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

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

The Weekly Standard's Michael Goldfarb:

The Weekly Standard's Mary Katharine Ham:

The Washington Times' Amanda Carpenter:

Conservative blogger Ed Morrissey:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Don't they have more important things to do? 

The SF Weekly reports:

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

Dear Friends,

 

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

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

 Read the rest here.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Qu'ils mangent de la brioche!

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

At last, Grayson issued a belated apology this morning:

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

Amen to that.

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

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

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

Everybody happy now?

Over 100 House Dems Push for Immigration fix
Posted by Cristina Jimenez, DMI Blog on October 27, 2009 at 3:29 PM.

Although the timeline for immigration reform is uncertain, some Democrats argue that reform needs to be considered before next year's midterm elections. Recognizing that there is not much time, 111 House Democrats sent a letter to the President reminding him of his commitment to reform our immigration laws.

The letter was authored by Congressman Crowley (D-NY), who argues that it would be difficult to address immigration reform during election time because candidates would want to avoid the controversy that surrounds the immigration debate. The controversy surrounding immigration, however, won't change unless the debate is reframed. The reality is that providing a path to citizenship for the undocumented would strengthen the economy and the middle-class.

As DMI argues, an earned legalization program would ensure a level playing field between native-born and immigrant workers and increase the economic contribution of immigrants.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Read the rest of the post on the flip side »

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

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

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

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

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

Watch it:

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

Read the rest of the post on the flip side »

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Read the rest of the post on the flip side »

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

SCROLL DOWN FOR VIDEO

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

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

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

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

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

PCCC is also collecting signatures on a petition that reads:

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

Read the rest of the post on the flip side »

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

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

The Washington Post, yesterday:

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

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

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

Politico on Friday:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Read the rest of the post on the flip side »

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

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

TPM:

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

Until Barack Obama came to town.

"Between 1949 and 2009 there were 24 nominees on which cloture was forced," Baker said. "In just the first 9 months of the Obama administration, there have been five such votes."

Despite a record of rather extreme appointments, there were 7 cloture votes during the 8 years of the Bush administration. Of the 29 times such votes have occurred in American history, 20 have been over Democratic nominees and 9 over Republicans. Not surprisingly, before Obama took office, over half of all cloture votes of executive branch appointees had occurred during the Clinton administration -- 13.

Bubba holds the record, but Obama is on pace to shatter it with cloture votes on 28 nominees, more than all other administrations since 1949 combined.

I would just point out how ridiculous this makes the whole wing-nut kerfuffle about Obama's "communist" and unaccountable "czars" -- the officials he is supposedly slipping in around the senate confirmation process. Not that it wasn't already ridiculous -- George W. Bush appointed more czars than Obama, and several of those Fox News and others have attacked as unconfirmed czars (8 out of 30) were actually customary positions filled by people who were in fact duly approved by Congress. But the hypocrisy of leveling the charge while dozens of Obama's appointees still await confirmation 9 months into his term in office is mind-jangling.

Finally, let me just add that People for the American Way is especially interested in one nominee whose block by Republicans has been particularly galling: Dawn Johnsen, Obama's pick to head the Justice Department's Office of Legal Council. OLC advises the executive branch on the law, and during the Bush administration it was packed with right-wing ideologues with an expansive view of executive power (to say the least). It's where  people like "torture memo" authors Jay Bybee and John Yoo basically told the White House it could do anything it wanted as long as they said it had something to do with terrorism.

Johnsen's eminently qualified -- she served as acting head of OLC during the Clinton years, she's been endorsed by former heads of the OLC under both Republican and Democratic administrations; her Republican senator, Dick Lugar, has endorsed her.

The problem for the GOP -- aside from their instinctive desire to play petty games with Obama's nominees -- is that she's really good.  As The New York Times reported, her appointment to head the OLC after the Bybees and Yoos brought it so much well earned infamy represents the kind of change Obama promised but has so far failed to deliver in many other areas:

Ms. Johnsen, a law professor at Indiana University, was an unsparing critic of memorandums, written by lawyers at the Office of Legal Counsel in the Bush administration, that said the president could largely ignore international treaties and Congress in fighting terrorists and that critics have portrayed as allowing torture in interrogation.

The broad reading of presidential authority was “outlandish,” and the constitutional arguments were “shockingly flawed,” Ms. Johnsen has written. While her language was harsh, the memos have largely been withdrawn, and among lawyers a consensus agreeing with her views has emerged.

Nonetheless, Republicans have denounced her comments.

If you'd like to see Dawn Johnsen's nomination get an up or down vote, sign PFAW's petition here.

Will Your Member of Congress Get the Swine Flu Vaccine?
Posted by Staff, AlterNet on October 24, 2009 at 1:53 PM.

Jordy Yager reports for The Hill:

Democratic and Republican lawmakers cannot agree on whether to get the swine flu vaccine even after this week’s first reported case of a member of Congress catching the illness.

Some, like Minority Leader John Boehner (R-Ohio), are choosing not to get vaccinated, at least not immediately. Others, like Rep. Nydia Velazquez (D-N.Y.), want it but can’t get it. She tried, but is not among the vulnerable categories that have first call on limited supplies.

Read the rest here.

Peggy Noonan Recalls When Bush Wrapped Himself in His Own Failure
Posted by Steve M., No More Mister Nice Blog on October 24, 2009 at 7:48 AM.

It's hard to have a simple response to Peggy Noonan's opening paragraphs this week:

At a certain point, a president must own a presidency. For George W. Bush that point came eight months in, when 9/11 happened. From that point on, the presidency -- all his decisions, all the credit and blame for them -- was his. The American people didn't hold him responsible for what led up to 9/11, but they held him responsible for everything after it. This is part of the reason the image of him standing on the rubble of the twin towers, bullhorn in hand, on Sept.14, 2001, became an iconic one. It said: I'm owning it.

"I'm owning it." Noonan's partly right about that: after running scared on 9/11 and ducking the situation for a couple of days, Bush began on that Friday to act as if having presided over the worst act of terrorism ever on U.S. soil was a mark of virtue.

Read the rest of the post on the flip side »

Mississippi GOPer Jokes About "Hunting Liberal Democrats"
Posted by David Neiwert, Orcinus on October 24, 2009 at 5:13 AM.

Ah, feel the eliminationism.

Rep. Gregg Harper, a Mississippi Republican, had a jocular interview with Politico's Anne Schroeder Mullins and popped out this little knee-slapper:

Mullins: What in the world does the Congressional Sportsmen’s Caucus do? 

Harper: We hunt liberal, tree-hugging Democrats, although it does seem like a waste of good ammunition.

Coming from a congressman from a state still renowned for its lynchings and murders not just of black people but white civil-rights workers -- in an era many of us can still remember clearly -- this kind of "humor" is anything but funny.

However, it is the kind of thing we've come to expect to today's Republicans, isn't it?

Not that makes any difference to Blue Dog Democrats like Ben Nelson. As Media Matters notes:

Ironically, Sen. Ben Nelson (D-NE), a co-chair of the caucus, has praised the group for being bipartisan. "Unlike some of the other activities in Washington, Republicans and Democrats reach across the aisle and join hands to work together, not as Republican or Democrat, but as sportsmen and women," he wrote.

Someone should ask Ben Nelson if he enjoys hunting liberal Democrats too, since that's what his caucus is apparently viewed as a venue for.

(Addendum: Somehow I'm not surprised that Harper is a Mississippian who thinks John Grisham is a "literary great" who surpasses Faulkner and Welty. Gad.)

Cross-posted at Crooks and Liars.

Majority of Americans Really Like the Idea of a Public Insurance Option
Posted by mcjoan, Daily Kos on October 23, 2009 at 3:39 PM.

Read the rest of the post on the flip side »

Alan Grayson Schools GA Wing-Nut Paul Broun on Constitution
Posted by Staff, AlterNet on October 23, 2009 at 11:50 AM.

Two of the House's most vocal members spar over the GOP's ongoing jihad against ACORN. Hat-tip to Jill C. at Brilliant at Breakfast, who adds: "It's frightening that Republicans who know absolutely nothing about the Constitution are allowed to create law in this country."

Lindsey Graham Drilled by Big Oil
Posted by Steven D., Booman Tribune on October 23, 2009 at 8:46 AM.

