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Buzz, perspectives, insight and news from AlterNet

This Someone-Shot-at-Me Nonsense Is the Last Straw: CNN Should Fire Lou Dobbs
Posted by Roberto Lovato, Huffington Post on October 31, 2009 at 7:10 AM.

Conflicting reports about a bullet that hit the top of Lou Dobbs' house in Sussex, New Jersey, are raising new and serious questions about the credibility of Lou Dobbs, CNN and its President, Jon Klein. Reports in the New York Post and here on the Huffington Post now indicate that the bullet was likely a hunter's errant shot. Yet Dobbs and CNN have rushed onto the airwaves, treating the incident as a de-facto murder attempt against the news host and his wife.

During Monday's broadcast on his radio show, Dobbs declared in the most urgent tone that "Three weeks ago this morning a shot was fired at my house," and that the shots "followed weeks and weeks of threatening phone calls." Dobbs went on to link the alleged attack to a vast Latino conspiracy made up of Fox News' Geraldo Rivera, LULAC, the National Council of La Raza and other "ethnocentric interest groups," groups that he says are "creating an atmosphere" that led to the alleged phone threats and supposed attack.

Spreading conspiracy theories about immigrants and Latinos is, of course, nothing new to Dobbs. With minimal evidence and maximum bluster, he insinuates that his serious critics -- none of whom endorse violence of any sort -- are somehow linked to a supposedly violent attack on his home. Sadly, such a leap is all too believable to some, like one irate Twitterer who commented "Looks like the Mexican hate groups shooting up Lou Dobbs home" or another who added "Better watch them America. These people are out of control."

To anyone familiar with the growing chorus of religious leaders, national organizations, community groups, Latinos and others demanding CNN cancel Dobbs' show, the timing of Dobbs' announcement is, at best, suspect. Last week, to coincide with the launch of CNN's "Latino in America" series, Latino groups held events across the country demanding the end of Dobb's program on CNN, attracting considerable national press, including an article in the New York Times. Then, on the following Monday, just days before MSNBC was scheduled to air an ad critical of him and CNN (an ad CNN refused to air), Dobbs suddenly unveils that his house has been fired on 3 weeks ago, and that his critics are somehow linked to the incident.

At this point, we expect this kind of faulty reporting from Dobbs. His show has increasingly given space to conspiracy theories -- like the so-called "Birthers"story -- and he has never been one to let facts get in the way of a good argument. But some of the most disturbing questions about the incident are about how CNN and Jon Klein are dealing with it.

Yesterday, Wolf Blitzer helped fan the Twitter fire with a much re-tweeted post: "Shocking news about a gun shot at Lou Dobbs' home in NJ -- while his wife was there. She is OK but a police investigation continues." Blitzer then had Dobbs on The Situation Room, where Dobbs told a "shocked" Blitzer that the alleged threatening phone calls-were "tied to the positions I've taken on illegal immigration." Rather than play the role of serious journalist by asking Dobbs how he links an incident the New Jersey State Police considers not "unusual" to alleged death threats caused by his positions on immigration issues, Blitzer simply let pass these assumptions without question and declared, "I hope they find out who's responsible for this."

Read the rest of the post on the flip side »

Right Wing Falsely Asserts Right Wing Boogeymen Bill Ayers And Jeremiah Wright Visited The White House
Posted by Amanda Terkel, Think Progress on October 31, 2009 at 6:00 AM.

Early Friday evening, the White House voluntarily released nearly 500 visitor records of "individuals visiting the executive mansion between Inauguration Day and the end of July." The easily-searchable list includes some famous names like Michael Jordan, Michael Moore, William Ayers, and Jeremiah Wright. Of course, the mere suggestion of Ayers and Wright has sent the right wing into a tizzy.

The Weekly Standard's Michael Goldfarb:

The Weekly Standard's Mary Katharine Ham:

The Washington Times' Amanda Carpenter:

Conservative blogger Ed Morrissey:

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50 Things Restaurant Servers Should Never Do
Posted by Tara Lohan, AlterNet on October 30, 2009 at 3:00 PM.

The New York Times has a blog post up now (part 1 of "100 Things") that outlines the best etiquette for restaurant employees. And no, this is not a 'remember to wash your hands' or 'don't spit in the food' kind of list -- it's a bit above that. Having worked only briefly in food service at one of my first jobs, I have to say that being a great server is really hard and I definitely notice and appreciate immensely when it is done well.

I agree with just about everything on the list except for number 6: "Do not lead the witness with, 'Bottled water or just tap?' Both are fine. Remain neutral." Actually, unless you are some place where the tap water is not drinkable, then I'd say, ditch the bottled water, like so many high-end (and other) restaurants are starting to do. It's better for the environment and often is actually better quality water, too.

Here's one of my favorites from the list: "If someone likes a wine, steam the label off the bottle and give it to the guest with the bill. It has the year, the vintner, the importer, etc." I've never seen that done before, but I'd be super impressed!

Here's a couple more good ones:

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Do Pregnant Women Have Fewer Rights?
Posted by Alexa Kolbi-Molinas, Blog of Rights on October 30, 2009 at 1:15 PM.

In March, a Florida judge forced a pregnant woman to stay on bed rest and undergo all medical treatments deemed necessary to save her fetus, virtually imprisoning her at a hospital. In June, a federal judge in Maine sentenced a pregnant woman living with HIV to spend the duration of her pregnancy in jail solely because she was HIV-positive and pregnant (her sentence was later vacated). And just last week, the Texas Criminal Court of Appeals heard oral arguments in a case where local probation officers admitted they threw a probationer who failed a drug test into jail because she was pregnant; if she had not been pregnant they would have taken less drastic measures.

In a blog post on Double X, Beth Schwartzapfel does a great job of discussing this unlawful and discriminatory treatment of pregnant women. She writes:

One reason these cases keep coming up, despite their clear illegality, is simple paternalism -- overzealous prosecutors and judges think they know what’s best for a healthy pregnancy, as if that’s separate from what’s good for the pregnant woman. This is particularly troubling when judges assume that the woman must be confined or coerced in order to take good care of her child. . . . And the effect of prosecuting pregnant women who use drugs may be to deter other women with addictions from going to doctors’ offices and social service agencies -- precisely the places they need to be. If going to the emergency room might get you arrested, would you go?

Read the rest of the post on the flip side »

Was CNN Host Lou Dobbs Really Shot at?
Posted by Isabel Macdonald, AlterNet on October 30, 2009 at 12:49 PM.

After CNN host Lou Dobbs stated this past Monday on his radio show that  “my wife has now been and I have been shot at,” right-wing pundits and nativist groups are rallying to his cause.

Dobbs' discussion of the alleged shooting incident, which had occurred three weeks prior to the October 26 broadcast of the Lou Dobbs show, included mention of both longtime critic and FOX host Geraldo Rivera and the immigrant advocacy organizations calling for his removal from CNN including the National Council of La Raza, America's Voice and other "ethnocentric interest groups."

Without specifying who he suspects of making the alleged threats, he also said on his radio show that “They've threatened my wife, they've now fired a shot at my house while my wife was standing next to the car."

The incident prompted the president of Americans for Legal Immigration (ALIPAC), a group that advocates greater restrictions on immigration, to declare that "The lies and hate coming from these radical pro-illegal alien groups is now manifesting in the form of gunfire." ALIPAC president William Gheen characterized this "Attack on the Dobbs Family" as "An Attack On All Americans That Value Our 1st Amendment Rights!"

In a post titled "Lou Dobbs discusses physical attacks, harrassment" Michelle Malkin also chimed in yesterday about the "open-borders mob... busy trying to shut down the speech of illegal immigration critics."

And concern about the incident was also echoed by CNN's Wolf Blitzer, who interviewed Dobbs yesterday, and characterized the incident as "very scary."

But were Lou Dobbs and his wife really "shot at" as he claimed?

Sergeant 1st class Stephen Jones, a NJ police spokesperson I interviewed by telephone yesterday, chuckled out loud after he heard about Dobbs’ account of the gunfire incident. Jones commented that he "wouldn't classify it [the gunfire incident] as very unusual." He also confirmed that there are hunters in the area, and stated that, "at this time of year hunter [shooting] complaints go up."

He observed that in the ongoing police investigation sparked by Dobbs' complaint, "nothing has been determined [regarding] what the intended target for this bullet was." Nor did Jones confirm whether the shots near Dobbs' house appeared to be an accident or intentional.

Another New Jersey police spokesperson, Julian Castellanos, noted that "it's a wide open area and there are hunters in the area." Castellanos explained that the bullet had hit the house in vicinity of the attic; it "hit the vinyl siding and fell to the ground" without penetrating the vinyl, he said.

While Lou Dobbs’ wife, Debi Dobbs, was standing outside the house at the time of the gunfire, the bullet did not come close to her;  it "struck at the apex of the house, near the roof," and thus considerably higher than a standing person, Jones observed.

Jones says he had not seen any mention of death threats in the reports about this incident. As Dobbs stated on his October 26 radio show, the CNN host had “decided not to report” “threatening phone calls” he says he has received.

Asked what he thought of Dobbs' version of the gunfire incident, Sgt Jones stated, “I’m really going to leave Lou Dobbs’ assessment to himself.”

Julie Hollar of FAIR (Fairness & Accuracy In Reporting--a media watchdog group at which I worked for two years), was more forthcoming in her assessment of Dobbs' version of events. Hollar, who has written extensively on Dobbs for FAIR's magazine Extra!, commented that "It would hardly be surprising to find more misinformation smearing immigrants and their supporters coming from a guy who has been spreading such misinformation for years."  She added that "The tragic thing is that so many people suffer actual violence at the hands of those whose xenophobic hatred is aggravated by Dobbs and his kind."

Good News Everyone, The Economic Crisis Is Over! (Right?)
Posted by Allison Kilkenny, True/Slant on October 30, 2009 at 12:15 PM.

Good news, everyone: The economic crisis is OVER!

Kind of. Today's New York Times reports

The United States has emerged from the longest economic contraction since World War II.

The nation's gross domestic product [GDP] expanded at an annual rate of 3.5 percent in the quarter that ended in September, matching its average growth rate of the last 80 years, according to the Commerce Department.

If life still sucks for you: you're still unemployed, depressed, broke, homeless, or scraping by on food stamps, don't worry. You're not alone. In a recent Wall Street Journal/NBC poll, 58 percent of people said they see the country as being on the wrong economic track.

There's always been a weird disconnect between official economic figures like GDP, "third quarter growth," and average citizens' lives. Basically, things can look great on paper, while low and moderate-income people suffer. It's almost like the official record keepers have no idea what life is like for the guy working the graveyard shift in South Side Chicago.

This is not a new problem. Economic indicators like GDP may work swimmingly in lecture hall theories, but they ignore many factors important to the well being of a society, such as health care or life expectancy.

For example, 80 percent of Americans have reported feeling stressed about the economic downturn. The stress affects women the most, who report increases in symptoms like irritability, anger and fatigue. These kinds of economic downturn byproducts have untold consequences on family, workplace, and societal stability.

This stress can also manifest as insomnia. In West Virginia, the AP reports that nearly 1 in 5 West Virginians said they did not get a single good night’s sleep in the previous month. For West Virginia, a state that ranks at or near the bottom of the nation in several important measurements of health, including obesity, the insomnia epidemic may have its roots in the economy, says Dr. Ronald Chervin, a University of Michigan sleep disorders expert. Chevin says financial stress and odd-hour work shifts can play roles in sleeplessness.

However, insomnia isn't measured in GDP. This disconnect was large enough to attract the attention of economists like the Nobel laureate Joseph Stiglitz, who is trying to come up with a new, broader definition of prosperity. In an interview with Bloomberg, Stiglitz said:

GDP has increasingly become used as a measure of societal well-being and changes in the structure of the economy and our society have made it an increasingly poor one ... So many things that are important to individuals are not included in GDP.

In the model they unveiled, the academics recommend including other factors, such as sustainability and education.

Even the guy who invented the GDP, the late Russian-American economist Simon Kuznets, knew his system had significant shortcomings. He once said, "The welfare of a nation can scarcely be inferred from a measure of national income."

It’s true. Fancy lab room words that seemed benign at the time, like "derivatives" and "sub-prime mortgages," had unforeseen, terrible consequences on average citizens' lives. Similarly, the specialized jargon of "GDP" and "third quarter growth" exist on different planets from the rest of us. While the students at the University of Chicago's Department of Economics say one thing, it appears as though the opposite is happening in our backyards ... again.

Read the rest of the post on the flip side »

The Internet Turns 40
Posted by , Agence France Presse on October 30, 2009 at 11:15 AM.

LOS ANGELES (AFP) - Technology and media stars, pundits and entrepreneurs joined the Internet's father to celebrate the 40th anniversary of his culture-changing child.

