MORNING MESSAGE: Apple Pie is American, But Apple Computer Isn’t

OurFuture.org’s Richard Eskow: “We should treat Apple and other formerly American multinationals as neutral entities with whom we can cooperate at times for our mutual benefit. We should encourage them to invest in the United States and hire American workers, as we do with other non-American corporations. What we shouldn’t do is treat them as US corporations. The very concept is probably obsolete in the multinational arena.”

Apple Testimony Doesn’t Add Up

Apple lied, says NYT’s Joe Nocera: “[CEO Tim Cook] said that the low taxes Apple pays overseas is on the profits of its overseas sales. Not to put too fine a point on it, but this was a flat-out lie.”

Apple can’t square its position on immigrant visas with its tax avoidance, argues TNR’s Alec MacGillis: “If Apple really cares about a shortage of homegrown engineering talent, then it should pay taxes to fund the institutions that could address that problem.

Immigration Reform Pressured From Left and Right

Sen. Marco Rubio seeks further changes to win additional GOP support for immigration reform. NYT: “The current bill sets up a sequence of new border measures that must be in place before illegal immigrants can gain legal status and eventually citizenship. Under the current bill, the Department of Homeland Security is directed to produce and carry out the border security plan … [Rubio] would take the authority away from the department and move the responsibility to Congress.”

Rubio is not alone. Politico: “Many of the almost two dozen Republicans identified as possible supporters by the Gang of Eight are demanding changes that would make the bill significantly more conservative. They want stricter border security, tighter control on government benefits for newly-documented immigrants and tougher requirements along the pathway to citizenship. Go too far on any of those elements, and liberal Democrats — who aren’t thrilled with many aspects of the bill already — begin to pull away.”

Dems split over proposed health care language in House draft immigration bill. Politico: “The House Democratic Caucus chairman knew that he couldn’t endorse a proposal to deny citizenship to undocumented immigrants who took government health subsidies … [Rep. Xavier] Becerra is torn between two roles: his part in the bipartisan group and his position in Democratic leadership, where he is under pressure from a progressive caucus not to give too much ground to the Republicans.”

House Dem leaders unsure if backing bipartisan House bill helps or hurts. The Hill: “…some Democrats and outside advocates are arguing the party should rally behind the Senate bill and pressure House Republican leaders to bring it to the floor once it passes the upper chamber. Yet some members of the bipartisan House group are worried … that walking away from the bipartisan agreement could kill immigration reform altogether.”

More than 100 conservative economists back immigration reform. LAT: “The economists cited the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office in noting that an immigration overhaul could increase average economic growth over the next decade by 0.1% and reduce the federal deficit by more than $300 billion.”

Trade Talks Threaten Wall St. Reform

“Wall Street Seeks Dodd-Frank Changes Through Trade Talks” reports Bloomberg: “‘The trade talks could easily become a Trojan Horse,’ said Marcus Stanley, the policy director for Americans for Financial Reform … In separate letters on the EU and Asia-Pacific pacts, the industry coalition said negotiators should draft rules limiting what regulators can do in the name of protecting financial stability. The letters also urged using the pacts to curb extra-territorial rules that can reach beyond U.S. borders, like ones currently being considered on financial derivatives.”

Justice Dept. hasn’t examined whether bank prosecutions would harm the economy, reports HuffPost: “Testimony by a top Justice official and fresh documents made public on Wednesday during a House financial services committee hearing revealed that financial regulators and the Treasury Department did not provide warnings to prosecutors weighing the economic consequences or fallout in the financial system of criminal indictments against large financial groups … The hearing comes as DOJ, Treasury and financial regulators battle perceptions that they consider some large financial institutions are either too big or too important to the economy to fail.”

Breakfast Sides

“Harry Reid mulling filibuster overhaul” reports Politico: “Publicly, Reid has been coy about whether he’ll try to alter the Senate’s hugely controversial rules to help confirm President Barack Obama’s nominees … But it’s clear the majority leader wants to get something done and find 51 Democrats to support … changing the rules so executive branch nominees can no longer be blocked by filibusters requiring 60 votes to break.”

Tesla Motors pays back government loan nine years early. NYT: “‘Tesla is repaying early and it’s a great vindication,’ said Greg Kats, president of Capital-E, a firm that invests in clean-energy companies. ‘Tesla has really helped push the Big Three automakers down the energy efficiency track.’ The Energy Department on Wednesday said that losses on its loans were equivalent to 2 percent of its $34 billion portfolio.”

CBO examines carbon tax. WSJ: “Instituting a carbon tax could help reduce the deficit and ‘produce incremental benefits’ for the environment, but could also raise the cost of many goods and services … the economy as a whole would benefit if the tax was used to reduce the deficit.”

The Senate is getting ready to vote on five nominees to the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB). They should confirm the whole package and get the NLRB functioning again. They are also voting on several other nominees from judges to cabinet positions. If Republicans filibuster to obstruct these, it is time to fix the filibuster. We just had an election and the results were decisive. Republicans must stop obstructing democracy.

A “Full Package” Of NLRB Nominees

President Obama has nominated 5 people to serve on the NLRB. Two of these are “management side” (i.e. anti-union) Republicans. Labor and other groups are urging the Senate to confirm all of these nominees as a “package” so the NLRB can get back to work. Working people need and deserve a functioning NLRB, and confirmation of the “full package” of nominees will provide that stability

400 professors and 125 leaders nationwide have signed letters urging the Senate to confirm these nominees and get the NLRB functioning.

More than two dozen women’s organizations have also written urging confirmation of the nominees, (from AFL-CIO blog),

The National Labor Relations Board has long worked to ensure the rights of employees to bargain collectively, if they choose to do so. This work is particularly meaningful for women… Unions have always been important to advancing women’s economic security. Union wage and benefit structures are typically more transparent than those for non-union workplaces, which in turn helps to decrease wage discrimination… working families need a functioning, fully-staffed National Labor Relations Board to protect their right to an important strategy in the fight for economic security: collective bargaining.

