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Buzz, perspectives, insight and news from AlterNet

Why Is the Washington Post Giving a Platform to Richard Cohen's Outrageous Sexism?
Posted by Melissa McEwan, Shakesville on December 15, 2009 at 10:44 AM.

Actual Headline of the piece by WaPo columnist Richard Cohen: Why is there no female Tiger Woods?

But what he really wants to know, which is the first line of the article, is: Why are there no female sex scandals?

He goes through the list: No professional female athletes who we hear about "hitting on every caddy, pool boy or masseuse," no female politicians, no female corporate CEOs, no female entertainers, except Madonna, who "was famous for bedding much of New York's outer boroughs," but it was okay because "she was not married at the time." (Did I seriously just read someone wheeling out a "Madonna's a slut" reference in the Washington Post? Seriously?!) "Nobody knows," says Cohen. And a second time. And a third. "Nobody knows" why there are no female sex scandals.

Oh, but he's got some ideas (emphasis mine):

We can guess. The first guess is that women are simply smarter than men. Say what you will about Woods, it's not his wholesome image that has suffered, it's his standing as a sentient being. A person with the wit of a mosquito knows better than to leave a voicemail message on a mistress' phone or to text women who, from the angelic looks of them, would sell their own dear mothers for a chance to appear on Inside Edition. Few women are that stupid. Few men aren't.

The other possibility that strikes me is that women seem not to have the evolutionary urge to couple with cheaply dressed strangers. They have a stronger need to mother — to have a child and then raise that child.

The male equivalents of the sort of women who have courageously come foreword to claim their reward money for entertaining Tiger are evolutionary bad material. No woman would want them as husbands and fathers. They are what Darwin called dreck, which is Yiddish for cocktail waitress.

Wow.

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Honduran Gay Activist Walter Trochez Assassinated
Posted by Doug Ireland, Direland on December 15, 2009 at 9:57 AM.

Walter Trochez, 25 years old, a well-known LGBT activist in Honduras who was an active member of the National Resistance Front against the coup d'etat there, was assassinated on the evening of December 13, shot dead by drive-by killers.

Trochez, who had already been arrested and beaten for his sexual orientation after participating in a march against the coup, had been very active recently in documenting and publicizing homophobic killings and crimes committed by the forces behind the coup, which is believed to have been the motive for his murder. He had been trailed for weeks before his murder by thugs believed to be members of the state security forces. 

In an open letter documenting this wave of political assassinations of Honduran queers he'd written last month entitled "Increase in hate crimes and homophobia towards LGBT as a result of the civic-religious-military coup in Honduras,” Trochez had written that "Once again we say it is NOT ACCEPTABLE that in these past 4 months, during such a short period, 9 transexual and gay friends were violently killed, 6 in San Pedro Sula and 3 in Tegucigalpa." At the end of this open letter, Trochez declared that "As a revolutionary, I will always defend my people, even if it takes my life”.

Sadly, that's what happened. (Full text in Spanish of Trochez's open letter here.)

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Wingnut: "Crushing Student Loan Debt" Doubles as Good Birth Control
Posted by Wendy Norris, RH Reality Check on December 15, 2009 at 9:50 AM.

Paying for babies isn't just a seedy black market adoption scheme anymore. It was one of the solutions suggested to boost the U.S. birth rate among college student loan-strapped couples at a recent Family Research Council policy lecture.

Allan Carlson proposes paying up to $5,000 per baby born, or one-quarter of each parents' outstanding loan balances, to reduce the financial burden he claims is preventing debt-laden young married couples from starting families.

Carlson isn't some benevolent socialist from a former eastern bloc nation. He's the president of the conservative Howard Center for Family, Religion and Society that operates the right wing World Congress of Families.

According to Carlson, adoptions would also qualify, but like births, would be capped at a maximum of four children — twice the current average birth rate for U.S. women. That could net recent graduates $40,000 in total loan forgiveness from the federal government.

It's unclear if men and women placing their children up for adoption would also be eligible for the natal discount. And curiously, he never addresses single parenthood and loan assistance but that probably doesn't square with the moral rectitude of what he refers to as "responsible homes."

Carlson has been shopping his jaw-dropping idea since at least 2004 with little to show for it. But with unemployment rates for recent graduates topping 10.6 percent in Sept. and college seniors' average debt loads rising to $23,200, the Family Research Council snagged the politically volatile situation to push its stock ultra-conservative beliefs.

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Residents of Upstate New York Fight Gas Drilling...With Zombies (Video)
Posted by Byard Duncan, AlterNet on December 15, 2009 at 8:36 AM.

Citizens of Upstate New York have found a unique way to voice their concerns about natural gas drilling in the area: they’ve made a zombie movie.

"Frac Attack: Dawn of the Watershed" is a 17-minute film that employs many of the genre’s signature characteristics -- cannibalism, festering wounds, protagonists who can’t seem to run seven steps without falling down -- to raise awareness about hydraulic fracturing (hydrofracking for short), a controversial drilling technique. In the film, residents of Ithaca, NY find that their well water has been contaminated with foul smelling, "proprietary" fracking chemicals. After drinking it, they turn into moaning, brain-hungry monsters.

Essentially a zombie PSA, "Frac Attack" was made with the help of 70 community volunteers and with a budget of about $300. Shira Golding, the film’s director, said the horror genre was a perfect vessel to raise public awareness.

"The situation itself is so ridiculous on so many levels that the film itself is kind of echoing that shock and ridiculousness,” Golding said. “How could we even consider this?"

The film was shot over the course of two weekends in October, according to McKenzie Jones-Rounds, its leading lady. Approaching the issue of gas drilling with an eye toward creativity, she said, was a way to make the advocacy side of it more accessible.

"It’s an outlet for people who may not have one," she said. "It’s such a good metaphor for the unfortunate apathy much of the public has about these issues."

New York is currently embroiled in a debate over drilling in the Marcellus Shale, an enormous rock formation that’s believed to hold the largest cache of natural gas in the continental United States. Were Marcellus drilling to begin, the state’s southern tier would be ground zero for exploration. Many in the area have already leased their land to gas companies.

"We can see very clearly that there are really strong forces at work to try to get this drilling happening," Golding said. "The Department of Environmental Conservation is really not calculating for the cumulative effects of this drilling."

"The spirit of this film is very much supposed to be by and for the community, to spark involvement in the community," she added.

"Frac Attack" debuted last Thursday at a local theater in Ithaca. Both its R-rated and PG-13-rated versions can be watched here. Teaser after the jump.
 

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Obama Team One Step Closer to Closing Gitmo
Posted by Steve Benen, Washington Monthly on December 15, 2009 at 7:34 AM.

FROM GITMO TO THOMSON.... This is a welcome, important step towards closing the detention facility at Gitmo once and for all.

Dozens of terrorism suspects being held at the U.S. naval base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, will be moved to a little-used Illinois state prison that will be acquired and upgraded by the federal government, an Obama administration official said.

The critical step toward fulfilling President Obama's pledge to shut the Guantanamo detention center will be announced Tuesday, said the official, who reported that Obama has ordered the acquisition of the eight-year-old Thomson Correctional Center, about 150 miles northwest of Chicago.

As part of the plan, over the next six months, federal officials will upgrade the facility, to the point that it will have a security level described as "beyond supermax."

This afternoon, Illinois Gov. Pat Quinn and Senate Majority Whip Dick Durbin, both of whom support the transfer, will be briefed on the policy at the White House.

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Michael Steele's Economic Plan: Take Away Unemployment Benefits
Posted by Ben Armbruster, Think Progress on December 15, 2009 at 6:00 AM.

[Monday] President Obama [met] with the nation's top bank executives in the President's "latest push for lenders to take greater responsibility as the nation combats an economic crisis that began on Wall Street." "The president is looking forward…[to discussing] the need to increase small business lending and the Administration's plans for financial reform," a White House spokesperson said [on Monday].

On NBC's Today, RNC chair Michael Steele said that in order for banks to start lending to small businesses, the federal government should reduce the unemployment tax:

STEELE: Well, I think, first off, he should recognize that banks aren't going to lend money to people who can't pay them back. … So there's -- there's this whole cycle of not understanding exactly how the economy works with respect to small-business owners. Take that pressure off of them. Let's -- let's eliminate the capital gains tax. Let's reduce the unemployment tax.

Watch it:

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Michelle Obama to Receive Christmas Gift, Wingnut Incensed
Posted by Joshua Holland, AlterNet on December 15, 2009 at 5:14 AM.

Roy Edroso reached deep into the primordial muck this week, and pulled out a bright, glittering gem of wingnuttery.

First, the wind-up, with a hint from the Obamas upcoming interview with Oprah Winfrey: 

During the joint interview with the Obamas — the first since they sat down together for The New York Times to discuss their marriage — Winfrey asks them about their gift giving. The couple riff for their pal:

OW: Is there a greater pressure to give a good gift when you’re the president or can you get away with a lesser gift if you’re the president?

First Lady: What are you gonna get me? You should feel pressure.

Innocuous enough banter. But not innocuous to a blogger known as "the narcissist" ...

Wow. Just…wow. The first two sentences uttered by the Klingon Princess sum up with elegant simplicity the mind of the Obama voter.

“What are you gonna get me?” I’m reminded of the various video and audio clips of delerious Obamabots exclaiming how they were looking forward to having their mortgages paid and their gas tanks filled; of jubilant paupers whose squalid lives would be changed by free money from “Obama’s stash.”

“You should feel pressure.” Nothin’ says lovin’ like a veiled threat from wifey, huh? Those four words words speak volumes about the psyche of the Klingon Princess and the nature of her relationship with the man who would be the first American dictator.

Remember Bush Derangement Syndrome? The supposedly pathological desire to hold Bush accountable for the disastrous series of failures -- and crimes -- that marked his term in the White House?

But, wait, this guy's just getting ramped up ...

For the longest time I have entertained an entirely unscientific theory that the dominant member in a marital union somehow determines the sex of the children.

You don't say.

Supreme Court Refuses to Hear Gitmo Torture Case Claiming Detainees Are Not "Persons"
Posted by , Center for Constitutional Rights on December 14, 2009 at 4:00 PM.

The following is a news release from the Center for Constitutional Rights.

Today, the United States Supreme Court refused to review a lower court's dismissal of a case brought by four British former detainees against Donald Rumsfeld and senior military officers for ordering torture and religious abuse at Guantánamo. The British detainees spent more than two years in Guantanamo and were repatriated to the U.K. in 2004.

