Freeze credit card rates

Check those harmless looking letters from your credit card companies. They're raising rates to the 30% max before February's law takes effect., after taking the bailout money and paying themselves high bonuses... all "in the interest of continuing to provide you with credit" Even if your credit rating is excellent.

The Miami Herald editorial, October 29, 2009

When Congress passed the Credit Cardholders' Bill of Rights last May, we called it a long overdue response to the abuses of predatory credit-card issuers who have used every trick in the book to extract money from cardholders. As it turns out, we underestimated the greed and craftiness of the credit-card industry.

In a well-meaning effort to give issuers time to adjust their practices, Congress set a compliance deadline of next February. Instead of seeing the law as a clear signal that consumers are fed up with abusive practices, however, leading bank card issuers used the time to squeeze more money from the public.

Not only have they done next to nothing to stop practices deemed unfair by the new law, but some of the practices that hurt consumers the most have become more widespread.

According to a report issued Wednesday by the Pew Charitable Trusts, ``credit card interest rates rose an average of 20 percent in the first two quarters of 2009, even as banks' cost of lending declined.'' Every credit card offered online by leading bank card issuers was tied to rules and conditions that will be outlawed once the compliance date arrives, Pew said.

Among other things, nearly all of the bank cards allowed issuers to increase interest rates on outstanding balances and permitted issuers to apply payments in a way the Federal Reserve found likely to cause substantial financial injury to consumers.

Punitive charges

Although arbitrary rate changes will no longer be allowed once the law takes effect, the higher rates that consumers are being hit with before then will remain in place. Many consumers with good credit scores and a history of paying their bills on time are shocked to discover that they are on the receiving end of this sort of treatment. Instead of being rewarded for handling their finances sensibly, they are being treated like deadbeats and smacked with rates that were once deemed strictly punitive.

Damage to credit scores

Increased rates that reach 29.99 percent have been widely reported in the case of some Citibank customers, for example. It has also been reported that Bank of America and Citibank were introducing new fees on consumers who don't use their cards enough or don't carry minimum balances.

Spokesmen for the banking industry say consumers always have the option of refusing the higher rates,. But if they do, they run the risk of having their card revoked, either immediately or when the expiration date arrives. First of all, this is an inconvenience, especially for card users with a good record. Secondly, abandoning a credit card for any reason can have a negative effect on credit scores. For the consumer, it's a losing proposition either way.

The Pew Report recommends that the Federal Reserve, which is developing detailed rules for credit card issuers, ensure that there will be no unreasonable or disproportionate penalties in the future, including penalty rate increases.

Congress should go one step further to stop this last-minute effort to milk consumers before the remaining provisions of the law take effect by freezing rates as soon as possible, as Sen. Chris Dodd, the chairman of the Senate Banking Committee, has proposed.

Given the traditional deference shown to the banking industry in the Senate, his proposal is unlikely to make headway unless consumers contact their representatives in Congress. It's their money that's at risk.

Rush to Enact a Safety Rule Obama Opposes

By ROBERT PEAR

WASHINGTON — The Labor Department is racing to complete a new rule, strenuously opposed by President-elect Barack Obama, that would make it much harder for the government to regulate toxic substances and hazardous chemicals to which workers are exposed on the job.

The rule, which has strong support from business groups, says that in assessing the risk from a particular substance, federal agencies should gather and analyze “industry-by-industry evidence” of employees’ exposure to it during their working lives. The proposal would, in many cases, add a step to the lengthy process of developing standards to protect workers’ health.

Public health officials and labor unions said the rule would delay needed protections for workers, resulting in additional deaths and illnesses.

With the economy tumbling and American troops fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan, President Bush has promised to cooperate with Mr. Obama to make the transition “as smooth as possible.” But that has not stopped his administration from trying, in its final days, to cement in place a diverse array of new regulations.

The Labor Department proposal is one of about 20 highly contentious rules the Bush administration is planning to issue in its final weeks. The rules deal with issues as diverse as abortion, auto safety and the environment.

One rule would make it easier to build power plants near national parks and wilderness areas. Another would reduce the role of federal wildlife scientists in deciding whether dams, highways and other projects pose a threat to endangered species.

Mr. Obama and his advisers have already signaled their wariness of last-minute efforts by the Bush administration to embed its policies into the Code of Federal Regulations, a collection of rules having the force of law. The advisers have also said that Mr. Obama plans to look at a number of executive orders issued by Mr. Bush.

A new president can unilaterally reverse executive orders issued by his predecessors, as Mr. Bush and President Bill Clinton did in selected cases. But it is much more difficult for a new president to revoke or alter final regulations put in place by a predecessor. A new administration must solicit public comment and supply “a reasoned analysis” for such changes, as if it were issuing a new rule, the Supreme Court has said.

As a senator and a presidential candidate, Mr. Obama sharply criticized the regulation of workplace hazards by the Bush administration.

In September, Mr. Obama and four other senators introduced a bill that would prohibit the Labor Department from issuing the rule it is now rushing to complete. He also signed a letter urging the department to scrap the proposal, saying it would “create serious obstacles to protecting workers from health hazards on the job.”

Administration officials said such concerns were based on a misunderstanding of the proposal.

“This proposal does not affect the substance or methodology of risk assessments, and it does not weaken any health standard,” said Leon R. Sequeira, the assistant secretary of labor for policy. The proposal, Mr. Sequeira said, would allow the department to “cast a wide net for the best available data before proposing a health standard.”

The Labor Department regulates occupational health hazards posed by a wide variety of substances like asbestos, benzene, cotton dust, formaldehyde, lead, vinyl chloride and blood-borne pathogens, including the virus that causes AIDS.

The department is constantly considering whether to take steps to protect workers against hazardous substances. Currently, it is assessing substances like silica, beryllium and diacetyl, a chemical that adds the buttery flavor to some types of microwave popcorn.

The proposal applies to two agencies in the Labor Department, the Occupational Safety and Health Administration and the Mine Safety and Health Administration.

Under the proposal, they would have to publish “advance notice of proposed rule-making,” soliciting public comment on studies, scientific information and data to be used in drafting a new rule. In some cases, OSHA has done that, but it is not required to do so.