NLRB Not Functioning

Republican Senators have been obstructing the NLRB from functioning, on purpose, so companies can fire union organizers, etc. The make more money by keeping unions out so wages are low, benefits are minimal-to-none, and unemployment high. But this is bad for 99% of us and bad for the economy. The country needs these nominees confirmed so we can start getting back to normal.

Watch this video of Marcus Hedger describing how he was treated and then illegally fired for union activities. The NLRB ruled that he should get his job back and the company just ignored that, saying the NLRB doesn’t have enough Board members to enforce the rules. So he has lost his house. The company broke the law, then ignored the NLRB’s ruling, and this is happening all across the country — more than 22,000 workers — while Republicans keep the NLRB from functioning.

Other Nominees

The Senate is also awaiting confirmation of other nominees, like Thomas Perez to head the Department of Labor and Gina McCarthy to the Environmental Protection Agency. Republicans have already filibustered Caitlin J. Halligan, keeping her from becoming a federal appeals court judge. Next week the Senate will vote on the nomination of Richard Cordray to the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. (Republicans have pledged to obstruct any nominee to head up that agency.)

It is essential that these nominees are confirmed so the government can function for We the People. The obstruction has to stop.

Obstruction And Filibuster

The Senate is dysfunctional and needs reform. Republicans are obstructing everything as a strategy to turn Americans against President Obama and against government itself. As of the end of the last Congressional session there were had been more than 380 filibusters. Now there have been several more.

We just had a decisive election but nothing is moving forward. This is intentional obstruction of democracy. It is time to fix the Senate.

Fix The Senate Now is a coalition of organizations asking that Senate rules be changed to make it more difficult to filibuster. Specifically, restore the rule to make them talk. If they feel the need to filibuster — and filibusters are sometimes the right thing to do — they should do what the public expects and stand there and talk, slowing the process and allowing the public to rally and show their approval or disapproval of what is going on. That is how democracy should function.

What You Can Do

Visit Fix The Senate Now (also on Facebook).

The AFL-CIO is asking people to “text NLRB to 235246 and ask the Senate to confirm the board nominations now. (Standard message and data rates may apply.) You also may call your senators at 1-888-264-6154.” Also click this to “Tell your senators to confirm President Obama’s NLRB nominations to make sure workers’ rights are protected.

The Communications Workers of America (CWA) and is uring the Senate to “Give Us 5” — “even if that means changing the Senate rules on nominations to break through the gridlock.” See their fact sheet on this.

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The Senate Heath, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee will vote Thursday on President Obama’s nomination of Thomas Perez, currently head of the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division, to head the Department of Labor. There are a majority of Democrats on this committee, so Republicans will not be able to obstruct this nomination from making it out of the committee. But then Perez moves to the full Senate for a confirmation vote, where he faces an almost-certain obstructive filibuster.

In recent days Republicans have blocked Environmental Protection agency nominee Gina McCarthy by boycotting a committee vote. With New Jersey Sen. Frank Lautenberg out due to illness, this kept the committee from having sufficient members to hold the vote. They are also blocking judges from confirmation (and even nomination). Earlier they filibustered Caitlin J. Halligan, nominated to the federal appeals court judge in the District of Columbia. They are filibustering other nominees as well as refusing to participate in the nomination process entirely (usually senators recommend nominees from their state to the president but Republicans are refusing to participate), leaving 82 judicial vacancies.

The public is starting to become aware of the extent of the obstruction that has been occurring – Republicans filibustering everything and everyone. So Republicans are moving from blatant obstruction to obstruction-under-cover, like the boycott of the committee vote on McCarthy. One new tactic is to shower nominees with written questions — up to numbers in the thousands — and then complaining that they either didn’t get sufficient responses or are not satisfied with the responses they did get. EPA nominee McCarthy received over 1,000 questions, 653 from just one senator.

So Perez will likely be obstructed from becoming the Labor Secretary, McCarthy will continue to be blocked for EPA and crucial judicial vacancies will remain unfilled.

And then there is the situation with the NLRB… Republicans are also obstructing nominations to the National Labor Relations Board, to keep the agency from being able to function. Please click through to Next Week’s Opportunity To Get Our Labor Board Operating Again for the story.

It is up to all of us to help make the public aware of the obstruction that is occurring. Then the public can do their part, by either putting pressure on Republicans to stop the obstruction, or letting them know they approve. Which one do you think the public will choose?
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Senate Republican obstruction of President Obama’s nominee for secretary of labor, Thomas Perez, got a strong rebuke from a coalition of Latino organizations that held a march and rally on Wednesday to call for an end to the filibuster threats to his nomination.

“We are here to put forward our full support for Tom Perez as the Secretary of Labor. He is eminently qualified for the post after a distinguished career in law and public service,” said Janet Murguia, President and CEO of the National Council of La Raza. Joining Murguia were representatives from the National Hispanic Leadership Agenda, CASA de Maryland, United Farm Workers and the Hispanic National Bar Association.

“Tom Perez is a respected and beloved leader in the Latino community. He has been a champion for Hispanic families, and we are here for him because he has been there for us,” Murguia said. “We urge the senators opposed to this nomination to stop their unconscionable delaying tactics and allowing this nomination to go forward. Tom deserves a vote, and we as a Latino community, are watching very closely.”

Perez is one of the dozens of Obama appointees who have fallen victim to the GOP’s obstructionism in the Senate. In Obama’s first term, the average nominee took more than four times as long to be confirmed as a nominee of President George W. Bush. The obstruction is only being ratcheted up in Obama’s second term; last week Republicans refused to show up at a committee hearing to stall the confirmation of Obama’s nominee to head the Environmental Protection Agency, Gina McCarthy. Republicans are using what they call Perez’ “ideological background” as their excuse to delay the nomination vote, which has been rescheduled for Thursday.