The Obama administration had asked the court not to hear the case. By refusing to hear the case, the Court let stand an earlier opinion by the D.C. Circuit Court which found that the Religious Freedom Restoration Act, a statute that applies by its terms to all "persons" did not apply to detainees at Guantanamo, effectively ruling that the detainees are not persons at all for purposes of U.S. law. The lower court also dismissed the detainees' claims under the Alien Tort Statute and the Geneva Conventions, finding defendants immune on the basis that "torture is a foreseeable consequence of the military’s detention of suspected enemy combatants." Finally, the circuit court found that, even if torture and religious abuse were illegal, defendants were immune under the Constitution because they could not have reasonably known that detainees at Guantanamo had any Constitutional rights.

Eric Lewis, a partner in Washington, D.C.’s Baach Robinson & Lewis, lead attorney for the detainees, said, "It is an awful day for the rule of law and common decency when the Supreme Court lets stand such an inhuman decision. The final word on whether these men had a right not to be tortured or a right to practice their religion free from abuse is that they did not. Future prospective torturers can now draw comfort from this decision. The lower court found that torture is all in a days' work for the Secretary of Defense and senior generals. That violates the President's stated policy, our treaty obligations and universal legal norms. Yet the Obama administration, in its rush to protect executive power, lost its moral compass and persuaded the Supreme Court to avoid a central moral challenge. Today our standing in the world has suffered a further great loss."

The four former detainees -- Shafiq Rasul, Asif Iqbal, Rhuhel Ahmed, and Jamal Al-Harith -- were held from 2002 to 2004 at Guantánamo before being sent home to England without being charged with any offense. They filed their case in 2004 seeking damages from former Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld and senior American military officers for violations of their constitutional rights and of the Religious Freedom Restoration Act, which prohibits infringement of religion by the U.S. government against any person. Their claims were dismissed in 2008 by the Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit when that court held that detainees have no rights under the Constitution and do not count as "persons" for purposes of the Religious Freedom Restoration Act.

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New Racist Christmas Carol: "Illegals in My Yard"
Posted by Andrea Nill, Think Progress on December 14, 2009 at 3:45 PM.

This weekend, Human Events posted an offensive parody of the famous Christmas carol, "Feliz Navidad," entitled "Illegal Aliens In My Yard." Besides repeatedly referring to undocumented immigrants as "illegals," a term that’s considered pejorative and offensive by immigrant-rights organizations, the song primarily focuses on spreading false and hateful stereotypes about Latinos who are portrayed as bug-carrying invalids:

Illegals in my yard.
Illegals in my yard.
Illegals in my yard.
Sixteen arrive in a stolen car[...]

They're getting free organ transplants this Christmas.
They're going to have anchor babies this Christmas.
They're going to scream "sí, se puede" this Christmas.
Those illegals in my yard[...]

They're going to spread bubonic plague this Christmas.
They're going to bring me lots of bed bugs this Christmas.
They're going to pass tuberculosis this Christmas.
Those illegals in my yard.

Listen:

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"The Foolish Symbols of Christianity": Israel's Religious Right Discovers the War on Hanukkah
Posted by Joshua Holland, AlterNet on December 14, 2009 at 2:54 PM.

It makes them batty to hear it, but you can't tell me that, whatever their faith, the really hard-core religious conservatives aren't all cut from the same cloth. Only the deit(ies) they worship varies.

So here in the U.S., the FOX knuckleheads cooked up that pernicious "war on Christmas," supposedly launched by the liberals who run Wal-Mart, with their dastardly and generic "Happy holidays!' crap.

And in Israel? Well, the wicked secularists aren't exactly the problem ...

The "Lobby for Jewish values" this week began operating against restaurants and hotels that plan to put up Christmas trees and other Christian symbols ahead of Christmas and the civil New Year.

According to the lobby's Chairman, Ofer Cohen, they have received backing by the rabbis, "and we are even considering publishing the names of the businesses that put up Christian symbols ahead of the Christian holiday and call for a boycott against them."

 

Fliers and ads distributed among the public read, "The people of Israel have given their soul over the years in order to maintain the values of the Torah of Israel and the Jewish identity.

"You should also continue to follow this path of the Jewish people's tradition and not give in to the clownish atmosphere of the end of the civil year. And certainly not help those businesses that sell or put up the foolish symbols of Christianity."

Huge Signature Gathering Success Sends Pot Legalization to Ballot
Posted by Daniela Perdomo, AlterNet on December 14, 2009 at 12:42 PM.

The Tax & Regulate Cannabis 2010 campaign has just achieved a major victory in its efforts to legalize marijuana for all adults in California -- they have gathered the signatures necessary for inclusion on the state's November ballot.

"This is the next step to sane cannabis policies and the end to the hypocrisy and unjust prohibition of cannabis," pot entrepreneur Richard Lee told me Monday morning. He is the co-proponent and a major sponsor of the Tax Cannabis initiative and the force -- and money -- behind Oaksterdam, the successful marijuana-friendly section of Oakland.

This win means that Californians will be the first in the nation to decide whether they believe marijuana ought be taxed and regulated for all adults over 21, much the same way alcohol is.

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The ACLU Needs Your Help
Posted by Suzanne Ito, Blog of Rights on December 14, 2009 at 12:00 PM.

You might have heard about some tough financial times that have befallen us here at the ACLU after a large donor was forced to greatly reduce his donations. Check out what Glenn Greenwald at Salon had to say about this:

It is not hyperbole to say that, over the past decade, there has been no organization more important to the United States, the Constitution, and basic political liberties than the ACLU. From the start of the Bush/Cheney assault on core civil liberties -- when most organizations and individuals were petrified of opposing any efforts justified by "terrorism" -- the ACLU was one of a small handful of groups which defied that climate of fear by vigorously and fearlessly opposing those erosions. Along with that same small handful of civil liberties and human rights groups, the ACLU since then has been at the center of virtually every fight against government incursions into basic rights. They defend core Constitutional principles regardless of party or ideology, and they continue to lead this fight even now that Bush is gone from office. As I detailed here, their crucial efforts extend far beyond litigating and lobbying, as they have often been forced to fulfill the investigative and oversight role intended for -- but abdicated by -- our national media and Congress. Indeed, most of what we know about the Bush torture regime and other lawbreaking schemes is the result not of newspapers or Congressional investigations but the ACLU.

[...] There is a genuine risk that this loss of funding can curtail vital ACLU activities and force the loss of critical lawyers and other personnel. The need for support is genuine and substantial, and I really encourage anyone who supports the truly indispensable work they do, and who is able to do so, to express that support through membership or donation. That can be done here.

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African Nations Lead a "Walkout" at Copenhagen; Talks Continue
Posted by Alex Pasternack, TreeHugger on December 14, 2009 at 11:00 AM.

African countries raised the "nuclear option" this morning in Copenhagen, suspending climate talks in protest of wealthy nations' resistance to discuss binding emissions reductions. Though African nations have walked out for the day, they are not leaving the talks permanently.

"Africa has pulled the emergency cord to avoid a train crash at the end of the week," said Jeremy Hobbs, Executive Director of Oxfam International. "Poor countries want to see an outcome which guarantees sharp emissions reductions yet rich countries are trying to delay discussions on the only mechanism we have to deliver this - the Kyoto Protocol."

At this point, early in the final week during which world leaders arrive in Copenhagen, officials were playing down the suspension as a strategic measure to get talks back on track for tomorrow. A similar tactic was used during recent climate talks in Barcelona.

"This not about blocking the talks - it is about whether rich countries are ready to guarantee action on climate change and the survival or people in Africa and across the world," said Jeremy Hobbs, Executive Director of Oxfam International.

Friends of the Earth International's Nnimmo Bassey said: "We support African countries' demands for Kyoto targets and mandatory emissions reductions for rich countries. We denounce the dirty negotiating tactics of rich countries which are trying to change the rules and tilt them in their own favor. Developed countries are stalling these negotiations as Africa attempts to move them forward."

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How Easy it Is to Reinforce People's Conspiracy Paranoia
Posted by Joshua Holland, AlterNet on December 14, 2009 at 10:00 AM.

Over the weekend, I deleted a comment left by a 9/11 Truther.

It was typical of the genre: AlterNet is covering up the real crimes of 9/11 because we get a portion of our funding from liberal foundations, and liberal foundations are obviously natural supporters of a fascist coup attempt by Dick Cheney. So while we -- like the folks at The Nation and Democracy, Now! -- have the incontrovertible evidence that could wrap up this whole 9/11 controversy tucked away in a file-cabinet, we simply refuse to publish it (we don't want to rock the boat!).

Of course, that reader will now think that he or she is being "censored" by AlterNet because we have some terrible fear of this damning truth being revealed (the fact that I am myself repeating it on our blog is neither here nor there -- that's limited hang-out). He or she might even write a lengthy blog post about the injustice of it all. And the whole thing will only reinforce his or her self-image as an intrepid truth-seeker persevering against a murky but massively powerful machine that exists solely to obscure the real story behinds the events of that terrible day.

But here's the thing, and I swear this is just the plain, boring truth. It was the most benign, inoffensive comment in the world. In fact, it was exactly the same as thousands of others that have appeared, and remained, on this site over the years.

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NY Times Offers "Of Color" Gift Guide, For That Non-White Person In Your Life!
Posted by Jill Filipovic, Feministe on December 14, 2009 at 9:00 AM.

The New York Times offers an "of color" gift guide, for making the holidays special for that non-white person in your life. Now, I'm all for supporting the art and work of traditionally marginalized groups. And I'm all for including gift suggestions that aren't centered on the experiences of white people. And if I were Latina, I would totally wear that last t-shirt!

But some of the descriptions are… hmm. For example:

We live in a multitextural world, especially when it comes to hair. Anthony Dickey is to women with "problem hair" what Batman is to Gotham City. With his out-of-the box approach, innovative products (including his new travel kits for kinky, wavy and curly hair), Mr. Dickey has been a hair hero to Michelle Obama, Kelis, Alicia Keys and others.

So, I'm white, but I also have wavy hair that tends to be dry and sort of difficult to manage, and I am quite partial to Mixed Chicks deep conditioner. So yay for a diversity of hair products for people whose hair is not straight! But… "problem hair"? Really? We're still defining certain hair as problematic?

Also, the intro to the piece generally:

Somali fashion, do-it-yourself henna kits, children's books that draw inspiration from the lives of Barack Obama and Sonia Sotomayor: it's not hard to find gifts created for and by people of color this holiday season. Here are some possibilities.

Again, totally good with promoting the work of people of color, and for not centering whiteness in everything. But… why not just put this all in the general holiday shopping guide? Sure, "The Mocha Manual to Military Life: A Savvy Guide for Wives, Girlfriends and Female Service Members" isn’t going to appeal to every reader, but neither is the Bjorn Borg Men's Underwear and Sock Set (which was in the "Chic and Cheerful" guide). Frédéric Fekkai Advanced Brilliant Glossing Products go in the "Cosmetic Enhancements" guide while "Hair Rules," as I quoted above, is in the Of Color guide. All the other guides are divided up by interest -- cosmetics, travel, food, etc. Except the Of Color guide.