Republican Senator from the Great State of South Carolina, Lindsey Graham, apparently isn't chummy enough with one of the major constituencies of the Republican Party. Neoconservatives? No, not them. Religious Fundamentalists? Maybe, but he's still talking the talk. Glenn Beck and the tea-baggers? You betcha, but that's not the group that he's really offended. Offended enough that they are running advocacy ads against him in his home state. No the group that is really pissed off at Senator Graham is the group that thought he was always in their hip pocket, bought and paid for, as it were: Big Oil: 

WASHINGTON -- A Washington advocacy group with close ties to Big Oil started running ads Thursday on South Carolina radio stations, targeting Sen. Lindsey Graham for supporting taxes on carbon emissions.

Read the rest of the post on the flip side »

Public Option Looking Good In the Senate ... Baucus Ballistic, According to ABC News
Posted by Adele Stan, AlterNet on October 22, 2009 at 2:00 PM.

After weeks of hand-wringing over the alleged inevitability of a filibuster against any health-care reform bill that contains a public insurance plan, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid now thinks he has the votes, according to Jonathan Karl of ABC News, to bring a bill with a public option to the Senate floor, where it is almost sure to win. Karl writes:

Reid is now convinced that Democratic critics of the public option will support him when it counts – on the procedural motion, which requires 60 votes, to defeat a certain GOP-led filibuster of the bill. Once the filibuster is beaten, it only takes 51 votes to pass the bill.

And one health-care camper is said to be very unhappy: Max Baucus, D-Mont., chairman of Senate Finance Committee, whose bill purposefully omitted any public health plan. As Karl explains:

I am told that Senate Finance Chairman Max Baucus (D-MT) – who worked for months to get Olympia Snowe’s support for the bill and has consistently said a public option cannot pass the Senate – was apoplectic when Reid told him he wanted to include the public option. “Baucus went to DEFCON 1,” said a source familiar with the negotiations, referring to the alert level the military uses for an imminent attack on the homeland.

 

 

Video: Grayson: FOX News the "Enemy of America," Interchangeable with the National Enquirer
Posted by Adele Stan, AlterNet on October 22, 2009 at 7:15 AM.

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On last night's edition of MSNBC's The Ed Show, Rep. Alan Grayson, D-Fla., was asked about the Obama administration's criticism of FOX News. Over the last week, administration officials, including Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel, adviser David Axelrod, and Communications Director Anita Dunn have all painted FOX as "not a news organization," in Emanuel's words.

Asked by host Ed Schultz if the administration was wise to pick a fight with FOX, Grayson replied:

Sure. What you do with a bully is you confront the bully and the bully backs down. That's a good description of FOX News. People come on the air -- they insult them, as they did me, they cut off their mics, as they did me, they shout at them and they interrupt them, as they did me, and they curse at them, as they did me. And why would anybody think that FOX News is some sort of valid news organization like that? FOX News and the National Enquirer are basically interchangeable.

You know, FOX News and their Republican collaborators are the enemy of America. They're the enemy of anybody who cares about health care in this country, they're the enemy of anybody who cares about educating their children, the enemy of everybody who cares about energy independence, or anything good for this country, and certainly the enemy of peace.

Read the rest of the post on the flip side »

Conservatives Hunt for 'Bias' in Health Care Polling Data Armed With Complete and Total Ignorance
Posted by Simon Maloy, Media Matters for America on October 21, 2009 at 2:19 PM.

Working at NewsBusters must be one of the cushier gigs out there. If a NewsBuster spies a bit of news that he or she doesn't like, all they have to do is write the equivalent of "OMG TEH BIAS" stretched out to a couple of hundred words. And they certainly don't need facts to form the basis of an argument, they just start from the premise that the media is liberally biased and let the conjecture flow from there. The entire enterprise is one big logical fallacy -- they start at the conclusion and work backwards.

Take, for instance, the new Washington Post/ABC News poll showing strong support for a health care reform bill that contains a public option. Clearly, a conservative outfit like NewsBusters wouldn't care for such a dataset, so they set out to discredit the poll with -- you guessed it -- accusations of liberal bias. NewsBuster Tim Graham noted that the poll sample was 33 percent Democrat compared to 20 percent Republican, and accused the Washington Post (but not ABC, for some reason) of "stuffing its poll sample with a few extra Democrats" to get the result they wanted. Mind you, he has no actual evidence that the Washington Post did this, he's just using the following logic, if it can be called that:

1) The Washington Post/ABC News poll sampled more liberal Democrats.

2) The Washington Post is part of the liberal media.

3) The liberal Washington Post rigged their liberal poll to get the liberal result they wanted. Liberal.

Accusing a polling outfit of cooking its data to achieve a predetermined outcome is a pretty serious charge. It's also fairly outlandish and can be easily dismissed with just a basic understanding of one of the fundamental aspects of opinion polling -- the random sample. Polling guru Nate Silver gave an excellent rundown of this very topic last fall when liberals complained about a Fox News poll that oversampled Republicans:

Read the rest of the post on the flip side »

Video: Heather Graham Makes Public Option Sexy in MoveOn Ad
Posted by AlterNet Staff, AlterNet on October 21, 2009 at 10:00 AM.

Video: Pressure Mounts For Public Option in Senate; Harry Reid Targeted by Progressive Change Ad
Posted by Adele Stan, AlterNet on October 21, 2009 at 6:00 AM.

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As Senate negotiators continue to convene on crafting a final bill for health-care reform, support for a public health insurance plan seems to be gaining, the Washington Post reports, even among reluctant moderates. Perhaps the latest Washington Post/ABC News poll, which shows majority public support for the public option -- as much as 76 percent, depending on the make-up of the program -- has lit a fire under the seats of lagging senators.

Still, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid has yet to pledge his support for writing a public option into the final bill, which will combine the legislation passed by the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee, and the one passed last week in the Finance Committee. The HELP Committee bill features a public option, while the Finance bill does not.

At issue for Reid is the math of the Senate, where 60 votes are required to call off a promised Republican filibuster, a legislative maneuver that would prevent the final bill from coming to the Senate floor for a vote. The Democrats have exactly 60 seats in the Senate (if you include the two independents who caucus with the Democrats), but not all are on board -- and one, Sen. Robert Byrd of West Virgina, may not be well enough to come to the Capitol to cast a vote. The margin for voting down a filibuster may be as small as three votes.

Progressives seem to be saying, regardless of the arithmetic, it's time to take a stand. The Progressive Change Campaign Committee is currently raising money to run an ad in Nevada, Harry Reid's home state, where he faces a difficult election next year. The ad asks whether Reid is "strong enough" to stand on principle.

Other machinations on the public option continue as well in the Senate. Democrats want to increase payments to doctors who accept Medicare, codifying a fix that is usually made ad-hoc in other spending bills. This would allow those crafting the final bill to tie the costs of a public plan to Medicare reimbursements.

Republicans are mounting opposition to the Medicare tie-in as currently written, because it would involve deficit spending. Sen. Richard Durbin, D-Ill., told the New York Times, "Republicans believe they can derail health care reform by defeating the doctor fix. That’s what this is all about."

VIDEO AFTER THE JUMP

Read the rest of the post on the flip side »

Obama to Karzai: Thanks for Admitting You're Crooked
Posted by John Nichols, TheNation.com on October 20, 2009 at 4:30 PM.

Barack Obama will have to do some awfully embarrassing things as president. The whole pardoning the turkey thing on the eve of Thanksgiving comes to mind. And then there's the taking John Boehner seriously thing -- an admittedly impossible task that must be undertaken as perhaps the most thankless burden of the republic.

On the scale of exceptionally embarrassing White House duties, however, few moments will rival the point on Tuesday when the president found himself hailing the commitment of accused election-fraudster Hamid Karzai to "ensuring a credible process for the Afghan people which results in a government that reflects their will."

Karzai, the imposed viceroy, er, president of Afghanistan whose supporters engaged in massive fraud in order to "win" the country's recent election, has agreed to participate in a November 7 runoff election with Abdullah Abdullah – the most resilient survivor of the Karzai team's chicanery.

