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

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

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

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

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

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

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

He has a point.

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

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

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

So what could be wrong with creating more of it?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

SCROLL DOWN FOR VIDEO

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

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

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

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

Just sayin'.

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

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

VIDEO AND TRANSCRIPT AFTER THE JUMP

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Listen here:

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Conservative Bishop Denies Kennedy His Holy Cracker*
Posted by Joshua Holland on November 23, 2009 at 4:30 PM.

Boston Globe:

The war of words between the Catholic bishop of Rhode Island and US Representative Patrick J. Kennedy escalated yesterday when Bishop Thomas J. Tobin criticized him for disclosing a confidential request the prelate made in 2007 to stop receiving Holy Communion because of his stand on moral issues.

Tobin said he was disappointed the congressman had told a newspaper that he had been forbidden from receiving communion in Rhode Island because of Kennedy’s support of abortion rights. The bishop also accused the son of the late Senator Edward M. Kennedy of prolonging their public feud.

[...]

Tobin and Kennedy have been exchanging testy words for weeks. Earlier this month, the bishop, who was installed in 2005, disputed Kennedy’s contention that disagreeing with church hierarchy on matters like abortion rights makes him no less of a Catholic.

“Well in fact, congressman, in a way it does,’’ the bishop wrote in a commentary in the Rhode Island Catholic newspaper. “Your position is unacceptable to the church and scandalous to many of our members.’’

One of the bloggers over at Truthdig sounds the requisite note:

Hey, it’s their clubhouse and rules are rules—just as long as the church also denies communion to politicians who support the death penalty, cut poverty programs and covet thy neighbors’ wives.

Forgot to mention those who are gung-ho for perma-war!

* Kudos to Truthdig's blog for the headline "Give Kennedy His Cracker," presumably a reference to PZ Myers' "Cracker-gate" scandal.

Christians Rap About Not Having Sex: 'Gimme That Christian Side Hug!'
Posted by Tana Ganeva, AlterNet on November 23, 2009 at 4:00 PM.

Abstinence is hard, even when you really love Jesus. That's why seemingly foolproof methods for preserving the virginity of young, unmarried Christians -- like magic purity rings, or having them go on creepy dates with their dads -- seem to make teens have even more premarital sex: a 2009 study found that rates of teen pregnancy are much higher in religious communities, even when lower rates of abortion were accounted for.

But maybe that's just because most efforts to promote abstinence have one fatal flaw: none have a mechanism for ensuring that the genitals of unmarried Christians never align. Fortunately, some rapping youth pastors are on it.

"AWWWW YEAH! Y'all ready to party all up in here?!" yell the mostly white, Christian rappers in a YouTube clip of a live performance. "Gimme that Christian side hug! Gimme that Christian side hug!" they demand, pumping their fists in the air and bouncing a lot, in a very convincing approximation of what black, secular rappers do.

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The Most Racist Sheriff in America's Worst Nightmare: Meet Salvador Reza (Video)
Posted by Laura Flanders, GRITtv on November 23, 2009 at 3:21 PM.

Sheriff Joe Arpaio is a household name for all the wrong reasons. Known for accusations of racial profiling and immigration raids in Maricopa County, Arizona, Arpaio is held up as a hero by anti-immigrant groups but has created a climate of fear in his state, where the Latino community is afraid to call the police for common complaints for fear of deportation. Recently stripped of his federal authority to make immigration arrests, Arpaio continues to conduct raids and appears not to fear repercussions.

Salvador Reza, U.S. Air Force veteran, community organizer and renowned immigrants rights activist, joins Laura for an exclusive interview on Arpaio’s ongoing mistreatment of his community. Reza notes that the Obama administration, specifically Homeland Security secretary and former Arizona governor Janet Napolitano, have mostly made symbolic moves to control Arpaio, but in practice allow him to do whatever he wants. Going forward toward immigration reform, Reza calls for nationwide action.

Thanks to Dennis Gilman for the video footage in this segment.