D-Day

The End of Gadhafi?

2011-08-19T06:37:00.001-07:00

(FDL is undergoing some maintenance, so posting here for the moment)

There have been a lot of ups and downs in the Libyan civil war, and with the unpredictability on both sides I think it's fair to question whether anything can be decisive. But the rebel taking of the oil refinery at Zawiya is crucial because it cuts off the key supply line and the key supply (oil) to Moammar Gadhafi and his forces in Tripoli. It turns Gadhafi into a sitting duck.

On Thursday , jubilant rebels set up checkpoints at the refinery. Engineers were turning off the supply of petrol to Tripoli, the besieged capital of Gaddafi's rapidly shrinking empire. "Some people were for Gaddafi. Today, these people are less. Sooner or later he is finished," (refinery engineer Yusuf) Hamad predicted, adding that it would be possible to get the refinery going again soon.

After an uprising that has already gone on for seven months, it would be rash to make predictions about when, or if, the Gaddafi regime will crumble. But the government's options are narrowing. The rebels now control the coastal highway between Tripoli and the Tunisian border, a crucial gateway and main supply route for water, petrol, rice and tomatoes.

The rebels are now confidently predicting that they will control Tripoli by the end of the month. A UN envoy is meeting with both sides of the civil war in Tunisia. I don't believe the report that Gadhafi will flee to the neighboring country, but he certainly may be looking for an escape, either to Venezuela or inside Libya as part of a negotiated settlement. That's if the rebels agree to any concessions when they have Tripoli staring them in the face. If they are motivated by freedom and not revenge, they will cut a deal and reduce the loss of human life.

I share the uncontroversial opinion that Gadhafi is a bad guy, and that he should be brought to justice. This six-month ordeal still leaves a lot of unanswered questions. Even today we don't have a full picture of who the Libyan rebels are. There have been reports of atrocities and frontier justice against regime supporters. There has been infighting which led to the assassination of the top military commander. Employing NATO for close air support puts the coalition in a position of responsibility in the future that may or may not be desirable.

Throughout I hoped it would work out, and the potential end of Gadhafi's reign of terror is an objectively good thing. Like all of the Arab uprising revolutions, it's a beginning, not an end.

I Did It

2011-05-18T16:26:00.000-07:00

I knocked down Blogger so Ann Althouse would be vanquished.

Ain't I a stinker?

The 23 Judicial Foreclosure States

2010-10-06T23:39:00.000-07:00

This is mainly for reference.

Connecticut, Florida, Hawaii, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maine, Nebraska, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, North Carolina, North Dakota, Ohio, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, South Dakota, Vermont, Wisconsin

Total Offense

2010-09-12T20:06:00.000-07:00

Because this thought doesn't fit on a political news blog...

People are talking about my man Denard Robinson for the Heisman Trophy because of his "total offense" stats. This is a wildly misleading statistic. A quarterback who also primarily runs the ball for his team is going to have very eye-popping stats. Robinson didn't run the ball or pass against Notre Dame on, I believe, 12 plays. 500 yards total offense is pretty impressive in and of itself, but the spread system will generate those kinds of yardage numbers.

Robinson's obviously a good quarterback, but he's a system quarterback who will gain 300-350 yards pretty much by accident every game, simply by virtue of getting the call in the running game 25 times and throwing short outs another 10-15 times.

This has been a random sports post.

How It Works

2010-08-21T07:47:00.000-07:00

Just wanted to put this here to remind myself:

Democrats propose X.
Republicans propose Y.
Democrats propose X and Y. This would build confidence that Democrats can get things done.
Republican say no, they can't accept X.
Democrats pass Y.
Then they tell everyone they really wanted to pass X, and they'll fix Y later.

Workers Memorial Day In Los Angeles

2010-04-28T10:05:00.000-07:00

I'm a blogger fellow with Brave New Films on their 16 Deaths Per Day campaign for worker safety. Join us on Facebook.

Today is Workers Memorial Day, the day we remember those who have died on the job. They come from all walks of life, merely trying to get ahead and create a better world for themselves and their families. And yet, each year, thousands of people die from unsafe working conditions or hazardous duty; 16 deaths per day, in fact.

Over the weekend I attended a Workers Memorial Day event in Los Angeles, at the UCLA Labor Center near MacArthur Park. I saw the makeshift memorial to some of the 404 workers who died at their place of employment in California in 2008, adorned with pictures, flowers, and also the tools of work - cleaning supplies, a computer mouse, fruits and vegetables, a surgical mask, and paint rollers. I read about Damien Whipple, 24, who fell off a train into the tracks while working to switch out rail cars. I read about Abdon Felix, 42, who collapsed in 108 degree heat while loading grapes at Sunview Farms in Delano. I read about Carlos Rivera, a 73 year-old dockworker at the Port of Long Beach who was struck by a forklift carrying rolls of sheet metal.

Every year, worker rights and safety advocates, unionists, clergy, and the families of the victims gather in Los Angeles, to honor these workers and bring awareness of the real problem of worker fatalities. They hold a mock funeral procession around the area, to make everyone in the community aware of the issue, and to demonstrate solidarity with the cause. Leaders read names of 40 of the 404 who died, and after every name, the crowd assembled replied "Presente!" in a show of unity.

Representative Laura Richardson (D-CA) of nearby Long Beach spoke at the event. She's a former member of the Machinist's Union, and she talked about her employment history. "I worked at 'The Bomb Shelter,' a restaurant area, when I went to UCLA. I cleaned the toilets and the tables, and I never recall anyone offering me any gloves," Richardson said. "I worked at UPS, and no one offered me steel-toed shoes." She painted a picture of workers often taken advantage of on the job, of a lack of protective gear and supplies, a lack of training, a lack of empathy by forcing workers to show up even when sick or injured, upon threat of termination.

"That's why I support HR 2067, the Protecting America's Workers Act," Richardson announced to the crowd. "Even though our laws in California are better than most, they're not good enough, and the federal laws haven't been improved in 40 years."

In fact, Workers Memorial Day Coincides with the anniversary of the passage of the Occupational Safety and Health Act, and Richardson is correct - many of those statutes have not been updated for a changing workplace since their passage. "It's not good enough to put a poster on the wall," Richardson said, "we need supervisors following the law, and if they aren't they should be penalized."

We're seeing with the recent high-profile cases of worker deaths, like with the Gulf of Mexico oil rig explosion, that employers have grown savvy at beating the system and circumventing regulations. That's why they need to be strengthened and given the teeth needed to truly provide for a safe workplace.

And if anything, the recession has deepened that need. We've seen corporate productivity rise as their workforce gets reduced. Basically, most companies are producing more with less. The staffs have increased stress and that can lead to more accidents. Some advocates for hotel workers told me that hotel staff has been slashed across the board even as amenities increase and the workload rises. This can easily lead to preventable accidents.

In a proclamation today on the 40th anniversary of OSHA, President Obama recognized the need for constant vigilance in protecting America's workers:

Although these large-scale tragedies are appalling, most workplace deaths result from tragedies that claim one life at a time through preventable incidents or disabling disease. Every day, 14 workers are killed in on-the-job incidents, while thousands die each year of work-related disease, and millions are injured or contract an illness. Most die far from the spotlight, unrecognized and unnoticed by all but their families, friends, and co-workers -- but they are not forgotten.

The legal right to a safe workplace was won only after countless lives had been lost over decades in workplaces across America, and after a long and bitter fight waged by workers, unions, and public health advocates. Much remains to be done, and my Administration is dedicated to renewing our Nation's commitment to achieve safe working conditions for all American workers.

Providing safer work environments will take the concerted action of government, businesses, employer associations, unions, community organizations, the scientific and public health communities, and individuals. Today, as we mourn those lost mere weeks ago in the Upper Big Branch Mine and other recent disasters, so do we honor all the men and women who have died on the job. In their memory, we rededicate ourselves to preventing such tragedies, and to securing a safer workplace for every American.

