The Steak & Martini Liberal

Changing words in news articles is fun!

2008-04-03T15:39:00.001-07:00

[original located at: http://www.cnn.com/2008/POLITICS/04/01/congress.housing/index.html]

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- Senate leaders have agreed to move forward on stalled legislation aimed at easing the impact of gambling losses in the state of Nevada, the chamber's top Republican and Democrat announced Tuesday.

"The time has come for us to legislate, not continue our bickering," Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nevada, told reporters.

Despite the increasing pressure to find solutions to gambling debt, Senate leaders had been locked in a procedural stalemate over how to take up the Democratic-authored bill.

"Every day Congress and the president do nothing is another day closer to another American family losing the ability to enjoy casino gaming," Reid had warned on the Senate floor.

The bill would, for the first time, allow bankruptcy judges to reset a player's account with the casino. It would also provide $4 billion for local communities to buy and refurbish underused gaming properties; provide $200 million for counseling to help gamblers avoid debt; give tax breaks for the gaming industry; and improve the disclosure and transparency of gaming rules.

Republicans threatened to block the bill, as they did before the recess, unless Democrats gave in to their demands to allow votes on certain GOP amendments.

Most Republicans back a proposal by Republican Sens. Kit Bond of Missouri and Johnny Isakson of Georgia. Its key feature is a $15,000 tax credit for people who take over the casino accounts for in debt players.

The bill shares other aspects of the Democratic proposal -- but not the controversial bankruptcy provision, which Republicans vehemently oppose. They argue it will force casinos to increase interest rates across the board.

Democrats "propose an ill-conceived plan that will substantially increase monthly interest payments on everyone who gambles in a Nevada casino," Republican Leader Mitch McConnell said. "There is no way this proposal is going to fly. If Democrats want to help players, they need to work with Republicans on proposals that will draw substantial bipartisan support."

But Democrats complained Monday that Republicans also want votes on amendments related to nongaming issues, such as extending President Bush's 2001 and 2003 tax cuts. A GOP leadership aide doubted such amendments would be offered by his party.

A Democratic leadership aide predicted political pressure during the break might pry loose enough Republican votes to get over the 60-vote hurdle needed Tuesday to begin the debate.

The aide pointed to Republican Sen. Mel Martinez of Florida, who told CNN he "would hope" Republicans and Democrats would "come together with a package of solutions that are realistic about those things which can be done."

Martinez, a former secretary of commerce, is frustrated by the lack of action and wants to find a way to move the bill, an aide said.

Even Republican Leader McConnell said Congress must act to prevent the crisis from worsening: "I think it's safe to say there is interest on both sides in moving forward," he told Reid on the floor.

Its a long story...

2006-10-24T14:01:00.000-07:00

--AZ-Sen: Jon Kyl

--AZ-01: Rick Renzi

--AZ-05: J.D. Hayworth

--CA-04: John Doolittle

--CA-11: Richard Pombo

--CA-50: Brian Bilbray

--CO-04: Marilyn Musgrave

--CO-05: Doug Lamborn

--CO-07: Rick O'Donnell

--CT-04: Christopher Shays

--FL-13: Vernon Buchanan

--FL-16: Joe Negron

--FL-22: Clay Shaw

--ID-01: Bill Sali

--IL-06: Peter Roskam

--IL-10: Mark Kirk

--IL-14: Dennis Hastert

--IN-02: Chris Chocola

--IN-08: John Hostettler

--IA-01: Mike Whalen

--KS-02: Jim Ryun

--KY-03: Anne Northup

--KY-04: Geoff Davis

--MD-Sen: Michael Steele

--MN-01: Gil Gutknecht

--MN-06: Michele Bachmann

--MO-Sen: Jim Talent

--MT-Sen: Conrad Burns

--NV-03: Jon Porter

--NH-02: Charlie Bass

--NJ-07: Mike Ferguson

--NM-01: Heather Wilson

--NY-03: Peter King

--NY-20: John Sweeney

--NY-26: Tom Reynolds

--NY-29: Randy Kuhl

--NC-08: Robin Hayes

--NC-11: Charles Taylor

--OH-01: Steve Chabot

--OH-02: Jean Schmidt

--OH-15: Deborah Pryce

--OH-18: Joy Padgett

--PA-04: Melissa Hart

--PA-07: Curt Weldon

--PA-08: Mike Fitzpatrick

--PA-10: Don Sherwood

--RI-Sen: Lincoln Chafee

--TN-Sen: Bob Corker

--VA-Sen: George Allen

--VA-10: Frank Wolf

--WA-Sen: Mike McGavick

--WA-08: Dave Reichert

Got baseball cards?