“It is totally unacceptable what is happening now in the Senate. There is enough proof to show that he is a qualified candidate to be our next Secretary of Labor, and to be on the front lines fighting for working families,” said Hector Sanchez, Chair of the National Hispanic Leadership Agenda.

Sanchez went on to point out the civil rights issues that Perez has taken up, including fighting the SB 1070 “papers please” immigration law in Arizona; HB 56 in Alabama, the nation’s “toughest immigration law”; and voting rights issues.

“Tom Perez can work with the entire society, not only with Latinos and workers, but with everybody,” said Gustavo Torres, Executive Director of CASA de Maryland, citing his work with migrant workers as well as high marks given to him by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, and his work with the largest employers in Maryland.

“Unfortunately, he faces opposition from some Senators who say that he has been to vigorous in enforcing our nation’s civil rights laws, said Peter Reyes, President of the Hispanic National Bar Association, “When Tom Perez was nominated to serve at the Justice Department, he was confirmed by a vote of 72-22, with seventeen Republican senators who voted for him, including nine who are still in the Senate today. Those senators voted for Tom Perez to do a job, he did his job and he did it well. Some senators will never vote for a Tom Perez, and that is fine, but they should not be blocking the rest of the Senate from an up-or-down vote.”

Yesterday I wrote about how obstructionist Republican tactics are hollowing out our government, hobbling its agencies, and diminishing its responsiveness to the needs and concerns of ordinary Americans. Nowhere is this more apparent than in our court system, where Republican obstructionism may have far-reaching, disastrous consequences for public policy. And, again, that’s just fine with Republicans.

With 82 empty seats in our federal district and appellate courts, nearly 10 percent of federal judicial seats are vacant, and have been since President Obama took office. That’s the longest period of judicial vacancies in 35 years. Judicial vacancies have increased 51 percent since President Obama took office, compared to declining by 65 percent and 34 percent under Bill Clinton and George W. Bush, respectively.

To make matters worse, 40 percent of those vacancies are in districts that have been declared “judicial emergencies” — where vacancies have persisted for 18 months or more, and the hundreds of backlogged cases wait for someone to rule on them. Businesses and individuals wait longer for their claims to be resolved.

In the 35 circuits/districts declared “judicial emergencies,” people are literally waiting for justice, and often end up settling for something less. Since federal judges must give priority to criminal cases (which have increased by 70% in the past ten years), they’re forced to delay civil cases for years. According to a People for the American Way fact sheet, “Overloaded Courts, Not Enough Judges: The Impact on Real People,” that means longer delays for Americans seeking justice in cases involving:

• discrimination
• civil rights
• predatory lending practices
• consumer fraud
• immigrant rights
• environment
• government benefits
• business contracts
• mergers
• copyright infringement

For Dave Calder, in Utah, it meant a long wait for justice after a faulty gas can exploded in his trailer, killing his daughter and leaving him with severe burns over a third of his body. He sued in 2007. His medical bills reached $200,000 during the 4 1/2 years that passed before the case reached a jury verdict.

For Elizabeth and Nicholas Power, in Illinois, it mean settling for far less, after suing their employer for sex discrimination in 2008. By the time the case finally reached jury selection in 2011, the judge had to halt the trial in order to deal with a growing docket of criminal cases. The Powers settled the case, rather than continue to wait for a trial

It’s not that there aren’t nominees waiting. There are 22 judicial nominees just waiting for Senate confirmation. Their confirmations would fill 1/4 of the vacancies on the bench, and increase diversity of the federal (9 are women.) Of the 22 nominees, 13 were unanimously approved by the Senate Judiciary Committee, and 15 are waiting for Senate floor votes. (The rest are still waiting for hearings.)

Judicial nominees are probably in for a long wait. Some may sail through committee, but just about all them can expect long waits. In fact, President Obama’s judicial nominees have waited much, much longer than those of his predecessors. Obama’s judicial nominees wait an average of 116 days for a floor vote in the Senate, compared to an average wait of 34 days for President George W. Bush’s nominees.

That’s just the average. Some waiting periods are “above average.”

• Richard Taranto waited 484 days to be confirmed to the Federal Circuit Court, by a 91-0 vote.
• William Kayatta waited 300 days to be confirmed for the First Circuit from Maine, 88-12.
• Robert Bacharach waited 263 days to be confirmed to the United States Court of Appeals, 93-0.
• Patty Schwartz waited 18 months to be confirmed to the United States Court of Appeals last month, after the president nominated her in October 2011.

It’s not that the Senate has not confirmed President Obama’s nominees. It’s just confirming fewer than it has under previous administrations; just 160 during Obama’s first term, compared to 200 during Bill Clinton’s fist term and 205 During George W. Bush’s first term. Late last year, the Senate went into recess without any action on 19 non-controversial nominees with support from both parties.

In just four years, judicial vacancies are up, confirmations are down, and delays are longer. What gives?

To hear Republican Senators tell it, the White House is at fault for presenting fewer nominees, due to time-consuming background checks and an incredibly extensive vetting process. But despite those factors, the president isn’t far behind his predecessors. Obama offered 215 nominations in his first term, compared to 247 in Bill Clinton’s first term, and 231 in George W. Bush’s first term.

It’s not up to the president alone to nominate potential judges. Senators have always had a role in the process. Republicans have simply refused to participate in recommending potential nominees.

On its face, the absence of nominees would appear to be a sign that President Barack Obama is slacking. After all, he is responsible for nominating judges, and he did put forward fewer nominees at the end of his first term than his two predecessors. But a closer look at data on judicial nominees, and conversations with people involved in the nomination process, reveals the bigger problem is Republican senators quietly refusing to recommend potential judges in the first place.