Now OSHA merely needs the proper tools to succeed in their mission. And the Protecting America's Workers Act can provide it.

The Most Unsafe Workplace Watched By 75,000 Screaming Fans

2010-04-22T15:10:00.000-07:00

I'm a blogger fellow with Brave New Films on their 16 Deaths Per Day campaign for worker safety. Join us on Facebook.

Tonight in New York City, football executives will change the lives of hundreds of young men at the NFL Draft. Young men from around the country will see their fortunes arrive with the call of their name from the podium. They will be feted with signing bonuses and performance bonuses and endorsement contracts and millions of dollars in salary. And then in the fall, we'll all trudge out to our local stadia to cheer on these same players to victory.

But what will we be watching? Actually, we'll be invited into the workplace of two football teams, a workplace as cruel and debilitating as any in the nation. Over the past several months, members of Congress have investigated the prevalence of concussions and neurological injuries arising from the game of football, and the results have been unsettling.

Are professional football players at greater risk of dementia and other neurological problems?

The question took center stage in Congress on Wednesday during hours of testimony from doctors, retired athletes and National Football League executives. A congressional committee waded through conflicting perspectives on past and current studies, and urged the use of greater precautions to help protect participants in one of America's most popular pastimes [...]

"Surely, an $8 billion a year industry can find it within its budget to make sure players are adequately protected and that any victims of long-term brain disease are fairly compensated," said Michigan Rep. John Conyers, the Democratic chairman of the House Judiciary Committee.

These are "life and death issues. They go to the heart of our nation's most popular sport, and equally importantly, they affect millions of players of all ages and their families."

The New York Times has done a particularly good job of covering this issue. Through their coverage, you can see the NFL first deny, then admit the long-term effects of concussions on their employees; allow the co-chairs of their concussion committee to quit, and select new ones; set new rules on players returning from concussions (they now have to wait longer); and yet continue to deny the magnitude of the problem, rejecting the evidence that concussions and repeated contact can lead to long-term brain damage.

But that evidence is very clear. Take the case of former NFL lineman Ralph Wenzel, now living in an assisted living facility:

The five paper-clipped sheets that were slipped into a wire basket at the Van Nuys State Office Building looked no different from the other workers’ compensation claims filed by welders and cashiers. But this packet was different: it will almost certainly become a test case in considering National Football League teams’ liability for the dementia experienced by retired players.

The claim was filed by Dr. Eleanor Perfetto on behalf of her husband, Ralph Wenzel, contending that his dementia at 67 is related to his career as an N.F.L. lineman from 1966 to 1973... They estimated the case’s potential value at more than $1 million if it reaches its conclusion, probably in two or three years [...]

After watching her otherwise healthy husband begin to lose his mental faculties in his mid-50s and be placed in an assisted-living facility at 64, Dr. Perfetto has become one of the most outspoken voices in football’s dementia debate. She testified at a United States House Judiciary Committee hearing on brain injuries in October and served as a resource for other spouses of former players with dementia; in December 2008 she tried to attend a meeting between N.F.L. Commissioner Roger Goodell and retired players but was turned away.

“Having a judge deem this is work-related would move this forward and keep it very visible,” said Dr. Perfetto, a senior director at Pfizer who holds a Ph.D. in public health from the University of North Carolina. “I think when they look at all the information it will just be undeniable.”

This shouldn't come as too much of a surprise to anybody. The repetitive stress of banging heads with other large men equipped with helmets and pads is bound to take a toll on the body and the brain. Football players are well-compensated for the risks they take, but the cumulative effect of constant hitting is undeniable. And football owners and medical personnel, along with the culture inside locker rooms, keep players in danger and on the field even when they're injured. This PBS story on Hall of Famer John Mackey is simply devastating.

However, I notice a difference between how the concussion story has played in media and on Capitol Hill versus, well, every other workplace in America. When football heroes are faced with a hazardous workplace, there are multiple hearings, and massive media coverage, and serious pressure on management to fix the problem and make the workplace safer. When your manufacturing plant, or hotel, or restaurant, or other place of business, has an unsafe workplace, there are no cameras, there are no hearings, frequently there are no inspectors. This is the problem that the Protecting America's Workers Act intends to fix.

We don't have spectators at our jobs. We don't make millions of dollars. We cannot expect the kind of pressure on our bosses to fix our problems. Government must ensure safe workplaces for everyone, from the football star to the mine worker. And so we need PAWA to update the rules for worker safety and create the kinds of penalties to make employers change their behavior.

I worry about the stars who will be drafted tonight, and the hazardous work environment they will face. I also worry about the rest of the workers in America. Someone needs to look out for them, too.

The Energy Plant Explosion You DIDN'T Hear About

2010-04-07T09:43:00.000-07:00

I'm a blogger fellow with Brave New Films on their 16 Deaths Per Day campaign for worker safety. Join us on Facebook.

The disaster at the Upper Big Branch mine in Coalmont, West Virginia has justifiably brought a lot of attention to the issue of worker safety and the need for strong regulation to protect America's workers. But as Chris Bowers points out, this is the kind of story you can write every day in America. Worker safety didn't become a problem because of one mine explosion in West Virginia. Indeed, 16 American workers die every single day, on average, at the workplace, and the federal agencies tasked with making sure that doesn't happen need more resources and more tools to combat such tragedies.

Why, just days before the Massey Energy mine accident, another energy plant saw a deadly workplace disaster:

The death toll from Friday’s fire at Tesoro’s Anacortes refinery in Washington state grew to five, according to news reports.

Three refinery workers were earlier reported to have died following the fire, and a fourth and fifth died of their injuries after being taken to a hospital in Seattle, according to news media reports.

Two other injured workers remained in critical condition at the Seattle hospital.

Sources indicated to Reuters that the fire was caused by a failed heat exchanger, which alternately heats and cools hydrocarbons at the plant. Workers were replacing a separate heat exchanger when this one failed, causing an explosion.

The Chemical Safety Board, an independent federal agency which oversees refineries like this, was already investigating a flash fire at a separate Tesoro refinery in Utah from last October, as well as multiple other fires across the country. A similar blast killed 15 workers at a BP refinery in Texas in 2005. This is becoming an epidemic.

CSB (Chemical Safety Board) Chairman and CEO John Bresland said, “The CSB has 18 ongoing investigations. Of those, seven of these accidents occurred at refineries across the country. This is a significant and disturbing trend that the refining industry needs to address immediately.”

And yet, the Chemical Safety Board cannot issue citations or fines, only safety recommendations. They can request that a refinery shut down because of safety concerns, but they cannot mandate it.

This is just an example of where government lacks the tools and resources necessary to keep American workers safe at their jobs. There are worker's memorials all over the country which are a living reminder that we have not succeeded in creating safe and secure workplaces. Every April, Worker's Memorial Day serves to deliver that reminder.

That's where the Protecting America's Workers Act (PAWA) comes in. The Obama Administration under the leadership of Hilda Solis is actually doing a great job of restoring the gutted agencies under the Labor Department's purview, which have been ravaged by 30 years of deregulation and industry capture. But the regulations themselves need to be beefed up, in addition to having better regulators and better tactics. David Michaels and Jordan Barab are leading the Occupational Health and Safety Administration into a new era. They actually slapped the largest fine in history on BP for their failure to fix safety violations even AFTER their 2005 refinery explosion. OSHA is reconfiguring their inspections to target severe violators.

All of this is good. But now they need to be given the ability to succeed. PAWA would do that, by extending OSHA coverage to 8 million more workers, by updating civil and criminal penalties for violations, and by providing an effective deterrent to employers to maintain unsafe workplaces.

We need to eliminate the kinds of headlines we see in West Virginia or Washington or Texas. We need employers to live up to their responsibilities. We need to protect America's workers.

Deaths In The Fields: Why State Agencies Need Help Protecting America's Workers

2010-03-30T22:15:00.000-07:00

I'm a blogger fellow with Brave New Films on their 16 Deaths Per Day campaign for worker safety. Join us on Facebook.