"It's the 40th year since the infant Internet first spoke," said University of California, Los Angeles, professor Leonard Kleinrock, who headed the team that first linked computers online in 1969.

Kleinrock led an anniversary event at the UCLA campus that blended reminiscence of the Internet's past with debate about its future.

"There is going to be an ongoing controversy about where we have been and where we are going," said Arianna Huffington, co-founder of the popular news and blog website that bears her name.

"It is not just about the Internet; it is about our times. We are going to need desperately to tap into the better angels of our nature and make our lives not just about ourselves but about our communities and our world."

Huffington was on hand to discuss the power the Internet gives to grass roots organizers on a panel with Kleinrock and Social Brain Foundation director Isaac Mao.

"The Internet is a democratizing element; everyone has an equivalent voice," Kleinrock said. "There is no way back at this point. We can't turn it off. The Internet Age is here."

Kleinrock never imagined Facebook, Twitter, or YouTube that day four decades ago when his team gave birth to what is now taken for granted as the Internet.

"The net is penetrating every aspect of our lives," Kleinrock said to a room of about 200 people and an equal number watching online.

On October 29, 1969, Kleinrock led a team that got a computer at UCLA to "talk" to one at a research institute.

Kleinrock was driven by a certainty that computers were destined to speak to each other and that the resulting network should be as simple to use as telephones.

U.S. telecom colossus AT&T ran lines connecting the computers for ARPANET, a project backed with money from a research arm of the U.S. military's Advanced Research Projects Agency.

ARPANET grew into what is known today as the Internet.

"It feels to me like the alumni meeting of the framers of the U.S. Constitution," Electronic Frontier Foundation co-founder John Perry Barlow said as he addressed the gathering.

"There are a lot of people in this room who are honest to god uncles and aunts of the Internet. What you did is conceivably the most important technological event since the capture of fire."

Barlow, whose nonprofit legal organization fights for online freedom, maintained that Internet access is on the verge of becoming an inalienable human right.

"The reality today is that the Internet is like a new life; it is organic," said Regina Dugan, director of what became DARPA when "Defense" was added to the agency's name.

"It is inherently beautiful. It challenges us all to think about ourselves, about others, about ethics, and about the future."

 

Read the rest of the post on the flip side »

Are Obama's All-Guy Basketball Games Really a Big Deal?
Posted by Sady Doyle, Comment Is Free on October 30, 2009 at 10:15 AM.

This just in: work isn't fair. It's true. No matter how good you are at your job, how committed you are to the organization, how many extra hours you put it and how many grandparents' funerals or illnesses you've refused to take time off for, your success will still depend, to a large measure, not on these things but on less controllable social factors. Specifically, it will depend on whether or not people like you. And, more specifically, it will depend on whether or not you are liked by your boss.

It would be tempting to whine about these facts, and how they affect the antisocial curmudgeons of the world (hey, we need jobs too), were it not so very pointless. People are more inclined to trust, respect, reward and forgive each other if there is a mutual bond of affection, and not all the lectures on professional detachment in the world can change that. However, when these social factors edge into old, entrenched power dynamics, they cease to be yet another example of the petty unfairness that is built into the world, and become a legitimate concern.

When Barack Obama held an office basketball game and invited only male employees to participate, it sparked anger, simply because it looked so familiar. It's tempting to view Hoopgate as essentially silly – one more example of the supremely trivial non-controversies that have dogged Obama throughout his first year in office. (Was it right for the president to call Kanye West a "jackass"? Should presidents know how to use swear words? Is Obama a secret Taylor Swift fan, and, if so, should we be worried?)

But for women, this situation is anything but trivial. The sight of a male boss bonding with his male employees over a stereotypically male activity – and leaving female employees out – is something that many of us have seen before, at our own places of employment. And it can result in real-world inequalities.

First things first. It's important to acknowledge that Obama has appointed women to positions of power, to an admirable extent. We have our secretary of state, Hillary Clinton. We have US supreme court justice Sonia Sotomayor. It's also important to recognise that the Obama administration has largely taken a progressive stance on women's issues and has advocated for women's rights. Clinton alone has done an immense service in that regard.

But this isn't the point here. Hiring women and taking a high-minded approach to gender equality are good things (and, sadly, still not things we can take for granted at this point in history), but they are not enough, on their own, to ensure a workplace that is totally devoid of preferential treatment for men.

Read the rest of the post on the flip side »

Joe Lieberman Plans to Campaign For Republicans in 2010
Posted by Amanda Terkel, Think Progress on October 30, 2009 at 9:15 AM.

After joining with Republicans this week in a promise to filibuster health reform if a public option is included, Sen. Joe Lieberman (I-CT) tells ABC News that he plans on campaigning for some GOP candidates in the 2010 elections:

I probably will support some Republican candidates for Congress or Senate in the elections in 2010. I’m going to call them as I see them.

There’s a hard core of partisan, passionate, hardcore Republicans. There’s a hard core of partisan Democrats on the other side. And in between is the larger group, which is people who really want to see the right thing done, or want something good done for this country and them -- and that means, sometimes, the better choice is somebody who’s not a Democrat.

Read the rest of the post on the flip side »

Religious Right Columnist: Halloween Candy a Demonic Threat -- Ridicule Prompts CBN.com to Remove Column
Posted by Adele Stan, AlterNet on October 30, 2009 at 8:15 AM.

In a column posted yesterday on the Web site of Pat Robertson's Christian Broadcasting Network, writer Kimberly Daniels issued an ominous warning:

[M]ost of the candy sold during this season has been dedicated and prayed over by witches. I do not buy candy during the Halloween season. Curses are sent through the tricks and treats of the innocent whether they get it by going door to door or by purchasing it from the local grocery store. The demons cannot tell the difference.

Unable to resist demonic temptation, Rev. Barry Lynn of Americans United for Separation of Church and State had a little fun with this one, via press release. Lynn said:

I’ve heard of the devil being in the details, but to think he’s lurking inside a Snickers bar is a little too much. Pat Robertson has always peddled some scary stuff, but this is over the top.

Once the ridicule started rolling in, CBN removed Daniels' piece, but the gist of her argument can be found here, on the site of Charisma magazine.

Halloween, with its roots in the ancient pagan beliefs of the Celtic peoples, as long been a favorite bugaboo of the religious right. Here's Daniels breakdown of what those witches are up to when they're not busy praying over chocolate bars:

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The New Yorker Has a Laugh Over Cell Phone Sniffing Dogs In Prison
Posted by Just A Guy, Prisonmovement on October 30, 2009 at 7:15 AM.

Shame on Ian Frazier and The New Yorker.

Frazier is a writer for that bastion of liberal magazines, and he published an article (puff piece) about cell-phone sniffing dogs in the New Jersey correctional system.

No, it’s not really a puff piece -- “puff pieces” generally don’t have a deleterious affect on people or segments of society, as Frazier’s piece does on inmates throughout the country.

The piece does a great job of allowing New Jersey corrections officials to laud their own efforts to overthrow that most evil beast, the cell phone in prison. The piece goes on to report about New Jersey corrections training its own dogs on how to sniff out cell phones, and the wonderful results of that training, which is the seizure of more than 130 cell phones from us dastardly, evil inmates.

New Jersey corrections ballyhoos itself quite well about how much the agency is saving over states like California, which has contracted cell phone sniffers to come in at exorbitant rates, depleting our already woefully depleted budget. At least the New Jersey corrections folks got something right.

The corrections agency goes on to say how dangerous and threatening all us inmates are with cell phones, how it’s pretty much only gang members and drug dealers who purchase the phones and call out hits on unsuspecting witnesses and victims.

Read the rest of the post on the flip side »

We Don't Want Obama to Make Bush's Policies Succeed; We Want New Policies
Posted by Leslie Savan, TheNation.com on October 30, 2009 at 6:15 AM.

Even without George W. Bush's debut in Fort Worth as a motivational speaker (see Stephen Colbert swoon over the speech here), this past week has been full of reminders of 43. On Wednesday, President Obama walked out onto the North Lawn of the White House to plant a tree where, one year earlier, Bush had tried to plant a Scarlet Oak. Bush's tree "didn't take," so Obama shoveled a few symbolic spadefuls of dirt over the roots of a Linden tree, asked assembled reporters whether it looked nice, and walked back into the Oval Office.

Sometime after midnight, 44 caught a quick helicopter ride out to the Dover Air Base to stand, wind-whipped and slender, as the bodies of 18 Americans killed in Afghanistan were off-loaded from a C-17 in their flag-draped coffins. It was the first time in eight years of war that a President has greeted our returning dead. Obama flashed a neat, palm-down right-hand salute, which cameras recorded matter-of-factly, as if images of respect for the returning dead were an everyday affair.

When Glenn Beck says the Obama presidency is all about "reparations," he's insinuating that the President wants to lavish government goodies on blacks while stealing from whites. But this is how the Obama camp perceives reparations: Obama is indeed going about repairing things his predecessor bungled, it is truly an appalling mess to clean up, and they don't want to hear criticism of how he "holds the mop." Obama is doing his level best, they say, to restore the national honor, and if we give him enough time he will bring the bloom back to American policy.

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National Women's History Museum Bill Moves to the Senate
Posted by Rachel , Feministe on October 30, 2009 at 5:01 AM.

This is pretty cool. The House of Representatives recently passed a bipartisan bill (HR 1700) that would set the stage for a National Women’s History Museum to be built on the National Mall. It now moves to the Senate. The House passed HR 1700 on a voice vote, and in previous years similar legislation died there, so I dare to be optimistic about this bill’s chances in the Senate.

From the National Women’s History Museum website:

This bipartisan bill (H.R. 1700), re-introduced by Representative Carolyn B. Maloney (D-NY), will allow NWHM to purchase – at fair market value – land next to the National Mall and build the first major repository of women’s accomplishments and contributions in Washington, D.C. The Senate companion bill will be re-introduced by Senator Susan Collins (R-ME) shortly.The sale of this land involves federal property and must be approved by Congress.The National Women’s History Museum Act offers a viable opportunity for NWHM to secure a permanent physical space to house the collections that it plans to make public and further its educational services. The new location at 12th Street SW and Independence Avenue SW is across the street from several of the nation’s most iconic museums, such as the National Air and Space Museum, the National American History Museum and the National Gallery of Art. It’s the right place for a comprehensive museum on women’s accomplishments.

Homeland Security Picks Up San Francisco Baker for Overstaying His Visa
Posted by Staff, AlterNet on October 29, 2009 at 4:59 PM.

Don't they have more important things to do? 

The SF Weekly reports:

San Francisco baker and street-food vendor, proprietor of Amuse Bouche -- is apparently facing deportation to France for overstaying his visa. We don't know any of the details (we're waiting for a return call from Homeland Security to confirm the information), but SFoodie blogger Tamara Palmer received the following e-mail message from Celebi-Ariner's wife, Pelin:

Dear Friends,

 

Yesterday morning Murat was picked up from our house and carried off in handcuffs by two officers from Homeland Security's Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency (ICE). His crime? Having overstayed his Visa Waiver Program which allows European citizens 90 days to stay in the U.S. There are millions of visa waiver overstays in the US right now, and it has not so far been a policy of Homeland Security to pursue such cases, especially ones with NO criminal records or offenses, like Murat. This plus he is married to a U.S. citizen and we were about to file for a green card.

Right now Murat is being held at 630 Sansome St and they are getting ready to deport him back to France TODAY. We (myself and our attorney) are filing a Deferral of Action Request to keep him here. What those of you in the MEDIA can do to help us, is call the ICE office, tell them who you are with, and ask about what is going on in his case, making it clear that you are informed and involved. You are likely to get a voicemail box so just leave a message. Non-media friends, please help us out with your thoughts.

 Read the rest here.

Forbes Bows to Beck After He Complains About Being Named One Of Magazine's 'Scariest People'
Posted by Ben Armbruster, Think Progress on October 29, 2009 at 4:31 PM.

To commemorate Halloween, Forbes magazine announced its picks “for the scariest people of 2009” and included caricatured masks of the honorees, which included Rod Blagojevich, Bernie Madoff, Michael Moore, Kanye West, Roman Polanki and radical Fox News’ host Glenn Beck. “This cable-news demagogue commands big ratings, an army of fans and crocodile tears on demand,” Forbes magazine said of Beck.

Beck hosted the magazine’s Editor-in-Chief — and one-time GOP presidential candidate — Steve Forbes on his radio show Wednesday and complained about the award. “[You're] making me the number one scariest man in America?” Beck asked. “People always want to be at the top of our list,” Forbes replied. “Not this one,” Beck bemoaned. Forbes then started sucking up to Beck:

FORBES: It was a mis — it was a miscommunication. We were going to put you on the most admired, most beloved, most reasonable, most enlightened list.