2006-05-30T14:08:00.000-07:00

The Republicans' energy plan, drilling up our National parks looking for oil, is no different than an out-of-work person looking around their house for stuff to sell on eBay.

I guess once Alask is pumped dry, they'll finally have to ask us to reduce our oil usage.

Try, try, Trident again

2006-05-29T11:05:00.000-07:00

The New York Times reports that the Pentagon is pushing a plan to replace the nuclear weapons in submarine-launched Trident 2 long range missiles with conventional payloads.

The problem with this, of course, is that that whole "MAD" thing that kept us safe for 50+ years would immediately break down. Why? Consider this scenario: We somehow find Bin Laden over in Afghanistan, and we launch a modified Trident 2 from a sub towards him. From Russia's prospective, they see a "nuke" being launched towards them. They can either trust that its our non-nuclear replacement, or they can do what they've trained 50 years to do, which is launch a full-scale, nuclear response.

Not a pretty picture.

Keep in mind that Russia and China would certainly like to have this capability too (for whatever targets they are interested in). The article talks about how the US and Russia have stalled in talks to somehow share early detection information or something to prevent misunderstandings...

So how about this as a solution: Give China, Russia, and the US this long-range, conventional missle technology. Then, if one of us wants to hit a remote target, we ask the other nation to launch their missile on our behalf.

That way, they don't have to trust our early detection stuff, and they will know exactly what is in the weapon, since they're the ones launching it.

I've always suspected this about the GOP

2006-05-27T13:02:00.000-07:00

If you visit http://www.gop.com/GOPAgenda/, you get:

The answer for saddened liberals...

2006-05-04T00:10:00.000-07:00

After watching years of sad, sad news, I've finally figured out the solution.

Now, I only watch E! News

Trust me, once you go E! News, you never go back...

Delay in posting...

2006-03-22T21:31:00.000-08:00

Motorcycle accidents suck...

I'm ok though.

I'll be back soon with more Steak and Martini Liberal. -gp

It works for our bodies...

2006-03-02T20:55:00.000-08:00

So why not try it for our souls?

We need priest practitioners. These would be men (or women!) that would be able to perform certain clerical duties. They would be able to say mass, perform the sacrament of the Eucharist, and do baptisms. They would operate under the "license" of a full priest.

Rural communities depend on nurse practitioners. Don't we all need priest practitioners?

PS: It would be a great face-saving way for the Church to finally acknowledge that women are humans, and not just property and/or animals.

We're not at war, dammit!

2006-02-26T15:36:00.000-08:00

"Make no mistake about it, we are at war,"

-- George W. Bush; statement to conservative state legislators, Aug. 6, 2005

Here is a challenge to every Republican out there who claims "we are at war" as justification for whatever Bush wants these days: Ask your representative to actually, you know, declare war. Why wouldn't a GOP-controlled congress want to declare war? Maybe, and here's just a thought, they're not serious about it.

Straight shooting

2006-02-13T19:31:00.000-08:00

It is great fun talking about how the Vice President graduated from scowling to shooting other people.

But really. Instead of talking about this one-day story, let's get back to talking about important things. Like how completely incompetent this administration is at bringing Al Qaeda to justice.

It's the law, stupid

2006-01-30T09:44:00.000-08:00

Memo to all bloggers, pundits, and most importantly, to all journalists:

The NSA scandal is not a scandal because the administration violated our civil liberties. That is an interesting and disturbing effect of their actions, but not what makes this scandal unique.

It's the fact that the President knowingly violated Federal law.

You can't impeach someone for the former. You can for the latter.

The two numbers

2006-01-25T21:35:00.000-08:00

Republicans and Democrats talk a lot of about taxes. And the role of Government, and what our priorities are. (Haha! Well, in an ideal world). At the end of the day, the dialog usually boils down to name calling and "Big government liberals" and "small government conservatives". Lies all. For me, I think it boils down to two numbers.

Just two numbers.