Obama, who is heavily invested in the fantasy that Karzai is a legitimate leader and that the U.S.-led occupation of Afghanistan will somehow develop popular support there (or in the United States), knows that the Afghan president is no democrat.

But the American president must pretend that Afghanistan is a functional republic that meets internationally-accepted standards with regard to voting, counting and reporting results.

That's not the case. Independent agencies and analysts have confirmed that fraud was so widespread that it was unreasonable to claim Karzai -- or anyone else -- had one.

Karzai's association with election fraud and corruption has made it harder for U.S. officials to proceed with plans to ramp up the occupation by sending in more troops and transforming a classic military presence into a more permanent project.

So Karzai had to agree to at least go through the motions of participating in a real election.

And when he did, Obama hailed a man who stands accused of orchestrating a massive effort to thwart democracy as someone whose "constructive actions established an important precedent for Afghanistan's new democracy."

Obama's precise statement went like this: "While this election could have remained unresolved to the detriment of the country, President Karzai's constructive actions established an important precedent for Afghanistan's new democracy. The Afghan constitution and laws are strengthened by President Karzai's decision, which is in the best interests of the Afghan people."

The "yuck factor" was high.

But it got higher when Obama praised Karzai for helping to foster "such a vibrant campaign."

It is, of course, true that Obama is not the first American president to have to pretend that a local bad guy who got caught red handed was some kind of statesman.

Still, having to speak well of Karzai is a lot -- arguably too much -- to ask.

And if Obama has any sense of the region -- or of the trouble his Afghanistan initiative is in -- he had to be hoping that Karzai and his henchmen would refrain from obvious lawbreaking in the second round.

Read the rest of the post on the flip side »

In Order to Succeed, Obama Must Forge Progressive Alliances and Deliver on Them
Posted by Mike Lux, Open Left on October 20, 2009 at 1:16 PM.

One thing that every major policy initiative the Obama administration has taken/has been forced to take on (most of them are in the latter category given the stakes) early in their term have in common is their overwhelming complexity. I am glad we have a President with real brains and a mind that can understand complexity, because when I think about the problems we have, and what it will take to solve them, the idea of George W. Bush, John McCain, or Sarah Palin being in charge gives me a bad case of the shivers. Think about what is on this President's plate: solving the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression, dealing with the mess in Afghanistan, finding a long term international solution to climate change, finally reforming health care in a comprehensive way, dealing with an utterly out of control and corrupt financial sector, finally finding a fair and comprehensive solution to immigration reform. I know I'm missing some big things, but you get my point. There's not a single issue on this list that is simple to resolve, either substantively or politically. This level of major issues and crises to handle really does rival only a few other Presidents- Washington, Adams, and Jefferson in our nation's earliest days, Lincoln in the Civil War years, FDR. So thank goodness he's smart, and thank goodness he has surrounded himself with a lot of really bright advisers, because to make progress- let alone resolve- these issues is going to take a huge amount of brain power.

Brain power is not enough, though...

History has numerous examples of smart Presidents whose presidencies were not especially successful- John and John Quincy Adams, James Buchanan, William Howard Taft, Herbert Hoover, Richard Nixon all come to mind. John Adams was just as smart as Jefferson, Buchanan had as much brain power as Lincoln, Hoover was considered by his peers a genius while FDR was considered an intellectual lightweight. Yet all three of the former lost the confidence of the American people and essentially failed as Presidents, while all three of the latter not only succeeded as Presidents but became known in history as three of our greatest. They kept the American's people's confidence in spite of the hard times they were leading the country through.

In spite of the incredibly complex and dangerous challenges and crises those great Presidents faced, in spite of setbacks they had and mistakes they made, the public ultimately stuck with them through all the tough times. My belief is that the reason that happened was not because of the results these Presidents achieved but because the people felt confident that those Presidents shared their values and were really fighting on their behalf. Jefferson barely made it into office after the massive electoral college meltdown in the 1800 election, did hugely controversial things such as the Louisiana Purchase, and was attacked as viciously as any President in history, but his faith in regular people and in democracy itself (still a very contentious idea in the early American political debate) bonded him to Americans as they were trying to forge their identity as a new kind of nation. Lincoln suffered setback after setback in the Civil War, but his noble spirit, steadfast values to his vision of America, and his unyielding determination made the country love him in spite of the horrors of the war. And FDR was able to forge a lasting and passionate bond with his countrymen and women even with times so tough, and later with that awful war against tough odds we had to fight. In every case, the country knew their Presidents were fighting for them, knew their Presidents shared their values, and even in the toughest of times remained loyal to them as leaders.

We face another juncture in history where the challenges are incredibly tough, the problems devastatingly complicated. The test of this President through all these tough times is whether regular Americans trust that he is fighting for them. Through all the complicated policy debates, and all the complicated politics, does he make choices that show he is on their side? Will he step up and fight for a public option that will give genuine competition to the private insurers that people know do not have their best interests at heart? Will he really take on the "Too Big To Fail" banks and rein in their power and corruption of our political and economic system? Will he really fight like crazy to squeeze out every new job in this economy, not just tell people that "jobs are a lagging indicator" and say that they will get here eventually?

Read the rest of the post on the flip side »

Sen. Coburn's Office Responds to AlterNet: Our Story on The Family Based on "a Conspiracy Theory"
Posted by Adele Stan, AlterNet on October 20, 2009 at 1:00 PM.

Our story on The Family, the secretive religious group based on Capitol Hill, has apparently caught the eye of one of the senators we mention.

After the story posted, John Hart, director of communications for Sen. Tom Coburn, R-Okla., returned the call I had placed the day before. As one might expect, he takes issue with my characterization of The Family as depicted in the essay.

For starters, Hart asserted that "there's a tremendous disparity in economic policy positions" among the senators who take part in Family activities. Hart cited the example of Sen. Bill Nelson, D-Fla., who, after a long silence on health-care reform, voted in favor of the Finance Committee bill. (Nelson is one of a smattering of Democrats associated with The Family. The overwhelming character of the group is Republican.)

Hart took issue with my emphasis on The Family's doctrine of "biblical capitalism" as a theological principle that governs the policy aims of some members. "That’s a term I’ve never heard [Sen. Coburn] use," Hart said. "That’s not a serious theological term."

Coburn's opposition to government programs, Hart said, stemmed from his concern for the poor. "His faith informs everything he does," Hart said. He went on to say that, in the New Testament, Jesus mentions the poor some 300 times. "He doesn't view the Bible as a think-tank document.," Hart said. So, Coburn, before he contemplates a policy, Hart said, first asks himself, "How will it impact the people least able to fend for themselves?"

"He has come to the conclusion that large government enterprises harm poor more than help them," Hart said, offering Medicaid as an example. He conceded that the government health-care program does help some poor people, but he contends that it hurts others, because "40 percent of doctors refuse to accept Medicaid." (Coburn is an MD himself.)

Hart said that the expansion of Medicaid beyond the ranks of the "truly poor" will only hurt more people. A truly compassionate health-care program, Hart asserted in a subsequent e-mail, is this one, proposed by Coburn in lieu of the bills currently under consideration in the Senate.

Aside from concern for the impact of government programs on the poor, Coburn also challenges the notion that deficit spending is compassionate, Hart wrote, giving as an example, this quote from Coburn:

It is deeply personal with me. I have five grandchildren. I look in their eyes, and I see the potential of their lives and all of these other children who are out there. There is tremendous potential in them. You know what? We are going to waterboard them. That is what we are going to do. We are going to waterboard them. We are going to flood them with debt. We are going to shackle their opportunities. We are going to limit their possibilities because we don't have the courage to make the difference for their future.

In our conversation, Hart said that the picture of The Family painted by Jeff Sharlet (to whom he referred as "Jeff Charlatan") is "an invention and a conspiracy theory that panders to one constituency’s ideological prejudices." (People on the right, he said, also indulge in conspiracy theories.) Coburn's Jesus is not a matter of politics, Hart said. He then inverted my assertion that the Jesus of the family was, in essence, a figure conjured to suit right-wing politics. "Dr. Coburn would be profoundly offended if you said that his friend, Barack Obama, was less of a Christian because he took a different approach," he said.

