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White House Uninvited-Visitors-Gate: They Just Don't Make Contrived Scandals Like They Used to
Posted by Joshua Holland, AlterNet on November 30, 2009 at 5:30 PM.

What story could better encapsulate our culture: a couple of loser reality-TV wannabes get into a White House event without an invite, the corporate media offer breathless coverage of the non-event for 3 news cycles, and right-wing bloggers and talk-radio jabberers say the whole thing only proves that Obama's the anti-Christ.

Let's play Sanity Versus Madness. And let's take the latter first. As is often the case, I go to intrepid wingnuttologist Roy Edroso for help plumbing the depths of online "conservatism," this time via his excellent Village Voice column:

While the legacy media chronicled the Salahis' attempts to wring money out of their now-famous stunt and get on a reality show, and Mrs. Salahi's cheerleader fantasies, the more adventuresome rightbloggers pursued a new angle: Obama's "five year relationship" with the Salahis.

By this, they meant that Obama had been photographed with the Salahis at an MTV Rock The Vote event in 2005, which proves they have the sort of close relationship with the President enjoyed by everyone who has ever been photographed with him. (Also in attendance at the event: John McCain and the Black-Eyed Peas. The conspiracy is more vast than you can imagine!)

But that has never been the sort of thing that stops rightbloggers. "They actually knew Obama five years ago," said Right Truth. "BARACK HUSSEIN OBAMA AND TAREQ SALAHI GO WAY BACK," said Reliapundit. "So-called 'party crashers' of Obama's dinner have known Obama for years," said Jacksonian Lawyer's Blog, etc.

[...]

Eventually, as is customary with these guys, speculation grew darker.

"As far as I'm concerned, this 'incident' fits right in with the plans of the Muslim Brotherhood.," said JewPI. "Yes, I think it's a conspiracy, and not only that. It's a conspiracy decades in the making of which Americans are dangerously unaware."

"That Settles It... Obama Is In Fact A Jihadist," said Snooper's Take Our Country Back. "Remember. Obama is in fact a Jihadi scum bag."

"With Barack Obama, it's always about the radicalism," bold-faced Gateway Pundit. "Always."

Now hold all that crazy up against this hard little nugget of sanity, courtesy of John Cole:

Read the rest of the post on the flip side »

Not One More Tax Dollar For the Banks
Posted by Dean Baker, Comment Is Free on November 30, 2009 at 4:30 PM.

The big talk in Washington these days is "helping homeowners." Unfortunately, what passes for help to homeowners in the capitol might look more like handing out money to banks anywhere else.

The basic story is fairly simple. Tens of millions of U.S. homeowners are now underwater: they owe more on their mortgage than the market value of their home. The reason is that they bought homes at bubble-inflated prices earlier in the decade. Economists and other policy wonks insisted that housing was a great buy, even as house prices got ever more out-of-line with economic fundamentals.

Needless to say, the Wall Street crew was eager to cash in on the mania, peddling deceptive mortgages and reselling mortgage-backed securities all over the world. These deceptive mortgages have now "reset" to higher interest rates, leaving many people unable to afford their mortgage payments. However, even at lower interest rates, homeowners who purchased houses at bubble-inflated prices would find themselves paying far more for their homes than they would to rent a comparable house.

As a result, these homeowners are effectively throwing money away every time they make their monthly mortgage repayment. They would be much better off renting the same house and putting the savings in a retirement account or some other form of investment.

The gaps between mortgage payments and rent can often be quite large. A study that we put out at the Center for Economic and Policy Research calculated a family that purchased a small home in Los Angeles near the peak of the bubble could save $1,640 a month by renting rather than owning. This comes to almost $20,000 a year. In Phoenix a family who purchased a home near the peak of the bubble could save $420 a month or $5,000 a year. In Miami the savings would be $1,940 a month, more than $23,000 a year.

These homeowners also have no reasonable prospect of ever getting equity in their homes. In many cases they are 20% or 30% underwater, possibly owing $100,000 more than the current value of their house. Many of the people who never saw the housing bubble are arguing that house prices will return to their bubble peaks. No doubt, these people also expect a resurgence of the internet stocks of the late 1990s.

In reality, there continues to be an enormous over-supply of housing as reflected by the record vacancy rate. This huge over-supply is causing nominal rents to actually decline for the first time ever. Once the homebuyers' tax credit and other extraordinary subsidies end, house prices will resume falling to bring supply and demand into balance.

In this context, it is extremely unlikely that the vast majority of underwater homeowners will ever accumulate a penny in equity. Keeping them in their homes as owners means wasting thousands of dollars a year on excess housing costs only to be forced to arrange a short sale or face a foreclosure at some future point in time.

So, who benefits from "helping homeowners" in this story? Naturally the big beneficiaries are the banks. If the government pays for a mortgage modification where the homeowner is still paying more for the mortgage than they would for rent, then the bank gets a big gift from the government, but the homeowner is still coming out behind.

Read the rest of the post on the flip side »

Despicable: Right-Wing Group Selling Homophobic "Barney Frank Fruitcake"
Posted by Stephanie Mencimer, Mother Jones Online on November 30, 2009 at 3:00 PM.

Ah, 'tis the season for right-wing nuttiness. Black Friday has unleashed a barrage of racist and homophobic political offerings available to stuff this year's stockings. Today's selections:

The Barney Frank Fruitcake: Offered by a Leesburg, Va.-based conservative group called the Public Advocate of the United States, the fruitcake is a booze-free confection topped with a color photo of the gay congressman. Pubilc Advocate offers the cake in exchange for donations of more than $50. "We accept Speaker Pelosi and the current liberal domination but when lawlessness is rampant we must oppose it, and this Fruitcake distribution represents our marking of another season of protesting a sorrowful spirit of immorality in Washington," says PA president Eugene Delgaudio.

Obozo's America: A board game based on the idea that a socialist clown has become president of the United States, subtitled, "Why bother working for a living?" The low-down:

Get your initial $1,000 cash grant at the First of the Month, then maneuver along Obozo’s Welfare Promenade. Get cash for your out-of-wedlock children. Draw from a stack of Welfare Benefit Cards. Get extra cash from Saturday Night crimes: Gambling, Armed Robbery, Drugs, and Prostitution. Play the lottery and the horses. Get your live-in a job on the Government Cakewalk. Experience the Jail Jaunt. Avoid landing on one of those dreaded “Get a Job” blocks forcing you onto the Working Person’s Rut (Somebody has to pay for Obozo’s Welfare Promenade). 50 Welfare Benefit Cards. 50 Working Person’s Burden Cards. Lots of funny money.

The deluxe version available for just $37.90, plus tax and shipping.

EMAIL PRINT 5 COMMENTS PERMALINK

Video: AlterNet's Adele Stan Talks Health Care on C-SPAN
Posted by AlterNet Staff, AlterNet on November 30, 2009 at 2:20 PM.

In a wide-ranging conversation on C-SPAN's Washington Journal, AlterNet's Adele Stan faced off with conservative blogger James Joyner about health care, the economy, Afghanistan and Dick Cheney's presidential aspirations.

CLICK HERE TO WATCH

Naomi Klein: Why Rich Countries Should Pay Reparations To Poor Countries For The Climate Crisis
Posted by Amy Goodman, Democracy Now! on November 30, 2009 at 1:40 PM.

AMY GOODMAN: We turn to the best-selling author of The Shock Doctrine. Yes, independent journalist Naomi Klein joining us from Toronto, Canada to talk about the latest shocks to the economy and with the climate summit in Copenhagen just two weeks away, the coming together of a global movement for climate justice. She is just out with the 10th anniversary edition of her first book, the international bestseller No Logo. And her latest articles include "Climate Rage," for Rolling Stone Magazine, and "Copenhagen, Seattle Grows Up," for The Nation. Naomi Klein, Welcome to Democracy Now! Let’s begin with the issue of climate change and as you put it, climate rage. Tell us what is happening.

NAOMI KLEIN: That piece in Rolling Stone is looking at a growing demand for the repayment of climate debt. This is really a relatively new framing for the climate crisis and is becoming predominantly from the developing world, led by the government of Bolivia and other Latin American governments, and it has been joined by the coalition of least developed countries which are primarily in Africa. And essentially what they're saying is that the climate crisis as we know was created in the industrialized world. There is a direct correlation between industrialization (what we call development) and carbon emissions. In fact, 75 percent of the historical carbon emissions have been produced by only 20 percent of the world's population. Then we have this cruel geographical irony, which is that the effects of climate change our felt overwhelmingly in the developing world, and the parts of the world that are least responsible for creating the crisis. According to the World Bank, 75-80 of the effects of climate change are being felt in the developing world. So, you have this inverse relationship between cause and effect.

It is in this context that we see a growing movement from the developing countries that really are on the front lines of climate change, saying that the rich world that created the climate crisis owes them a debt, owes them a tangible reparations for the creation of this crisis. And those reparations should be paid in three forms. First through deep emissions cuts in the developed world, in the rich world. At least 40 percent below 1990 levels- this is a figure we have heard a lot. In addition to this, they are saying the rich world, the G-8 countries, the industrialized countries, should pay for the costs, the huge costs, that poor countries face in adapting to climate change. In addition to that, they’re also saying that they would like to leapfrog over the dirty energies, the fossil fuels that are fueling the climate crisis. But they point out that this is expensive and more expensive to shift to cleaner green technology than it is to develop with cheap, dirty fuels, which is the way we did in the rich world. So, they are saying we will change, but we don’t think we should have to pay this additional cost because of our problem that is not of our creation. Essentially the climate debt arguments is the “polluter pays” argument, which is a familiar argument to people in the United States, its a basic principle of jurisprudence. Another way of putting this is “you broke it, you bought it”.

AMY GOODMAN: Talk specifically about the countries that are raising these concerns and saying we shouldn’t have to pay. For example in Africa.

NAOMI KLEIN: Well, the African Union, the coalition of African states, have been very clear that their primary demand out of Copenhagen are these deep emissions cuts and serious funding for adaptation to climate change. In eastern Africa right now, you have massive, you have serious droughts affecting millions of people. That is just one example of the kind of costs that are being incurred because of climate change already. So, we’re not talking about projecting into the future, some hypothetical future, we are talking about right now.

The main push, as I said, is actually coming from Bolivia. And Bolivia has an extraordinary climate negotiator, who I quote in the Rolling Stone piece, named Angelica Navarro, who I first met in Geneva. She was actually Bolivia’s ambassador to the World Trade Organization. She’s very clear, very tough, multilingual. It takes a lot of strength to stand up to the sort of pressure that a small country like Bolivia faces, whether at the World Trade Organization or now in the climate negotiations. And Angelica Navarro is really up to the task and she has been giving these really inspiring speeches, at summits in the lead up to Copenhagen. And has really been an galvanizing force for other developing countries.

But also, you know she is taking a demand that is coming from groups like the third World Network, Focus on the Global South, Jubilee South, coalitions of NGOs and climate justice groups, that have been making these demands on the outside of summits. But, what is interesting now is that these demands have entered inside the summit, they are at the negotiating table. And of course there is extraordinary resistance from the United States, and the European Union, Canada, Australia, to the idea that they shouldn’t just be giving money to the developing world to adapt to climate change, to deal with climate change, out of the goodness of our hearts, out of a sense of charity, but actually out of a legal obligation. This is a frightening concept as you can imagine.

AMY GOODMAN: Naomi Klein –

NAOMI KLEIN: The case for this is very strong, just to add.

AMY GOODMAN: Last week, the UN Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon rejected widespread predictions that the summit in Copenhagen would be a failure.

BAN KI-MOON: Reading the latest news reports, however, you might think Copenhagen is destined to be a disappointment. That is wrong. To the contrary, we can, and I believe we can and we will reach a deal in Copenhagen that sets the stage for a binding treaty as soon as possible.

AMY GOODMAN: Your response to what Ban Ki-Moon is saying?

NAOMI KLEIN: Well, the problem is the definition of success in Copenhagen has been lowered and lowered. A few months ago the definition of success in Copenhagen was countries agreeing to lower emissions, to levels that climate scientists were demanding. And the science is very clear that we really do need cuts of 40 percent below 1990 levels. The other definition of success was rich countries coming to the table with levels of funding for the developing world that once again meet the actual need. And we know what those types of figures are. The World Bank for instance has estimated the cost faced by developing countries to simply adapt to a changing climate dealing with droughts, dealing with increased flooding, is $100 billion a year. The cost of leapfrogging over those dirty energies, as I was saying earlier, that’s $500 billion-$600 billion a year. That’s a figure from independent UN researchers. But now what we hearing from the UN is there hope for Copenhagen is that they can get developed countries, rich countries, to agree to $10 billion a year.

So Amy, they will turn around and say that is a success, but it is simply not a success. So, the definition of success is just been pushed lower and lower. And this is really a troubling issue, and it an issue that a lot of environmentalists, climate justice activists are going to have to confront. Because, with an issue like climate change, urgency matters, maintaining a sense of urgency in the face of this crisis really matters. So, there is a danger, a very real danger of creating an illusion of doing something about the problem in Copenhagen. You know, having Obama go make another terrific speech which he is very good at, claiming it is a breakthrough that the U.S. is talking about emission cuts of between, now they are saying 14-20 below 2005 levels, which is just absurd, it has nothing to do with the science. And then this $10 billion a year figure, which once again there such a huge gap between that figure, and the lowest possible figure that we’re hearing from the World Bank which is $100 billion.