It's hard to find a tougher job in America than harvesting in the fields. Throughout California, known as the nation's salad bowl, farmworkers, frequently migrants with little knowledge of their rights as workers or even the English language, toil in triple-digit heat, often without shade or water breaks. Needless to say, this dangerous work has resulted in serious injury and even deaths.

Jose Rosario Valencia started feeling nauseated just after 9 a.m. on July 17. His heart rate sped up and his knees buckled.

Valencia was scared. He'd heard of other farmworkers dying of heat stroke in the fields.

"I thought about my family and how they would suffer," said Valencia, 46, who moves irrigation pipes in the onion fields.

Even though California passed a groundbreaking law in 2005 to protect farmworkers from heat illness and death, there have been as many as 10 heat-related fatalities in the years since. Among the victims in 2008 were a pregnant teenager who died when her body temperature climbed to 108 degrees after working in a Lodi vineyard and a 37-year-old man who suffered heat stroke after loading table grapes near Bakersfield. The state has confirmed heat as the cause of six of the deaths and said it may have been a factor in the others.

Farmworkers get paid by the piece, based on how much they load, and their employers set quotas that they are expected to cover. They have every incentive to avoid breaks and work as hard as possible; in some cases, the water is simply out there for display. As a result, farmworkers skip bathroom breaks. They skip water breaks. They stay out in the fields under 100-degree heat with the fear that they would be fired if they did not. And as a result, workers die.

The most celebrated case in recent years was that of Maria Isabel Vasquez Jimenez, a 17 year-old farmworker who died of heat strike in the fields in the summer of 2008. She was pregnant at the time.

Maria collapsed while working for Merced Farm Labor in a vineyard owned by West Coast Grape Farming outside of Stockton, CA. Maria worked for nine hours in temperatures that reached 101 degrees. There was no water nearby. There was no shade.

After about 2 hours of delays, Maria was finally taken to a clinic. Her temperature upon arrival was 108.4 degrees. Maria's heart stopped six times in the next two days before she passed away. Doctors said if emergency medical help had been summoned or she had been taken to the hospital sooner, she might have survived.

In 2009, Cal-OSHA, the state occupational safety board, delivered regulations to combat heat-stress related injuries and deaths. The employers first tried to amend the regulations, trying to classify the vines in the vineyard as "shade." But they failed, as Cal-OSHA refused to rewrite the laws.

However, lobbying for changes in the law is only one way that employers evade oversight. Under the Schwarzenegger Administration and during the historic budget crisis in the state, funding for Cal-OSHA has shrunk. Only two HUNDRED inspectors monitor all the worksites in the nation's most populous state, including the 35,000 farms. There are more fish and game wardens in California than worksite inspectors.

And if an employer is cited, they can use a favorable appeals process to reduce the fines or dismiss the violations, something which has been done repeatedly in recent years. All violations can be appealed to a judge, appointed by the appeals board. Then the appeals board can vacate the judge's ruling. This offers many opportunities to game the system.

The head of the state Senate's Labor Committee accused a workplace safety board Wednesday of being biased toward employers and ignoring a law that requires fines for failing to report on-the-job injuries.

After a hearing, Sen. Mark DeSaulnier (D-Concord) said he might introduce legislation that could lead to criminal charges against board members if they continue to disregard the law that calls for a $5,000 fine for employers' failing to report accidents in a timely manner.

The hearing came after a Times investigation last fall that found that the California Division of Occupational Safety and Health appeals board repeatedly dismissed and reduced the penalties levied by division inspectors, even in situations in which workers had died or were seriously injured.

One recent case was dismissed based on a spelling typo in one document. And this is more about ideology than budget problems: for example, Cal-OSHA received stimulus money to hire more inspectors, but has so far declined to do so.

Despite all of these obstacles, the new emphasis on worker safety by Cal-OSHA in the last growing season did pay some dividends. Last year, more vigorous training and enforcement efforts did serve to reduce heat-related illnesses and deaths. But already Cal-OSHA is talking about backing off, content that the media storm over the plight of the farmworkers has largely ended.

Rising compliance and awareness, Welsh said, may allow his agency to relax its inspection efforts in 2010.

"The 3,400 inspections we did last year was a little more than we can sustain," he said.

This is why we need HR 2067, the Protecting America's Workers Act (PAWA). A fully resourced OSHA could fill in the gaps where the state-level agencies often fail. They could deliver larger penalties without the byzantine appeals process at agencies like Cal-OSHA. They could provide the ability for families to seek justice from employers through the courts. Simply put they could restore the promise of a safe and health workplace for everybody in America.

Even in the fields.

More Health Reform Needed - In America's Workplaces

2010-03-24T17:56:00.000-07:00

I'm a blogger fellow with Brave New Films on their 16 Deaths Per Day campaign for worker safety. Join us on Facebook.

Last week, the House Education and Labor Committee held a hearing on HR 2067, the Protecting America's Workers Act (PAWA). This bill would strengthen and modernize OSHA, the Occupational Safety and Health Administration, and give them the tools to actually carry out their mission of ensuring a safe workplace for all Americans.

We tend to think of health care as simply a matter of insurance and doctors and pills. But workplace safety plays just as vital a role. Most of us spend a majority of our waking hours at our workplaces. We often carry out dangerous tasks at worksites which are not fully screened by regulators. We are offered little training or safety equipment to carry out these tasks. And a lot of us die - 16 deaths per day, in fact, over 5,000 deaths a year due to workplace accidents, and many more - over 50,000 - from occupational disease.

Many of these deaths are preventable, and simply due to OSHA not having the resources or the tools to carry out its mandate. PAWA would change that. It would extend OSHA coverage to state, local and federal government workers, as well as airline and railroad employees, which (incredibly) do not currently get OSHA protections - well over 8 million workers. It actually raises civil penalties for worksite violations, for the first time in two decades, so that fines for keeping a hazardous workplace is not the cost of doing business. Any violation involving a worker death would be susceptible to a mandatory minimum penalty. And PAWA would provide accountability, by allowing prosecutions against employers who allow worker injuries and deaths willfully (employees and their families would have means to hold employers accountable as well). This would represent the first update of the Occupational Safety and Health Law since its enactment in 1970.

A report last week suggested that workplace injuries have declined, despite no changes to the law. Certainly the Chamber of Commerce has been throwing these statistics around. But these numbers from the Labor Department are often preliminary, involve changes to reporting standards, and never count the 50,000-plus deaths due to occupational diseases and toxic exposure. Indeed, the Chamber works hard to create reporting rules beneficial to their businesses, which mitigate reporting statistics. There's also conflicting data, like the jump in workplace suicides. Meager successes - if they exist - do not eliminate the need for continued action.

The regulatory reform at OSHA over the past several years, prior to the Obama Administration, is legendary, and admirably summed up by this report from the Center for Progressive Reform. The current leadership of OSHA - Assistant Secretary David Michaels and Deputy Assistant Secretary Jordan Barab - have been handed a dysfunctional agency without the means to cover every worksite in America, nor the enforcement capabilities to force compliance. An excerpt:

Observing OSHA in its struggle to implement and enforce the OSH Act is a study of regulatory dysfunction. OSHA and its state partners employ fewer than 2,100 inspectors to keep tabs on more than 8 million U.S. workplaces. OSHA must meet so many analytical requirements that it takes more than a decade to implement a single new standard. By one
count, OSHA is subject to 18 different statutory, court-created, and administrative limits on its rulemaking process [...]

If conducted properly, a compliance assessment at a very large worksite might take 2,000 employee-hours. The accompanying legal proceedings can drag on for months or years. In Fiscal Year 2010, OSHA will spend about $227 million on federal enforcement programs, but will only have the capacity to inspect 40,000 of the nation’s more than 8 million workplaces.

Proactive rulemaking to manage emerging hazards, such as lung disease linked to diacetyl, and other flavoring chemicals used in the popcorn industry, can also be a huge resource drain. Every type of OSHA employee – economists, engineers, occupational health specialists, lawyers – is involved in the development of new health and safety standards. Coordinating their work is difficult and costly.