In my essay, I note as evidence of The Family's laissez-faire approach to the needy the dispassionate reply Coburn offered to a woman at a town-hall meeting who was sobbing because the insurer of her husband, who was recovering from a brain injury, had cut off his nursing-home care, and refused to cover the costs of a speech pathologist who could help him learn how to speak again. (While he offered to help her as an individual constituent, he said that the idea that government was the solution to her problems was wrong, and then spoke to the audience about how neighbors have to do a better job helping neighbors.)

Hart said that Coburn and his staff spent hours with the woman in his office, going over her options. Later, I asked Hart via e-mail whether Coburn had ultimately been able to help the woman.  Here's his reply:

Yes, our staff spent many hours helping her. What helped the most though was a speech pathologist in Tulsa saw the story on CNN and called our office. We then put her in contact with the lady from the town hall. The speech pathologist referred the lady to an organization in Oklahoma City that was willing to assist with treatments. As of last week we were told the husband is making progress.
 
This shows that Coburn’s answer was correct. She didn’t need a costly new government programs. Her neighbors and existing programs and services were able to help.

SC GOPers Use Anti-Semitic Stereotypes to Defend Sen. Jim DeMint
Posted by BarbinMD, Daily Kos on October 20, 2009 at 12:30 PM.

HuffPost:

After a Democratic state senator wrote in The State that DeMint didn't bring enough money back home, Bamberg County GOP Chairman Edwin Merwin and Orangeburg County GOP Chairman James Ulmer responded that he was just looking after the nation's pennies -- like a Jew would.

"There is a saying that the Jews who are wealthy got that way not by watching dollars, but instead by taking care of the pennies and the dollars taking care of themselves," Ulmer and Merwin wrote in a joint letter published by The Times and Democrat. "By not using earmarks to fund projects for South Carolina and instead using actual bills, DeMint is watching our nation's pennies and trying to preserve our country's wealth and our economy's viability to give all an opportunity to succeed."

Obviously, Merwin and Ulmer used the anti-Semitic stereotype to praise DeMint, but that doesn't excuse their words. The depiction of Jews as misers is an offensive stereotype that has been used throughout history to fan the flames of anti-Semitism. If they weren't aware of this, then they are genuinely clueless; if they were aware of it, they are bigots.

As the conservative Palmetto Scoop writes, things like this are why "many folks fear for the future of the once Grand Ole Party." As well they should.

Read the rest of the post on the flip side »

The Right Is Still Clutching Its Beloved Torture Policies
Posted by Byard Duncan, AlterNet on October 20, 2009 at 9:00 AM.

Gen. Michael V. Hayden, the man who served as George W. Bush’s CIA director from 2006 to 2009, presented an interesting theory Monday regarding Obama’s April decision to release DOJ torture opinions. In a guest column on CNN.com, Hayden asserted that Obama’s move was “a political one, not a legal one -- a question of choice rather than necessity.”

The flaws with this argument reside on two levels. First of all, it’s somewhat absurd that Hayden would take such a strong stance against transparency, given his prominent involvement in the NSA’s warrantless wiretapping fiasco of 2005 -- arguably this decade’s most ruthless campaign to ascertain intelligence. Guess transparency only goes one way.

But what’s really frustrating about Hayden’s piece is its subtle attempt to relegate an inconvenient little thing called "public opinion" to a separate, de-politicized sphere in the broader discourse on torture. Obama did what he did only because he wanted to, Hayden argues; it was "a deliberate decision and, if it is to be defended, history (and journalism) should demand that it be defended on those grounds and not on some hapless "the judge was going to make me do it" argument."

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Spell "Quagmire" A-F-G-H-A-N-I-S-T-A-N
Posted by Joshua Holland, AlterNet on October 19, 2009 at 2:11 PM.

There are few pundits quite as dishonest as the WaPo's Jackson Diehl, so who knows if his concern-trolling on behalf of our European allies is even true:

As the president and his National Security Council privately debate whether to send tens of thousands of troops to war, America's European allies watch with a mixture of anxiety and anguish. They know that if the deployment goes forward, they will be asked to make their own difficult and politically costly contributions of soldiers or other personnel. But they are, if anything, even more worried that the American president will choose a feckless strategy for what they consider a critical mission. And they are frustrated that they must watch and wait -- and wait and wait -- for the president to make up his mind.

To back his contention, he cites Swedish Foreign Minister Carl Bildt and NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen, then fleshes it out with the words of a "senior commander in one European army," "the words of one ambassador" and "another ambassador." So there are two Europeans whose quotes are perfectly inline with Diehl's personal preference for more military force in Afghanistan. And apparently, they basically represent a continental consensus:

European governments bought in to Obama's ambitious plan to pacify Afghanistan when he presented it in March. Unlike the U.S. president, they mostly haven't had second thoughts. By and large they agree with the recommendations developed by the commander Obama appointed, Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal, who says that unless the momentum of the Taliban is broken in the next year, the war may be lost.

Even if we buy his story, it's worth noting that Diehl's never met a foreign war he didn't like and was naturally far less sympathetic to European sensibilities when most of those in the Old Country vehemently opposed the invasion of Iraq.

Now he's become so preoccupied with the idea that the Yur-peans may think us wobbly -- and perhaps less-than-manly -- if the Obama administration chooses not to escalate the conflict that he doesn't bother to argue why we should.

He doesn't articulate what success in Afghanistan might look like, and he takes it as a given that more troops would finally give NATO forces the upper hand.  

But that is anything but a sure thing ...

Read the rest of the post on the flip side »

Absurd: AP Asks, Is Obama "Obnoxiously Articulate"?
Posted by Ari Melber, TheNation.com on October 16, 2009 at 8:30 AM.

Political reporters have now toggled from worrying that Obama gets "too much" media coverage to asking whether he is "too" good at communicating through the media. Maybe even obnoxiously good. Maybe even -- here comes that loaded word from the primaries -- too articulate.

The A.P.'s Liz Sidoti is on the case. And this is from a news article:

Obama has been a constant presence in the mass media as he expands the bureaucracy's reach into the private sector.... In doing so, he has created a quandary. Put aside for a moment the question of whether government is actually intruding into people's lives more than before. The point is that many people feel like it is -- in part because Obama doesn't stop talking about his goals. If President George W. Bush got slapped around for being inarticulate, is Obama obnoxiously articulate?

What a quandary!

Once you "put aside" the actual facts and policy debate, there's that President talking on the TV about "his goals" -- and talking so articulately -- it just makes you wonder if the government is going to tell you how to mow your lawn. Or something. The article doesn't really try to support its own premise, as blogger Brendan Nyhan explains:

Sidoti is forced to admit later in the piece that she has no empirical support for her claim:

While Obama has been criticized for being too visible, AP-GfK surveys in the spring and summer found that most people say he is on TV about the right amount.

Read the rest of the post on the flip side »

The Dow and the Down and Out
Posted by Robert Greenwald, Brave New Films on October 16, 2009 at 8:23 AM.

While markets surged past 10,000, the official unemployment rate stood near 10 percent. The United States is in a unique historical position. People on top are doing extraordinarily well, but in the real world the middle class is collapsing. The top 1 percent owns more wealth then the bottom 90 percent. CEOs of large corporations earn 400 times what their workers make. That is not what America is supposed to be about. With all the issues we are dealing with -- from health care to global warming to wars in Afghanistan and Iraq – please do not forgot what is happening to tens of millions of our brothers and our sisters out there who are struggling hard to keep their heads above water.

Senator Sanders Unfiltered is a weekly web program produced by Brave New Films. Submit your own video question for next week's show here.

Video: Birther Queen Rapped With $20,000 Fine: The End of Orly Taitz?
Posted by Adele Stan, AlterNet on October 14, 2009 at 7:16 AM.

Orly Taitz, the one-woman freak show who has kept alive the birther conspiracy alleging that President Obama was not born in the U.S., has been slapped with a $20,000 fine by a federal judge for abusing her privileges as a lawyer.

Balloon Juice, covering the case under the delightful headline, "Don't Taitz Me, Bro," combed through the decision of Judge Clay Land of Georgia's Middle District to find this juicy bit:

[P]erhaps an eccentric citizen has become convinced that the President is an alien from Mars, and the courts should order DNA testing to enforce the Constitution [7]...