Let's look at the first one, shall we? See, every person in the country, if you sat them down and asked them to think about it awhile, has a sortof mental picture of the ideal government. D's, R's, independents, libertarians--all picture some sort of government. Some want just national defense. Others want court systems and a postal system. Still others want programs to help the less fortunate. All of these things cost money, and thus, every person in the country has in their head a cost figure for their ideal government. We'll call that number the "total gov't spending as a percent of the GDP". To make it easy, we'll shorten that to C, for Cost.

Apparently, this Republican congress (and due to the lack of any vetos, the President), have in their head 20.2. They think that the ideal government should cost 20.2% of the GDP (for 2004). Under Clinton and a D congress it was 22.1. For you, maybe it is 10.0%, or 35.3%

Now, on to the other number. That's the amount of money you bring in--we'll call that "total gov't revenue as a percent of GDP". Let's shorten that to I, for income.

Here is where it breaks down. To be fiscally sound (dare I say it? "Conservative"), you need to make sure that I is greater than or equal to C. That's it. Pretty simple.

How is our "conservative" congress doing in this regard? Well, for them, I is 15.7.

Sigh.

They keep cutting the "I" part of the equation. Tax cuts, tax cuts, tax cuts. They are really good at cutting the "I" part (except for cell phone bills and airline tickets... See my previous post on that subject)

They keep promising to cut the "C", part, but never do.

Why, exactly, are they conservative again?

My lobbying reform plan

2006-01-23T14:45:00.000-08:00

Here is my plan for cleaning up the legalized bribery going on in Washington. It is extremely simple:

Private corporations may not give money to any politician, political party, or organization which represents the above mentioned groups (e.g., "Swift boat veterans for Truth")
Individuals may give money to said groups, however their money goes into a blind trust. This prevents political parties and politicians from knowing the source of the money

That's it. Enjoy your newfound democracy.

And tax cuts for all?

2006-01-21T13:08:00.000-08:00

Conservatives love cutting taxes. Even more than they love Jesus. [Joke courtesy of Bill Maher]

We all know about how the richest 1% got their taxes cut down while inflation-adjusted hourly wages have gone down 0.5% Blah blah blah. The blogsphere has covered this to death.

I've got three questions for conservatives:

1) I just got my W-2, and my taxes went up this year. WTF? (and by the way, I'm definately in a lower income bracket)

2) How come certain airplane tickets have up to 30% taxes added? Cut airline taxes, help out airlines... what could be better?

3) Why does my cellphone bill have 25% in taxes?

Us liberals don't like taxes, but we realize that they are necessary to live in a decent society. What drives us crazy about conservatives is that for all their tax-cutting talk, our taxes aren't going down--they are going up. It is only the uber-wealthy that benefit.

Spin all you want, my W-2 doesn't lie.

All our base are belong to them

2006-01-15T13:04:00.000-08:00

Republicans are great at energizing their base, and offending everyone else. The house leadership thinks nothing of making hay out of Terri Shiavo, creationalism, homophobia and the marriage ammendment. On the left, though, we obsess about all Americans, not just those that are part of our base.

For example, from Salon.com's War Room:

Samuel Alito is by no means extremely popular with the American people -- but a Fox/Opinion Dynamics poll taken after the hearings began shows that substantially more people support his confirmation than his defeat, and Rasmussen's daily polling shows that his support has increased, rather than decreased, during the hearings.

"Substantially more people".

"popular with the American people".

Notice the difference between that type of thinking and the play-to-the-base red meat the R's throw out to their base?

Happy 2006!

2005-12-31T22:20:00.000-08:00

Happy 2006 from the Steak & Martini Liberal!

I swear...

2005-12-29T11:10:00.000-08:00

Alito has apparently proposed arguments that the President may violate the constitution so long as he/she intends to "protect" it. Recall that the President swears to "preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution of the United States".

Which courageous senator or congressman/woman is going to amend that oath to include "obey"?

When, as a country, did we get to the point of "debating" whether the President has to obey the law?

That's right! It was just after our "debate" about torture.

Now is the time

2005-12-28T21:59:00.000-08:00

It is beyond time for a courageous congressman/congresswoman to lower the drinking age to 18.

Think about returning from Fallujah, and having a bartender tells you you're too young to drink.

Alternatively, we could raise the enlistment age to 21. That works for me.