The Bush administration and business groups said the rule would codify “best practices,” ensuring that health standards were based on the best available data and scientific information.

Randel K. Johnson, a vice president of the United States Chamber of Commerce, said his group “unequivocally supports” the proposal because it would give the public a better opportunity to comment on the science and data used by the government.

After a regulation is drafted and formally proposed, Mr. Johnson said, it is “all but impossible” to get OSHA to make significant changes.

“Risk assessment drives the entire process of regulation,” he said, and “courts almost always defer” to the agency’s assessments.

But critics say the additional step does nothing to protect workers.

“This rule is being pushed through by an administration that, for the last seven and a half years, has failed to set any new OSHA health rules to protect workers, except for one issued pursuant to a court order,” said Margaret M. Seminario, director of occupational safety and health for the A.F.L.-C.I.O.

Now, Ms. Seminario said, “the administration is rushing to lock in place requirements that would make it more difficult for the next administration to protect workers.”

She said the proposal could add two years to a rule-making process that often took eight years or more.

Representative George Miller, a California Democrat who is chairman of the House Committee on Education and Labor, said the proposal would “weaken future workplace safety regulations and slow their adoption.”

The proposal says that risk assessments should include industry-by-industry data on exposure to workplace substances. Administration officials acknowledged that such data did not always exist.

In their letter, Mr. Obama and other lawmakers said the Labor Department, instead of tinkering with risk-assessment procedures, should issue standards to protect workers against known hazards like silica and beryllium. The government has been working on a silica standard since 1997 and has listed it as a priority since 2002.

The timing of the proposal appears to violate a memorandum issued in early May by Joshua B. Bolten, the White House chief of staff.

“Except in extraordinary circumstances,” Mr. Bolten wrote, “regulations to be finalized in this administration should be proposed no later than June 1, 2008, and final regulations should be issued no later than Nov. 1, 2008.”

The Labor Department has not cited any extraordinary circumstances for its proposal, which was published in the Federal Register on Aug. 29. Administration officials confirmed last week that the proposal was still on their regulatory agenda.

The Labor Department said the proposal affected “only internal agency procedures” for developing health standards. It cited one source of authority for the proposal: a general “housekeeping statute” that allows the head of a department to prescribe rules for the performance of its business.

The statute is derived from a law passed in 1789 to help George Washington get the government up and running.

The Labor Department rule is among many that federal agencies are poised to issue before Mr. Bush turns over the White House to Mr. Obama.

One rule would allow coal companies to dump rock and dirt from mountaintop mining operations into nearby streams and valleys. Another, issued last week by the Health and Human Services Department, gives states sweeping authority to charge higher co-payments for doctor’s visits, hospital care and prescription drugs provided to low-income people under Medicaid. The department is working on another rule to protect health care workers who refuse to perform abortions or other procedures on religious or moral grounds.

At the Last Minute, a Raft of Rules

Bush White House Approves Regulations on Environmental, Security Matters

By R. Jeffrey Smith and Juliet Eilperin
Washington Post Staff Writers
Sunday, November 30, 2008; A04

In a burst of activity meant to leave a lasting stamp on the federal government, the Bush White House in the past month has approved 61 new regulations on environmental, security, social and commercial matters that by its own estimate will have an economic impact exceeding $1.9 billion annually.

Some of the rules benefit key industries that have long had the administration's ear, such as oil and gas companies, banks and farms. Others impose counterterrorism security requirements on importers and private aircraft owners.

The rules cover obscure as well as high-profile social and economic issues: spelling out what kinds of records must be kept by sexually explicit performers and publications, exempting hobbyists' rocket motors from federal explosives controls, expanding the collection of DNA samples from federal prisoners.

In most cases, the new regulations are meant to spell out precisely how federal employees and private citizens must comply with laws passed by Congress. But the language in those laws often had ambiguities -- reflecting lawmakers' uncertainties or disagreements -- that gave Bush's appointees broad discretion to follow their policy preferences. Similar "midnight regulations" were approved by previous presidents.

In the environmental area, the latest rules indicate that the Bush administration wants to lend a final assist to industries that feel burdened by looming pollution controls or wilderness-protection laws. A rule approved by the White House three days after the presidential election, for example, would ease constraints on environmentally damaging oil shale development throughout the West, despite objections from Colorado Gov. Bill Ritter (D) and a majority of the state's congressional delegation.

On Nov. 17, Ritter called the decision "not just premature, it's hasty and I would even argue reckless." The Interior Departmentpublished it in the Federal Register Nov. 21, and it will take legal effect in 60 days from that date, or shortly after Congress reconvenes with a larger Democratic majority.

Top officials are still finishing work on other industry-friendly measures, including a regulation inhibiting the ability of Congress to halt logging, mining, and oil and gas extraction on public lands. Another rule would allow federal agencies to proceed with development projects without undergoing independent scientific review under the Endangered Species Act.

The Bush administration's impetus for hurrying to approve and publish so many of these regulations in the Federal Register is that those deemed to have a major economic impact -- defined by the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) as more than $100 million a year -- take legal effect after 60 days.

That means Nov. 21 was an important political deadline to ensure they become effective before President-elect Barack Obama's Jan. 20 inauguration. Less significant regulations, including many still in final stages of preparation, can take effect in 30 days or less.

Once the new rules take the form of law, Democrats can undo them only by three complicated means: through a new regulatory rulemaking that would probably take years; through congressional amendments to underlying laws; or through special, fast-track resolutions of disapproval approved by the House and Senate within a few months after the start of the new congressional session on Jan. 6.

Such a quick congressional rebuke has occurred only once before, in 2001, when a Republican-controlled Congress with President Bush's backing blocked a workplace safety regulation completed in the Clinton administration's final months. But recently, spokesmen for Senate Majority Leader Harry M. Reid (Nev.) and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (Calif.) said Democrats were prepared to use that regulatory reversal power in consultation with Obama.

The leadership "will review what oversight tools are at our disposal regarding last-minute attempts to inflict severe damage to the law in the waning moments of the Bush administration," said Pelosi spokesman Brendan Daly.

"We will do whatever it takes," said Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.), the Environment and Public Works Committee chairman. "We're all over this. We've been waiting to pass on the information" to Obama's transition team.