The process for moving judicial nominees is simple enough. A president takes the lead on circuit court nominees, while, per longstanding tradition, a senator kickstarts the process for district court nominees, which make up the bulk of the federal court system. Senators make recommendations from their home states, and the president works with them to get at least some of the nominees confirmed — the idea being that senators, regardless of party, are motivated to advocate for nominees from their states. The White House may look at other nominees on its own, but typically won’t move forward without input from the corresponding senators. Once a nominee is submitted to the Senate, he or she receives a vote in the Senate Judiciary Committee. If approved, the nomination heads to the Senate floor for a full vote.

According to a fact sheet from the Alliance for Justice, the majority of judicial vacancies without nominees are in states with one or more Republican senators (24 in states with two Republican senators, 17 in states with 1 Republican and one Democratic senator). Some of those states, like Texas and Arizona, have judicial vacancies that have been open for more than 1,000 days, without their Republican senators recommending potential nominees.

In total, 25 of the 61 vacancies without nominees are in states with two Republican senators, and another 14 are in states with one Republican senator and one Democratic senator. Seventeen are in states with two Democratic senators, and the remaining five are in other districts. That means many of the vacancies without nominees can be traced back to Senate Republicans who just aren’t participating in the process — a reality that flies in the face of Republicans’ chief complaint that Obama isn’t putting forward enough judicial nominees.

“It’s disingenuous at best for Republicans to complain about the number of judicial vacancies without nominees when Republicans themselves are responsible for the majority of those vacancies,” said Michelle Schwartz, director of Justice Programs for Alliance for Justice. “Nearly two-thirds of the vacancies without nominees are in states with at least one Republican senator, most of whom have consistently refused to work with the White House in good faith to identify qualified candidates.”

It’s not hard to figure out what Senate Republicans are up to here. Some of it’s just good old fashioned “payback,” for Democrats blocking nominations during the George W. Bush administration. But a big part of it is about blocking Obama’s effort to shift the rightward tilt of our courts, starting with powerful U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia, where four vacancies leave the second-most-powerful court in the country with a Republican majority. Republicans blocked Obama’s previous nominee for 2 1/2 years, before the nomination was finally withdrawn.

President Obama has pressed senators from both parties in recent weeks to confirm a new federal judge for one of the country’s most powerful courts, using an aggressive strategy to campaign for a judicial nominee whom White House officials consider a potentially crucial figure in boosting the president’s second-term agenda.

The effort reflects a new White House effort to tilt in its favor the conservative-dominated U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, which is one notch below the Supreme Court and considers many challenges to executive actions.

… Giving liberals a greater say on the D.C. Circuit is important for Obama as he looks for ways to circumvent the Republican-led House and a polarized Senate on a number of policy fronts through executive order and other administrative procedures.

The D.C. Circuit, with four Republican and three Democratic appointees, has four vacancies. It proved an obstacle for Obama during his first term – blocking proposed rules, for instance, to curb interstate air pollution and enhance cigarette labeling. The court also has put on hold dozens of cases relating to rules on workers’ rights, and it has challenged the president’s authority to name recess appointees.

For working Americans and their families, vacancies and the conservative majority on the D.C. Circuit Court has serious consequences. In January of this year, the conservative majority on the D.C. Circuit Court ruled that President Obama’s recess appointments to the National Labor Relations Board were invalid. The president resorted to the recess appointments after Republicans blocked nominations, to keep the NLRB from issuing rulings. In March, the court’s conservative majority overturned an NRLB requirement that employers put up posters explaining to workers that they have a right to unionize, because it violated employers “freedom of speech.”

Naturally, Republicans want to keep the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia stacked with conservatives.

The D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals is known for its conservative leanings. Republicans like it this way and have filibustered nominations of non-conservative-movement nominees to the court. Now four seats are vacant. An April editorial in the Washington Post, Republicans’ D.C. Circuit barricade, explains,

LAST MONTH Senate Republicans unjustifiably blocked an up-or-down confirmation vote on Caitlin J. Halligan, nominated by President Obama to fill one of four empty spots on one of the country’s top courts, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. Despite her impeccable credentials and the support of conservative legal luminaries, only a single Republican voted to break a GOP filibuster.

Again, Republicans are keeping four seats on this court vacant in order to keep these kinds of rulings coming.

In their continued efforts to block President Obama from doing what voters elected him to do — and what they failed to convince voters to elect them to do — Republicans are courting disaster for million of Americans, by keeping our nations courts and government agencies running on empty.

A NY Times editorial says Republicans need public pressure to get them to stop obstructing … everything. Meanwhile NY Times and other news coverage tends to obscure the source and extent of the problem and the damage it is doing to the country. Just months after a decisive election the country is paralyzed, the will of the people is thwarted and the information required to mobilize the pubic to take needed action is not forthcoming.

On Sunday, May 12, the NY Times ran an editorial, Who Can Take Republicans Seriously? The editorial concluded: “Only when the Republican Party feels public pressure to become a serious partner can the real work of governing begin.”

But news reports, even in the NY Times, tend to obscure the source of the obstruction, often even omitting the very words “filibuster” and “obstruction.”

For example, on the same day as that editorial the NY Times carried this story about Republican obstruction of nominees, with the headline instead calling it “delay:” G.O.P. Delays on Nominees Raise Tension. The story begins by telling the public there is “resistance in the Senate.”

President Obama’s latest cabinet-level nominees are running into deep resistance in the Senate, pitching Democrats and Republicans into another tense standoff over White House appointments.

What does the reader get from that? Government isn’t working, but nothing about why and especially who. The second paragraph — for those still reading — begins to tell some of the story.

