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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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Video: At Last! Rick Warren Finally Condemns Uganda's "Kill the Gays" Law -- A Law Written By His Friends
Posted by Adele Stan, AlterNet on December 10, 2009 at 1:35 PM.

SCROLL DOWN FOR VIDEO

When Sarah Posner of Religion Dispatches called Pastor Rick Warren for comment on Uganda's homicidal anti-gay law, Warren's spokesman issued a statement from the pastor saying that he had no position or comment on the proposed law. But with criticism mounting, Warren recorded a video in which he decries the Ugandan legislation.

In a video message addressed to "the pastors of the churches of Uganda," Warren says of the law, that he "completely oppose[s]" and "vigorously condemn[s]" it. He goes on to say, "[T]he potential law before your parliament is unjust, it's extreme, and it's un-Christian toward homosexuals..."

Warren is pastor of Saddleback Church, an evangelical megachurch in California, and author of the best-selling book, The Purpose-Driven Life.

As Bruce Wilson reported for AlterNet, the Ugandan proposal calls for the execution of people engaged in certain acts of gay sex, as well as for anyone with HIV who has sex of any kind. The bill also calls for life imprisonment for "homosexuals" -- a punishment already available to prosecutors under current Ugandan law.

Advocates of the legislation include Anglican Archbishop Henry Orombi, who, Posner reports, was instrumental in bringing Warren to Uganda to anoint the African country as a "purpose-driven nation," and Pastor Martin Ssempa, a former ally of Warren's with whom the California preacher says he severed ties two years ago.

Warren associate C. Peter Wagner, who served as Warren's advisor on the latter's doctoral thesis, is also affiliated with the Ugandan churchmen pushing for the law, according to a report by Political Research Associates, a watchdog group. And Warren himself has been involved in pushing California's anti-gay Proposition 8 ballot measure, which he later denied doing, despite the video evidence.

While mainstream media soft-pedaled or ignored Warren's connection to the Ugandans pushing the "kill the gays" law, Posner, Wilson, PRA and Truth Wins Out, an LGBT group that seeks to bust the "ex-gay" myth, stayed on the story, apparently causing Warren to relent and issue today's video.

However, Warren couldn't help but take a swipe at Posner, PRA, Rachel Maddow and others who have been badgering him to make what could be life-saving statement about the law. "[B]ecause I didn't rush to make a public statement, some erroneously concluded that I supported this terrible bill," Warren tells the Ugandan pastors. "And some even claimed that I was a sponsor of the bill." In opening sentences of the video, Warren complains of "lies and errors and false reports" by those who linked his name to the Ugandan clerics who have advanced the bill.

At RD, Posner notes that it took Warren more than a month after the first reports of the anti-gay bill circulated in the U.S. to get around to condemning the bill. (On Thanksgiving weekend, Warren appeared on NBC's "Meet the Press," and neither spoke about the bill -- nor was he asked about it.)

VIDEO AND TRANSCRIPT AFTER THE JUMP

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Obama Invokes 'Just War' as Nobel Chairman Compares Him to MLK
Posted by Daniela Perdomo, AlterNet on December 10, 2009 at 11:56 AM.

Yesterday I was reeling in advance of Obama's Nobel Peace Prize acceptance speech, because the press had gotten wind that he would use his time at the podium to explain that Afghanistan is part of his larger plan for peace. Not surprisingly, the Orwellian slogan, WAR IS PEACE, flashed in my mind.

I was embarrassed for the committee that had awarded him the prize, as they'd made clear they were honoring him in hopes of reinforcing the international community's hopes that Obama's administration would not follow in the Bush cadre's warring footsteps. And now they were going to have to sit and hear him speak of war as a medium for its antonym -- peace. How excruciating.

My empathy seems to have been misplaced, however, because the Nobel chairman opened the Oslo ceremony with a speech in which he declared that "Dr. King's dream has come true."

Really?

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Peak Wingnuttia: Far-Right "News" Site Accuses Obama of Targetting the Baby Jesus
Posted by Terry Krepel, Media Matters for America on December 10, 2009 at 5:55 AM.

A December 4 New York Times article on White House social secretary Desirée Rogers reported that the Obama administration had apparently considered a "non-religious Christmas" celebration in the White House as a way to reach out to other faiths and that, according to the Times, there was a debate about whether to display the traditional nativity scene. In the end, the article added, "tradition won out; the executive mansion is now decorated for the Christmas holiday, and the crèche is in its usual East Room spot."

Run that story through WorldNetDaily's looking glass -- heavily distorted by right-wing partisanship and sheer, unreasonable hatred of Barack Obama -- and you get a December 8 WND article by Chelsea Schilling, headlined "Obama's latest target: Ousting baby Jesus" and carrying this lede:

The Obama administration sought to ban baby Jesus from the executive mansion as part of its plans for a "non-religious Christmas," according to a participant at a White House luncheon.

Briefly considering not erecting a nativity scene means you "sought to ban baby Jesus"? Really?

Does the WorldNetDaily store sell these looking glasses so the rest of us can take part in this same mind-bending distortion? Or is the experience open only to those who hate Obama with a burning passion like Joseph Farah and Co. do?

Alan Grayson to Dick Cheney: STFU
Posted by Joshua Holland, AlterNet on December 10, 2009 at 4:29 AM.

Entertaining political theater, courtesy of Tweety and Alan Grayson. Enjoy [ht: Oliver Willis] ...

Not Satire: Obama to Invoke Aghanistan in His Nobel Speech
Posted by Daniela Perdomo, AlterNet on December 9, 2009 at 6:22 PM.

On the October morning Barack Obama was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize, I informed a friend who hadn't yet heard the news that our greenhorn president was now a Nobel laureate. "I hope it's not for literature," he replied.

The Nobel Prize for Literature would have been a stretch, but in just as many ways -- or more -- so is the Nobel Peace Prize. And the only way I've been able to rationalize the honor, two months later, is by swallowing the committee's explanation that it wasn't so much commending Obama for peace-making accomplishments as it was trying to encourage him to live up to the prize's tenets, by being a more considerate, less bellicose friend to the international community than his predecessor.

Obama was clearly as uncomfortable as the rest of us with the premature honor and so I've often wondered what he would say during his acceptance speech in Oslo. I'd assumed he would probably return to the rhetorical hope-and-change flourishes that bolstered his presidential campaign, because that's safe territory he's honed and owned in the past.

But as it turns out, reality is much more wondrous than my imagination. Timing matters, too, and tomorrow's speech comes just one week after announcing the escalation of war in Afghanistan. As a result, official word is that in his address, Obama plans to frame the war in Afghanistan as part of his wider plan for peace.

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Why Sarah Palin Will not Be a Candidate in 2012
Posted by Steve M., No More Mister Nice Blog on December 9, 2009 at 5:10 PM.

Via Rumproast, Zandar, and The Hill, there's thisabout 2012, from The Fix at The Washington Post:

An astute Fixista flagged a fascinating interview that former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin gave to conservative talk radio host Lars Larson last Friday in which she appears to leave the door open to a third party bid for president in 2012. Asked by Larson whether she would consider running as a third party candidate, Palin said: "That depends on how things go in the next couple of years." Larson told the 2008 vice presidential nominee that answer "sounds like a yes" to which she responded: "If the Republican party gets back to that [conservative] base, I think our party is going to be stronger and there's not going to be a need for a third party, but I'll play that by ear in these coming months, coming years." Which, to the Fix's delicate ears, sounds like Palin leaving the door wide open....

I don't see this happening.

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Real Rich: Banks Blame Homeowners for Failure of Mortgage-Relief Plan
Posted by Daniela Perdomo, AlterNet on December 9, 2009 at 2:54 PM.

A congressional watchdog panel released a report today that categorically qualifies the Obama administration's mortgage-relief plan as a failure. Only 10,000 homeowners -- or less than 5 percent of all who completed trial programs -- received permanent loan modifications that brought their payments to an affordable rate.

Fewer than five percent.

That dismal success rate translates to only $2.3 million of the $75 billion committed to the mortgage-relief program having been been spent, according to the report. And not only have a totally insignificant number of people been able to refinance their predatory mortgage loans, but foreclosures are on the rise -- and expected to continue rising.

The way the mortgage-relief program works is that homeowners must make three initial reduced payments under a trial period. After successfully making those payment on time, borrowers must provide proof of income and a financial hardship affidavit.