A spokeswoman for the OMB, who declined to be named, said "the activity of the last three weeks is expected" because the White House had ordered that draft regulations be sent to the OMB for final review by Nov. 1. She said those regulations still being completed reflect "long-standing administration priorities."

Not every draft regulation got approved. On Nov. 19, the OMB ordered the Energy Department to kill new regulations that would have forced the federal government to buy more-energy-efficient lights, appliances, and heating and cooling systems. Daniel J. Weiss, climate strategy director at the Center for American Progress Action Fund, called that retreat from a 2005 requirement "unbelievable."

The White House also ordered the Environmental Protection Agency to withdraw a new regulation mandating that truck manufacturers install equipment to monitor vehicle pollution. It blocked the Department of Veterans Affairs from issuing new promised "user-friendly" guidance on burial and survivors benefits.

Those regulations that did get the nod came from 16 agencies and departments and will have a broad impact.

A controversial new Health and Human Services rule approved in late October, for example, cuts an estimated $2 billion in state Medicaid reimbursements for outpatient services. State officials had complained that it would jeopardize dental care for children, certain lab tests and speech and occupational therapy.

"The withdrawal of this rule should be one of the first orders of business for the Obama administration," said Rep. Henry A. Waxman (D-Calif.).

A controversial Justice Department rule approved Nov. 19 orders accelerated judicial review for death sentences. Legal groups had argued that speeding up executions makes errors more likely.

Another Justice rule approved Nov. 19 spells out the personal documentation that sexually explicit performers and related publishers must make available for government inspection. The underlying 2005 law, intended to keep minors out of such performances, has been challenged in the courts as a privacy violation by sexual swingers and the magazines in which they use explicit photos to solicit partners.

Nine days after the election, the White House approved a rule allowing trucking companies to force drivers to stay on the road for 11 hours without a rest. The American Trucking Association supported the rule, but lawmakers, unions and advocacy groups have called the extended hours dangerous.

Three days after the election, the White House also approved a regulation requiring that lenders provide home buyers with a simplified summary of their financial and legal obligations. The changes, under development at the Department of Housing and Urban Development since 2002, gained impetus after lending fraud contributed to the U.S. economic meltdown.

Industry opposed the reforms, however, and as a result, HUD dropped a proposal that settlement agents read a "closing script" as they complete a transaction.

Also, loan officers won the flexibility to change some fees based on new circumstances, which critics said would bring higher costs to borrowers. Compliance was postponed until 2010.

Business groups also successfully pushed back against provisions in counterterrorism regulations proposed by the Department of Homeland Security that could have required importers and sea carriers to detail shipment information to U.S. authorities before loading.

The "10-plus-2" rule -- so named for the extra pieces of information required -- was the most significant import industry security measure since the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, trade officials said. But the National Association of Manufacturers and others said the rule would delay shipments by two to five days and cost as much as $20 billion a year.

As a result, the OMB agreed to give importers flexibility in complying and delay some of its implementation. It was published Nov. 24 as an interim rule, rather than a final one as originally proposed.

A second counterterrorism regulation, requiring that pilots of private planes transmit crew and passenger lists before departing or entering the United States, was approved by the OMB over that industry's opposition. But a separate regulation requiring rigorous security screening for larger private planes was delayed at industry's request.

Staff writers Spenser S. Hsu, Ceci Connolly and Carol D. Leonnig contributed to this report.

Federal Workers Unions Want 'Burrowers' Lists

By Carol D. Leonnig
Washington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, November 30, 2008; A06

Two powerful employee organizations are pressing the Bush administration to prove that in its final weeks, political aides are not improperly winning career government jobs at the expense of more qualified workers.

Leaders of the American Federation of Government Employees, the largest union of federal workers, and the Senior Executives Association, the group representing federal executives, said they want the government to release lists of political appointees who have been hired for career jobs and show whether agencies sought competition for the positions.

The two groups said they are pressing the Office of Personnel Management for this information because they are concerned the agency is not carefully overseeing last-minute hires of political aides. They point to recent reports in The Washington Post and other evidence suggesting political aides are leaping over qualified candidates or avoiding competition as they "burrow" into the civil workforce.

"The recent Post articles raise the possibility that political candidates are being placed in Senior Executive positions for which they may be unqualified or less qualified than other candidates, or that their service as political appointees was given undue weight," SEA President Carol Bonosaro and general counsel William L. Bransford wrote to the OPM. Such favoritism "is a disservice to those Senior Executives who were selected purely for merit without political assistance."

The OPM reviews the hiring by most government agencies of political appointees into permanent career posts from March until Inauguration Day. Hires made within this time frame are viewed with some suspicion by federal employee unions because they cover a period when many loyal political aides face losing their jobs and may be searching for more secure positions.

OPM Associate Director Kevin Mahoney declined last week to provide The Post with a list of political appointees his agency had approved to be moved into career jobs from March to Nov. 3. Though such hires and job titles are public, Mahoney said it was not the "general practice" of the OPM to release them. The White House did not respond to a request for the same information.

In one case The Post found, the Drug Enforcement Administration director hired a political aide to a career Senior Executive Service job -- the highest rank in federal service -- about a year after the same candidate was rejected as unqualified for a lower-level position. The Justice Department initially raised concerns about the DEA's plans to hire the employee with no competition. The DEA advertised the job for two weeks starting Oct. 26 and announced its selection Nov. 13.

Bonosaro and Bransford said veterans know that jobs can be tailored for political friends and competition can be manufactured on paper by limiting the qualifications that will be considered, advertising the job briefly and narrowly defining duties. Political influence and pressure help clinch an unfair hiring selection, they said.

"I think OPM has just turned their back on their obligation," said John Gage, president of AFGE. "If OPM would do its job, they could make sure there weren't any musical chairs to land political people in SES and other positions."

Gage said he is disturbed by reports from members that the OPM has not warned agencies this year to avoid moving around senior executives in the final months of the administration in an effort to avoid the appearance of political influence. Gage said such warnings have gone out in past turnovers, most notably during the exit of the Carter administration, when there was a freeze on such moves.

