3 hearings this morning, 1 this afternoon

[TayTay]

SFRC: Henry Kissinger rises from zombieland to testify at SFRC

Finance: Rules, assigning subcommittees and nomination votes.

Small Biz: 10 a.m. To hold hearings to examine Federal small business assistance programs for veterans and reservists. (No one loves Small Business. No webcasts or audio. This is really, really, really hard for me. No transcripts, no nothing. What if they gave a hearing and nobody knew? Sigh! This is no way to run a democracy. For God sake Harry, would it kill you to install a camera in this room? I mean really, what kind of message does it send from Dems when Small Biz stuff has no coverage? Sigh! I get so pissy over this stuff. Small biz hearings are actually pretty good. Wish I could see one.)

Commerce: Meet to do routine stuff.
Business meeting to consider pending calendar business; to be followed by a hearing to examine economic and security concerns relating to promoting travel to America.

[whometense]

1. Has it struck anyone else that

Dick Vader may have modeled his public speaking style on Kissinger's? The low, growly rumble, the lack of inflection...

[Noisy Democrat]

2. Seriously, Tay -- is there a way to complain about this?

As a small business owner and someone who really finds JK's work in that area interesting, I'd like to see hearings or at least read transcripts. How can they have committee hearings and not even have transcripts? Do they just jot down notes on napkins?

Is there someone we should be writing to to get more attention on this committee?

[TayTay]

3. I found the Small Biz hearing online

http://sbc.senate.gov/

I am saved. Thank you!

[TayTay]

4. Ah, the SBA guy is on crack

He is claiming that the reason the Vets programs are not reaching enough Vets is because the Vets aren't reaching out for help. We will help them if they get in touch with us?

WTF?

[Noisy Democrat]

5. Squee!

If anyone had told me 3 years ago that I'd be saying "Squee" over an opportunity to see a Small Business Committee hearing, I wouldn't have believed it. So I just had to say it.

[TayTay]

6. Yeah, understood.

Somewhere, there is medicine for this.

Anyway, not a bad hearing. The SBA Agency guy is okay, but he is no Hector. (Oh Hector, where are you now?)

Also, the good Senator is low key today, all serious business.

That's nice, SBA guy referenced, "us old guys". Geez.

Ahm, how to let Vets know about programs to help their small businesses get help during deployments. SBA guy, dance, dance, dance. JK: AH, why don't you send them a letter in their packets letting them know help is there. (Ah, this is so obvious that SBA guys are stunned.)

The DOD lady is also on crack. "You can't put 9 pregnant women in a room and have a baby pop out 9 months later," she lucidly intoned. Ahm, WTF does that mean?

DOd Lady: These are very, very small businesses. JK: AHm, don't you help, ahm, Small Businesses to compete, ah, SBA guys, ah, isn't this, ah, like your job?

[whometense]

7. To be completely superficial,

is it okay if I squee over the picture of JK on the front page of the website????

More squee: "Chairman Kerry"

I am ridiculous.

[TayTay]

8. Yes.

Ahm, I think the Bush Admin hates Small Biz. They take all the people who can't seem to figure out how to empty the waste baskets in the Old Executive Office Building and put them in the SBA.

"Isn't it your job to help Small Businesses compete?" "Well, yeah, but they have trouble competing for the loans, cuz they ah, cna't compete and we have trouble with the regulations." "ah, what do you do for a living?"

[whometense]

9. Answer:

I obfuscate for big bucks.

"Shakespeare said, 'kill all the lawyers.'" ;-)

[TayTay]

10. Seriously, is it me today?

Am I suffering from an excess of snark or are some of these people not the brightest bulbs in the sockets here?

[whometense]

14. I missed the names,

but the SBA guy was an idiot. THere was another guy (the last one to speak on the first panel) who seemed okay.

[TayTay]

21. That DOD lady was on crack, I swear.

If you put 9 pregnant women in a room for 9 months, chances are that you will indeed get a baby out of the situation. This is what happens when you have faith-based hiring in the SBA. This woman doesn't know how babies are born or that pregnant means, with child. (And I thought Hector leaving would raise the collective IQ of that place. No such luck, sigh!)

Great moments in Committee Testimony #45,609,678.

I wonder if Sen. KErry looks forward to these hearings? I wonder if he has a running bet with any staff to see which witness from SBA will come up with today's dumbest comment. (From what I heard today, it's the pregnant ladies in the room comment, hands down.)

[TayTay]

11. Good Snowe Question

We have reports of small biz's getting contracts even when they did not meet the criteria (disabled vets in the firm.)

Answer: Ahm, please submit all questions to me in writing. Ahm, well, ahm, maybe, but I gotta go look it up.

[beachmom]

12. Tester is really good, too, asking why the federal agencies

don't coordinate to reach out to veterans about SBA help (which followed up on what Kerry was talking about). The guy gave a lame answer. "I don't know what the DoD is doing".

[TayTay]

13. I thought Tester was good too

BTW, since he is now a Senator, his business is gone at home.

Kerry also, politely asked the SBA and DOD folks to listen to the biz people who are going to be testifying.

