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Buzz, perspectives, insight and news from AlterNet

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

He has a point.

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

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

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

So what could be wrong with creating more of it?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

SCROLL DOWN FOR VIDEO

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

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

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

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

Just sayin'.

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

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

VIDEO AND TRANSCRIPT AFTER THE JUMP

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Listen here:

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Would Passing Universal Health Care Kill the GOP?
Posted by Nicholas Graham on November 24, 2008 at 4:06 PM.

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Meet Obama's Director of Domestic Policy Council (She's a Progressive)
Posted by Melissa McEwan, Shakesville on November 24, 2008 at 2:35 PM.

Meet Melody Barnes.

During a press conference earlier today, President-Elect Obama announced that she has been chosen as his Director of the White House Domestic Policy Council, a role that entails coordinating the domestic policy-making and -makers for the White House. As Shaker Afroacademic aptly described the role in comments, Barnes will be "the Domestic policy czar leading the Cabinet secretaries of Health and Human Services, Justice, Labor, Education, Housing and Urban Development, Commerce, Energy, Treasury, Agriculture, Transportation, Interior and Veterans Affairs on a mega-board."

A former Executive Vice President for Policy at the Center for American Progress, Obama introduced her today as "one of the most respected policy experts in America"--and if you check out this interview, it's easy to see why.

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Obama's Economic Team: Reactions Roundup
Posted by Staff, Huffington Post on November 24, 2008 at 1:42 PM.

President-elect Barack Obama officially announced the key players in his economic team just this morning, but already economics and politics sites have reacted to the news.

The Economist has praised Obama's pick of Tim Geithner for Treasury Secretary saying, "...ah glorious, glorious competence. How we've missed you.":

...Mr Geithner brings two crucial qualities. First, he represents continuity. From the first days of the crisis last year, he has worked hand in glove with Ben Bernanke, the Fed chairman, and Mr Paulson. He can continue to do so while awaiting confirmation. If Citigroup, for example, needs federal help, Mr Geithner will be involved. An unknown when he joined the New York Fed in 2003, he is now a familiar face to the most senior executives on Wall Street and to central bankers and finance ministers overseas.

Second, he represents competence. He has spent more time on financial crises, from Mexico and Thailand to Brazil and Argentina, than probably any other policymaker in office today. Mr Geithner understands better than almost anyone that in crises you throw out the forecast and focus on avoiding low probability events with catastrophic consequences. Such judgments are excruciating: do too little, and you undermine confidence and generate a bigger crisis that needs even bigger policy action. Do too much, and you look panicked and invite blowback from Wall Street, Congress and the press. At times during the crisis Mr Geithner would counsel Mr Bernanke on the importance of the right "ratio of drama to effectiveness".

Former Clinton Secretary of Labor and current go-to wonk commentator Robert Reich praised the group's competence as well:

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Is Tony Blair a Terrorist? NSA Eavesdropped on Britain's Prime Minister
Posted by Steve Benen, Washington Monthly on November 24, 2008 at 12:58 PM.

And to think, some of us nervous nellies were concerned that the NSA might abuse its surveillance powers and listen in on communications it shouldn't have.

A former communications intercept operator says U.S. intelligence snooped on the private lives of two of America's most important allies in fighting al Qaeda: British Prime Minister Tony Blair and Iraq's first interim president, Ghazi al-Yawer.

David Murfee Faulk told ABCNews.com he saw and read a file on Blair's "private life" and heard "pillow talk" phone calls of al-Yawer when he worked as an Army Arab linguist assigned to a secret NSA facility at Fort Gordon, Georgia between 2003 and 2007.

Last month, Faulk and another former military intercept operator assigned to the NSA facility triggered calls for an investigation when they revealed U.S. intelligence intercepted the private phone calls of American journalists, aid workers and soldiers stationed in Iraq.

Faulk says his top secret clearance at Ft. Gordon gave him access to an intelligence data base, called "Anchory," where he says he saw the file on then-British prime minister Tony Blair in 2006.

Faulk declined to provide details other than to say it contained information of a personal nature.

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What Does Napolitano at Homeland Security Mean for Immigration Reform?
Posted by Diego Graglia, Feet in 2 Worlds on November 24, 2008 at 12:02 PM.

As Arizona Gov. Janet Napolitano appears ready to become the first Democratic secretary of Homeland Security, pro- and anti-immigration observers are trying to decipher what her designation will mean for the future of immigration laws under President Barack Obama.

Napolitano, Spanish wire Agencia EFE remembered today, declared a state of emergency on the U.S.-Mexico border and was the first governor to ask for National Guard troops to be deployed to secure the border between the two countries. She has also vetoed tough immigration enforcement bills put forward by state Republicans and advocated measures like the prosecution of companies that hire undocumented workers. Overall she is seen as more of a hardliner on immigration than most Democrats.

