had four-year sunset provisions under the original law, which Congress passed overwhelmingly after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.

The bill also includes 10-year extensions to the two other provisions set to expire on Dec. 31, one allowing roving wiretaps and another allowing searches of library and medical records.

My privacy has just surrendered. But it got caught in a roving wiretap and checked out too many bomb-making books from the local library. Now my privacy has been declared an unlawful combatant, and under the pretext of security will be held without trial in an undisclosed location for an undetermined amount of time.

But my privacy has taken it all in stride, and admits this all makes great sense—certainly more than x-raying luggage or inspecting containers at ports.

During a hearing on the renewal of the Patriot Act, The the Republican chair walked out of the meeting, turning the microphones off, leaving Democrats screaming into the microphone.

Rep. Jerrold Nadler D-N.Y., protested, raising his voice as his microphone went off, came back on, and went off again.

"We are not besmirching the honor of the United States, we are trying to uphold it," he said.

Democrats asked for the hearing, the 11th the committee has held on the act since April, saying past hearings had been too slanted toward witnesses who supported the law. The four witnesses were from groups, including Amnesty International USA and the American Immigration Lawyers Association, that have questioned the constitutionality of some aspects of the act, which allows law enforcement greater authority to investigate suspected terrorists.

The Washington Post is reporting serious setbacks for the GOP on several fronts.

The Post is reporting that the Republicans may finally be caving on the ethics committee

House Republican leaders, acknowledging that ethics disputes are taking a heavy toll on the party's image, decided yesterday to rescind a controversial rule change that led to the three-month shutdown of the ethics committee, according to officials who participated in the talks.

That by a 2 to 1 ratio Americans oppose the nuclear option.

As the Senate moves toward a major confrontation over judicial appointments, a strong majority of Americans oppose changing the rules to make it easier for Republican leaders to win confirmation of President Bush's court nominees, according to the latest Washington Post-ABC News poll.

Writing to Politicians actually works!

Grant's 1st Bad-Donkey award might be retracted after Representative Larsen turns out to be pretty cool...

As you might know, Rep. Rick Larsen (D-WA) from Whatcom County earned my Bad-Donkey of the Month award last week.

In that post, I urged everyone to write to Rep. Larsen and tell him your disappointment in his vote to repeal the Estate Tax, thereby giving our generation trillions of dollar in debt to figure out. (My idea... we all sell one kidney to an old person in the next decade. In turn, our children will sell us their kidneys. It's like the circle of life... for those in crushing national debt).

So, I'm not sure how many of you actually wrote to Rep. Larsen, but I did. You can see my first letter here.

UPDATE! Representative Rick Larsen redeems himself... click this link!

Siding with the Extremely Wealthy over Working and Middle Class Americans Earns Rep. Larsen Grant's first Bad-Donkey of the Month Award!

31 House Democrats voted on April 13th to abolish an estate tax on the wealthiest families in the country including Washington State Democrat Rick Larsen.

For almost a century, the estate tax affected only the richest 1 or 2 percent of citizens, encouraged charity, and placed no burden on the vast majority of Americans

Ending the estate tax will add $1 trillion in debt next decade at a time when the GOP already claims that there isn’t enough money for Social Security and that government services need to be cut.

This will not help small businesses or family farms, as the GOP wants you to believe. This report (it's pretty thick) by the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities states that "repeal of the estate tax would provide massive benefits solely to the wealthiest and highest-income taxpayers in the country... Few family farms and businesses are subject to the estate tax... far more efficient and less costly solutions are available to alleviate those problems."

Okay, I’ve met the guy a couple of times, I have friends who have worked at all levels in his campaigns, and before now I thought he was the perfect guy to represent Whatcom County, but what is Rick Larson doing voting to repeal the estate tax?

Is it that he simply dosen’t care about our trillion dollar deficit, our crumbling transportation infrastructure, or our failing schools? Is it that he thinks multi-millionaires need a break?

Or could it be that Rick wants to score points with people like Frank Blethen, the patriarch of the family that controls the Seattle Times, who hates the estate tax? (Speculation is that the reason the Seattle Time endorsed George Bush back in 2000 was due to Blethen's opposition to the estate tax.)

Thought you might be interested in a different take on the Terri Schiavo story. I’ve found it interesting that few news stories actually mention that her cardiac arrest was the consequence of an eating disorder.

The National Eating Disorders Association (NEDA) is taking action to urge Congress to make eating disorder treatment coverage mandatory for insurance companies. While members of Congress scrambled this past month to intervene in the tragic case of Terri Schiavo, millions have asked why Congress and state legislatures continue to ignore individuals with eating disorders, long before their health is as seriously compromised as Schiavo’s.

The deadly silent contradiction: While anorexia nervosa is the deadliest of all mental illnesses, and while proper treatment for eating disorders has proved successful, eating disorders treatment is still not adequately covered by insurance plans.

Take a look at the press release by clicking on this link below. And let me know what you think and if you are interested in getting involved in NEDA’s efforts.

Not that I ever thought that “compassionate conservativism” wasn’t an oxymoron. But sometimes even I am surprised…

You all may be familiar with the “global gag rule” which prohibit any international aid organization receiving US funding from performing abortions or even discussing abortion. Well, according to a new article on Salon.com (watch the ad to get a free pass to the website), conservatives in Congress are considering another gag rule: for needle exchange programs. With the same “more information = bad” logic as the abortion gag rule, it would prevent aid organizations from even telling addicts that they should use clean needles.

