PEEK

Buzz, perspectives, insight and news from AlterNet

God's Divine Sperm? Lib Church Shakes Up Story of Jesus' Birth
Posted by Tana Ganeva, AlterNet on December 17, 2009 at 1:53 PM.

A progressive New Zealand Church wants you to know that not all Christians are lame. To that end, they've put up a billboard displaying a post-coital Mary gazing longingly at the sky (that's where God lives), while Joseph lays next to her looking dejected. It reads "Poor Joseph. God was a tough act to follow."

The purpose of the billboard, according to St. Matthew's website , is to highlight the absurdity of literal Biblical interpretation. "The Christmas billboard outside St Matthew-in-the-City lampoons literalism and invites people to think again about what a miracle is. Is the miracle a male God sending forth his divine sperm, or is the miracle that God is and always has been among the poor?" writes Vicar Glynn Cardy.

Here's the billboard:

Read the rest of the post on the flip side »

Despite Losing Favor, Obama Still Trusted Over GOP
Posted by Jed Lewison, Daily Kos on December 17, 2009 at 12:30 PM.

The bad news for the White House: the latest ABC/WaPo opinion poll shows President Obama with the lowest approval rating of his term. It's net positive -- 50/46, or +4 -- but on domestic issues like unemployment (-1), the economy (-6), health care (-9), and the deficit (-19), it's net negative.

The bad news for the GOP: Voters still trust President Obama more than Republicans, even on health care. The numbers: Economy, Obama +12; Health care, Obama +7; Afghanistan, Obama +12; Energy, Obama +10.

What's the lesson? Even though Americans disapprove of President Obama's record on many domestic policy issues, they do not see the Republican Party as a viable alternative. At some point, that may change, because the GOP is also the only alternative, but for now, the country is not looking for President Obama to be more like Republicans -- they are looking for him (and the Democratic Congress) to deliver on the change they voted for in 2008. If the White House can deliver, the GOP will be left out in the cold, partying with the teabaggers.

American Apparel Sticks Up for Immigrant Workers Swept Up in ICE Raid
Posted by Marjorie Clifton, AlterNet on December 17, 2009 at 11:39 AM.

As the holidays rapidly approach, our focus shifts to shopping, cooking and decking the halls for the invasion of relatives. But, as we hit the shops, we often forget to take a moment to think about the origins of our chic outfits and abounding feasts (those of us lucky enough to still have these).

Those trendy peacoats and ripe, delicious pears didn’t fall off of a sleigh after all. 

In Los Angeles, California, a building full of laborers--many foreign-born-- work tirelessly to fill the shelves of American Apparel with their not-so-basic t-shirts and colorful sweaters, enough to fulfill the Christmas wishes of millions of American teens in various stages of blossoming hipster-dom.  But, like so many companies, American Apparel has been stuck in the middle of our immigration crisis this year. 

Read the rest of the post on the flip side »

Staffers for Corporate Front Group Organizing Anti-Health Rallies Refuse to Reveal Their Names
Posted by Lee Fang, Think Progress on December 17, 2009 at 10:31 AM.

On Tuesday, right-wing billionaire David Koch’s Americans for Prosperity (AFP) organized yet another anti-health reform rally on Capitol Hill. Part of AFP’s strength is its secrecy. The organization, a front group for corporate interests, has set up multiple other front groups and tea party events to create a veneer of public support for its agenda. ThinkProgress attempted to interview AFP staffers who were coordinating the event, but they refused to even reveal their real names, with one staffer replying with something that sounded like “Pootie Tang”:

TP: What’s your name?

AFP STAFFER: Pootie Tang. … Pootie Tang. [...]

PROTESTER: What’s your name?

TP: My name’s Lee Fang.

PROTESTER: Lee Fang? Are you an American?

TP: Why do you ask?

PROTESTER: I’m just asking a question, just as you are.

Watch it:

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Why Obama Should Stop Forcing the Left to Eat Sh*t
Posted by Booman, Booman Tribune on December 17, 2009 at 9:31 AM.

What we are seeing right now is a semi-coordinated, semi-spontaneous revolt on the left to the latest compromises in the Senate health care reform bill. We can talk about the wisdom and possible efficacy of this revolt, but the administration has to deal with the left they have, not the left that they might wish to have (to use some Rumsfeldian logic). What the administration is facing is a consequence of the left having to eat too much shit on a whole host of issues from military commissions, a failure to root out and punish the crimes and practices of the Bush administration, the escalation of the war in Afghanistan, a too-friendly bailout of Wall Street, and now a health care bill that bears little resemblance to what Obama promised us in the campaign.

Obama can't pass anything that doesn't have unanimous support in the Democratic caucus because of the ruthless obstruction and opposition of the Republican Party. This forces him to govern to the center and make all his compromises with centrist Democrats and/or the two still-existing centrist Republicans in the Senate. The Republican obstruction empowers people like Joe Lieberman. It actually gives veto power to every single senator, but the only way to make up for a defecting Democrat is to win over Olympia Snowe or Susan Collins. So, if Bernie Sanders or Roland Burris revolt, he has to move the bill further to the right in response.

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The Demise of the Medicare Buy-In
Posted by Digby, Hullabaloo on December 17, 2009 at 9:13 AM.

Here's a sad story about the demise of the Medicare buy-in. Reid insisted that the negotiators keep quiet about the details until the CBO score came out but the doctors and hospitals panicked and sicced their lobbyists on the usual suspects, along with a few liberals. Turned out that all of their concerns had been anticipated in the compromise but nobody could say anything --- and then Lieberman pulled the plug. Too bad.