"The prevailing thought that this kind of thing happens in every administration is just not good enough for me," he said of burrowing. "It has to stop."

Bush and Cheney's Last Shot

Note from Greetings: This is amazing, last-minute, secret undermining of most Americans' rights to a clean environment, healthy and safe working environments, and the health of ourselves and our children. And yes, they wholeheartedly endorsed John McCain this weekend, albeit in secret, just as they did with the passing of laws to restrict the protection of the health and welfare of all Amercians. If you like losing your job, a dirtier environment, and a President who won't investigate previous digressions such as these, nor remedy them.. then you should vote for McCain. If you want more transparency in government, a cleaner environment, and protection of your jobs, your health and your childrens' well-being, the choice is simple. Barack Obama.

By Dan Froomkin
Special to washingtonpost.com
Friday, October 31, 2008; 12:12 PM

Did we really expect President Bush and Vice President Cheney to go quietly?

R. Jeffrey Smith writes: "The White House is working to enact a wide array of federal regulations, many of which would weaken government rules aimed at protecting consumers and the environment, before President Bush leaves office in January.

"The new rules would be among the most controversial deregulatory steps of the Bush era and could be difficult for his successor to undo. Some would ease or lift constraints on private industry, including power plants, mines and farms.

"Those and other regulations would help clear obstacles to some commercial ocean-fishing activities, ease controls on emissions of pollutants that contribute to global warming, relax drinking-water standards and lift a key restriction on mountaintop coal mining.

"Once such rules take effect, they typically can be undone only through a laborious new regulatory proceeding, including lengthy periods of public comment, drafting and mandated reanalysis. . . .

"The burst of activity has made this a busy period for lobbyists who fear that industry views will hold less sway after the elections. The doors at the New Executive Office Building have been whirling with corporate officials and advisers pleading for relief or, in many cases, for hastened decision making."

Emma Schwartz reports for ABC News: "Every administration tries to pass last minute rules in hopes of leaving a lasting mark. But experts say the Bush administration is expected to approve a greater number more quickly than previous administrations -- something they said could lead to bad and costly policy.

"'The administration wants to leave a legacy,' said Gary Bass, executive director of OMB Watch, which has been critical of these proposals. 'But across the board it means less protection for the public.' . . .

"It wasn't supposed to be this way. In May, Josh Bolten, then-head of the Office of Management and Budget, which oversees regulatory approval, issued a memo barring new proposals after June. It also required that all new regulations be completed by Nov. 1.

"That hasn't been the case. Many proposed regulations have yet to be finalized and new ones have already come out since the June deadline.

"A spokesperson for OMB said in an email response that the Bolten memo 'wasn't intended to wholesale shut down work on important regulatory matters after November 1st, but to emphasize due diligence.'

"She added: 'Ensuring the integrity of the process is important to the Administration.'"

Among the examples cited by Smith is a proposed rule put forward by the National Marine Fisheries Service that would lift a requirement that environmental impact statements be prepared for certain fisheries-management decisions and would give review authority to regional councils dominated by commercial and recreational fishing interests.

Watchdogs are up in arms. The Pew Environment Group says the rule "threatens to completely undermine application of the law that protects ocean ecosystems." OMB Watch reports: "In addition to the hundreds of thousands of public comments opposing the proposed rule, 80 members of Congress have also expressed their opposition, including a letter joined by 72 members of the House of Representatives. The letter states that the proposed rule fails to meet congressional intent made clear during the reauthorization of the [fisheries act]. Hundreds of scientists and environmental organizations have also signed on to oppose the rule."

Another example is something Siobhan Hughes wrote about in the Wall Street Journal on Monday: "The Bush administration is moving to adopt rules that would loosen pollution controls on power plants, by judging the plants on their hourly rate of emissions rather than their total annual output, people familiar with the matter said. . . .

"As long as a power plant's hourly emissions stay at or below the plant's historical maximum, the plant would be treated as if it were running more cleanly, even if its total annual emissions increased as plant operators stepped up operations."

From the Archives

I've been calling attention to yet more examples of the Bush administration's midnight rule-making for the past several months. For instance, back in May, Juliet Eilperin wrote in The Washington Post: "The Bush administration is on the verge of implementing new air quality rules that will make it easier to build power plants near national parks and wilderness areas."

Carol D. Leonnig wrote in The Washington Post in July: "Political appointees at the Department of Labor are moving with unusual speed to push through in the final months of the Bush administration a rule making it tougher to regulate workers' on-the-job exposure to chemicals and toxins."

Alicia Mundy wrote in the Wall Street Journal two weeks ago: "Bush administration officials, in their last weeks in office, are pushing to rewrite a wide array of federal rules with changes or additions that could block product-safety lawsuits by consumers and states."

And of course there's the push for a last-minute regulatory overhaul that would effectively gut the Endangered Species Act.

Juliet Eilperin wrote in The Washington Post in August that the new rules would "allow federal agencies to decide whether protected species would be imperiled by agency projects, eliminating the independent scientific reviews that have been required for more than three decades."

Dina Cappiello wrote for the Associated Press just 10 days ago that Interior Department officials were rushing so hard to ease the endangered species rules before Bush leaves office that they were "attempting to review 200,000 comments from the public in just 32 hours."

And on Monday, Cappiello reported that -- surprise! -- the administration had concluded "that changes it wants to make to endangered species rules before President Bush leaves office will have no significant environmental consequences."

And yet another one to add to the list. In today's Post, Juliet Eilperin writes: "The federal Bureau of Land Management is reviving plans to sell oil and gas leases in pristine wilderness areas in eastern Utah that have long been protected from development, according to a notice posted this week on the agency's Web site.

"The proposed sale, which includes famous areas in the Nine Mile Canyon region, would take place Dec. 19, a month before President Bush leaves office."

Tip of the Iceberg?

Keep in mind that rule-making is by definition a public process. So what else is going on, beneath the surface? I raised a slew of questions in that vein for NiemanWatchdog.org back in June. Among them:

* Are major contracts being let out that have long-term ramifications? And are any of those related to outsourcing?

* Are appointees in federal agencies trying to cover their tracks? Are documents being properly retained?

* Are Bush political appointees working on last-minute reorganizations within the federal government?