Just days after Republicans used Senate rules to block two nominees from moving to the next step in the confirmation process despite the fact that both have the support of a majority of senators, Democrats are planning to force committee votes without Republican consent.

Finally, in the 3rd paragraph, the word “filibuster” comes up…

If Democrats do push the nominees through to the full Senate, they would almost certainly set off a Republican filibuster, which would jeopardize the confirmations and, for now, leave vacancies at the top of two federal agencies.

In the 6th paragraph the extent of the problem emerges,

Nominees at all levels of Washington’s bureaucracy — 117 of them in all, including cabinet secretaries, judges and members of obscure oversight boards — are facing delays.

The NY Times story was … OK. If you read it carefully you will eventually get the idea of what is going on in Washington. Compare to Politico, President Obama stares down the second-term curse, in which obstruction of democracy becomes, “clever and determined Republican resistance on nearly every front,” and, “Obama’s string of bad news.”

Surprisingly, Fox News is telling the story. Saturday’s From boycotts to delays, Republicans using tough tactics to disrupt Obama agenda gets right to the point,

Republicans are using tough new tactics to disrupt President Obama’s second-term agenda and appointments, beginning to step up their fight six months after the party’s presidential election defeat.

Minority Republicans in the Senate this week boycotted a committee vote on the president’s nominee for EPA administrator, Gina McCarthy. Separately, they delayed another panel vote on the president’s pick for Labor secretary, Thomas Perez, for a second time.

The moves were blasted by Democrats as continued obstruction by an obstinate party.

Of course, Fox understands that their readers want this obstruction, so they come out and tell it like it is.

In the United States the power is supposed to be vested in We, the People. But if We, the People aren’t adequately informed we can’t exercise our power to set things right.

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Right-wing obstructionism reached another low today when Republicans on the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee would not even show up to vote today on the nomination of Gina McCarthy to be director of the Environmental Protection Agency.

The spectacle was the equivalent of the six-year-old, willful diva-to-be slamming the doll on the ground and stalking off in defiance of a reasonable request from an adult, screaming, “I don’t want to!”

The ostensible reason Sen. David Vitter, R-La., gave for the tantrum in an official committee statement was that committee Republicans “had not received answers to their questions” from McCarthy and that the EPA “stonewalled” on four out of “five very reasonable and basic requests” in conjunction with McCarthy’s nomination.

But committee Democrats were quick to point out that in fact McCarthy had answered some 1,000 questions posed to her. The real issue, the Republicans’ statements make clear, is that they did not like the answers McCarthy gave.

Some of the “basic requests” Republicans on the committee are insisting on go to the fundamental ways the EPA goes about doing its job of protecting the environment. For example, committee Republicans want to change how the agency assesses the economic impact of its regulations, so as to minimize the positive economic effects of an environmental regulation on the economy as a whole while emphasizing the burden of a regulation on a particular set of businesses. That would enable coal-producing power plants, for example, to justify refusing to use costly air-cleaning technology or switching to a cleaner fuel, even though the benefits to society as a whole would outweigh the costs to the owners of the plants.

The Republicans couch their actions as a call for greater EPA transparency and accountability. John Walke wrote today on the National Resources Defense Council’s blog that the EPA under the Obama administration does have a public transparency record that ranges from “fair” to “deplorable.” But, he adds, “These Republican Senators appear to be counting on the public and media accepting at face value their transparency talking points, while not looking past them to examine the actual ingredients that make up the Senators’ self-concocted transparency bromide.”

To understand what’s underneath what Senate Republicans are calling “lifting the veil of secrecy” at the EPA, it helps to remember that Vitter is inheriting the mantle passed to him from previous Republican ranking member and climate-change denier Sen. James Inhofe, R-Okla. (“Man-made global warming is the greatest hoax ever perpetrated on the American people.”) It also helps to remember what passes for environmental “fact” among Republicans in the House of Representatives: Back in 2011 Rep. Joe Barton, R-Texas, asserted at a congressional hearing that there were no “medical negatives” from having large amounts of mercury, sulfur dioxide and other particulates from fossil fuels in the air.

Take a deep breath.

This is the latest in a long-running pattern of obstruction undertaken by the Republican minority in the Senate that has, among other things, meant that 83 high-level Obama administration government appointees, including 29 judges and three Cabinet secretaries, have yet to be confirmed by the Senate.

George Washington University scholar Sarah Binder told Reuters that with the 1,000 questions that Republicans pummeled McCarthy with – an apparent record for an executive branch nominee – “part of the goal is to wear down and make untenable the nomination” of McCarthy.

And it’s not just McCarthy. Republicans in the Senate are also stalling the nomination of Thomas Perez as Labor secretary and Ernest Moniz as Energy secretary.

Having not been able to win control over both houses of Congress and the White House legitimately through the ballot box, or steal control through voter suppression, Republicans think they can get their way by standing in the way of the majority that wants to serve the interests of the people who elected them.

That’s the reason why Sen. Bernie Sanders is using the stonewalling of McCarthy to renew his call to reform the Senate filibuster. He is quoted in Politico as saying, “If we bring this nomination to the floor and there’s a request for 60 votes — which we are not going to get — I think it is time for the Democratic leadership to do what the American people want, and that is to have a majority rule in the United States Senate.”

The Republican refusal to even show up at McCarthy’s confirmation vote today – after all, if they didn’t think she was qualified for the job based on the answers to their 1,000 questions, they could have simply voted “no” – was worse than those scenes of crazed, not-to-be-reasoned-with divas on cheap reality cable shows. We’re not simply talking about mind-numbing entertainment. This is eroding our democracy and the ability of government, in the case of the EPA, to protect the right of the people to live in a clean, healthful environment. The right-wing obstruction drama is a reality show that needs to be taken off the air before it does any more damage.