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Andrew Breitbart Raves: ACORN Pseudo-Scandal the "Abu Ghraib of Great Society"
Posted by Joshua Holland, AlterNet on December 9, 2009 at 1:29 PM.

Big Hollywood's Andrew Breitbart, mastermind of the ACORN "investigation" videos (for which he is being sued), took umbrage at the Village Voice's coverage of a report that cleared ACORN of any wrong-doing in the matter.

Roy Edroso managed to snag an interview with Breitbart. He says it was, "boiled down from what was pretty much a 45-minute harangue." The man who made hating Hollywood a career, was in fine form:

Throughout our interview, Breitbart railed against ACORN ("they don't help the poor, they keep them dependent on a completely corrupt system"), the "false standard" of mainstream media journalism that he finds unfairly applied to O'Keefe's reporting ("when Morley Safer does an investigation, do you see every minute, every second that they shot? They edit it for effect"), and the media's attempt to "whitewash" ACORN. He compared his reporters to Upton Sinclair, and called the ACORN scandal "the Abu Ghraib of the Great Society."

Breitbart promises more ACORN coverage, and that it will not be pretty: "The L.A. [ACORN] guy didn't help [Hannah and James]. Didn't kick them out, but he wasn't very helpful. That's the closest thing to an exculpatory video. There will be no more exculpatory video. The rest is just like the rest."

I may be mistaken, but that last bit seems like Andrew Breitbart promising less balanced reporting on ACORN's nefarious plots in the future. Which is about the funniest thing I've heard all day.

Howard Dean's Pleased with Health Compromise ... For Now
Posted by Steve Benen, Washington Monthly on December 9, 2009 at 11:15 AM.

About a week ago, Howard Dean argued that a health care bill without a public option "is worthless and should be defeated."

Now that Senate Democrats have endorsed a compromise measure that scales back the public option to a trigger -- in exchange for Medicare buy-in and the OPM plan -- is Dean still on board with the reform effort? Actually, yes.

In a boost for the Senate health care deal reached yesterday, Howard Dean said in an interview with me moments ago that the current compromise contains "real reform," and said that as it stands now, progressives could support it.

Dean also confirmed various details about the deal that he'd learned in direct conversations with Senators involved in the discussions -- detail that news orgs had mostly attributed to anonymous sources. Dean's general support for the bill could give it a boost among progressives who say it falls short of real reform.

Dean seems to feel pretty strongly about this, making the rounds this morning to tout his (conditional) support for the new deal.

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Rep Rohrabacher Removes Tin-Foil from Hat, Exposes Globalist Cabal Behind Copenhagen Talks
Posted by Lee Fang, Think Progress on December 9, 2009 at 10:33 AM.

Last night, House members took to the floor to call attention to the threat of catastrophic climate change. However, a group of right-wing congressmen stormed the floor in response and delivered speeches denying the existence of global warming, attacking the science as phony, and heralding a set of hacked e-mails as their proof. Rep. Dana Rohrabacher (R-CA) — who believes that if global warming exists, it has been caused by “dinosauer flatulence” — provided the most comical attack. Rohrbacher called upon Americans to get “angry” and “fight the globalist clique” of “globalists” and “radical environmentalists” who are trying to “shackle generations of Americans”:

ROHRBACHER: Copenhagen may well lay the foundations for the future that the globalists who are pushing this agenda envision for us. [...] What the Copenhagen crowd would mandate and can be traced back to the same alliance between our own radical environmentalists and the global elite. [...] This is about centralizing power into the hands of global government, that’s what Kyoto and Copenhagen are all about, that’s what the globalist alliance is all about. [...]

We must fight the globalist clique that is trying to shackle generations of Americans. … Members of Congress need to hear from angry constituents, and I predict they will.

Watch a compilation:

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Video: Move Over, Adam Sandler: Utah Sen. Orrin Hatch Has His Own Hannukah Song
Posted by Adele Stan, AlterNet on December 9, 2009 at 7:57 AM.

SCROLL DOWN FOR VIDEO

Orrin Hatch, prominent member of the Church of Latter Day Saints (and co-sponsor of the failed anti-choice amendment to the Senate health-care bill), has a new video out -- just in time for Hannukah.

Egged on by Atlantic writer Jeffrey Goldberg, Hatch penned the lyrics to a new Hannukah song that was recorded by the Syrian-American artist, Rasheeda Azar, with Hatch joining in on the chorus. Goldberg writes in the Tablet:

His lyrics are not postmodern or cynical, which is a blessing, because I for one have tired of the Adam Sandlerization of Judaism in America. Yes, we are, as a people, funny (at least when compared to other people, such as Croatians) but our neuroses, well-earned though they may be, have caused us to lacerate our own traditions, which are in fact (to borrow from Barack Obama) awesome. The story of Hanukkah is a good case in point -- maybe the perfect one.

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Group Behind Uganda's "Kill the Gays" Bill Expanding Effort in North America
Posted by Bruce Wilson, AlterNet on December 9, 2009 at 7:51 AM.

The Ugandan branch of a US-based evangelical group called "College of Prayer" played, as a new talk To Action report details, a major and little noticed role organizing and inspiring legislators behind the pending Anti Homosexuality Bill due to come before Uganda's parliament early in 2010. Homosexuality is already legally a crime in Uganda that can lead to lifetime prison sentences, but the new bill would mandate the death penalty for homosexual acts and critics have called it "genocidal" and charged that the bill could require the execution of HIV positive Ugandan citizens. As the College of Prayer website describes, the group is now organizing in Canada's parliament.

College of Prayer members in Uganda's parliament have spearheaded the push for the new anti-gay bill and, as a story posted on the main College of Prayer website quotes College of Prayer Canada head Rev. David Chotka,

"I have three-twelve members of the Canadian Parliament who have heard about what God is doing in Uganda and would like to attend the Parliamentary COP in Uganda next year. They are interested in bringing the College of Prayer to the Canadian Parliament."

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Public Option, Bye-Bye? Senate Reaches a Health-Care Deal
Posted by Adele Stan, AlterNet on December 9, 2009 at 6:57 AM.

The Senate team negotiating the final version of health-care reform has arrived at a deal, Harry Reid, D-Nev., announced last night. The package, Reid said, has been sent to the Congressional Budget Office for cost analysis. Details are still sketchy; even senators not on the negotiating team know the particulars. Here's what we do know.

The bad news? The public option is gone.

The good news? The public option is gone.

Why is the absence of a public option in the Senate bill good news? Because the formula for public options considered by senators were so watered down as to be virtually meaningless. In its place, reports say, the bill will offer two features that could lead to a more progressive form of health-care reform in the long run:

• an opening of Medicare to people between the ages of 55 - 64
• a federal health-insurance exchange based on the system enjoyed by federal employees and the senators themselves

The Medicare expansion would be a buy-in for those younger than 65, and would start immediately. People in the younger cohort would pay a premium. The Medicare expansion would start almost immediately upon passage of the bill, but federal subsidies would not kick in for a couple of years -- meaning in the short run, a Medicare card won't be cheap for the younger boomer set.

However, by experimenting with the expansion of Medicare to include a younger population, we have something of a laboratory for a future single-payer system.

When it comes creating accessibility, the Medicare expansion makes sense. People in the 55 - 64-year-old age group find it very difficult to obtain private coverage as individuals -- especially women. And they're the most likely to be out of work, hence uninsured, in this dismal economy. Folks in this age group are, as a whole, more healthy than the elderly population now served by Medicare, so that should help bring down costs. Yet, because they have more health woes than the younger population, the accessibility of this public plan to them could allow for a healthier pool of insurance subscribers drawn from the rest of the population.

The other big piece of the compromise is the creation of a federal insurance excange based on the Federal Employees Health Benefits Program.

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Congress Is Rushing to Pass Iran Sanctions That No One Thinks Will Work
Posted by Matthew Duss, Think Progress on December 9, 2009 at 5:15 AM.

The House is expected to take up and pass “a bill imposing tough new sanctions on Iran before the holiday recess.” Americans for Peace Now’s Lara Friedman reports that the bill maybe also pass the Senate quickly:

Today, at around noon, Senate leadership hotlined the bill. Meaning that barring any objections, the bill will be brought to the floor and passed without debate, without amendment, and without a roll-call vote. This is called unanimous consent — a move reserved, generally, for bills that are clear and non-controversial. [...]