BECK: Right, right.

FORBES: But we figured if we did that, it would yeah, we wanted to put a mask on you so you wouldn’t get killed by the liberals.

BECK: I mean, here’s the competition: Rod Blagojevich, Bernie Madoff, Michael Jackson, David Letterman, Michael Moore, Roman Polanski. You’ve got a rapist who is nine slots lower than I am ….

FORBES: We normally would put you on the 400 list but we respect your privacy.

In fact, after the show, Forbes went back and amended the original article to be more flattering of Beck:

By Steve Forbes
I hereby amend Halloween Masks — The Scariest People Of 2009

“Glenn Beck is the scariest person to big tax; big government; big spend; and weak defense liberals.”

Salon’s Alex Koppelman observes, “The idea that your outlet’s owner could decide he disagreed with something you wrote — something that had already been published — and then just blithely go in and change it is pretty scary. There’s an ethical problem involved, certainly.”

Read the rest of the post on the flip side »

Conservative Blogger Really Wishes He Were More Important
Posted by Ripley , Whiskey Fire on October 29, 2009 at 3:01 PM.

Remember the other day when you were mumbling/texting/Twitterfying to yourself, "Hey, it's today!  What stupid thing could Erick Erickson possibly have to say to us?" and you sat there and waited and nobody raised their hand so you thought, "Hmmm, maybe he didn't say anything stupid today."?  Not so fast, Brain-o!

Turns out, Erick the only begotten son of Erick was test marketing his bad self in a manner most inappropriate and self-aggrandizing:  (h/t to the Goon Squad at Shorts and Pants)

Give me just a moment here...  OK.  Um, really, Erick?  Republicans tremble when you say something? I had no idea.  But hey, I'm a magnanimous motherfucker and I'm willing to give a fellow blogger the benefit of the doubt, so let's check out that Politico article... shall we?

Read the rest of the post on the flip side »

Reid Blasts Unprecedented GOP Obstructionism
Posted by Steve Benen, Washington Monthly on October 29, 2009 at 2:00 PM.

Maybe this will help bring some much-needed attention to the story.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) excoriated Republicans on Thursday for stalling more than 200 executive and judicial nominees that in some cases have been lingering on the executive calendar for months.

"Senate Republicans are simply so opposed to everything, absolutely everything, that they even oppose putting people in some of the most important positions in our government," Reid said in a floor statement.

In the midst of the H1N1 flu outbreak, Republicans put a hold on President Obama's surgeon general nominee. The federal courts are backlogged, but Republicans are blocking votes on President Obama's judicial nominees. The White House has sent qualified people to the Hill to lead the Office of Legal Counsel, head the General Services Administration, and a variety of diplomatic posts, but Republicans have put holds on all of them, too.

This just isn't normal. Indeed, the Senate isn't supposed to function this way -- and it never has functioned this way. It's obstructionism on a scale without precedent.

Read the rest of the post on the flip side »

"I Am Not Trying to Kill Health Reform," Says House Blue Dog Bart Stupak -- Is It True?
Posted by Bruce Wilson, AlterNet on October 29, 2009 at 1:00 PM.

Blue Dog Democrats in Congress played a "magnificent" role in blocking health care reform during the Clinton administration. And, under the "courageous" and "smart" leadership of House Pro-Life Caucus leader, Michigan Democrat Bart Stupak, with the support and prayers of Republicans categorically opposed to the Democratic Party's health care reform effort, the Blue Dogs may be able to do it again.

That's what Stupak's caucus co-chair Chris Smith (R-NJ) told the audience at a "townhall" panel event on Friday September 18th at the Family Research Council Action's Washington DC 2009 Values Voter Summit [see attached video and transcript]. Another Republican at the event, Tom Price (R-GA), suggested that lockstep GOP opposition to health care reform affords the Blue Dogs "an opportunity to show some backbone" and "stand up to their leadership to say 'no more will we allow this travesty to go on.'"

In an October 29 op-ed for The Hill, Stupak protests, “[r]ecent news articles have reported that I am trying to “kill” healthcare reform, but that couldn’t be further from the truth.” In his Hill op-ed, Bart Stupak writes, “[o]ur healthcare system is broken and I believe reform is necessary.” As usual, the devil is in the details.

Representative Stupak has repeatedly said that his anti-abortion caucus has enough Democratic Party votes to ally with Republicans to block the health care bill from going to the house floor and Stupak is demanding, in exchange for not blocking the bill, that he be allowed to introduce an amendment to H.R. 3200 that would definitively prevent the new health care program from funding abortions.

According to Stupak his amendment probably would pass because polls show that a clear majority of Americans are opposed to the government funding of abortions. But if the amendment passes, the Democratic Party pro-choice voting block in the House may withdraw its support of H.R. 3200, leaving House leadership without enough votes to pass the bill.

However, Bart Stupak’s agenda seems to go beyond simply preventing federally funded abortions and could be viewed as a back-door effort that could make abortion services unavailable to most Americans. A recent study by the Guttmacher Institute found that 87% of US counties lacked abortion providers but the health care amendment Stupak has co-sponsored together with GOP Representative Joe Pitts (R-PA) would bar not only publicly but also privately funded abortion coverage in a national health care exchange system; health care providers participating in the new health care system wouldn’t be allowed to offer abortion services at all.

One of Stupak’s statements even seems suggest he is opposed to a health care system which acknowledges any basic reproductive rights whatsoever. On Wednesday September 23rd, in an interview for the National Catholic Register, which bills itself as the nation's biggest Catholic pro-life publication, Bart Stupak warned that under public health care options, "At least one dollar of your money will go to supplement reproductive rights or abortion services."

The position and health care amendment seem almost tailored to offend reproductive rights advocates in the House and call into question Congressman Stupak’s assurance that he is acting in good will. Which in turn raises the issue of Bart Stupak’s involvement in The Family.

Read the rest of the post on the flip side »

Jon Kyl Says Unemployment Benefits Haven't Run Out ... They Have
Posted by Digby, Hullabaloo on October 29, 2009 at 12:28 PM.

I felt like my head was going to explode when I read this:  

Moments ago, Sen. Jon Kyl (R-Ariz.) took to the chamber floor with a strange claim about the urgency surrounding legislation to extend unemployment insurance.

“The benefits haven’t run out yet,” Kyl said. “We’re going to pass this before the benefits run out.”

It’s tough to decipher exactly what he means. Roughly 400,000 folks exhausted their federal unemployment benefits in September, with another 200,000 projected to do the same by the end of October, according to a recent study by the National Employment Law Project, an advocacy group. By the end of the year, NELP estimates that 1.3 million Americans will have exhausted their benefits unless Congress steps in with an extension. Each day the Senate dallies, another 7,000 people go off the rolls.

I guess Kyl thinks these lazy bastards should just tap into their trust funds. isn't that what everyone does?

And in case anyone doubts that the Republicans are holding a gun to the heads of the unemployed purely for political purposes, put them away:

Kyl claimed that Democrats are to blame for stalling legislation to extend unemployment benefits because party leaders are resisting consideration of several unrelated GOP amendments.

“We could have been done with this bill 24 hours ago,” Kyl said. “We didn’t ask for the delay.”

Right. If the Democrats want to help these unemployed people all they have to do is pass a bunch of bills declaring ACORN a communist organization and bashing immigrants and they can have it. They only have themselves to blame if the people suffer.

And then we have the words of the man fighting for Joe Lieberman's old position as the most sanctimonious, fatuous blowhard in the House of Lords:

Sen. Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.) said the slow pace of the Senate is a blessing of design, shielding the country from de Tocqueville’s feared “tyranny of the majority.”

“Unlimited debate. Unlimited amendment,” Alexander said. “There’s no need for the United States Senate if we don’t have that. … This is the body that protects the minority view.”

Qu'ils mangent de la brioche!

Read the rest of the post on the flip side »

Would You Pay Sarah Palin $100,000 Dollars to Come to Dinner?
Posted by Tana Ganeva, AlterNet on October 29, 2009 at 10:42 AM.

A conservative Iowa organization really wants Sarah Palin to attend an upcoming banquet, because somehow, even post-odd-resignation, post-trashy public flaps with Levi, post-joke book -- Palin is still a draw for social conservatives. So the Iowa Family Policy Center is trying to raise $100,000 to entice the former Governor to the state. But they are meeting opposition from GOP activists, who seem to think they shouldn't pay for the privilage of giving potential Presidential hopefuls a crack at a roomful of influential Iowa insiders. Politico reports:

The Iowa Family Policy Center’s effort to cobble together $100,000 for Palin would represent a striking departure from customary practice in the first-in-the-nation state, these Republicans say, noting that a generation of White House hopefuls has paid their own way to boost their party and presidential ambitions.

But representatives from other Iowa-based political advocacy groups said they would never consider shelling out money for what many politicians see as a privilege: the opportunity to speak to a room full of sure-fire caucus-goers who often serve as precinct captains and can be instrumental to a presidential candidate’s success.

“If somebody tells me they want me to pay an appearance fee, it tells me they’re not very serious about running for president,” said Ed Failor, Jr., president of Iowans for Tax Relief and an influential GOP insider.

As it turns out, Palin might be too busy anyway:

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House Health Reform Bill Outlaws Treating Domestic Violence As a Pre-Existing Condition
Posted by Amanda Terkel, Think Progress on October 29, 2009 at 10:31 AM.

This morning, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) unveiled the re-tooled Affordable Health Care for America Act (HR 3962). The bill will cost $900 billion over 10 years, extending health coverage to 36 million Americans (6-7 million more than the Senate Finance Committee’s version). As Igor Volsky points out, it also “includes a national public option that reimburses physicians at negotiated rates and requires individuals to acquire coverage and large employers to provide it.”

A less-noticed — but still significant — part of the bill would ensure that insurers in the individual market would no longer treat domestic violence as a pre-existing condition:

A health insurance issuer offering health insurance coverage in the individual market may not, on the basis of domestic violence, impose any preexisting condition exclusion (as defined in section 2701(b)(1)(A)) with respect to such coverage.

Eight states currently allow insurers to reject women who have survived domestic abuse for coverage. As the Huffington Post’s Ryan Grim has explained:

Under the cold logic of the insurance industry, it makes perfect sense: If you are in a marriage with someone who has beaten you in the past, you’re more likely to get beaten again than the average person and are therefore more expensive to insure.

In human terms, it’s a second punishment for a victim of domestic violence. 

Read the rest of the post on the flip side »

Wing-Nut GOP Rep Interrupts Hearing to Berate NFL Commissioner Over Rush Limbaugh Diss
Posted by Joshua Holland, AlterNet on October 29, 2009 at 10:16 AM.

Here, folks, at a House Judiciary Committee hearing on "legal issues related to football head injuries," are your tax dollars at work (via):

Here’s an interesting confrontation from a hearing on the Hill today between Rep. Steve King (R-Iowa) and NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell. King said he’d “scoured” Rush Limbaugh’s infamous comment that the media was giving Philadelphia Eagles quarterback Donovan McNabb too much credit because he was black and found no racism in it whatsoever — Limbaugh, said King, was calling out the media for reverse racism.

King, as certifiably mad as any member of Congress, of course went on to whine about the injustice of Goodell being totally mean to Rush-bo and then turning around and allowing total sluts like J-Lo and Fergie -- women who dress trashily and sing songs with dirty words -- own shares of NFL franchises! (There's video to your right. No, not of Fergie and J-Lo -- of Iowa Rep Steve King complaining!)

Anyway, I think Limbaugh-NFL-Gate has pretty much been my favorite bit of wing-nut faux-outrage this year. I mean, the overwrought screeds about the death of free expression -- "Tonight Rush became the metaphor for all of us… every man woman and child in this great nation of ours." Or the delicious but ill-fated calls for a Tea-bagger boycott of NFL football. One commenter -- no doubt a "satire troll" -- offered this suggestion on a right-wing blog:

I never thought I'd say this, but "Thank God for Canada." Not only do they have a REAL conservative ruler, but they actually have a damn good Football league.

The Montreal Alouettes could beat the Vikings or the Broncos any day of the week.

I think we conservatives should just switch our allegiences to the CFL--the Conservative Football League.

That was rich comedy! And why not, with the right screaming 'liberal fascism' in response to a bunch of NFL owners -- mostly conservative businessmen -- figuring out that rush Limbaugh wasn't good for their brand?

Which brings me to my very favorite take on the whole brouhaha ...

Read the rest of the post on the flip side »

The 2010 Reforms in the House Healthcare Reform Bill
Posted by mcjoan, Daily Kos on October 29, 2009 at 10:00 AM.

House leadership has released this fact sheet on the key elements of the House healthcare reform bill that will begin in 2010 [pdf].

