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Buzz, perspectives, insight and news from AlterNet

Video: During D.C. Hearing on Same-Sex Marriage, One Witness Proposes to His Partner
Posted by Amanda Terkel, Think Progress on November 3, 2009 at 4:15 PM.

The D.C. City Council held a hearing yesterday on a bill allowing same-sex couples to marry in the nation’s capital. However, the hearing was briefly interrupted when witness Andy Hertzberg stopped to propose to his partner. “I would like to take a huge step in my own life,” Hertzberg said. “Andy [Rollman], I’d like to ask you: Will you marry me?” One marriage equality opponent was outraged that they would show their love for one another, saying that for “something like this” to happen in the Council’s chambers, it showed a lack of “respect.” According to the local ABC report, however, most council members were supportive of the proposal. Watch it:

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Meet the 28 (Male) Anti-Choice Dems Who Are Stalling Health Reform
Posted by mcjoan, Daily Kos on November 3, 2009 at 3:00 PM.

WaPo reports today that a number of anti-choice holdouts among Democrats are "threatening to oppose the measure over the issue of abortion to create a question about its passage."

"I will continue whipping my colleagues to oppose bringing the bill to the floor for a vote until a clean vote against public funding for abortion is allowed," Rep. Bart Stupak (D-Mich.) said Monday in a statement. He said last week that 40 Democrats could vote with him to oppose the legislation -- enough to derail the bill.

To be clear, Stupak and his colleagues are joining with Republicans in trying to prevent the bill from coming to the floor at all if their extreme anti-choice amendment is not allowed. Stupak wants to prohibit abortion coverage completely in the exchange, meaning that if a woman wanted reproductive health coverage that included abortion servcies, she'd have to purchase an additional insurance rider. That would mean that a young woman covered by her parent's plan would have to negotiate with her parents for the coverage. Or a woman in an abusive relationship would have to negotiate that with her partner. Women would have to plan in advance, think ahead to whether any circumstance in their future life might lead them to have an unplanned or unwanted pregnancy and buy that extra insurance, just in case.

It's a backdoor attempt by Stupak and his colleagues to get abortion coverage excluded from private insurance, as well as public--which has been in place since 1976 with the Hyde Amendment, a rider that has been attached to appropriations bills for the past 33 years. The proposed House bill already goes much further in restricting access to abortion services than pro-choice advocates like, and in many ways marks a significant step back for choice. One of the primary issues is that it would codify the Hyde Amendment, making it permanent law.

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Absurd: Joe "You Lie!" Wilson Claims Obama is "Solely Responsible" For Swine Flu
Posted by Steve Benen, Washington Monthly on November 3, 2009 at 1:41 PM.

WILSON'S H1N1 ATTACK.... Rep. Joe Wilson (R-S.C.) -- you know, the "you lie" heckler -- has some interesting thoughts on the public health emergency posed by the H1N1 flu virus. Naturally, he blames President Obama, not for the virus, but for the scarcity of the vaccine.

"The current administration is solely responsible. They can't blame this on any prior administration," Wilson said. "This is the responsibility of the current administration. They've put the lives of Americans at risk."

Putting aside the fact that no one has tried to blame Bush/Cheney for a flu virus, Wilson was a little vague as to how the president and his team put American lives at risk. He can't point to anything in particular -- probably because the administration has done everything it could to this point -- but Wilson still insists the White House is "solely responsible" for the problem. Just because.

Of course, the criticism does offer Dems an opportunity to take a closer look at Wilson's record on the same subject.

In a release issued on Thursday, the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee claimed that any criticism of H1N1 policy by the GOP would amount to hypocrisy.

The DCCC pointed to a June vote on a supplementary appropriations bill as evidence. Wilson joined 95% of Republicans and voted against the bill, which contained special funding to combat H1N1 both domestically and internationally. But the bill also contained other much more money for other plans and programs Republicans at the time viewed as wasteful, including the Cash-For-Clunkers car purchase incentive program.

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CNBC Reporter: NYC Marathon Winner Not Really American, "He's Like a Ringer You Hire to Work a Couple Hours at Your Office"
Posted by Liliana Segura, AlterNet on November 3, 2009 at 12:30 PM.

Look out, Pat Buchanan: Here comes Darren Rovell, CNBC sports reporter, and nativist extraordinaire!

Coming off of Pat's latest, "Traditional Americans Are Losing Their Country," Rovell is here to tell you that, no matter what the news media claim about that American runner who won the New York City Marathon last weekend -- the first in over 25 years! -- first place finisher Meb Keflezighi, is not, in fact, a real American.