* Are Bush loyalists burrowing into the civil service? Will political appointees engage in a last-minute flurry of hiring and promoting Bush loyalists into key civil service jobs? Will political appointees try to make the jump into the civil service?

The "Joe the Plumber" Story Hits an Amazing New Low

Ed. Note: So.. Joe the Plumber doesn't have a plumbers' license, and has tax liens on his business. He only makes $40,000/year and would benefit from Obama's tax plan much more than McCain's.. was already on right wing talk radio, and... although not related.. has the same name as Charles Keating's son-in-law. And he didn't want to buy the business... which was not worth $250,000, the magical mark, but much less.

Now perhaps Senator McCain didn't know that... but you'd think a Presidential candidate would check. Or maybe he did. And how opportune of Joe to show up at an Obama rally before going on the record for McCain. Ya think?

FROM THE HUFFINGTON POST

Just when you didn't think things could get worse for John McCain -- they go in the toilet.

Literally.

So, you remember Joe the Plumber, who John McCain kept relentlessly bringing up. And up. The apparently undecided plumber who had complained to Barack Obama that he couldn't buy his own plumbing company because he'd have to pay 3% more in taxes. The plumber who John McCain lauded as an Everyman while oddly proclaiming "Congratulations! You're rich!" in the midst of a disastrous recession. The fellow who said that Barack Obama "tap dances better than Sammy Davis Jr."

That guy.

Well, it turns out he's the one gliding around the dance floor so much, you should expect to see him soon on "Dancing with the Stars."

You see, Joe Wurzelbacher is apparently related to Robert Wurzelbacher. Who is the son-in-law of (are you ready...?) Charles Keating!

Yes, that Charles Keating. The Charles Keating of the Keating 5 Scandal. For which John McCain was reprimanded by the United States Senate, for his involvement in attempting to illegally influence government regulators. The Charles Keating who John McCain has been trying to avoid have mentioned. So, he basically mentioned it 24 times.

(By the way, lost in all the attention paid to John McCain not getting the same career-ending censure by the Senate, as did the other four defendants - the reason for that is because he'd been in the House of Representatives at the time of his transgression. The Senate decided that they didn't have jurisdiction over him to give the same penalty. So, his career was saved.)

Anyway, back to Robert Wurzelbacher, Joe the Plumber's father. You see, Robert Wurzelbacher was an executive of American Continental Corporation, the parent company of Charles Keating's Lincoln Savings. That's the bank which caused citizens to lose their life savings and cost U.S. taxpayers $3.4 billion. As part of that scandal, Robert Wurzelbacher pleaded guilty to three counts of misapplying $14 million and served 40 months in prison.

And now, Lincoln Savings, Robert Wurzelbacher and Joe the Plumber are back with John McCain.

"Congratulations! You're rich!," indeed.

Never mind that Joe the Plumber has state tax liens files against him. As the court representative says, Joe the Plumber might not even be aware of the lien.

Never mind that Joe the Plumber says he wasn't convinced by Sen. Obama's argument. Given his background, why should he be?

Never mind that Joe the Plumber is concerned about a tax increase if his business makes over $250,000. After all, since any business has an estimated value of five times its annual profit - that means Joe's hoped-for business is valued at $1.25 million. So, either he has that in the bank or can get a loan for its value. (Assuming he can get a loan today, of course...). Though, now you see why John McCain gave Joe the Plumber a shout out, "Congratulations! You're rich!"

But then, maybe John McCain gave Joe the Plumber a shout-out because he wanted to give a boost to a friend's relative. Nice touch.

So, apparently these are the people who John McCain seems to keep palling around with.

Mind you, I thought it odd when John McCain first brought up Joe Wurzelbacher's but then never referred to his last name again. I thought perhaps he'd forgotten it. Or it was too hard to pronounce. Apparently though there was a better reason for him to quit saying the name "Wurzelbacher" 24 times. If only Sen. McCain (R-AZ) had remembered the pesky Tivo, where you can rewind.

Now, in fairness, John McCain might not have known than Joe Wurzelbacher was from that same Wurzelbacher family. He might have thought it was just some regular Wurzelbacher. And who knows, maybe they're not even related?

But never mind all of that. This is an election, and what matters is the votes. And in the end, if John McCain wants the vote of Joe the Plumber, then he'll likely get it. That was his point all night, after all. Of course, he might not getting the votes of many other plumbers.

The United Association of Plumbers and Pipefitters has endorsed Barack Obama.

"Obama will help us keep existing jobs and work to develop new, higher paying jobs here in America, reform our health care system, fix our ailing schools and make sure that the pensions of our retirees are safe," the UAPP said.

By the way, as long as we're on the matter of John McCain forgetting the name of Joe Wurzelbacher and who he's related to. There's one other name he forgot at the debate.

Barack Obama.

At the end of the evening, Mr. Obama began his final statement by thanking Sen. McCain and "Bob for moderating." When it was John McCain's time, he too thanked Bob Schieffer by name, then turned to Sen. Obama, looked at him, hesitated briefly, and then sayd, "And you."

At least he didn't say "Joe Wurzelbacher."

For the 25th time.

Two Companies Put Up Cellular Towers at McCain Ranch

How's this for the governement corruption pretends to be against?

By LARRY ROHTER

Two of the nation’s largest telephone companies, Verizon and AT&T, have installed temporary communications towers at the Arizona ranch of Senator John McCain to provide cellular telephone coverage there, the two companies said Wednesday. But both said they did so for business reasons and not at the request of Mr. McCain, the Republican presidential nominee, who is on the Senate Commerce Committee.

“The Secret Service is a customer of ours,” said Jeff Nelson, a spokesman for Verizon. “Our contract with them specifically says that when they need service for any reason related to accomplishing their mission, we must do it, at no charge, and provide 24/7 human expertise.”

The Web site of The Washington Post first reported Wednesday on the efforts to bring cellular service to the McCain ranch. It said those efforts began in early 2007 when Cindy McCain, the senator’s wife, asked Verizon to expand service to their residence in Sedona, which is in a sparsely populated valley.

“Mrs. McCain and her staff went through the public Web site as any member of the public would,” said Brian Rogers, a spokesman for the McCain campaign. “No strings were pulled, and there was no involvement of Senate staff.”