Falling Short of Robust Public Option
Posted by Steve Benen, Washington Monthly on October 29, 2009 at 9:00 AM.

SETTLING FOR GOOD ENOUGH.... You can't always get what you want, but if you try sometimes, you just might find, you get what you can pass in a House caucus with 51 Blue Dogs.

Speaker Nancy Pelosi will unveil a bill Thursday that falls short of the liberal vision of a public option -- and the liberals, so far and somewhat surprisingly, are going along with that.

After months of public hand-wringing and strident proclamations in support of the strongest possible government-run health coverage, liberal Democrats are bowing to the reality that party leaders don't have the votes.

So Pelosi will unveil a bill that creates a public option but one that would allow doctors and hospitals to negotiate rates with the government. Liberals wanted a bill tethered to Medicare rates.

House progressives put up a good fight. Indeed, it was their diligence on this specific provision that helped keep the public option alive when much of the establishment thought it was dead. But it became apparent this week that the votes weren't there for a robust public option, so House liberals are doing the right thing -- fight like hell, for as long as possible, and then go with the best bill you can pass.

This is not to say there's unanimity on the point. Arizona Rep. Raul Grijalva, one of the leaders of the Progressive Caucus, will continue to pursue a Medicare+5 amendment, but in general, most of those who worked for the robust public option are prepared to go with the bill as presented this morning by Speaker Pelosi. As Rep. Jim McGovern (D-Mass.) put it, "I would have preferred the other way, but we're looking at this bill holistically."

Part of this is fueled by the recognition that the Speaker's office did everything it could. "They did everything possible," said Rep. Jerry Nadler (D-N.Y.). "There's no sense pushing back for something that can't be done."

Also keep in mind, though, that the compromise to a public option with negotiated rates was reportedly made easier by Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid's decision to include a public option in the Senate reform bill. It signaled to House progressives that a final bill with public-private competition is more likely.

And what happens if the Senate has to scuttle the provision in light of Republican obstructionism and opposition from center-right members of the Democratic caucus? Time will tell.

NC Blue Cross Blue Shield Customers Asked By Company to Oppose Public Option -- After Hiking Premiums 11%
Posted by Adele Stan, AlterNet on October 29, 2009 at 8:00 AM.

In a brazen act of hubris, Blue Cross & Blue Shield has sent letters to all of its customers, asking them to send a pre-printed, postage-paid postcard to Democratic Senator Kay Hagan, that urges her to oppose any health-care reform that contains a public option. (The state's other senator, Richard Burr, is a Republican, so Blue Cross already has his "no" vote in their pocket.) And all this after notifying subscribers of a hefty premium hike.

As reported by the Raleigh News & Observer, the letter reads:

"No matter what you call it, if the federal government intervenes in the private health insurance market, it's a slippery slope to a single-payer system. Who wants that?"

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Why Are All the L.A. Times Columnists Using Medical Marijuana?
Posted by Sara Libby, True/Slant on October 29, 2009 at 4:00 AM.

L.A. Times columnist Steve Lopez, one of the paper’s premier writers (Robert Downey Jr. played him in this year’s movie “The Soloist”) is the latest writer there to devote a column to obtaining medical marijuana. He describes the panic process he went through before he met with a doctor in Glendale to obtain pot to treat his back pain.

“My back problem wasn’t as obvious. Should I limp when it was my turn? … I was in a panic. I’d had a headache or two. Why hadn’t I gone with migraines, and was it too late to switch?”

Unsurprisingly, Lopez’s doctor (who turned out to be a gynecologist who admitted he knew nothing about back problems) was given a recommendation for marijuana use.

Sound familiar?

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Pelosi to Go With Not-So-Robust Public Option
Posted by John Nichols, The Nation on October 28, 2009 at 10:35 PM.

The public option was always a compromise for serious supporters of health-care reform, who -- like Barack Obama when he was running for the Senate in 2003 -- knew that a single-payer "Medicare for All" system was what America needed to provide health care to everyone while controlling costs.

But, in the reform legislation that will be debuted Thursday by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, the compromise will be even more compromised.

According to The New York Times:

Under pressure from moderate-to-conservative members of the House Democratic caucus, Speaker Nancy Pelosi has decided to propose a government-run insurance plan that would negotiate rates with doctors and hospitals, rather than using prices set by the government, aides said Wednesday.

Ms. Pelosi said the public plan, which she prefers to call a "consumer option," would compete with private insurers. But the speaker was apparently unable to muster the votes needed for the "robust" liberal version of a public plan, which she has repeatedly said would save more money for consumers and the government.

Translation: The "public option" Pelosi and her team will not make payments based on Medicare rates. It will, instead, be forced to negotiate rates with doctors and hospitals, as private insurers do. That weakens the flexibility and muscle of the public option.

Pelosi's plan also drops a number of provisions that had been advanced at the committee level to promote consideration of "Medicare for All" models and to allow states to experiment with single-payer plans.

Read the rest of the post on the flip side »

University Of Kentucky Approves New $7 Million Industry-Funded Dorm Named After Coal
Posted by Amanda Terkel, Think Progress on October 28, 2009 at 9:15 PM.

You can’t make this stuff up, as this Think Progress repost makes clear.

A group led by Alliance Coal CEO Joseph Craft recently proposed donating $7 million to the University of Kentucky for a new dorm for the men’s basketball team. The catch, however, is that the dorm would have to be named after Craft’s true love: coal. The proposed change sparked intense protests from local environmentalists and students. One professor said that as universities become “models for new energy sources,” putting “coal” on a prominent building could “make it difficult to attract top students and faculty members to the university.”

[JR:  Yes, coal industry will spend millions for a new dorm -- and yet Massey Energy refused to fund a new school so students can move away from coal processing plant!]

Yesterday afternoon, the University of Kentucky Board of Trustees voted 16-3 to approve the proposal for the new dorm, which will be named the “Wildcat Coal Lodge.” Significantly, two of the “no” votes were from faculty representative Ernie Yanarella and Student Government President Ryan Smith, who said he opposed the motion “as a voice for the student body.”

Students in the audience were reportedly not allowed to speak at the meeting. After the vote, people began chanting, “Move forward, not backward,” forcing the trustees to temporarily recess. More on the events at the meeting:

The vote set off shouts from about 30 protesters, mostly students, who attended the meeting.

“Big Coal is about to go down, and the university’s going down with them,” said Cor de Jong, who described himself as “a Lexingtonian and a basketball fan.”

A statement from students was passed out to board members moments before the vote. “They did not read our statement,” said Katie Goldey, a senior majoring in international studies. “They weren’t even given a chance to read it.”

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Sex for World Series Tickets?
Posted by Richard Blair, The All Spin Zone on October 28, 2009 at 6:46 PM.

Let’s say that you’re a woman, and you’re a die hard fan of the home team. And let’s further stipulate that you’re not a season ticket holder, and you don’t have hundreds of dollars to buy a pair of tickets for yourself and your spouse, even for the cheap seats at the local stadium. What to do, what to do? How about placing an advertisement on Craig’s List, and hope that a sympathetic person who has a couple of spare tickets will help you out?

So, you’re writing the ad. After all, you’re the assistant director of communications at a local medical facility, and like any good ad copy writer, you know one thing for sure: “sexy” sells, and gets attention (particularly on Craig’s List). You settle on the following, and hit the submit button:

DESPERATE BLONDE NEEDS WS TIX!
Diehard Phillies fan - gorgeous tall buxom blonde - in desperate need of two World Series Tickets. Price negotiable. I’m the creative type! Maybe we can help each other!

Flirtatious? Perhaps. Solicitation? Hardly. But that’s what a vice cop in Bensalem, Pa. apparently thought when he read Susan Finkelstein’s advertisement in the ticket section of Philadelphia Craig’s List.

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House Leadership Deciding Now on Public Option
Posted by mcjoan, Daily Kos on October 28, 2009 at 4:56 PM.

Read the rest of the post on the flip side »

Word to the Wise: Never Date a Guy Who Reads Details Magazine
Posted by Jill Filipovic, Feministe on October 28, 2009 at 3:19 PM.

Shorter Details: Tricky bitches will get themselves pregnant and then make you pay for it.

Imagine for a moment this perfectly plausible scenario: You’ve had a steady girlfriend for a year or so and everything’s going great. You still hold hands at the movies. Friends tell you you’re good together. You’re both around 30 years old and making plenty of money, maybe living together, but you’re nowhere near considering fatherhood. And though you occasionally get the feeling that her biological clock is set far ahead of yours, she tells you she’s “safe,” so you don’t worry. Why would you? It’s not as if you’d just picked her up on Dollar Margarita Night at Senor Frog’s. But one morning she tells you something has gone wrong. Unlikely as it sounds, she’s pregnant-and she wants to keep it. What she doesn’t tell you, though, is this: She wasn’t being safe all along. She wanted to have that baby— and the way she saw it, this was the only way to make it happen.

You know where this is going, right?

A few experts discuss the “trend” of women tricking men into impregnating them, without offering any hard information or statistics. A few odd people are interviewed, and they confirm that they’ve heard that other odd people are getting pregant accidently-on-purpose. And then we get to “Roe v. Wade for men”:

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Centrist Democrats = Corporate Sellouts
Posted by Ari Berman, The Nation on October 28, 2009 at 1:45 PM.

Every time I hear about Joe Lieberman's latest apostasy, I think, Oy vey! There he goes again. More Joementum.

Remind me why we still call this guy a Democrat? Sure, Lieberman caucuses with Democrats in the Senate--Joe is nothing if not opportunistic and who wants to be part of a lowly Republican minority?--but I think he forfeited his right to call himself one when he almost became John McCain's VP and campaigned stridently against an Obama presidency. Yet somehow he managed to keep his chairmanship of the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee. Gotta love those Senate Democrats--they always find a way to reward someone for stabbing them in the back. See Baucus, Max.

Following Lieberman's threat to filibuster a public option, every paper played up the story of how the "centrists" are now rebelling. Watch out, the centrists are coming! "Centrists unsure about Reid's public option," the Washington Post reported today. Let's get real. These holdouts are not centrist Democrats; they are corporate Democrats, which should be an oxymoron. They'll do whatever the healthcare industry wants and use their red state constituents as an excuse to do so. Only Lieberman is from Connecticut, one of the bluest states in the country. So what's his excuse?

Well, some rather large insurance companies reside in Connecticut and, as Joe Conason points out, Lieberman's wife just so happens to have been a drug industry lobbyist for Hill & Knowlton. Conason reports:

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Palin's New Book Selling for Dirt Cheap: How the Right Wing Boosts Sales
Posted by Jamison Foser, Media Matters for America on October 28, 2009 at 12:43 PM.

Sorry Deniers, There's No Such Thing as 'Global Cooling'
Posted by Tara Lohan, AlterNet on October 28, 2009 at 11:15 AM.

The latest plot by some global warming deniers is to push a bogus 'theory' that the earth is actually cooling, instead of warming. But the AP's Seth Borenstein took the hot air out of their sails. In his recent story, Borenstein explains that the AP gave temperature data to four independent statisticians to see what kinds of trends they found. "The experts found no true temperature declines over time," he reports. Instead, they found "a distinct decades-long upward trend," which of course has been backed up by the world's leading scientists for years.

So who's behind the global cooling charade? You may be surprised. The BBC recently ran a poorly researched news story and so did the New York Times' Andrew Revkin. But the most attention lately has come from the new book, Super Freakonomics: Global Cooling, Patriotic Prostitutes and Why Suicide Bombers Should Buy Life Insurance, by Steven D. Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner. The authors wrote, "Then there's this little-discussed fact about global warming: While the drumbeat of doom has grown louder over the past several years, the average global temperature during that time has in fact decreased."

Since publication one of the authors has tried to explain that they were really just being ironic -- and they don't actually believe in so-called 'global cooling.' But the book is so rife with scientific errors (as Joe Romm explains in great detail) that their 'irony' just isn't a valid excuse.

Borenstein points to a better explanation from a climate scientist at the DOE's Lawrence Livermore Labs, who said it was "'a concerted strategy to obfuscate and generate confusion in the minds of the public and policymakers' ahead of international climate talks in December in Copenhagen."

Good thing that reporters like Seth Borenstein are still doing their job and actually reporting on the science. The last thing we need before Copenhagen is more media misinformation.

Is Joe Lieberman Bluffing, or Would He Really Torpedo Health-Care Reform?
Posted by Joshua Holland, AlterNet on October 28, 2009 at 10:19 AM.

OK, the Dems had a choice of strategies to get around an inevitable GOP-led filibuster of any health-care bill with a public option.

The bill they have in the House has a public option. They could have gotten a really watered-down bill without the measure through the Senate, used the popular momentum for a public choice to add it during the the reconciliation process (in which the House and Senate bills are combined) and then done a full-court press to pass the final product. 