[7] The Court does not make this observation simply as a rhetorical device for emphasis; the Court has actually received correspondence assailing its previous order in which the sender, who, incidentally, challenged the undersigned to a "round of fisticuffs on the Courthouse Square," asserted that the President is not human."

Read the rest of the post on the flip side »

As Elections Approach, Iraq Flexes Its Political Muscle in Iran
Posted by Robert Dreyfuss, The Nation on October 14, 2009 at 6:00 AM.

Several top Iraqi politicians have been making the rounds in Iran lately, getting support from Tehran in advance of elections scheduled in Iraq for January. Among the politicians: Ammar al-Hakim, the son of the late Abdel Aziz al-Hakim, the head of the Islamic Supreme Council of Iraq (ISCI), and Ibrahim al-Jaafari, the former Iraqi prime minister who leads a breakaway faction of the Islamic Call (Dawa) party in Iraq.

Their tour, which reflects Iran's intimate relationship to many Iraqi politicians, is a sign that Iran is paying close attention to Iraqi politics. Over the summer, top Iranian officials, including Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Iran's Leader, urged Shiite Iraqis to re-unite into a unified movement for the elections. Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, who leads another faction of Dawa, initially wanted to join the Shiite bloc, but he demanded too much as a condition for joining, and he eventually opted out. The new Iraqi bloc includes Hakim's ISCI, the Sadrists, Jaafari's Dawa faction, and other Shiite groups. (Maliki still maintains close ties to Iran, however.)

The issue of Iran's influence in Iraq is critical for President Obama's policy toward both countries. The ongoing US talks with Iran, if they make progress, could create space for Iran and the United States to work together on stabilizing Iraq in 2010, when at least 70,000 US troops are scheduled to leave Iraq. But if the US-Iran talks falter, Iran could use its influence in Iraq to create conflict, greatly complicating the planned US pullout. And, of course, if the US-Iran conflict escalates toward confrontation and war, Iran can use its military, intelligence, and political power in Iraq to inflict casualties on American troops there.

Last week, Hakim -- himself a cleric -- visited several top Iranian ayatollahs in Qom, including Ayatollah Makarem Shirazi and Ayatollah Ali Safi Golpayegani, both relative hardliners in the Iranian spectrum. Shirazi told Hakim that "security in Iraq and Iran are inseparable," and he issued a not-so-veiled criticism of US allegations that Iran supports violent Shiite groups that attack US forces, according to the Tehran Times, saying,

"I am surprised to hear some countries saying Iran helps terrorists in Iraq, while Iraq's peace and security is our security and the two countries are not separable."

The Tehran Times added: 

"The ayatollah also warned that the enemy is promoting Iranophobia and Iraqophobia, expressing hope that the two countries could thwart the enemy's efforts through joint cooperation.

"Everyone should be aware of the enemy's plots and this fact that the enemy is greedy about Iraq, he added."

Read the rest of the post on the flip side »

Video: Andrew Sullivan Calls Human Rights Campaign "the Battered Wife of the Democratic Party"
Posted by Adele Stan, AlterNet on October 13, 2009 at 6:00 AM.

White House Muddying the Waters on Gay Rights
Posted by Steve M., No More Mister Nice Blog on October 13, 2009 at 4:24 AM.

John Harwood went on CNBC yesterday and, in the context of a discussion of the gay-rights march, said that "the White House views this opposition as really part of the 'internet left fringe.'" We've since heard from a White House spokesman that that's not really the administration's attitude toward gay-rights activists or lefty bloggers, and Harwood has said that the quote is accurate but was a reference to lefty bloggers rather than gay activists.

I'm seeing this as a very deliberate self-contradiction two-step.

I saw the Bush White House do something like this back in 2004. There was a tough presidential race that year, and days before the Republicans were about to hold a convention in which they were going to fire up the base, very much including the religious-right base, Dick Cheney went out and said he personally supported allowing states to legalize gay marriage. That was clearly an attempt to mollify moderates without alienating fundamentalists -- the president still supported banning gay marriage altogether, as did the party platform, but soccer moms heard a different message.

The deliberate muddying of the message was the message.

That's what's going on now. Obama reached out to the gay community -- and yet he wants to be seen as not being tight with gays or the angrier lefties. So a friendly journalist leaked this remark -- this deniable remark -- which has since been, um, denied. And now the message is muddied. The mixed signals are meant, I think, to confuse supporters of gay rights and wavering but potentially Democratic-voting non-liberal voters (including non-white social conservatives) in, oh, say, New Jersey and Virginia.

Did I say "friendly journalist"? Yeah -- John Harwood seems quite close to the Obama White House. He's interviewed Obama a number of times during the campaign and presidency. I don't believe he'd have messed up his extraordinary access to the president by delivering a message the White House didn't want delivered.

But, as I say, it's a message the White House also wanted to deny. So it was made deniable.

I think most White Houses do things like this. That doesn't make them any less ugly.

What Would Truly Humane and Progressive Immigration Reform Look Like
Posted by Duke1676, Daily Kos on October 12, 2009 at 4:52 PM.

On Tuesday Oct 13th, members of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus led by Rep. Luis Gutierrez(Il-D), will be joined in Washington by 2,500 representatives of labor, immigrant advocacy and civil rights groups, and faith-based communities from across the country to unveil what is being touted as a list fundamental principles behind a new progressive, comprehensive immigration bill to be introduced before the end of the month.

"I am overwhelmed by the support of immigrant, faith-based and community-based organizations in urging me to introduce comprehensive immigration legislation. I look forward to joining them on Tuesday so that I can share with them more specifically the key principles that will form the basis of such a bill," said Rep. Gutierrez.

"We simply cannot wait any longer for a bill that keeps our families together, protects our workers and allows a pathway to legalization for those who have earned it," continued Rep. Gutierrez. "Saying immigration is a priority for this Administration or this Congress is not the same as seeing tangible action, and the longer we wait, the more every single piece of legislation we debate will be obstructed by our failure to pass comprehensive reform."

"We need a bill that says if you come here to hurt our communities, we will not support you; but if you are here to work hard and to make a better life for your family, you will have the opportunity to earn your citizenship.  We need a law that says it is un-American for a mother to be torn from her child, and it is unacceptable to undermine our workforce by driving the most vulnerable among us further into the shadows."

"I believe the support base for this kind of compassionate and comprehensive legislation is strong and far reaching, and I believe the votes are there to pass it. I have always said that immigration reform will not be easy; but it is time we had a workable plan working its way through Congress that recognizes the vast contributions of immigrants to this country and that honors the American Dream."

We have yet to see Rep Gutierrez's recommendations, but after years of controversy and partisan fighting, we are still no closer to any meaningful new national immigration policy than we were over eight years ago when President Bush first claimed he would make it a top priority upon taking office. Much of the blame for this situation clearly rests on the shoulders of the anti-immigrant wing of the Republican Party, who chose political expediency and a divisive brand of slash and burn political theater over the responsible execution of their duties.

But, there have also been divisions within the Democratic Party that have helped stall the effort. While generally stating support for some sort of "comprehensive reform," there has been little consensus on exactly what that reform should entail.

We’ve seen numerous compromise bills, intended to find a “sweet spot” that would appease all parties, go down in flames after concessions were made to restrictionists to accept their far-right policies as a prerequisite to even bringing the issue to the table, only later to find that no matter how many concessions were made, or how restrictive or punitive the legislation ...they were never satisfied.

Read the rest of the post on the flip side »

Politico Gets to the Bottom of the F#%&ing Story!
Posted by BarbinMD, Daily Kos on October 12, 2009 at 2:39 PM.

Are the Tea-Partiers Really Poised to Turn on the GOP?
Posted by Steve M., No More Mister Nice Blog on October 12, 2009 at 1:22 PM.

Digby aimai and Steve Benen are saying, "Pass the popcorn," but I'm pessimistic about the apparent sabotage of the GOP by its own zealots:

Tea partiers turn on GOP leadership

...Whether it's the loose confederation of Washington-oriented groups that have played an organizational role or the state-level activists who are channeling grass-roots anger into action back home, tea party forces are confronting the Republican establishment by backing insurgent conservatives and generating their own candidates -- even if it means taking on GOP incumbents.