Verizon, however, declined that request, Mr. Nelson said, because “it didn’t make traditional business sense.” It was only after Mr. McCain wrapped up the presidential nomination and began receiving Secret Service protection in April that cellular service was installed, not in the ranch house itself, but at a trailer that was the work base for the Secret Service agents protecting Mr. McCain.

“This was meant as a temporary fix,” said Eric Zahren, a spokesman for the Secret Service. “We never spoke on anyone else’s behalf, only in our own interests. At no time were we involved in discussions about a permanent tower to be put up.”

In the case of AT&T, the circumstances were somewhat different because the company does not have a contract with the Secret Service. Claudia Jones, an AT&T spokeswoman, said that after it became clear that Mr. McCain would become the Republican nominee, the company “made a business decision” to install a temporary tower for only the duration of the campaign.

“We anticipated a surge in usage and traffic because of reporters and other visitors who are AT&T customers,” Ms. Jones said. “We sought to locate it in a number of other places, but not a lot of people want a temporary cell tower on their property. So we got permission from the McCain family to locate it on their property.”

McCain Losing Support with Working Class Whites in Western PA and Elsewhere

Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, Saturday, October 10

KITTANNING -- The steel mills and coal mines of western Pennsylvania helped fuel the nation's economic engine. Today, old factory shells and boarded-up storefronts stand as bleak reminders of those once-prosperous times.

But the voters in working-class enclaves such as this still are a sought-after prize in presidential politics, and many are belatedly backing Democratic nominee Barack Obama.

In the Democratic primaries, working-class whites consistently backed Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton. Later polls showed them overwhelmingly favoring Republican nominee John McCain.

Now, driven by fears that their personal finances could further deteriorate, many see Obama as the better choice -- their thinking in some cases driven more by concern about how McCain would handle the economy than any growing admiration for his rival.

"I don't know that there's anything I particularly like about him (Obama), but I dislike McCain, and I dislike the way the country is, and Republicans need to change," said lifelong Republican Ruth Ann Michel, 64, a retiree shopping in a market in Butler on a recent day. She said her vote for Obama would be her first for a Democratic presidential candidate.

While talk in these parts is mostly about the economy, a prominent -- if not unspoken subtext -- is race. A study of the impact of racial attitudes on the election conducted by The Associated Press with Yahoo News and Stanford University found that whites without a college education were much more likely to hold negative views of blacks than those with a college education.

Democratic Gov. Ed Rendell says a drowning man doesn't care what color the person is who throws him a life preserver.

"This election is going to be decided when a husband and wife sit at a kitchen table, or a single parent sits at the kitchen table, looks at their bills and figures out who is most likely to help them with their financial condition," Rendell said. "If the answer's Barack Obama, nobody's going to care whether he's black, green, orange, purple, fuchsia or whatever."

In April, Rendell backed Clinton in the primary and had to answer questions after saying some whites in his state were likely to vote against Obama because of his race.

Darryl Hendon, 50, of Beaver Falls, who is black and on disability, said he thinks some white Democrats are reluctant to back Obama because of his race.

Since early September, growing numbers of whites who have not finished college have been expressing the view that Obama cares about people like them, even as fewer say so about McCain, according to AP-GfK polling.

In early September, McCain had a 26-point advantage among white voters without a college degree who were likely to vote, according to the poll. But by late September, the advantage had dropped to 7 points, with McCain leading 46 percent to 39 percent among this group.

For Obama, that's far better than Democrats have done in recent presidential elections. President Bush carried whites who haven't finished college by 23 points in 2004 and by 17 points in 2000.

In Pennsylvania, a recent Quinnipiac University poll showed Obama with a double-digit lead over McCain, compared with a close race after the political conventions. Clay Richards, a Quinnipiac pollster, said that's because support among working-class voters in the state is growing, and he suspects many former Clinton supporters are moving to Obama's camp.

The candidates' campaign schedules make clear the importance they attach to Pennsylvania's working-class voters.

McCain and running mate Sarah Palin staged a rally Wednesday in the former steel town of Bethlehem in northeast Pennsylvania. On Friday, Palin was stopping in Pittsburgh, then heading for Johnstown in Western Pennsylvania, where unemployment recently topped 7 percent. The self-described hockey mom planned to drop the ceremonial first puck when the Philadelphia Flyers open their season against the New York Rangers on Saturday.

Obama, for his part, will be in Philadelphia on Saturday. And on Sunday, his running mate, Delaware Sen. Joe Biden, will be joined in his blue-collar hometown of Scranton by Clinton and her husband, former President Clinton.

In Western Pennsylvania, Republican and Democratic voters alike tend to be socially conservative, pro-gun and anti-abortion rights. Many are so-called Reagan Democrats willing to vote for a Republican because of social issues.

While some pockets in this region have recovered and flourished after hard times in the 1980s, many never did. Populations have dwindled and many of those left are elderly.

"The ones who can get a good education ... they leave, which I don't blame them because there's nothing here, really," said Georgia Lutz, 55, who was eating breakfast at a diner in Beaver Falls recently with Hendon. "The economy is absolutely horrible and we're going into a depression right now."

The working-class vote is particularly important in the battleground states of Pennsylvania, Michigan and Ohio, where the percentage of adults without a college degree ranks exceeds the national average.

They also are a key voting bloc because those personally affected by the current economic woes appear to be among the more persuadable voters, according to a recent AP-Yahoo News poll. Among them is Michelle Smith, 41, who works retail during the day at a surplus shop in Kittanning and tends bar at night. Combined, she and her husband have six kids.

"Decent working families can't survive. It's very sad," Smith said. "They raised minimum wage, but now you're paying triple in gas to get to work. It evens itself out."

A Democrat, Smith said she's leaning toward McCain. While she said she likes Obama on a personal level, she wonders if Obama has what it takes to fix the economy.

Obama's already won over Don Melochick, 58, a construction worker from Whitehall in northeast Pennsylvania. A registered Democrat who's voted Republican in the past, Melochick said he plans to vote for Obama because he's "somewhat better" than McCain.