It remains to be seen if the entire Senate will agree that a bill that would impact virtually every aspect of US policy (and policy options) related to Iran — now and for the foreseeable future — is clear and non-controversial. One can hope that at least one senator will be brave and conscientious enough to refuse the U/C request — something known as putting a “hold” on the bill. Holds, it should be recalled, are anonymous (and generally remain that way).

Barring that, it looks very possible that IRPSA [Iran Refined Petroleum Sanctions Act], in some form, could become law before the end of the year, popular wisdom, good intentions, and good US policy be damned.

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ACORN Inquiry Finds Nothing Illegal, Faults Bad Leadership
Posted by Daniela Perdomo, AlterNet on December 9, 2009 at 1:00 AM.

It probably will only fan the flames of right-wing hate talk, but an internal investigation of ACORN finds that the employees video-taped giving advice on hiding assets and lying on financial documents are not guilty of any criminal activity.

The 47-page document is the result of a two-month inquiry by former attorney general of Massachusetts Scott Harshbarger. It has been deemed a "complete roadmap for the future" by ACORN leadership.

The report concludes that the circumstances caught on video actually stem from another ACORN public relations nightmare. Wade Rathke, ACORN's co-founder and chief organizer, stepped down last year after being caught covering up for his brother, who had embezzled $948,607.50 from the organization and its affiliated charities over a period during 1999 and 2000.

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Nelson's Anti-Choice Amendment Defeated in Senate, 54-45: Rep. Diana DeGette Responds
Posted by AlterNet Staff, AlterNet on December 8, 2009 at 3:14 PM.

Today, in debate on the Senate floor on the health-care reform bill, senators voted to table an amendment offered by Ben Nelson, D-Neb., that would have added anti-choice language to the bill, similar to that of the Stupak-Pitts amendment to the House health-care reform bill.

Rep. Diana DeGette, D-Colo., led the charge against Stupak in the House. Together with Rep. Louise Slaughter, D-N.Y., she co-chairs the House Pro-Choice Caucus.  DeGette issued this statement on word of the Senate action:

"I am delighted the U.S. Senate has rejected an extreme amendment that would have turned back the clock on a woman’s right to choose. The underlying Senate bill already prohibits federal funding of abortion. The amendment the Senate rejected today was an attempt to use health care reform to restrict women's access to reproductive health services. Throughout the conference process, pro-choice Members will be working to ensure that health care reform legislation does not restrict abortion rights beyond current law. Over 40 Members of the House have vowed not to support a conference report that further restricts a woman's right to choose."

Click here to read the abortion provision included in the U.S. Senate's underlying bill.

Gay Obama Administration Official Says He Can't Give a Lesbian Wife Health Benefits
Posted by Daniela Perdomo, AlterNet on December 8, 2009 at 2:00 PM.

I'm certainly not one of those doe-eyed Obama voters who really thought he was going to come in and change everything, but every now and then some bit of news comes out of the U.S. government that really does leave me dumbfounded. The following is one of them.

The director of the Office of Personnel Management, John Berry, an openly gay man (Victory!) over the weekend said he cannot follow a California court order to provide health benefits to the wife of a federal employee. (Fail!)

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Unless Congress Acts, 3.2 Million Will Lose Unemployment Benefits in Early 2010
Posted by Daniela Perdomo, AlterNet on December 8, 2009 at 1:12 PM.

Obama announced a $210 billion job creation plan today -- and it's a well-timed announcement what with a new study detailing just how many millions of Americans will be losing their unemployment checks in the first quarter of 2010.

The Center for American Progress (CAP) and the National Employment Law Project (NELP) released a report yesterday that gets down to the very nitty-gritty of our country's unemployment woes. The study estimates that in January, one million Americans will lose their unemployment benefits -- and by the end of March, a total of 3.2 million workers will lose that very essential lifeline.

And what a lifeline it has been for many of those hardest hit by the recession! The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA), signed into law in February, extends federal unemployment benefits to laid-off workers by a considerable amount, from the average of 26 weeks to 73 weeks. It also includes a weekly $25 benefit payment and a 65 percent COBRA insurance subsidy.

Experts generally agree that the unemployment rate -- currently at 10 percent -- hasn't hit rock bottom yet, even though there was a bit of a bounce in November. In fact, we may not reach that pinnacle of misfortune until spring or even summer next year. But no matter whether we have already reached that low point or are yet to, we can certainly expect that the unemployment rate will remain in the double-digits throughout 2010.

And remember -- the official unemployment rate only includes people "actively" looking for work, which means the number leaves out everyone who's given up and all those who are underemployed.

So with at least 10 percent of Americans -- that's 30 million people -- unemployed, is Congress going to make a move to keep at least some of these people out of cardboard boxes?

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Why Do Conservatives Doubt Global Warming? Because They Like to Piss Off Liberals
Posted by Digby, Hullabaloo on December 8, 2009 at 10:58 AM.

Yesterday, I asked why conservatives are so crazed about global warming and was pleased to see so many fine explanations. Amanda Marcotte delved into the subject in depth and I think she nailed it. The reason was obvious, and right under my nose: it pisses off the liberals.

And boy, is it effective! Those liberals sure get steamed when they think about how reckless behavior will result in millions of unnecessary deaths. They blow smoke out their ears when you drive around in an SUV precisely to show how little you give a shit if worldwide drought creates worldwide war. They may be smarter and cooler than you, but by being a mega-watt asshole of sociopathic proportions, you gain the upper hand because you piss them off. There are a lot of ways to piss liberals off. You can be pointlessly racist or sexist. You can sniff around in people’s private lives and carry on about how vegetarians are stupid. But few things really can top the global warming denialism. The sheer magnitude of the damage that it does is so severe that it’s impossible for liberals not to get upset. And so you win!

The whole post is well worth a read if you wonder what makes the global warming deniers tick. What makes it an unusual issue is that pissing off the liberals really is pretty much the only motivation, unlike others which have stronger cultural ties to traditional shibboleths.

It's a temperament thing. There are people we run across in life who just hate earnestness and loathe anyone who gives a damn about anything.(They also like to hurt small animals and make fun of those less fortunate than themselves.) Most of those people join the conservative tribe. It's where they find their soul mates.

Conservative Family Values, Beating the Crap Out of Defenseless People Edition
Posted by Joshua Holland, AlterNet on December 8, 2009 at 9:50 AM.

Here are two stories that appeared just inches apart on John Cole's blog.

Item one:

In an incident in which the perpetrator should have considered that he would become a household name on Wonkette before going through with it, former Missouri House Speaker Rod Jetton is facing assault charges for allegedly beating the shit out of his mistress while having sex. His ladyfriend had not uttered the “safe word,” probably because Jetton was beating her unconscious. [link]

Wonkette notes, "Rod Jetton is married with three children and attends Methodist church regularly. He is affiliated with the Republican Party. He is a Real American, the end."

Item two:

Former Congressman (and C Streeter) Chip Pickering is reportedly under police investigation for his involvement in a brawl with a rival youth league soccer coach.

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GOP Leaders Flex Their Hypocrisy Muscles, Start Bawling Over Harry Reid's "Slavery" Comment
Posted by Eclectablog, Daily Kos on December 8, 2009 at 8:36 AM.

Oh, the faux shock. Oh, the feigned outrage. Republicans and other conservatives have themselves all adither over Senate Maj. Leader Harry Reid's comments comparing opponents of health reform to those who opposed the abolition of slavery.

"It's playing the race card!" exclaimed Michelle Malkin!

"It's outrageous!!!," yelled Rush Limbaugh!

"He played 'that race card, that slavery card, that civil rights card'," shouted Michael Steele.

Funny, isn't it? Whenever a Republican makes some blatantly racist comment, they immediately hide behind the mantra that "you can't say anything about black people or they accuse you of playing the race card." Then, when Reid says something mentioning slavery, they accuse HIM of playing "that race card, that slavery card, that civil rights card".

Hypocrites.

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Eric Cantor on How to Create More Jobs: Umm...Create More Jobs!
Posted by Steve Benen, Washington Monthly on December 8, 2009 at 7:25 AM.