Most Congressional observers doubt that the handful of cantankerous Democrats in the Senate who might join a filibuster of the Senate bill the first time around would have the nerve to block the legislation if it came back from the reconciliation process with some compromise public plan. Which would have left the insurance caucus Dems -- Joe Lieberman, Ben Nelson, Evan Bayh, Blanche Lincoln and other sell-outs -- out of the limelight.

But Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid promised to deliver a bill with some form of public insurance option. That moves the process along significantly and, as The Hill reports, may help progressives in the House get a "robust" version of the scheme through the lower chamber, as the details of their bill get ironed out. (See Booman for more on the process stuff.)

But because Reid doesn't have the votes so far to bring his bill to a vote -- and may not even have enough to begin debate on its provisions -- it's a high-risk move, in large part because it empowers so-called "moderate" Senate show-boats like Joe Lieberman, who promptly announced that he would likely join a Republican filibuster of the reform package. Whatever else he believes, Lieberman's all about the attention and he's got an abundance of it right now.

At this time, I'd like to just remind readers that when progressives backed Ned Lamont in the primary against Lieberman in 2006, Harry Reid came to his defense by swearing that Old Joe was "with us on everything but the war" in Iraq.

Anyway, sour grapes aside, the buzz today is about whether Lieberman can be moved. Is he being cantankerous now to puff up his own chest and make the liberals who had the chutzpah to beat him in a Democratic primary chafe but will eventually come around? Or is he really prepared to almost single-handedly blow up the whole year-long legislative process during its final act if he doesn't get his way?

A sampling of what some smart observers are saying about that question after the jump ...

Read the rest of the post on the flip side »

Steele Agrees That GOP Should Cease To Exist In New Jersey If Corzine Wins
Posted by Faiz Shakir, Think Progress on October 28, 2009 at 9:30 AM.

During an interview on MSNBC this morning, RNC Chairman Michael Steele oddly agreed that if the Republican Party cannot pull out a victory against incumbent Gov. Jon Corzine in the upcoming New Jersey gubernatorial race, it should just give up and cease to exist.

"If Chris Christie doesn't win under these circumstances in New Jersey, should the Republican Party just fold in that state?" NBC's Chuck Todd asked, getting a laugh out of Steele. Todd likened the Republicans to a Charlie Brown character. "It's like Lucy and the football — Lucy is about to pull the football away again."

Steele accepted the premise. "You're absolutely right, Chuck," Steele said, countering with his own pop culture metaphor:

Have you seen those commercials the NFL is running with the referee who is tripping up the players and getting into the game? Well, I'm that referee getting into the game. And we're doing everything we can to keep that football in place for Chris Christie to kick that extra point, if you will.

Of course, referees are supposed to be unbiased observers who have authority to enforce the rules of a contest — hardly the proper analogy for the head of a political party wading into a political race to help his favored candidate.

Moreover, Steele's more appropriate role as a "referee" in another political race is sure to anger the right-wing base of his party. When asked who he was supporting in the New York 23rd congressional race, Steele sided against the tea party activists' favored candidate, Doug Hoffman. "I support the Republican nominee, as a Republican Party chairman," Steele said. "And that's the way to go, right?" Watch it:

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Grayson Issues Apology for Calling Woman a "Whore," Weiner Apologizes for Calling Grayson Bad Food -- and Why They're Both Jerks
Posted by Adele Stan, AlterNet on October 28, 2009 at 8:00 AM.

This morning finds the Democrats'  two fiercest health-care reform advocates apologizing all over themselves. Testosterone levels on Capitol Hill reached a toxic mark this week, beginning with news that a health-care hero was apparently an intemperate sexist.

When Rep. Alan Grayson, D-Fla., from the floor of the House of Representatives, called out the Republicans for their obstruction of health-care reform, I loved him. The Republican health-care plan, he said, amounted to this, "If you're sick, die quickly."

The whole progressive movement then embraced Grayson in a group hug, and he became the man of the hour, with appearances on virtually every show on MSNBC and beyond.  At last, a congressperson who wasn't talking in newspeak or dilly-dallying with wonkish euphemisms; he was was telling it like it is.

Then Monday brought word of a troubling utterance by the good congressman. Last month, on the Alex Jones Show, Grayson referred to former Enron lobbyist Linda Robertson as "a K Street whore." Robertson is an a former adviser to Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke. It took a month for the remark to surface inside the Beltway, but surface it did, with enough velocity to make a splash.

In a move of inexplicable idiocy, his spokesperson actually defended the horrifically sexist remark. As TPM's Eric Kleefeld reported:

Grayson spokesman Todd Jurkowski stood by the Congressman's comments, telling the Orlando Sentinel in an e-mail: "She attacked the Congressman and his efforts to promote a Republican bill to audit the Federal Reserve. She actually questioned his understanding of the difference between fiscal and monetary policy. This is [a] person who used to be the chief lobbyist for Enron attacking the intelligence and motives of a Congressman who used to be an economist."

Today, I'm not loving Grayson so much . I don't care how he was attacked by Robertson; there's no excuse for using that word. "Whore" is a gendered term. When applied to men as a substitute for the term "sell-out," it's the brutality of the word's inherent sexism that offers the sting. It is a word that has no place in the public discourse, any more than does "bitch" or the N-word.

Grayson's congressional colleagues were quick to distance themselves from him. Fellow health-care tiger Rep. Anthony Weiner, D-N.Y., described Grayson as "one fry short of a Happy Meal," Politico reported.

At last, Grayson issued a belated apology this morning:

"I offer my sincere apology," Grayson said in a statement, just hours after his spokesman defended his comments. "I did not intend to use a term that is often, and correctly, seen as disrespectful of women."

Amen to that.

And then Weiner came up with one of his own, according to AP/Huffington Post:

"Alan Grayson is a friend and an extraordinary member of Congress. No obviously playful comment from me should distract from the important role Rep. Grayson has played in focusing on the true and tragic costs of our broken health care system," he said in a statement. "He is a leader and a patriot."

Read more at: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/10/28/grayson-issues-apology-fo_n_336545.html

Everybody happy now?

Family Research Council Objects to Assistance for LGBT Senior Citizens
Posted by Digby, Hullabaloo on October 28, 2009 at 7:19 AM.

I don't know if they can get any lower. After lying all year about Death Panels, these horrible people have the utter gall to write this:

Yesterday, the Family Research Council (FRC) put out a statement objecting to the Obama administration’s pledge to “establish the nation’s first national resource center” to assist communities providing services to elderly LGBT communities. The statement from Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius noted that there are now “as many as 1.5 to 4 million LGBT individuals are age 60 and older.” Nevertheless, FRC is arguing that there aren’t many LGBT senior citizens because “homosexual conduct” makes them die early:

In reality, HHS has no idea how many LGBT seniors exist. No one does! The movement is only a few decades old, and people who are 80- or 90-years-old didn’t grow up in a culture where it was acceptable to identify with this lifestyle.

Of course, the real tragedy here–apart from the unnecessary spending–is that, given the risks of homosexual conduct, few of these people are likely to live long enough to become senior citizens! Yet once again, the Obama administration is rushing to reward a lifestyle that poses one of the greatest public health risks in America. If this is how HHS prioritizes, imagine what it could do with a trillion dollar health care overhaul!

 

Hell is too good for them.

Harman: 'I am Not One Who Is Enthusiastic' About Sending More U.S. Troops to Afghanistan
Posted by Matthew Duss, Think Progress on October 28, 2009 at 6:00 AM.

Rep. Jane Harman (D-CA) recently made news when she told an audience at the Brookings Institution that any further troop increases in Afghanistan “wouldn’t be well received” on Capitol Hill. During an interview with Harman earlier today, ThinkProgress asked her to elaborate on her views:

I have been focused on this issue, and I am not one who is enthusiastic about adding U.S. troops. I don’t think that is going to fix the problem. I think what’s going to fix the problem is a massive effort by us, when we have leverage, which is right now, to fix the corruption problem in the government. It’s the corruption, stupid. If we just let Karzai operate going forward with a system of cronies I think that is a guarantee that the population of Afghanistan won’t support its own government and will move increasingly to the Taliban. So, that’s against our interest. So, we ought to eliminate the corruption there and set up a system where Afghans want to fight for their own country over time.

Watch it:

Joe Lieberman's B.S. Justifications for Opposing the Public Option
Posted by Steve Benen, Washington Monthly on October 27, 2009 at 5:00 PM.

OK, so Joe Lieberman would rather see health care reform fail than allow some consumers to have a choice between public and private coverage. But one of the key clues to an unprincipled mind is an evolving explanation for opposition.

In June, Lieberman said, "I don't favor a public option because I think there's plenty of competition in the private insurance market." That didn't make sense, and it was quickly dropped from his talking points.

In July, Lieberman said he opposes a public option because "the public is going to end up paying for it." No one knew what that meant.

In August, he said we'd have to wait "until the economy's out of recession," which is incoherent, since a public option, even if passed this year, still wouldn't kick in for quite a while.

In September, Lieberman said he opposes a public option because "the public doesn't support it." A wide variety of credible polling proved otherwise.

Which brings us to October, and the latest in a series of weak explanations.

"We're trying to do too much at once," Lieberman said. "To put this government-created insurance company on top of everything else is just asking for trouble for the taxpayers, for the premium payers and for the national debt. I don't think we need it now." [...]

Lieberman said that he'd vote against a public option plan "even with an opt-out because it still creates a whole new government entitlement program for which taxpayers will be on the line."

Read the rest of the post on the flip side »

List of 'Experts' Who Declared the Public Option Dead
Posted by brooklynbadboy , Daily Kos on October 27, 2009 at 3:31 PM.

Brad Blakeman:

The "public option" is dead, but birth has been given to the "co-op" by Senator Kent Conrad.

Cesar Conda:

The public option has flat-lined. As for the legislative outlook for health reform, the Senate will approve a bill without the public option. The current House version includes the public option, but I'm not so sure the Blue Dogs will want to walk the plank and vote on a provision that won't become law.

Thomas J. Whalen:

The public option appears deader than the pennant chances of the Kansas City Royals. Nonprofit cooperatives will now take center stage in the health care debate and from the White House's perspective, this may not be such a bad thing.

Sen. Kent Conrad:

In the Senate, the cooperative plan is the only one that has the prospect of getting 60 votes.

Conrad again:

"The fact of the matter is there are not the votes in the United States Senate for the public option. There never have been," he said. "So to continue to chase that rabbit I think is just a wasted effort."

One more Conrad, just because I don't like the guy:

"It is very clear that in the United States Senate, the public option does not have the votes," he said. "If we have to get to 60 votes, you cannot get there with public option. That's why I was asked to come up with an alternative."

Read the rest of the post on the flip side »

In the U.S., Veterans Come Home From War Only To See Relatives Executed By the State
Posted by Liliana Segura, AlterNet on October 27, 2009 at 1:16 PM.

Editor's note: Reginald Blanton was executed on Tuesday, Oct. 27th, pronounced dead at 6:21pm.

28-year-old Reginald Blanton is scheduled to die tonight in Texas, despite the very real possibility that he is innocent. This morning, his brother, Andre Bios, appeared on Democracy Now! to discuss his brother's impending execution.

Bios is an Iraq vet; he served in the 1991 Gulf War. Speaking to Amy Goodman and Sharif Abdel Kouddous, Bios described the cruel irony of having devoted himself to supposedly defending democratic ideals on behalf of his country, only to have his brother sentenced to die at the hands of the state:

Amy Goodman: Andre, you’re about to visit your brother. Are you going to be, if in fact he is executed, one of the witnesses to the execution?

Andre Bios: Yes, I am. It was one of the things that I did not want to do, but he has been requesting over and over again for me to be there ...

And the reason why I didn’t want to witness what was getting ready to happen to my brother is because it’s like a slap in my face from my own country, you know? His constitutional rights were violated, but yet I can go overseas and fight in another country to uphold peace, liberty, for them to have, but I can’t uphold peace, liberty and equality for my own brother.

Years ago, I had the opportunity to work alongside Monique Matthews, also a veteran, and the sister of Ryan Matthews, an African American teenager who was sentenced to death in Louisiana for a crime that he didn't commit. Ryan was exonerated in 2004, but I can still remember the sense of betrayal in his sister's voice as she described the hypocrisy -- and the racism that led to his wrongful conviction.

Read the rest of the post on the flip side »

Inhofe Thinks Global Warming Ended 9 Years Ago
Posted by Brad Johnson, Think Progress on October 27, 2009 at 1:15 PM.