So, we have to be very careful about what is called success, because if you turn around and say “It is a success to have U.S. commit to 14 percent cut from 2005 levels,” and a throwing a couple billion dollars a year out of the goodness of their hearts while still recognizing historical responsibility, then you lose some of this crucial urgency, in confronting this crisis. So, I think is very important for the climate justice movement not to allow politicians to pass off the failure as success.

AMY GOODMAN: Naomi Klein, the issue of President Obama going. He's going to be in the region, he's going to pick up his Nobel Peace Prize in Oslo. He also just recently was in Copenhagen. He was there to push for Chicago to get the Olympics. But, he has not said he is going, although 65 world leaders have. The top three carbon polluters, the U.S., China and India, have not said they will attend the meeting. Your response?

NAOMI KLEIN: Well, you know John Kerry is publicly calling on Obama to go and I think now that that is happened, my assumption is Obama will go. I do not think Kerry would be saying this if it was not already pretty much decided that he will go. And I think this whole process of lowering the definition of success, so essentially failure can be passed off as success, is really, much of it is about creating conditions for Obama to go and claim that failure is success. So, frankly, I think he will go, but I do not think we should allow that to be a definition of success.

AMY GOODMAN: Now of course we will be there, “Democracy Now!” will be there in force, en masse, to cover what is happening for the two weeks. We will be covering what is happening at the summit and we will be covering what is happening in the streets. Naomi, it is the 10th anniversary of the Battle of Seattle, the protests in Seattle, Washington. I’m going to be there in a few days and there’s a lot of conversation about what that has meant. But, before we go to break and talk about this 10 years later, talks specifically about what is planned for Copenhagen in the streets.

NAOMI KLEIN: Well, the latest column I wrote for The Nation is about this line that you can draw from Seattle to Copenhagen. I call the column “Seattle Grows Up,” because I think we're also seeing an evolution of a movement that can to world attention on the streets of Seattle. I think there has been a profound deepening of the coalition between groups that are primarily focused on poverty, on development, on debt, and environmental groups that have traditionally been focused on environmental issues. We saw that in Seattle, the beginnings of that coalition, with the famous "Teamsters and Turtles" coalition. Now we are seeing something much deeper.

It is this idea of climate debt that is bringing together groups, like I was saying, Jubilee South, like Action Aid, groups that have been mostly focused on anti-poverty and development and are now are seeing climate change as the single greatest barrier to human development around the world, but also seen the call for climate reparation as an opportunity for, to quote Angelica Navarro, Bolivia's ambassador to the climate negotiations, who I was talking about earlier, when she talks about the need for the developing world- developed world to pay our climate debt, she says if this happened and we would have a Marshall Plan for planet earth, which is a very exciting prospect because it means you have the opportunity to tackle simultaneously two of humanities most intransigent challenges, most intransigent problems, climate debt on the one hand, and inequality on the other. So, the bringing together of these two forces. That is what's going to be really, really exciting in Copenhagen. And a lot of the people, a lot of networks that grew out of Seattle are going to be activated in Copenhagen and have only grown stronger in recent years.

AMY GOODMAN: When we will come back, we’ll talk about ten years after the Battle of Seattle protest overall, its also the 10th anniversary of the release of your book, No Logo, I want to talk about "world branding."

...

... But Naomi, before we talk more specifically about Seattle, what about the specific actions planned for the streets of Copenhagen at the Climate Summit?

NAOMI KLEIN: Well, you know, it's going to be a maze, Copenhagen. It's the largest environmental gathering in history, larger, even, than the Rio Earth Summit in 1992. So there's going to be a lot happening all around the city.

But, here is where I think it's really different from Seattle: in Seattle, the World Trade Organization was really the enemy for the activists in the street, and the goal was to shut down the meeting, both from the outside and inside. And you had this interesting coalition of activists in the street with that message, that "No WTO" message. And then you had coalitions of developing countries inside, emboldened by these protests in the street, emboldened to stand up to the pressure from the European Union and the United States. And ultimately it was that sort of "pincer" that collapsed the meeting.

In Copenhagen, it's a different dynamic, because the fact is that the people in the streets overwhelmingly support the mission of the meeting in Copenhagen. And, so, they're not saying "no" to the idea of a climate summit. In fact, they're saying "yes," and they're revealing, highlighting that, in fact, it is the world leaders, particularly world leaders from the heavy-emitting countries, like the United States and Canada, who are the naysayers, who are the ones who are saying, "No, we don't actually want to tackle the climate crisis, we don't want to make the emissions cuts that are needed, that are required by science."

So, in a sense, it’s an inversion where it’s the activists who are saying, "Yes, we believe in this mission." And it's the politicians, really, who we need to reveal as being the ones who are actually saying, 'no,' even as they claim to be saying 'yes,' and even as they claim -- even as they sell failure as 'success.'"

So, it’s really tricky for activists in terms of figuring out how you interact with a summit like this. So, there's one day, for instance, the 18th -- December 18th, where activists are going to be kind of storming the conference center, nonviolently, but using civil disobedience. But their goal, they say, is not to shut down the meeting, but to open up the meeting and to have a forum inside the meeting to talk about real climate solutions, like leaving fossil fuels in the ground—dirty fossil fuels, particularly things like the Alberta tar sands -- talking about solutions like climate debt that we’ve been discussing, and exposing the fallacies of the claims that the market can solve the climate crisis.

Because, of course, that's what we’re going to be hearing a lot of in Copenhagen, market-based solutions: cap and trade, emission trading, carbon sinks, basically creating a huge market in pollution. And you have many of the same players that crashed the global economy, like Goldman Sachs, salivating over the idea of being able to have a speculative bubble over carbon.

So, that's the dynamic. It's not saying "no," not saying "shut down," but saying, "Open up. Let's talk about real solutions." And another example of this is that, actually, there will be an attempt to shut something down in Copenhagen, but that is focused on shutting down the port for a day -- Copenhagen's port -- to highlight the corporate side of this equation, the shipping industry and how emissions-heavy it is. And, so, not to shut down a meeting that actually the activists believe in, but to go after industry itself. So, there's going to be a lot of actions like that. A lot of thought and debate is going into how to craft actions that are really consistent with the goals of this movement.

AMY GOODMAN: And the delegates, the people who are involved in the climate talks, as opposed to the activists in the street -- something interesting that happened ten years ago with the Battle of Seattle that also turned things were those inside who were saying, "You are not listening to us." I mean, developing countries, for example, countries in Africa. What about those countries here, their role at the climate summit in Copenhagen?

NAOMI KLEIN: Well, you know, it remains to be seen. As I said, some of the most interesting solutions are being put on the table by Latin American governments, like Bolivia, also Ecuador.

But what we just saw in Barcelona, which was, you know, the last major negotiating push before the meeting in Copenhagen, is that the coalition of African states walked out of the summit en masse. So, basically a form of civil disobedience within the summit, in protest of the very low commitments for emission cuts coming from the developed world, which was interesting that the African bloc walked out, not because there wasn’t enough money for them, not because there wasn’t enough aid for them to deal climate change, but because they don’t simply want aid, they want us in the rich world to change our way of life because they are facing the effects of that. They’re on the front lines of climate change.

Read the rest of the post on the flip side »

Alberto Gonzales Inspires Students to "Dream Big" and Hope to Meet "the Next George W. Bush" One Day
Posted by Matt Corley, Think Progress on November 30, 2009 at 11:30 AM.

After months without finding work, former attorney general Alberto Gonzales landed a teaching job at Texas Tech University earlier this year, where he is now leading a political science class on the Executive Branch. When Gonzales' hiring was announced, Texas Tech chancellor Kent Hance said that the former Bush appointee would "help Texas Tech and ASU prepare our students for success and to be future leaders in the State of Texas and beyond." In an interview with the Daily Toreador, Gonzales gave an example of some of the inspirational wisdom he is providing to his students:

Gonzales said he wants to encourage Tech students to have high aspirations but to realize that success doesn't come overnight.

"Dream big but be patient," he said. "You never know when the next George W. Bush is going to come along and give you a once in a lifetime opportunity like he gave me, but you have to be patient."

Dubai May Finally Be Broke, But It's Been Morally Bankrupt All Along
Posted by Johann Hari, AlterNet on November 30, 2009 at 10:30 AM.

Dubai is finally financially bankrupt -- but it has been morally bankrupt all along. The idea that Dubai is an oasis of freedom on the Arabian peninsular is one of the great lies of our time. Yes, it has Starbucks and Dunkin' Donuts and the Gucci styles, but beneath these accouterments, there is a dictatorship built by slaves.

If you go there with your eyes open -- as I did earlier this year -- the truth is hidden in plain view. The tour books and the bragging Emiratis will tell you the city was built by Sheikh Mohammed, the country's hereditary ruler.

It is untrue. The people who really built the city can be seen in long chain-gangs by the side of the road, or toiling all day at the top of the tallest buildings in the world, in heat that Westerners are told not to stay in for more than 10 minutes. They were conned into coming, and trapped into staying.

In their home country – Bangladesh or the Philippines or India – these workers are told they can earn a fortune in Dubai if they pay a large upfront fee. When they arrive, their passports are taken from them, and they are told their wages are a tenth of the rate they were promised.

They end up working in extremely dangerous conditions for years, just to pay back their initial debt. They are ringed-off in filthy tent-cities outside Dubai, where they sleep in weeping heat, next to open sewage. They have no way to go home. And if they try to strike for better conditions, they are beaten by the police.

Read the rest of the post on the flip side »

Rick Warren Refuses to Condemn Death Penalty for Homosexuals
Posted by Allison Kilkenny, True/Slant on November 30, 2009 at 9:30 AM.

I think I was too hard on Meet The Press the other day. Here I was, fussing that MTP rarely includes leftist voices on its panels when something much bigger was happening. Now I understand that the producers of the longest-running television show in worldwide broadcasting history can’t include leftist perspectives because they have to create a “safe space” for the views of people like pastor Rick Warren, who recently refused to condemn the idea of a death penalty for gays in Uganda.

In a recent interview with Newsweek, Warren refused to reject the ideas of Martin Ssempa, a Ugandan pastor who has come to his Saddleback Church multiple times, and whose stunts include burning condoms in the name of Jesus and endorsing state executions for homosexuals.

But Warren won’t go so far as to condemn the legislation itself. A request for a broader reaction to the proposed Ugandan anti-homosexual laws generated this response: “The fundamental dignity of every person, our right to be free, and the freedom to make moral choices are gifts endowed by God, our creator. However, it is not my personal calling as a pastor in America to comment or interfere in the political process of other nations.”

Yes, one wouldn’t want to interfere with the political process of an autonomous nation. Meanwhile, Warren and his tax exempt church are fine with meddling with the political process in this country. The pastor was a key player in endorsing Prop 8, which amended California’s Constitution to say marriage can only be between a man and a woman.

But don’t take my word for it. Warren stated his support for Prop 8 in this video:

Let me just say this really clearly. We support Proposition 8. And if you believe what the bible says about marriage, you need to support Proposition 8. I never support a candidate, but on moral issues, I come out really clear…. We should not let 2% of the population determine — uh, to change the definition of marriage that has been supported by every single culture, and every single religion for 5,000 years.

Apparently, this was taken out of context because Warren later panicked and tried to distance himself from the movement. He told Larry King that he “never once even gave an endorsement” of the proposition.

Let me just say this really clearly. We support Proposition 8.

Okay.

Warren has also compared homosexuality to incest, pedophilia, and bestiality, though this totally doesn’t mean he hates gay people, he explained to MSNBC’s Ann Curry:

I could give you a hundred gay friends. I have always treated them with respect. When they come and want to talk to me, I talk to them.

I talk to them, but I’m also cool with them being killed by the state. I can see why MTP didn’t want to let this gem slip through their fingers. Warren reiterated his refusal to condemn the crazy Ugandan pastor yesterday on his most recent MTP appearance, Newsweek reports:

“As a pastor, my job is to encourage, to support. I never take sides.” Warren did say he believed that abortion was “a holocaust.” He knows as well as anyone that in a case of great wrong, taking sides is an important thing to do.

Read the rest of the post on the flip side »

George Will: Get Off My Lawn You Hippie Dope Fiends!
Posted by Joshua Holland, AlterNet on November 30, 2009 at 8:35 AM.

I'm not sure when George Will completed the transition from acerbic center-right pundit to crotchety old fart whinging about the kids these days, but there's actually something reassuring about the fact that even in a world as crazy as ours is today a bow-tied moral scold like George Will can still find the time to get worked up over states passing medical marijuana laws.

Inside the green neon sign, which is shaped like a marijuana leaf, is a red cross. The cross serves the fiction that most transactions in the store -- which is what it really is -- involve medicine.

The Justice Department recently announced that federal laws against marijuana would not be enforced for possession of marijuana that conforms to states' laws. In 2000, Colorado legalized medical marijuana.

George Will's mad about it. But he was for states' rights before he was against them, of course. When? Oh, way back in ... last week, when the issue was a state's God-given right to refuse to participate in federal health-care schemes. Anyway ...

Since Justice's decision, the average age of the 400 persons a day seeking "prescriptions" at Colorado's multiplying medical marijuana dispensaries has fallen precipitously. Many new customers are college students.

Oh. My. God. College students smoking pot! What next -- people marrying trees?!?

Read the rest of the post on the flip side »

Inhofe Trashes Military Generals Who Advocate For Clean Energy Legislation
Posted by Faiz Shakir, Think Progress on November 30, 2009 at 7:34 AM.

In testimony before the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, retired Vice Admiral Dennis McGinn articulated a national security argument for passing clean energy legislation. “Continued over reliance on fossil fuels, or small, incremental steps, simply will not create the kind of future security and prosperity that the American people and our great Nation deserve,” McGinn warned.