Yet, OSHA operates on a shoestring budget. OSHA’s budget climbed steadily in the 1970s, funding the agency’s growing capacity to develop new rules and enforce the OSH Act, which in turn triggered a backlash from the business community. Under the Reagan and George H.W. Bush administrations, OSHA’s budget was first cut and then held roughly even with inflation. The Clinton administration gave OSHA a boost, and the agency’s budget reached an historic high in 2001. But that was the same year that the agency published its ill-fated ergonomics standard, and, like OSHA’s aggressive enforcement in the late 1970s, the ergonomics standard elicited a backlash in the business community and a subsequent whittling-away of the agency’s budget under George W. Bush.

The whole report is worth reading. You could tell this story in virtually every regulatory agency in America. The Reagan revolution ushered out real enforcement of industry and ushered in industry capture or resource starvation. This has continued largely unchecked until today. PAWA would change that, on a variety of levels.

And this isn't an abstract problem. There are real consequences to inattention to our workplaces. To take just one example: in July 2009, a temporary worker in Camden, NJ named Vincent Smith died from falling into a vat of chocolate. He was untrained, without job security as a temp and making the minimum wage. And it turned out that the food processing plant didn't have a license to make chocolate. They operated for six or seven years without scrutiny from federal or even local inspectors, and workers had no whistleblower protections to call OSHA and report the violations. In an effort to save money, Hershey sub-contracted out their chocolate processing to plants like this, and that savings comes at the expense of worker safety.

Local inspectors took out their wrath on the processing plant, fining them a whopping.... $1,152. Eventually, federal authorities investigated the plant, and they did come up with a fine for the multiple safety violations and the death of Vincent Smith - $39,000. This is considered a major fine for OSHA, and yet it's a mere pittance of the profits for a company operating illegally without a license for 6 years.

Smith's family has filed a personal injury lawsuit. But we cannot rely on the courts, absent regulators, to prevent the next death, or provide the deterrent needed to get employers to provide a safe workplace. We need the Protecting America's Workers Act.

Well That Resolution Worked Out Well!

2010-01-30T09:55:00.000-08:00

OK, that didn't work out. I throw myself on the mercy of the court.

The news site doesn't leave much room for personal writing, sadly.

I have noticed that the text for typing a Blogger blog is much smaller than a Wordpress blog, but additional insights are wanting.

OK, gotta go. More later. (No Really!)

Resolution

2010-01-01T17:30:00.000-08:00

I'm going to use this site more in 2010 than I have since my FDL gig started.

I don't quite know how, or in what fashion. Maybe for cultural observations. Maybe for TV/movies/music/literature. Maybe just to rip on Tucker Carlson's new "news" site. I don't know. But for something. It'll be nice to have a free-form outlet.

Like most resolutions, this will probably putter out around January 3rd. But it's in writing and in public, making neglecting it more embarrassing. So.

The Story Of American Workplaces

2009-11-18T06:20:00.000-08:00

(This post is part of Brave New Films' 16 Deaths Per Day campaign, for which I am a blogger fellow.)

Steven Greenhouse reports in the New York Times that employers are routinely underreporting illnesses and injuries to their workers.

The report, by the G.A.O., the auditing arm of Congress, said many employers did not report workplace injuries and illnesses for fear of increasing their workers’ compensation costs or hurting their chances of winning contracts.

The report also said workers did not report job-related injuries because they feared being fired or disciplined and worried that their co-workers might lose rewards, like bonuses or steak dinners, as part of safety-based incentive programs.

“The widespread underreporting so clearly documented in this report is undermining the health and safety of American workers,” said Senator Tom Harkin, Democrat of Iowa and chairman of the Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee. “If we don’t know the full extent of the workplace hazards workers face, we cannot fully address these risks.”

Mr. Harkin was one of the Congressional leaders who requested the report.

It's hard to even determine the problems with workplace safety when employers are systematically undermining the data. And it's impossible for industry to take credit for declines in workplace injuries and even fatalities if the official data cannot be trusted (that decline can also be attributed to the overall decline in the workforce due to the recession, too, as well as the decline in staffing at the agencies that keep the records). In fact, the GAO report concluded that OSHA may have failed to account for "up to two-thirds of all workplace injuries and illnesses."

See, OSHA relies on data from employers for a bulk of its surveying about workplace safety. That's right, the foxes write up the reports about the henhouse. When you start talking to people other than the site managers, some interesting statistics crop up:

The accountability office also found that more than a third of the occupational health practitioners it surveyed said that employers or workers had pressured them to provide insufficient medical treatment to hide or play down work-related injuries or illnesses.

The safety and health administration requires employers with more than 10 workers to record every work-related injury or illness that results in lost work time or medical treatment other than first aid. Some occupational health practitioners say that to avoid recording an injury, some employers will try to limit treatment for a serious injury to just first aid.

In other cases, the practitioners said, employers might seek alternative diagnoses if the initial diagnosis would result in a recordable injury or illness.

They want to avoid OSHA site inspections, which they know the agency is only equipped to perform on the most egregious violators. If you stay out of sight, you'll be out of OSHA's mind, in all likelihood.

When you read the independent reports, outside of OSHA, you begin to get the true picture of what American workplaces look like. In the low-wage market, there are all kinds of systematic violations, forcing employees to work longer hours for less pay - and these violations extend to health and safety. This stress and strain may account for the shocking rise in workplace suicides over the last year.

“This report confirms that when it comes to the documenting of workplace injuries, we can’t just take employers at their word,” said Senator Patty Murray, Democrat of Washington and chairwoman of the Subcommittee on Employment and Workplace Safety. “The system, to this point, has been all too easy to game.”

Which is why we need real changes to the system like the Protect America's Workers Act.

The Serious Side Of Chocolate

2009-11-12T16:41:00.000-08:00

(This post is part of Brave New Foundation's 16 Deaths Per Day campaign, where I am a blogger fellow.)

Back in July, a temp worker died from falling into a vat of chocolate. He had been on the job two weeks.

A temp worker at a Camden chocolate processing plant died this morning after he fell into an eight-foot vat that was mixing and melting chocolate to be used in Hershey's candy.

Vincent Smith II, 29, of Camden, was standing atop a platform and tossing blocks of solid, raw chocolate into the tank, Jason Laughlin, spokesman for the Camden County Prosecutor's Office, said.

The tank was heated at 120 degrees Fahrenheit, and paddles inside stirred the chocolate as it was thrown in.

When Smith fell around 10:30 a.m., one of his three coworkers on the platform immediately rushed to turn the machine off and the two others tried to pull him out.

But Smith had been struck by one of the paddles, suffering fatal injuries. He was pronounced dead at the scene, and Camden firefighters pulled his chocolate-covered body out of the tank.

A few local newscasts in the Philadelphia area had some fun with this story, barely suppressing giggles and making predictable puns as they gave it a brief mention.

But they never followed up on the story. In fact, the owners of the plant, Lyons & Sons, never had a license to make chocolate (yes that's a Fox news link):

Officials say a cocoa processing center in New Jersey was operating illegally when a worker fell into a vat of melting chocolate and died.

Camden cited Lyons & Sons Inc. for not having a business license after Vincent Smith II died Wednesday.

Authorities say the 29-year-old was hit by a mixing paddle.

Company spokesman Kevin Feeley says that it's a misunderstanding and that Camden officials knew the firm was operating in the former Campbell Soup plant.

I'm sure the company spokesman would call it a misunderstanding.

The lack of a license - after "six or seven" years of operation, according to the initial story - may explain why Lyons & Sons didn't have any prior OSHA violations. Hard to investigate businesses when they aren't carrying licenses and the city inspectors don't know of their plant's existence, making them unable to refer problems to OSHA. In fact, the plant was never zoned for melting chocolate, but cocoa-bean storage. And Lyons & Sons actually was contracted through a company called Cocoa Services (presumably so one could blame the oversights on the other). And John Lyons was listed as the President of both businesses.