At the outset of Senate hearings on clean energy and climate legislation today, Sen. James Inhofe (R-OK), ranking member of the Environment and Public Works Commitee, mockingly praised chair Barbara Boxer (D-CA) for mentioning “global warming” in a YouTube video about the bill. Inhofe claimed that people “have been running from that term” once “that natural warming cycle” ended “nine years ago”:

I do want to congratulate you on your Youtube, the fact you’re using the term global warming again, I appreciate that. People have been running from that term ever since we went out of that natural warming cycle about nine years ago.

Watch it:

Inhofe’s dangerous nonsense has been debunked repeatedly by scientists, from the UK Met Office and NOAA to independent statisticians. 2005 is the hottest year on record, and the last ten years have been the hottest decade on record. Furthermore, it is clear that fossil fuel emissions are responsible.

Sen. Lieberman May Try to Stop Public Option By Joining With GOP Filibuster
Posted by Adele Stan, AlterNet on October 27, 2009 at 12:32 PM.

It's hard to remember this sometimes: Sen. Joseph Lieberman of Connecticut, the former vice presidential candidate, was once a standard bearer for the Democratic Party. Today he put himself forward as the potential killer of the Democrats' signature piece of legislation: health-care reform.

Since leaving the party in 2006 when he failed to garner the support of party leaders for his re-election bid (his unqualified support for the Iraq was was the big issue), Lieberman has consistently moved further to the right, even working the rope lines on behalf of Republican presidential candidate John McCain. Yet Lieberman, an independent, has continued to caucus with the Democrats, a move that allowed him to retain his chairmanship of the Senate Homeland Security Committee.

Brian Beutler of TPM reports that Lieberman is now threatening to join with Republicans should they launch an expected filibuster that would keep the health-care proposal announced yesterday by Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid from getting a final vote on the Senate floor. At issue for Lieberman is Reid's decision to include a public option in the bill.

Harry Reid has the power to strip Lieberman of his chairmanship of the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, and one hopes that threat will be brought to bear on him. However, it may just not matter. Clearly, Lieberman needs to be made to feel important, and he may be looking for a reason to move completely to the GOP side, once and for all. Stripping him of his chairmanship would likely give him the impetus to do so.

Why does this matter? Because it takes 60 votes to close down a filibuster, and with Lieberman and fellow independent Bernie Sanders of Vermont (fellow in only independent status; Sanders is a socialist) in the Democratic caucus, the Dems have exactly the magic number. If Lieberman high-tails it out of the Dem caucus for good, there's no 60 to hold the line on climate change or financial reform or net neutrality.  It's a nasty little game the Lieberman is playing.

Rush Limbaugh Bravely Stands By Fabricated Quote
Posted by BarbinMD, Daily Kos on October 27, 2009 at 12:16 PM.

From the you-can't-make-this-stuff-up file, Rush Limbaugh's response after finding out he'd been duped by a satirical website into launching yet another false attack against the President:

So we stand by the fabricated quote because we know Obama thinks it anyway.

This could be the Republican Party's motto.

Five Organizing Questions on the Opt-Out Public Option
Posted by Adam Bink, Open Left on October 27, 2009 at 11:16 AM.

Following Chris' five process questions yesterday on the news that Reid will include an opt-out public option in the merged bill, I have five organizing questions of my own that I think are critical to making sure this bill is a success. As he wrote, a lot about the opt-out structure remains unclear, and I think the devil is in the details. These should serve as possible targets for amendments during the floor fight.

1. The date in which this starts. Availability of the public option is due to start in 2013. I see this as some bad and some good. On the bad side, there is limited help for people who need it now. It's also not clear to me that the bill itself gives Democrats a lot to work with in the midterm elections in terms to being able to demonstrate how health care is more affordable in November 2010. On the good side, things are going to get worse before they get better, so the "help is on the way" argument is useful, but not terribly compelling. Our side needs to make sure the date is as early as possible.

2. The timeline of opt-out. It is imperative that we push for states only being able to opt-out after the public option starts. People need to try this first before their state makes a decision. If there is no tangible benefit for people who need it, there will be no push to keep one's state from opting out.

And strategically, I prefer to only allow states to opt-out after their fellow residents have suffered under four more years of things getting either somewhat better or dramatically worse. The date in which states can opt out should be as late as possible. Let's dare the teabaggers and conservative legislators to look in the face of those who are getting screwed by insurance companies and tell them they aren't going to try something to help.

Read the rest of the post on the flip side »

Where's the Long-Sought GOP Alternative Health Plan?
Posted by Steve Benen, Washington Monthly on October 27, 2009 at 10:39 AM.

When pressed on why Democrats are moving forward with a health care reform plan, while Republicans haven't offered a proposal of their own, GOP leaders will routinely say there are a handful of Republican-backed bills. It's a fairly shallow cop-out -- none of the various GOP plans have been embraced by the caucus and/or its leadership.

Nevertheless, Republicans did promise, not too terribly long ago, that the caucus would offer an alternative reform plan. It would prove that the GOP is not only steering clear of the "Party of No" label, but also that the minority was serious about governing. Voters would have an opportunity to see two clear approaches to the issue -- one from each party -- and could evaluate which side offered the better solutions.

That commitment came 132 days ago. Republicans are still debating the point.

Some House Republicans are growing frustrated that their leaders have not yet introduced a healthcare reform alternative.

For months, the message from House GOP leaders on a healthcare bill has been similar to ads for yet-to-be-released movies: Coming soon.

According to several GOP lawmakers, the leadership is split over how to proceed in terms of unveiling an alternative to the final Democratic bill that Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) intends to unveil as soon as this week.

Read the rest of the post on the flip side »

Is Anybody Holding Public Office Crazy Enough to Win the 2012 GOP Presidential Nomination?
Posted by Steve M., No More Mister Nice Blog on October 27, 2009 at 9:04 AM.

A sentence I never thought I'd write: I think William Kristol is on to something here.

[The] Republican presidential nominee in 2012 ... seems unlikely to be a current officeholder. Right now, the four leading candidates for the GOP nomination are private citizens. In a recent Rasmussen poll, the only candidates with double-digit support among Republicans were Mike Huckabee (at 29 percent), Mitt Romney (24 percent), Sarah Palin (18 percent) and Newt Gingrich (14 percent). These four are running way ahead of various senatorial and gubernatorial possibilities. So a party that has over the past two decades nominated a vice president (George H.W. Bush), a senator (Bob Dole), a governor (George W. Bush) and another senator (John McCain), now has as its front-runners four public figures who are, to one degree or another, outsiders.

Well, it makes sense -- because what the ever-more-right-wing, ever-crazier GOP base wants is everything on the wingnut wish list plus the proverbial pony: an end to the economic downturn without government intervention or regulation but accompanied by (in fact, magically brought about by) tax cuts, an aggressive and bellicose foreign policy that quickly and decisively smites all enemies (maintained by a strong military that's fully financed despite even more tax cuts), and, oh, while you're at it, get government out of health care ... but don't you dare lay a finger on Medicare and Social Security. And more tax cuts, please. And, also, crush socialist fascism and force that usurper to go back to Kenya where he came from. And then -- after lunch -- do something about ACORN and that damn mainstream media! And drill, baby, drill! And seal the borders and ship all the illegals back where they came from -- immediately! And more tax cuts!

Who could possibly be a current officeholder and point to a record even remotely resembling this pipe dream?  

Read the rest of the post on the flip side »

Progressives and Public Option: This Is How Democracy Is Supposed To Work
Posted by Bill Scher, Campaign for America's Future on October 27, 2009 at 8:00 AM.

Yesterday, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid announced he would submit a health care reform bill with a national public option that states could choose not to join.

This is how democracy is supposed to work. The highest ranking member of Senate was able to hear the will of America's progressive majority over the din of the insurance lobby and the right-wing noise machine, and was responsive to the majority.

But that's mere idealism. From a practical standpoint, this is how the modern progressive movement is supposed to work.

In 1993, there was no significant progressive movement putting positive pressure on the Clinton Administration. Many naively assumed having a Democratic president and Congress was enough, the hard work was done, and we could kick back with a Crystal Pepsi and let democracy work its magic.

We learned the conservative minority had many tricks up its sleeve, and was able to smear and fear to death any attempt at major progressive reform.

The election of a uniquely compelling figure in President Barack Obama threatened to bring back some of that complacency. A false notion persists in some corners that the President should be able "ram through" any legislation he likes.

Read the rest of the post on the flip side »

Hotel Owner Tells "Spanish" Employees to Change Their Names and "Speak Only English"
Posted by Amanda Terkel, Think Progress on October 27, 2009 at 5:00 AM.

The AP reports that in Taos, NM, hotel owner Larry Whitten is under fire for his treatment of his Hispanic employees:

After he arrived, Whitten met with the employees. He says he immediately noticed that they were hostile to his management style and worried they might start talking about him in Spanish.

"Because of that, I asked the people in my presence to speak only English because I do not understand Spanish," Whitten says. "I've been working 24 years in Texas and we have a lot of Spanish people there. I've never had to ask anyone to speak only English in front of me because I've never had a reason to." [...]

Then Whitten told some employees he was changing their Spanish first names. Whitten says it's a routine practice at his hotels to change first names of employees who work the front desk phones or deal directly with guests if their names are difficult to understand or pronounce.

"It has nothing to do with racism. I'm not doing it for any reason other than for the satisfaction of my guests, because people calling from all over America don't know the Spanish accents or the Spanish culture or Spanish anything," Whitten says.

Read the rest of the post on the flip side »

Bong Water Counts as an Illegal Drug?
Posted by Jan Frel, AlterNet on October 26, 2009 at 5:52 PM.

From the AP:

In Minnesota, bong water can count as an illegal drug.

That decision from Minnesota's Supreme Court on Thursday raises the threat of longer sentences for drug smokers in that state who fail to dump the water out of bong — a type of water pipe often used to smoke drugs

The court said a person can be prosecuted for a first-degree drug crime for 25 grams or more of bong water that tests positive for a controlled substance.

Lower courts had held that bong water is drug paraphernalia. Possession of that is a misdemeanor crime.

The case involved a woman whose bong had about 2 1/2 tablespoons of liquid that tested positive for methamphetamine. A narcotics officer had testified that drug users sometimes keep bong water to drink or inject later.

The war on fun continues, despite some recent progress.

Conservative Doctor Valiantly Keeps Women From Becoming Sluts
Posted by Tana Ganeva, AlterNet on October 26, 2009 at 4:59 PM.

Who says anti-choice extremists don't care about women? A USA Today article on conscience clauses -- legislation that lets health providers deny patients contraception -- quotes a doctor who obviously has only the best interests of women -- stupid, stupid women -- in mind: 

Faced with a request to give an unmarried female patient a prescription for birth control pills, Dr. Michele Phillips looked to her conscience for the answer.

“I’m not going to give any kind of medication I see as harmful,” said Phillips of San Antonio. The drugs would not protect her patient from “emotional trauma from multiple partners,” Phillips reasoned, or sexually transmitted diseases. “I could not ethically give that type of medication to a single woman.”

Unwanted babies, of course, do heal STDs and emotional trauma. 

Via Feminists for Choice (an Feministing)

"Freakonomics" Authors Tell You How to be a Good Prostitute
Posted by Sady Doyle, Comment Is Free on October 26, 2009 at 2:30 PM.

Good news, ladies. You, too, can make millions by charging for sex! And you'll just have a slam-bang, gee-golly splendiferous time doing it, too -- at least if you absolutely adore the sort of men who pay for it. Be warned, however: Disliking those men will consign you to the minimum-wage ranks of sex professionals, forever longing for the big bucks you could be earning, had you only an appropriately chipper attitude.

Such is the advice of Steven Levitt and Stephen Dubner, of Freakonomics fame. They are back with a new book, Superfreakonomics, and recently they unveiled a bit of it in the form of an excerpt about how to succeed as a prostitute.

Freakonomics, of course, is the science of choosing an appropriately wacky or controversial subject (sumo wrestlers, abortion), applying a little economic analysis to it and coming up with a shocking conclusion that will make people blog about you. In that respect, the how-to-charge-for-sex piece was a no-brainer. Expressing any opinion about prostitution will bring on outrage (and attention) from one corner or another, no matter what your opinion turns out to be. Of course, if you are aiming for maximum impact, it helps to be -- as Levitt and Dubner are -- really, stunningly, remarkably wrong.

Levitt and Dubner build their piece around a comparison of two prostitutes: Allie, who works from her bedroom and makes between $350 and $500 an hour, depending on the client, and LaSheena, who works on the streets and probably makes about $350 a week, based on statistics (some information -- any information -- as to LaSheena's specific circumstances and earnings probably would have helped the comparison, but Levitt and Dubner seem, in this instance as in many others, not to have bothered learning about their subject).