In an interview with the New York Times Magazine, Sen. James Inhofe (R-OK), the ranking member of the Senate environment committee, argued that McGinn and other generals who are advocating for clean energy reform (like Wesley Clark, Stephen Cheney, Brent Scowcroft, etc) are simply doing so because they crave “the limelight”:

NYT: Senator Boxer is chairwoman of the Environment and Public Works Committee, on which you are the ranking Republican. She and her fellow Democrats have lately suggested that global warming could be a threat to national security by destabilizing developing countries.

INHOFE: That’s the most ludicrous thing. They looked around and they found, I think, five generals to testify before the committee. Well, that’s 5 generals out of 4,000 retired generals that say that. There are a lot of generals who don’t like to be out of the limelight. They’d like to get back in.

Read the rest of the post on the flip side »

Conservative Hypocrisy: Food Stamps Are Hand-Outs to the Lazy ... Until I Need Them
Posted by Jill Filipovic, Feministe on November 30, 2009 at 6:30 AM.

This article on increasing rates of reliance on food stamps illustrates pretty clearly the right-wing mentality when it comes to social programs -- any sort of government aid is a hand-out to the lazy until I need it. Then it's still a hand-out to the lazy, just not for me.

While Mr. Dawson, the electrician, has kept his job, the drive to distant work sites has doubled his gas bill, food prices rose sharply last year and his health insurance premiums have soared. His monthly expenses have risen by about $400, and the elimination of overtime has cost him $200 a month. Food stamps help fill the gap.

Like many new beneficiaries here, Mr. Dawson argues that people often abuse the program and is quick to say he is different. While some people "choose not to get married, just so they can apply for benefits," he is a married, churchgoing man who works and owns his home. While "some people put piles of steaks in their carts," he will not use the government’s money for luxuries like coffee or soda. "To me, that's just morally wrong," he said.

He has noticed crowds of midnight shoppers once a month when benefits get renewed. While policy analysts, spotting similar crowds nationwide, have called them a sign of increased hunger, he sees idleness. "Generally, if you’re up at that hour and not working, what are you into?" he said.

I don't know, sir -- but since you're there too, why don’t you tell us?

Almost as precious is the suggestion that food stamps should come with work requirements, akin to cash welfare benefits:

"Some people like to camouflage this by calling it a nutrition program, but it's really not different from cash welfare," said Robert Rector of the Heritage Foundation, whose views have a following among conservatives on Capitol Hill. "Food stamps is quasi money."

Arguing that aid discourages work and marriage, Mr. Rector said food stamps should contain work requirements as strict as those placed on cash assistance. "The food stamp program is a fossil that repeats all the errors of the war on poverty," he said.

No word from Mr. Rector, though, on where those jobs are coming from.

Food stamps are increasingly utilized in large part because more Americans are unemployed or underemployed. Work requirements aren't particularly helpful if you live in rural Appalachia or suburban Detroit or the South Bronx and there just aren't jobs to be had.

Read the rest of the post on the flip side »

Has Obama Done More Than Any Other President in Their First Year?
Posted by Steve Benen, Washington Monthly on November 30, 2009 at 4:28 AM.

President Obama's detractors on the right believe the president has racked up some accomplishments, all of them awful. The more widespread impression among news outlets and many who voted for the president is that Obama hasn't accomplished much at all.

Slate's Jacob Weisberg has a contrarian piece this weekend, arguing that the opposite is actually true. If health care reform is completed by mid-January, Weisberg argues, the president will deliver a State of the Union address in a couple of months "having accomplished more than any other postwar American president at a comparable point in his presidency."

We are so submerged in the details of [the health care] debate -- whether the bill will include a "public option," limit coverage for abortion, or tax Botox -- that it's easy to lose sight of the magnitude of the impending change. For the federal government to take responsibility for health coverage will be a transformation of the American social contract and the single biggest change in government's role since the New Deal. If Obama governs for four or eight years and accomplishes nothing else, he may be judged the most consequential domestic president since LBJ. He will also undermine the view that Ronald Reagan permanently reversed a 50-year tide of American liberalism.

 

Read the rest of the post on the flip side »

Conservatives Can Really Be Heartless Bastards
Posted by Joshua Holland, AlterNet on November 29, 2009 at 1:10 PM.

The U.S. economy has shed 7.3 million jobs in the past 23 months, the biggest hit to the labor market since the Second World War. (Just to keep up with the growth in the working population would have required the addition of around 3.5 million jobs during that time.)

Unemployment has more than doubled in the past two years, and is now over 10 percent. The dispiriting number rises to more than 1 in 6  -- 17.2 percent of working Americans -- when you include those underemployed against their will (working part-time, free-lancing, etc.).

And American households have lost $14 trillion in wealth in the real estate and stock markets since the crash.

Against that backdrop of very real pain, I want you to consider what kind of person would sit down, as John J. Miller did for the National Review, and write something like this about food-stamps, which are currently helping feed 1 out of every 4 American children [ht Tintin]:

Seems like there ought to be a stigma attached to the use of welfare. A little bit of shame can go a long way toward encouraging people to find jobs. The federal government may think it's doing people a favor by providing them with access to food, but it's doing them a disservice if it also robs them of the motivation necessary to break free from dependency.

Yes, an empty belly is just the incentive people need to get up off their lazy asses and go out to find one of those nonexistent jobs.

Allow me to point out that John J. Miller lives off the hand-outs of hard-right cranks and wealthy ideologues. He writes for The National Review, which has never turned a profit (founder William F Buckley once said that NR had lost over $25 million dollars over the years). Miller's latest book was a paean to a big-money right-wing foundation, published by another big-money right-wing foundation.

Perhaps if there were a bit of stigma attached to being a clown who earns his keep off of wingnut welfare, it would discourage Miller from being so dependent on the generosity of others. Parasite.

If Miller's name rings a bell -- he's a C-list right-winger --it's most likely the result of a much-mocked book arguing that we should regard France as our mortal enemy which he co-authored after the invasion of Iraq. It prompted a review in Foreign Affairs that began: "That a book as shoddy and biased as this one should be published by a reputable press is eminently regrettable."

You can buy a copy on Amazon right now for a penny, if you don't need it for food.

Copenhagen: Getting Past the Urgency Trap
Posted by Sara Robinson, Orcinus on November 28, 2009 at 4:11 PM.

The article below appeared earlier this week at Grist.

Copenhagen’s still three weeks away, but climate activists are already voicing their enormous disappointment about everything that’s not going to get done there. The heat is rising, and we’re all feeling the overwhelming urgency to get a strong global agreement that will get the laggards off their butts and launch the structural reformations most of us know we need to fix the problem. A lot of us, it seems, loaded all our highest hopes onto this one conference, wanting desperately to believe that this would finally be the moment the long-awaited Grand Transformation would occur.

But the hard truth of the matter is this: change of this magnitude never happens with a single conference, a single treaty, or even a single disaster. The structural changes required to get us off carbon and onto a truly sustainable footing challenge the economic assumptions that humans have lived by for 2500 years. Change that wide and deep will be the work of an entire century, maybe two. (If we’re smart and lucky, our grandchildren may live to see it mostly done.) All of us are well aware of the precarious time crunch we’re under here; but humans change only as fast as they change, and forcing the issue isn’t likely to help. And it may even hurt us in the long run.

We didn’t get into this mess overnight, and we’re not going to get out of it in one dazzling planetary stroke of universal enlightenment, either.

The good news: big, deep changes like this one tend to proceed in a fairly predictable order. If we understand the whole arc of that process, we can have a little more patience with where we are, and think a little more strategically about what comes next.

Read the rest of the post on the flip side »

Hey Gov. Kaine, Restore Voting Rights for Felons
Posted by Tara Lohan on November 28, 2009 at 2:00 PM.

Tim Kaine will be leaving office as Governor of Virginia in January but there's one last things folks are hoping he'll do: Restore voting rights for felons. Virginia and Kentucky are the last states to permanently revoke voting rights for anyone convicted of a felony as well as other civil rights like serving on juries or holding public office.

Here's a message from the Virginia Organizing Project, which has been working on this issue.

1. Virginia has an estimated 300,000 former felons who cannot vote.

2. The Governor of Virginia can restore voting rights for former felons.

3. We need Governor Tim Kaine to sign an Executive Order to correct this injustice -- before he leaves office in January. Call Governor Tim Kaine at (804) 786-2211 or send an e-mail here and ask him, "Please sign an Executive Order to restore voting rights for former felons so that their rights are automatically restored when they finish their sentence."

What you can do if you live in other states:

Please contact Valerie Jarrett at the White House (202-456-1190) and ask her to encourage Virginia Governor Tim Kaine (also DNC Chair) to sign an Executive Order to restore voting rights for former felons.

THANKS! Your phone call can make a HUGE difference -- please pass this on...

After Kaine leaves office he'll be replaced by Republican Bob McDonnell and Virginia residents are afraid that will be a backwards step on this civil rights issue.

Selling Out Democracy in Honduras: The U.S. and the Honduran Election
Posted by Isabel Macdonald, AlterNet on November 28, 2009 at 12:10 PM.

The June 28 military coup d'etat that overthrew Honduras' democratically elected president provided President Obama with "a golden opportunity...to make a clear break with the past and show that he is unequivocally siding with democracy," as Costa Rica's former vice president put it.  However, the U.S.'s recognition of the sham election Honduras' de facto regime is staging on Sunday makes it quite clear that Obama is choosing instead to side with the  far-right Republicans who support the coup.

In the wake of the coup that overthrew Honduran president Jose Manuel Zelaya Rosales, the Guardian's Calvin Tucker observes that there had been some promising signs that Obama was going to remain true to his pledge to "seek a new chapter of engagement" in Latin America. Despite some initial waffling by the State Department, Obama spoke out in strong terms against Zelaya's overthrow, saying that "it would be a terrible precedent if we start moving backwards into the era in which we are seeing military coups as a means of political transition, rather than democratic elections." The U.S. backed a Costa Rican-brokered compromise that would have seen Zelaya returned to office, at the helm of a "unity government." All non-humanitarian U.S. aid was suspended to the de facto regime, as were the U.S. visas of the coup leaders. The State Department indicated that the US would "not be able to support" the outcome of the elections out of concern that they would not be "free, fair and transparent." And finally, during a visit to Honduras by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton in late October, the coup leaders agreed to sign the U.S. backed agreement providing for Zelaya's return.

This firm U.S. reaction apparently "privately stunned" the coup leaders, who were sure "this would never have happened if the Republicans had still been in power," according to the New Yorker's William Finnegan.

Indeed, the coup leaders, who along with their allies such as the Latin American Business Council have spent at least six hundred thousand dollars on Washington lobbyists and lawyers, count amongst their supporters several prominent congressional Republicans, including South Carolina Senator Jim DeMint.

DeMint had been leading efforts to block key diplomatic appointments in Latin America, and earlier this month, the Obama administration succumbed to this pro-coup Republican pressure, announcing that it will after all recognize Sunday's election, and not insist on the return of the legitimate president. On November 4, Assistant Secretary of State Thomas Shannon announced on CNN that "the formation of the National Unity Government is apart from the reinstatement of President Zelaya" and that the Honduran Congress will decide when and if Zelaya is reinstated.

DeMint took credit for the change in U.S. policy, releasing a press statement declaring "Senator secures commitment for U.S. to back Nov. 29 elections even if Zelaya is not reinstated." In the statement, DeMint said he was

happy to report the Obama Administration has finally reversed its misguided Honduran policy and will fully recognize the November 29th elections... Secretary Clinton and Assistant Secretary Shannon have assured me that the U.S. will recognize the outcome of the Honduran elections regardless of whether Manuel Zelaya is reinstated.

The 23 Latin American and Caribbean nations of the Rio Group do not recognize Sunday's election. However the Obama administration is now going ahead in recognizing the vote held in the midst of what Amnesty International has characterized as a "human rights crisis," marked by an"increasingly disproportionate and excessive use of force being used by the police and military to repress legitimate and peaceful protests across the country." Since Zelaya's overthrow, over 3,500 people have been illegally detained, over 600 have been beaten and dozens have been killed, according to the Committee of Families of the Disappeared (COFADEH), with media workers, human rights defenders and female protesters particularly targeted, according to Amnesty.

The only two presidential candidates on the ballot supported the coup that ousted the elected president. The leading opposition candidate, Carlos Reyes, recently withdrew his nomination for the presidency, calling the election fraudulent, and hundreds of candidates for congressional and municipal seats have also withdrawn from the election.

And Tucker notes that

Trade unions and social movements calling for a boycott of the election are facing mafia-style threats, with the regime's chief of police boasting that he has compiled a blacklist of "all those of the left".

At the same time, Honduras' big business federation, which supported the coup, is reportedly offering "cash discounts" to Hondurans for voting in the election.

The fact that such an election has won the support of the Obama administration does not bode well for the president's "new chapter" of U.S.-Latin America relations.

Wingnuts: Insane Effort to Draft Cheney for 2012 Race Will Frighten Liberals!
Posted by Thers, Whiskey Fire on November 28, 2009 at 9:44 AM.

Comedy, from those scamps at the Jawa Report.

Listen. Can You Hear The Heads Of Liberals Exploding Like Popped Balloons?

The noise is made from the rapid release of air that occupies the space where brains should have been. Heh.