ERIC CANTOR, POST TURTLE.... House Minority Whip Rep. Eric Cantor (R-Va.) visited the conservative Heritage Foundation last week to unveil what he called "a no-cost jobs plan." Andrew Leonard summarized the pitch: "Cut regulations. Freeze spending. Cut taxes. No new taxes. That's the plan."

It was, of course, the Bush/Cheney agenda -- which helped get us in this mess in the first place -- warmed over.

A week later, Cantor appeared at the Economist's World in 2010 conference. The frequently-confused GOP leader said his party has plenty of important "big ideas" and policy proposals. The Economist's Daniel Franklin asked Cantor to identify the Republicans' big idea on jobs. Pat Garofalo reports that Cantor couldn't think of anything specific.

FRANKLIN: What is the big idea? "Jobs" is not an idea.

CANTOR: The big idea is to get, to get, to produce an environment where we can have job creation again.

I almost feel bad for the guy. Cantor was elected to Congress before he was able to learn anything about public policy, and was put in the GOP leadership before he could speak intelligently about any issue.

Eric Cantor as a congressional leader is a classic example of a post turtle -- you know he didn't get up there by himself; he obviously doesn't belong up there; he can't get anything done while he's there; and you just want to help the poor, dumb thing down.

Read the rest of the post on the flip side »

The Real Reason Obama Is Escalating In Afghanistan
Posted by Christian Parenti, The Nation on December 8, 2009 at 4:30 AM.

The real goals of the Afghanistan escalation are domestic and electoral. Like Lyndon Johnson, who escalated in Vietnam, Obama lives in mortal fear of being called a wimp by Republicans.

To cover his flank and look tough in the next U.S. election, Obama is expanding the war in Afghanistan. To look strong in front of swing voters, he will sacrifice the lives of hundreds of U.S. soldiers, allow many more to be horribly maimed, waste a minimum of $30 billion in public money and in the process kill many thousands of Afghan civilians.

It is political theater, nothing else. What are the other possible explanations for Obama's escalation? And why has he pledged to start drawing down the new deployment after only a year of fighting?

Is it to get the job done? To rebuild Afghanistan? To kill Osama bin Laden and crush Al Qaeda? No, all those goals are nearly impossible. And Al Qaeda is too small and internationally defused to destroy.

Some say the Afghanistan war and the escalation are about building a pipeline to export gas from Central Asia. Nonsense -- only a maniac would invest large sums of money in building a pipeline there. In the late 1990s the Argentine firm Bridas and the U.S. firm Unocal jockeyed for the right to build such a project. But that dream, always tentative, has evaporated. It will be many decades, at best, before Afghanistan is safe enough to host a new, foreign-owned gas pipeline.

Others say the Afghanistan war is about establishing US military bases to menace China, Russia and Iran. Indeed, because of its occupations in Iraq and Afghanistan, the U.S. now has bases on either side of Iran and small bases in Central Asia. But these do not require this escalation.

The real purpose of these 30,000 soldiers is to make Obama look tough as he heads toward the next U.S. presidential election.

As a landlocked, underdeveloped, fragmented buffer state with few resources, Afghanistan has long served as a means to get at other issues. Consider the history of how the United States has used Afghanistan.

First, during the cold war Jimmy Carter and then Ronald Reagan used the country as the Soviet "bear trap." Later, George W. Bush used it to trampoline into Iraq. The Bush administration discussed regime change in Iraq at one of its first cabinet meetings. Among other things, the administration wanted direct economic control, and indirect geostrategic control, over Iraq's vast oil wealth. That has been partially accomplished, as witnessed by the recent Exxon and Royal Dutch Shell deals there.

The only credible way into Iraq was via Afghanistan. On September 15, 2001, Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz actually suggested that the United States skip an invasion of Afghanistan and go directly to Iraq. But that would have made coalition-building impossible. After all, Al Qaeda was in the Taliban's Afghanistan.

Read the rest of the post on the flip side »

Nelson's Stupak-like Amendment Expected to Fail
Posted by Daniela Perdomo, AlterNet on December 7, 2009 at 4:21 PM.

Ben Nelson (D-NE) is moving forward with his attempt to include anti-abortion language in the Senate health care bill, and his amendment could be voted on as early as today.

The full text of the Nelson amendment confirms that it includes much of the same language as the one penned by Rep. Bart Stupak (D-NE) and included in the final House health care bill.

The key piece in both the Nelson and Stupak amendments is that absolutely no funds appropriated by health care reform can be used for abortion services. This would directly affect all women covered by the proposed government insurance plan, but as I wrote a couple weeks ago, we have good reason to believe that this effect would spillover to women covered by private insurance plans. If the Stupak/Nelson language makes it into the final health care bill, industry-wide abortion coverage could very well be phased out in the longer-term, endangering access to safe abortion services for all who can't afford to pay out of pocket.

Read the rest of the post on the flip side »

Michael Tomasky v. Michael Moore: Whose Afghanistan View is More Imperialist?
Posted by Adele Stan, AlterNet on December 7, 2009 at 3:00 PM.

As I've said before, are no good solutions for the mess that is Afghanistan. But there are some that are less bad than others.  That's why I offer qualified, tentative support for the U.S. military's surge in Afghanistan. The U.S. has done a lot to make that mess, going back to the CIA's role in creating the radical madrassahs -- the religious schools -- that gave birth to the militarized religious extremism one finds in Afghanistan today.

In his open letter to President Obama last week, filmmaker Michael Moore all but accused the president of imperialist designs in his plan to add an additional 30,000 troops to the U.S. military presence in Afghanistan. When The Guardian's Michael Tomasky took issue with that characterization, Lindsay Beyerstein blogged (in a Majikthise post picked up by AlterNet), that Tomasky had it all wrong, and accused him of sneering at the presumably earnest Moore. (Well, Tomasky did accuse Moore of producing a gas-filled missive.)

Before I go further, allow me some full disclosure: Tomasky is a friend and my former bossman from the days when I was a columnist and blogger for The American Prospect. Beyerstein is a friend and colleague from my stint at The Media Consortium. Michael Moore is an acquaintance with whom I interviewed for a job some 20 or so years ago.  Don't really know him, but I loved Roger and Me.

Now that that's out of the way, I'm throwing in with Tomasky.

First, I think that the knee-jerk, anti-Afghanistan-war reaction of many on the left is no less imperialistic -- perhaps even more so -- than the case for staying in. I mean, really, how progressive is it to mess with the internal politics -- to the point of arming various factions the better to vanquish one's own enemy -- of an impoverished nation for 30 years, and then leave it broken and abandoned for the second time in three decades?

When progressives make the case that American dollars would be better put to use feeding Americans than helping Afghanistan create a nation out of the wreckage the U.S. helped to create, aren't we just saying that, despite the fact that we suck up more of the world's resources than we deserve, we're better and different than the Afghans? That they somehow deserved their fate? And now that our leaders have so screwed up the global economy that we're feeling it at home, we don't want to spend the money to fix what we broke?

Anti-war progressives are acting as if the U.S. had no history in Afghanistan prior to the 2001 invasion. In his open letter, Moore invokes the disastrous end met by the Soviet Union in Afghanistan as a parallel to the U.S.'s present involvement. He leaves out the part where the end met by the USSR came at the point of Stinger missiles provided by the U.S. to the religious warriors who formed the Soviet Union's opposition, and the U.S. abandonment of Afghanistan after the Soviet defeat.

Read the rest of the post on the flip side »

Hey Dems, That Senate Bill You Just Blocked Isn't Something to Celebrate
Posted by John Nichols, TheNation.com on December 7, 2009 at 7:45 AM.

Senate Democrats are celebrating the fact that, in their rush to come up with a scheme to pay for health-care reform, they have blocked an effort to preserve payments to home health agencies that provide nursing care and therapy to homebound Medicare beneficiaries.

Dumb move.

Medicare is one of the most popular, and well-run, health care programs in the world.

It may not be as efficient as it should be.

But this public program is dramatically better run than private insurance firms. And it produces far better results for Americans.

Perhaps most significantly, the Americans for whom Medicare produces results for those older Americans who remain the steadiest voters in off-year elections.

Of course, Saturday's attempt by Republican senators to restore about $42 billion in funding to Medicare's home health-care programs was cynical.

The Grand Old Party has a long history of wanting to slash rather than expand Medicare.

But the Democratic "strategy" of paying for health-care reform by nickle-and-diming Medicare is a fool's errand.