Writing at ColorLines, blogger Jorge Rivas notes that Rovell has published a new column: "Marathon's Headline Win is Empty."

"It's a stunning headline: American Wins Men's NYC Marathon For First Time Since '82" Rovell writes, "Unfortunately, it's not as good as it sounds."

The man who won the marathon is Mebrahtom Keflezighi, who immigrated to the U.S. when he was 12, became a citizen and later trained in youth, college and professional level distant running programs. But from the moment Keflezighi won the marathon this past Sunday, the dispute erupted online: Should Keflezighi's win count as an American victory?

According to Rovell, the answer is a definitive "No."

Meb Keflezighi, who won yesterday in New York, is technically American by virtue of him becoming a citizen in 1998, but the fact that he's not American-born takes away from the magnitude of the achievement the headline implies …

Given our disappointing results, embracing Keflezighi is understandable. But Keflezighi's country of origin is Eritrea, a small country in Africa. He is an American citizen thanks to taking a test and living in our country."

Got that, naturalized citizens? No matter how long you've been here, no matter how legal your status, never forget that this is not your country.

As Rivas points out, "Keflezighi did exactly what anti-immigrant reform activists say immigrants should do. He came to the U.S. twenty-two years ago legally as a refugee and became a 'naturalized' citizen a few years after. So even when immigrants of color enter the U.S. 'the legal way' they're still not welcome."

Or at least, not fully welcome. If the United States is a corporate workplace, in Rovell's mind, these people are sort of like the part time temps:

"Nothing against Keflezighi, but he's like a ringer who you hire to work a couple hours at your office so that you can win the executive softball league."

Emphasis mine.

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"America's Toughest Dictator"? FBI Investigating Joe Arpaio for Using Office to Bully Opponents
Posted by Joshua Holland, AlterNet on November 3, 2009 at 12:27 PM.

Fox News' show-boating Sheriff Joe Arpaio is a thuggish right-wing clown with aspirations to higher office and a police force of his own (he's reportedly weighing a run to become Arizona governor next year). His use of the latter to advance the former may just prove to be his undoing.

According to local CBS affiliate KBHO (via TPM):

The FBI is looking into accusations that Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio is using his position to settle political vendettas.

Over the past year, 5 Investigates examined more than two dozen complaints against the sheriff from business owners, government workers, mayors and law-enforcement officials.

They claim they spoke out against Arpaio, and shortly after, deputies paid them unwelcome visits.

Arpaio has gotten into hot water before as a result of his harsh, publicity-grabbing campaign against undocumented immigrants. There was a very public fracas with then-Governor Janet Napolitano in 2007, and his office lost a chunk of funding as a result. Earlier this year, in a high-profile spat with the DHS, he lost some of his federal immigration enforcement powers.

But this is different -- here he's charged not only with abusing the powers of his office to go after marginal groups like unauthorized immigrants, but citizens who dare criticize his actions, including political opponents and the media -- influential members of the community. As such, this might not end as well for the sheriff as his earlier controversies.

Consider a few of the people on whom he's reportedly sicced his deputies ...

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How the U.S. Is Destroying, Not Helping, Democracy in Afghanistan
Posted by Byard Duncan, AlterNet on November 3, 2009 at 11:33 AM.

A couple weeks back, Barack Obama found himself tangled in a sort of political half-Nelson: In order to maintain the illusion that Afghanistan’s government was operating effectively, he had to thank Hamid Karzai (the Afghan president responsible for rigging the country’s initial elections) for agreeing to a run-off. But by thanking Karzai, he drew attention to just how fractured the political scene in Afghanistan was.

"We have seen the candidates expressing a willingness to abide by constitutional law, and there is a path forward in order to complete this election process," Obama said, adding that he was appreciative of Karzai’s “constructive efforts.”

This was of course a farcical move -- a lot like thanking a thief for returning your car stereo. But it was also necessary, given that the alternative would be admitting eight years of U.S. presence has done nothing to stabilize Afghanistan’s political climate. Obama, fully aware of his statement’s empty pomp, was performing some old-fashioned damage control.

Such ceremonial lip service could possibly have been excused as political necessity, were it not now the central tenet of the White House’s Afghanistan policy. Indeed, after Karzai’s main challenger, Abdullah Abdullah, withdrew from the run-off elections Sunday, Obama adviser David Axelrod had this to say:

“Every poll that had been taken there suggested that he was likely to be defeated anyway, so we are going to deal with the government that is there.”

Never mind the corruption, Axelrod suggests; Abdullah would not have won anyway. Abdullah, by the way, had been “under intense pressure from Western officials to avoid confrontation and end a two-month dispute over the election results,” according to the New York Times.