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Court Declares "Defund ACORN Act" Unconstitutional
Posted by Ari Melber, TheNation.com on December 14, 2009 at 8:00 AM.

ACORN finally won a round in its battle with Congress and the Obama administration on Friday, as a federal court ruled the United States acted unconstitutionally by targeting the organization in an attempt to withhold funding.

Judge Nina Gershon found that Congress' attempt to limit ACORN funding violated the Constitution's ban against government action that specifically singles out a person or group. That clause, officially known as a ban against "Bills of Attainder," is based on the idea that the legislative branch must not act like a court or jury in punishing individuals.

"The plaintiffs have raised a fundamental issue of separation of powers," writes Judge Gershon in the opinion. "They have been singled out by Congress for punishment that directly and immediately affects their ability to continue to obtain federal funding, in the absence of any judicial, or administrative, process adjudicating guilt."

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Bill Kristol: Obama's Nobel Speech "Most Bush-Like ... of His Presidency," Lays Groundwork to Attack Iran
Posted by Ben Armbruster, Think Progress on December 14, 2009 at 7:00 AM.

Since President Obama delivered his Nobel Peace Prize acceptance speech last week, Bill Kristol has been arguing that it is somehow in-line with his neoconservative philosophy and that it vindicates President Bush's "global war on terror" that he wholeheartedly supported.

On Fox News Sunday, Kristol continued with the theme, calling it "the most Bush-like speech of his presidency" and that it "articulated his own version of the pre-emptive doctrine." Kristol later said that it actually lays the groundwork for a preemptive strike on Iran:

KRISTOL: There's this one sentence, "There will be times when nations -- acting individually or in concert -- will find the use of force not only necessary but morally justified."

That's a pretty striking statement. I mean any American president should say that who's looking at Iran developing nuclear weapons. I think he is, it's not just that Israel might use preemptive force against Iran. This speech lays the predicate for a legitimate use of force to prevent Iran from getting nuclear weapons by the U.S.

Watch it:

The problem with Krisol’s logic is that Obama's speech outright rejected the Bush approach:

I know that engagement with repressive regimes lacks the satisfying purity of indignation. But I also know that sanctions without outreach -- and condemnation without discussion -- can carry forward a crippling status quo. No repressive regime can move down a new path unless it has the choice of an open door.

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Why Is the New York Times Helping Joe Lieberman Lie About Health Care?
Posted by Jamison Foser, Media Matters for America on December 14, 2009 at 6:01 AM.

The New York Times  reports that Senator Joe Lieberman will vote against health care reform in its current form -- and, in doing so, uncritically reports Lieberman's false claims about that legislation.  Here's the article, by Times reporters Robert Pear and David Herszenhorn:

Mr. Lieberman described what it would take to get his vote. "You've got to take out the Medicare buy-in," he said. "You've got to forget about the public option. You probably have to take out the Class Act, which was a whole new entitlement program that will, in future years, put us further into deficit."

The Class Act refers to a federal insurance program for long-term care, known as Community Living Assistance Services and Supports.

Mr. Lieberman said he would have "a hard time" voting for bill with the Medicare buy-in.

It has some of the same infirmities that the public option did," Mr. Lieberman said."It will add taxpayer costs. It will add to the deficit. It's unnecessary. The basic bill, which has a lot of good things in it, provides a generous new system of subsidies for people between ages 55 and 65, and choice and competition."

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Scientology Crusade: Coming to Your Neighborhood
Posted by , Truthdig on December 14, 2009 at 5:00 AM.

Nancy Cartwright, the face behind the voice of Bart Simpson, is here to tell you in her non-cartoon voice about the excitement of recruiting new members for the Church of Scientology, which has long counted her among its members. There’s a “crusade” afoot in 2010, according to Cartwright ... and other enthusiastic Scientologists in this (leaked?) video ... to bring “ideal orgs” to every neighborhood—in buildings we can all “dig on!” And ones that serve really good food too!

It’s unclear, if you will, whether the COS wants this video to be accessible to those outside its fold, so watch it quick, as it’ll probably disappear if that isn’t the case.

This Week in God
Posted by Steve Benen, Washington Monthly on December 13, 2009 at 6:47 PM.

First up from the God Machine this week is word from the Supreme Court on the upcoming term's big church-state case.

The Supreme Court agreed Monday to decide whether a Christian student group's right to religious liberty and the freedom of association can trump a university's ban on discrimination against gays and lesbians.

The case could set new rules for campus groups that receive funding through fees paid by the students.

The justices agreed to hear an appeal from a San Francisco chapter of the Christian Legal Society, which lost its recognition as a student group at the UC Hastings College of Law because it refused to abide by the school's anti-discrimination policy.

The law school said that officially recognized student groups must be open to all.

It's pretty straightforward. The state school only funds and recognizes student groups that don't discriminate on the basis of "race, color, religion, national origin, ancestry, disability, age, sex or sexual orientation." The chapter of the Christian Legal Society refuses to allow LGBT students to join, so Hastings lost its status as an official student group.

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Lack of Access to Medical Pot Is the Poor's Greatest Problem Ever!
Posted by Joshua Holland, AlterNet on December 13, 2009 at 2:00 PM.

Because dumb people* also enjoy access to the information super-highway, I get comments like this one in response to my piece on today's front page:

Goddamn if you think the biggest problem with the working poor in California is a lack of access to marijuana, you are seriously stoned out of your mind.

To which I can only respond by happily announcing that nobody's even suggested it makes the top ten.

But having cleared up that messy controversy, I do want to flesh out the argument a bit.

Read the rest of the post on the flip side »

Social Action in Copenhagen Rivals Seattle Protest
Posted by Bill McKibben, Mother Jones on December 13, 2009 at 9:57 AM.

It felt, at the start, a little like Seattle at the start. The same kind of joyful spontaneity that marked the first hours of the WTO protests, before the cops and the bandana-clad anarchists started trading blows. People gathered in front of the Danish Parliament building in the first sunshine seen for days (and it doesn’t last long at this latitude in December) to march to the conference headquarters about four miles away. The crowd—as many as 100,000 strong—was incredibly diverse: young people from around the world have swarmed into Copenhagen for the week, and they were dressed as penguins and polar bears and dinosaurs, singing, dancing to stay warm against the cold breeze. There was one other odd thing—many carried photos of other protests from the year past, ones they’d helped organize in their home countries. We saw shot after shot from our Oct. 24 350 rallies; it was as if people were delegates to some kind of global convention, carrying the hopes of their friends back home.

And meanwhile, back home: there were some 3,000 vigils around the world, organized by 350.org, Avaaz, and other members of the TckTck coalition. Most were candlelight affairs, solemn gatherings from people filled with hope and faith that something may yet be accomplished in these fractured talks. That’s what was different from Seattle: this gathering was just the tip of the iceberg, and a very large berg it was. By the time the long line had reached the Bella Center (mostly avoiding the few clashes with police taking place in other parts of town) the sun had, of course, gone down, and the candles had come out here as well. The pictures are quite beautiful, and they merge with the images from all over the world. A global movement is a beautiful thing.

How Insurers Trick Facebook Users into Opposing Heath Care Reform
Posted by mcjoan, Daily Kos on December 12, 2009 at 6:32 PM.

AHIP and its cohorts in the insurance industry have found another outlet for their astroturfing efforts, by bribing game players on Facebook.

Health insurance industry trade groups opposed to President Obama's health care reform bill are paying Facebook users fake money -- called "virtual currency" -- to send letters to Congress protesting the bill....

Facebook users play a social game, like "FarmVille" or "Friends For Sale." They get addicted to it. Eager to accelerate their progress inside the game, the gamers buy "virtual goods" such as a machine gun for "Mafia Wars." But these gamers don't buy these virtual goods with real money. They use virtual currency.

One of the ways you can get virtual currency is thorugh third-party offers, "usually companies like online movie rentals service Netflix -- who agree to give the gamer virtual currency so long as that gamer agrees to try a product or service." The astroturf group Get Health Reform Right, which includes AHIP, BCBS, and a number of other trade groups, is one of these third parties, offering virtual currency for anyone who will take a survey. That survey, "upon completion, automatically sends the following email to their Congressional Rep:

I am concerned a new government plan could cause me to lose the employer coverage I have today. More government bureaucracy will only create more problems, not solve the ones we have.

I write this as I'm watching Sen. Bob Bennett stand up on the Senate floor waving a stack of printed e-mails he's received from his constituents, who are "concerned a new government plan could cause me to lose the employer coverage I have today," and are telling him "more government bureaucracy will only create more problems, not solve the ones we have."

Gingrich's New Contract With America: 'Our Commitment Should Be Simple…We're Repealing' Health Care
Posted by Faiz Shakir, Think Progress on December 12, 2009 at 9:57 AM.

Yesterday, former House Speaker Newt Gingrich stumped for Ethan Hastert, the son of former House Speaker Dennis Hastert and candidate for Illinois’ 14th congressional district. Gingrich, of course, was the architect of the Republicans’ “Contract with America” in 1994 that helped the GOP regain the majority. Now, Gingrich is apparently rallying Republicans behind a new “contract” with Americans — a pledge to take away their health care.

Gingrich reiterated his call for all Republicans to commit to repealing any form of a health care bill that Democrats might pass before the 2010 elections:

GINGRICH: If the left manages to drive through a bill which is opposed by 65 percent of the country on health care, our commitment should be simple — when we get a majority, we’re repealing the whole thing. (applause)

And I want every Democrat who is about to sacrifice their seat for socialized medicine to understand: after you lose your seat, you’re going to lose the socialized medicine too.

Read the rest of the post on the flip side »

10% of Americans Are Unemployed So Why Are Feds Getting Big Raises?
Posted by Daniela Perdomo, AlterNet on December 11, 2009 at 6:00 PM.

While most people I know are stressing about pay freezes or sweating the possibility of forced "early retirement" -- if they survive the next round of lay-offs -- federal employees seem to be sitting real pretty.

It appears that 19 percent of federal employees are earning $100,000 or more -- a rate that increased five points during the first 18 months of the recession, according to USA Today. And that's before overtime and bonuses are added in, so a good deal more may be bringing in six-figure incomes.

In December 2007, only 1,868 Department of Defense employees were making $150,000 or more. In June this year, that number shot up to 10,100. And the Department of Transportation boasts some impressive figures, too. At the start of the economic meltdown, only one person was making $170,000 or higher. Eighteen months into the worst recession since the Great Depression, and that number grew exponentially to 1,690.