Apparently, these good samaritans were afraid that they'd get a whole bunch of new previously uninsured patients who wouldn't be paying top dollar. That would be opposed to currently uninsured patients who are paying nothing until they have their heart attack and wind up in the emergency room --- which is apparently a better financial deal for the doctors and hospitals. That explains a lot.

Rightwing Fringe Welcome at Conservative Confab, Gay Republicans Not So Much
Posted by Steve Benen, Washington Monthly on December 17, 2009 at 8:23 AM.

In February, the Conservative Political Action Conference will get underway in D.C., and because CPAC has become the right-wing event of the year, the conservative movement's heavy hitters are anxious to be a part of it.

But let's note who, exactly, has become part of the conservative movement. For example, the 2010 CPAC gathering will be co-sponsored by the hyper-conservative John Birch Society. While JBS was, not too long ago, considered far too ridiculous for the American mainstream -- even Republicans considered Birchers a political pariah -- the bizarre group has slowly been welcomed into the fold as conservatives have become more extreme.

When Glenn Beck embraced the Birchers two years ago, Alex Koppelman reminded us, "The JBS is, after all, the group that believed fluoridated drinking water was a Communist mind-control plot. Oh, and its founder, Robert Welch, once accused Dwight Eisenhower -- and no, we are not kidding -- of being 'a dedicated conscious agent of the communist conspiracy.'"

And now the John Birch Society is co-sponsoring CPAC. When I talk about radicalism being mainstreamed by the right, this is what I'm talking about.

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WTF? $26 Software Being Used to Hack Drone Program in Iraq & Afghanistan
Posted by Liliana Segura, AlterNet on December 17, 2009 at 6:50 AM.

Good morning! Today's must-read is a Wall Street Journal report on a "potentially serious vulnerability in Washington's growing network of unmanned drones, which have become the American weapon of choice in both Afghanistan and Pakistan."

"Militants in Iraq have used $26 off-the-shelf software to intercept live video feeds from U.S. Predator drones, potentially providing them with information they need to evade or monitor U.S. military operations."

Senior defense and intelligence officials said Iranian-backed insurgents intercepted the video feeds by taking advantage of an unprotected communications link in some of the remotely flown planes' systems. Shiite fighters in Iraq used software programs such as SkyGrabber -- available for as little as $25.95 on the Internet -- to regularly capture drone video feeds, according to a person familiar with reports on the matter.

Incredulous that a program called "SkyGrabber" could present a "potentially serious vulnerability" to our much heralded drone program"? I was. Naturally, I Googled it, only to discover that the official website is down. (Apparently a lot of people are suddenly interested in learning more about Skygrabber.)

The software was apparently "developed to intercept music, photos, video, programs and other content that other users download from the Internet -- no military data or other commercial data, only free legal content," according to one developer, in an e-mail sent to the WSJ from Russia.

For added crazy, the WSJ reports that U.S. officials in Iraq discovered the problem "late last year" and it doesn't look like it's been fixed. "It is part of their kit now," an anonymous source told the paper.

Like a lot of people who oppose our various ongoing wars, I think the drone program sounds like a good way to kill innocent civilians without ever having to see it up close. But for those who think the drones are awesome, don't worry, the military is totally on it:

Senior military and intelligence officials said the U.S. was working to encrypt all of its drone video feeds from Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan, but said it wasn't yet clear if the problem had been completely resolved.

Some of the most detailed evidence of intercepted feeds has been discovered in Iraq, but adversaries have also intercepted drone video feeds in Afghanistan, according to people briefed on the matter.

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NY Governor Extends Protections to Transgender State Employees
Posted by Cara , Feministe on December 17, 2009 at 3:15 AM.

Today, New York Governor David Paterson signed an executive order barring discrimination against state employees on the basis of gender identity and gender expression. Seeing the high numbers of transgender people who report discrimination in the workplace, this is great news for those current and future employees who will be affected.

But it’s also only a first step in the right direction. While New York is now ahead of many states, it’s also really behind many others:

While supporters of transgender legal protections said they were encouraged by Mr. Paterson’s order, they noted that New York was not a pioneer in extending such rights.

“It has been a long road, and I think New York is behind,” said Dru Levasseur, a transgender rights attorney for Lambda Legal. “So this will bring New York up to par with other states that are taking the lead on workplace fairness.”

Twelve states and the District of Columbia have broad laws prohibiting discrimination based on gender expression or identity, according to gay and transgender rights groups. In addition, more than 100 cities and counties across the country provide similar legal protections

Indeed, just within the state, New York City, Albany, Binghamton, Buffalo, Ithaca, Rochester, Westchester County and Tompkins County already have workplace discrimination laws applying to trans people in place.

Further, the executive order only applies to state employees, because a law is required to extend those same protections to all workers in New York. What is truly needed is the passage of GENDA, an anti-discrimination bill affecting trans New Yorkers that the legislature has allowed to languish for several years — or, as many would argue, a revamped version of GENDA that doesn’t risk causing as many problems as it solves. (Better yet, an inclusive ENDA would extend workplace protections on the basis of gender identity and sexual orientation to all employees across the United States.)

In other words, it’s great news that Governor Paterson finally got around to doing this. But he and the rest of New York’s elected officials still have significantly harder work ahead of them.

Check Out Who's Still Advertising on Glenn Beck's Show
Posted by Staff, Media Matters for America on December 17, 2009 at 1:01 AM.

Oregon Senator Jeff Merkley Will Vote 'No' on Bernanke's Renomination
Posted by David Sirota, Open Left on December 16, 2009 at 6:30 PM.