Gracious! To clarify, here is the Exciting News which is supposed to be upsetting to Liberals:

A new group wants former Vice President Dick Cheney back in the White House. The organization - "Draft Dick Cheney 2012" - launched on Friday, and unveiled their new Web site. Their aim: To convince the former vice president to seek the Republican presidential nomination in the next race for the White House.

Yes, yes, indeed, my head is exploding! This has made me hysterical and afraid, the prospect of a Dick Cheney presidential run! I fear it so! Please, please don't throw the fearsome Dick Cheney into the asshole patch that is the 2012 GOP presidential "field"!

Because this, you know, is true:

"The 2012 race for the Republican nomination for President will be about much more then who will be the party's standard bearer against Barack Obama, the race is about the heart and soul of the GOP," said Christopher Barron, one of the organizers of the Draft Cheney movement.

Right. And who would doubt for a moment that Dick Cheney is indeed the most perfect embodiment of "the heart and soul of the modern GOP"? Not this liberal!

Poor Peggy Noonan, Stuck Recycling Right-Bloggers' Talking-Points
Posted by Roy Edroso, Alicublog on November 28, 2009 at 8:36 AM.

Peggy Noonan, newly filled with a sense of purpose, tells us that people don't like Obama anymore. That is, the polls indicate a lot of them do, but the people who matter don't. Among these: columnists, and people Peggy Noonan meets in unspecified "bipartisan crowds":

As I read Ms. Drew's piece, I was reminded of something I began noticing a few months ago in bipartisan crowds. I would ask Democrats how they thought the president was doing. In the past they would extol, with varying degrees of enthusiasm, his virtues. Increasingly, they would preface their answer with, "Well, I was for Hillary."

It's amazing Clinton didn't win the Democratic nomination, with so much vital bipartisan support.

This in turn reminded me of a surprising thing I observe among loyal Democrats in informal settings and conversations: No one loves Barack Obama. Half the American people say they support him, and Democrats are still with him. But there were Bill Clinton supporters who really loved him. George W. Bush had people who loved him. A lot of people loved Jack Kennedy and Ronald Reagan. But no one seems to love Mr. Obama now; they're not dazzled and head over heels. That's gone away. He himself seems a fairly chilly customer; perhaps in turn he inspires chilly support. But presidents need that rock --bottom 20% who, no matter what's happening -- war, unemployment -- adore their guy, have complete faith in him, and insist that you love him, too.

Her model for such people might be Peggy Noonan, who once said things like "Mr. McCain is the Old America, of course; Mr. Obama the New." Remember those days? In any case it would explain her certainty in this analysis.

But Obama does have such people, despite the fact that Noonan is no longer among them.

Read the rest of the post on the flip side »

Try Your Hand: GOP Sex Scandal Haiku!
Posted by Joshua Holland, AlterNet on November 28, 2009 at 6:17 AM.

This is pretty funny -- the folks at TPM are asking readers to send them haiku based on their favorite GOP sex scandals. All good, clean holiday fun for the whole family.

Poetry's not my bag but I figured I'd give it the old college try. So, reaching for some low-hanging fruit, I came up with this:

Hot Summer toe-tap

Dull lay-over, need relief

Oh, no, officer

Have at it in the comments.

Update: there are certainly different forms of haiku (and you don't have to limit yourself -- they're doing limericks in the comments), but the traditional anglicized version is 3 lines, with 5 syllables, 7 syllables and 5 syllables respectively. And if you want to be a purist, try to work in a kigo, or seasonal reference.

Dispatches from the Real Economy: They're Locking Up the Deodorant
Posted by Lindsay Beyerstein, Majikthise on November 27, 2009 at 5:48 PM.

The drugstore has locked down the deodorant.

Addendum: You can tell a lot about a neighborhood by what gets locked up to prevent shoplifting. Here in New York, supermarkets in poorer neighborhoods tend to put baby formula behind glass. Swankier places will keep it behind the counter at the pharmacy, or sometimes even out on the shelf.

Yuppie liquor stores keep all but their most expensive bottles out on the shelves to encourage customers to facilitate impulse buys. By contrast, liquor stores in rougher neighborhoods may keep the bulk of their inventory behind plexiglass. Liquor stores are an extreme example because they've got to worry about robberies as well as shoplifting, but it's the same merchandising principle at work. It's a tradeoff between accessibility and security.

Small, expensive items like razor blades and batteries are likely to be secured no matter where you go. But it's a bad sign that deodorant shoplifting has become enough of a problem to justify the expense of the giant plastic case and extra hassle for the employees.

Where Does Karl Rove Find the Nerve to Criticize Anyone About Deficits?
Posted by Steve Benen, Washington Monthly on November 27, 2009 at 4:29 PM.

When Karl Rove helped run the White House, he accepted certain beliefs as truths. He believed, for example, turning massive surpluses into massive deficits was entirely reasonable. He believed reckless tax cuts for the already rich were an example of responsible governing. He believed expanding the size of government, adding to entitlements, increasing the federal role in education, and putting it all on future generations' tab, was perfectly sensible. He believed fiscal responsibility was a punch-line.

And now that Karl Rove is outside the White House, he believes he's entitled to complain about deficits from his perch in the media establishment.

What seems to concern the president is not the problem runaway spending poses for taxpayers and the economy. Rather, what bothers him is the political problem it poses for Democrats.

Last year, Mr. Obama made fiscal restraint a constant theme of his presidential campaign. "Washington will have to tighten its belt and put off spending," he said back then, while pledging to "go through the federal budget, line by line, ending programs that we don't need." Voters found this fiscal conservatism reassuring.

However, since taking office Mr. Obama pushed through a $787 billion stimulus, a $33 billion expansion of the child health program known as S-chip, a $410 billion omnibus appropriations spending bill, and an $80 billion car company bailout. He also pushed a $821 billion cap-and-trade bill through the House and is now urging Congress to pass a nearly $1 trillion health-care bill.

Rove wants to see an "honest appraisal" of where we are. Good idea. The stimulus was necessary because Rove's old boss left the president an economy on the verge of wholesale collapse. S-CHIP expansion was necessary because Rove's old boss rejected a bipartisan measure to help low-income children go to the doctor. Rescuing the auto industry was necessary because it was a continuation of Rove's old boss' policy and the nation couldn't afford to cut off American manufacturing at the knees at the height of the recession. Cap and trade, Rove neglected to mention, wouldn't add to the deficit, and is necessary because Rove's old boss ignored the climate crisis for eight years. The health care reform bill would cut the deficit significantly, and is necessary because Rove's old boss fiddled while the dysfunctional health care system got worse.

That's an "honest appraisal."

Read the rest of the post on the flip side »

Why the GOP Will Face an Uphill Battle Making Large Gains in 2010
Posted by Kos , Daily Kos on November 27, 2009 at 3:01 PM.

Massive Democratic gains in 2006 and 2008 were fueled in part by Democratic advantages in committee fundraising. While Bush's RNC handily outraised its Democratic counterparts at the DNC, both the Democratic House and Senate committees crushed their Republican counterparts. Not much has changed.

Fundraising for Democratic campaign committees is surging, helping the party to extend a winning streak in competitive special elections and giving House Democrats a more than 3-to-1 advantage over Republicans in cash stockpiled for the battles ahead, campaign-finance reports show.

The Democratic National Committee, along with the fundraising arm for House Democrats, outraised Republican committees last month. Overall, all Democratic committees ended October with nearly $38.8 million cash on hand, compared with $21.3 million for Republicans.

Here's the breakdowns ...

Read the rest of the post on the flip side »

Court Bars Couple from Having "Unnatural," "Hysterical," "Howling" Sex
Posted by Booman, Booman Tribune on November 27, 2009 at 1:57 PM.

Here's something straight out of Porky's:

A British woman lost her appeal Tuesday against a ban on her noisy sex sessions, after a court heard how her marathon romps that kept neighbours awake sounded like someone being murdered.

Caroline and Steve Cartwright's "howling" lovemaking sounded "unnatural", "hysterical" and "like they are both in considerable pain", Newcastle Crown Court in northeast England heard.

A 10-minute recording of their sex sessions was played out in court, which also heard how she tried covering her face with a pillow to muffle her cries of passion.

Neighbours at their home in Washington, south of Newcastle, complained about the noise -- as did passers-by and the postman.

The couple were banned from "shouting, screaming or vocalisation at such a level as to be a statutory nuisance", but Caroline Cartwright, 48, appealed under human rights laws against her conviction for breaching the ban.

However, a judge on Tuesday upheld the original conviction and ordered that the banning order should stay.

Caroline Cartwright said she was unable to stop the din. "I tried to control it. I even tried to use a pillow (over her own face) to try and lessen the noise," she said.

The judge, Recorder Jeremy Freedman, rejected her claim.

The friggin' postman complained? That is some serious noise. Imagine having people play the sounds of your lovemaking in court. That must have been quite a scene. But at least it only lasted ten minutes. Thank god for small favors, I guess. I had some experience with loud dorm-mates in college, but nothing that could compare with this.

Strip-Club Owner Opens Dog Shelter Named After Newt Gingrich
Posted by Ben Armbruster, Think Progress on November 27, 2009 at 12:02 PM.

Last September, former House Speaker Newt Gingrich retracted an “Entrepreneur of the Year” award he accidentally presented to Dallas strip club owner Dawn Rizos and refunded the $5,000 donation Rizos made to Gingrich’s American Solutions for Winning the Future. At the time, Rizos said she would take the money to build a shelter for unwanted pit bulls. The Dallas Morning News reported yesterday that “Newt’s Nook: A Home For Pit Bulls” is now open:

A North Texas shelter for pit bulls has opened this week, thanks to a Dallas topless club owner’s contribution after Newt Gingrich’s conservative group snubbed her donation. [...]

Rizos says she decided to “make something positive out of his bad manners.”

She redirected the money to Animal Guardians of America’s sanctuary for rescued dogs in Celina, about 35 miles north of Dallas.

Gingrich didn’t attend the opening of “Newt’s Nook — A Home for Pit Bulls.”

Wingnuts Cite Lunatic Message Board Commenters as Authorities on Climate Science
Posted by Thers, Whiskey Fire on November 27, 2009 at 10:30 AM.

NewsBusters has always been a stupid fucking website, if rather pedestrian in its wingnuttery. But this breaks new ground:

An hilariously bizarre situation is happening in the wake of the growing Climategate scandal.  Many of the mainstream media stories about global warming are simply pretending it doesn't exist. Perhaps they feel that by ignoring Climategate entirely that it will just go away. Unfortunately for them, the readers of these global warming stories keep bringing up the inconvenient truth of Climategate by mentioning the scandal in the comments section over and over and over again.

This is inverse nutpicking, or the inane tactic of citing lunatic shitheads in comments sections in order to destroy cedibility. NewsBusters is now pioneering the inane tactic of citing lunatic shitheads in comments sections in order to claim credibility.

There should be a clever name for this innovation, I guess, but really they're just being shitheads.

State Dinner Crashers: Reality Show Dupes Secret Service?
Posted by Adele Stan, AlterNet on November 27, 2009 at 8:41 AM.

On the one hand, you've gotta admire the moxie of Michaele and Tareq Salahi, publicity seekers who crashed Tuesday's state dinner, thrown by the Obama's in honor of Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh. Trailed by cameras for Bravo's Real Housewives reality show, the couple found their way into the great fete, despite their lack of an invitation -- and even got their picture taken with Vice President Joe Biden and White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel. On the other hand, when you consider the fact that threats on the life of President Barack Obama, as AlterNet's Don Hazen reported, are 400 percent higher than those faced by George W. Bush, the episode raises serious questions about the quality of the president's Secret Service protection.

In September, AlterNet was prompted by reports of under-resourcing of the Secret Service to sent a petition signed by readers to Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano, requesting that Secret Service funding cutbacks not be allowed to endanger the safety of the president.



For White House events, the Secret Service not only provides the sort of bodyguard protection we're accustomed to seeing around the president, but also screens the visitors, who are usually required to provide personal information, such as date of birth and Social Security number, days ahead of the visit. The Salahis weren't on the White House guest list, and their vehicle was turned away before it got to the drop-off point. With cameras trailing, the Salahis simply hopped out and found their way into the line of guests, who went through a series of subsequent checkpoints. The Secret Service has acknowledged that the Salahis' passage through the first pedestrian check-point indicates a failure to follow procedure by the agents at that check point. No kidding.

More galling than that, though, is the fact that the Secret Service is trying to downplay the incident based on the fact that no one was hurt. "It's important to note that they went through all the security screenings -- the magnetometer screening -- just like all the other guests did," Secret Service spokesperson Ed Donovan told USA Today. But, as Ronald Kessler, author of a book on the Secret Service told the New York Daily News, "They could have assassinated the President or vice president using other means -- anthrax, for example." The Secret Service does not check for bioweapons, Kessler told the News.

Read the rest of the post on the flip side »

Irish Commission: "No Doubt" Catholic Church Covered Up Child Sex Abuse for 30 Years
Posted by Staff, AlterNet on November 26, 2009 at 7:43 PM.

The Irish Times:

The Commission of Investigation into Dublin’s Catholic Archdiocese has concluded that there is “no doubt” that clerical child sexual abuse was covered up by the archdiocese and other Church authorities.

The commission’s report covers the period between January 1st 1975 and April 30th 2004. It said there cover-ups took place over much of this period.

In its report, published this afternoon, it has also found that “the structures and rules of the Catholic Church facilitated that cover-up.”

It also found that “the State authorities facilitated the cover-up by not fulfilling their responsibilities to ensure that the law was applied equally to all and allowing the Church institutions to be beyond the reach of the normal law enforcement processes.”