Ultimately, one business is really culpable here. Hershey doesn't make their own chocolate anymore. They sub-contract it out to companies like Lyons & Sons to cut costs. Included in those cost savings are worker benefits - and worker safety.

Nancy Cleeland wrote about Smith's story in October for The American Prospect.

Safety is of particular concern in food-processing plants, which often feature slick floors, powerful machinery, and raised platforms. Any one of those features can be deadly. Falls are the second leading cause of death on the job in the U.S., after highway accidents, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Even as the overall occupational death rate has dropped, the toll from falls has been steadily rising for 15 years -- with 847 reported fatalities in 2007.

"In many of these plants you have bits of food flying everywhere, and it gets on the floor," says Jackie Nowell, occupational safety and health director of the United Food and Commercial Workers union (UFCW), which represents workers in beef- and poultry-processing plants, among others. "That makes it very dangerous. Employers struggle with this issue all the time. And it's a very big concern for workers."

Worries about safety have driven many organizing campaigns and contract negotiations in food processing. Unions representing workers in the industry invest in health and safety research and advocacy and include safety language in contracts. "There's a great history of it," Nowell says. "I've got old contracts from the '40s that talk about safety committees. It was important that there be a system that workers could go through. They learned to look for hazards and felt comfortable reporting them."

But without job security or the support of a union, temp workers are seldom forthcoming with their concerns, she adds. And when accidents do happen, the victim's interests sometimes languish as blame is passed around. "There has to be a better definition of who's the employer," Nowell says. "There has to be a closing of the loop."

Understand the circumstances surrounding Smith's death. He lived in Camden, one of the most economically depressed cities in America. He had been looking for a job for months and was praying for one, according to family. So when the opportunity to work at the chocolate factory came around, he took it. He was getting just over the minimum wage, with no benefits, sick days, or even the promise of a future job, as a temporary employee. And worker safety was far less stringent on a non-union plant of contractors like Lyons & Sons.

In this case, OSHA is investigating, and Lyons & Sons have shut the illegal production facility down. But how many other factories are out there, beyond the reach of OSHA, operating in violation of current law, and unwilling to do anything about it because the risks from federal regulators are so minimal?

That's why we need the Protect America's Workers Act to give workers like Vincent Smith more protections. Death by chocolate may sound funny, but it's no laughing matter.

16 Deaths Per Day

2009-11-10T07:40:00.000-08:00

(Disclosure: I am a blogger fellow with Brave New Films, the creator of this video and the 16 Deaths Per Day campaign)

Every day in America, 16 people die at work from employer negligence.

That's the backdrop to 16 Deaths Per Day, a new video and website from the advocacy group Brave New Films, seeking to highlight the often-neglected issue of worker safety.

The video makes the point that employers who provide an unsafe work environment are almost never prosecuted in the event of a death of an employee. Even if they were, the crime of contributing to an employee's death is only a misdemeanor, with a maximum prison sentence of six months and a maximum fine of $70,000. Under the Bush Administration, the Occupational Safety & Health Administration (OSHA) hardly ever referred cases to the Justice Department for prosecution, lowered fines for noncompliance so that they represented a minor cost of doing business, and underfunded the agency so it could never inspect worksites across America for unsafe conditions. In addition, OSHA protections currently do not apply to all public employees at the state or federal level.

The video takes a look at the stories of several workers. Travis Koehler-Fergen, an employee at the Orleans Hotel in Las Vegas, and Tina Hall, from Toyo Automotive Parts USA, both died at their workplaces in accidents. The Orleans was found by OSHA to have broken the law, but were never referred for prosecution. 16 safety violations were found at the Toyo plant prior to the accident that killed Tina Hall, but the highest fine ever levied on the company was $7,000.

Members of Congress, including Lynn Woolsey and the late Ted Kennedy, introduced a bill this April called the Protecting America's Workers Act, which would tighten up worker safety laws, and give OSHA the ability to impose legitimate fines on noncompliant work sites, making the law adequate to deal with serious violators. Among other things, the bill would:

• Expand workplace protections to state, county, municipal, and federal employees who are not currently covered by the Occupational Safety and Health Act
• Increase financial penalties for those who kill or endanger workers
• Strengthen criminal penalties to make felony charges available for willful negligence causing death or serious injury
• Expand OSHA coverage to millions of other employees who fall through the cracks (like airline and railroad workers)
• Provide protection for whistleblowers
• Give employees the right to refuse hazardous work that may kill them
• Improve the rights of workers and families, requiring OSHA to investigate all cases of death
• Prohibit employers from discouraging reporting of injury or illness

16 Deaths Per Day has a petition for members of the relevant House and Senate committees, urging them to pass this bill. There's a Facebook page as well.

Former Blue Cross Commercial Actor Denounces Insurance Industry

2009-11-06T09:15:00.000-08:00

You may know Andy Cobb from the series of humorous video sketches he's done about Republicans, the media, and assorted inanities. But he works by day as an actor. And a few years ago, he was a commercial spokesman for Blue Cross Blue Shield of Florida. Now, he's speaking out about the insurance industry in a new video produced by Brave New Films for their Sick For Profit campaign (disclosure: I am a blogger fellow on this campaign).

Andy, who lives in Los Angeles, describes himself as a "spokesjerk" put in front of the cameras by the industry to deliberately stand in the way of reform and maintain the status quo. He asks for solidarity from spokesjerks like him - the Sham-wow guy, for example - to stop pitching products that rip off Americans.

More on this at The Huffington Post.

Rockefeller, Harkin Sparring With Insurance Industry

2009-11-04T15:45:00.001-08:00

(Sick for Profit)

Senate Democrats are trying to extract some embarrassing information from the insurance industry about their deceptive practices.

First, Tom Harkin, who is seeking to subpoena insurers for failing to provide information requested by his committee.

Harkin, the chairman of the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions (HELP) Committee, said his committee may demand information from health insurance companies about the reasoning for steep increases in premiums faced by small businesses.

"I've been inundated with letters and information about the exorbitant increases in premiums for small businesses in this country," Harkin said during an appearance on MSNBC. "I asked them to come and testify at a hearing I had yesterday. They refused."

"So now I'm asking them to give us information on which we can make some decisions on why these premiums are going up so much for small businesses," he added.

Here's the video:

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

Jay Rockefeller also wants some information about the industry's "medical loss ratio," and how they cook the books to pretend that they spend a substantial amount of premium money on treatment and care.

The New York Times reports: "The health insurance industry likes to cite figures showing that 87 cents of every dollar in premiums is spent on medical claims. But a new Senate analysis suggests that for-profit insurance companies are spending much less than that, especially for policies sold to individuals and small businesses. Instead, as little as 66 cents of each dollar paid in premiums goes toward doctor and hospital bills, while the rest covers administrative expenses, marketing and company profits, according to the analysis. .... The [health reform] legislation that may reach the House floor later this week would initially require insurers to spend at least 85 cents of every dollar in premiums on medical claims."

A long-standing complaint from individuals and small businesses is that they get less for their money. "But insurance companies generally do not disclose how much they spend in different segments of the market. The Senate analysis of the figures does not include information from California, because that state's filings are not available through the National Association of Insurance Commissioners. ... The insurance industry's trade group, America's Health Insurance Plans, said Monday that the 87-cent figure it cited as the industry average was based on information collected by the federal government and was an accurate reflection of how much of each dollar in premiums was spent on medical claims." (Abelson, 11/2).

This comes at a time when the Senate is about to unveil their health care bill. This information could be crucial to massing public opinion against the industry and keeping the entire Democratic caucus on board with reform.

8.2 Million Reasons Not To Give Up

2009-11-02T20:38:00.000-08:00

(Sick for Profit)

The House and Senate will be voting on health care bills in a matter of weeks. But the forces behind the status quo have not quit in their efforts to derail the bill or at least get as many goodies out of it as they can.