This is some very big news from the Senate Banking Committee, which will be voting on Ben Bernanke's renomination tomorrow at 9:30am ET:

WASHINGTON, DC - Oregon's Senator Jeff Merkley, a member of the Senate Committee on Banking, Housing and Urban Development, issued the following statement on his intention to vote against Ben Bernanke's nomination to a second term as Chairman of the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System:

"Tomorrow, I will vote against confirming Ben Bernanke as Chairman of the Federal Reserve.  The reason, in short, is that as Chairman, Dr. Bernanke failed to recognize or remedy the factors that paved the road to this dark and difficult recession.  Following our economic collapse, it is also apparent that he has not changed his overall approach to prioritizing Wall Street over American families.

"My decision is based on my fundamental belief that our economy cannot recover if we do not put Main Street first."

This is excellent news from Merkley - a genuinely courageous stand against the Washington establishment that is asking us with a straight face to thank the man who helped create the conditions for the recession and then gave trillions of taxpayer dollars to Wall Street. And Merkley's announcement is proof positive that the progressive campaign to stop Bernanke's renomination (which OpenLeft has been a part of) is working. And with a new national poll out showing that Bernanke is wildly unpopular among the American public, there's a very real chance his nomination will be voted down in the committee tomorrow.

Check the committee membership here - and call your senators and tell them to vote down Bernanke tomorrow. Reappointing the guy who admits he fell down on the job in the lead-up to the economic meltdown will create a moral hazard that says to every other federal regulator that there is no consequences for failure.

Alleged Police Cover-Up Adds Shocking Angle to the Racist Murder of Luis Ramirez
Posted by Joshua Holland, AlterNet on December 16, 2009 at 4:00 PM.

It was always difficult to comprehend how a jury could find the young Pennsylvania men who brutally murdered Luis Ramirez -- a Mexican immigrant and father of two young children -- during the hot summer months of 2008 not guilty. The six young men surrounded Ramirez, shouted racial slurs at him and beat him to death.

If federal charges bear out, the result should come as little surprise; justice was apparently not served in the case. As attorney Patrick Young writes, many in the community would have had you believe "that the racial epithets hurled at Ramirez did not make this killing a hate crime."

They also expect you to see no unfairness in the fact that the initial investigation into the crime was carried out by the partner of a cop who was sleeping with the mother of the young man accused of killing Ramirez. Or that the first person arrested in the incident was a Latino who tried to come to Ramirez's rescue.

And they would have you believe that the young assailants were acquitted of all major charges by an all white jury in a fair trial even though the prosecution failed to call significant witnesses, including a former Philly cop who responded to Ramirez's cries outside her window.

It turns out that the fix was allegedly in among members of the local police department, who tampered with witnesses, destroyed evidence and otherwise made sure a conviction was not forthcoming in the case. Federal prosecutors say the corruption tainting the case went all the way to the top.

But justice may yet be served for Luis Ramirez and his family, with a slew of indictments handed down yesterday against not only the young men who took Ramirez' life, but also several of the cops involved in the investigation which followed.

Read the rest of the post on the flip side »

McDonald's to Have Free WiFi in 2010: Don't You Really Want to Hang Out There Now?!
Posted by Tara Lohan on December 16, 2009 at 3:45 PM.

Of course, it makes sense, if you can get breakfast for a dollar why not get some free wifi to go with it, right? I mean, folks were paying $2.95 before, which is nearly 3 times the cost of a meal. Don't get me wrong, I love free wifi. I think it's ridiculous when high-end hotels charge for it when Motel 6 gives it away for free. At this point, really, it should be a common courtesy for guests (especially at airports and hotels). And it costs an establishment barely anything.

But for some reason, the idea of free wifi at Micky D's is annoying. I think mainly because the thought of someone actually going in there to hang out for a while seems ludicrous. McDonald's is great place to use the bathroom when you're on a road-trip, but that's about it. The decor is horrifying, the food is worse, the chances that you might actually slide right off your keyboard from the greasy fries are a given.

It seemed a little pathetic when they stared serving lattes, but this is really just too much. The only good that can come of this is more free wifi in the world from copycat businesses. McDonald's is really a master at getting everyone to set the bar lower and lower.

Lunatic Phoenix Sheriff Joe Arpaio Issues New Order Forcing Inmates to Listen to Christmas Carols
Posted by Amanda Terkel, Think Progress on December 16, 2009 at 2:37 PM.

The Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office, run by the controversial Sheriff Joe Arpaio, released a “news brief” this week announcing that it will be forcing the system’s 8,000 inmates to listen to “Christmas music” during the holiday season, even though Arpaio has faced six lawsuits over the issue in the past two years. From the statement (written in Christmas-themed red and green fonts):

Arpaio claims that “[h]oliday music from all countries and faiths” will be represented in the play list, but he repeatedly refers to “Christmas music,” which of course excludes many faiths. According to ABC News, Arpaio said that “for agnostics,” he would “mix in the singing Chipmunks” — who also presumably sing Christmas carols. “We can’t say ‘Merry Christmas’ in the U.S., in the world anymore,” said Arpaio, fully joining in the War on Christmas. “What are we coming to? I am saying it. I am singing it. It’s gonna be in this jail, and that’s the way the ball bounces.”

In previous grievances, inmates have called Arpaio’s stunt “cruel and unusual punishment” and said that it is forcing them to “participate in religious celebrations.” As the Phoenix New Times points out, “The practice of forcing people to listen to crappy music all day long has been used in the past for interrogation purposes. For example, the U.S. military blared Metallica music at detainees in Guantanamo Bay with the intention of breaking them down psychologically.”

Arpaio is not a benevolent sheriff trying to cheer up inmates during the holiday season. His unconventional tactics are often unusually cruel and sometimes outright racist. His deputies are on the lookout for people “who look like they just came from Mexico” (based on how they look and talk), and he has said that “illegals” are “all dirty” and should be “checked” like “fruits and vegetables.”