"We will be a headache for anyone who believes the Constitution of the United States … isn’t to be protected," said Dick Armey, chairman of the anti-tax and limited government advocacy group FreedomWorks, which helped plan and promote the tea parties, town hall protests and the September 'Taxpayer March’ in Washington. "If you can't take it seriously, we will look for places of other employment for you."

"We're not a partisan organization, and I think many Republicans are disappointed we are not," added Armey, a former GOP congressman....

Well, that last statement is a crock. Of course Armey's organization is partisan. It just wants the GOP to be more GOP than it is now.

And it'll get its way.

See, as long as there's a need for a 60-vote supermajority in the Senate to pass any legislation in D.C., and as long as all non-Maine Republican senators hang together on just about every vote of consequence, and as long as they're routinely joined by Stockholm-syndrome Blue Dog Democrats, the Republicans have incredible amounts of slack. They don't really need to worry about pursuing majority status. They just have to worry about not dropping below (or, given the reliability of the Blue Dogs, too far below) 40 in the Senate. Then they can still keep gumming up the works (and getting contributors' checks for gumming up the works) while writing the narratives --specifically, narratives that move the center on every discussion as far to the right as possible.

Read the rest of the post on the flip side »

Big Insurance Reverses Course and Launches Attack on Health Reform
Posted by Digby, Hullabaloo on October 12, 2009 at 10:57 AM.

I guess the insurance industry finally decided they weren't going to get the kind of sweetheart deals that PHarma and the Hospitals got, so they've gone on the warpath by holding a gun to ... er ... releasing a "cost projection" report about the effects of health care reform. I'm sure you won't be surprised to hear that it says they will raise premiums sky high if reforms are passed.

Frankly, I wouldn't expect any less of them. They will raise premiums sky high even if reforms don't pass. They always have before. Indeed, the only thing that kept them in check at all over the past 20 years was a roaring stock market, which allowed them to make huge profits while only gouging their customers at about 15% inflation. Lately, they've had no choice but to jack that up and gouge the sick customers even more. They are, after all, profit driven corporations .

This report today, however, signals that the industry is ready to go to war to stop health care reform. Ezra characterizes it properly:

In the hallowed tradition of the tobacco and energy industries, the health insurance industry has commissioned a report (pdf) projecting doom and despair for those who seek to reform its business practices. The report was farmed out to the consultancy PricewaterhouseCoopers, which has something of a history with this sort of thing: In the early-'90s, the tobacco industry commissioned PWC to estimate the economic devastation that would result from a tax on tobacco. The report was later analyzed

by the Arthur Andersen Economic Consulting group, which concluded that "the cumulative effect of PW’s methods … is to produce patently unreliable results." It's perhaps no surprise that the patently unreliable results were all in the tobacco industry's favor. He who pays the piper names the tune, and all that.

All that makes it a bit hard to respond to this analysis. Seriously engaging with its methodology probably gives it more credit than it deserves, making this seem like an argument between two opposing sides as opposed to a predictable industry hit job. But totally ignoring its claims means some of them might live unchallenged. So rather than a full tour through the "analysis," here are a couple of its more representative moments.

Read on.

So why now? Well, this may be a clue:

Read the rest of the post on the flip side »

George Will's Wild False Equivalence: Furious Teabaggers Are Like Fans of Whole Food
Posted by Booman, Booman Tribune on October 12, 2009 at 9:56 AM.

Video: Obama Pledges to End 'Don't Ask, Don't Tell' at Speech to LGBT Community
Posted by AlterNet Staff on October 10, 2009 at 9:23 PM.

Posted to YouTube by firedoglake


FIND THE REST OF THE SPEECH AFTER THE JUMP

Read the rest of the post on the flip side »

Right-Wingers Believe Ayn Rand's Every Word, But They Forget She Wrote Fiction
Posted by Colin Greer, New World Foundation on October 10, 2009 at 7:57 PM.

Ayn Rand is popular again. Her most popular novels Atlas Shrugged from 1957 and The Fountainhead from 1943 are still being bought in large numbers. While it's plainly fashionable for right wing activists and pundits to bandy about her ideas to discredit the Obama administration, it's worth remembering one thing...

The American right sees Atlas Shrugged as an almost prophetic masterpiece that describes "the economic lunacy" of the bailout and economic stimulus plan. As Stephen Moore (formerly of the CATO institute) explains in the Wall Street Journal, the warning of Atlas Shrugged is clear - the more government tries to fix things, the more they break. "When profits and wealth and creativity are denigrated in society, they start to disappear -- leaving everyone the poorer," he says, concluding that the abolition of income tax would be a much better policy idea.

Two new biographies of Rand and maybe even a new film, are in the works. The cult of Ayn Rand has inspired think tanks like the Ayn Rand Institute, and The Atlas Society, and she has numerous followers in high places, notably including Alan Greenspan (former chairman of the Federal Reserve and soloist for the out-of-tune hymn to the inexorable free market). A copy of Atlas Shrugged may have been one of the more popular accessories at recent TEA parties.

Ayn Rand was an immigrant from Russia who worked in Hollywood as a screenwriter. Ironically, her followers nowadays tend to hate both immigrants and Hollywood. If I could run a mandatory e-harmony, I’d have Lou Dobbs meet Ayn Rand. I’d have Glenn Beck meet Ayn Rand. She's the lady off the boat who invented a powerful free market imagery for them.

But remember: She wrote fiction!

In Rand’s novels the heroes pulled themselves up by their bootstraps. They made big profits in unfavorable economic climates. Try pulling yourself up by your shoelaces. It can’t be done. Its all story telling, with no basis in documented experience. And of course, she does not consider the collaborative context (school, roads, community) that make individual success possible. Rand's own life was a cauldron of broken connections, sexual indulgence, war on other people’s marriages, and narcissism of atomic proportions. Nothing new to show business. But pressing social issues are not show business. There is no real economics in Rand, and certainly no moral logic.

Bobby Jindal Fires State Worker After She Criticizes Him Publicly
Posted by Zaid Jilani, Think Progress on October 10, 2009 at 8:10 AM.

The Advocate reports today that Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal fired Melody Teague, a Department of Social Services contract grants reviewer, after she publicly criticized the privatization of state services during a forum held by the state’s Commission for Streamlining Government. While Jindal maintains that he fired her due to her handling of a food stamps program started after Katrina, a member of the Commission insists that she was targeted for speaking out:

Melody Teague, a state Department of Social Services contract grants reviewer, was informed she was fired because of problems with the disaster food stamps program that she was drawn into during the Katrina aftermath, her attorney, Mark Falcon said. [...]

The issue first entered the spotlight Tuesday after Commission for Streamlining Government member Leonal Hardman, of Baton Rouge, said Teague was unfairly targeted because she spoke out publicly at the streamlining forum.

During the forum, state Treasurer John Kennedy went out of his way to repeat to Teague she would not be punished for her comments. Hardman said he is concerned the termination is a sign of a larger effort to silence state workers.

(HT: Huffington Post)

No More Excuses: John Tester Brings 51st Senate Vote for Public Option
Posted by Chris Bowers, Open Left on October 10, 2009 at 4:40 AM.

I have just received word that Senator Jon Tester (D-MT) would vote in favor of Senator Schumer's "level playing field" public option.

This pushes the Senate whip count to 51, even without Joe Biden casting a tie-breaking vote.

Since there are now finally 60 active, voting Democrats, it is possible to break any Republican filibuster. Hell, it actually only requires 51 votes to break a filibuster, if Senators were more honest about process. Further, if they didn't even want to both with filibusters, they could always just go with reconciliation, since Tester now gives them enough votes even if Robert Byrd (who is opposed to using reconciliation for health care) defects.

Senate Democrats have the votes. No more process excuses. Pass the public option.

Into What Dark Hole Has Dick Cheney Crawled?
Posted by Steve Benen, Washington Monthly on October 9, 2009 at 4:23 PM.

Within two weeks of President Obama's inauguration, Dick Cheney said the new chief executive would likely get us killed. "When we get people who are more concerned about reading the rights to an al Qaeda terrorist than they are with protecting the United States against people who are absolutely committed to do anything they can to kill Americans, then I worry," the former vice president said.

David Corn today raises a point that bears repeating: given the Obama administration's successes on counter-terrorism, where'd Cheney go?