All this adds up to yet another huge ideological problem for Obama’s “good war:” the U.S., despite its attempts to spread democracy to Afghanistan, is actually opting for a sort of cardboard cut-out equivalent -- a false version meant to survive only as long as is politically convenient. By indicating that it’s in Abdullah’s interest to go quietly, the Obama administration is actively (and rather openly) contradicting the principles it supposedly espouses.

Basically, the White House is cementing an absurd precedent that Obama established when he congratulated Karzai in October. A sort of cotton-candy policy on Afghanistan -- one composed of saccharine rhetorical gestures, and devoid of any real substance.

Arizona Republican Tries (and Fails) to Show Solidarity With the "Brown People" in His City
Posted by Amanda Terkel, Think Progress on November 3, 2009 at 10:21 AM.

Arizona Republican National Committeeman Bruce Ash recently called in to the radio show of right-wing host Jon Justice — who has been called the “Rush Limbaugh of Tucson” — to take issue with local Democratic Party chairman Jeff Rogers’ opposition to a city ballot initiative. Ash said that Rogers doesn’t understand levels of crime in the city. To show how aware he is personally, Ash recounted some of his conversations with the city’s “brown people”:

I listen to the event and I heard the argument, and what was really truly amazing to me, Jon, was the pomposity that Jeff Rogers displayed. He sits in his little house in midtown with his kids who go to school, with his little job, and his job as the Democrat county chairman, and he is blind to all of the crime that is going on in this city.

It’s maybe not happening in his little neighborhood, but you ask any of the brown people who live on the South Side, or the West Side, or the South Central side of Tuscon, and they will tell you, in no uncertain terms, the fear they have getting in their car, walking in the street, and sometimes just sitting in their house.

Listen here:

The Arizona blog Rum, Romanism and Rebellion gives Ash the benefit of the doubt and says it might not have been blatant racism. However, the site says that Ash’s “sudden care for ‘brown people’ on the South Side” comes off as “good old fashioned patronizing and nothing more.” Huffington Post blogger Marlene Phillips also notes that crime statistics don’t support Ash’s claim that crime is higher in the city’s Hispanic neighborhoods. (HT: AMERICAblog)

Can Boxer Deliver Real Reform on Climate Change?
Posted by Raquel Brown, The Media Consortium on November 3, 2009 at 9:10 AM.

This week the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee held three hearings on the Kerry-Boxer clean energy bill and, as David Roberts reports for Grist, Republican Senators had an “adolescent tantrum” about the cost of emission reductions. The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), Congressional Budget Office, Energy Information Administration and other organizations have extensively debunked this line of debate.

Aaron Wiener agrees that the committee’s hearing was a “fairly one-sided debate” in The Washington Independent. Sen. James Inhofe (R-OK) has already threatened a Republican boycott of the Committee’s markup of the Kerry-Boxer bill, which would prevent the quorum needed to do business. And on Tuesday, every Republican cut out early while Democrats discussed energy policy details with members of the Obama administration. Considering that the bill isn’t even at the markup stage, we can expect more disruptive antics from the right in weeks to come.

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Will a Racial Divide Swallow Obama?
Posted by Melissa Harris-Lacewell, TheNation.com on November 3, 2009 at 8:00 AM.

On Sunday I went to the Prudential Center in Newark to hear President Obama make the case for Governor Jon Corzine's reelection here in New Jersey. Already a strong supporter of Governor Corzine I wasn't going to be convinced. And I wasn't particularly excited about standing in a long line, on a chilly afternoon to listen to two men I've heard speak dozens of times. But I was determined to go. One year ago I'd been in Newark to hear candidate Obama make his closing arguments, and I wanted to check out what an Obama rally looks like one year later.

Some elements of the atmosphere were familiar: insanely long lines, intense police presence, surprisingly jovial mood despite the chill. One thing was noticeably and distressingly different: the crowd waiting to see President Obama in Newark on Sunday was much less diverse than the crowd that greeted him in the waning days of the 2008 election. By my estimation the supporters in Newark yesterday were not exclusively, but certainly predominately, African American.

The event mirrors recent trends in the polls. Presidential job approval polls by Gallup have tracked two consistent trends in President Obama's ratings: overall decline and a widening racial gap between black and white Americans.

As a public opinion researcher, I am not surprised by this racial gap. Political science has convincingly and repeatedly found a wide and persistent gulf between the political attitudes of white and black Americans.

For example, one of the most consistent finding of public opinion research is how African American partisanship differs from that of whites. African American allegiance to the Republican Party of Lincoln was solid for the decades between Emancipation and The New Deal, but by the 1940s black Americans had become overwhelmingly Democratic in affiliation. At the same time, white voters increasingly moved to the Republican column, particularly in the South.