These changes mean that the average federal employee's salary is now $71,206, compared to a private sector average of $40,331.

Now there are certainly two sides to this. One is that the government does employ a great deal of highly-trained specialists, such as research scientists, doctors, and lawyers. And a federal employees' lobbyist told USA Today that federal workers make about 26% less than they would in the private sector, at comparable jobs.

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Glenn Beck's Climate Czar Called for Quarantining AIDS Patients "For Life"
Posted by Jeremy Schulman, Media Matters for America on December 11, 2009 at 5:00 PM.

IRS Audits Single Mother For Not Making Enough Money
Posted by Cara , Feministe on December 11, 2009 at 2:57 PM.

This is absurd. Via Raven’s Eye, Danny Westneat at the Seattle Times has uncovered a case in which the IRS audited a single mother with two kids, who earns $10 an hour at Supercuts and lives with her parents. What was their reason for doing so? Random selection? An incorrectly completed return? No, they just thought that she was too poor to be telling the truth:

“I asked the IRS lady straight upfront — ‘I don’t have anything, why are you auditing me?’ ” Porcaro recalled. “I said, ‘Why me, when I don’t own a home, a business, a car?’ ”

The answer stunned both Porcaro and the private tax specialist her dad had gotten to help her.

“They showed us a spreadsheet of incomes in the Seattle area,” says Dante Driver, an accountant at Seattle’s G.A. Michael and Co. “The auditor said, ‘You made eighteen thousand, and our data show a family of three needs at least thirty-six thousand to get by in Seattle.”

“They thought she must have unreported income. That she was hiding something. Basically they were auditing her for not making enough money.”

Seriously? An estimated 60,000 people in Seattle live below the poverty line — meaning they make $11,000 or less for an individual or $22,000 for a family of four. Does the IRS red-flag them for scrutiny, simply because they’re poor?

The IRS must either think that the United States is just filled to the brim with liars, or that they receive an awful lot of tax returns for people who don’t exist. A whole lot of people in this country, not just in Seattle, live under the poverty line — even though the poverty line is actually placed ridiculously low. And more still live above the official poverty line while still being poor. It’s usually not pretty. It’s sure as hell not just. And often, those people need the help of friends and family to get by. But as they will tell you, it can be done — because, simply, it has to.

As Westneat points out, it’s not as though low-income people can’t commit tax fraud. But choosing them as audit subjects specifically because of their low income is incredibly classist, and far from cost effective. It can also be just plain cruel and vindictive, as it turned in Porcaro’s case:

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Did Obama's Inner Circle (and Rep. Melissa Bean) Kill Financial Reform?
Posted by Kevin Connor, Eyes on the Ties on December 11, 2009 at 1:13 PM.

A group of “New Democrats” led by Representative Melissa Bean has reportedly won major concessions in the financial reform fight:

The compromise reached late Wednesday between pro-reform House Democrats and the banker-friendly wing of the party could significantly weaken consumer protection in states where lawmakers support tougher rules against tactics such as predatory lending and excessive ATM fees than historically submissive federal regulators.

Barney Frank chalked up Bean’s intransigence to the lobbying of a generic group of “big banks,” without providing much in the way of details. The Huffington Post has pointed to the amount of campaign cash flowing from Wall Street, and Public Citizen released a report on the subject on Tuesday.

But “big banks” have a human side, after all; Bean draws her support from real, live, human beings.  And a closer look at who these people are suggests that the Representative’s efforts are backed by financial elites tightly linked to President Obama.

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Yes, Why Can't We Get the Health-Care Congress Enjoys?
Posted by Joshua Holland, AlterNet on December 11, 2009 at 12:15 PM.

I'm not going to write a big wonky post about the Senate health-care compromise today. I just want to highlight a small point: the idea of having the Office of Personnel Management -- the federal government's HR department -- administer the program is really smart politics, but a pretty bizarre policy when you stop to think about it.

The Dems' health care plans are roughly modeled on the benefits program federal employees, including members of Congress, enjoy. There's a government-run exchange. Private insurers sell policies within that exchange, and they have to conform to certain rules and offer a set of minimum benefits. After that, they compete -- federal employees choose from a variety of plans. If the "public option" existed, it would just be one among several different insurance plans in the exchanges.

During this summer of brain-dead right-populism over health-care, folks at Town Halls would berate their representatives for not signing themselves up for the program they were creating.

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Study Says Eco Shoppers More Likely to Cheat, Steal
Posted by Tara Lohan, AlterNet on December 11, 2009 at 12:10 PM.

Slate recently reported on a study by Nina Mazar and Chen-Bo Zhong of the University of Toronto who found that "virtuous shopping can actually lead to immoral behavior. In their study (described in a paper now in press at Psychological Science), subjects who made simulated eco-friendly purchases ended up less likely to exhibit altruism in a laboratory game and more likely to cheat and steal."

OK, so keep in mind this is all a "laboratory game," they did not follow around a bunch of greenies waiting for them to skimp on the tip somewhere. But, their results do make a eco-geek like myself pause a bit. Here's how the study worked:

In an experiment, participants were randomly assigned to select items they wanted to buy in one of two online stores. One store sold predominantly green products, the other mostly conventional items. Then, in a supposedly unrelated game, all of the participants were allocated $6, to share as they saw fit with an anonymous (and unbeknownst to them, imaginary) recipient. Subjects who had chosen items from the green store coughed up less money, on average, than their counterparts. In a second experiment, participants were again assigned to shop in either a green or conventional store. Then they performed a computer task that involved earning small sums of cash. The setup offered the opportunity to cheat and steal with impunity. The eco-shoppers were more likely to do both.

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Senate Health Bill Has Loophole Allowing Coverage Limits
Posted by mcjoan, Daily Kos on December 11, 2009 at 10:51 AM.

Ezra has a post today, talking about the important rule that healthcare reform is going to establish. "As the exchanges open up -- if they open up, more to the point -- all of this will work better and more smoothly. This is how the Netherlands' health-care system looks, and few would accuse their insurers of being evil."

The problem with this argument, the problem many of us of had all along, is that the United States is not the Netherlands. We don't have a private industry that is particularly committed to following the rules, nor do we have a government that is particularly adept at enforcing them. But it's even worse than that--we have a Congress that's already subverting the rules before they've even started.

WASHINGTON — A loophole in the Senate health care bill would let insurers place annual dollar limits on medical care for people struggling with costly illnesses such as cancer, prompting a rebuke from patient advocates.

The legislation that originally passed the Senate health committee last summer would have banned such limits, but a tweak to that provision weakened it in the bill now moving toward a Senate vote.

As currently written, the Senate Democratic health care bill would permit insurance companies to place annual limits on the dollar value of medical care, as long as those limits are not "unreasonable." The bill does not define what level of limits would be allowable, delegating that task to administration officials.

Adding to the puzzle, the new language was quietly tucked away in a clause in the bill still captioned "No lifetime or annual limits."

Maybe they were hoping nobody was going to read what was actually under the section title until the bill was actually passed and signed by Obama. Who, btw, as Jane points out expressly promised that lifetime limits on coverage would be banned in his healthcare speech on September 10. That's a promise that the Senate can't break.

Let's just get this clear--annual limits are just as pernicious as lifetime limits, perhaps even more so. Here's Stephen Finan, a policy expert with the cancer society's advocacy affiliate:

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Report from Copenhagen: Negotiations Heat Up, Tuvalu Fights for Survival
Posted by Karen Orenstein, Open Left on December 11, 2009 at 9:39 AM.

This post is part of Friends of the Earth sponsoring Open Left. Please check out the Friends of the Earth website here.

****

Over the last day in Copenhagen, heated debates and surely thousands of conversations here in the conference center have focused on what the legal outcome of the climate negotiations should be -- and how to get there.

You may have seen some news stories over the past two days talk about actions by delegates from the tiny Pacific nation of Tuvalu -- whose existence as an island above sea level is literally at stake in climate talks. Here's how Rachel Morris at Mother Jones described Tuvalu's move:

On Wednesday Tuvalu's longtime climate adviser, an Australian named Ian Fry, grabbed the spotlight at Copenhagen by halting talks until negotiators considered a new, legally binding climate protocol that Tuvalu wants adopted instead of merely a political agreement. Tuvalu's alternative treaty outlines more drastic emissions reductions aimed at preventing temperatures from rising by more than 1.5 degrees Celsius.

Some stories describing Tuvalu's move (including the one above) have suggested that it's caused a rift to open between developing countries. A lot of this coverage is missing a key point: the differences of opinion between developing countries are about tactics, not substance; they're about how to get the best legally binding deal out of Copenhagen. Jargon aside (and there is a heck of a lot of jargon here – I think of UN climate negotiations as “acronym city”) -- developing countries remain firmly united in demanding (1) that rich countries commit to binding emission reductions targets in line with science and justice, and (2) that rich countries provide adequate funding for developing countries to address climate change.

Read on for more about the tactical implications of Tuvalu's move and some footage of the powerful action by African activists and parliamentarians from Tuesday.

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Oil Lobby Photoshopped Minorities Into Stock Photos to Add Diversity to Anti-Clean Energy Pamphlet
Posted by Lee Fang, Think Progress on December 11, 2009 at 8:26 AM.

In August, The Wonk Room’s Brad Johnson noted that the coal industry had contracted a PR firm to promote its “FACES of Coal” campaign. To attack clean energy reform, the campaign featured pictures of seemingly normal individuals opposed to cap and trade legislation. However, the Appalachian Voices’ Front Porch blog revealed that the “FACES” of the coal campaign were actually stock images purchased from iStockPhotos.com.

The oil industry, under the umbrella lobbying group American Petroleum Institute (API), is copying that strategy. In a newly-released pamphlet, API fear-mongers that “hard working Americans,” like ordinary “valets,” “painters,” “day care providers,” and “rocket scientists,” will lose their job and be “hurt” by clean energy reform. To show the great diversity of those affected by the legislation, API decided to buy a stock image also from iStockPhoto.com. Apparently, the stock image was insufficient for API’s purposes. Upon close examination, it’s clear API photoshopped two of the people to turn them into minorities. One of the minorities, the individual on the left, is poorly photoshopped though — his face is brown, yet his hands are still white:

The original iStockPhoto:

The edited, API version (click here to view the pamphlet):

The PR firm representing the oil lobby, Edelman, clearly did a shoddy job in creating this marketing effort. But this pamphlet reveals a fundamental truth that the oil industry is paying lobbyists to literally manufacture support. (HT: Astrotruth)

FOX News Poll: Is Obama Corrupt?
Posted by Daniela Perdomo, AlterNet on December 11, 2009 at 8:00 AM.