On Tuesday, President Barack Obama visited the National Counterterrorism Center outside Washington and declared that "because of our efforts" al Qaeda and its allies have "lost operational capacity." He cited recent arrests of terrorist suspects in Colorado, New York, Illinois, and Texas, asserting that these actions have made the nation safer. Afterward, his critics responded with ... silence. Since Obama was sworn in, conservative hawks, led by former Vice President Dick Cheney, have been pounding the president for being weak on national security, accusing him of leaving the country vulnerable to another catastrophic attack. But this chorus of scaremongers tends to go mute when the Obama administration scores apparent counterterrorism successes. Cheney, for instance, hasn't said anything publicly about the arrest last month of Najibullah Zazi, the Denver airport shuttle driver, and others accused of planning an al Qaeda bombing operation.

Nor have Cheney and his amen corner acknowledged other gains in the fight against al Qaeda.

If Bush/Cheney had put together the kind of successful counter-terrorism record we've seen over the last nine months, I suspect we'd be hearing quite a bit about it from Republican officials and their allies.

According to Nexis and Google searches, Cheney has made no public comment about the killing of any of these militant leaders and operatives. Nor have Cantor, Steele, or any other Republican leader. Nor have Glenn Beck or Rush Limbaugh. Certainly, it may be difficult for elected officials to discuss explicitly attacks not officially recognized by the White House, but none of these leading conservatives have acknowledged that the Obama administration has been racking up what are considered successes -- arrests at home, attacks overseas -- in the fight against al Qaeda and its allies.

Shouldn't these guys be reminding us right about now about how counter-terrorism only works through torture and lawlessness?

Where'd all the bravado and cheap shots from the Cheney gang go?

France Saves the Entire Planet from Fiendish Al Qaeda Plot!
Posted by Steven D., Booman Tribune on October 9, 2009 at 12:17 PM.

Okay, that title is a little hyped. But I thought I'd give the Glenn Beck fan boys something else to lose their sanity over besides Obama winning the Nobel peace Prize. And French officials did arrest a man with a connection to Al Queda who worked at the CERN Super Collider (which some have anxiously suggested would create a black Hole that could destroy the earth).

France has arrested a researcher at the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN) for suspected links with al-Qaeda, officials have said.

Hey, if this was the Bush administration that had arrested this guy he would have been shipped to Guantanamo (where he would no doubt confess to many more plots of imminent terrorist attacks involving singularities of mass destruction), the Department of Homeland Security would be hyping the danger of black holes falling into the hands of Al Qaeda and Dick Cheney would be lauding the benefits of enhanced interrogation techniques in saving the world from Isalmofascists bent on killing all of humanity. So using that metric, one could say France may have indeed saved the world from imminent doom. Right, wingnuts?

Of course, officials at CERN who clearly weren't instructed by the French government to follow the patented Karl Rove blueprint for keeping people in constant fear as a means of winning elections have already put a damper on that PR strategy:

The organisation told the Associated Press that the researcher, whom it did not identify, was working for an outside institute and had no contact with anything that could have been used for terrorism.

Silly conservative French politicians. Republicans would have milked this story for at least two weeks in the media, both lauding the president and blaming Democrats for the danger with it. Oh well, life is so boring when disseminating propaganda is not the principle function the government actually performs well.

Flashback: Al Franken's Supply-Side Jesus
Posted by Staff, AlterNet on October 9, 2009 at 11:30 AM.

Al Franken has gone out of his way to appear staid and ... "senatorial" since his campaign to represent Minnesota in the upper house of the U.S. Congress, but we remember the days when Al Franken used his humor to make a point. In the video window to your right is an oldie -- Al Franken's animated comic strip, "Gospel of Supply-Side Jesus." Enjoy!

Poll: GOP Taking a Pounding on Obstruction of Health-Care Reform
Posted by DemFromCT , Daily Kos on October 9, 2009 at 11:06 AM.

From Bloomberg:

Months of Republican attacks on President Barack Obama’s health-care proposals appear to have hurt the party, according to a Quinnipiac University poll.

And on the Republican measure of failure, directly from the Q-poll:

But Republicans get their lowest grades since Obama was elected on several measures:

   * Voters disapprove 64 - 25 percent of the way Republicans in Congress are doing their job, with 42 percent of Republican voters disapproving;
   * Only 29 percent think Republicans on Capitol Hill are acting in good faith;
   * Voters trust Obama more than Republicans 47 - 31 percent to handle health care;
   * Voters 53 - 25 percent have an unfavorable opinion of the Republican Party.

On bipartisanship here's a variation of the polling choice of words noted by Greg Sargent:

Read the rest of the post on the flip side »

What a Great Day to be a Sane Person ... Thanks Nobel Committee!
Posted by Joshua Holland, AlterNet on October 9, 2009 at 10:00 AM.

When I glanced at my newsreader this AM, I had a thought no doubt shared by many: what a great day to read right-wing blogs!

As Addie noted below, the wing-nuts haven't disappointed in serving up a steaming helping of crazy (the Taliban are none too happy about Obama's win either).

But, wait! Even some liberals are wringing their hands over this unexpected win for the president, given that he's embroiled in two Bushian occupations at present. Doesn't this just feed into the right's narrative about Obama being all flash and no substance? Worse yet, doesn't it call the Nobel Prize's objectivity into question?

To which, I have two words: Henry Kissinger. Haven't taken the prize seriously since he won it, and wasn't putting much weight on it now. They obviously gave Obama the prize for A) beating McCain and sending the neocons back to stew at the American Enterprise Institute for at least a few years, B) his Cairo speech and C) not being George Bush. Which is all worthy of an award of some sort, whatever the new administration's faults.

More to the point, this may bring about Peak Wing-nut*, unleashing a massive torrent of incredibly batty commentary for those of us living in the real world to mine and enjoy for days and weeks to come.

So, sit back, relax, and watch the heads explode.

Adding: this is what I mean -- here's Bill Kristol arguing that McCain should have won it for being such a tireless supporter of the Iraq war. That's comedy gold.

Also, the Freepers! Oh, what a day!

*Their joke.

Limbaugh, Bolton and Other Right-Wingers Respond to Obama's Nobel Prize: Proof that He's the Anti-Christ, and Other Wing-Nut Theories
Posted by Adele Stan, AlterNet on October 9, 2009 at 8:10 AM.

When I learned this morning that President Barack Obama won the Nobel Peace Prize, my heart sank -- not only because the award strikes me as coming too soon, but because the award will undoubtedly re-energize the right-wing fringe.  Even the venerable New York Times seemed to see that potential:

For Mr. Obama, the award could, in a strange way, prove a political liability. As he traveled overseas during his campaign for the presidency, he was subjected to criticism from Republicans who argued he was too much the international celebrity. Winning the Nobel at such an early stage in his presidency could further that kind of criticism, especially in Washington’s hyperpartisan political environment.

With right-wingers from Mike Huckabee to Phyllis Schlafly calling for the destruction of the United Nations, it was certain that, beyond the award itself,  this passage from the award citation would set them off:

“Multilateral diplomacy has regained a central position, with emphasis on the role that the United Nations and other international institutions can play.”

Obama was nominated for the award just nine days into his presidency, a fact that sticks in the craws of his detractors. I actually find it hard to argue with the assertion of some right-wingers that the award is meant more as a rebuke to former President George W. Bush than applause for the early, limited achievements of the current president. Thorbjorn Jagland, the chairman of the Norwegian Nobel Committee even hinted as much, the Times reports:

“We have to get the world on the right track again,” he said. Without referring specifically to the Bush era, he continued: “Look at the level of confrontation we had just a few years ago. Now we get a man who is not only willing but probably able to open dialogue and strengthen international institutions.”

 John Bolton, Bush's former U.N. ambassador, told The National Review that Obama should decline the award  (a move that would probably not play so well on the world stage):

Read the rest of the post on the flip side »

But Specter Is OUR Pompous, Shameless, Opportunistic Hack!
Posted by Thers, Whiskey Fire on October 9, 2009 at 3:33 AM.

Noted lunatic imbecile Dan Riehl says something stupid -- no surprise there -- though only after actually getting something right, hard as that may be to believe.