What's good for the goose...

2005-12-02T21:54:00.000-08:00

The Vice President is running around the country pleading that our torture, um, I mean interrogation techniques are totally legit and legal.

Which begs the question: If those interrogation techniques are legal, why don't we let our local police departments use them?

Why don't we let the LAPD torture drug dealers and kidnappers to find out what they know? Why don't we stash those accused (but not convicted) individuals in secret "black site" jails?

The Vice President has already said these techniques are acceptable and appropriate.

Forest, trees, missing

2005-11-18T19:30:00.000-08:00

Think for a minute--about the amount of paper, the number of articles, the number of blog posts, and the hours of debate--about the Iraq war. Specifically, the intelligence failures (if you're an R), or the misuse of intelligence (for I's and D's).

It all misses the point.

Which is the President's "Pre-emptive war docrine".

Right now the administration is parroting talking points about 1) how the D's had the same intelligence as the White House, and that they went along, so you know, every thing is Kosher, 2) how the CIA misled the poor White House, who shouldn't be responsible, and 3) Iraq totally had WMD, btw.

This is the thing about waging war based on predicting the future: you have to be right.

None of this "the CIA said..." and "D's agreed too, so nobody is to blame."

I'm all for pre-emptive war. As long as you're right.

In high school a teacher of mine had a rule about kids who threw paper balls into the trash from their seat. If you got it in, no problem. If you missed, detention.

Why should the President be held to a lower standard?

Solving the wrong problem

2005-11-16T11:06:00.000-08:00

eVoting machines are the answer... but what is the question?

In the 2000 election, Florida was on the hanging and pregnant chad it list. All eyes were glued to election workers holding ballots up to glaring florescent lights, looking for what the voter intended. Each possibility was examined in the courts: "What if they punched out the chad for one candidate, but only sortof punched out the other one?" "What if the ballot has a dimpled chad, and the punch didn't go all the way through?"

The list went on and on.

Which brings me to the topic of this post. The fiasco in Florida in 2000 was caused by ballots which did not clearly indicate the voter's intent. In other words, the ballot was not clear and consistent. The question we might want to answer becomes "How do we build a voting system that makes sure that the ballots, when cast, will easily and clearly identify the voter's intent?"

Unfortunately, current eVoting machines do not answer that question. They answer the question, "How can we count votes slightly faster?"

A machine that answers the first question is easy to build. Simply have the voter select the candidates they want, review their selection on the screen, and hit the "Print" button. A full-sized optical scan ballot would be printed out, the voter could examine it, and then put it in the ballot box. No hanging chads, no holding the ballot up to the light. No worries about Diebold, or tampering, or anything.

But hey, at least with current machines, we get the results at 9:30pm, instead of 10:30 or 11. Isn't that worth the trouble?

The 2/3rds rule

2005-11-11T10:20:00.000-08:00

I've got an answer to our political troubles that's way better than campaign finance reform (which, keep in mind, would be a HUGE advancement for democracy).

Let's make it so that to win an election, you need 2/3rds of the vote. If neither candidate gets that much, we have a run-off election. If after the runoff, neither candidate has 2/rds, then the political parties have to pick a new, better candidate.

I know what you're thinking: "Who in the world would get more than 52% of the vote? Isn't 52% a landslide these days? A mandate?"

Well, once the candidate wins, they are supposed to represent 100% of their constituents.

So the least we can do is have 'em go 2 for 3, at least as practice for when they have to go 3 for 3.

The bootstrap problem

2005-11-09T13:38:00.000-08:00

Yesterday I served as a poll clerk in Alameda County. More on that in a future post.

Many people made sarcastic comments about the Diebold electronic voting machines. Trying to be as apolitical as possible (I have a LOT to say about those machines personally...), I responded as follows.

Voter: So where is the accountability here? Why are we using a machine with no paper record?

Me: All of the machines used in this election were certified by the Secretary of State, who is accountable to the voters, given that he is an elected official.

which seemed the best answer I could give at the time. But when I got home, it occured to me: how does electoral accountability work when the issue at hand is the electoral process? A classic bootstrap problem, and probably the best argument against the machines.

PS: After working in a run down gym for 14 hours, it gets really hard to smile when voters imply that I'm part of a conspiracy with Diebold to manipulate the election. We were given name badges that said "Election official: how may I help you?". They should have said: "You elected the person who chose the eVoting machines: Blame yourself!"