Over the period within its remit “the welfare of children, which should have been the first priority, was not even a factor to be considered in the early stages,” it said.

“Instead the focus was on the avoidance of scandal and the preservation of the good name, status and assets of the institution and of what the institution regarded as its most important members – the priests,” it said.

In making its main findings, the report it concluded that “it is the responsibility of the State to ensure that no similar institutional immunity is ever allowed to occur again. This can be ensured only if all institutions are open to scrutiny and not accorded an exempted status by any organs of the State.”

The Dublin Archdiocese Commission of Investigation was set up on March 28th, 2006. It completed its report on July 21st last when it was presented to the Minister for Justice Dermot Ahern.\

Read the entire article here.

Glenn Beck Scoffs at Palin/Beck 2012 Ticket, Doesn't Like Palin's "Yapping"
Posted by Tana Ganeva, AlterNet on November 26, 2009 at 3:49 PM.

Is your drunk conservative uncle ranting about our fascist President turning America socialist? You could take the classy route and stay quiet until they exhaust their Glenn Beck talking points. Or, you could taunt them with this: apparently the Beck/Palin 2012 ticket, coyly "not ruled out" by Sarah Palin during last week's publicity blitz, is not to be! Beck -- who just last week somberly upbraided Newsweek for running a sexist picture of Palin -- doesn't want to hear her "yapping" as  "I'm not in the kitchen."

How are these two going to make America great again if they can't get along? Does all hope rest with Michele Bachmann?

From Think Progress:

In recent days, former Alaska governor Sarah Palin has indicated that she may be open to a conservative presidential dream ticket in 2012: Palin-Beck (or Beck-Palin). “I can envision a couple of different combinations, if ever I were to be in a position to really even seriously consider running for anything in the future, and I’m not there yet,” Palin told Newsmax. “But Glenn Beck I have great respect for. He’s a hoot.” Fox and Friends plugged the idea yesterday morning and asked Palin whether she would run with Beck. She kept the door open, saying, “I don’t know. We’ll see, we’ll see.”

Read the rest of the post on the flip side »

Right-Wing Culture Warriors Warn of Atheist Attack on Thanksgiving!
Posted by Joshua Holland, AlterNet on November 26, 2009 at 2:36 PM.

Michael Tomasky notes that the annual "War on Christmas" has started early this holiday season. But that's old hat -- mainstream stuff that's become just another part of the old holiday spirit among the Fox News set.

If you don't delve into the deeper, darker recesses of the conservative Borg-collective, as Roy Edroso does so bravely each week, then you might enjoy a fine, gluttonous meal today oblivious to the fact that secular hordes are now gunning for Thanksgiving:

HAPPY WAR ON THANKSGIVING! Yes, I was just having a bit of fun, but apparently it's a real menace, says Christian Newswire:

America once was content in allowing civil authorities to select and define its holidays. With the increasing influence of groups which use the courts to challenge any comingling of religion and the function of government, the definition of the some of the nation's holidays have become a war zone.

And while most Americans think of Thanksgiving, Easter and Christmas as Christian holidays -- history is clear that Easter and Christmas were originally pagan celebrations, stolen and redefined.

This leaves Thanksgiving as the one American holiday originating within Christian culture. It is a holiday created to remind a nation to thank God. So while talk-show hosts expound upon a war on Christmas -- let's not ignore the war on the one true Christian holiday, Thanksgiving.

Their evidence of this is that Obama said "we observe traditions from every culture" in his Thanksgiving address. George Washington, conversely, referred frequently to God. The word has spread and muskets are loaded.

Another very fine example of Thomas Franks' "conservative plenty-plaint" -- the endless laundry-list of petty cultural grievances pretending to be a coherent political ideology.

And it's funny that anyone could even begin to think that Thanksgiving is a "Christian" holiday. If we believe the tale of the first Thanksgiving told to us in 4th grade -- that the pilgrims got together with a group of Native Americans to celebrate an especially bountiful harvest in 1621 -- then what we have is some Christians sitting down with a bunch of animists to celebrate the harvest festival common to basically every agricultural society in the history of mankind. The idea that Pagans celebrated versions of Easter and Christmas but not the seasonal harvest is crazy talk.

As Roy was researching some right-wing bloggers' dispatches from the War on Thanksgiving, he got suckered by a "satire troll" worth quoting for a laugh:

However, the last few years I have seen a constant assault on Thanksgiving. First we have people having pasta or sushi and not turkey. Now we have people calling Thanksgiving, Turkey Day, Gobble Day or Gobble Gobble Day. Then there is the advertising, "Gobble up Savings", "Don't be a Turkey and Pay Too Much". And of course there is the Black Friday sales and if that were not enough we now have Pre-Thanksgiving or Pre-Turkey Day sales.

When will it end?!

When, indeed? Until it does, have a happy Secular War on Thanksgiving.

27 Reasons to Give Thanks
Posted by Staff, Think Progress on November 26, 2009 at 11:00 AM.

We’re thankful President Obama is thinking long and hard about committing more troops and money to Afghanistan.

We’re thankful President Bush feels liberated now.

We’re (not) thankful Dick Cheney has elected to move from his undisclosed location to the media spotlight.

We’re thankful Al Franken has gone from playing self-help guru Stuart Smalley on Saturday Night Live to helping rape victims receive justice from their employers.

We’re thankful for the healing power of beer.

We’re thankful there are some on the right who think Glenn Beck is “incoherent,” “mindless,” “erratic,” “bizarre,” and “harmful to the conservative movement.”

We’re thankful for long hikes on the Appalachian Trail.

We’re thankful Michael Steele understands that he can’t “do policy” and that no one has any reason to trust his “words or actions.”

We’re (not) thankful for “birthers,” “deathers,” “tenthers,” or “tea baggers.”

We’re (not) thankful conservatives believe they love America so much that they can root for our President to fail and for our nation to lose out on hosting the Olympics.

We’re thankful NFL players refused to “bend over and grab the ankles” for Rush Limbaugh.

We’re thankful six companies have resigned from the Chamber of Commerce due to its denial of climate change science.

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Copenhagen Is On; Obama to Lead U.S. Delegation
Posted by Jeff McMahon, True/Slant on November 26, 2009 at 4:00 AM.

First the climate bill was dead, then the climate bill was not dead yet, then Copenhagen was dead, then Copenhagen was not dead yet, and now it’s all back on the table, right where President Obama said it would be: a legally binding climate treaty calling for an ambitious reduction in carbon dioxide–83 percent by 2050.

Patience, people, patience.

Obama’s call for such a treaty today closely follows three other significant events:

• His announcement that he’ll attend the Copenhagen Climate Conference on Dec. 9 to call for the treaty in person. I’ve always said that his decision to attend would depend on the likelihood of a treaty being signed, and the likelihood of a treaty being signed would be worked out behind the scenes in meetings between diplomats from the U.S. and other major players. But not only is Obama attending, according to the White House:

Interior Secretary Ken Salazar, Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack, Commerce Secretary Gary Locke, Energy Secretary Steven Chu, and Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Lisa P. Jackson are all scheduled to attend, along with Council on Environmental Quality Chair Nancy Sutley, and Assistant to the President for Energy and Climate Change Carol Browner.

• Obama’s announcement follows key meetings between Obama and the leaders of China and India, the two developing nations whose participation in the treaty is most essential to its success.

• The treaty Obama has called for matches the climate bill that already passed the House and the one likely to pass the Senate: not the bill that passed the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, but the one likely to be worked out in a compromise with that bill’s sole no vote, Sen. Max Baucus. Both the House bill and the likely Baucus compromise call for a 17 percent reduction in greenhouse gases by 2020.

For the first time, the U.S. delegation will have a U.S. Center at the conference, providing a unique and interactive forum to share our story with the world. In addition to working with other countries to advance American interests, U.S. delegates will keynote a series of events highlighting actions by the Obama Administration to provide domestic and global leadership in the transition to a clean energy economy. Topics will range from energy efficiency investments and global commitments to renewables policy and clean energy jobs.

Quiz: Which African Country Just Proposed Legislation Making Being Gay a Crime Punishable By Up to Life in Prison?
Posted by CaitieCat, Shakesville on November 26, 2009 at 1:00 AM.

Teaspoons up, Shakers, I've got a letter-writing opportunity for you.

The government of Uganda has proposed a new law which would make being gay in the African country a crime, punishable by up to life in prison.

The addresses for Ugandan foreign missions, embassies and consulates can be found here.

Please remember that when addressing diplomats, it is wise to use appropriate language, or risk having your message discarded, unread by anyone with decision-making power.

White House Releases Turkey Pardon Spoof Then Does The Real Thing
Posted by Daniel Kessler, TreeHugger on November 25, 2009 at 6:33 PM.

You've got to wonder if this is what we want our tax dollars going to? Anyway, the White House put out a spoof yesterday morning of the traditional presidential pardon of a turkey for Thanksgiving. The video follows a path through the White House, right into the Oval Office.

New Info Shows the Stimulus Is Working, Time for Conservatives to Thank Obama
Posted by Steve Benen, Washington Monthly on November 25, 2009 at 3:58 PM.

The New York Times had a terrific report the other day, explaining that the stimulus package is "working," polls and Republican talking points notwithstanding.

Mark Zandi, chief economist of Moody's Economy.com and an occasional adviser to lawmakers from both parties, said, "[T]he stimulus is doing what it was supposed to do -- it is contributing to ending the recession." Zandi added that without the recovery bill, the "G.D.P. would still be negative and unemployment would be firmly over 11 percent. And there are a little over 1.1 million more jobs out there as of October than would have been out there without the stimulus."

What I didn't realize is that the piece included some very helpful charts, featuring projections of key economic indicators from three companies that specialize in macroeconomic forecasting. (via Matt Yglesias). You'll notice, of course, the black line and the gray line -- the black representing progress with the recovery plan, the gray representing what would have happened without it.

There are several angles to keep in mind here. First, opponents of the stimulus would have us believe the recovery plan has failed. Those are, oddly enough, the same people who got us into this economic mess in the first place. They were wrong then, and they're wrong now.

Second, as Brad DeLong explained, the people providing the data for the NYT charts are economists "who sell their forecasts to paying clients." In other words, these aren't political players who have an incentive to skew the data -- to stay in business, they have to get these trends right. And when it comes to the stimulus, they're unanimous in their beliefs that the Recovery Act helped the economy considerably, and will continue to do so next year.

Third, my only complaint about the charts is that there isn't a third line -- one for the economy with the stimulus, one for the economy with no intervention, and one with what we would have seen if we'd taken the Republicans' advice. It was, after all, 95% of congressional Republicans who, at the height of the crisis, voted for a truly insane five-year spending freeze.

How they feel justified complaining now, rather than thanking president for preventing an economic catastrophe, is a point of ongoing concern.

There's no mystery here. The debate is over. The economy is obviously still struggling, but the stimulus did what it was supposed to do, and has made a real, positive difference.

Conservatives were wrong about Reagan's tax increases. They were wrong about Clinton's tax increases. They were wrong about Bush's tax cuts. And they're wrong again now.

That Republicans still manage to talk about economic policy at all demonstrates a remarkable amount of chutzpah.

Say Goodbye to Common Sense: RedState Compares Health Care Reform to Attack on Pearl Harbor
Posted by Brooke Obie, Media Matters for America on November 25, 2009 at 2:19 PM.

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Damn Good Recipe for Stuffing Right Here
Posted by Joshua Holland, AlterNet on November 25, 2009 at 1:15 PM.

This is magic -- a classic Italian stuffing/dressing with a Southern accent. I've made a dozen variations on this, and every one has been a huge hit.

Whip up a big ole' pan of cornbread today. A pre-mix is fine. You're going to want to eat some when it comes out all hot and fresh, so make extra or else you'll just end up doing a second batch. I guess you'll need about 6-8 cups to make a enough stuffing for maybe 6 people, with leftovers for hangover sandwiches. Adjust from there.

Let it cool, crumble into teaspoon-size chunks and leave in a large bowl, uncovered, to get dry and crusty overnight. (Alternative: shred a big loaf of crusty peasant bread and let it dry out overnight -- this is the classic Italian version.)

I think making your own chicken stock is worth it, but a good store-bought organic deal -- the reduced sodium stuff -- will do. You'll need up to a quart, maybe even more depending on how dry your bread is.

Then, tomorrow ...

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Dana Perino Claims No Terrorist Attacks on U.S. During Bush Presidency
Posted by Jed Lewison, Daily Kos on November 25, 2009 at 12:18 PM.

This wonder of evolution was actually the Bush Administration's top spokesperson:
 

PERINO: Well, I...there is one thing that I would say about Ft. Hood that I feel strongly about, which is, and I don't say this to be political, I think it matters what we call it. And we had a terrorist attack on our country. And we should call it what it is because we need to face up to it so we can prevent it from happening again.

HANNITY: I agree with you, and why won't they say what you so simply just said.

PERINO: You know, they want to do all their investigations...I don't know their thinking that goes into it. But, you know, we did not have a terrorist attack on our country during President Bush's term. I hope they're not looking at this politically. I do think that we owe it to the American people to call it what it is.

Maybe we shouldn't be surprised. After all this is the same Dana Perino who is so embarrassingly ignorant that she didn't know what the Bay of Pigs was. (Even worse, she's so mind-numbingly stupid that she admitted it.)

This is the same Dana Perino who represented an administration who responded to the 9/11 attacks (which apparently didn't happen) by invading a country that had nothing to do with 9/11 and justified the invasion (and thousands of American war deaths) on the basis of a threat posed by weapons of mass destruction that turned out to not exist.