There is no question that Medicare programs can and should be improved. And, yes, efficiencies can be achieved -- especially if profiteering by the private-sector recipients of Medicare money is controlled. Senate Finance Committee chair Max Baucus, D-Montana, may even be right when he says of the assault on home health benefits that: "We are getting the waste out."

But, somehow, that just not have the same ring as the declaration by Senator Mike Johanns, R-Nebraska, that: "The cuts will hurt real people."

Np matter which side is right about the details of these particular cuts, a plan to pay for health-care reform by squeezing Medicare makes no sense when there are so, so, so many better places -- such as the bloated Department of Defense budget or allocated-but-as-yet-unused funds for "rescuing" financial-service industry speculators -- to find money to pay for expanding access to health care.

To begin the health-care debate in the Senate with Democrats celebrating their successful defense of Medicare cuts is madness. What next? Reform education by slashing day-care funding? Address the mortgage crisis by bailing out big banks? (Oops.)

After the GOP amendment failed -- having gained just 41 votes from Republicans and four centrist Democrats -- Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nevada, tried Saturday to put things in the best light, saying, "The fact is that our bill will, in short, save lives, save money, and save Medicare," Reid said. "It will make it possible for each and every American to afford to live a healthy life. We can't afford not to do this."

But that the GOP television ads in next year's tightest Senate races -- including Reid's reelection race in Nevada -- will talk about Democrats cutting Medicare.

Read the rest of the post on the flip side »

Get Off John McCain's Lawn!
Posted by Steve Benen, Washington Monthly on December 7, 2009 at 4:27 AM.

Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), his near-constant media attention notwithstanding, doesn't seem to be having any fun.

Yesterday, the senator was all worked up about Medicare cost-savings, claiming not to know what "the deal is." Sen. Max Baucus (D-Mont.) rose to explain it to him, and McCain didn't take it especially well.

Note in the video that McCain is incensed by all the lobbyists in the halls of Congress. I guess he liked lobbyists better when he hired dozens of them to run his campaign operation last year.

The confrontation came a day after Senator Hothead told Don Imus, "I'm madder than I've ever been." The comment came in response to a question about the economic recovery package, which McCain called an "outrageous use of taxpayers' dollars."

McCain, whose temperament has always been disturbing, is angrier now than he's ever been because of a recovery package that rescued the economy from collapse? That seems odd.

I'm reminded of something Sen. Thad Cochran (R) of Mississippi said about his long-time colleague last year: "[McCain] is erratic. He is hotheaded. He loses his temper and he worries me."

Sarah Palin's Own Father Reportedly Said She'd Been "Uncomfortable Around Asians"
Posted by Oliver Willis, Oliver Willis.com on December 6, 2009 at 10:31 PM.

Did Asians Scare Sarah Palin Away From Hawaii?

The evidence sure points in that direction.

Ramesh Ponnurru: Defender of Blastocyst-Americans
Posted by Tintin, Sadly, No! on December 6, 2009 at 6:22 PM.

Blastocyst-worshiping radical Catholicist Ramesh Ponnurru is over at America’s Shittiest Website™ in full-metal-chasuble mode, slinging his rosary at everyone in sight, because the Center for American Progress had the utter temerity to suggest that legislation that would make health care more available might actually be consistent with Catholic theology. Apparently when Jesus healed the sick, he asked for an insurance card first and extracted a promise from all women that he healed that they wouldn’t run out and get an abortion afterwards.

Naturally Ponnuru’s biggest concern is that health care reform might facilitate access to abortions, and he is perfectly willing to see actual human beings die to protect the lives of some innocent blastocysts. In order to get to that result he’s willing to say just about anything, including this splendidly retarded piece of incomprehensibility:

And when the bishops say that all people should have “ready access to quality, comprehensive, and affordable health care,” that doesn’t even mean that they have endorsed universal coverage, let alone a specific legislative attempt to come closer to it. Still less does it mean that Catholic social teaching requires us to support that attempt.

Don’t bother reading that again and trying to make more sense of it on the second go-round. It’s just as preposterous on subsequent readings. According to Ramesh, just because the Bishops say that all people should have health care doesn’t mean that the Bishops are arguing for universal coverage. This might make sense, I suppose, if the universe in universal coverage includes pets and farm animals. Moreover, according to Ramesh, just because Bishops might say that health care is good doesn’t mean that Catholics need to support health care. Of course, when the Bishops say that abortion is bad that is a mandate to oppose abortion. It obviously can be confusing at times to be a radical Catholicist.

Krauthammer: My Pants Don't Tingle When Obama Gets On His War-Talk!
Posted by Brad Reed, Sadly, No! on December 5, 2009 at 11:33 AM.

Shorter Chuckles Krauthammer:

Uncertain trumpet

• Obama was insufficiently enthusiastic about escalating a war. Now brown people will laugh at the size of the American penis.

‘Shorter’ concept created by Daniel Davies and perfected by Elton Beard. We are aware of all Internet traditions.™

This is, in a lot of ways, the quintessential neoconservative column. It isn’t enough that Obama send 30,000 troops over to fight the Taliban. No, Obama must provide the neocons with emotional gratification in the form of wanton blood lust. Look at this:

Nonetheless, most supporters of the Afghanistan war were satisfied. They got the policy; the liberals got the speech. The hawks got three-quarters of what Gen. Stanley McChrystal wanted — 30,000 additional U.S. troops — and the doves got a few soothing words. Big deal, say the hawks.

But it is a big deal. Words matter because will matters.

And this is why the neocons will never warm to Obama, no matter how many wars he eventually decides to start. It’s a personality thing, really — Obama likes to give off the air of someone who makes decisions only after careful deliberation and weighing the costs and benefits. The neocons, however, only respect fellow travelers who get funny feelings in their pants when they think about war, people who really get off on the idea of watching other people get blown up. For them, war isn’t merely an act of national defense but an emotional gratification and a validation of their personal strength.

To be fair, I can sympathize with them in some ways. When I used to play StarCraft back in the day, I’d really enjoy sending in a platoon of siege tanks to blow up Zerg encampments. But mercifully for the rest of the world, I learned to get out my primordial thirst for blood through computer games and not through becoming a member of the American foreign policy establishment. If only I’d applied to work at the American Enterprise Institute instead, I could have made quite a name for myself. What could have been and so forth.

Unfriendly Fire: Michael Tomasky Attacks Michael Moore on Afghanistan
Posted by Lindsay Beyerstein, Majikthise on December 5, 2009 at 10:00 AM.

Micahel Tomasky accuses Michael Moore of being a fatuous blowhard for criticizing the war in Afghanistan as a doomed imperial adventure. Now, Moore can be a fatuous blowhard, but Tomasky doesn't make the charge stick this time. 

In his open letter to President Obama, Moore warns that Afghanistan has been nicknamed "the graveyard of empires."

Tomasky sneers:

I really don't see what America's mission in Afghanistan has to do with what the British did or what the Soviets did. People love lazy historical parallels, and have a tendency to have over-learned the famous Santayana maxim and believe that invoking it makes them sound smart. But every historical situation is different. Why wouldn't someone with Moore's lefty politics be righteous in the conviction that we owe it to the Afghan people to try to help them establish a proper nation-state for the first time in their history?

Moore doesn't spell out the historical analogy, but the common threads seem obvious to me: The Afghan people have historically been implacably opposed to foreign occupation of any kind and they've been very good at resisting it.

Read the rest of the post on the flip side »

Why the Incoherence of Palin and the Tea-Party Right Is a Logical Outcome of Movement Conservatism
Posted by Steve M., No More Mister Nice Blog on December 4, 2009 at 4:55 PM.

"Crunchy" conservative columnist Rod Dreher has discovered to his dismay that many of his fellow righties simply aren't rational:

Whether they realize it, ordinary people have become more comfortable with the idea that truth is relative and that emotion is a reliable and sufficient guide to finding it....

Relativism in this sense is no longer a specialty of the left. Here's the nut of an exchange I've had many times over the past year with fellow conservatives:

"Barack Obama is a Muslim."

"No, he's not."

"You have your opinion; I have mine."

There is no way to argue with this....