Most of the questions in the FOX News poll released yesterday are pretty normal. Many gauge general approval and disapproval of Obama, key members of his staff, and the administration's general policies. And then there's a a few odd-ball questions such as, "Have you ever crashed a party?" (20 percent of Dems have, compared to 16% of Republicans and 17% of independents.)

But no question elicits more head-scratching than the seventeeth: "What do you think President Obama would like to do with the extra bank bailout money -- save it for an emergency, spend it on government programs that might help him politically in 2010 and 2012, or return it to taxpayers?"

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Stossel's New Fox Show Makes "Special Offer" to Students for Liberty to Attend Shows
Posted by Staff, Media Matters for America on December 11, 2009 at 5:00 AM.

As John Aravosis noted on Americablog, the message below was apparently sent to members of a mailing list for the Tea Party Patriots. The message was apparently sent from the Facebook group for the Students for Liberty, a 501c3 organization of students whose "mission is to provide a unified, student-driven forum of support for students and student organizations dedicated to liberty." SFL's office is at the Cato Institute. 

The message encourages readers to watch John Stossel's new show on Fox Business Network and says the show has "made a special offer to SFL member[s] to be part of the audience.  

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Liberal Image vs. Liberal Achievements
Posted by Booman, Booman Tribune on December 11, 2009 at 4:22 AM.

Ezra Klein hits on something that I've been thinking about.

The first year of the Obama presidency has been a long tutorial on the difference between liberal ends and liberal means. If I told you America has a president determined to pass large amounts of Keynesian stimulus spending (that's particularly concentrated in impoverished areas), a near-universal health-care plan, and a bill addressing climate change, you'd say liberals had recaptured the White House. Ambitious liberals, even.

But though Obama's program is quite liberal, he doesn't seem to care much how it's achieved. A public option would be nice, but if it's not there, then that's fine, too. Full auction of permits is a good idea, but if most get given away to corporations, then that's how it goes. Infrastructure spending is good, but if tax cuts are the price of passage, then tax cuts there shall be. The best description of the administration's ideology probably came from Rahm Emanuel when he said, "The only nonnegotiable principle here is success."

You could imagine a lot of presidents more dogmatically liberal than Obama, but I wonder whether there are a lot of plausible hypotheticals in which they amass more liberal achievements than Obama. At the executive level, it might be the case that being too liberal is a liability to, well, liberalism.

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Rick Warren declares he's not "conspiring" to "rid the world of homosexuals"
Posted by Bruce Wilson, AlterNet on December 11, 2009 at 3:55 AM.

Rick Warren's missives reach over 140,000 pastors around the world and in early 2009 Warren gave the opening prayer at Barack Obama's inauguration. But the "Purpose Driven" pastor has increasingly been dogged by controversy.

Mega-pastor Warren has just released a statement condemning pending legislation, before Uganda's parliament, which critics have characterized as a "kill the gays" bill. Warren's newly stated opposition to the bill is, of course, welcome. But Warren's declaration contains blatant lies and statements that verge on the bizarre. Why does Rick Warren feel the need tell the world that he has not "conspired" with C. Peter Wagner (an under-publicized but powerful religious leader), or anyone, to "rid the world of homosexuals" ?

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Senate Negotiations Clear As Mud
Posted by mcjoan, Daily Kos on December 10, 2009 at 5:00 PM.

Well this is as clear as mud. Greg Sargent explains the confusion of the conflicting reports on exactly what is in the compromise in regards to a triggered public option.

Lieberman "Irritated" By Toothless Trigger
Posted by Steve Benen, Washington Monthly on December 10, 2009 at 4:02 PM.

LIEBERMAN ON 'IRRITANTS'.... Based on the general outline of the Team of Ten's compromise plan, there's a public-option trigger, but it's awfully tough to pull.

The idea is to rely on the OPM plan -- we'd have a national, non-profit health plan along the lines of the Federal Employee Health Benefits Plan, administered by the Office of Personnel Management, which oversees the plan for federal employees and has experience negotiating with private plans. The OPM would select non-profit plans that met government standards to participate, and they'd be available for state exchanges for consumers to select.

But what happens if insurers don't step up and the national non-profit plans don't materialize? That probably wouldn't happen, but if it does, then a public option would kick in.

So, the public option aspect of this has all been negotiated away, in exchange for other progressive goals. Sen. Joe Lieberman (I-Conn.), whose opposition has been based on an evolving, almost-fanatical hatred of public-private competition, has to be thrilled, right?

Wrong.

"I've told them that I can't support a trigger -- no, actually, to be more explicit: If they say that it's unlikely to be [pulled] then it's unnecessary," Lieberman said. "It's an irritant. And I keep saying to my colleagues: the underlying bill, that I would say 60 of us in the caucus support, that is, the parts that we support in the underlying bill, are so full of progress -- let's get that done, and stop trying to squeeze in things that some of us, respectfully, just won't accept."

The trigger being considered would be pulled, according to a Senate aide briefed on the compromise, if private health insurers, managed by the federal government, do not offer nation-wide non-profit plans starting in 2014. If pulled, it would create a national public option. The measure was added to the agreement at the last moment at the insistence of Sen. Russ Feingold (D-WI). But it may still prove an obstacle to passage of the health care bill.

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Sarah Palin Doesn't Want to Debate Al Gore on Climate Change
Posted by Matt Corley, Think Progress on December 10, 2009 at 2:49 PM.

In an interview with NBC News’ Andrea Mitchell yesterday, former Vice President Al Gore pushed back against Sarah Palin’s anti-Copenhagen conference Washington Post op-ed by saying that “the global warming deniers persist in this air of unreality.” “The scientific community has worked very intensively for 20 years within this international process, and they now say the evidence is unequivocal,” said Gore.

Palin responded to Gore yesterday afternoon on her Facebook page, saying that “he’s wrong in calling me a ‘denier.’” Palin added that she believed “Climategate” proved that the “findings” of “the leading experts” in climate science “are flawed, falsified, or inconclusive.” On Laura Ingraham’s radio show today, Palin continued her attack on Gore. But when Ingraham asked if she would be willing to debate Gore on the issue, Palin demurred, saying that if it was in the wrong “forum” she would “get clobbered”:

INGRAHAM: Would you agree to a debate with Al Gore on this issue?

PALIN: Oh my goodness. You know, it depends on what the venue would be, what the forum. Because Laura, as you know, if it would be some kind of conventional, traditional debate with his friends setting it up or being the commentators I’ll get clobbered because, you know, they don’t want to listen to the facts. They don’t want to listen to some reasonable voices in this. And that was proven with the publication of this op-ed, where they kind of got all we-weed up about it and wanted to call me and others deniers of changing weather patterns and climate conditions. Trying to make the issue into something that it is not.

INGRAHAM: But what if it’s an Oxford-style, proper debate format. I mean, he’s going to chicken out. I mean, if you challenge him to a debate, do you actually think he would accept it?

PALIN: I don’t know, I don’t know. Oh, he wouldn’t want to lower himself, I think, to, you know, my level to debate little old Sarah Palin from Wasilla.

Video: At Last! Rick Warren Finally Condemns Uganda's "Kill the Gays" Law -- A Law Written By His Friends
Posted by Adele Stan, AlterNet on December 10, 2009 at 1:35 PM.

SCROLL DOWN FOR VIDEO

When Sarah Posner of Religion Dispatches called Pastor Rick Warren for comment on Uganda's homicidal anti-gay law, Warren's spokesman issued a statement from the pastor saying that he had no position or comment on the proposed law. But with criticism mounting, Warren recorded a video in which he decries the Ugandan legislation.

In a video message addressed to "the pastors of the churches of Uganda," Warren says of the law, that he "completely oppose[s]" and "vigorously condemn[s]" it. He goes on to say, "[T]he potential law before your parliament is unjust, it's extreme, and it's un-Christian toward homosexuals..."

Warren is pastor of Saddleback Church, an evangelical megachurch in California, and author of the best-selling book, The Purpose-Driven Life.

As Bruce Wilson reported for AlterNet, the Ugandan proposal calls for the execution of people engaged in certain acts of gay sex, as well as for anyone with HIV who has sex of any kind. The bill also calls for life imprisonment for "homosexuals" -- a punishment already available to prosecutors under current Ugandan law.

Advocates of the legislation include Anglican Archbishop Henry Orombi, who, Posner reports, was instrumental in bringing Warren to Uganda to anoint the African country as a "purpose-driven nation," and Pastor Martin Ssempa, a former ally of Warren's with whom the California preacher says he severed ties two years ago.

Warren associate C. Peter Wagner, who served as Warren's advisor on the latter's doctoral thesis, is also affiliated with the Ugandan churchmen pushing for the law, according to a report by Political Research Associates, a watchdog group. And Warren himself has been involved in pushing California's anti-gay Proposition 8 ballot measure, which he later denied doing, despite the video evidence.

While mainstream media soft-pedaled or ignored Warren's connection to the Ugandans pushing the "kill the gays" law, Posner, Wilson, PRA and Truth Wins Out, an LGBT group that seeks to bust the "ex-gay" myth, stayed on the story, apparently causing Warren to relent and issue today's video.

However, Warren couldn't help but take a swipe at Posner, PRA, Rachel Maddow and others who have been badgering him to make what could be life-saving statement about the law. "[B]ecause I didn't rush to make a public statement, some erroneously concluded that I supported this terrible bill," Warren tells the Ugandan pastors. "And some even claimed that I was a sponsor of the bill." In opening sentences of the video, Warren complains of "lies and errors and false reports" by those who linked his name to the Ugandan clerics who have advanced the bill.

At RD, Posner notes that it took Warren more than a month after the first reports of the anti-gay bill circulated in the U.S. to get around to condemning the bill. (On Thanksgiving weekend, Warren appeared on NBC's "Meet the Press," and neither spoke about the bill -- nor was he asked about it.)

VIDEO AND TRANSCRIPT AFTER THE JUMP

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Daybreak for Marijuana: Most Americans Support Legalization
Posted by Jan Frel, AlterNet on December 10, 2009 at 1:26 PM.

Public opinion on marijuana is changing at warp speed. The latest:

(Angus Reid Global Monitor) - Many adults in the United States are willing to legalize marijuana, according to a poll by Angus Reid Public Opinion. 53 per cent of respondents support this notion, while 43 per cent are opposed.

Less than 10 per cent of respondents support the legalization of other drugs, such as ecstasy, powder cocaine, heroin, methamphetamine or "crystal meth" and crack cocaine.

The use of marijuana is illegal in the U.S. except in some regulated cases of medical use. The amount allowed for such purposes varies depending on the state. Some states have passed laws to reduce law enforcement for possession of small amounts of the substance.

In May, Gil Kerlikowske, Director of the Office of National Drug Control Policy, ruled out a push to legalize marijuana, adding, "I've never advocated legalization and certainly the president has made it clear that's his position."