And now she goes on teevee and says none of it ever happened, while attacking President Obama for not going nuclear over Ft. Hood. Presumably, Perino wants us to attack Yemen or something like that in response.

Well, actually, probably not. Dana Perino is too much of a moron to even know that Yemen is a country, much less to know how to find it on a map. It is an absolute and utter disgrace that we had someone with this little intellectual horsepower as our nation's top spokesperson.

No wonder the Bush years were such a complete disaster for America and the world. We had nitwits like this running the show. Anytime you see an organization where Karl Rove is the smartest person in the room, you know you're in trouble.

They spent eight years screwing things up. Now they should have the good sense and humility to crawl back in their holes and shut up while the next Administration goes about cleaning up their mess. But no. Instead we they go on their broadcast channel and spew nonsense like this.

There is one bright spot to all this. It's a reminder that George W. Bush truly was:

The. Worst. President. Ever.

Predatory Capitalism Alert: Watch Out for These Credit Card Scams
Posted by DaveJ , Open Left on November 25, 2009 at 10:55 AM.

The other day Digby wrote about a scam by Bank of America, where they switched the monthly bill's envelope to look like junk mail, so people threw it away, and they collect million upon millions in late fees.

The plain brown envelope looked like it was one of those car dealership "checks" that were all the rage before the credit crisis hit. And because I didn't realize the first month that I hadn't gotten my bill, it created a black mark on my credit for a late payment which resulted in a cascade of raised rates on several cards.

It was clearly a sneaky trick. ... And that's what people are dealing with all the time as consumers, with their health insurance, their credit cards, their mortgages, their pensions -- overwhelming complexity designed to trip them up and cost them money or deny them benefits to which they believed in good faith they were entitled. And its all perfectly legal -- or at least there's no visible accountability for it.

Me, too!  Chase ran a scam on me but I didn't realize it was just a scam until I was talking with someone else and found out exactly the same thing happened to her.  I had automatic payments set up so any balance was paid out of my checking account.  (I never, ever, ever, ever carry a balance on credits cards.  And you should never, ever, ever do that either.)  

They stopped the automatic payments, and charged me late fees.

 I fought it, and filed a complaint with the Fed, and when I got them to reverse the late fee, they applied a fee reversal fee!  That card is long gone.

So how many of you got socked by AOL, where you couldn't get them to stop charging your card?  How many have been hit by other scams?  How about cell phone scams, like Verizon's various scams -- VCast when you didn't want it, or the deal where they put the key for "Get It Now" or "Mobile Web" where you accidentally hit it all the time, and they charge you each time?

Predatory capitalism is the name of the game, and it is the game of the country.

But it's a year after the election and still nothing is getting done about any of this big-corporate corruption!  Democrats have a huge opportunity to demonstrate that they are on the side of regular people -- but just enough corrupt Democrats in the Senate are joining with the totally-corrupt Republicans to keep anything from getting done.

Digby writes,

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Palin Suggests Reforming Canada's Universal Health Care System: 'Let The Private Sector Take Over'
Posted by Igor Volsky, Think Progress on November 25, 2009 at 9:52 AM.

Canadian comedian Mary Walsh (playing the character of Marg Delahunty) attended a Sarah Palin book signing in the United States last week and asked the "thrilla from Wasilla, the Alaskan Aphrodite" if she had "any words of encouragement for the Canadian conservatives who have worked so hard to try to diminish that kind of socialized medicine we have up there."

"Keep the faith and that common-sense conservatism," Palin said to Walsh, who was being pushed out of the store by bodyguards. "It needs to be plugged into Canadian policies too. Keep the faith!" Palin cried out.

After the event, Walsh waited in the loading dock of the Borders bookstore "close to where Palin’s bus was parked." Palin came over and energetically encouraged Walsh to "keep the faith" again and suggested that Canada needs to reform its health care system to "let the private sector take over":

WALSH: Ms. Palin, I tried to ask you a question inside, but I didn't hear your answer! The Canadians! Ms. Palin!

PALIN: Well, my answer was too keep the faith. My answer was to keep the faith. Cause that common sense conservatism can be plugged-in there in Canada too. In fact Canada needs to reform its health care system and let the private sector take over some of what the government has absorbed. So thank you, keep the faith.

Watch it:

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Japan Fines 'Fat' People, Companies Must Measure Waist Lines of Employees
Posted by Tara Lohan, AlterNet on November 25, 2009 at 8:00 AM.

The U.S. usually steals the headlines when it comes to stories about being overweight. Obesity in the U.S. is no joke for sure. As I wrote a few months ago, 60 percent of adults and 16 percent of children are obese. But today, the news is all about Japan. Japan?!

A CNN news story (watch below) is reporting that Japan has issued new guidelines. "Companies and local governments must now measure waist lines of all employees and family members over the age of 40," they reported. Apparently if you don't make the cut, your company can be fined massively and will get increased health premiums. The company the reporter profiled, NEC, is facing 19 million dollars in penalties if employees don't slim down.

And what's overweight by Japanese standards? Men with waists over 33.5 inches and women over 35.5 inches. I can't even imagine issuing fines for Americans under those guidelines!

While the story didn't go into a great deal of depth, the reporter blamed recent weight gain in Japan on U.S. foods. Standing outside a McDonald's, she compared the typical Japanese meal (vegetables, miso soup, and fish) at 600 calories to the MickeyD's burger, fries, and coke, which comes in at 1300 calories. Woops, sorry guys. I guess it wasn't enough to screw up the health of everyone in our own country. Yeah for globalization.

It would seem to me that there is both a good and a bad side to this.

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Meet the RNC's New, Racist Adviser
Posted by Digby, Hullabaloo on November 25, 2009 at 6:02 AM.

Evidently Michael Steele has been miffed that he didn't get enough credit for the GOPs sweeping takeover of American politics in the November elections (well, except for the congressional seats which all went to Democrats)so he forced out the RNC spokesman for some reason. But the spokesman has been replaced by a heavyweight:

The Republican National Committee has hired Alex Castellanos, a long-time political strategist and GOP consultant, as an adviser.

Castellanos has been described (according to his National Media biography) as the "father of the attack ad." He's best known for a racially-charged ad he made in 1990 for racist former Sen. Jesse Helms (R-N.C.). The ad, called "Hands," featured a pair of white hands crumbling a job-rejection while the narrator said, "You needed that job. You were the best qualified. But they had to give it to a minority, because of a racial quota. Is that really fair?" More recently, Castellanos has taken the lead in crafting an anti-health care reform message for congressional Republicans.

But that doesn't really do him justice. He's had so more "successes." I'm sure you'll recall this one:

During the heated 2000 U.S. presidential campaign season, Castellanos produced an ad for the Republican National Committee attempting to discredit the prescription drug plan policy offered by U.S. Democratic Party presidential nominee and then-Vice President Al Gore.[4] Alongside images of Gore, the ad showed the word "RATS" for a split second, before the complete word "bureaucrats" appeared on-screen.

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The Stupak Speech Senate Dems (and Stupak Himself) Need to Hear
Posted by Rebecca Sive, RH Reality Check on November 25, 2009 at 4:36 AM.

No one reading this has forgotten that, a couple Saturday nights ago, the House of Representatives passed a healthcare "reform" bill that included your so-called Stupak Amendment.

In doing this, the House codified an American healthcare system, what an oxymoron that is, in which women’s very lives are subject to the whims of weak-kneed, sexist, soulless, woman-hating politicians--led by you--who don’t believe the Supreme Court really meant it, when it said there is a right to privacy under the U.S. Constitution that guarantees the right to obtain an abortion. 

For, after all, this is the true intent of your bill: to make legal abortion unattainable.

Clearly, you, along with your Republican and Democratic pals, don’t care whether American women live or die.  

Now that your nefarious deed is done, and the nation’s attention turns to the Senate this Saturday night, you, your pals, the nation, and the Senate need to hear the speech presented below. I hope someone will give it. And I hope, fervently, that you will listen, very, very carefully: Listen and learn. Take-in what you have wrought, and then think again. 

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After Conceding, Then Unconceding, Then Conceding, Then Unconceding, NY Conservative Concedes
Posted by Amanda Terkel, Think Progress on November 24, 2009 at 4:40 PM.

On Nov. 16, ThinkProgress reported that failed Conservative Party candidate Doug Hoffman told Glenn Beck that he was unconceding the NY-23 special election, even though the winner, Democrat Bill Owens, was already in office. Shortly thereafter, however, Hoffman’s spokesman said that they weren’t unconceding the race. But then on Nov. 19, Hoffman posted a statement on his website, this time making clear that he was actually unconceding the race, citing concerns about voter fraud at the hands of ACORN and labor unions. Today, Hoffman has put out another statement, this time saying that he is conceding:

Yesterday, the remaining ballots were counted in the 23rd Congressional District special election. The results re-affirm the fact that Bill Owens won.

Since, the morning of November 4th, many of my supporters have asked me to challenge the outcome of this race. Their concerns centered on the veracity of the new voting machines used, for the first time, in the majority of the eleven counties that make up the Congressional District. Over the past three weeks, we nearly cut Bill Owens’ lead in half. Sadly, that is not enough.

China on Reducing Its Carbon Footprint: Why Should We Have to?
Posted by Robert Dreyfuss, The Nation on November 24, 2009 at 3:29 PM.

BEIJING -- Ambassador Yu Qingtai is China's point man on global warming. As special representative to the climate change talks for China's ministry of foreign affairs, Yu is a forceful advocate for China's view that while his country will do its part, the primary responsibility for fixing the problem rests squarely on the shoulders of the United States and other industrialized countries. And he bristles when reminded that many US experts put on the onus on China's rapidly growing economy and industrial might.

"There were those who came to China years ago and described us as a kingdom of bicycles," he says, when I mention some of that criticism. We're sitting in a conference room at the foreign ministry, where Yu has come to be questioned by a small group of journalists invited to Beijing by the Chinese People's Institute for Foreign Affairs. As China modernizes, he says, every Chinese citizen has the right to all of the modern industrial and transportation options enjoyed by, say, Americans – including the right to own a car. "We should not be expected to stay forever as a kingdom of bicycles!" he says.

He has a point.

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Supremes to Decide if Idle Rich's Scenic Ocean Views More Important than Public Beaches, the Environment
Posted by Joshua Holland, AlterNet on November 24, 2009 at 2:15 PM.

Here's a story about a fascinating legal question being driven to the highest court in the land by selfish and short-sighted Florida real estate scumbags developers looking to cash in on the bloated snow-bird second-homers who come to crisp themselves alive on the coasts of the Sunshine State (and real estate developers, as everyone knows, don't come greedier or sleazier than the Florida variety):

The sugar-white sand that stretches from Slade and Nancy Lindsay's deck to the clear, green waters of the Gulf of Mexico is some of the finest in the world. Tiny, uniformly shaped quartz crystals make the beach that stretches along the Florida Panhandle unique, experts say.

So what could be wrong with creating more of it?

That is what Florida's beach restoration and renourishment program has been doing statewide for years, pumping in wide new strips of sand to save eroding shorelines.

But the Lindsays and other homeowners challenged the program because it comes with a catch: The new strips of beach belong to the public, not the property owners. They feared their waterfront view of bleached sand and sea oats would include throngs of strangers toting umbrellas and coolers.

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Will Joe Lieberman Be the Only Dem to Sabotage Health Reform?
Posted by Steve Benen, Washington Monthly on November 24, 2009 at 1:15 PM.

WHAT TO DO ABOUT JOE.... Sen. Joe Lieberman (I-Conn.), refusing to allow a vote on any health care bill that subjects private insurers to any competition at all, told the WSJ yesterday, "I'm going to be stubborn on this."

Stubborn, he means, in opposing any health-care overhaul that includes a "public option," or government-run health-insurance plan, as the current bill does. His opposition is strong enough that Mr. Lieberman says he won't vote to let a bill come to a final vote if a public option is included.

Probe for a catch or caveat in that opposition, and none is visible. Can he support a public option if states could opt out of the plan, as the current bill provides? "The answer is no," he says in an interview from his Senate office. "I feel very strongly about this." How about a trigger, a mechanism for including a public option along with a provision saying it won't be used unless private insurance plans aren't spreading coverage far and fast enough? No again.

So any version of a public option will compel Mr. Lieberman to vote against bringing a bill to a final vote? "Correct," he says.

This isn't exactly new ground, but I think this was Lieberman's most explicit declaration in opposition to public-option "triggers." The bottom line is straightforward enough: if even one consumer is given a choice between a private plan and a public plan, Joe Lieberman will work with Republicans to kill health care reform, no matter the consequences for the millions who are counting on this bill to pass.

There's no reason to believe Lieberman is playing some kind of leverage game; all evidence suggests he's entirely sincere. The senator is so offended by the notion of public-private competition, he'll betray anyone and everyone to prevent it -- even if Lieberman doesn't seem to understand the basics of the policy he's so vehemently against.

With that in mind, should the "trigger" compromise become the focus of negotiations with the center-right, it suggests the road to 60 votes will go through Sen. Olympia Snowe's (R-Maine) office, not Joe Lieberman's. Indeed, if Lieberman isn't willing to listen to reason, evidence, or pleas for compromise, it may very well be time to shift the nature of the talks -- I wouldn't be terribly surprised if Senate Dems simply stopped engaging Lieberman, and went back to figuring out how to make Snowe happy again. When the votes are cast, 60 is 60; whether the final vote comes from Snowe or Lieberman doesn't matter. (Maybe if Lieberman's phone stopped ringing, and he no longer felt important, he'd be more willing to engage in good-faith talks.)