Republicans are refusing to do their part in governing the country. They say “do it our way or we won’t let anything get done at all.” Their agenda is all ideology, all the time (and of course helping the wealthy). As a result We the People are on our own. We get no jobs programs, and no infrastructure: no dams, roads, bridges, high-speed rail or even highways. It’s “My way and no highways.”

Republicans Took House In 2010

Since taking the House in 2010, “Tea Party” Republicans have passed a flurry of bills that are not about governing, but about destroying government. They have continually held important items hostage – the budget, the debt ceiling, etc. The House keeps passing bills designed not to get through the Senate, but to make supposedly ideological points, while Senate Republicans continue to filibuster pretty much everything the Senate has before it.

(Note that many of these House bills appear at first glance to be “ideological” but are actually bills that help specific industries and companies at the expense of other companies. For example, several bills help oil and coal companies fight companies that want to introduce innovative alternatives.)

Now, in order to keep the Congress non-functional, Republicans are even refusing to let the House and Senate set up a conference committee to work out differences in budget bills. The Hill explains, in “GOP blocks Reid from creating conference committee on budget”:

Senate Republicans on Tuesday prevented Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) from setting up a budget conference. [. . .] A Republican aide said there was no reason to create a conference because President Obama won’t drop his demand for tax increases.

Brian Beutler at Talking Points Memo has his own take on why Republicans are blocking budget negotiations, in “Republicans Are Blocking Budget Negotiations Because The Debt Limit Is Too Far Away”:

… What’s left after you strip away all that obfuscation is that Republicans don’t want to go to conference unconditionally because they’re concerned their position won’t hold politically and they’ll ultimately be forced to swallow a compromise that includes tax increases — unless the whole process gets swallowed by another debt limit fight.

No Serious Legislation

Republicans have passed very few bills — only nine bills have become law so far in this session of Congress, according to GovTrack – and the ones they are offering and passing are not about solving the country’s problems. They are ideological, designed to score points. (Unless you really think tax cuts and deregulation will solve the country’s problems…) Here is Eric Cantor’s list of bills in the “House Republican Plan for America’s Job Creators.” (“Job creators” in Republican jargon means really, really rich people.) Here is a summary of the list:

• Bills to cut tax cuts for rich people and giant corporations
• Bills to cut regulations that protect working people and the environment,
• Bills that help certain huge companies at the expense of other companies (disapproving of Net Neutrality, killing regulation on Wall Street and oil & coal),
• Bills that keep government from doing its job to protect working people (gutting NLRB, etc.)
• Trade agreements that help giant multinationals and Wall Street at the expense of American companies and workers

In December 2011, The Washington Post summed up the first year of the Republican-controlled House: In 2011, fewer bills, fewer laws and plenty of blame:

Congress is close to wrapping up one of its least productive sessions in recent memory, as the House and Senate have passed a scant number of bills compared with other non-election years, and President Obama has signed the fewest measures into law in at least two decades.

Through Nov. 30, the House had passed 326 bills, the fewest in at least 10 non-election years … By comparison, the House approved 970 bills in 2009 and 1,127 in 2007.

Then for 2012, USA Today wraps up this 2-year stint of the Congress: This Congress could be least productive since 1947,

Just 61 bills have become law to date in 2012 out of 3,914 bills that have been introduced by lawmakers, or less than 2% of all proposed laws, according to a USA TODAY analysis of records since 1947 kept by the U.S. House Clerk’s office.

In 2011, after Republicans took control of the U.S. House, Congress passed just 90 bills into law. The only other year in which Congress failed to pass at least 125 laws was 1995.

Keep The Congress Non-Functional

Republicans understand that they gain from keeping government dysfunctional. In 2011 Mike Lofgren, a former Republican Senate staffer, spilled the beans, writing in “Goodbye to All That: Reflections of a GOP Operative Who Left the Cult”:

A couple of years ago, a Republican committee staff director told me candidly (and proudly) what the method was to all this obstruction and disruption. Should Republicans succeed in obstructing the Senate from doing its job, it would further lower Congress’s generic favorability rating among the American people. By sabotaging the reputation of an institution of government, the party that is programmatically against government would come out the relative winner.

Repeat: the more they make government look bad and dysfunctional, the more they gain politically. Lofgren goes on to explain that “low-information” voters don’t know who to blame, so they turn to the anti-government Republican party, and the media is complicit, doing little to help voters understand what is going on.

Lofgren’s entire piece is a must-read for people who want to understand what has been happening to our government. It gives the inside story from someone who was involved in the day-to-day decision-making that led to the current dysfunctional state of government.

Public Wants Government Functioning

The American electorate wants these things worked out. Even with our misinforming media the public has figured enough of it out. They reelected President Obama, they increased the number of Democrats in the Senate and they voted for a Democratic House by a 1.4-million-vote majority. Only gerrymandering kept the House in Republican control.

The public wants the country to move forward. Republicans are not interested, and are holding everything back.

Until the voting public is able to express its will it will be “my way and no highways.”

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Republican judges on the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals have ruled that the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) cannot require employers to put up posters explaining to workers that they have the right to unionize, because this violates the employers’ “free speech.” This is the same group of conservative-Republican judges that ruled that recess appointments by a President are not constitutional after President Obama appointed members to the NLRB to keep it operating. This ruling is one more piece of the corporate/conservative war on labor rights.

Note that this ruling also means the government can’t tell companies to put up signs warning of DANGER on high-voltage installations.

Court Rules Against NLRB

OK, this is bizarre. A couple of years ago the NLRB made a rule requiring employers to put up a poster telling employees their rights under the law. Anti-union employers sued, saying that letting employees know they have rights violated the “free speech” rights of employers who do not want their employees to know they have rights.