Funny that Arlen Specter would come out for a robust public health care insurance option on the very same site that once headlined his opposition to that very thing as recently as May.

Specter Won't Back Public Health Care Or Employee Free Choice Act (VIDEO)

Fast forward to today at the Huffington Post: Arlen Specter: Supporting a Robust Public Option

Arlen Specter, T (for traitor) was previously highlighted by the Lefty blogs as the highest paid shill for corporate America in his strong opposition to a public option for health care reform. Perhaps he was, once. I guess he needs union money, now....

So much for principle and judgment. What a desperate, pathetic figure Specter cuts today. He's just a shell of a man who doesn't want to let go of his cherished Senate office no matter what, even after all these years.

All true! Arlen Specter is a hack and a half, an opportunist whose most attractive quality is that his shamelessness tends to overshadow his pomposity. Never liked Arlen Specter, never will. We're with ya, Dan! Until this bit:

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Health-Care Reform: About the 'Opt-Out' Compromise
Posted by Booman, Booman Tribune on October 8, 2009 at 4:48 PM.

If you look at the Senate Finance Committee's health care bill (PDF), you'll see that it substantially increases eligibility for Medicaid.

Starting in 2014, nonelderly people with income below 133 percent of the FPL would generally be made eligible for Medicaid; the federal government would pay a share of the costs of covering newly eligible enrollees that varies somewhat from year to year but ultimately would average about 90 percent. (Under current rules, the federal government usually pays about 57 percent, on average, of the costs of Medicaid benefits.) In addition, states would be required to maintain current coverage levels for children under Medicaid and CHIP through 2019.

Beginning in 2014, states would receive higher federal reimbursement for CHIP beneficiaries, increasing from an average of 70 percent to 93 percent. CBO estimates that state spending on Medicaid would increase by about $33 billion over the 2010–2019 period as a result of the specifications affecting coverage.

The key here is that $33 billion number. We all know that state budgets are in complete disarray, and here comes the government with a substantial unfunded bill for them to pay. But that number is deceptive. What happens when a person moves from employer-based health care to one of the regional exchanges? One thing that happens is that their employer pays a fee (this is to dissuade them from dumping their employees). But the other thing that happens is that the employee's compensation moves from untaxable health care benefits to taxable wages or salary. The states will see a spike in income tax revenue.

Now, let's think about something. What would happen if a robust public option was added to the SFC bill, but it came with an opt-out clause for the states? Here is how Sam Stein explains the proposal:

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Fox News Latest Dishonest Smear Attempts to Link Obama Official to NAMBLA
Posted by Jed Lewison, Daily Kos on October 8, 2009 at 3:02 PM.

Fox News -- joined by Rep. Steve King (R-IA) and Karl Rove -- has a new fantasy. This time, it's a supposed link between Obama's Dept. of Education and NAMBLA, the North American Man Boy Love Association:



Leaving aside the fact that Kevin Jennings, the target of their smear, isn't a 'czar' (he's the Department of Education’s Assistant Deputy Secretary for Safe Schools), the Fox-Hannity-King smear is totally false.

1. Jennings has never praised NAMBLA. The statement that Hannity claims was praise for NAMBLA was actually praise for Harry Hay's creation of the Mattachine Society, the nation's first gay rights group.

2. The boy Jennings counseled had no sexual contact with the man he had met during a bus trip. (And unlike in King's fantasy, they did not meet in a bathroom.) The boy and the man simply had a discussion.

3. Even if they did have sexual relations, the boy was not fifteen. He was 16 -- the age of consent in Massachussets.

Politico Tries to Link Roman Polanski to Obama
Posted by Eric Boehlert, Media Matters for America on October 8, 2009 at 1:24 PM.

Behold the wonder of Politico. This beaut comes courtesy of Kenneth Vogel:

Headline:

Roman Polanski backers Gave $34K To Barack Obama, DNC

Lede:

Movie industry types calling for the release of director Roman Polanski last year gave $34,000 to Obama's presidential campaign and the Democratic Party, FEC records show.

BTW, it turns out that movie mogul Harvey Weinstein is responsible for the biggest chunk of that $34,000. And oh yeah, Weinstein didn't directly give the Obama campaign one dime last year. So if you're keeping score at home and the "Barack Obama" reference caught your attention in the headline, in truth, Politico is suggesting that Polanski "backers" gave Obama $15,000 last year.

And Obama's campaign raised how much money for its White House run? Approximately $750 million. So, although Politico doesn't bother to spell it out, it's suggesting that Polanski "backers" were responsible for less than .002% of the Obama campaign's White House run.  

And any of this is news because...why? Is Politico suggesting Obama and Democrats are somehow tied to the private causes of their donors? That Obama and Democrats need to return the money?  That they're supporting Polanski? Is Politico suggesting anything of substance?

Nope, Politico's just pushing Republicans talking points. Why? Because Politico is a GOP bulletin board.

Pelosi to GOP: Thanks But I'm In My Place
Posted by Staff, AlterNet on October 8, 2009 at 11:18 AM.

In a statement (falsely) criticizing Nancy Pelosi for not supporting an escalation of the conflict in Afghanistan, the NRCC offered the hope that General McChrystal, the U.S. commander in Afghanistan, would "put [Pelosi] in her place." In the video to your right, Pelosi responds to a reporter's question on the matter.

30 GOP Senators Vote to Defend Gang Rape
Posted by Charles Lemos, MyDD.com on October 8, 2009 at 11:16 AM.

It is stunning that 30 Republican members of the United States Senate would vote to protect a corporation, in this case Halliburton/KBR, over a woman who was gang raped. The details from Think Progress:

In 2005, Jamie Leigh Jones was gang-raped by her co-workers while she was working for Halliburton/KBR in Baghdad. She was detained in a shipping container for at least 24 hours without food, water, or a bed, and "warned her that if she left Iraq for medical treatment, she'd be out of a job." (Jones was not an isolated case.) Jones was prevented from bringing charges in court against KBR because her employment contract stipulated that sexual assault allegations would only be heard in private arbitration.

Read the rest of the post on the flip side »

Supposed Progressive Obama Religious Leader Uses Health Care Debate for Anti-Abortion Views
Posted by Adele Stan, AlterNet on October 8, 2009 at 10:24 AM.

The Rev. Jim Wallis is sitting pretty these days. He's the evangelist the media love -- so much so that Democrats kow-tow before him. He says he's progressive, and has some credentials to back up the claim: anti-poverty work and opposition to the Vietnam War. But he's opposed to legal abortion and same-sex marriage. Nonetheless, eager for an evangelical partner, President Obama named Wallis to the President's Council on Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships, giving Wallis the ideal platform from which to try to subvert the debate over health-care reform for his anti-choice cause.

Today, Wallis, in his sanctimonious style, offers "A Faith Declaration for Health-Care Reform" that declares this:

Life and liberty must both be protected. The health care system should protect the sanctity and dignity of life in accordance with existing law and the current rules; and the prohibition on federal funding of abortions should be consistently and diligently applied to any legislation. Strong "conscience" protections should be enacted for health care workers to ensure they have the liberty to exercise their moral and religious beliefs in their profession. Evidence suggests that supporting low-income and pregnant women with adequate health care increases the number of women who chose to carry their child to term, so if we do reform right, we can reduce abortion in America. While religious people don't all agree on all the issues of abortion, we should agree that it must not be allowed to derail the crucial need for comprehensive health care reform.

Despite his talk about not allowing abortion issues to "derail" health reform, that seems to be exactly what Wallis is up to.  As Frances Kissling reported in Salon, after winning a major point when Rep. Lois Capps, D-Calif., amended the House bill with a conscience clause exempting anti-choice health-care providers from having to cover or perform abortions, as well as an explicit prohibition on the use of federal funds to pay for abortions in accordance with the Hyde amendment and a prohibition on the use of federal subsidy dollars by private plans in the coverage of abortion, Wallis continued his crusade:

This, it now seems, is not enough for Wallis and company. They now want to be sure that if an anti-choice person chooses a plan that does cover abortion, the minuscule part of his premium that is allocated to abortion coverage for all subscribers is not used for abortion.

Get it?  It's a chip-away strategy, a nuisance plan on Wallis' part to gum up the health-care works.

Read the rest of the post on the flip side »