The lobbying expenses of the top 13 health insurers and their industry association, America's Health Insurance Plans (AHIP), spent nearly $8.2 million in the third quarter of 2009 to influence Congress on upcoming health care legislation, according to analysis released today by the nonpartisan campaign finance watchdog Public Campaign Action Fund (PCAF). The total marks an 11 percent increase over the pace of their spending in the first half of the year.

"Congress is marching toward passing landmark legislation to overhaul the health care system, and the health insurance industry is fighting them every step of the way," said David Donnelly, national campaigns director of Public Campaign Action Fund. "These insurance giants may be running out of time, but clearly they haven't run out of political cash."

This brings the total in lobbying to nearly $23 million this year, including $6.3 million from AHIP, $3.5 million from WellPoint, $3.5 million from UnitedHealth and $2 million from Aetna. Humana, which has spent $1.85 million in lobbying fees this year, saw their earnings rise 65% in the third quarter, a lot of it off the wasteful Medicare Advantage program, which represents a corporate handout and which is earmarked for scale-backs in the health care bills. Majority Leader Reid's office released this statement in response:

“It’s no wonder why Humana has been misleading seniors about health insurance reform -- they saw their profits rise 65 percent last quarter and want to make sure the gravy train doesn’t end. The insurance industry is making billions by gaming the Medicare Advantage system, at the expense of seniors’ traditional Medicare coverage, and taxpayers are footing the bill.

“The American people have had enough, but unfortunately Senate Republicans have sided with insurers like Humana and are working to protect insurance industry profits over Americans’ health care needs. When we pass health insurance reform this year, this will all come to an end. Our seniors deserve better and American taxpayers should not be asked to pad the profits of the insurance industry.”

Insurers like Humana are ready to pounce on this legislation when it hits the floor in both Chambers, particularly in the Senate, where they will use the amendments process to try and cripple reform and the cloture process to outright kill it. But the insurance industry isn't just fighting for their own self-preservation, they're fighting the interests of the people.

You Don't Think They'll Just Give Up, Do You?

2009-10-26T20:06:00.000-07:00

(I'm a blogger fellow for Brave New Films and their Sick For Profit campaign)

After today's announcement from Harry Reid, adding a public option to the Senate health care bill, some might think that a great victory has been achieved. And it's a significant accomplishment to this point. But we're at the beginning of the end, not the end. And now that this public option, with a state opt-out, represents the lower bound of health care reform, you can bet that the insurance industry will redouble their efforts to kill the bill and retain the status quo. In fact, they've already started. Blue Cross/Blue Shield of North Carolina has begun to lobby their customers to work against the bill, asking them to contact Senator Kay Hagan (D-NC). Not a front group, or some ad hoc organization funded by BC/BS. No, just the company itself.

(The mailer) reads:

Public option?
Government Cooperatives?
Community plan?
Single payer?
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?

The enclosed postcard to Hagan reads:

Senator Hagan,
Please oppose government-run health insurance. We can meet our health care challenges without the government unfairly competing with the private sector. Tell Senate leaders that North Carolina doesn't need government-run insurance.

They've also deployed lobbyists and shills to Capitol Hill to make completely dubious arguments. At a hearing about the insurance industry's anti-trust exemption, this amazing exchange occurred:

University of Arkansas business professor Lawrence Powell, who testified on behalf of the medical malpractice insurance industry.

"The best possible outcome from repealing McCarran is continuation of the status quo," he said. "However, it is also likely that repealing McCarran would have negative consequences for consumers, by decreasing competition and accuracy in insurance pricing."

Rhode Island Democrat Sheldon Whitehouse pointed out that the professor was relying on outdated information.

"You cite for the proposition that insurance markets are highly competitive an article by Paul Joskow. Do I have the date of that article correct, it's 1973?" he asked Powell. "I believe so," came the answer.

And, they've started to push their message out to media, getting an AP reporter to buy the canard that poor, henpecked insurance companies just don't make a lot of money.

WASHINGTON – Quick quiz: What do these enterprises have in common? Farm and construction machinery, Tupperware, the railroads, Hershey sweets, Yum food brands and Yahoo? Answer: They're all more profitable than the health insurance industry.

The missing ingredient here is scale. Tupperware is more profitable than health insurance on a percentage basis, but 1/6 of the US economy doesn't go through Tupperware. In real dollars, the insurance industry makes a mint. And remember, "profit" doesn't count salaries, not even what's given to CEOs.

The truth is that, even with this public option, insurers will do just fine in the health care bill. They get millions of new customers, with competition that is limited (not everyone can get the public plan, under even the most expansive version). But it's just not good enough for them. The notion that they might have to offer coverage with actual benefits, and not cherry-pick the healthy to pay their premiums, which would cut into those profits, is just distasteful to them. So they will fight. And we will be ready.

Just Trust Us

2009-10-20T22:42:00.001-07:00

(This is part of my work as a blogger fellow for Brave New Films' Sick For Profit campaign)

Rattled by their failed effort to kill health care reform, Karen Ignagni, the head of the health insurance lobby, took to the Washington Post today to claim, no, really, we love reform, trust us!

Let me be clear and direct: Health plans continue to strongly support reform. In fact, last year we proposed new insurance market rules and consumer protections to achieve universal coverage, remove restrictions on preexisting conditions and end the practice of basing premiums on health status or gender. We firmly believe that all the cost concerns the report raised can be resolved.

Practically every option Ignagni brings up to "resolve" those cost concerns, like killing the excise tax on high-end insurance plans, would only exacerbate them by draining the system of resources and eliminating cost controls.

Furthermore, the entire notion that the industry supports health care reform is ludicrous on its face. They are the cause of most of the practices that need reforming. If they supported reform they wouldn't sustain a system that led to outcomes like this:

Jenny Fritts was 24 years old. Jenny lived with her husband Sean for the past five years, and together they had a little girl named Kylee, 2. Jenny was seven-and-a-half months pregnant with her second child – a beautiful, baby girl.

Jenny is dead. Jenny’s unborn baby is dead. They died because they were turned away for appropriate care at a for-profit hospital because they did not have health insurance. Sean rushed Jenny back to another hospital when her symptoms became even more severe, and he lied about having insurance to get her in the door. She was placed on a respirator in intensive care, but she didn’t make it. She died. And so did her baby.

They become two more of the more than 45,000 Americans who die preventable deaths due to our broken healthcare system every year. Two more. Mother and child.

Nor would they tell mothers that they must be sterilized in order to qualify for health insurance:

It's completely outrageous for someone like Ignagni to even open her mouth about reform. The entire premise should be rejected. The industry has lost their right to speak on the issue.

Friday Random Ten

2009-10-16T16:23:00.000-07:00

Hey, why not? For old times sake! By the way, a reminder that you can read my output today at the FDL News Desk.

Heart Shaped Box - Nirvana
How High The Moon - Diane Reeves
Fell On Black Days - Soundgarden
Baby Love Child - Pizzicato Five
All The Dirt - Mike Doughty
Blue Xmas - Miles Davis & Bob Dorough (Christmas comes earlier and earlier every year)
Que Onda Guero - Beck
Soma - The Strokes
Girl/Boy Song - Aphex Twin
Sweetheart - Ween

New Site

2009-10-15T13:41:00.001-07:00

So my new site is live over at Firedoglake. The URL is:

http://news.firedoglake.com

You can pick up a feed at: feed://news.firedoglake.com/feed/atom/

Thanks everyone. I'll be dimming the lights here now.

Other Stuff

2009-10-14T15:35:00.000-07:00

I just can't get across all the beauteous links I have to share with the world with the space I am fortunate enough to be given at FDL as I await the dedicated site. So, um, here:

• Gavin Newsom has a new ad up doubling down on changing the Constitution and ending the 2/3 rule (he mentions it twice in a 1:00 ad). I think this is the beginning of more to come, as Newsom recognizes that moving into an aggressive reform pose is the only way for him to differentiate himself from Jerry Brown, who will find this too hot to handle.