If McCain "hasn't changed nothing in his 30 years ... he's not going to change anything now," Melochick said, from the counter of a diner outside Philadelphia. But he adds: "I don't think Obama will either."

The Mask Slips

By BOB HERBERT , NY Times

The lesson for Americans suffused with anxiety and dread over the crackup of the financial markets is that the way you vote matters, that there are real-world consequences when you go into a voting booth and cast that ballot.

For the nitwits who vote for the man or woman they’d most like to have over for dinner, or hang out at a barbecue with, I suggest you take a look at how well your 401(k) is doing, or how easy it will be to meet the mortgage this month, or whether the college fund you’ve been trying to build for your kids is as robust as you’d like it to be.

Voters in the George W. Bush era gave the Republican Party nearly complete control of the federal government. Now the financial markets are in turmoil, top government and corporate leaders are on the verge of panic and scholars are dusting off treatises that analyzed the causes of the Great Depression.

Mr. Bush was never viewed as a policy or intellectual heavyweight. But he seemed like a nicer guy to a lot of voters than Al Gore.

It’s not just the economy. While the United States has been fighting a useless and irresponsible war in Iraq, Afghanistan — the home base of the terrorists who struck us on 9/11 — has been allowed to fall into a state of chaos. Osama bin Laden is still at large. New Orleans is still on its knees. And so on.

Voting has consequences.

I don’t for a moment think that the Democratic Party has been free of egregious problems. But there are two things I find remarkable about the G.O.P., and especially its more conservative wing, which is now about all there is.

The first is how wrong conservative Republicans have been on so many profoundly important matters for so many years. The second is how the G.O.P. has nevertheless been able to persuade so many voters of modest means that its wrongheaded, favor-the-rich, country-be-damned approach was not only good for working Americans, but was the patriotic way to go.

Remember voodoo economics? That was the derisive term George H.W. Bush used for Ronald Reagan’s fantasy that he could simultaneously increase defense spending, cut taxes and balance the budget. After Reagan became president (with Mr. Bush as his vice president) the budget deficit — surprise, surprise — soared.

In a moment of unusual candor, Reagan’s own chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers, Martin Feldstein, gave three reasons for the growth of the deficit: the president’s tax cuts, the increased defense spending and the interest on the expanding national debt.

These were the self-proclaimed fiscal conservatives who were behaving so profligately. The budget was balanced and a surplus realized under Bill Clinton, but soon the “fiscal conservatives” were back in the driver’s seat. “Deficits don’t matter,” said Dick Cheney, and the wildest, most reckless of economic rides was on.

Americans, including the Joe Sixpacks, soccer moms and hockey moms, were repeatedly told that the benefits lavished on the highfliers would trickle down to them. Someday.

Just as they were wrong about trickle down, conservative Republican politicians and their closest buddies in the commentariat have been wrong on one important national issue after another, from Social Security (conservatives opposed it from the start and have been trying to undermine it ever since) to Medicare (Ronald Reagan saw it as the first wave of socialism) to the environment, energy policy and global warming.

When the Nobel Prize in Chemistry was awarded to the discoverers of the link between chlorofluorocarbons and ozone depletion, Tom DeLay, a Republican who would go on to wield enormous power as majority leader in the House, mocked the award as the “Nobel Appeasement Prize.”

Mr. Reagan, the ultimate political hero of so many Republicans, opposed the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965. In response to the historic Brown v. Board of Education school-desegregation ruling, William F. Buckley, the ultimate intellectual hero of so many Republicans, asserted that whites, being superior, were well within their rights to discriminate against blacks.

“The White community is so entitled,” he wrote, “because, for the time being, it is the advanced race...” He would later repudiate that sentiment, but only after it was clear that his racist view was harmful to himself.

The G.O.P. has done a great job masking the terrible consequences of much that it has stood for over the decades. Now the mask has slipped. As we survey the wreckage of the American economy and the real-life suffering associated with the financial crackup of 2008, it would be well for voters to draw upon the lessons of history and think more seriously about the consequences of the ballots they may cast in the future.

Palin Found Guilty of Abuse of Power

Superdelegates Turned Down $1 Million Offer From Clinton Donor

One of Sen. Hillary Clinton's top financial supporters offered $1 million to the Young Democrats of America during a phone conversation in which he also pressed for the organization's two uncommitted superdelegates to endorse the New York Democrat, a high-ranking official with YDA told The Huffington Post.

Haim Saban, the billionaire entertainment magnate and longtime Clinton supporter, denied the allegation. But four independent sources said that just before the North Carolina and Indiana primaries, Saban called YDA President David Hardt and offered what was perceived as a lucrative proposal: $1 million would be made available for the group if Hardt and the organization's other uncommitted superdelegate backed Clinton.

Contacted about the report, Saban, initially very friendly, became curt. "Not true," he said, "it's simply not true." He declined to elaborate. Did he talk to the YDA superdelegate? "I talk to many, many superdelegates. Some I don't even remember their names." Did he propose any financial transaction? "I have never offered them or anybody any money" in exchange for support or a vote, he said. The Clinton campaign did not return a request for comment.

Members of the Young Democrats agonized about the potential fallout of Saban's call; his financial offer represented one-third of the group's 2008 budget. Democratic officials and fundraisers were consulted about how to respond, and at times the discussions were "emotional," one participant said. "It is scary for them, Haim is very powerful, he has great influence over donors who give to them."

Another source said that Hardt and others were acutely aware of Saban's status within Democratic circles and were concerned that their organization would suffer long-term harm if they declined his offer or if news of the proposal became public.

"I said I thought that the appropriate response was to call Haim back and say thank you but we are not interested," said the source. "I also said that it was surely the case that this story would get out because it is too interesting not to and they should think about how to deal with it. It was a day or two [before they responded]. They felt afraid. They were like, 'Holy shit, this is Haim Saban.'"

Nevertheless, the group declined the overture. A YDA official cited moral reservations as well as the overwhelming consensus of its members to back Sen. Barack Obama.

The group had not directly solicited Saban's financial support prior to the call, the official said, and records show no money from Saban has been given since. He did donate $15,000 to the group's 2005 convention, a separate political entity, and is a natural benefactor for groups such as YDA, a 527 which describes itself as the "largest youth-led, national, partisan political organization."