I'll ignore the swipe at the left (noting only that I don't know any lefties who really don't believe in the existence of objective truth). I'm deeply amused at Dreher's despair -- from which he moves on to Sarah Palin:

Her mind isn't geared toward resolving basic philosophical contradictions like her observation that corporations and politicians often collude against the common good, and her dogmatic belief in the sanctity of free enterprise. Well, which is it? You can't hymn the majesties of capitalism's "creative destruction" on one page, while proclaiming yourself a staunch defender of traditional families and institutions on another.

Well, Rod, you righties are reaping what you sow.

Read the rest of the post on the flip side »

This Week in Right-Wing Media Crazy
Posted by Staff, Media Matters for America on December 4, 2009 at 12:58 PM.

The video to your right comes to us from the good folks at Media Matters.

Sad News: Tom Tancredo Will not Run for Colorado Governor
Posted by Andrea Nill, Think Progress on December 4, 2009 at 12:27 PM.

Despite never officially announcing a run for the Colorado governorship, former congressman and presidential candidate Tom Tancredo (R-CO) indicated in early November that he “fully intend[s] to run.” Earlier this week, former 2008 GOP delegate and Tom Tancredo supporter Crista Huff sent a message to the “Tom Tancredo for Governor” private Facebook group indicating that Tancredo will not be running for governor of Colorado and has instead launched a new project called the American Legacy Alliance:

When contacted by ThinkProgress, Huff stated, “I can’t divulge original sources, but I’m sure it’s also on google.” She declined giving an official statement confirming Tancredo’s decision.

Read the rest of the post on the flip side »

Sen. Ben Nelson Asks Bishops' Blessing on His Anti-Choice Health-Care Amendment
Posted by Jodi Jacobson, RH Reality Check on December 4, 2009 at 11:21 AM.

Just in case you had any doubt about the direct--and I mean direct--intervention of the US Conference of Catholic Bishops in curtailing women's rights in US health reform legislation, here is the latest evidence of how some representatives are working at what appears to be the behest of the bishops.

Congressional Quarterly reports: 

Ben Nelson hardened his stance on abortion language Thursday, stating he would not vote for a health care overhaul unless the bill’s proposed restrictions on insurance coverage for abortions are tightened.  [Though] he had said earlier in the week that abortion language was not a make-or-break proposition in the debate.

If the Stupak Amendment is not passed, Nelson has stated he will join a Republican filibuster against the bill.

Without Nelson, Reid will need at least one Republican to reach the 60 votes he needs to limit debate on the health care overhaul and bring it to a vote. The likeliest candidate is Olympia J. Snowe of Maine, who voted for a version of the legislation approved by the Finance Committee.

But to win their votes Reid will have to:

yield to Snowe’s demands on another contentious issue in the health care debate: the government-run insurance plan, known as the “public option,” that many Democrats want to create to compete with private insurers. Snowe is skeptical of the proposal and has said she will support a public option only if it is structured as a fallback, triggered solely in the event that private insurers fail to offer coverage considered affordable.

Discussions are underway to reach a compromise position in creating a public option similar in some respects to the plan Snowe has outlined.

Nelson and Senator Orrin G. Hatch (R-Utah) appear to have engaged in a sort of pissing match on who owns the strategy of taking away women's rights in the Senate bill.

Read the rest of the post on the flip side »

Sherrod Brown Calls GOP's Bluff on Health Reform; Ruins Cheap Partisanship of Vitter, Coburn
Posted by Steve Benen, Washington Monthly on December 4, 2009 at 10:06 AM.

Watching the Senate debate health care reform this week has been pretty frustrating. We've seen enough obstructionism, lying, and grandstanding to last quite a while, and the chamber is just getting started.

But for all the annoyances, there's been at least some entertainment. Take this story, for example.

Sens. Tom Coburn (R-Okla.) and David Vitter (R-La.) are preparing an amendment to force members of Congress into any public option health plan that becomes law, frustrating at least one Senate Democrat who wants to join the effort.

Sen. Sherrod Brown (Ohio) said he is trying to co-sponsor the amendment -- but that Coburn and Vitter won't let him.

Apparently, Coburn and Vitter, two of the most right-wing members of the chamber, think they have a clever scheme to stick it to those rascally Democrats. "They want a public option so bad?" the argument goes. "We'll show them -- we'll force them to get coverage through a public plan!"

Brown thinks that's a great idea, which basically takes away all of Coburn's and Vitter's fun.

"They've not said yes to allow me to be a co-sponsor," Brown told The Hill on Thursday. "I've called their office four times. I'm proud of the public option, I think it would be great and we ought to join it and show the country how good it is. I think my interest may be more genuine than theirs, but I'd like to work with them if they'll let me. If they just want to score partisan points, I still want to work with them."

What to Make of Feingold's Nay on the Women's Health Care Amendment
Posted by Daniela Perdomo, AlterNet on December 3, 2009 at 1:44 PM.

Earlier today, the Senate passed an amendment to its health care bill that would ensure insurance companies provide women an extensive package of preventive services. The vote for the clause, introduced by Barbara Mikulski (D-MD), was 61-39.

The New York Times wrote that it passed "with three Republicans joining 56 Democrats and the two independents in favor" -- so the first thing I thought was, "If even two GOP senators voted for it, who the hell were the two Dems that nayed it?"

Considering his threat to introduce a "Stupak-like amendment," pro-lifer Ben Nelson (D-NE), was the first name that came to mind. And I was right. The second, however, was a little puzzling -- Russ Feingold (D-WI). According to OpenCongress, Nelson is one of the senators Feingold votes with least often.

It's not as easy for me to gloss over Feingold's votes as those of most of his colleagues, because he does strike as me as one of the more reasonable members of the Senate. After all, he was among the few that voted against the war in Iraq and the only one to vote against the PATRIOT Act, the legislative antonym of civil liberties.

Read the rest of the post on the flip side »

A Friend of Mine Once Knew a Guy Who Was a Welfare Queen
Posted by Joshua Holland, AlterNet on December 3, 2009 at 11:31 AM.

As a good conservative, I understand that programs like food-stamps, which purportedly help the poor, aren’t really about providing nutrition to 1 in 4 American children. Being Americans, these kids obviously don’t lack for nutrition in the first place.

The bleeding-hearts might buy all that mushy stuff about “poor” people “suffering” at the bottom of the economic ladder, but as anyone who's read this influential comic book knows, it’s ultimately about dependency. Hungry children, if such creatures existed in the U.S., would have no incentive to go out and find a job -- to develop themselves and their vocational-skills, as long as the nanny-state just keeps filling up their stomachs for free.

This is basic economics, people.

I know I will be charged with callousness by the PC-crowd for saying as much. And perhaps the accusation would have some merit if a very large share of those receiving food-stamps actually increased their nutritional intake.  

But as anyone who hasn’t been indoctrinated into the liberal media’s poverty narrative knows quite well, if you give a poor person a dollar to buy food, they’re just going to use it to buy fancy sneakers or those gold teeth the inner-city types like to sport.

And because we know this is not only true for a small number of food-stamp recipients, but is in fact very, very common — perhaps bordering on universal — it’s more than enough reason to oppose the program altogether. Heartlessness doesn’t even enter into the equation.

Obviously, whenever one makes a commonsense observation like this, those pointy-headed ivory-tower-liberals start blathering about “evidence.”

But that there is in abundance!

Read the rest of the post on the flip side »

Bernie Sanders Puts Official Senate Hold on Bernanke Nomination
Posted by David Sirota, Open Left on December 2, 2009 at 7:23 PM.

Per Chris's whip count on the Bernanke nomination, this is pretty huge news from my old boss:

WASHINGTON, December 2 - Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) today placed a hold on the nomination of Ben Bernanke for a second term as chairman of the Federal Reserve.

"The American people overwhelmingly voted last year for a change in our national priorities to put the interests of ordinary people ahead of the greed of Wall Street and the wealthy few," Sanders said. "What the American people did not bargain for was another four years for one of the key architects of the Bush economy."

Ya know, with Republicans and corporate Democrats happily using the Senate power of obstruction so much to stop progressive priorities, it's about time progressive Senators start using that same power of obstruction for progressive ends.

NY Times: Af-Pak Speech Pitched to "Rank-and-File Americans" ... WTF?
Posted by Joshua Holland, AlterNet on December 2, 2009 at 12:15 PM.

NY Times reporter Jeff Zeleny knocked this out on the Times' blog last night, soon after Obama's Af-Pak speech:

The words from the president, which at times were soaring, seemed to do very little to settle the discontent from the left ...