Recently Arpaio’s tactics gained attention again when a woman spoke out and said she was detained in Arpaio’s jail while nine months pregnant. She eventually had to give birth while shackled to a bed and then “was not allowed to hold her baby and was told that if no one came to pick up the child within 72 hours, the baby would be turned over to state custody.”

Peaceful Protests Turn Violent in Copenhagen
Posted by Allison Hamm, The Media Consortium on December 16, 2009 at 1:26 PM.

The United Nations Climate Change Conference (Cop15) turned ugly today when police officers beat back hundreds of demonstrators, including a group of 50 to 100 delegates that were trying to meet with the protesters.

More than 250 people were arrested, including spokespeople for Climate Justice Action (CJA), a global network of NGOs that organized a walkout at the Bella Center today. CJA’s spokesperson Dan Glall told Mantoe Phakathi at Inter Press Service that “as a condition for going back to the negotiations, we demand industrialized nations uphold the Kyoto Protocol, commit adequate funds to adaptation and reduce greenhouse gas emissions significantly.”

OneClimate has video (below) of today’s walkout.

“More than 1,000 people have been arrested, detained and released over the course of the past week,” Jennifer Prediger writes for Grist. “Some were made to sit on freezing sidewalks for six hours in a nasty version of time out. The people who threw rocks and set cars on fire were rightfully detained.  But the droves who were dragged in last night for dancing awkwardly in Christiana?  Seems like overkill to me.”

The chaos outside reflects the increasing pressure inside the Bella Center, as delegates turn to the United States and China for leadership in the final days of the summit. Together these countries account for 42 percent of the world’s carbon emissions.

In order to finalize a global climate agreement in Copenhagen, both countries need to take a big step forward, as David Doniger and Barbara Finamore report for Grist. For the U.S., this means aid for the world’s poorest and most vulnerable people; for China, this means making steady progress to meet the country’s carbon reduction goals.

The U.S. has already committed to pay its share of a $30 billion fund to last through 2012. “But to lead in Copenhagen, the U.S. needs to back even larger investments to meet these core needs for the longer-term—2015 or 2020,” Doniger and Finamore write. “China has the opportunity to enhance its standing as a responsible world leader by building global confidence in the implementation of its carbon reduction goals.”

But as David Corn reports for Mother Jones, China and the U.S. are apparently “stuck in a standoff.”

Read the rest of the post on the flip side »

GOP Tech Tragedy Sends Michael Steele on Wild Porn, Bondage, Commie Ride
Posted by Tana Ganeva on December 16, 2009 at 12:16 PM.

This week, the RNC tried to make the Internet conservative. It was not a resounding success. Instead, a series of hilarious and fairly predictable misfortunes sent a tiny, animated Michael Steele on a wild ride to a bunch of porn, bondage and Communist websites. Here’s what happened, from Wired:

As part of its new media strategy, the Republican party launched a new site called GOP.am on Monday. It’s a URL shortener designed to make it easy for conservative web surfers to exchange links to web pages.

Pranksters almost immediately began using the service to link to controversial or ironically intended websites, such as the official site of the American Communist Party, a bondage website and a webpage advertising a sex toy in the likeness of Barack Obama. GOP.am apparently started blocking such links at some point Tuesday morning, and the GOP.am homepage was taken offline.

[...]

... unlike bit.ly, GOP.am includes a toolbar at the top of the screen that follows users as they click through to see whatever pages the links go to. It also sports an animation of RNC chairman Michael Steele walking around on the lower right as if he’s showing off the website — particularly awkward when that website is the alt.com bondage site. Users of the Balloon-Juice website entertaineLd each other last night by exchanging scores of such links, which have since been blocked.

When I tried to make some porn conservative, the site said the link was broken, so it looks like they're on it. But, here's a screenshot from Balloon Juice if you feel the need to have Michael Steele's enthusiastic approval of your taste in porn: 

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Sanders Pulls Single-Payer Amendment, Paves Way For Liebercare
Posted by Daniela Perdomo, AlterNet on December 16, 2009 at 11:54 AM.

Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) has pulled his single-payer amendment from the floor, thus paving way for easier passage of what's now being touted as Liebercare, due to Joe Lieberman's (I-CT) co-opting of health care "deform."

The amendment seemed like single-payer's last chance for survival at this stage but there was no real support for Sanders' clause, as Democratic leadership caved to Lieberman's demands. As my AlterNet colleague Josh Holland tells me, reconciliation may be the real last chance for single-payer or a public option.

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TIME Names Bernanke (Wall Street's) Person of the Year
Posted by Daniela Perdomo, AlterNet on December 16, 2009 at 11:11 AM.

This morning, my RSS feeds were alight with the news that Ben Bernanke has been named TIME's Person of the Year for 2009.

Despite my own lack of enthrallment with the Federal Reserve chairman, the magazine isn't completely off-track when it writes:

But the main reason Ben Shalom Bernanke is TIME's Person of the Year for 2009 is that he is the most important player guiding the world's most important economy. His creative leadership helped ensure that 2009 was a period of weak recovery rather than catastrophic depression, and he still wields unrivaled power over our money, our jobs, our savings and our national future. The decisions he has made, and those he has yet to make, will shape the path of our prosperity, the direction of our politics and our relationship to the world.

Indeed, the decisions Bernanke has made are likely to affect us for years to come. But the difference is I'm on the side of those who add the caveat that Bernanke's "creative" tenure as Reserve Chairman will negatively affect regular Americans' economic futures.

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Video: Dick Armey Lashes Out at Rachel Maddow After National Press Club Speech Canceled For Lack of Interest
Posted by Adele Stan, AlterNet on December 16, 2009 at 10:19 AM.