The D.C. Circuit Court has ruled that letting employees know they have rights violates the free speech rights of employers, because it means the government is telling employers what they must say. The court said, “The right to disseminate another’s speech necessarily includes the right to decide not to disseminate it.” So by telling employers they have to put up a poster that lets employees know their rights they are violating the employer’s “freedom to decide not to tell them.” The Court cited Justice Roberts writing in another case that, “freedom of speech prohibits the government from telling people what they must say.”

So a poster informing workers of their rights under the law violates the freedom of speech of employers because it forces companies to let employees know of their rights under the law.

Yes, it is convoluted, but they have to say something in their ruling, because they wanted to keep employees from knowing their rights. Never mind that it also means the warnings on cigarette packs are now illegal.

Note that this ruling also means the government can’t tell companies to put up signs warning of DANGER on high-voltage installations.

Conservative-Stacked Court

The DC Circuit Court of Appeals is known for its conservative leanings. Republicans like it this way and have filibustered nominations of non-conservative-movement nominees to the court. Now four seats are vacant. An April editorial in the Washington Post, Republicans’ D.C. Circuit barricade, explains,

LAST MONTH Senate Republicans unjustifiably blocked an up-or-down confirmation vote on Caitlin J. Halligan, nominated by President Obama to fill one of four empty spots on one of the country’s top courts, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. Despite her impeccable credentials and the support of conservative legal luminaries, only a single Republican voted to break a GOP filibuster.

Again, Republicans are keeping four seats on this court vacant in order to keep these kinds of rulings coming.

This is the same court that is actively assisting corporations in trying to shut down the NLRB entirely. This Court previously rules that recess appointments by a President are not constitutional, in order to keep the NLRB from operating – never mind that effect this will have on other agencies, even the courts themselves.

Richard Trumka, President of the AFL-CIO, said of the ruling,

“The Republican judges of the D.C. Circuit continue to wreak havoc on workers’ rights,” … “In today’s workplace, employers are required to display posters explaining wage and hour rights, health and safety and discrimination laws, even emergency escape routes. The circuit court’s ruling suggests that courts should strike down hundreds of notice requirements, not only those that inform workers about their rights and warn them of hazards, but also those on cigarette packages, in home mortgages and many other areas.”

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Reports of austerity’s demise are greatly exaggerated. Yes, austerity has been on the ropes recently, since it was revealed the whole thing was based on a sloppy spreadsheet by a couple of academic austerians. Before that the IMF denounced and even apologized for advocating austerity that shrunk economies all over Europe. The U.S. has avoided full on austerity but “de facto” austerity is in effect and worsening. Sequestration, which is basically austerity by another name, could finally push the economy over the cliff, taking millions of American families with it.

The latest evidence of the impact of “de facto” austerity is a widening wealth gap between races.

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Millions of Americans suffered a loss of wealth during the recession and the sluggish recovery that followed. But the last half-decade has proved far worse for black and Hispanic families than for white families, starkly widening the already large gulf in wealth between non-Hispanic white Americans and most minority groups, according to a new study from the Urban Institute.

…The Urban Institute study found that the racial wealth gap yawned during the recession, even as the income gap between white Americans and nonwhite Americans remained stable. As of 2010, white families, on average, earned about $2 for every $1 that black and Hispanic families earned, a ratio that has remained roughly constant for the last 30 years. But when it comes to wealth — as measured by assets, like cash savings, homes and retirement accounts, minus debts, like mortgages and credit card balances — white families have far outpaced black and Hispanic ones. Before the recession, non-Hispanic white families, on average, were about four times as wealthy as nonwhite families, according to the Urban Institute’s analysis of Federal Reserve data. By 2010, whites were about six times as wealthy.

The dollar value of that gap has grown, as well. By the most recent data, the average white family had about $632,000 in wealth, versus $98,000 for black families and $110,000 for Hispanic families.

In response to the Urban Institute Report, conservatives are crowing that minorities have lost the most wealth under Obama.  But the urban Institute report merely reflects a trend that goes all the way back to the housing collapse under the Bush administration, caused by conservative policies.  The housing collapse hit minorities especially hard. Having little in the way of inherited wealth the decline in house prices caused a drop in wealth for an African-American and Latino families, because their homes were their wealth.   Thus the ensuing recession became a depression for African-Americans and Latinos.

But the reason the trend of declining Black and Latino wealth and widening disparities has continues can’t be blamed on President Obama’s policies, because Republicans in Congress have consistently blocked every White House initiative to create jobs and grow the economy, while offering none of their own. (In fact, Republicans seem to have gotten out of the policymaking business entirely.) The result has been what Paul Krugman referred to as “de facto” austerity, as lack of federal aid has caused state and local government to slash bush budgets, putting over 700,000 public sector jobs at risk on the state and local levels.

Those public sector job losses hit African-Americans particularly hard because Blacks are overrepresented in public-sector jobs. That a direct result of “de facto” austerity, driven by conservative obstructionism and ideology, and it’s an important part of the story of the persistence of African-American unemployment, and the sinking of the African-American electorate into economic depression, while the rest of the country is mired in recession. (As with austerity in Europe, the sequester is hurting economic growth.)

It’s austerity written in black and white.

The “So Be It” Sequester

John Boehner, when asked about the public sector jobs that would be killed the GOP’s cuts, famously replied “So be it.” Last week, Congress said basically the same thing to millions of Americans who are struggling with sequestration that so resembles austerity that it really should be considered a rebranding of that same old, tired, failed economic policy.

I’ve been writing for a while now about the devastating consequences sequestration for millions of Americans. Near the top of the list was the impact of  $600 million in sequester cuts on air travel and air safety. Like many other bloggers, I speculated that the prospect of long lines and nightmarish delays at airports nationwide might be enough to jolt Congress into repealing the dumb sequester.

I should have known better. Instead, Congress reached a new — and very “bipartisan” — low, carving out an exception for the FAA and leaving the rest of the destructive sequester cuts intact. 