• The unions are coming out hard against the Baucus bill, for two reasons: the public option and the tax on high-end insurance plans. On the former I'm glad to see them so aggressive; on the latter I just don't think it's good public policy to prop up an inefficient system of providing health care to people. Congress is debating this intensely, and my hope would be that the public option would be enough for the unions to back the bill even with a high-end tax, although I do think it should be indexed so we don't get a perpetual problem like the AMT.

• A deal in Honduras? But President DeMint said that the coup plotters were freedom fighters!

• Nancy Pelosi wants to allow children to remain on their parent's health plans up to 26 years of age. Great policy and great politics. This is one of those short-term deliverables that Mike Lux is talking about.

• Republicans are going to lose a House race in New York because of a third party from the far right getting all the attention and all the money. The Democrat in NY-23 (no great shakes himself) is outspending her 12-1 on TV. Nobody should trust Republicans to get their act together long enough even to make a dent in the Democratic majority.

• Abortion bans do not cut the abortion rate. They kill women.

• Why should the public be allowed to see Blackwater on trial for the Nissour Square murders? You'd think we have an open and transparent judicial system or something! I'm not talking about putting them on Court TV, the public would be banned from even ATTENDING the hearings.

• Wow, this isn't good.

American officials in Baghdad urged Iraqi lawmakers Tuesday to pass an election law crucial for organizing a January vote that the Obama administration considers key to withdrawing U.S. combat troops.

In a statement, U.S. Ambassador Christopher R. Hill and Gen. Ray Odierno, the American military commander here, said they were concerned that parliament hasn't yet reached an agreement on the law. They urged lawmakers "to act expeditiously on this important legislation that will set the terms for successful, transparent political participation in this milestone event." A day earlier, Ad Melkert, the U.N. representative in Iraq, voiced similar concerns.

The Iraqi Parliament doesn't exactly move swiftly, and we're talking about an election scheduled for just a few months from now. In addition to delaying withdrawal it could throw Iraq's political system into crisis. Yikes.

• The green jobs bill in New York could be a model for the nation. It creates jobs and reduces emissions. Win-win.

Insurance Industry Drops ANOTHER Flawed Report

2009-10-14T15:24:00.000-07:00

(I'm writing this post in my role as a blogger fellow for Brave New Films' Sick For Profit campaign)

Not content having embarrassed themselves once this week with a "study" of health reform that doesn't look at any of the elements of health reform, AHIP has done it again. Blue Cross Blue Shield has sponsored this report, put together by the accounting firm Oliver Wyman, claiming that premiums will rise 50% on the individual market and 19% on the small group market should health reform pass.

Once again, the report doesn't factor in almost everything in the bill that would mitigate the premium increases, though it does come to a slightly better conclusion than the original AHIP report from PricewaterhouseCoopers, the one that they immediately distanced themselves from. The White House characterized it this way - "if the AHIP report was a $3.50 bill, this one's a $3.00 bill."

As Ezra Klein points out, the real value in these reports is how it shows the bankruptcy of the insurance industry as a whole, and how they simply cannot conceive of anything resembling a legitimate market for their services:

Essentially, they've spent so long pricing the sick and the old out of the individual market that they don't really know what to do when they're allowed back in [...]

This is the house they've built: an insurance market where plans are written for the healthy and all legal efforts are made to exclude the sick. That's meant premiums are somewhat lower than they'd otherwise be, but only because the people who most need health-care insurance aren't able to afford it, or in some cases, aren't able to convince anyone to sell it to them. Now that arrangement is ending and they're scared that they can't provide an affordable product to the people who need it. They may be right, but it's evidence of how deeply perverse their business has become, not of what's wrong with health-care reform. When they say that the individual market would be cheaper in the absence of health-care reform, they're saying the individual market would be cheaper if they could continue refusing to sell affordable insurance to people who need health-care coverage.

That's not the kind of business anybody should be working to protect.

The Marriage Equality Fight

2009-10-14T09:26:00.000-07:00

While most politicos are looking at gubernatorial races in New Jersey and Virginia to determine whether Democrats gain maintain a short-term advantage in 2010, it's clearly the battles over marriage equality and gay rights in Washington state and Maine where the true potential of a progressive realignment can be measured. On the heels of the March for Equality, we're entering the final weeks of two ballot measures to gauge this support.

In Washington, a vote against referendum 71 would actually take away domestic partner benefits from LGBT couples. Approve 71 has released their first ad, featuring a lesbian couple who has been together for 31 years.

In Maine, the fight is over marriage. The legislature passed a marriage equality law earlier this year, and the same forces who pushed through Prop. H8 in California have reassembled to try and revoke the law in Maine. This will feature two highly motivated forces with a clear decision to make on an issue of progressive values. Unlike in California, the pro-equality forces are well-prepared with a better message. For example, they actually show gay families in their ads:

Forces of bigotry are trying to pull that ad because it features a Roman Catholic mother. I guess they missed both the freedom of speech and the freedom of religion clauses in the First Amendment.

No on 1 just released their funding numbers for the third quarter, and they've raised a whopping $2.7 million dollars (very large for Maine), and have over 8,000 Mainers volunteering for the campaign. The Yes side reported only $1.1 million for the same period. And a brand-new poll shows the No side leading, 51.8%-42.9%. The Yes side is freaking out and sent an urgent email to their list yesterday asking for cash. Expect the Bat-Signal to light up at the Mormon Tabernacle any minute now.

Included in that fundraising total for No on 1 is nearly $1 million dollars in online contributions. The netroots is pushing for a moneybomb on Thursday, October 15, the last day of the financial reporting period. Joe Sudbay explains:

That's why in Maine, we're making one last major pitch before 11: 59 PM on October 15th. That date has special significance for two reasons: 1) It's the last day of the financial reporting period (the last one to be made public before election day); and 2) It's the first day of in-person absent voting. We want the No on 1 campaign to have all the resources it needs -- and to know that in advance [...]

The Courage Campaign, OpenLeft, Pam's House Blend and others are setting a goal to reach $1.1 million in online donations by October 15th. AMERICAblog readers have been very generous already. We beat our first goal of $25,000 and are heading to $50,000 now. Help us get there. And, help us win in Maine.

No on 1 is already at $1.077 million dollars on Act Blue as of 2:30pm ET today, so I'd expect the goal to rise.

The battle on marriage equality is the civil rights movement of the 21st century, and we've seen movement over the year, including yesterday. Whether Democrats have a 16-vote or 18-vote or 20-vote majority in the Senate is less suggestive of a progressive realignment than whether real advances for groups of Americans can be achieved. The fights in Washington and Maine would show that to be the case.

Other Stuff

2009-10-13T16:01:00.000-07:00

So because I have some kind of obsessive-compulsive disorder and am posting less right now as I await the ramp-up to a dedicated site on FDL, here are some quick hits on stories I didn't get to on that site today:

• Congress will hold hearings on those forged letters from astroturf groups sent to swing-state Dems urging them to vote against the House climate bill. This needs to be more than investigated by Congress; the Justice Department should get involved.

• Another day, another GOP front group headed by neocons. This one's called "Keep America Safe." It's a Bill Kristol/Liz Cheney special. Nothing but good can come of that.

• NOAA steps up and warns against indefinite offshore drilling without limits. This is one of those small benefits of the Obama Administration, that relatively sane regulatory agencies are starting to assert themselves.

• A nice piece from Peter Orszag on the delivery system reforms in the bill.

• Jon Corzine has a couple new attack ads out, slamming Chris Christie for his ties to corporate interests and the Bush Administration. Corzine has been relentless.

• Publius calls it Rick Perry's Saturday Night Massacre, and I agree. He's now fired ANOTHER member of the commission looking into whether Texas killed an innocent man. This is a huge story going completely unnoticed by the national media.

• Charlie Rangel's getting a primary challenge. Charlie Rangel NEEDS a primary challenge. Corruption is not a partisan issue.