Funny, witness, "Wow this seat is really warm." Kerry, "Well it should be." (Hotseat, yeah, on the hotseat.)

[beachmom]

15. That was funny. Really tragic stories about veterans who lost

everything because they went on deployment being spoken of now.

[Noisy Democrat]

16. What was the joking remark JK just made about that year? n/t

[TayTay]

17. Lady from Penobscot Bay biz is great

She is buttering up by saying that she was in VN at the same time Kerry was. ("Well some people say I wasn't there." "Witness, oh you were there.")

[Noisy Democrat]

18. Ah, that was it :) Thanks n/t

[TayTay]

19. Back in ten

Someone else write the good stuff here.

[TayTay]

20. Holy Crap!

The last guy testifying is saying that businesses are being hurt by the current deployment policies. They can't take the days missed. (This guy is saying corporate America, it must be worse for small biz.)

"If I have 3 folks up for a job and one is in the Reserve, I got 2 folks up for this job!"

This should be on every news cast today. OMG!

This policy is going to break the back of the corporate policy toward the Reserve." OMG!

These people in the Reserve can't get a decent job in corporate America because of fear they will get called up for 24 months. There are career part-time soldiers volunteering to go back because they can't get hired by Corporate America. OMFG!

We need more troops for Army and Marines by 40,000. (Bitter moment. "I was deemed to be wrong and so forth for saying this in 2004.") Sigh! Now we are going for 92,000.

And, oh Lord, what a difference it makes when the bureaucrats leave and the actual intended recepients of these programs, the vets themselves, speak up. Whole 'nother hearing, whole 'nother way of questioning, and that warmth is there for these people.

[beachmom]

22. Yeah, I caught that moment where he talked about augmenting

more troops -- 40,000 in 2004. He said, "As you may recall, I proposed or maybe you don't recall, in the course of these things, I proposed in 2004 as part of the campaign that we needed an augmentation of the Marines and Army by at least 40,000, and of course, I was deemed to be wrong, you know, and it was a ridiculous concept, and now I see we're talking about 90,000. They're finally admitting what everybody knew back then ... "

(My Subtext: those piece of shit fuckwads in the media didn't bother to report it much, and nobody questioned the GOP's absurd response, and now we're screwed. But what the fuck are you going to do about it, but try to solve the problem now as we find it, even though it could have been solved motherfucking 2 years ago)

-- sorry about the obscenities, but his tone of voice merited it.

[blm]

23. Can those observations be articulated for a GD post so those folks can hear what's

been going down today. You know the media won't say a word about this and it really deserves to be known by Joe Public.

[TayTay]

25. Yeah. Here's the problem

The witnesses were not identified onscreen. I came in about 38 minutes into the hearing and I don't know the names of these people who testified.

Let me go to the website for this comm and see if any paperwork on witnesses has been filed. Otherwise, it's going to be a sorry piece of writing, sigh!

[beachmom]

26. Too bad we couldn't have a citizen on the Small Biz beat

who could circumvent the MSM and cover the important business they do for this country.

[TayTay]

24. AHm, yeah, I sense some bitterness

coming out of the hearing today. And no, the subtext is hardly a radical interpretation of the text.

This is awful. Corporate America won't hire people in the Reserves because they can't deal with the 2 year deployment possibilities. OMFG! Bitterness is warranted.

[TayTay]

27. List of witnesses yesterday at Small Biz hearing

From the CR: (Daily Digest)

SERVICE-DISABLED VETERANS FEDERAL PROCUREMENT AND ASSISTANCE


Committee on Small Business and Entrepreneurship: Committee concluded an oversight hearing to examine Federal small business assistance programs for veterans and reservists, after receiving testimony from Linda Bithell Oliver, Acting Director, Office of Small Business Programs, Office of the Under Secretary of Defense for Acquisition, Technology, and Logistics; Scott F. Denniston, Director, Office of Small and Disadvantaged Business Utilization and the Center for Veterans Enterprise, Department of Veterans Affairs; William D. Elmore, Associate Administrator for Veterans Business Development, U.S. Small Business Administration; Louis J. Celli, Jr., Northeast Veteran's Business Resource Center, Inc., Boston, Massachusetts; Captain Ann S. Yahner, USN (Ret.), Penobscot Bay Media, LLC, Camden, Maine; Bob Hesser, HI Tech Services, Inc., and Allied Technical Services Group, LLC, Herndon, Virginia; and Ted Daywalt, VetJobs, Marietta, Georgia.

[Mass]

28. Kerry was present on the SFRC hearing. The video is not up yet,

but the NYTimes says that Biden did not let him finish his statement and a Delaware paper has a photo:

http://vh10018.v1.moc.gbahn.net/apps/pbcsi.dll/bilde?Site=BL&Date=20070201&Category=NEWS&ArtNo=702010365&Ref=V2&Profile=1006

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/31/washington/02cnd-biden.html?hp&ex=1170306000&en=7ba7c6c117994655&ei=5094&partner=homepage

[TayTay]

29. It might have been closed

Therefore, no coverage.