SCROLL DOWN FOR VIDEO

When Dick Armey lashed out at MSNBC's Rachel Maddow yesterday from the stage of a right-wing rally, he may have been exercising something the shrinks call "transference" -- training one's emotions on an individual who represents to you the thing that has caused you to feel the way you do.

For Armey, the thing that may have left him feeling a bit irritable was the media -- who failed to turn up at the National Press Club luncheon he was scheduled to keynote. In fact, the luncheon was canceled when Press Club members failed to reserve places at the luncheon. Basically, the luncheon was canceled for lack of interest -- by reporters.

As chairman of FreedomWorks, an interest group that has uses a chunk of its corporate funding to gin up opposition to health-care reform, Armey has done pretty well at getting media coverage -- from Maddow in particular, and from AlterNet, as well. But we presumably don't crank out the kind of coverage he'd like to get.

Given his latest triumph in New York's 23rd congressional district, where his efforts led to a mainstream Republican being forced from the race, Armey has proven himself to be something of a power broker, leading a movement that has swept up some of the GOP's leading players (Sarah Palin and Tim Pawlenty, for example) in its wake.

Yet none of that was enough to entice the reporters who belong to the Press Club -- mostly mainstream, establishment types -- to spend a few bucks to hear Armey speak. I arrived at the Press Club to find the event canceled.

VIDEO AFTER THE JUMP

Read the rest of the post on the flip side »

Naomi Klein: US Lowering the Bar in Copenhagen, Doing More Harm Than Good
Posted by Tara Lohan, AlterNet on December 16, 2009 at 9:45 AM.

Negotiations at COP15 are entering into the final few days and things are clearly getting more heated as heads of state are arriving. But most activists feel not enough has been accomplished and the agreement taking shape will not match up to what scientists say we need to accomplish -- and not by a long shot.

And worse, the U.S. is gumming up the process. So many of us concerned with the future of the planet breathed a sigh of relief when Obama was elected and we were relieved by his desire for strong action on climate change, but so far the words he's been way more talk than action.

Katherine Goldstein for Huffington Post interviewed Naomi Klein and Klein's assessment of the U.S. involvement is grim:

The US negotiators have squandered a tremendous amount of goodwill. Tremendous ... the Democrats have squandered so many opportunities. We've seen these huge outpourings of support of the US -- we saw it after 9/11 and we saw it when Obama was elected. So many were so happy about the US re-engaging in the climate process. But I think it has done way more harm than good. It's given countries the opportunities to weaken the targets they are putting on the table, like Japan. The US has lowered the bar and set goals so low, it's been destructive. I think it would be better if the US had continued to stay out of it. I don't see any point in US politicians coming here.

When chief negotiator Jonathan Pershing offers for the US to pay $1.5 billion to help with climate change and says, "the US only has so much largesse," Americans have no idea [how insulting this is to the rest of the world.] US emits so much and has caused this problem. This is NOT about charity. This is about moral responsibility.

Obama arrives on Friday. And while I don't agree with Klein's assessment that the U.S. should just stay home, I think we need to demand that he live up to his promises and the U.S. live up to its international responsibilities.

No Public Option: Worse Than Nothing?
Posted by Lindsay Beyerstein, The Media Consortium on December 16, 2009 at 9:00 AM.

In search of the elusive, filibuster-proof 60th vote, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid eviscerated the Senate’s health care reform bill on Tuesday. Potential GOP swing voter Sen. Olympia Snowe (R-ME) confirmed that Reid promised to kill both the public option and the expanded Medicare buy-in, according to Brian Beutler of Talking Points Memo.

Snowe didn’t pledge to support the bill, of course. She didn’t even promise to cooperate on the procedural votes required to pass the bill before Christmas, a deadline that the Obama administration has its heart set on. In other words, Reid gave away the progressive crown jewels of health reform on spec to a senator who cheerfully turned around and continued the Republican stalling strategy. From Snowe’s vantage point, that’s a great move. The longer the bill hangs in limbo, the more Reid will give away.

Former Democrat Joe Lieberman (I-CT) seems determined to kill the bill. Lieberman must be motivated more by a desire to spite liberals than any principled policy stance. He keeps threatening to filibuster policy proposals he once campaigned on, like the Medicare buy-in. Lee Fang of TAPPED notes that Lieberman told the New York Times that he now opposes the buy-in because it’s beloved of lefty single-payer types like Rep. Anthony Weiner (D-NY); and the policy wonk behind the public option, Prof. Jacob Hacker.

The Women’s Media Center has launched the #UnderTheBus campaign, which calls on supporters to contact their representatives and urge them not to let Lieberman and his close, anti-choice ally Ben Nelson (D-NE) sell out women’s health care for political gain. Nelson has hinted he won’t vote for the bill unless it contains strong abortion funding restrictions.

Stephanie Mencimer reports in Mother Jones that a bunch of teabaggers decided to stage a sit-in to oppose the health bill at Lieberman’s office. Mark Meckler and some Tea Party Patriots showed up at Lieberman’s office and asked to meet with the senator. When they were told he wasn’t available, they all sat down. When they tried that routine at Sen. Barbara Boxer’s office (D-CA), her staff ignored them. Lieberman’s staff called the cops. (Note to teabaggers: Sit-ins are for enemies, not allies.)

The senate bill is so watered down that it wouldn’t even stop insurance companies from capping benefits, as Roger Bybee reports at Working In These Times.

Rep. Darcy Burner (D-WA) says she’d rather kill the bill than vote for it in its current state. She argues that if health care reform doesn’t curb costs, it’s just a Band-Aid on a gaping wound. She writes in AlterNet:

The fundamental failing of the newest Senate proposal is that it requires individuals to purchase health insurance, but does nothing to rein in what insurance companies charge. There is nothing to stop spiraling health costs from eating up an ever-increasing percentage of our national productivity.