Maybe the R's should just disband the court?

2005-11-02T13:39:00.000-08:00

In the right wing's assault on the Judiciary as a concept, the frame du jour is that we need strict constructionalists and origionalists. They claim that judges should simply apply the law as written and not "legislate from the bench".

My question is: if applying the law was such a no-brainer, why do we need 9 supreme court judges? Why not 1? Actually, now that you mention it, why do we need an entire appeals court system as well?

That's the problem with Lakoff-style debate framing: your frames often mean more than you think they do. The right wingers should just say what they mean: we want judges who are extremely conservative. The left already knows that, and the right would probably support them even more if they talked in that manner.

Keep that door shut!

2005-10-27T12:43:00.000-07:00

The election of President Bush (43) has unclogged a logjam of Republican pipe dreams.

Ideas that were locked away in the hearts of conservative think tank members are out and about; they're here, and they're ~~queer~~ uh, well, you get the picture.

And what's come out sure isn't pretty.

This administration pushes tax cuts during a time of war, grabs ahold of the 3rd rail with both hands, and ignores Generals with decades of military experience and the trust of President Bush (41).

I think the downward spiral we've been seeing from the GOP is one of the best arguments against having one political party rule everything. One party rule opens the door for the crazy ideas that, politically speaking, should stay in the closet.

People drunk with power act a lot like people who are just plain drunk: they make fools of themselves.

I would have thought it went without saying...

2005-10-21T12:06:00.000-07:00

I signed up to be a poll worker for the Special Election on Nov 8. Yesterday I went to the training course at the Alameda registrar of voters facility near the Oakland airport. The training course was nice, the instructor was good, and the facility was clean. Yet, in the restroom, was a sign that read:

Do not pee on the floor

My brother-in-law has often said that they wouldn't have put a sign up unless their had been a problem.

Why pay 20% when you can pay 28%?

2005-10-19T13:32:00.000-07:00

On Sunday night I had the pleasure of listening to a conservative AM radio talk show. I live to tell the story, miaculously, but that is beside the point.

One of the callers was telling the host that he was sick and tired of "libruls" and their damn IRS. The host and caller agreed that what they really wanted was a flat tax, or better yet, a national sales tax. The caller said that he was a "regular" person who was solidly middle/lower-middle class.

It is a testament to the right's disinformation campaign/noise machine that they can get people who work for a paycheck to complain about a progressive tax system. I understand the ivory tower debates about what type of tax system we want, etc. But at the end of the day, people (I assume) want to pay as little taxes as possible (myself included). So despite the fact that flat taxes/national sales taxes would almost certainly raise the caller's tax rate, he prefers it.

Amazing. The progressive movement is going to have to focus on countering 30 years, and billions of dollars, of right-wing think tank money/media machine to convince the caller that maybe he really wants a lower tax rate (via progressive taxation) rather than a higher tax rate (via flat tax/national sales tax).

Indictments? Ehh...

2005-10-17T22:03:00.000-07:00

The liberal blogsphere is abuzz with reports from e.g., The Washington Post that Cheney might be the focus of the leak investigation.

Anyone who lived through Iran/Contra (ok, ok, I may have been in short pants at the time...) shouldn't get too excited about rumors of the activities of the special prosecutor. These things have a way of fizzling out.

I'd give it a rating of: rare

Let's all have Bald Eagle omelettes!

2005-10-16T21:12:00.000-07:00

We've waited a long time, but thanks to the tireless efforts of Richard Pombo (R-CA) and Dennis Cardoza (D-CA), the wait is over. They have basically gutted the Endangered Species Act of 1973.

That means its time once again for America's favorite treat: Bald Eagle omelettes!

5 oz. cooked, defeathered Bald Eagle
6 large eggs
1 Tablespoon cream
1/2 - 1 teaspoon herbs, chopped
2 Tablespoons unsalted butter
Pepper

Beat the eggs lightly with the heavy cream. Heat the butter in a non-stick frying pan and add eggs. Once the eggs are set, add the eagle meat. Fold eggs over and flip occasionally. Serve warm.

Please ask your GOP representatives for other tasty recipes now available, thanks to their elimination of the endangered species act. (Cookbook will be available soon)