LaSheena and Allie are the Goofus and Gallant of sex work, at least in the warped little scenario laid forth in the Superfreakonomics excerpt. Arising, as Levitt and Dubner seem to assume they do, from absolutely no context whatsoever (the fact that Allie is probably white, and that LaSheena is probably not, is never once addressed, for example; neither is the personal history of LaSheena explored in any detail, though we hear about Allie at excruciating length) they are not actual women so much as they are flattened-out, hollow caricatures of Success and Failure. Allie is a good prostitute; she has succeeded. LaSheena is a bad prostitute; she has failed.

What has LaSheena done wrong, you ask? Simple: She doesn't like being a prostitute. "I don't really like men," she is quoted as saying. This is an interesting statement, which the authors fail to follow up. Why doesn't LaSheena like men? Has she been beaten? Has she been raped? Is there a man taking a cut of her money? Was she forced into this job as a child by a man, by a boyfriend she loved, by sheer poverty? And has she seen the ugly side of men too often in this job to trust any?

Hey, here's an interesting thought: Maybe LaSheena doesn't like men because she's trapped in a cycle of poverty, and one of the only ways for her to stay alive is to have sex with men, whether or not she really wants to. Maybe that's enough to make LaSheena dislike men. We'll never know, however, because Dubner and Levitt don't ask. They don't care to humanise her. She's the Goofus in the scenario. Her poverty -- which is assumed to be entirely her fault -- is only there to provide a counterpoint to Allie's shining example.

Boy, oh, boy, does Allie ever love being a prostitute! Why, do you know that she just went ahead and did it on a whim, as a sexy adventure, and not because of any nasty old compelling factors like poverty or addiction or a man literally arranging for her to be raped over and over again and taking money from her rapists or anything like that? Well, it's true. The Freakonomics gentlemen said so!

They make a point of letting us know that Allie "liked men, and she liked sex." And do you know what men she especially likes? Why, her clients, of course. Allie "is the kind of person who sees something good in everyone". Isn't that nice? She credits this for the fact that she is so successful -- and so do Levitt and Dubner.

Say, here's another nicety that Levitt and Dubner genuinely thought was a sane and intelligent thing to write down and publish: Allie's clients "treat her, in many ways, as men are expected to treat their wives but often don't". And Allie, in return, is like the "ideal wife", who "is happy to see you every time you show up at her door. Your favorite music is already playing, and your favourite drink is on ice. She will never ask you to take out the rubbish."

How this qualifies as wifely behavior, outside of reruns of "Father Knows Best," is unclear. But Levitt and Dubner seem genuinely convinced that this one-sided scenario of happy subjugation and infantile, pampered narcissism is good for everyone involved. Allie gets a MacBook! Doesn't that prove that it's working?

Levitt and Dubner seem, at some point along the line, to have missed out on the fact that women have inner lives, lives which do not revolve entirely around servicing men and which may in fact require some servicing by men along the way. It's evident in the way they extol Allie for getting such unmitigated joy out of subjugating herself to her clients.

Read the rest of the post on the flip side »

Harry Reid Announces Senate Health Bill With Public Option
Posted by Adele Stan, AlterNet on October 26, 2009 at 1:37 PM.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, long a target for the ire of progressives given his reluctance to express support for including a public health-insurance plan in the Senate's health-care reform bill, today surprised reporters with his announcement that the final Senate bill will contain a public option.

States will be permitted to opt out of the plan via their state's legislative process -- an escape clause, if you will, for a handful of Democratic senators who are less than keen on the notion of a public plan.

"I believe that a public option can achieve the goal of bringing meaningful reform to our broken system," Reid said, "will protect consumers, keep insurers honest, and ensure competition. And that's why we intend to include it in the bill will be submitted to the Senate."

Reid has been under relentless pressure from progressives to craft a bill containing a public insurance plan just as he gears up for what is expected to be a tough re-election campaign for 2010. Just last week, the Progressive Change Campaign Committee launched a television ad targeting Reid that asked, "Is Harry Reid strong enough?"

Most striking is that Reid's decision to include the public option assures the lack of a single Republican vote for health-care reform in the Senate, despite months of wrangling to get at least one -- that of Maine's Olympia Snowe.  So desirous was the president of having a bipartisan bill, the White House seemed ready to cave to Snowe's proposal for a "trigger" -- a sort of imaginary public option, one that would only go into effect after private insurers had a few years to reduce costs on their own. Had the insurers failed to meet a benchmark for cost reduction, then a public plan would be designed, built and implemented -- a scheme that critics, such as Sen. Jay Rockefeller, D-W.V., see at best as a delaying tactic.

Just hours before Reid's press conference, the White House signaled weakness on the public option in a speech by Christina Romer, chair of the president's Council of Economic Advisers, who expressed a personal belief in the public option as a means of cost containment, but used qualified language to say so.

In her prepared remarks to journalists and policymakers at the Center for American Progress in Washington, D.C., Romer cited a public option as a "potentially important source of cost containment." Romer was more definite about the benefits of two other measures for holding down costs: Medicare cost reform, and an excise tax, such as that proposed by Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., on high-cost private plans -- a concept opposed by the AFL-CIO.

Asked by AlterNet why her enthusiasm for the cost-savings offered by a public option was limited to a maybe, Romer replied, "I was certainly planning to present all three of these [proposals] as important." But the broader agreement among economists, she said, was for "something like the Kerry proposal."

Up until today, the White House had signaled a willingness to accept Snowe's trigger plan. But when Sam Stein of The Huffington Post asked about any potential cost containment offered by a trigger plan, Romer said she had no evidence of such -- a harbinger, perhaps, of the announcement later in the day that the Democrats would move forward without the Maine Republican.

After days of meetings, Reid explained, he and the two senators who produced the legislation from their respective committees -- Chris Dodd, D-Conn., of the Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee, and Max Baucus, D-Mont., chairman of the Finance Committee -- met with White House staff to hammer out a final proposal that Reid described as a "melding" of the two committees' bills. Though tight-lipped about the result, Reid did let on that the final bill would retain the provision for a health-care co-op system contained in the Finance Committee bill.

Next up, the "melded" bill will go to the Congressional Budget Office for cost analysis of its various provisions.  Any final tweaks will come after the CBO has scored the proposed legislation. The bill will then enter the legislative process, at which point Republicans will likely try to launch a filibuster stop the bill from coming to the Senate floor for a vote.

Reid expressed confidence that he had the 60 votes he would need to stop a promised GOP filibuster of the bill -- a legislative maneuver that, if successful, would keep health-care reform legislation for moving to the Senate floor for a vote by the full body. That likely means that Reid has exacted promises out of conservative Democrats who oppose the public option, such as Mary Landrieu, La.; Blanche Lincoln, Ark.; Ben Nelson, Neb., and the independent Joe Lieberman, Conn., that although they're unlikely to vote for the final bill because of Reid's opt-out plan, they won't side with Republicans in preventing the bill from coming to the floor.

One reporter asked if the Senate Majority Leader had asked the White House to call any of the senators in question. "I haven't asked them to make any calls," Reid said. "It hasn't been necessary at this point."

Looks like we just may get health-care reform, after all.

VIDEO: Why You Should Care About The Evils of Net Neutrality -- In 2 Minutes!
Posted by Lee Camp, AlterNet on October 26, 2009 at 1:00 PM.

The fight for net neutrality is gearing up again. I know -- it sounds boring. Lucky for you, this new video explains what you need to know -- in two short minutes!

White House Adviser Romer Tells AlterNet She Is "Personally Persuaded" On Value of Public Option
Posted by Adele Stan, AlterNet on October 26, 2009 at 12:00 PM.

In a speech to journalists and policy-makers, Christina Romer, PhD, chair of the White House Council of Economic Advisers, offered a list of provisions in the various health-care reform bills currently before Congress that will help to contain costs and reduce the deficit over the long run. Included on her list the tax on high-priced plans proposed by Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., (a provision opposed by the AFL-CIO), payment reforms in Medicare and last but not least, kinda, sorta maybe a public health insurance plan.

In her prepared remarks, Romer cited a public option as a "potentially important source of cost containment." Why the modifier, AlterNet asked her during the Q & A. Sounds like a bit of a hedge at a moment where the public option is a major issue in the progressive community.

"I was certainly planning to present all three of these [proposals] as important," Romer said. But the broader agreement among economists, she said, was for "something like the Kerry proposal."

"I have been personally quite persuaded," Romer continued, "that the public option certainly can be an important source of cost-growth containment."

As an example, Romer cited research done by her senior economist, Mark Duggan, on California counties with a dual plan structure, in which Medicaid patients are enrolled in one of two competing plans. In counties where all the Medicaid care was contracted to two competing, privately-run plans, costs grew more rapidly, Romer said, than in counties where a private plan was forced to compete against a public plan.

"It's a small sample...," Romer said, adding that whether or not the same results would hold throughout the country remained a question. But, she said, it's "one of the things that is giving me a sense that it could be something that could genuinely slow the growth rate of costs."

So, if that's the case, why doesn't the administration make the case, and start twisting a few arms?

Should a Woman Change Her Name When She Marries? 70 Percent of Americans Think So
Posted by Jill Filipovic, Feministe on October 26, 2009 at 10:45 AM.

Apparently 70 percent of Americans believe that a woman should change her name when she marries, and 50 percent believe it should be required by law. While I would expect most Americans to favor name-changing, I didn't expect that it was that high, and I certainly didn't think that so many people believe it should be legally mandated. I was also suprised that only 5-10 percent of women keep their own names.

I'm not married and so I recognize that this is an easier calculus for me to make now, but I have never even considered changing my last name. I don't think I ever would consider it. My mom, like many women of her generation, took my father's name -- it's just what everyone did, and it was easier. My best friend, who was raised in a pretty religious home, took her husband's name when she got married -- I don't know that she really gave a lot of thought to the whole process. It was just what you did.

Where I actually felt the shock of the name-change was seeing a list of female names I didn't recognize on Facebook, then clicking through and realizing, oh, that’s someone I've known since the 5th grade. Except not really, because I always knew Jane Jones and now she’s Jane Brown. Or maybe she’s Jane “Jones” Brown with her former name in quotes -- because, I dunno, it's a joke? I suppose I'm sheltered, but I assumed that the majority of my female friends (and especially college friends and acquaintences) would keep their own names. I was stunned at how many women I knew changed their names when they married.

What throws me off even more is when I see feminist-minded or liberal women take their husband’s name, and then defend it with "Well it's my choice" or "My last name was my father's anyway" or "I don't care about my name." I can understand the name-change part, even if I don't like it -- it can almost be more of a hassle to keep your own name than to take your husband’s once you're married, especially if you have kids. People may criticize you for keeping your own name. In a lot of communities, it is what everyone does. Your husband may even be upset if you don't want to take his name (although I'd say that's a pretty good indicator that he's kind of self-centered and you probably shouldn't marry him).

What confuses me (and gets under my skin) is the justification -- or at least, the justification based on things other than the very real, tangible sexist reactions that married women face when they keep their own names. Things like, "Well, it was my father's name." Well, sure, but what does that mean? That no woman ever has her own name, unless she was born into a culture where naming is matrilineal? Or, "I like his name better." Ok, but do men regularly change their names just because their partner as a "better" name? I’ve come across maybe one man in my whole life who has done that -- I somehow doubt that it just so happens that 99 percent of people with the “better” name are male. Or, "I want our whole family to have the same name." Again, understandable, but how come he didn’t change his name? Or you can both change your names.

I wish we could have a more honest conversation about name-changing. Instead, women like me who find name changing really, really problematic are cast as simply mean and judgmental, and women who do change their names are just exercising their "choice." I'll cop to being judgmental here -- this isn't one of those situations where I think every choice is equally good and it's a simple matter of preference. That said, there are very real reasons why married women may change their names, and I can certainly understand and empathize with making certain compromises and just not having the desire or energy to fight every feminist battle. I don't think it calls your feminist creds into question if you change your name. But I admittedly do wish that more women would keep their names. I wish more women felt like it was a valid and accessible option.

Names and naming matters. It is bigger than just an individual, personal choice. While I certainly respect the rights of people to make their own choices when it comes to their names, and while I can’t fault women who decide that keeping their own name is not a battle they want to fight, let’s not pretend like these choices exist in a vaccum, or like they don’t have a wider impact when it comes to normalizing sexist cultural practices.

I've been to a couple of weddings in the past few months, some where the bride changed her name and some where she didn’t. I'll admit, on a very basic level, that I felt a little gut-punched when the name-changing couples were announced as "Mr. and Mrs. John Smith." The woman was totally erased; she entered into what I would like to think of as a partnership, and instead she was just absorbed into her partner.

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Saudi Woman Journalist Sentenced to 60 Lashes For Working On Show That Talked About Sex
Posted by , AlterNet on October 26, 2009 at 9:30 AM.