We’ve hit a new low.

Two months into the sequester, lawmakers have prioritized flight delays over food assistance. Citing significant concerns about the inconvenience of flight delays caused by the furlough of air-traffic controllers, the Senate unanimously passed a bill to give the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) the ability to re-direct funds within its budget and shore-up staffing levels. The House passed the measure today 361 to 41.

Meanwhile, lawmakers have done nothing about sequestration’s impact on free meal programs, education, affordable housing, or myriad other services that affect millions of Americans each day.

Welcome to the reality of sequestration and our lawmakers’ lackluster response.

Actually, our lawmakers’ response to this particular crisis was impressive in some of the worse ways imaginable, which Jon Stewart skewered on “The Daily Show.” One was the speed with which Congress acted to find a way around sequestration cuts that inconvenience the well-off. Stewart quipped that Congress acted so quickly that part of the bill Members voted on were hastily written in pencil. In the 19 years that I’ve been in Washington, I’ve never seen Congress move so fast. Ever. 

Second, the FAA vote beats all Congressional records for unmitigated gall that I’m aware of. The consequences of the sequester are myriad and devastating. It’s a slow-motion disaster for millions of Americans who will have to deal with the consequences of deep cuts to programs services they rely upon. Yet, not only did Congress carve out the FAA exemption, and ignore the disastrous impact the sequester’s cuts would have on programs that for the poor, the elderly, and very young children, but most members went straight to the airport to fly home 

Lawmakers headed to catch flights at Washington, D.C. Ronald Reagan National Airport on Friday after passing a bill to end furloughs for air traffic controllers that caused flight delays across the country this week.

Many of them were unsure when they got there if their flights would leave on time, or would be delayed due to the sequester like thousands of other commercial flights in recent days.

“I haven’t checked yet. It wasn’t delayed coming here. I honestly don’t know. I need to look over here (at a flight information monitor),” Rep. Brett Guthrie (R-Ky.) told The Hill as he walked toward a security checkpoint.

Rep. Lee Terry (R-Neb.) had a more definitive answer. He tweeted from the airport:

“I vote to shift funds to stop FAA furloughs and now U.S. AIR says my plane home is delayed. Oh the irony!”

If that doesn’t say “So be it,” to Americans left to suffer the consequences of sequestration — the seniors who won’t be getting meals on wheels anymore, the cancer patients who will have to find somewhere else to go when clinics close, the unemployed Americans who won’t be getting unemployment benefits, the children who won’t be able to go to Head Start anymore, etc. — I don’t know what it. 

I guess it’s nice for Rep. Terry that he can joke about the irony heading for the airport of voting his way out a sequester-driven flight delay. However, Terry eventually flew home to state where 400 children could lose access to Head Start. Sequestration could be a double-whammy on jobs in Nebraska. Sequestration cuts at the USDA could bring Nebraska’s meatpacking industry to a standstill.

Meatpacking doesn’t happen at Schuyler, Crete or anywhere in Nebraska, the nation’s leader in red-meat processing, without federal meat inspectors on site.

With that in mind, Mike Johanns and Deb Fischer joined seven Republican colleagues in the U.S. Senate in seeking assurances Tuesday from Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack that meat inspectors will not be furloughed because of the arrival of a budget sequester deadline on Friday.

“We are confident you have the ability to implement sequestration at USDA without jeopardizing the ability of Americans to feed their families and seriously hurting U.S. farmers, meat and poultry production facilities, and workers in those facilities,” their letter said.

Among the other Republican signatures were those of Pat Roberts and Jerry Moran of Kansas and Chuck Grassley of Iowa.

“The comments you have made in the press, to farm groups and at the recent USDA Outlook Forum suggest you view there is a rigid legal duty to furlough all employees at USDA without concern for USDA’s statutory responsibilities,” the senators said, “or for the health and safety of consumers

In light of recent events, the USDA angle could seen be part of a trend of corporations, PAC, unions, and other groups line up to lobby for agencies that impact their industries, interests, and incomes be carved out of sequestration cuts. The beef industry is already predicting expensive disruptions, if furloughs for USDA inspectors leads to plants and meat import stations closing down. Not worries, though. Fourteen groups tied to the farming industry secured secured a sequestration exemption for meat inspectors. Other industries and agencies are already lining up to lobby their way out of sequestration, leaving the most vulnerable to bear the brunt of deep cuts. It’s likely some will succeed with thanks to the same kind of bipartisan support that got the FAA a “Get out of sequestration free” card.

But Democrats should be wary of this particular brand of bipartisanism. Not long ago, the GOP was losing the sequester “blame game.” But a Pew Research Center survey shows the FAA vote has evened the score. 

At least on one aspect of the required federal spending cuts known as the sequester, the blame game seems to have evened out. A new Pew Research Center survey finds that congressional Republicans and the White House take equal heat for flight delays caused by the cuts.

On Friday, Congress passed and Obama signed legislation giving the agency more flexibility to avoid air traffic controller furloughs. The poll, taken in the midst of that legislative wrangling, found 34 percent of Americans blamed Republicans and 32 percent blamed Obama. Another 10 percent blamed both.

Congressional Republicans made an issue out of the flight delays, accusing Obama of letting them happen for political reasons. While they have also tried to pin the sequester entirely on the White House, that effort never gained much traction. A February Washington Post-Pew Research Center poll found that 45 percent of Americans blamed congressional Republicans for the sequester and 32 percent blamed Obama.

If Democrats continue cooperating with Republicans carve out sequestration exemptions that let corporations and the wealthy avoid the “inconvenient” consequences of arbitrary, across-the-board cuts, Americans will start paying more attention, and may hear the Democrats joining the Republicans in saying “So be it,” to the pain inflicted by sequestration.