The House bill has two major cost-control mechanisms: the public option and the 85 percent medical-loss ratio requirement. The Senate bill is on track to have neither, and nothing new to replace them. The Senate bill is a recipe for national disaster. If it’s that bill or nothing, I prefer nothing.

Adding insult to injury, the Senate also voted down a bill yesterday that would have made it easier for consumers to purchase cheaper prescription drugs abroad. Mike Lillis of the Washington Independent suggests that the White House was relieved to see the Dorgan-Snowe bill defeated because it would have violated the deal it struck with pharmaceutical companies earlier this year. The drug companies promised up to $80 billion for health care reform if Democratic leaders withheld support for several initiatives that would cut into drug company profits.

This post features links to the best independent, progressive reporting about health care by members of The Media Consortium. It is free to reprint. Visit the Pulse for a complete list of articles on health care reform, or follow us on Twitter. And for the best progressive reporting on critical economy, environment, health care and immigration issues, check out The Audit, The Mulch, and The Diaspora. This is a project of The Media Consortium, a network of leading independent media outlets.

Glenn Beck Defends Founding Fathers' Decision to Count African-Americans as Three-Fifths of a Person
Posted by Alex Seitz-Wald, Think Progress on December 16, 2009 at 6:15 AM.

On his radio show today, an African-American caller questioned Glenn Beck’s deification of the Founding Fathers by bringing up the fact that the Constitution “didn’t even recognize my people as even human.” The caller was referring to the three-fifths clause — a provision which counted slaves as three-fifths of a person for purposes of congressional representation and taxation. Beck hit back with a full-throated defense of the three-fifths law, saying it was actually an abolitionist provision:

CALLER: I notice you reference the founding fathers a lot, and to me it’s kind of offensive because most of those guys were slave owners, the Constitution that they wrote up — they didn’t even recognize my people as even human. [...]

BECK: That is a common misconception. … Do you know who wanted slaves to be counted as a full person? … Slave owners. … The reason why they wanted that is because of the balance of power. The South could control the numbers in Congress. Their representation would go through the roof. … That’s why, in the Constitution, African-Americans were deemed three-fifths people, because the Founders wanted to end slavery and they knew if the South could count slaves as full individuals you would never get the control to be able to abolish it.

Listen here:

This is another example of Beck distorting history to fit his contemporary agenda. Beck paints a picture of infallible Founders fighting evil Southerners who want to keep their slaves. The problem with this is, of course, is that many of the Founders were from the South and about half of the Constitution’s framers — including George Washington and Thomas Jefferson — owned slaves.

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Can 'Whole Foods Conservatives' Make the GOP "Safe for Smarties Again"?
Posted by Joshua Holland, AlterNet on December 16, 2009 at 5:00 AM.

There are, of course, still non-crazy and non-dumb conservatives among us. Some, like the Hoover institute's Michael Petrilli, live in places like suburban Maryland, where they shop at Whole Foods, presumably enjoy arugula and might even drive a Volvo or Prius.

And occasionally one among this group will take to the pages of a publication like the Wall Street Journal to decry the anti-scientific rural tea-party types that have made them so uncomfortable within the big tent of the Republican Party. It's gotten to the point where it's an embarrassment to toodle around Silver Springs with a Palin/McCain bumper-sticker, and the're here to urge the GOP to think about people like them once in a while, perhaps by not basing the entire party platform on inspiring the peasants to grab their pitchforks.

Here's Petrilli, picking up the tune during a riff on red-neck GOP identity politics ...

To be sure, playing to personal identity is hardly novel, nor is it crazy. Bill Bishop and other political analysts have noted that people's politics are as much about their lifestyle choices as their policy positions. Republicans live in exurbs and small towns, drive pick-up trucks or SUVs, go to church every Sunday, and listen to country music. Well-heeled Democrats live in cities and close-in suburbs, drive hybrids or Volvos, hang out at bookshops, and frequent farmers' markets. These are stereotypes, of course, but they also contain some truth.

Widening this cultural divide has long been part of the GOP playbook, going back to Nixon's attacks on "East Coast intellectuals" and forward to candidate Obama's arugula-eating tendencies.

The problem for Petrilli isn't so much that widening that divide represents a rather ugly, superficial brand of politics, or that those who appeal to right-populist sentiment are themselves usually well-heeled urban hypocrites just putting on the 'golly-gee' act for the rubes (think George W. and all that damn brush-clearing).

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Video: Howard Dean Tells Dems to Kill Senate Health-Care Bill
Posted by AlterNet Staff, AlterNet on December 16, 2009 at 4:00 AM.

Former Democratic National Committee Chairman Howard Dean would rather see no health-care bill than a bad one. So he tells MSNC's Lawrence O'Donnell.

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Tea Party Activist: Lieberman Staffer Threatened to Have Me Arrested
Posted by Adele Stan, AlterNet on December 15, 2009 at 10:00 PM.

He's the senator that progressives love to hate, but Sen. Joe Lieberman isn't feeling the love from the right wing either. Though he may have torpedoed the public option and vaporized the Medicare buy-in proposed as a stand-in for a public option, right wing operatives are determined not to see any health-care reform bill -- not even a toothless one -- passed by the Senate this year. And now, Lieberman seems to have played his hand in such a way that makes the bill all the more difficult for the conservaDems still holding out -- Landrieu, Lincoln, Webb  and the Nelsons -- to vote no.

This morning, members of the Tea Party Patriots led a lobbying day in the Senate, busing in hundreds of right-wing activists (with the help of the astroturfing group, Americans for Prosperity) to visit senators, demanding that they vote down the health-care reform legislation currently being negotiated.

At an afternoon anti-Obama, anti-health-care reform rally, Tea Party Patriots board member Mark Meckler said a Lieberman staffer threatened to have the activist arrested when he refused to leave Lieberman's office after being told the senator was not available.