As for the most important audience – rank-and-file Americans – it will take a few more days to get a reliable read from opinion polls of how people viewed the speech.

So we have "the left", juxtaposed against a very odd construct: "rank-and-file Americans." The latter, apparently non-ideological, are themselves part of the war effort.

As a citizen, I don't even know my rank, and I guess that's what makes me a leftist.

Now here's a very interesting fact. You could, if you so desired, go down to your local major university and enroll in an international relations program. You could sign up for a class called something like: Foreign Policy Analysis 110 -- the basics. In it, a learned professor would explain that in foreign policy, conservatives are, above all, "humble." Foreign policy conservatives believe "hubris" is the ultimate trap. They don't believe in nation-building, launching adventurous expeditions to stabilize the basket-cases of the international system or using military might to advance human rights.

Liberals, you'd be told, are the internationalists. They believe in humanitarian intervention -- in using force to prevent governments from egregiously violating their citizens' human rights. They believe in democracy's power to bring peace and reconciliation to war-torn, traumatized populations, and would, when the circumstances require, use force to impose it (or they'd say to impose an environment in which democracy can grow).

By the way, these ideological tendencies were more or less evident in U.S. foreign policy until recently -- the rise of the neocons, and the ideological reshuffling about war and peace that followed Vietnam, have obscured the philosophical differences between liberal and conservative approaches to international relations.

And contra Zeleny's narrative, traditional foreign-policy conservatism still exists in a segment of the right. Think Ron Paul, Paul Craig Roberts, Pat Buchanan, etc. -- where do they fit?

Anyway, that's neither here nor there. One could argue that it's unfair to take a reporter to task for a late-evening blog post -- that's first-draft publishing, and perhaps Zeleny would have chosen his words more carefully. But this is not a semantic point -- the labels reporters choose for a story guide the way readers receive it. "Rank-and-file Americans" suggests hard-working "real" people, as distinct not from rational thinkers who have calculated that the Afghanistan conflict is an unwinnable mess, but "leftists" -- presumably non-real Americans, elitists, weirdos from San Francisco, etc.

This kind of subtle framing is commonplace. Part of the reason I highlighted this little nugget is that I'd just read this post by Jamison Foster over at Media Matters yesterday, taking a WaPo reporter to task for similarly bizarre labeling:

Last week, Washington Post reporter Perry Bacon suggested GOP Sen. George Voinovich would vote against health care reform because he is a "strong fiscal conservative."  As I noted at the time, that's an odd use of the label "fiscal conservative," given that health care reform would, according to the Congressional Budget Office, reduce the deficit.

Well, today, a Post reader asked Bacon about that:

Read the rest of the post on the flip side »

Afghanistan and Pakistan: Not Just About Al Qaeda Any More
Posted by Adele Stan, AlterNet on December 2, 2009 at 9:49 AM.

Listening to the president's speech last night, you may have come away thinking that the U.S. mission in South Asia was largely about depriving al Qaeda its bases of operation in Afghanistan and Pakistan. "Our overarching goal remains the same:  to disrupt, dismantle, and defeat al Qaeda in Afghanistan and Pakistan, and to prevent its capacity to threaten America and our allies in the future," said President Barack Obama.

This is the mission Congress authorized President George W. Bush to pursue in 2001.

Yet if you listened to the subtext of the speech, you might find that the mission has changed. In fact, you might say that the mission in Afghanistan is as much about creating stability in Pakistan -- a nuclear power that NBC's Andrea Mitchell yesterday referred to as a nearly failed state -- as it is about Afghanistan. Last night, a senior administration official confirmed to AlterNet that the U.S. mission to Pakistan has broadened.

From the president's speech:

In the past, we too often defined our relationship with Pakistan narrowly.  Those days are over.  Moving forward, we are committed to a partnership with Pakistan that is built on a foundation of mutual interest, mutual respect, and mutual trust. We will strengthen Pakistan’s capacity to target those groups that threaten our countries, and have made it clear that we cannot tolerate a safe haven for terrorists whose location is known and whose intentions are clear.  America is also providing substantial resources to support Pakistan’s democracy and development.  We are the largest international supporter for those Pakistanis displaced by the fighting.  And going forward, the Pakistan people must know America will remain a strong supporter of Pakistan’s security and prosperity long after the guns have fallen silent, so that the great potential of its people can be unleashed.

In truth, the largest threat to the U.S. from Pakistan is not al Qaeda, or even, as the president suggested, the "cancer" of extremism spilling over the Pakistan border from Afghanistan. The real threat is Pakistan's homegrown extremists, who have always been there, and with the shakiness of Pakistan's democracy, have been emboldened. Bomb attacks on civilians by Pakistani Taliban and its allies in cities across Pakistan reached a fever pitch in October and early November.  Yet the attacks appear to have been fueled, in part, by U.S. military policy in the region.

Drone attacks on villages in Pakistan's Northwest Frontier Provinces -- attacks that appear to be part of a covert U.S. program -- have enraged local Pashtun leaders. After a bomb attack in a Peshawar bazaar killed more than 100 on October 28, a Pashtun-language banner was unfurled that condemned the purchase of a local luxury hotel by the U.S. for use as a consulate by equating the U.S. government with the mercenary force that provides security for U.S. aid projects in the region. "Handing the Pearl Continental to Blackwater is a grave injustice," the banner read, according to Assam Ahmed of the Christian Science Monitor.

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More GOP Hypocrisy on Health Care (Video)
Posted by Victor Zapanta, Think Progress on December 2, 2009 at 6:15 AM.

On the Senate floor yesterday, Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) made a request on behalf of Sen. Blanche Lincoln (D-AR) that senators proposing amendments to the health care bill place the text of their amendments online. Immediately following Reid’s request, Sen. Mike Enzi (R-WY) took to the floor to object to the transparency proposal. Enzi’s argued that, although the bill appears to lead to greater transparency, “we can also see ways that this can limit the ability for the minority to offer amendments.” Watch it:

Lincoln “issued a statement chastising Republicans for blocking efforts at government transparency.” Just weeks ago, the Republican Party lined up to accuse Democrats of opposing greater transparency. In October, the RNC and the House Republican Conference churned out YouTube videos to attack Democrats for working “behind closed doors.” A week later, Minority Leader John Boehner (R-OH) attacked Democrats, saying that “instead of listening to the American people, Democrats hid behind closed doors.” Similarly, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell recently complained that the health care bill was “drafted behind closed doors.”

Beat the Pundits
Posted by Staff, AlterNet on December 1, 2009 at 6:19 PM.

Remarks of President Barack Obama—As Prepared for Delivery

The Way Forward in Afghanistan and Pakistan

United States Military Academy at West Point

December 1, 2009

Good evening. To the United States Corps of Cadets, to the men and women of our armed services, and to my fellow Americans: I want to speak to you tonight about our effort in Afghanistan – the nature of our commitment there, the scope of our interests, and the strategy that my Administration will pursue to bring this war to a successful conclusion. It is an honor for me to do so here – at West Point – where so many men and women have prepared to stand up for our security, and to represent what is finest about our country.

To address these issues, it is important to recall why America and our allies were compelled to fight a war in Afghanistan in the first place. We did not ask for this fight. On September 11, 2001, nineteen men hijacked four airplanes and used them to murder nearly 3,000 people. They struck at our military and economic nerve centers. They took the lives of innocent men, women, and children without regard to their faith or race or station. Were it not for the heroic actions of the passengers on board one of those flights, they could have also struck at one of the great symbols of our democracy in Washington, and killed many more.

As we know, these men belonged to al Qaeda – a group of extremists who have distorted and defiled Islam, one of the world’s great religions, to justify the slaughter of innocents. Al Qaeda’s base of operations was in Afghanistan, where they were harbored by the Taliban – a ruthless, repressive and radical movement that seized control of that country after it was ravaged by years of Soviet occupation and civil war, and after the attention of America and our friends had turned elsewhere.

Just days after 9/11, Congress authorized the use of force against al Qaeda and those who harbored them – an authorization that continues to this day. The vote in the Senate was 98 to 0. The vote in the House was 420 to 1. For the first time in its history, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization invoked Article 5 – the commitment that says an attack on one member nation is an attack on all. And the United Nations Security Council endorsed the use of all necessary steps to respond to the 9/11 attacks. America, our allies and the world were acting as one to destroy al Qaeda’s terrorist network, and to protect our common security.