Polling Data

Do you support or oppose the legalization of each of the following drugs?

Source: Angus Reid Public Opinion
Methodology: Online interviews with 1,004 American voters, conducted on Dec. 3 and Dec. 4, 2009. Margin of error is 3.1 per cent.

Complete Poll (PDF)

h/t Raw Story for the link.

"Shock'n Y'all" Country Singer Toby Keith to Perform at Nobel Peace Concert
Posted by Liliana Segura, AlterNet on December 10, 2009 at 1:00 PM.

In what is perhaps a perfect signature to Obama's Nobel acceptance speech this morning -- in which he reasserted his right as Commander in Chief to act unilaterally and said that the United States must be a "standard bearer in the conduct of war" -- that country music singer Toby Keith will be among the performers at tomorrow's Nobel "peace" concert in Oslo, hosted by Will and Jada Pinkett Smith.

This is the man whose artistic response to the attacks of September 11th was to pen a revenge anthem called "Courtesy of the Red White and Blue" that included the lines: Oh, justice will be served and the battle will rage / This big dog will fight when you rattle his cage / An' you'll be sorry that you messed with the U.S. of A. / 'Cos we'll put a boot in your ass, it's the American way.

He is also the man who celebrated the invasion of Iraq with an album titled "Shock'n Y'all."

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Obama Invokes 'Just War' as Nobel Chairman Compares Him to MLK
Posted by Daniela Perdomo, AlterNet on December 10, 2009 at 11:56 AM.

Yesterday I was reeling in advance of Obama's Nobel Peace Prize acceptance speech, because the press had gotten wind that he would use his time at the podium to explain that Afghanistan is part of his larger plan for peace. Not surprisingly, the Orwellian slogan, WAR IS PEACE, flashed in my mind.

I was embarrassed for the committee that had awarded him the prize, as they'd made clear they were honoring him in hopes of reinforcing the international community's hopes that Obama's administration would not follow in the Bush cadre's warring footsteps. And now they were going to have to sit and hear him speak of war as a medium for its antonym -- peace. How excruciating.

My empathy seems to have been misplaced, however, because the Nobel chairman opened the Oslo ceremony with a speech in which he declared that "Dr. King's dream has come true."

Really?

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Comcast-NBC Behemoth: What Will Obama Do About Media Consolidation?
Posted by David Sirota, Open Left on December 10, 2009 at 11:18 AM.

Last week on my weekday radio show on AM760 here in Colorado, I discussed the Comcast-NBC merger with Free Press executive director Josh Silver. As you can hear here, Josh makes clear that the Obama administration will now have to put up or shut up on its progressive rhetoric about media consolidation. And the question - as it always is - will be which side is the administration on - its corporate donors or its campaign promises?

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Dems, Stop Dithering on the Health Bill
Posted by Booman, Booman Tribune on December 10, 2009 at 9:46 AM.

Maybe it is just a fantasy but at some point I hope that the Democrats in the Senate might be motivated by shit like this to drop the hand-wringing and vote as a caucus to pass a health care bill.

RNC Chairman Mike Steele, who has been calling for a delay in the health care bill process, told members in a strategy memo today that he wants them to stall using every possible tactic.

Steele writes:

But people with a broad range of health reform ideas should be able to come together and realize we need to delay the trillion dollar Obama-Pelosi-Reid health care experiment until next year when we see what the shape of the economy will be. He tells members to "spend every bit of capital and energy you have to stop this health care reform."

"The Democrats have accused us of trying to delay, stall, slow down, and stop this bill," Steele wrote. "They are right. We do want to delay, stall, slow down, and ultimately stop them from experimenting on our nation's health care. And guess what, so do a majority of Americans."

When people are out to cut your throat, you do yourself no favors by showing indecision in your choice of a defensive weapon. In this case, the bill needs to pass so that Congress can move on to what is really concerning Americans right now, which is the lack of jobs. It's far past time for the Senate Democrats to reach a compromise.

Sen. Jim DeMint Outraged at GOP's Shift to the Left?
Posted by Steve Benen, Washington Monthly on December 10, 2009 at 9:00 AM.

THE ALTERNATE REALITY.... By most measures, congressional Republicans have spent 2009 executing a scorched-earth strategy. The GOP has moved sharply to the right, has abandoned even the pretense of bipartisan cooperation, has embraced and elevated some of the more radical elements of the party's coalition, and recommended policy proposals that even some conservatives described as "insane."

And yet, there are still some Republican officials who are outraged by their party's moderation.

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Poll: Strong Majority of Americans Still 'Favor' a Public Option
Posted by Matt Corley on December 10, 2009 at 8:17 AM.

On Tuesday night, reports trickled out that Senate Democrats had “reached a deal to replace the opt-out public option in the Senate health care bill with a network of nonprofit insurers administered by the Office of Personnel Management (OPM).” Though the compromise is reportedly gaining support, a poll released today by the New York Times and CBS News serves as a reminder that the full-blown public option that has been abandoned by the Senate is still quite popular with the American public as 59 percent would favor a public option:

Last night, Rachel Maddow said that the stable popularity of the public option suggests that Americans may want the expansion of existing public programs. The numbers imply that “what people really like — and are attached to — is just the idea of having an option for health coverage that’s public,” she said.

Right-Wing Junior Sleuth Discovers Climate Science Skulduggery!
Posted by Tintin, Sadly, No! on December 10, 2009 at 7:39 AM.

The announcement at Copenhagen by the World Meteorological Organization that the current decade will be the warmest on record and that 2009 will be the fifth hottest year since 1850 has been met by, well, deafening silence in Wingnutlandia. Jonah the Whale and some of the other Cornerdomites are busy speculating on the geopolitical significance of a black golfer schtupping white, blonde women. Mark Steyn is, naturally, still complaining about the excessive number of brown people in Europe. Poor Mona Charen, bless her heart, having apparently decided to completely ignore the dispatches from Copenhagen, is still declaring that global warming is over.

So it truly takes a brave wingnut to stride directly into the coliseum and take on the lions with his bare Funyun-encrusted hands. Sadlynauts, meet Terry Trippany, who, when he’s not out on a Geek Squad call, keeps himself busy as a super-duper NewsBuster.

The media that couldn’t bring themselves to report on the growing scandal surrounding falsified data is all on board with reporting this latest news. Yet it is clear that the Huffington Post, CBS News, the New York Times and others didn’t even bother to check the data that was released from the the UK MET (UK Government Department of Climate and Weather Change).

Uh oh. It looks like little Terry has whipped out his Captain Bozell’s Funtime Sleuthing Set, complete with kerning scale, decoder ring, magnifying glass, snub-nosed junior detective scissors, invisible ink revealer, mini-flashlight and rear-view glasses.

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Peak Wingnuttia: Far-Right "News" Site Accuses Obama of Targetting the Baby Jesus
Posted by Terry Krepel, Media Matters for America on December 10, 2009 at 5:55 AM.

A December 4 New York Times article on White House social secretary Desirée Rogers reported that the Obama administration had apparently considered a "non-religious Christmas" celebration in the White House as a way to reach out to other faiths and that, according to the Times, there was a debate about whether to display the traditional nativity scene. In the end, the article added, "tradition won out; the executive mansion is now decorated for the Christmas holiday, and the crèche is in its usual East Room spot."

Run that story through WorldNetDaily's looking glass -- heavily distorted by right-wing partisanship and sheer, unreasonable hatred of Barack Obama -- and you get a December 8 WND article by Chelsea Schilling, headlined "Obama's latest target: Ousting baby Jesus" and carrying this lede:

The Obama administration sought to ban baby Jesus from the executive mansion as part of its plans for a "non-religious Christmas," according to a participant at a White House luncheon.

Briefly considering not erecting a nativity scene means you "sought to ban baby Jesus"? Really?

Does the WorldNetDaily store sell these looking glasses so the rest of us can take part in this same mind-bending distortion? Or is the experience open only to those who hate Obama with a burning passion like Joseph Farah and Co. do?

Alan Grayson to Dick Cheney: STFU
Posted by Joshua Holland, AlterNet on December 10, 2009 at 4:29 AM.

Entertaining political theater, courtesy of Tweety and Alan Grayson. Enjoy [ht: Oliver Willis] ...

Not Satire: Obama to Invoke Aghanistan in His Nobel Speech
Posted by Daniela Perdomo, AlterNet on December 9, 2009 at 6:22 PM.

On the October morning Barack Obama was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize, I informed a friend who hadn't yet heard the news that our greenhorn president was now a Nobel laureate. "I hope it's not for literature," he replied.

The Nobel Prize for Literature would have been a stretch, but in just as many ways -- or more -- so is the Nobel Peace Prize. And the only way I've been able to rationalize the honor, two months later, is by swallowing the committee's explanation that it wasn't so much commending Obama for peace-making accomplishments as it was trying to encourage him to live up to the prize's tenets, by being a more considerate, less bellicose friend to the international community than his predecessor.

Obama was clearly as uncomfortable as the rest of us with the premature honor and so I've often wondered what he would say during his acceptance speech in Oslo. I'd assumed he would probably return to the rhetorical hope-and-change flourishes that bolstered his presidential campaign, because that's safe territory he's honed and owned in the past.

But as it turns out, reality is much more wondrous than my imagination. Timing matters, too, and tomorrow's speech comes just one week after announcing the escalation of war in Afghanistan. As a result, official word is that in his address, Obama plans to frame the war in Afghanistan as part of his wider plan for peace.

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Chuck Norris: Climate Scientists Totally Suck Ass at Climate Science!
Posted by Thers, Whiskey Fire on December 9, 2009 at 6:16 PM.

Hmmm. The Schafly-dropping who inflicted Conservipedia upon the world was on Colbert tonight. This person claimed as one of the Fantastic Milestones of Conservipedia that it has gotten 140 MILLION PAGE VIEWS. Which is impressive. Of course, this absurd blog you are right now reading, or, more likely, are right now blinking at stupidly with malfocused bacon-veined, baseball sized yellowish spheres of malarial gristle (try to deny it, redsnouts), currently has about three million page views. Which clearly means that Jesus likes us better.

In other exciting news that signifies something important, Chuck Norris has an opinion on the opinions of professional climate scientists, and in Chuck Norris's expert opinion as a guy who knows karate, can't act, and writes barely literate Townhall columns, climate scientists totally suck ass at climate science. 

Copenhagen is on fire this week, and there's far more heating up than just the climate.

Heads of state and others are gathering this week at the United Nations Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen, but bonfires already have been blazing for weeks on that European front.

Let me see whether I can summarize the chestnuts roasting on that Copenhagen fire.