Napolitano's approach on immigration is fundamentally pragmatic, her friend and think tank founder Fred DuVal told the Christian Science Monitor, adding her philosophy is, "Drop the ideology and let's talk about what we need to both make the border secure and the relationship with Mexico functional."

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Obama and Senate Dems Prepping for Quick, Massive Stimulus Package
Posted by Sam Stein, Huffington Post on November 24, 2008 at 10:56 AM.

A high-ranking official in Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid's office has confirmed that Democratic leadership is looking to have a stimulus package ready for Barack Obama to sign shortly upon taking office.

Jim Manley, a spokesman for Reid, backed up reports from Sunday and early Monday that Congress would work on a massive stimulus package to be prepared for a presidential signature on January 21st. The hope -- as Obama himself noted during a press conference announcing his economic team on Monday -- is to hit the ground running once he takes office, in efforts to repair the teetering economy.

"I want to see [a stimulus package] enacted right away. It is going to be of a size and scope that is needed to get this economy back on track," he said. "We have a consensus, which is pretty rare, between conservative economists and liberal economists that we need a big stimulus package that will jolt the economy back into shape and that it is focused on ... delivering the 2.5 million jobs I am talking about."

Obama would not get into the details of what, exactly, the stimulus would look like. "I don't want to get into numbers right now," he said.

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Heckuva Bailout: Citi and AIG Still Pay Hundreds of Millions in Sports Sponsorship
Posted by Jane Hamsher, Firedoglake on November 24, 2008 at 10:23 AM.

In his press conference today, Obama says he wants Detroit automakers to come up with a "plan" before they can receive a bridge loan that will keep three million jobs from being lost as we teeter on the edge of a global depression. 

I guess this is the plan for Citi and AIG:

AIG, Citibank and a number of other federally bailed-out financial institutions have no plans to cancel hundreds of millions of dollars in sports team sponsorships, even as they take billions in taxpayer support, ABC News has found.

In boom times, the sponsorships were seen as a way to advertise the firms' "brands" and appeal to potential customers. Even today, at least one bank told ABC News that a naming deal was increasing its revenue. But critics, including a member of Congress, say the decision to continue them now is hard to defend.

Struggling Citibank just sealed a multi-billion-dollar emergency "backstop" deal with the U.S. government. The financial behemoth, suffering with billions in bad mortgage-related assets on its books, recently shed 53,000 workers and saw its stock price lose over half its value. Yet it's in a 20-year contract to pay the New York Mets $400 million to name the team's new stadium "Citi Field."

"This type of spending is indefensible and unacceptable to Citigroup's new partner and largest investor: the American taxpayer," said Rep. Elijah Cummings, D-Md., in a statement Monday. 

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'Liberal' Colmes Leaves Hannity at Fox News
Posted by Petulant, Shakesville on November 24, 2008 at 8:59 AM.

Lone liberal, sorta, Alan Colmes steps down as co-host. You may know him as Hannity's punching bag sidekick on the usually wrong Hannity and Colmes Variety Hour.

Alan Colmes will relinquish his role as co-host of Hannity & Colmes at the end of the year.

In announcing his decision, Colmes said, "I approached Bill Shine (FNC's Senior Vice President of Programming) earlier this year about wanting to move on after 12 years to develop new and challenging ways to contribute to the growth of the network. Although it's bittersweet to leave one of the longest marriages on cable news, I'm proud that both Sean (Hannity) and I remained unharmed after sitting side by side, night after night for so many years."

Colmes will continue his relationship with Fox as a liberal commentator on other Fox News shows and a possible solo weekend show.

I have endless questions.

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Surprise: Cops Who Get Tasered Really Don't Like It
Posted by Digby, Hullabaloo on November 24, 2008 at 8:37 AM.

This report from the Las Vegas Sun about their police department's experience with tasers is fascinating. (Too bad the Brits didn't read it before deciding to arm their entire police force with these torture devices.) One of the most interesting thing about it is that nearly all the information police receive is from the Taser company itself.

Several cops got on their knees on a rubber gym mat. Kneeling in a line, they linked arms, interlaced hands, and looked up. All they knew of what comes next is this: It's going to smart.

This was called the "daisy chain." It was part of the Metro Police Taser training program, the alternative to hitting a single individual with thousands of volts from the weapon. It was the option officer Lisa Peterson chose, a decision she regrets.

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The Secret to Rachel Maddow's Success
Posted by Faiz Shakir, Think Progress on November 24, 2008 at 8:10 AM.