There is a critical vote today in the Senate on drilling for oil in the Alaska National Wildlife Reserve. NPI Blog has some information on how you can (quickly) voice your opposition.

Update: Its too late. Senate votes to open arctic refuge to oil drilling

Update 2:Some folks at Daily Kos have suggested some ways we can continue the fight.

It is becoming increasingly clear why the Republicans are trying to gut the ethics committee (both changing the rules to make it almost impossible to mount an investigation and our own Doc Hastings purging the staff of people who dare to challenge the Republican leadership).
The FBI is now looking into a missing $2.5 million that may have fallen into Tom Delay’s pocket.

It’s becoming increasingly clear, the Republicans are the party of Enron.

When The Merchant of Venice is taught in this country there are some very important pieces of education that are done first to help any students of the Bard understand the context of the story. One of the first things that needs to be taught usually is the definition of usury. Today that's really easy because we see usury every day in the attitudes and business practices of credit card companies and banks. Today instead of putting the people who commit usury into a ghetto or forcing one segment of the population into an illegal business because of their religious beliefs, we see our government pass legislation making it easier for usurers to make money at the expense of families. Usury has historically been a big no-no in Europe because of it's place in the Bible and the power of organized religion, especially before the Age of Reason. Usury actually gets condemned in ten books of the Bible, spanning both the Old Testament and the New Testament. Here's an example of what it has to say on the subject, this is from Exodus 22:25-27:
"If you lend money to any of My people who are poor among you, you shall not be like a moneylender to him; you shall not charge him interest. If you ever take a neighbor's garment as a pledge, you shall return it to him before the sun goes down. For that is his only covering, it is his garment for his skin. What will he sleep in? And it will be that when he cries out to me I will hear because I am Gracious."

Rep. Jay Inslee of 1st CD and Rep. Adam Smith of 9th CD (both of whom I actually liked) have sold out the little guy in favor of credit card companies.

Noam Scheiber’s blog at the New Republic Online alerted me to this ourtage.

House New Democrat Coalition (moderate Democrats in the house) have written a letter urging the speaker of the house to bring bankruptcy reform legislation to the House floor as soon as the Senate completes its consideration of the bill. (This is significant, because once it is brought to the floor the Republican majority will surely pass it.)

Why does this matter?

Well as Noam writes:
This magazine and multiple other opinion outlets on the center-left have written at length about how the bill in question is a truly contemptible piece of legislation. Worse, there is no plausible political rationale for supporting it other than to appease credit card companies.

As Paul Krugman pointed out today, the bill makes no exceptions for families wiped out by medical expenses (which make up more than half of all bankruptcies) or for bankruptcy cases involving active-duty soldiers, yet it leaves any number of loopholes in place for large corporations. The political imagery here so obviously benefits anyone who'd oppose the bill you're left to conclude that the only way a congressman could possibly support it is through a craven and reflexive willingness to do the bidding of big business

Some of my best friends are unemployed. No seriously. This job market? Is shit. It's been shit. For a while now. Personally I'm waiting it out by way of going to grad school-- they tell me I'll make more money this way. By getting, you know, more edumacated.

The thing is, the unemployed people I know-- and probably many of your own unemployed friends-- are screwed, but they're really only a little bit screwed. Because they've got some education, some job skills, the ability to erase all traces of Internet porn from their work computers. We're young. We're flexible. We'll adapt.

But there are a lot of unemployed people out there who don't have what it takes to bounce back after getting laid off, or to move up and out of their minimum wage shit job(s). And this economy is all about adaptability. America used to be the land of Northeastern heavy industry. Then the industry got lighter and moved to the South, as did the workers. Then came outsourcing-- and not the white collar tech job outsourcing that everyone is whining about right now. It was blue collar unionized factory job outsourcing, and it left behind a whole lot of people who knew how to weld a part or work a sewing machine, and not much else.

Adapt or die, darlings. When the dot com boom went bust*, the laid-off techies of the Internets were able to pay career counselors and life coaches to teach them how to reinvent themselves. That's great for them-- but who helps the laid-off janitor or machinist or person who never got that whole working a steady job thing figured out in the first place reinvent themselves?

Why isn’t the Jeff Gannon saga in the national media? How close to 1500 dead military men and women are we in Iraq? What are we doing about nukes in North Korea? My friends, these are instructive questions, but we have a far more pressing issue afoot: the Downfall of Social Security. It’s hip. It’s fun. It’s this season’s WMD.

Likely this could be filed below grant’s recent posting, but it’s my first day on the blog and I couldn’t resist my very own byline. Besides, what I now offer merits its own attention: perspective. It’s something sadly, profoundly missing from the daily dialogue.

Anticipating the mainstream press will continue to pelt us with visions of the impending, ruinous situation, I thought I would offer a bit of perspective from the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities as ballast for the rolling journey ahead.

The teaser: “The tax cuts and the prescription drug bill were the President’s two principal domestic priorities during his first term. Together, these policies will cost at least five times as much over the next 75 years as the Social Security shortfall (if the tax cuts are made permanent).”

Interesting.

If SocSec is small potatoes compared to the Bush tax plan and other such schemes, from where is this incessant buzz coming? My man Hubert Locke seems to have some thoughts to this end.

It all begs the question: Why is this game so easy to win?

I just watched this flash video through the Washington Post web site. If you have 5 minutes and can turn on the sound at your computer, you might find it interesting. It lays out what the deficit is, what the budget process looks like and how these things come together.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/politics/interactives/budget101/