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Everyone's Talking About Stupak, But What About the Health Care Bill's More Insidious Features?
Posted by Jill Filipovic, Feministe on November 24, 2009 at 10:41 AM.

The Stupak amendment isn’t the only troubling intrusion into reproductive rights in the House version of the health care reform bill -- low-income women are also facing attempts at fertility control from the federal government. The bill requires that Medicaid recipients who are having their first baby or who have a child under the age of two be visited at home by nurses in order to advance certain reproductive and family goals. Sounds like a good thing, right? New parents could use some help, and a nurse should be able to give them decent tips. These kinds of visits happen all the time in countries like France and England. I’m pretty sure a similar visit was recordered in Michael Moore’s Sicko. It’s about time that we gave new parents the support that they need.

Except this program isn’t about support. It’s about the same old social engineering wherein a particular class of people is deemed unfit to reproduce, and the folks in charge go to great lengths to either force or coerce the less powerful class out of making babies. The goals of this program include "increasing birth intervals between pregnancies," "reducing maternal and child involvement in the criminal justice system," "increasing economic self-sufficiency," and "reducing dependence on public assistance."

I will just let Dorothy Roberts and Gwendolyn Mink explain why this is a problem:

These goals of the home visitation program have nothing to do with providing health care. Instead, they are based on the false premise that poor mothers’ childbearing is to blame for social problems. The proposed visitation program is eugenicist, deceptive, discriminatory against low-income women, and utterly inappropriate to the medical work of nurses.

Under the program envisioned in the House bill, government-sponsored medical professionals are charged with exhorting fertility control among poor women, based on the mistaken premise that reproduction among the poor leads to crime, neglect, low educational attainment, and dependency. Yet according to the government’s own statistics, families receiving welfare have, on average, only 1.8 children; half the families receiving welfare have only one child, and only one in ten have more than three children.

Although the data show that poverty is not correlated with family size — and that childbearing does not cause poverty — the U.S. House of Representatives seeks to tell low-income women who receive medical assistance how many children to have and when to have them.

If you read the actual language of the bill, it’s not all bad — but there was obviously some tinkering to pull in the lines about the criminal justice system and public assistance. I would have no problem with this bill if it were about helping women and offering resources. Parenthood is hard, and there’s an unreasonable expectation that women naturally know what to do without any sort of community support. Offering that support -- including information about childhood nutrition, reproductive health, age-appropriate punishment, intimate partner violence and school preparation -- would be wonderful. I would love to see it offered in the health care bill.

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What Does it Mean to Take Sarah Palin and the Tea-Bagger Set "Seriously"?
Posted by Joshua Holland, AlterNet on November 24, 2009 at 10:40 AM.

Reviewing Sarah Palin's book on the front yesterday, Matt Taibbi joined a thousand voices warning progressives not to take her, or the fuzzily articulated but potent outrage of the tea-party set she's come to represent, lightly.

Obviously, being Taibbi, he rendered the caution better than most:

Sarah Palin is the Empress-Queen of the screaming-for-screaming’s sake generation. The people who dismiss her book Going Rogue as the petty, vindictive meanderings of a preening paranoiac with the IQ of a celery stalk completely miss the book’s significance, because in some ways it’s really a revolutionary and innovative piece of literature.

Palin -- and there’s just no way to deny this -- is a supremely gifted politician. She has staked out, as her own personal political turf, the entire landscape of incoherent white American resentment. In this area she leaves even Rush Limbaugh in the dust.

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Dems Have No Excuse for Failing on Health Care
Posted by Mike Lux, Open Left on November 24, 2009 at 9:45 AM.

The single biggest complaint I hear by non-DC insiders is the sheer dysfunction of Washington. Whether it's Jon Stewart's very funny interview with Joe Biden the other day, or bloggers attacking Harry Reid for not just wrapping the health care issue up by going to reconciliation, people not involved in the day to day DC maneuvering and negotiating don't understand why all this is so hard and takes so long. Insiders get very grumpy about this attitude, because they have to deal every day with the complications of the Senate procedural rules, the egos and turf battles of the powerful committee chairs, and the traditions and clubbiness of the Senate.

I have a lot of sympathy for people on both sides of the divide. Having served in the White House, and been in DC for 17 years now, I know how hard it is to get things done in this town. And having read my share of history books, I know how hard it is to get big things done in general - it just doesn't happen very often, and it is never ever easy or painless. But I also know this: if Democrats don't deliver now, there will be no excuses. They have to find a way to deliver the goods. History, the media, activists, and voters will offer them no mercy if they can't get health reform done this time around.

So if failure is not an option, and there are four holdout Democrats in the Senate blocking the way to getting a reform bill the rest of the Democratic Party can live with, what is to be done?

A lot of people, including me, have been saying for a while that those four Senators would probably eventually force Reid to use the reconciliation process, where you only need 51 votes, and in the end they still might because there might be no other option. But a lot of the more liberal Democrats in the Senate (including Harkin, Rockefeller, and Schumer) have started arguing against that option. Their reasons include that the bill would have to be dramatically scaled back to fit within the reconciliation rule, the process would likely be slowed down making pending legislation tougher to pass, and that the bill would have to be referred to Kent Conrad's rather conservative budget committee where all kinds of bad things might happen to it. There are also an undetermined number of otherwise more progressive Senators such as Robert Byrd and Russ Feingold who believe putting health care in reconciliation violates the spirit of reconciliation rules, and would vote against the bill on principle.

These are pretty compelling arguments, so my view is that progressives should not be demanding that Harry Reid put this bill through the reconciliation process. In the end, he may have no other choice, but to demand that before he has had the chance to pursue every other option makes no sense to me. To say Harry Reid - or the President or anyone else - can just force the bill through no matter what is simply not true. The American government, just doesn't work that way. Not even LBJ, the greatest leg-breaker the Senate and Presidency have ever seen, could government by fiat - even with huge Democratic majorities he had to compromise on a range of issues to get things done.

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Fox News' Fuzzy Math: 193 Percent of the Public Support Palin, Romney and Huckabee (Video)
Posted by Ben Armbruster, Think Progress on November 24, 2009 at 8:39 AM.

Reporting on the latest Fox News/Opinion Dynamics poll last night on Fox News’ local Chicago affiliate, anchor Byron Harlan employed some funny math in asserting that Sarah Palin is leading the pack for the GOP nomination in 2012:

HARLAN: It looks as if the rogue route is helping Sarah Palin. Her book tour has meant new support. A new Opinion Dynamics poll for 2012 shows her on top when it comes to landing the nomination. Palin is at 70 percent, about a third higher than this past July. Mike Huckabee stands at 63 percent. Mitt Romney’s 60.

Those figures add up to 193 percent. An accompanying graphic tried to squeeze the numbers into one pie chart:

In fact, the poll Harlan referred to did not ask Republican respondents to pick their favorite candidate. The numbers he cited merely represent favorable ratings among Republicans surveyed for each individual. Watch Harlan’s report:

Video: Utah Senator: "I Don't Want The Gays Stuffin' It Down My Throat"
Posted by Adele Stan, AlterNet on November 24, 2009 at 7:21 AM.

SCROLL DOWN FOR VIDEO

Utah State Senator Chris Buttars, who supported the passage of an amendment to the state constitution that defines marriage as being between "one man and one woman," stunned former allies last week when he declared that he might support a statewide anti-discrimination measure that would protect LGBT people in housing and employment. But there are limits to the extent of his support, Buttars told Max Roth, a reporter for the Salt Lake City FOX affiliate. He doesn't think anti-discrimination protection should extend to those who "act out," he said.

"I don't mind gays, but I don't want 'em stuffin' it down my throat all the time," Buttars told Roth, "and certainly in my kids' face."

And this was just after Buttars told the reporter, "I meet with the gays here and there; they were at my house two weeks ago."

Here and there. In my house. Down my throat.

Just sayin'.

Buttars' new gay-friendly attitude, if one may call it that, likely stems from the surprise support of the the Church of Latter Day Saints -- that's Mormon to you -- for a similar anti-discrimination measure passed by the city council of Salt Lake City earlier this month. Buttars opposed the Salt Lake City measure until the Mormon leadership, perhaps looking for a more tolerant image, signed on.

The church has been at the forefront of ballot-measure fights against same-sex marriage in Utah and California, where it led the fight for Proposition 8, the measure that overturned the state Supreme Court's legalization of same-sex marriage.

VIDEO AND TRANSCRIPT AFTER THE JUMP

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Obama Will Announce the Specifics of a Troop Increase in Afghanistan by Next Week
Posted by Steve Benen, Washington Monthly on November 24, 2009 at 7:14 AM.

AFGHAN ANNOUNCEMENT A WEEK FROM TODAY.... After a lengthy review process, President Obama reportedly has all the information he needs to craft a new U.S. policy towards Afghanistan. We'll hear all about it in a televised address to the nation a week from tonight.

For two hours on Monday evening, Mr. Obama held his ninth meeting in the Situation Room with his war council.... The president's military and national security advisers came back to the president with answers he had requested during previous meetings, most of which focusing on these questions: Where are the off-ramps for the military? And what is the exit strategy?

The conversation settled around sending about 30,000 more American troops, two officials said, the first of whom would deploy early next year to be in place in southern or eastern Afghanistan by the spring. The troop reinforcements would likely be sent in waves, according to an official speaking on condition of anonymity to discuss war strategy. [...]

While the president is expected by several of his advisers to announce sending more than 20,000 new troops - perhaps closer to the 40,000, as recommended by Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal - the White House is working to make the announcement more than simply a number of troops. It will include an outline of an exit strategy, officials said.

That last part is obviously key. The decision to send additional troops to Afghanistan will not be popular with many of the president's own supporters, many of whom believe the longest war in American history should come to an end. But if the White House has not only decided on the size of an escalation, but also a larger, revamped strategy that features a light at the end of the tunnel, the administration's new policy may address at least one underlying concern.

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Hurricane Katrina Even More of a Man-Made Disaster Than We Thought
Posted by Laura Flanders, TheNation.com on November 24, 2009 at 5:00 AM.

Hurricane Katrina is often called a natural disaster, as if it was all nature's fault, not man's. The reality, of course, is that federal, state and local governments ignored warnings from scientists for years, both that climate change would lead to increased storm activity, and that destruction of wetlands outside of New Orleans had hurt the city's natural defenses against a storm surge. Calls for fixing levees and infrastructure investments went unheeded while the doctrine of markets and profits held sway.

This week, a federal district judge finally ruled that the Army Corps of Engineers was indeed responsible for part of the devastation in New Orleans' Lower Ninth Ward and parts of St. Bernard Parish.

The failure of the Corps to recognize the hazards wetland destruction had created was "clearly negligent on the part of the Corps," said U.S. District Judge Stanwood Duval Jr. "Furthermore, the Corps not only knew, but admitted by 1988 [the threats to human life] and yet it did not act in time to prevent the catastrophic disaster that ensued."

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Lou Dobbs On Whether He's Thought About Running For President: "Yes Is The Answer"
Posted by Matt Corley, Think Progress on November 24, 2009 at 4:30 AM.

Last week, rumors spread that former CNN anchor Lou Dobbs might challenge Sen. Robert Menendez (D-NJ) in 2012. But in an interview on Fred Thompson's radio show today, Dobbs said that he is actually considering a run for the White House:

THOMPSON: Lou, one way to have a voice -- you've already had a big one, but another way to have a voice is in public service. Have you given any thought to perhaps running for president?

DOBBS: I'm talking -- yes is the answer. And I'm going to be talking some more with some folks who want me to listen to them in the next few weeks. You know, I, so I just don't even what to tell you in terms of where I'm leaning because right now I'm fortunate to have a number of wonderful options. I do know this, I'm going to have the best advice. I may make a terrible decision, but I'm going to have great advice.

Listen here:

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Conservative Bishop Denies Kennedy His Holy Cracker*
Posted by Joshua Holland on November 23, 2009 at 4:30 PM.

Boston Globe:

The war of words between the Catholic bishop of Rhode Island and US Representative Patrick J. Kennedy escalated yesterday when Bishop Thomas J. Tobin criticized him for disclosing a confidential request the prelate made in 2007 to stop receiving Holy Communion because of his stand on moral issues.

Tobin said he was disappointed the congressman had told a newspaper that he had been forbidden from receiving communion in Rhode Island because of Kennedy’s support of abortion rights. The bishop also accused the son of the late Senator Edward M. Kennedy of prolonging their public feud.

[...]

Tobin and Kennedy have been exchanging testy words for weeks. Earlier this month, the bishop, who was installed in 2005, disputed Kennedy’s contention that disagreeing with church hierarchy on matters like abortion rights makes him no less of a Catholic.

“Well in fact, congressman, in a way it does,’’ the bishop wrote in a commentary in the Rhode Island Catholic newspaper. “Your position is unacceptable to the church and scandalous to many of our members.’’

One of the bloggers over at Truthdig sounds the requisite note:

Hey, it’s their clubhouse and rules are rules—just as long as the church also denies communion to politicians who support the death penalty, cut poverty programs and covet thy neighbors’ wives.

Forgot to mention those who are gung-ho for perma-war!

* Kudos to Truthdig's blog for the headline "Give Kennedy His Cracker," presumably a reference to PZ Myers' "Cracker-gate" scandal.

Christians Rap About Not Having Sex: 'Gimme That Christian Side Hug!'
Posted by Tana Ganeva, AlterNet on November 23, 2009 at 4:00 PM.