Newsweek reports that, since Rachel Maddow's show debuted on Sept. 8, "she has more than doubled the ratings of her predecessor, Dan Abrams, with 1.9 million average total viewers, and she's beaten CNN's Larry King 27 out of 44 nights among viewers 25 to 54." MSNBC executives say the key to her success is her hard work:

For Maddow, the job never really stops. She regularly works 16-hour days, only eating once she has finished. She often has just one large meal at 2 a.m., purchased from street vendors. [Executive producer Bill] Wolff says she "simply wants to be excellent." Phil Griffin, the head of MSNBC, attributes her success to a certain "magic," and to her application: "She comes in every day and studies for eight hours. I think one of the biggest mistakes that people make when they come in to television and cable news, which is a really intense, competitive area, is to not work hard. This is not for the soft of heart. It’s intense."

The Last Secrets of the Bush Administration
Posted by Steve Benen, Washington Monthly on November 24, 2008 at 7:55 AM.

It's hardly a secret that the Bush White House has an inordinate fondness for, well, secrecy. When it comes to what the president, the vice president, and their industrious teams have been up to, images of man-sized safes, shredders, and new and creative classified designations cooked up by Dick Cheney's lawyers keep coming to mind.

Getting a sense of what the nation doesn't know about the Bush administration's secrets is not only daunting, it's hard to know where to start. In the soon-to-be-published December issue of the Washington Monthly, editor Charles Homans has a must-read cover story: "Last Secrets of the Bush Administration: How to find out what we still don't know."

The thought of revisiting this history after living through it for eight years is exhausting, and both President Barack Obama and Congress will have every political reason to just move on. But we can't -- it's too important. Fortunately, an accounting of the Bush years is a less daunting prospect than it seems from the outset. If the new president and leaders on Capitol Hill act shrewdly, they can pull it off while successfully navigating the political realities and expectations they now face. A few key actions will take us much of the distance between what we know and what we need to know.

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Will Obama Take on Bush-era Torture?
Posted by Devin Montgomery, Jurist Legal News and Research on November 24, 2008 at 6:52 AM.

Some officials in the formative administration of U.S. President-elect Barack Obama have said they support the creation of a bipartisan congressional commission to investigate potentially abusive U.S. counter-terrorism policies, according to a Newsweek report Saturday. The officials have suggested that such an investigation should be similar to the 9/11 Commission, with a focus on making public the details surrounding the development and authorization of harsh interrogation techniques and other counter-terrorism policies, rather than incriminating those involved. Both Obama and his aides have said previously said that his administration is not likely to prosecute those who approved or carried out the torture or other harsh interrogation of terrorism suspects, and will instead focus on the creation of new anti-torture laws.

Earlier this month, human rights experts at the University of California, Berkeley, in partnership with the Center for Constitutional Rights released a report urging Obama to form an independent, nonpartisan commission with subpoena powers to investigate the treatment of U.S. detainees in Guantanamo as well as in facilities in Afghanistan and Iraq. Their proposal, however, was more directed at establishing accountability, as the authors warned that any commission established by Obama must not be undercut by the issuance of pardons, amnesties, or other shielding measures.

Iraqi VP: Citizens Have the Right to Amend SOFA
Posted by , Voices of Iraq on November 24, 2008 at 6:03 AM.

Vice President Tareq al-Hashemi on Sunday said that the Iraqi-U.S. security pact remains the most dangerous challenge that is facing Iraq since the overthrow of the former regime in 2003, adding the public should be allowed to amend it so that no one would regret their decision about it in the future.

"Options that we have are difficult and limited," a release issued by al-Hashemi's office and received by Aswat al-Iraq quoted him as saying.

"Politicians have the right to think about the future of their country and warn of any hasty decision," he said.

"There are possibilities of mistakes in dealing with the pact and consequences of such mistakes may lead the country to undesirable results," he added.

"Iraqi citizens have the right to evaluate the pact," he noted, adding public referendum on the pact would unify Iraqis.

Stop Hating: Here's Why Obama Is a Progressive
Posted by Booman, Booman Tribune on November 24, 2008 at 4:43 AM.

Here are some progressive things that Barack Obama has promised to do. Ever hear of the Freedom of Choice Act?

The bill is described by NARAL Pro-Choice America president Nancy Keenan as a bill to "codify Roe v. Wade" which would "repeal the Bush-backed Federal Abortion Ban," referring to the Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act, "and other federal restrictions," [1]. Similarly, opponents of the bill assert that[2] it would, if passed, invalidate every restriction on an abortion before the stage of viability, even those previously found consistent with Roe v. Wade by the United States Supreme Court, such as parental notification laws, waiting periods, requirements of full disclosure of the physical and emotional risks inherent in abortion, and the Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act.

What has Obama said about this bill?

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Transgender Politician Sued for "Fraud" by Losing Opponent
Posted by Cara , Feministe on November 24, 2007 at 7:45 AM.