Here's what Meckler told a crowd of around 1,000 or so right-wing protesters this afternoon from the rally stage:

Three of us -- two on the national board of the Tea Party Patriots, and one of our constituents from California -- went to visit Sen. Lieberman. And we went in respectfully, just like we did every office in the Senate office buildings. And we sat down and said, 'We'd like to see the senator.'  They told us he was not available. We said, 'That's okay; we'll wait ' And we went in, just like we did at some of the other senators' offices. And after about three minutes, the staffer came out and said, 'You're going to have to leave now.'  They said, 'You're going to have to leave, or we're going to have you arrested.'

We tried calling Lieberman's staff for comment, but the voice mailbox was full. I'm sure it is. Question is: Who's left more vituperative messages? Progressives or wing-nuts?

Why Americans Really Need to Pay Attention to Copenhagen
Posted by Rinku Sen, AlterNet on December 15, 2009 at 4:19 PM.

Negotiations have resumed in Copenhagen after a walkout by the African delegation on Monday. African governments were concerned with the lack of commitment by rich country governments to reducing their own emissions. This follows on the heels of last week's leaked "Danish text" controversy; the text contained proposals that have the world's poorest countries carrying the largest share of the environmental burden. How the Obama Administration deals with fairness questions in Copenhagen will also signal what we can expect domestically as we respond to the recession by building a green economy.

Wealthy countries have done the most environmental damage -- the top 10 contribute nearly 70 percent of all carbon emissions. Yet the Danish draft ignores these numbers, requiring the poor to reduce twice as much as the wealthy. This is expensive - it's cheaper and faster to use existing energy sources to produce plastic, say, rather than to develop new energy for new products that don't hurt the environment. The great irony, of course, is that poor countries have already paid for the damage caused by rich ones. I can't recall the last time a drought or tsunami killed hundreds of thousands of Danes.

The same divisions have played out in our own economy. Communities of color, who experience the highest rates of joblessness and poverty, have also been hardest hit by environmental injustices. According to J. Andrew Hoerner and Nia Robinson of Redefining Progress, African Americans suffer a number of losses from environmental degradation. Remember the heat waves of recent summers? They caused black people to die almost twice as often as whites. Racism itself fuels the climate crisis by generating inefficient overdevelopment. "White flight" and racial segregation in earlier decades meant growing white suburbs while rural and urban neighborhoods populated by people of color fell prey to the discriminatory placement of toxic incinerators, power plants, factories, and other big polluters.

These inequities have been thrown into high relief by the current recession. Officially, unemployment among blacks and Latinos runs almost 50 percent higher than it does for whites. The California jobless rate for whites was 10.7; for blacks and Latinos over 14 percent. Among young blacks and Latinos, the rate is over 50 percent.

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Why the National Review Is Wrong to Whine About Moving Prisoners to Thomson Correctional Center
Posted by Byard Duncan, AlterNet on December 15, 2009 at 3:02 PM.

Those lovable chickenhawks over at National Review have a serious problem with Obama’s decision to move Guantanamo inmates to a little-used state prison in Thomson, Ill. Why? Mostly because they’re convinced that these isolated, likely abused people will all of a sudden summon uncanny kung-fu/escape/espionage skills (thus far concealed; it’s all part of their devious plan, you see) and bust out of a facility that’s being upgraded to "beyond supermax:"

TCC is not ready to accommodate international jihadists, who are prone to riot, savagely attack their custodians, attempt escape, and plot terror attacks while in U.S. prisons.

Hmmm…but aren’t prison riots, terrorist plots and maimings pretty hard to carry out when you’re isolated from all other prisoners and under round the clock surveillance by U.S. soldiers? And haven’t residents of Thomson been pretty clear about how much they do want the detainees to be brought there? About how little fear they’re actually experiencing? TCC, by the way, is already equipped with a 12-foot high exterior fence and a 15-foot interior one. The latter includes a two-sided "electric stun barrier."

The threat of escape is only one part of it though, bray the NR editors. Liberal judges, who, like the terrorists, hate our freedom (to detain people without trial), are sure to release these prisoners willy-nilly into the U.S.

Many civilian judges are fundamentally hostile to the concept of indefinite detention under wartime protocols that do not require proof of a crime. With no political accountability to the voters whose lives are at stake, and no guidance from Congress regarding the rules for these detention proceedings, judges have made abominable rulings, vacating the combatant designations of detainees who were trained in terror camps and clearly connected to the jihadist network.

Actually, no judge has ever released a detainee into the United States. And, contrary to this tangled clusterbang of assertions, Obama announced earlier this year that any prisoners brought into the U.S. would continue to be held as “combatants" -- that is, without trial.

Still, the worst part of this is not the ignorance. It's all the crosscurrents of Right-wing doublespeak: The superiority of our nation -- along with that of its people -- must be protected, goes the line of reasoning. Therefore, we ought to keep these detainees incarcerated in a place that’s likely become this generation's biggest symbol of American hypocrisy. Makes sense, right?

Or what about the fact that these armchair generals are so into bragging about the U.S.'s dominance, but refuse to believe that our government could ever contain a few dozen emaciated prisoners? It makes no sense. 

Anyway, big deal if “Gitmo has already been hardened, at a cost of tens of millions of taxpayer dollars.” Big deal if “it is now a state-of-the-art, Geneva Conventions-compliant detention center.” It still exists as a despicable beacon of imperial arrogance -- a symbol the NR editors are all too willing to embrace.

Chuck Norris: Health Reform = Aborted Jesus
Posted by Tana Ganeva, AlterNet on December 15, 2009 at 2:00 PM.