Reuters reports:

A Saudi court sentenced a female journalist to 60 lashes in a case brought after a Lebanese television channel she worked for aired the sex confession of a Saudi man, the reporter and a lawyer said.

Rosana, 22, who did not want her full name disclosed, said a court in Jeddah convicted her on Saturday on grounds that the Lebanese Broadcasting Corp. she worked for did not have proper authorization to operate in the Islamic kingdom.

The ruling follows the sentencing by the same court of Mazen Abdul-Awad to five years in jail and 1,000 lashes earlier in October after he appeared on an LBC show and talked about his sexual exploits.

The show has sparked a public outcry in the U.S. ally, one of the world's most conservative countries, where clerics have wide-ranging influence and control.

"I had nothing to do with Mazen Abdul-Jawad's show. The verdict was just because I cooperated with LBC," the female journalist told Reuters.

LBC is a popular channel in Saudi Arabia, and many Saudis tune in to its Western-style entertainment programs and talk shows.

Read more here.

New Website Tracks Your Congressional Reps' Moves On Afghanistan
Posted by Katrina Vanden Heuvel, TheNation.com on October 26, 2009 at 8:40 AM.

President Obama will soon make what could be the defining decision of his presidency. The course he chooses in Afghanistan will tell us a lot about the kind of country we will become during his administration.

We have already been fighting in Afghanistan for twice as long as we fought in World War II. In fact, the United States and its NATO partners have had more than 40,000 troops in Afghanistan since 2006 and have spent more than $300 billion on military and civilian operations. At this perilous moment, as we attempt to recover from the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression, the last thing we need is a "surge" of 40,000 more troops to fight on behalf of a corrupt and unpopular Afghan government.

Security in the United States and the region depend not on this misguided surge, but on commonsense counterterrorist and homeland security measures: extensive intelligence cooperation, expert police work, border control, and the surgical use of special forces to disrupt imminent attack when needed.

What is hopeful is that the majority of Americans have turned against the war.

The Nation's special issue on Afghanistan -- Obama's Fateful Choice -- published [last] week, takes on the rationale for escalation, challenges the White House to explore a broader range of options, and offers alternatives, including an exit strategy. The issue also offers ways to get involved to oppose this misguided and dangerous policy.

One new effort was launched today by five national peace advocacy groups representing hundreds of thousands of Americans -- a project called NoEscalation.org. The website tracks whether Members of Congress have taken a stand against troop escalation, and lists their phone numbers so constituents can call and ask their legislators to oppose it.

The website is created by CodePink, Just Foreign Policy, Peace Action, United for Peace and Justice, and Voters for Peace. The groups are urging Americans to report back to NoEscalation.org about their conversations with Congressional offices.

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Former Bush Press Secretary: Obama's Criticism Of Fox Akin To Chavez Tactics
Posted by Amanda Terkel, Think Progress on October 26, 2009 at 7:30 AM.

On Fox News Sunday, host Chris Wallace made sure to devote plenty of time to covering President Obama's "war on Fox News"; he even played a clip of Sean Connery as Jim Malone in The Untouchables talking about "the Chicago way" of getting things done. Former Bush press secretary Dana Perino sharply criticized the Obama administration's tactics and expressed absolute shock at the example the United States was setting for "the free press in emerging democracies," comparing the criticisms of Fox News to when "Hugo Chavez shuts down television stations":

PERINO: That was a coordinated, calculated attack. It was unbecoming. And if you look at some of the coverage of what mainstream media covers when, for example, somebody like a Hugo Chavez shuts down television stations, he calls them illegitimate.

Now, I'm not suggesting that this White House believes that they are going to come over here and shut down Fox News. But they are defining a narrative in their first year, and it's going to be very hard to recover from it. [...]

Through our State Department, we are trying to help emerging democracies get journalists and government officials to talk to one another, because freedom of the press is essential to any democracy. Believe me, they are watching this, and they have -- surely are raising questions.

Watch it:

The Obama administration, according to Reporters Without Borders, is actually setting quite a strong example of press freedom for the world. In 2008, the organization found that in terms of press freedom, the U.S. ranked 36th out of 173 countries. Its report singled out "wars carried out in the name of the fight against terrorism" as a cause for the steep decline in press freedoms around the world. Just one year later, the United States has jumped from 36th to 20th. "Barack Obama's election as president and the fact that he has a less hawkish approach than his predecessor have had a lot to do with this," concluded Reporters Without Borders.

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Obama: How Long Will He Refuse To Fight?
Posted by Adam Green, Open Left on October 26, 2009 at 6:45 AM.

White House Deputy Communications Director Dan Pfeiffer posted this on the White House blog tonight:

A rumor is making the rounds that the White House and Senator Reid are pursuing different strategies on the public option.

Those rumors are absolutely false. In his September 9th address to Congress, President Obama made clear that he supports the public option because it has the potential to play an essential role in holding insurance companies accountable through choice and competition. That continues to be the President's position.

Senator Reid and his leadership team are now working to get the most effective bill possible approved by the Senate. President Obama completely supports their efforts and has full confidence they will succeed and continue the unprecedented progress that is being made in both the House and Senate.

Among Democrats and progressives, there are a whole set of views about how we should do health care.

But understand that the bill that you least like in Congress right now. The one you least like, of the five that are out there, would provide 29 million Americans health care.

29 million Americans who don’t have it right now would get it. The bill you least like would prevent insurance companies from barring you from getting health insurance because of pre-existing conditions.

Whatever the bill you least like would set up an exchange so that people right now who are having to try to bargain for health insurance on their own are suddenly part of a pool of millions that forces insurance companies to compete for their business and give them better deals and lower rates.

So there are going to be some disagreements and details to work out. But to the Democrats – I want to say to you Democrats – let’s make sure we keep our eye on the prize.

...Sometimes Democrats can be their own worst enemies. Democrats are an opinionated bunch. (laughter)

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Video: Public Option - Progressive Change Ad Targets Obama
Posted by Adele Stan, AlterNet on October 26, 2009 at 6:00 AM.

SCROLL DOWN FOR VIDEO

Once again, President Obama has publicly stepped back from the fray on heatlh-care reform, offering only lip service on the prospect of a public health-insurance plan. The White House is said to be ready to compromise the public option away in return for the vote of Republican Sen. Olympia Snowe of Maine, who favors a so-called "trigger" plan, which is really no public option at all.

(The trigger would allow for the creation of a public plan only after private health insurers proved their unwillingness to lower rates appreciably enough to meet some benchmark to be determined. In other words -- a big delay, at best, in the implementation of a public plan, or the defeat by legislative attrition of a public plan.)

The Progressive Change Campaign Committee is having none of it. They've produced an ad featuring Ben Katz, a former organizer for Obama's presidential campaign in Maine, urging the president to keep his campaign promise of a public health insurance program.

The ad makes the point that Obama won Maine with a 58 percent mandate, and that 58 percent of Mainers favor the public option.

"President Obama," Katz says, "Olympia Snowe isn't representing Maine on this issue. We need you to fight. Tell Olympia Snowe to represent her constituents -- and that anything less than a public option is not change we can believe in."

PCCC is also collecting signatures on a petition that reads:

Every day, insurance companies deny care and let people die. Getting one Republican senator's vote is not worth delaying reform -- too many real lives are at stake. We need you to fight and state clearly that anything less than a strong public option is not change we can believe in.

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White House "Attacks" Chamber of Commerce ... and Rahm Emanuel Keynotes Chamber Event
Posted by Joshua Holland, AlterNet on October 26, 2009 at 1:57 AM.

Ever been in one of those really fraught, slightly pathological hot-and-cold relationships?

The Washington Post, yesterday:

The chief lobbyist for the U.S. Chamber of Commerce on Sunday complained about a White House campaign of "invectives" and "name calling" against his organization ...

Speaking on Fox News Sunday, longtime Chamber lobbyist Bruce Josten said the group's relationship with the White House began to sour after differences of opinion developed about President Obama's health care and economic agendas.

"Let's be clear, we haven't raised up the cain. It came from their side of the street," Josten said ...

Politico on Friday:

White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel has accepted an invitation to be the keynote speaker at a dinner for ...

... the U.S. Chamber of Commerce’s Board of Directors on Nov. 4.

Ugh, Rahm at the Chamber -- talk about 'sleeping with the enemy'. I'm never sure whether the White House is torn between wildly divided factions, routinely divorces rhetoric from action as a way of keeping its base happy without making too many waves or is in the midst of a deviously brilliant campaign to drive its ideological opponents insane.

Former Fox Pundit: I Quit Because Glenn Beck Is Scary
Posted by Tana Ganeva, AlterNet on October 25, 2009 at 5:43 PM.

On CNN's Reliable Sources Sunday former Fox News contributer Jane Hall explained why she left the network: basically, she noticed a decrease in debate featuring opposing viewpoints. Also, Glenn Beck is terrifying: 

Jane Hall: “The reason I left is because I think they have less debate than they used to. But you know it’s a fair point to say, how much debate is there on MSNBC? How many Republican strategists? We have a bifurcation of the media that I think is going on ...

Howard Kurtz: The reason you left is because you feel they have less debate than they used to? In other words, it used to be Hannity and Coombs, now it’s just now it’s just Hannity. It used to be Bernie and Jane. Now it’s just Bernie.

Yeah, i think there’s less debate than there was before. And I am frankly uncomfortable with Beck, who i think should be called out, as somebody whose language is way over the top. And it's scary ... 

Kurtz: Was that a factor in your deciding to leave Fox?

Hall: Yeah. It was.

Video of a longer segment after the jump. 

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Another Right-Wing Conspiracy Theory About Obama Gets Pushed by Fox and Shredded by Reality
Posted by Simon Maloy, Media Matters for America on October 25, 2009 at 11:18 AM.

It really gets to be pretty pathetic sometimes, watching the conservatives grasp at every straw they can in order to attack and discredit a president they don't like.

If you listened to Rush Limbaugh today or visited Fox Nation, then you might have heard about President Obama's supposed college thesis in which the college-aged commander in chief allegedly wrote: "The so-called Founders did not allow for economic freedom. While political freedom is supposedly a cornerstone of the document, the distribution of wealth is not even mentioned. While many believed that the new Constitution gave them liberty, it instead fitted them with the shackles of hypocrisy."

Now, you might be thinking: "Wait a minute, I thought conservatives didn't like Obama's elusive thesis because it was on nuclear disarmament." Well, this is a different thesis, it would seem, and blogger Michael Ledeen wrote about it two days ago:

I missed this first time around.  Brian Lancaster at Jumping in Pools reported on Obama's college thesis, written when he was at Columbia. The paper was called "Aristocracy Reborn," and in the first ten pages (which were all that reporter Joe Klein -- who wrote about it for Time -- was permitted to see).

So Ledeen sources this bombshell to another, more obscure conservative blogger, who wrote -- back on August 25, mind you -- that Time's Joe Klein had seen Obama's damning thesis and was going to report on it for "an upcoming special edition about the President." No indication was given as to how this obscure blogger came to know that one of America's premiere journalists had obtained this information. There was no indication as to how this blogger was able to quote material only Klein had had access to. Oh, and let's not forget that this very same blogger was busted by PolitiFact.com for fabricating stories about President Obama.

But hey, why speculate on whether it's true or not? Let's go to the source. Mr. Klein?

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Karen Armstrong Weaves Bizarre Defense of Religion
Posted by PZ Myers, Pharyngula on October 25, 2009 at 6:19 AM.

Karen Armstrong has once again published a pile of meaningless twaddle in defense of religion. In this mess, she takes a series of statements about god that she says need rethinking…but as always, her "rethinking" is merely a reworking of apologetics for maintaining the status quo. It's almost as if she thinks it is a new and brilliant idea to just keep going to church and accepting Jesus into your heart. It's not.

Here's her little list of truisms that she aims to puncture.

"God Is Dead."

Armstrong says this isn't true, and points to fundamentalist upheavals as evidence that "God has proven to be alive and well". I think it means she doesn't understand Nietzsche.

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GOP Senate Obstructionists Trying to Reverse 2008 Election
Posted by Joshua Holland, AlterNet on October 24, 2009 at 2:33 PM.

According to People for the American Way, dozens of Barack Obama's nominees -- many in key positions -- are still waiting to get started as Republicans threaten to filibuster their confirmation and the White House and senate leadership seem (inexplicably) cautious about using their 60-vote majority to ram them through. It's largely flown under the radar.

TPM:

In 1949, a change to Senate rules allowed members to filibuster executive branch nominees. Senators tend to believe (or at least to say) that, within bounds of decency, the White House deserves to be able to staff the executive branch as it chooses; and in the 60 years since then, the practice has been used sparingly.

Until Barack Obama came to town.

"Between 1949 and 2009 there were 24 nominees on which cloture was