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Updated: Corporate Grinch: GE Threatens to Kill Christmas Rather than Negotiate with Workers in Good Faith
Posted by Joshua Holland, AlterNet on December 1, 2009 at 4:27 PM.

So, it's a liberal War on Christmas, is it?

Press release:

NBC’s failure to bargain fairly with the union that represents nearly 3,000 of the network’s producers, writers and technicians has put the lighting of the world's most famous Christmas tree at serious risk. In an attempt to save the annual “Christmas in Rockefeller Center” special, the union launched a new website today – http://NBCStoleChristmas.com – that highlights the “Grinch” within NBC.

National Association of Broadcast Employees and Technicians (NABET-CWA) Local 11 president Ed McEwan said the union is angry about stalled negotiations for a new contract. NABET-CWA’s prior contract expired in March, and there has been very little progress since talks began more than a year ago. In the meantime, management has grown increasingly hostile, ignoring the concerns of the union’s membership.

“We can’t let the Grinch at NBC steal another Christmas from thousands of honest working people,” said McEwan. “This charade must stop. Christmas is supposed to be a time of goodwill, but the network’s management is trying to hide behind their fancy lights while leaving their employees in the dark.”

Hoping that further contract negotiation dates can be set without a full strike during NBC’s Christmas tree lighting, the broadcast technicians are using online advertising and text messaging to promote their efforts. Updates on NABET-CWA’s campaign are available by texting “Grinch” to 228466 or by registering their cell phone numbers at the new website.

The union’s principal goal is to protect job security from the network’s attempts to dismantle how technical work is assigned, so that NBC’s employees who primarily perform those tasks are allowed in the bargaining unit.

In an earlier life, I used to do film and video production and post-production in New York. Union crews are good, fast, know their shit and cost a lot. We'd always work with them, and we'd build their highly skilled labor costs into the budget. We'd make money, the crew would make money, and our clients would not only get good product but, ultimately, whether they knew it or not, better value for their dollar than if we had paid peanuts to hire some monkeys.

Update: This is American; the union caved, and issued a press release about how its members had "saved Christmas." PR victory, I suppose.

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Why Is Politico Coddling Dick Cheney Again?
Posted by Steve Benen, Washington Monthly on December 1, 2009 at 3:45 PM.

CHENEY STENOGRAPHY.... By some accounts, White House aides aren't especially impressed with Politico. It's understandable.

Take this morning, for example, where the lead Politico story, kicking off coverage of President Obama's speech on the future of U.S. policy in Afghanistan, is a lengthy chat with the corrupt, incompetent clown who helped create the mess the president is trying to clean up.

On the eve of the unveiling of the nation's new Afghanistan policy, former Vice President Dick Cheney slammed President Barack Obama for projecting "weakness" to adversaries and warned that more workaday Afghans will side with the Taliban if they think the United States is heading for the exits. [...]

Cheney rejected any suggestion that Obama had to decide on a new strategy for Afghanistan because the one employed by the previous administration failed.

Cheney was asked if he thinks the Bush administration bears any responsibility for the disintegration of Afghanistan because of the attention and resources that were diverted to Iraq. "I basically don't," he replied without elaborating.

And in response, Politico didn't elaborate either. Sure, the piece does a fine job of publishing all of the various, baseless attacks against the White House trying to clean up Cheney's messes, but the article makes no meaningful effort to tell the reader why the depraved rhetoric falls somewhere between literally unbelievable and hopelessly insane.

During the interview, Cheney laced his concerns with a broader critique of Obama's foreign and national security policy, saying Obama's nuanced and at times cerebral approach projects "weakness" and that the president is looking "far more radical than I expected."

"Here's a guy without much experience, who campaigned against much of what we put in place ... and who now travels around the world apologizing," Cheney said. "I think our adversaries -- especially when that's preceded by a deep bow ... -- see that as a sign of weakness."

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2011: Obama's Plan for Escalation and Withdrawal in Afghanistan
Posted by Meteor Blades, Daily Kos on December 1, 2009 at 1:59 PM.

In a background-only White House briefing – no names for publication - administration officials this afternoon provided some details on what Barack Obama, in his role as Commander in Chief, will say in his speech on Afghanistan in a few hours.

He will reaffirm his core goal as announced in March – to "disrupt, dismantle and defeat" al Qaeda and prevent their return.

To carry out the policies the President has chosen, 30,000 more U.S. troops will be sent, adding to the 33,000 sent since March, and setting the full deployment at 98,000. By week’s end, NATO’s secretary-general is expected to announce a still-undecided troop increase from that organization. As there are 42,000 NATO troops already in place, the increase is likely to bring the full array of Western forces in Afghanistan close to 150,000.

The U.S. troops will be in place by summer 2010. It was pointed out that this is faster than any of the options the President was presented with by General Stanley McChrystal in his strategic assessment presented in late August.

These troops will focus on defeating al Qaeda and reversing the momentum of the Taliban, which has been steadily growing ever since the Bush administration moved resources to the Iraq war in 2003. They will seek to secure key areas in the southern portion of the country, train Afghan military forces and try to build a new partnership with the government.

The plan is to begin transferring authority for security to Afghan forces by July 2011. But it was made repeatedly clear that this is only the starting date for such a transfer. The speed of the transfer, and its completion date, will depend on progress on the ground. While some have said that three years is the goal, an administration official that no such number will be included in the speech. After July 2011, how fast the process runs will be the President's call.

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Why Do Mainstream Media Suck Up to Pastor Rick Warren?
Posted by Adele Stan, AlterNet on December 1, 2009 at 1:27 PM.

One of the most maddening things about covering the religious right as a progressive journalist is watching the mainstream media suck up to the leading figures of the religious right, as if, because they are self-declared men of God, they are somehow beyond reproach. Nowhere was this phenomenon more on display than this weekend's edition of NBC's Meet the Press, in host David Gregory's interview of Rick Warren, pastor of Saddleback Church, and author of the Purpose-Driven Life.

The premise for the interview was not anything newsworthy that Warren had done, but rather the True Meaning of Thanksgiving, which Warren was happy to illustrate with examples of his own generosity. Warren even compared himself, with no challenge from the host, to King Solomon. And MTP producers gave Warren a full half of the program, without any balance offered by a liberal religious figure.

In fact the one newsworthy thing Warren has done recently -- lend tacit support to a proposal for the criminalization of homosexuality in Uganda -- never came up in Gregory's interview. This controversy has been around for a while. At Religion Dispatches, Sarah Posner reported it on November 3, and the think tank Political Reseach Associates issued an October 29 press release calling on Warren to denounce the draconian law, which would include the death penalty for HIV-infected people who have sex of any kind, and would "authorize...life imprisonment for gay sex," according to Posner, who called Warren for comment on the law. What she got back was a statement from Warren saying he took no position on the Uganda law, which would also criminalize organizing for LGBT rights.

The closest Gregory came to this issue was to ask Warren if his AIDS-mitigation work had altered his views of gay people:

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Activists Strip Down to Their Birthday Suits to Protest Fur
Posted by Staff, AlterNet on December 1, 2009 at 12:48 PM.

Enjoyed the Health-Care Debate? We'll Keep Chasing Our Tails Until We Start Taking American Democracy Seriously
Posted by Joshua Holland, AlterNet on December 1, 2009 at 6:30 AM.

If you talk about campaign finance reform or the clean elections model, or decry how corrupt the relationship between lobbyists and lawmakers has become, people's eyes glaze over. It's boring.

When you point out that Americans would never for a second accept a choice of only two flavors of ice cream, and ask why in the world we can let these two not-terribly-responsive parties have a stranglehold on our government and call ourselves a democracy -- if you suggest we might consider a parliamentary system, so people who don't fit neatly into one of two "big tents" can be represented -- you obviously belong to the fringe.

Instant runoff voting to eliminate the 3rd-party "spoiler" problem? That's not a serious policy proposal. Restoring voting rights for felons who've served their debt to society? That's right up there with 'Free Mumia!' as a rallying cry for most mainstream progressives. And if you want to see people give you a funny look, as if you're not quite right in the head, tell them that it'd really take a Constitutional Amendment getting rid of the ridiculous notion of "corporate personhood" to establish a true democracy in the U.S.

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