Abstinence is hard, even when you really love Jesus. That's why seemingly foolproof methods for preserving the virginity of young, unmarried Christians -- like magic purity rings, or having them go on creepy dates with their dads -- seem to make teens have even more premarital sex: a 2009 study found that rates of teen pregnancy are much higher in religious communities, even when lower rates of abortion were accounted for.

But maybe that's just because most efforts to promote abstinence have one fatal flaw: none have a mechanism for ensuring that the genitals of unmarried Christians never align. Fortunately, some rapping youth pastors are on it.

"AWWWW YEAH! Y'all ready to party all up in here?!" yell the mostly white, Christian rappers in a YouTube clip of a live performance. "Gimme that Christian side hug! Gimme that Christian side hug!" they demand, pumping their fists in the air and bouncing a lot, in a very convincing approximation of what black, secular rappers do.

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The Most Racist Sheriff in America's Worst Nightmare: Meet Salvador Reza (Video)
Posted by Laura Flanders, GRITtv on November 23, 2009 at 3:21 PM.

Sheriff Joe Arpaio is a household name for all the wrong reasons. Known for accusations of racial profiling and immigration raids in Maricopa County, Arizona, Arpaio is held up as a hero by anti-immigrant groups but has created a climate of fear in his state, where the Latino community is afraid to call the police for common complaints for fear of deportation. Recently stripped of his federal authority to make immigration arrests, Arpaio continues to conduct raids and appears not to fear repercussions.

Salvador Reza, U.S. Air Force veteran, community organizer and renowned immigrants rights activist, joins Laura for an exclusive interview on Arpaio’s ongoing mistreatment of his community. Reza notes that the Obama administration, specifically Homeland Security secretary and former Arizona governor Janet Napolitano, have mostly made symbolic moves to control Arpaio, but in practice allow him to do whatever he wants. Going forward toward immigration reform, Reza calls for nationwide action.

Thanks to Dennis Gilman for the video footage in this segment.

Sarah Palin Celebrates Her Humble Roots by Eating at a Restaurant That Serves a $25,000 Dessert
Posted by Byard Duncan, AlterNet on November 23, 2009 at 1:30 PM.

Sarah Palin, ever the faux-populist, has finally committed an act of absurdity that perfectly allegorizes her own political M.O.

Last week, while in New York City, Palin dined at Serendipity 3, a restaurant in one of Manhattan’s swankier sections. Serendipity 3 is known for hosting celebrities (others have included Zac Efron and Bill Clinton), but it’s not famous for that. It’s famous for the "Frrozen Haute Chocolate," a sundae composed of edible gold and 28 different cocoas from across the globe. This treat, which costs $25,000, holds the Guinness world record for most expensive dessert. It is eaten with a diamond-studded gold spoon and served with a side of $2,600 per-pound chocolate. At the base of the sundae’s goblet (it is served, by the way, in a goblet) is an 18-karat gold bracelet with 1 carat of white diamonds.

One can only assume that the banana leaves to be fanned with are sold separately.

So how does Palin’s stop at Serendipity compromise her everywoman persona? Let me count the ways. Not only was she in one of the more expensive corners of the Big Apple (a city she promised ‘true’ Americans she would not visit during her book tour, on account of its elites); she was dining at a restaurant where just one item costs more than what many of her supporters will make in a year. Maybe more than twice what some of them will make.

Of course, this sort of gleaming, gold-plated contradiction is nothing new for Palin. Even the most baby-witted of observers know that her two main recipients of polito-pandering (working class Americans, the corporations that routinely screw them over) don’t quite line up right. No, the beauty here is the symbolism of it all -- the sweet, flagrant absurdity: Underdog (dare we say it? "Rogue") politician, preparing to set out across America in a grassroots neo-conquest of a book tour, must first stop to fuel up for the harrowing journey. What better place to do so than at a restaurant whose finest dessert costs as much as a year of college?

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Gun Lobby's Absurd New Claim: Healthcare Reform Will Take Away Your Guns
Posted by , Think Progress on November 23, 2009 at 12:30 PM.

On Friday, Gun Owners of America sent out an action alert to its 300,000 members warning that the Senate health care bill "would mandate that doctors provide 'gun-related health data' to 'a government database,' including information on mental-health issues detected in patients, which could jeopardize their ability to obtain a firearms license." The alert also warned its membership that the "wellness and prevention" provisions in the health care bill would allow the Obama administration to issue a "no guns" decree:

Finally, as we have mentioned several times in the past, the mandates in the legislation will most likely dump your gun-related health data into a government database that was created in section 13001 of the stimulus bill. This includes any firearms-related information your doctor has gleaned ... or any determination of PTSD, or something similar, that can preclude you from owning firearms.

And, the special "wellness and prevention" programs (inserted by Section 1001 of the bill as part of a new Section 2717 in the Public Health Services Act) would allow the government to offer lower premiums to employers who bribe their employees to live healthier lifestyles -- and nothing within the bill would prohibit rabidly anti-gun HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius from decreeing that "no guns" is somehow healthier.

The so-called "gun-related health data" is actually anonymous statistical information to help researchers develop health programs and initiatives that serve specific population groups or further the study of various conditions and medical needs. Section 2705 of the Senate health bill permits employers to vary insurance premiums by as much as 30 percent for employee participation in certain health promotion and disease prevention programs, but stipulates that the employer wellness program must be "based on an individual satisfying a standard that is related to a health status factor.” Gun ownership does not fall into this category.

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Is a Desperate Desire For Leadership Behind the Droves Of Americans Waiting to Meet Sarah Palin?
Posted by Gary Younge, Comment Is Free on November 23, 2009 at 11:30 AM.

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Obama Is Playing Politics With Gitmo
Posted by Nick Baumann, Mother Jones Online on November 23, 2009 at 10:30 AM.

Liberals have not done enough public wrestling with Massimo Calabresi and Michael Weisskopf's Time article on the ouster of White House counsel Gregory Craig. Perhaps that's because they don't want to deal with the article's troubling implications. As Kevin explains, Craig was "the White House lawyer tasked with dismantling Bush-era interrogation and detention policies. At first, Obama was on board with Craig's plans.  Then, reality set in."

By "reality," Kevin presumably means "political reality." Time says that as soon as Obama's positions on Bush era torture -- releasing the torture photos, for example -- became politically difficult, the president jettisoned them. He did this despite the fact that he had been "prepared to accept -- and had even okayed" those same positions "just weeks earlier":

First to go was the release of the pictures of detainee abuse. Days later, Obama sided against Craig again, ending the suspension of Bush's extrajudicial military commissions. The following week, Obama pre-empted an ongoing debate among his national-security team and embraced one of the most controversial of Bush's positions: the holding of detainees without charges or trial, something he had promised during the campaign to reject.

But perhaps the most damning part of the Time piece is this sentence, near the beginning, that summarizes exactly what has happened in Obama's White House:

[Obama] quietly shifted responsibility for the legal framework for counterterrorism from Craig to political advisers overseen by Emanuel, who was more inclined to strike a balance between left and right.

Take a minute to think about how the left would respond to this if Obama was a Republican president. Obama delegated the responsibility for determining what to do about detainees to his political advisers. If George W. Bush had charged his political advisers, including Karl Rove, with crafting such policy, the entire blogosphere would have melted down from outrage overload.

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Word "Canadian" So "Reviled in Some Places" that Visiting Canucks Say They're Americans
Posted by Joshua Holland, AlterNet on November 23, 2009 at 9:30 AM.

I'll confess that I own a backpack with a prominent Canadian maple leaf that I've lugged around Europe once or twice since the invasion of Iraq. Not as some kind of self-conscious act of political protest, mind you,  just to avoid the kind of casual sneers that were fairly common for U.S. travelers during the Bush years.

Perhaps that's why this story, from The Toronto Star, jumped out at me:

Canadian mining companies are facing allegations of abuse and assault on local citizens in dozens of developing nations.

[...]

The word "Canada" is so reviled in some places that traveling Canadians mask their citizenship by wearing American flags on their caps and backpacks.

Who'd have thunk it?

The allegations are severe: From Ecuador comes a lawsuit, filed in Ontario, alleging that in 2006 a Canadian company's armed security forces attacked unarmed locals with pepper spray first, then fired guns to dampen protest near a proposed mining site.

In El Salvador, allegations of violent attacks against anti-mining activists. In Mexico, allegations of human rights and environmental abuse that led a Mexican court to close a Canadian-owned mine.

[...]

The allegations of human rights abuses come from at least 30 of the world's poorest countries and have named companies of all sizes, from giant corporations to junior mining companies.

Thanks to reader Larry C. for flagging the article,which features some truly beautiful corporate propaganda.

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Credit Card Companies Are Using Dirty Tricks to Force Us to Pay Late Fees: Why Won't Congress Do Something?
Posted by Digby, Hullabaloo on November 23, 2009 at 8:30 AM.

I honestly believe that this is the kind of thing that affects people every day and is leading to a populist backlash. People not only blame those who do these things, they blame those who have the authority and power for failing to step in and stop it:

Three years ago, the Haggler's credit card bill seemed to stop showing up in the mail. Another month went by -- no bill. The month after that, still nothing. Each month, the Haggler would call the issuer, Bank of America, and pay over the phone, then ask the same question: "Why did you stop sending me a bill?"

We're still sending you a bill, came the company's reply each time.

Guess what? The company was right. It just was sending the bill in a restyled envelope, with no trace of "Bank of America." In other words, it looked like junk mail, and the Haggler kept throwing it away.

Now, the Hagglers can't prove it, but this seemed like a brilliant, low-cost way to pocket a fortune in late fees.

"We are not trying to fool people, and we don't change our envelopes on a regular basis," said Anne Pace, a company spokeswoman. She explained that the change in envelope design was prompted by the 2006 acquisition of several credit card companies, after which the envelopes of all customers were left blank "for the sake of consistency."

Consistency? It would be consistent, as far as B. of A. customers are concerned, to leave the envelope unchanged, no?

Seriously, the person who dreamed up the envelope switcheroo must wake up laughing. Ever since, the Haggler has held a grudging, vaguely appalled respect for credit card companies.

The same thing happened to me. The plain brown envelope looked like it was one of those car dealership "checks" that were all the rage before the credit crisis hit. And because I didn't realize the first month that I hadn't gotten my bill, it created a black mark on my credit for a late payment which resulted in a cascade of raised rates on several cards.

It was clearly a sneaky trick. Yes, it's my responsibility to know when my bills are due, but I had been in the habit of putting the bill into the "to pay" file and paying it on the following Monday. It didn't occur to me that the bill would suddenly come in an envelope with no return address or label on it that didn't look like a bill and so I tossed it into a junk pile and didn't look at it right away.

And that's what people are dealing with all the time as consumers, with their health insurance, their credit cards, their mortgages, their pensions -- overwhelming complexity designed to trip them up and cost them money or deny them benefits to which they believed in good faith they were entitled. And its all perfectly legal -- or at least there's no visible accountability for it.

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How Congress May Keep Bloggers Out of Jail
Posted by Ari Melber, TheNation.com on November 23, 2009 at 7:30 AM.

It's hard out here for a blogger.

And hard for online journalists, unemployed new media producers, and just about anyone else dabbling in journalism without professional backing.

Beyond the basic financial challenges, there is scant legal help for members of the new media, even though they face the same complex, pricey legal threats as traditional media. Plus extra threats -- like government attempts to out anonymous bloggers, which can cost a lot to fight in court.

On Thursday, however, it just got a little easier out here for a blogger. (h/t Jon Stewart.) The smart folks at Harvard's Citizen Media Law Project are launching a program of free legal services for online and citizen media. And I'm taking the liberty of substituting the word "free" for pro bono in their announcement -- us lawyers have trouble kicking the Latin:

We are [launching the] Online Media Legal Network (OMLN), a new [free] initiative that connects lawyers and law school clinics from across the country with online journalists and digital media creators who need legal help. Lawyers participating in OMLN will provide qualifying online publishers with [free] and reduced fee legal assistance on a broad range of legal issues, including business formation and governance, copyright licensing and fair use, employment and freelancer agreements, access to government information, pre-publication review of content, and representation in litigation.

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Is Taxing Plastic Surgery Sexist?
Posted by Jill Filipovic, Feministe on November 23, 2009 at 6:30 AM.

Part of the funding for the Senate's health care bill will come from a 5% tax on cosmetic surgery. The tax would generate $5 billion over ten years, and would only tax procedures where surgery "is not necessary to ameliorate a deformity arising from, or directly related to, a congenital abnormality, a personal injury resulting from an accident or trauma, or disfiguring disease."

It sounds fine and good on its face to tax unnecessary procedures -- especially those that are primarily accessed by the upper middle class. I couldn't find statistics on the average income of people who get cosmetic surgery, and certainly there are low and lower-middle income people who seek out cosmetic procedures, but by definition it seems like plastic surgery would be accessed most often by upper-middle and upper-class people (it is at least accessed disproportionately by white people). But 91 percent of cosmetic procedures are performed on women. While they're generally cast as simple vanity procedures, the fact is that women are under extreme pressure to maintain a particular physical appearance -- to look young, thin and attractive. Men certainly don't escape that pressure either, but women face it to a much higher degree. It seems a little unfair that women are inundated with messages that we need to constantly improve our physical appearance, and then taxed when we take steps to do just that. As Lindsay Beyerstein said on a feminist listserve I’m on, “It’s one of those classic sexist double binds: Society tells you that you have to look perfect and then sticks you with a ’sin’ tax when you do what’s expected of you. Boob jobs would titillate men AND