This post, written by Cara, originally appeared on Feministe

So this is utterly repulsive: City Councilperson Michelle Bruce is being sued for fraud by her failed opponent. Why? Because Bruce is a transgender woman.

Four years after she won a City Council seat, making her what is believed to be Georgia's first transgender politician, Michelle Bruce is battling a lawsuit by an unsuccessful opponent who claims she misled voters by running as a woman.

Michelle Bruce, a transgender member of the Riverdale, Ga, City Council, is being sued by a woman she beat in an election.

Ms. Bruce, a tall woman with shoulder-length graying hair, said she has always identified herself as transgender.

"I've always been Michelle," she said. "If someone has a problem with that, I can't help them. It's a personal issue."

Ms. Bruce, 46, who runs an auto repossession business, began her political campaign in 2003. Running unopposed, she landed one of four Council seats and promised to attract more jobs and residents to Riverdale, a town of 12,000 about 12 miles south of Atlanta, lined with rundown strip malls and used car shops.

Three rivals ran against her in the Nov. 6 election. She captured 312 votes, not enough to avoid a Dec. 4 runoff against the second-place finisher, Wayne Hall, who earned 202 votes.

The third-place finisher, Georgia Fuller, who collected 171 votes, filed a lawsuit claiming election fraud.

The complaint, identifying Ms. Bruce as "Michael Bruce," says she misled voters by identifying herself as female. It asks a judge to rule the November election results invalid and order another general election.

Ms. Fuller did not return calls seeking comment, but her lawyer said voters in Riverdale tended to favor female candidates, particularly if they were incumbents.

"It gives her an unfair advantage," said the lawyer, Michael King. "It's not just sour grapes. The people need to know whether the election is fair."

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‘Wave Of Violence’ Against Women In Iraq Undercuts Bush’s Claims Of Success
Posted by Amanda Terkel, Think Progress on November 24, 2007 at 7:40 AM.

This post, written by Amanda Terkel, originally appeared on Think Progress

In recent weeks, the Bush administration has cited declining violence in Iraq as evidence of the success. Earlier this month, President Bush said that Iraqis are slowly "taking back their country."

But last night, NBC Nightly News aired a segment about a "wave of violence that's gone largely unreported lately against women in Iraq." The report noted that Iraqi women, once "the most emancipated in the Arab world," are increasingly unable to walk around without a hijab, wear cosmetics, or work. Watch the report to your right.

Bush has largely ignored the deteriorating plight of Iraqi women, choosing instead to cite signs of "progress." Yet earlier in the war, he and other administration officials repeatedly claimed that the rights of Iraqi women were "inseparable" to success:

"The advance of women's rights and the advance of liberty are ultimately inseparable." [President Bush, 3/14/04]

"President Bush has made the advance of women's human rights a global policy priority. ... We all have an obligation to speak for women who are denied their rights to learn, to vote or to live in freedom." [Laura Bush, 3/8/05]

"The commitment of this administration to women's rights in Iraq is unshakable." [Labor Secretary Elaine Chao, 3/9/04]

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Queens Pickpocket Gets 15-to-Life for $22 Theft
Posted by Lindsay Beyerstein, Majikthise on November 24, 2007 at 5:44 AM.

This post, written by Lindsay Beyerstein, originally appeared on Majikthise

A Queens judge sentenced a pickpocket to 15-to-life for stealing $22.

Undercover police officers busted the perp in 2004 as he tried to boost an old man's wallet on a city bus.

Prosecutors offered him an 8-month sentence if he were willing to plead guilty. He refused. Prosecutors then petitioned the court to designate him as a persistent felony offender.

Queens judge Arthur Cooperman was willing to play along, even though the pickpocket had no history of violence:

Truesdale was found guilty in June 2005 of grand larceny, possession of stolen property, three counts of jostling (bumping into the attended victim), and possession of a burglar's tools (the sweatshirt). In a hearing to determine if Truesdale was a persistent felony offender, his trial lawyer argued that his crimes were nonviolent and were committed only to feed drug and alcohol addictions that Truesdale was seeking help to control.

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Firefighters Being Trained to Spy on US Citizens
Posted by Paddy , Brave New Films on November 24, 2007 at 5:28 AM.

This post, written by Paddy, originally appeared on Cliff Schecter's Brave New Films Blog

The hits just keep on coming-

AP IMPACT: Firefighter help on terrorism

WASHINGTON - Firefighters in major cities are being trained to take on a new role as lookouts for terrorism, raising concerns of eroding their standing as American icons and infringing on people's privacy.

Unlike police, firefighters and emergency medical personnel don't need warrants to access hundreds of thousands of homes and buildings each year, putting them in a position to spot behavior that could indicate terrorist activity or planning.

But there are fears that they could lose the faith of a skeptical public by becoming the eyes of the government, looking for suspicious items such as building blueprints or bomb-making manuals or materials.

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