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Republicans Have Drafted a Health Bill, and It Sucks
Posted by Steve Benen, Washington Monthly on November 3, 2009 at 6:47 AM.

FALLING SHORT OF LOW EXPECTATIONS.... The goading and taunts appear to have been effective: House Republicans will have a health care reform bill. It's been sent to the Congressional Budget Office for scoring, and will, if all goes according to plan, be ready to go 72 hours before a possible floor vote on the Democratic proposal.

So, what's in it? We won't know for sure until it's formally unveiled, but House GOP leaders started offering some details yesterday. At this point, their proposal may be even worse than expected.

Republicans are preparing to unveil their own health bill in the next few days. Minority Leader John Boehner (R., Ohio) said Monday that the plan wouldn't seek to prevent health-insurance companies from denying sick people insurance -- a key plank of the Democrats' legislation.

It seemed for a while that there was one thing everyone could agree on -- private insurers shouldn't be able to discriminate against consumers based on pre-existing conditions. But barring any changes to the Republican plan, GOP lawmakers aren't even prepared to inconvenience private insurance companies with popular, common sense provision.

A Wall Street Journal report added yesterday, "Republicans also wouldn't prevent insurers from ending policies once an individual becomes seriously ill."

There would also be no individual mandate, no employer mandate, no exchange, and no tax credits or subsidies to help purchase coverage.

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Joe Lieberman: Swine Flu is Either with Us or the Terrorists!
Posted by Steve M., No More Mister Nice Blog on November 3, 2009 at 5:42 AM.

I wish the exact quote were available, but for now we have this from Michael Goldfarb at The Weekly Standard's blog:

... a source who was present at the scene reports: 

In the stakeout after Face the Nation, Joe Lieberman excoriated the decision to give the vaccine to GITMO terrorists and not to pregnant women.

Really, Joe? Best you can do?

Yeah, we're giving swine flu vaccine to Guantanamo prisoners.

Can't think of a reason why, Joe? I won't even bother bringing up the Geneva Conventions, or our military's long tradition of humane treatment of prisoners -- I know you don't believe in any of that crap, Joe.

Still can't come up with a reason? Here, I'll give you a big fat hint:

Who's guarding Gitmo prisoners?

Right: our troops.

I know you think the prisoners are subhuman scum, vile worms who can't be compared to decent human beings on any level whatsoever. But guess what, Joe?

Viruses don't give a crap.

A virus can easily spread from your scum to our brave youth. Vaccinating these prisoners is a way of protecting our men and women in uniform.

Hey, Joe, why do you hate the troops?

Note to Media Critics: Fox is the Only Entire News Network with a Blatantly Partisan Agenda
Posted by Thers, Whiskey Fire on November 3, 2009 at 4:37 AM.

One Wonders...

... to what extent you have to be either deliberately or genuinely thick in order to write Official Media Criticism. Take this headline, please:

If Fox Is Partisan, It Is Not Alone

My balls. Fox is the only entire news network with a partisan agenda. Every other network plays by different rules. This is not a very difficult point to grasp, unless you have Official Media Criticism to dribble out for the New York Times.

This is a very stupid article. See if you can spot the logical flaw in how John Harwood draws the conclusion that "partisan fragmentation throughout America’s news media and their audiences has grown significantly" based upon Statistical Evidence (and note also how Harwood, toolishly, is passing on the spin of these data thrown, in the manner of a spitball, by a Republican strategist):

In audience surveys from August 2000 to March 2001, Fox News viewers tilted Republican by 44.6 percent to 36.1 percent. More narrowly — 41.4 percent to 39.4 percent — so did the audience for MSNBC. The audiences of CNN, Headline News, CNBC and Comedy Central leaned Democratic.

Four years later, amid the Iraq war and President George W. Bush’s re-election campaign, the audience data had shifted. Fox News viewers had become 51 percent Republican and just 30.8 percent Democratic, while MSNBC viewers leaned Democratic by 41.7 percent to 40.4 percent. Viewers of CNN, Headline News, CNBC and Comedy Central grew slightly more Democratic.

By 2008-9, the network audiences tilted decisively, like Fox’s. CNN viewers were more Democratic by 50.4 percent to 28.7 percent; MSNBC viewers were 53.6 percent to 27.3 percent Democratic; Headline News’ 47.3 percent to 31.4 percent Democratic; CNBC’s 46.9 percent to 32.5 percent Democratic; and Comedy Central’s 47.1 to 28.8 percent Democratic.

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