Saban is the nation's largest political campaign contributor over the last decade, FEC records show, giving nearly $13 million since 1999 to dozens of candidates, PACs, and Democratic campaign committees.
This past week, Crystal Strait, a YDA superdelegate, publicly announced she was supporting Obama. Another YDA superdelegate from Puerto Rico, Francisco J. Domenech, endorsed Clinton several months ago. Hardt, the third superdelegate, remains uncommitted.

"Crystal made an independent decision for all the reasons that she stated and David has consistently stated his position of choosing who to support after the primary is done," Alexandra Acker, the executive director of YDA, said when asked about why the two individuals made their respective decisions.

Hardt also released a statement explaining his current neutrality: "With just five contests left, I will wait to declare my superdelegate vote until every young voter has made their voice heard. The Young Democrats of America will proudly unite behind our nominee." Strait did not respond to repeated requests for comment.
Saban's offer, which was hinted at last week by John Aravosis, publisher of AmericaBlog, underscores the heightened pitch of the Democratic primary.

Those familiar with campaign finance rules say that monetary promises for superdelegates are "problematic," but may not, in the end, be legally out of bounds.

"This is not an FEC issue," said Jan Baran, a Republican campaign finance attorney. "There are federal and state laws that bar 'vote buying' but I'm not sure they apply in this situation since this involves a convention delegate and not a voter in an election. In short, I don't know whether this is illegal or just hardnosed political horse-trading."

While no other accounts of direct financial offers have surfaced, both Democratic campaigns have attempted to use the power of the check to recruit the support of influential party insiders.

In March, high-ranking donors for Sen. Clinton, including Saban, sent a letter to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi chastising her for suggesting that superdelegates had a responsibility to support the candidate who finished the primary process leading in the pledged delegate count.

"We have been strong supporters of the DCCC," they wrote. "We therefore urge you to clarify your position on super-delegates and reflect in your comments a more open view to the optional independent actions of each of the delegates at the National Convention in August."

And in February, the Center for Responsive Politics reported that Sen. Obama's political action committee had given $694,000 to superdelegates in the previous three years. Of the 81 who had announced their support for Obama at the time, 34 had received donations totaling $228,000.

Seeds of Destruction

May 10, 2008
Op-Ed Columnist

By BOB HERBERT, NY Times

The Clintons have never understood how to exit the stage gracefully.

Their repertoire has always been deficient in grace and class. So there was Hillary Clinton cold-bloodedly asserting to USA Today that she was the candidate favored by “hard-working Americans, white Americans,” and that her opponent, Barack Obama, the black candidate, just can’t cut it with that crowd.
“There’s a pattern emerging here,” said Mrs. Clinton.

There is, indeed. There was a name for it when the Republicans were using that kind of lousy rhetoric to good effect: it was called the Southern strategy, although it was hardly limited to the South. Now the Clintons, in their desperation to find some way — any way — back to the White House, have leapt aboard that sorry train.

He can’t win! Don’t you understand? He’s black! He’s black!

The Clintons have been trying to embed that gruesomely destructive message in the brains of white voters and superdelegates for the longest time. It’s a grotesque insult to African-Americans, who have given so much support to both Bill and Hillary over the years.

(Representative Charles Rangel of New York, who is black and has been an absolutely unwavering supporter of Senator Clinton’s White House quest, told The Daily News: “I can’t believe Senator Clinton would say anything that dumb.”)

But it’s an insult to white voters as well, including white working-class voters. It’s true that there are some whites who will not vote for a black candidate under any circumstance. But the United States is in a much better place now than it was when people like Richard Nixon, George Wallace and many others could make political hay by appealing to the very worst in people, using the kind of poisonous rhetoric that Senator Clinton is using now.

I don’t know if Senator Obama can win the White House. No one knows. But to deliberately convey the idea that most white people — or most working-class white people — are unwilling to give an African-American candidate a fair hearing in a presidential election is a slur against whites.

The last time the Clintons had to make a big exit was at the end of Bill Clinton’s second term as president — and they made a complete and utter hash of that historic moment. Having survived the Monica Lewinsky ordeal, you might have thought the Clintons would be on their best behavior.

Instead, a huge scandal erupted when it became known that Mrs. Clinton’s brothers, Tony and Hugh Rodham, had lobbied the president on behalf of criminals who then received presidential pardons or a sentence commutation from Mr. Clinton.

Tony Rodham helped get a pardon for a Tennessee couple that had hired him as a consultant and paid or loaned him hundreds of thousands of dollars. Over the protests of the Justice Department, President Clinton pardoned the couple, Edgar Allen Gregory Jr. and his wife, Vonna Jo, who had been convicted of bank fraud in Alabama.

Hugh Rodham was paid $400,000 to lobby for a pardon of Almon Glenn Braswell, who had been convicted of mail fraud and perjury, and for the release from prison of Carlos Vignali, a drug trafficker who was convicted and imprisoned for conspiring to sell 800 pounds of cocaine. Sure enough, in his last hours in office (when he issued a blizzard of pardons, many of them controversial), President Clinton agreed to the pardon for Braswell and the sentence commutation for Vignali.

Hugh Rodham reportedly returned the money after the scandal became public and was an enormous political liability for the Clintons.

Both Clintons professed to be ignorant of anything improper or untoward regarding the pardons. Once, when asked specifically if she had talked with a deputy White House counsel about pardons, Mrs. Clinton said: “People would hand me envelopes. I would just pass them on. You know, I would not have any reason to look into them.”

It wasn’t just the pardons that sullied the Clintons’ exit from the White House. They took furniture and rugs from the White House collection that had to be returned. And they received $86,000 in gifts during the president’s last year in office, including clothing (a pantsuit, a leather jacket), flatware, carpeting, and so on.

In response to the outcry over that, they decided to repay the value of the gifts.

So class is not a Clinton forte.

But it’s one thing to lack class and a sense of grace, quite another to deliberately try and wreck the presidential prospects of your party’s likely nominee — and to do it in a way that has the potential to undermine the substantial racial progress that has been made in this country over many years.

The Clintons should be ashamed of themselves. But they long ago proved to the world that they have no shame.