It is axiomatic that chestnuts cannot be summarized, no matter how much heat is applied to them for whatever number of weeks. (Honestly. Go find a chestnut. Pick it up. Roast it. Now, summarize it. We're waiting!) Chuck Norris is welcome to the attempt, but the outlook is grim for him making sense.

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Why Sarah Palin Will not Be a Candidate in 2012
Posted by Steve M., No More Mister Nice Blog on December 9, 2009 at 5:10 PM.

Via Rumproast, Zandar, and The Hill, there's thisabout 2012, from The Fix at The Washington Post:

An astute Fixista flagged a fascinating interview that former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin gave to conservative talk radio host Lars Larson last Friday in which she appears to leave the door open to a third party bid for president in 2012. Asked by Larson whether she would consider running as a third party candidate, Palin said: "That depends on how things go in the next couple of years." Larson told the 2008 vice presidential nominee that answer "sounds like a yes" to which she responded: "If the Republican party gets back to that [conservative] base, I think our party is going to be stronger and there's not going to be a need for a third party, but I'll play that by ear in these coming months, coming years." Which, to the Fix's delicate ears, sounds like Palin leaving the door wide open....

I don't see this happening.

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Real Rich: Banks Blame Homeowners for Failure of Mortgage-Relief Plan
Posted by Daniela Perdomo, AlterNet on December 9, 2009 at 2:54 PM.

A congressional watchdog panel released a report today that categorically qualifies the Obama administration's mortgage-relief plan as a failure. Only 10,000 homeowners -- or less than 5 percent of all who completed trial programs -- received permanent loan modifications that brought their payments to an affordable rate.

Fewer than five percent.

That dismal success rate translates to only $2.3 million of the $75 billion committed to the mortgage-relief program having been been spent, according to the report. And not only have a totally insignificant number of people been able to refinance their predatory mortgage loans, but foreclosures are on the rise -- and expected to continue rising.

The way the mortgage-relief program works is that homeowners must make three initial reduced payments under a trial period. After successfully making those payment on time, borrowers must provide proof of income and a financial hardship affidavit.

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Andrew Breitbart Raves: ACORN Pseudo-Scandal the "Abu Ghraib of Great Society"
Posted by Joshua Holland, AlterNet on December 9, 2009 at 1:29 PM.

Big Hollywood's Andrew Breitbart, mastermind of the ACORN "investigation" videos (for which he is being sued), took umbrage at the Village Voice's coverage of a report that cleared ACORN of any wrong-doing in the matter.

Roy Edroso managed to snag an interview with Breitbart. He says it was, "boiled down from what was pretty much a 45-minute harangue." The man who made hating Hollywood a career, was in fine form:

Throughout our interview, Breitbart railed against ACORN ("they don't help the poor, they keep them dependent on a completely corrupt system"), the "false standard" of mainstream media journalism that he finds unfairly applied to O'Keefe's reporting ("when Morley Safer does an investigation, do you see every minute, every second that they shot? They edit it for effect"), and the media's attempt to "whitewash" ACORN. He compared his reporters to Upton Sinclair, and called the ACORN scandal "the Abu Ghraib of the Great Society."

Breitbart promises more ACORN coverage, and that it will not be pretty: "The L.A. [ACORN] guy didn't help [Hannah and James]. Didn't kick them out, but he wasn't very helpful. That's the closest thing to an exculpatory video. There will be no more exculpatory video. The rest is just like the rest."

I may be mistaken, but that last bit seems like Andrew Breitbart promising less balanced reporting on ACORN's nefarious plots in the future. Which is about the funniest thing I've heard all day.

Glenn Beck Better Health Care Analyst Than New York Times?
Posted by Tana Ganeva, AlterNet on December 9, 2009 at 12:31 PM.

Did you know that progressive lawmakers favor the public option just because they want to stick it to insurance companies? That's what David M. Herszenhorn's super objective reporting on last night's Senate negotiations in the New York Times today basically says:

Supporters of the public option want it to remove the profit motive as an obstacle to medical care, and also to menace the private insurance companies that they generally view as greedy and mean. At times, some lawmakers seemed to favor the public plan simply because private insurers hate the idea.

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Howard Dean's Pleased with Health Compromise ... For Now
Posted by Steve Benen, Washington Monthly on December 9, 2009 at 11:15 AM.

About a week ago, Howard Dean argued that a health care bill without a public option "is worthless and should be defeated."

Now that Senate Democrats have endorsed a compromise measure that scales back the public option to a trigger -- in exchange for Medicare buy-in and the OPM plan -- is Dean still on board with the reform effort? Actually, yes.

In a boost for the Senate health care deal reached yesterday, Howard Dean said in an interview with me moments ago that the current compromise contains "real reform," and said that as it stands now, progressives could support it.

Dean also confirmed various details about the deal that he'd learned in direct conversations with Senators involved in the discussions -- detail that news orgs had mostly attributed to anonymous sources. Dean's general support for the bill could give it a boost among progressives who say it falls short of real reform.

Dean seems to feel pretty strongly about this, making the rounds this morning to tout his (conditional) support for the new deal.

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Rep Rohrabacher Removes Tin-Foil from Hat, Exposes Globalist Cabal Behind Copenhagen Talks
Posted by Lee Fang, Think Progress on December 9, 2009 at 10:33 AM.

Last night, House members took to the floor to call attention to the threat of catastrophic climate change. However, a group of right-wing congressmen stormed the floor in response and delivered speeches denying the existence of global warming, attacking the science as phony, and heralding a set of hacked e-mails as their proof. Rep. Dana Rohrabacher (R-CA) — who believes that if global warming exists, it has been caused by “dinosauer flatulence” — provided the most comical attack. Rohrbacher called upon Americans to get “angry” and “fight the globalist clique” of “globalists” and “radical environmentalists” who are trying to “shackle generations of Americans”:

ROHRBACHER: Copenhagen may well lay the foundations for the future that the globalists who are pushing this agenda envision for us. [...] What the Copenhagen crowd would mandate and can be traced back to the same alliance between our own radical environmentalists and the global elite. [...] This is about centralizing power into the hands of global government, that’s what Kyoto and Copenhagen are all about, that’s what the globalist alliance is all about. [...]

We must fight the globalist clique that is trying to shackle generations of Americans. … Members of Congress need to hear from angry constituents, and I predict they will.

Watch a compilation:

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Oops! TSA Accidentally Posts "Sensitive Security Information" Online
Posted by Liliana Segura, AlterNet on December 9, 2009 at 9:23 AM.

Remember this summer, when the U.S. government "accidentally" released a "highly confidential" 266-page document mapping out the country's nuclear sites? "These screw-ups happen," was the response of one official and, indeed, he was right.

The Washington Post reports that the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) has confirmed it "inadvertently revealed closely guarded secrets related to airport passenger screening practices when it posted online this spring a document as part of a contract solicitation." A document apparently labeled "sensitive security information."

The 93-page TSA operating manual details procedures for screening passengers and checked baggage, such as technical settings used by X-ray machines and explosives detectors. It also includes pictures of credentials used by members of Congress, CIA employees and federal air marshals, and it identifies 12 countries whose passport holders are automatically subjected to added scrutiny.

Those countries will come as no surprise -- they are "Cuba, Iran, North Korea, Libya, Syria, Sudan, Afghanistan, Lebanon, Somalia, Iraq, Yemen and Algeria" -- but the accidental posting of such sensitive materials online seems like a pretty epic blunder, even by government standards. "It increases the risk that terrorists will find a way through the defenses," former Department of Homeland Security assistant secretary Stuart Baker told the Post. "The problem is there are so many different holes that while [the TSA] can fix any one of them by changing procedures and making adjustments in the process ... they can't change everything about the way they operate."

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Video: Move Over, Adam Sandler: Utah Sen. Orrin Hatch Has His Own Hannukah Song
Posted by Adele Stan, AlterNet on December 9, 2009 at 7:57 AM.

SCROLL DOWN FOR VIDEO

Orrin Hatch, prominent member of the Church of Latter Day Saints (and co-sponsor of the failed anti-choice amendment to the Senate health-care bill), has a new video out -- just in time for Hannukah.

Egged on by Atlantic writer Jeffrey Goldberg, Hatch penned the lyrics to a new Hannukah song that was recorded by the Syrian-American artist, Rasheeda Azar, with Hatch joining in on the chorus. Goldberg writes in the Tablet:

His lyrics are not postmodern or cynical, which is a blessing, because I for one have tired of the Adam Sandlerization of Judaism in America. Yes, we are, as a people, funny (at least when compared to other people, such as Croatians) but our neuroses, well-earned though they may be, have caused us to lacerate our own traditions, which are in fact (to borrow from Barack Obama) awesome. The story of Hanukkah is a good case in point -- maybe the perfect one.

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Group Behind Uganda's "Kill the Gays" Bill Expanding Effort in North America
Posted by Bruce Wilson, AlterNet on December 9, 2009 at 7:51 AM.

The Ugandan branch of a US-based evangelical group called "College of Prayer" played, as a new talk To Action report details, a major and little noticed role organizing and inspiring legislators behind the pending Anti Homosexuality Bill due to come before Uganda's parliament early in 2010. Homosexuality is already legally a crime in Uganda that can lead to lifetime prison sentences, but the new bill would mandate the death penalty for homosexual acts and critics have called it "genocidal" and charged that the bill could require the execution of HIV positive Ugandan citizens. As the College of Prayer website describes, the group is now organizing in Canada's parliament.

College of Prayer members in Uganda's parliament have spearheaded the push for the new anti-gay bill and, as a story posted on the main College of Prayer website quotes College of Prayer Canada head Rev. David Chotka,

"I have three-twelve members of the Canadian Parliament who have heard about what God is doing in Uganda and would like to attend the Parliamentary COP in Uganda next year. They are interested in bringing the College of Prayer to the Canadian Parliament."

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Public Option, Bye-Bye? Senate Reaches a Health-Care Deal
Posted by Adele Stan, AlterNet on December 9, 2009 at 6:57 AM.

The Senate team negotiating the final version of health-care reform has arrived at a deal, Harry Reid, D-Nev., announced last night. The package, Reid said, has been sent to the Congressional Budget Office for cost analysis. Details are still sketchy; even senators not on the negotiating team know the particulars. Here's what we do know.

The bad news? The public option is gone.

The good news? The public option is gone.

Why is the absence of a public option in the Senate bill good news? Because the formula for public options considered by senators were so watered down as to be virtually meaningless. In its place, reports say, the bill will offer two features that could lead to a more progressive form of health-care reform in the long run:

• an opening of Medicare to people between the ages of 55 - 64
• a federal health-insurance exchange based on the system enjoyed by federal employees and the senators themselves

The Medicare expansion would be a buy-in for those younger than 65, and would start immediately. People in the younger cohort would pay a premium. The Medicare expansion would start almost immediately upon passage of the bill, but federal subsidies would not kick in for a couple of years -- meaning in the short run, a Medicare card won't be cheap for the younger boomer set.