Health reform has turned into a giant, confusing clusterfuck (seems the only thing that's clear at this point is that Joe Lieberman is the worst thing that has ever happened to the world.)

Fortunately, a while back someone gave Chuck Norris a column at Town Hall, and today he applies his subtle political mind to the wrangling over abortion coverage in the health care bills. Here's what he thinks about that, in so many words: Democrats are stabbing the tiny wombs of fetuses. Health reform will go back in time and make Mother Mary abort Jesus. The next Jesus will never be born because poor people prefer abortions to stonings, and "Obamacare" will allow them to choose termination over public ridicule and/or death. 

I'm not exaggerating. Here are the relevant passages:

In short, while President Obama was accepting the Nobel Peace Prize, the Democrats in Congress drove a sword through the womb of the unborn. 

(Yes, the womb of the unborn. They had to use those tiny plastic swords they put in drinks.)

And:

Lastly, as we near the eve of another Christmas, I wonder: What would have happened if Mother Mary had been covered by Obamacare? What if that young, poor and uninsured teenage woman had been provided the federal funds (via Obamacare) and facilities (via Planned Parenthood, etc.) to avoid the ridicule, ostracizing, persecution and possible stoning because of her out-of-wedlock pregnancy?

He brings up this original argument:

Imagine all the great souls who could have been erased from history and the influence of mankind if their parents had been as progressive as Washington's wise men and women!

Here's a relevant Biblical question lawmakers should ask themselves before they proceed with the bill:

Will Obamacare morph into Herodcare for the unborn?

And here's a really good pun:

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Flip Flop Alert: Sarah Palin Just Recently Decided to Join the Idiot Ranks of Climate Deniers
Posted by Tara Lohan, AlterNet on December 15, 2009 at 1:19 PM.

So take a guess who wrote these words:

Alaska's climate is warming. While there have been warming and cooling trends before, climatologists tell us that the current rate of warming is unprecedented within the time of human civilization. Many experts predict that Alaska, along with our northern latitude neighbors, will warm at a faster pace than any other areas, and the warming will continue for decades.

Believe it or not that was Palin in 2008. Thanks to Eugene Robinson for bringing this up in the Washington Post today. And no better place to do so, considering the op-ed the paper ran by Palin last week where she said we did not have "trustworthy science" on climate change and perpetuated the myth of a climate science scandal.

Let's recap some other tidbits. Here's the old Palin:

"Climate change is not just an environmental issue. It is also a social, cultural, and economic issue important to all Alaskans."

And here's the new Palin:

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Why Health Care 'Deform' Might Help Elect a Few Real Progressives
Posted by Daniela Perdomo, AlterNet on December 15, 2009 at 1:00 PM.

I don't call health care reform by that name anymore -- it's entered the unequivocal health care deform category, in my book.

Joe Lieberman is holding real reform hostage, and Harry Reid is weighing only two terrible options: 1) passing a bill devoid of a public option and Medicare expansion, which is the only way he'll secure Lieberman's vote; or 2) instituting an untriggerable trigger, in order to appease Olympia Snowe. Worst of all is Reid framing this as his being backed into a corner -- as if two of the worst options possible are the only ones to choose from.

Forgive the bah-humbug start to this post, but, as they say, this is not "change we can believe in," and I'm getting tired of using Obama's campaign slogan to voice my frustrations about the Democratic leadership's doublespeak.

And new polling shows that I'm not the only one feeling incredibly let-down by the state of the health care nondebate in Washington. This is not surprising to you and me, sure, but given the blind mess in Congress, it appears the polling I'm about to share with you will come as a surprise to Obama, Emanuel, Reid, & Partners.

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Fox News' New Idea For Fighting Unemployment: Decrease the Minimum Wage
Posted by Pat Garofalo, Think Progress on December 15, 2009 at 12:00 PM.

Back in July, when a scheduled increase in the minimum wage from $6.55 to $7.25 per hour was about to take place, Fox News ran a segment examining how “the hike will hurt,” joining a media chorus about the supposed detrimental effect the increase would have on business hiring.

Now, with its Republican-inspired “Where are the jobs?” campaign in full swing, Fox has gone “on the job hunt” with a “new” idea for increasing employment: cutting the minimum wage. Jumping off from an op-ed by Washington Post editorial board member Charles Lane, Fox yesterday ran a handful of segments on the same basic premise — cutting the minimum wage may be the answer to the jobs dilemma. Watch a compilation:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Wow.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Watch it:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

You don't say.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Listen:

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

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

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

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

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

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

 

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

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

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

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

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

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

Read the rest of the post on the flip side »

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

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

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

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

Read the rest of the post on the flip side »

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

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

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

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

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

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

Read the rest of the post on the flip side »

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

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

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

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

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

Read the rest of the post on the flip side »

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

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

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

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

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

Also, the intro to the piece generally:

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

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

Read the rest of the post on the flip side »

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

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

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

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

Read the rest of the post on the flip side »

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

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

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

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

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

Watch it:

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

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

Read the rest of the post on the flip side »

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

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

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

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

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

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

Read the rest of the post on the flip side »

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Read the rest of the post on the flip side »

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

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

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

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

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

Read the rest of the post on the flip side »

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Read the rest of the post on the flip side »

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

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

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

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

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

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

Read the rest of the post on the flip side »

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Read the rest of the post on the flip side »

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

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

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

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

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

Read the rest of the post on the flip side »

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

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

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

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

Read the rest of the post on the flip side »

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

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

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

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

Read the rest of the post on the flip side »

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

****

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

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

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

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

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

Read the rest of the post on the flip side »

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

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

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

The original iStockPhoto:

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

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

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

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

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

Read the rest of the post on the flip side »

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

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

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

Read the rest of the post on the flip side »

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Wrong.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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