However, by experimenting with the expansion of Medicare to include a younger population, we have something of a laboratory for a future single-payer system.

When it comes creating accessibility, the Medicare expansion makes sense. People in the 55 - 64-year-old age group find it very difficult to obtain private coverage as individuals -- especially women. And they're the most likely to be out of work, hence uninsured, in this dismal economy. Folks in this age group are, as a whole, more healthy than the elderly population now served by Medicare, so that should help bring down costs. Yet, because they have more health woes than the younger population, the accessibility of this public plan to them could allow for a healthier pool of insurance subscribers drawn from the rest of the population.

The other big piece of the compromise is the creation of a federal insurance excange based on the Federal Employees Health Benefits Program.

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Will Someone Please Explain the Meaning of "War Bond" to Ben Nelson?
Posted by Steve Benen, Washington Monthly on December 9, 2009 at 6:34 AM.

BEN'S BONDS.... I assume someone will get around to explaining the policy to him eventually.

The United States would begin financing its military engagements in Iraq and Afghanistan with war bonds under new legislation introduced Tuesday.

Sen. Ben Nelson (D-Neb.) unveiled the "United States War Bonds Act of 2009" early this afternoon, which would authorize the Treasury Department to begin selling bonds to fund the wars.

The bonds, Nelson said, would be purposed with helping to pay for the military efforts, in particular the surge of 30,000 troops in Afghanistan, without having to resort to the "war surtax" that has been discussed by some liberals in the House and Senate.

John Cole asked, "He really does not understand that all of our debt is structured through bond sales and the like, does he?"

No, I don't think he does.

Alex Koppelman's explanation was nice and simple: "The problem with this logic is that bonds -- even war bonds -- aren't free money. At some point, those who invested expect to be paid back, and with interest. In order to accomplish that, the government has to use money it gets from ... well, from tax dollars."

Congress Is Rushing to Pass Iran Sanctions That No One Thinks Will Work
Posted by Matthew Duss, Think Progress on December 9, 2009 at 5:15 AM.

The House is expected to take up and pass “a bill imposing tough new sanctions on Iran before the holiday recess.” Americans for Peace Now’s Lara Friedman reports that the bill maybe also pass the Senate quickly:

Today, at around noon, Senate leadership hotlined the bill. Meaning that barring any objections, the bill will be brought to the floor and passed without debate, without amendment, and without a roll-call vote. This is called unanimous consent — a move reserved, generally, for bills that are clear and non-controversial. [...]

It remains to be seen if the entire Senate will agree that a bill that would impact virtually every aspect of US policy (and policy options) related to Iran — now and for the foreseeable future — is clear and non-controversial. One can hope that at least one senator will be brave and conscientious enough to refuse the U/C request — something known as putting a “hold” on the bill. Holds, it should be recalled, are anonymous (and generally remain that way).

Barring that, it looks very possible that IRPSA [Iran Refined Petroleum Sanctions Act], in some form, could become law before the end of the year, popular wisdom, good intentions, and good US policy be damned.

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ACORN Inquiry Finds Nothing Illegal, Faults Bad Leadership
Posted by Daniela Perdomo, AlterNet on December 9, 2009 at 1:00 AM.

It probably will only fan the flames of right-wing hate talk, but an internal investigation of ACORN finds that the employees video-taped giving advice on hiding assets and lying on financial documents are not guilty of any criminal activity.

The 47-page document is the result of a two-month inquiry by former attorney general of Massachusetts Scott Harshbarger. It has been deemed a "complete roadmap for the future" by ACORN leadership.

The report concludes that the circumstances caught on video actually stem from another ACORN public relations nightmare. Wade Rathke, ACORN's co-founder and chief organizer, stepped down last year after being caught covering up for his brother, who had embezzled $948,607.50 from the organization and its affiliated charities over a period during 1999 and 2000.

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Christ in Your Tree? The Newest Weapon Against Evil Atheists Bent on Destroying X-Mas
Posted by Tana Ganeva, AlterNet on December 8, 2009 at 4:22 PM.

Because Christmas is a time to ponder excruciating methods of execution ... 

(click for larger version)

The CHRIST-mas tree, created by holiday decor company Boss Creations, is intended as a weapon in the war on Christmas. From Right-Wing Watch:

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Nelson's Anti-Choice Amendment Defeated in Senate, 54-45: Rep. Diana DeGette Responds
Posted by AlterNet Staff, AlterNet on December 8, 2009 at 3:14 PM.

Today, in debate on the Senate floor on the health-care reform bill, senators voted to table an amendment offered by Ben Nelson, D-Neb., that would have added anti-choice language to the bill, similar to that of the Stupak-Pitts amendment to the House health-care reform bill.

Rep. Diana DeGette, D-Colo., led the charge against Stupak in the House. Together with Rep. Louise Slaughter, D-N.Y., she co-chairs the House Pro-Choice Caucus.  DeGette issued this statement on word of the Senate action:

"I am delighted the U.S. Senate has rejected an extreme amendment that would have turned back the clock on a woman’s right to choose. The underlying Senate bill already prohibits federal funding of abortion. The amendment the Senate rejected today was an attempt to use health care reform to restrict women's access to reproductive health services. Throughout the conference process, pro-choice Members will be working to ensure that health care reform legislation does not restrict abortion rights beyond current law. Over 40 Members of the House have vowed not to support a conference report that further restricts a woman's right to choose."

Click here to read the abortion provision included in the U.S. Senate's underlying bill.

Gay Obama Administration Official Says He Can't Give a Lesbian Wife Health Benefits
Posted by Daniela Perdomo, AlterNet on December 8, 2009 at 2:00 PM.

I'm certainly not one of those doe-eyed Obama voters who really thought he was going to come in and change everything, but every now and then some bit of news comes out of the U.S. government that really does leave me dumbfounded. The following is one of them.

The director of the Office of Personnel Management, John Berry, an openly gay man (Victory!) over the weekend said he cannot follow a California court order to provide health benefits to the wife of a federal employee. (Fail!)

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Are Wealthier, Better Educated Neighbors More Likely to Return a Wallet Full of Cash than Poorer Ones?
Posted by Joshua Holland, AlterNet on December 8, 2009 at 1:17 PM.

This is an odd question, on a number of levels:

Is community trust a luxury in America? Gallup data offer some support for that idea -- 82% of those making $90,000 per year or more say they would expect a neighbor who found a lost wallet or purse containing $200 to return it. In contrast, 50% of those making less than $24,000 per year expressed this kind of trust in their neighbors.

I think the poll's informational value is close to zero for a simple reason: by maintaining a constant number of dollars in the wallet, neighbors in wealthier communities have relatively less incentive to pocket the cash. $200 represents 1 percent of annual income for someone making $20K, but just 0.2 percent of the yearly take of someone making $100K. $200 simply doesn't mean the same thing to those two hypothetical individuals. Money doesn't even have the same value for a single individual over the course of his or her life -- I can tell you $20 means a Hell of a lot less to me today than it did when I was going to school and scraping by working part-time jobs. Even if Bill Gates found a lost wallet stuffed with $100,000 in cash, what economic incentive would he have to not have his driver go return it.

It's not a minor quibble. The pollsters specified $200 for a reason. It's substantial enough to tempt people to pocket it, but not such a large sum that just about anyone would. They should have established income first, then asked people making $20k about a wallet with $200, and upped the amount of cash on a sliding scale so those making $100K would have to consider whether their neighbors would return a wallet with $1,000.

Let's also consider this proxy they've come up with. Gallup defines "community trust" as the belief that one's neighbors would be likely to return a wallet with $200 in cash. That's a rather arbitrary marker. What if we defined it as, say, "believing the community will rally around a family in crisis"? What would the results look like then?

One could argue that "not snitching out members of the community to the cops" is a sign of trust in one's neighbors, and the results of this poll would probably look very different if one asked that question. Would those making $90K trust their neighbors not to drop a dime on them if they committed a crime?

Gallup's results also offer an ideological Rorschach Test of sorts. 

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Unless Congress Acts, 3.2 Million Will Lose Unemployment Benefits in Early 2010
Posted by Daniela Perdomo, AlterNet on December 8, 2009 at 1:12 PM.

Obama announced a $210 billion job creation plan today -- and it's a well-timed announcement what with a new study detailing just how many millions of Americans will be losing their unemployment checks in the first quarter of 2010.

The Center for American Progress (CAP) and the National Employment Law Project (NELP) released a report yesterday that gets down to the very nitty-gritty of our country's unemployment woes. The study estimates that in January, one million Americans will lose their unemployment benefits -- and by the end of March, a total of 3.2 million workers will lose that very essential lifeline.

And what a lifeline it has been for many of those hardest hit by the recession! The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA), signed into law in February, extends federal unemployment benefits to laid-off workers by a considerable amount, from the average of 26 weeks to 73 weeks. It also includes a weekly $25 benefit payment and a 65 percent COBRA insurance subsidy.

Experts generally agree that the unemployment rate -- currently at 10 percent -- hasn't hit rock bottom yet, even though there was a bit of a bounce in November. In fact, we may not reach that pinnacle of misfortune until spring or even summer next year. But no matter whether we have already reached that low point or are yet to, we can certainly expect that the unemployment rate will remain in the double-digits throughout 2010.

And remember -- the official unemployment rate only includes people "actively" looking for work, which means the number leaves out everyone who's given up and all those who are underemployed.

So with at least 10 percent of Americans -- that's 30 million people -- unemployed, is Congress going to make a move to keep at least some of these people out of cardboard boxes?

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Glenn Beck's "Buy Gold!" Hucksterism Pisses Off Fox News
Posted by Tana Ganeva, AlterNet on December 8, 2009 at 12:00 PM.

People who rely on Glenn Beck for financial advice may have to find another economist to tell them what to do with their money. Beck, who hawks investing in gold as a survival strategy for when Obama confiscates your guns and the world collapses, also profits from gold company advertising and endorsement deals with gold retailers. Beck's very-trustworthy face graces the website of Goldline International, Inc., with the following endorsement: "Before I started turning you on to Goldline, I wanted to look them in the eye. This is a top notch organization that's been in business since 1960." A video on his website, highlighted by Politico in a great piece about the connection between right-wing personalities and gold retailers, offers this sound financial advice from Beck:

If you’ve been watching for any length of time, and you still haven’t looked into buying gold, what’s wrong with you? I was going to say ‘are you just a reporter for the New York Times?’ but I don’t think they actually watch. They just write about it.

I think you’re nuts. When the system