• North Korea may be launching missiles, but they're also agreeing to talks. Guess the missile launches aren't going well. Meanwhile, Russia is splitting from the US over the issue of sanctions for Iran, with the Foreign Minister calling them "counterproductive."

• Tim DeChristopher, the activist who bid up oil and gas leases without the ability to pay in an effort to deep-six the potential drilling, is charged with two felony counts for his activism. For bidding on something? Really?

Desperate Insurance Industry Now Running Ads Against Reform

2009-10-13T12:36:00.000-07:00

(This post is part of my role as a blogger fellow with Brave New Films' Sick For Profit campaign)

Their strategy to blow up health care reform now blowing up in their face, the insurance industry kicked it up a notch today, by purchasing a million-dollar ad buy designed to scare seniors:

In a late-effort push to alter or torpedo health care reform, the major lobby for private insurers has made a multi-state, million-dollar ad purchase claiming that seniors will see their care cut under Democrat-crafted legislation.

America's Health Insurance Plans (AHIP), which released a highly critical (and widely criticized) report slamming the Senate Finance Committee's reform proposal, has quietly put out a new spot claiming that millions of seniors will see their Medicare slashed by Congress.

"Is it right to ask 10 million seniors on Medicare advantage for more than their fair share?" the ad asks. "Congress is proposing over 100 billion in cuts to Medicare advantage. The non-partisan Congressional Budget Office says many seniors will see cuts in benefits."

You can see the ad here. It's airing in swing states with Democratic Senators: Pennsylvania, Colorado, New Mexico, Missouri, Louisiana and Nevada.

One of two things is going on. The industry may truly be worried about the shape of reform and whether or not it will preserve its profits. Or they are giving space to the Baucus bill, the only one without a public option and the friendliest to their interests, so that liberals can be motivated to pass it or something like it. Savannah Guthrie just said this on MSNBC:

I think there will be courtship of those moderate Senators, but look, one thing I heard this morning here at the White House was that the insurance company report, the Price Waterhouse Cooper report, has actually been helpful to some extent (now granted this may be spin but let me just tell you what their argument is) is helpful because some of the liberal Senators who are concerned that the Baucus bill was just way too easy on the insurance companies, now have some cover. If the insurance companies think it's so objectionable that they're getting off the train and writing this report and signalling they're no longer at the bargaining table on health reform, it must be something that really hurts them.

Reform advocates are having NONE of that. MoveOn has slammed the Baucus bill, which just passed the Senate Finance Committee, in a video featuring health care hero and former CIGNA executive Wendell Potter.

"Take it from me, the Senate Finance bill is a dream come true of the health insurance industry. If there is not public option insurance companies aren't going to change. The choice of a public health insurance option is the only way to keep insurance companies honest."

This is only the beginning of the health care fight, not the end. But the insurance industry has laid their cards on the table. They are against reforming the system in any way that cuts into their profits. And they should not be appeased with a forced market and a monopoly on insurance.

What Up?

2009-10-13T11:38:00.000-07:00

I just thought Michael Steele had a good idea with that blog title, wanted to give it a road test.

What up! Homies! As the Sadlies said, "You down with GOP? Yeah you know me!"

By the way, click here to see Filibusta Rhmyez Chairman Steele (again, h/t Sadlies) right here on this website.

...and the "Future Leaders" page is empty.

We need a new Internet meme somehow bigger than epic FAIL.

Other Stuff

2009-10-12T15:54:00.000-07:00

Boy, restricting myself to 3-4 posts a day is HARD! That's only temporary, however, as the FDL News site is still pending. So in addition to the stuff I've got up at FDL today, here's a few other things on my mind:

• This Scarlet A law in Oklahoma is extremely disturbing. Probing details of every abortion would get posted on a PUBLIC website. This is deliberately designed to shame women and enact a de facto ban on reproductive choice.

• One big story on the left today was John Harwood's NBC Nightly News report quoting an anonymous staffer who reportedly said "Barack Obama is doing well with 90% or more of Democrats so the White House views this opposition as really part of the Internet left fringe [...] For a sign of how seriously the White House does or doesn't take this opposition, one adviser told me those bloggers need to take off the pajamas, get dressed, and realize that governing a closely divided country is complicated and difficult." This sounds more like John Harwood than anybody else, and significantly, the White House issued a denial that the quote "reflected White House thinking." Sam Stein and Glenn Greenwald have more. I can't get too worked up about this because, while I'm sure this quote reflects how some people in the Administration think, it's a big White House and there's probably no monolithic perspective on pretty much everything.

• Notably, just as the White House was taking heat for their perspective on bloggers, they decided to hand out exclusive interviews to three blogs. I wouldn't call these partisan media sites, however: The Motley Fool, Consumerist and The Motherhood, a mommy blog. In each case, the blogs are asking their readers for questions, so at least there's a preference for the general nature of the format.

• People who think Lindsey Graham is going to be some kind of helpful moderate for the White House needs to recall this story from the weekend:

Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., is trying to prevent the Obama administration from holding criminal trials in civilian courts for the alleged Sept. 11 plotters instead of bringing them before military commissions.

Graham, who helped craft the 2006 law that established the military commissions, said Friday that he'd attached an amendment to an appropriations bill that would prohibit the Obama administration from spending money on the prosecution and trial of the accused terrorists before U.S. civilian federal judges.

This came a day after Democrats basically agreed to allow Gitmo prisoners to be moved to the US for trial.

• This Joe Biden cover story in Newsweek is the big chatter piece of the day. I thought Jay Carney used to work for Time before joining Biden's staff, you'd think THAT magazine would publish this mash note.

That Baby Should Learn About Personal Responsibility

2009-10-12T13:22:00.001-07:00

(This post is part of my role as a blogger fellow for Brave New Films' Sick For Profit campaign)

Rocky Mountain Health Plans, an insurance company in Colorado, has denied coverage to a four month-old child on account of "obesity." How dare the kid not moderate his portions!

By the numbers, Alex is in the 99th percentile for height and weight for babies his age. Insurers don't take babies above the 95th percentile, no matter how healthy they are otherwise.

"I could understand if we could control what he's eating. But he's 4 months old. He's breast-feeding. We can't put him on the Atkins diet or on a treadmill," joked his frustrated father, Bernie Lange, a part-time news anchor at KKCO-TV in Grand Junction. "There is just something absurd about denying an infant."

Bernie and Kelli Lange tried to get insurance for their growing family with Rocky Mountain Health Plans when their current insurer raised their rates 40 percent after Alex was born. They filled out the paperwork and awaited approval, figuring their family is young and healthy. But the broker who was helping them find new insurance called Thursday with news that shocked them.

" 'Your baby is too fat,' she told me," Bernie said.

Rocky Mountain Health Plans' alibi is that as long as everybody denies coverage for a pre-existing condition, they will too.

So essentially, the insurance industry is telling this family to starve their child as the only way to get him health insurance.

That, or the baby should learn some personal responsibility and take care of himself better. Maybe push-ups.

UPDATE: A happy ending on this one. Rocky Mountain Health plans relented and will no longer consider an infant's added heft a pre-existing condition. Unfortunately, there aren't enough newspaper articles in the world to help everyone abused by the insurance industry.

RINO: Reformer In Name Only

2009-10-12T10:28:00.000-07:00

My first post at Firedoglake is up, about how Governor Chamber of Commerce's talk on health care is never matched by action. Again, the dedicated site isn't live, so for now I'm only posting on the main page.

The Rest Of The Week In Review... Also The Last?

2009-10-11T22:40:00.000-07:00

Well, before the new job I just want to clear out my tabs and what-not.

• I think the biggest threat to the economy right now remains the housing market. The Administration has apparently been using the FHA to prop up the market by continuing to guarantee high-risk mortgages which otherwise wouldn't have been made. Well, those are starting to go bad at an alarming rate, and now policymakers are talking about a federal bailout. At the same time, the federal program designed to slow down foreclosures isn't really working. However, none of this is stopping Democrats and Republicans from trying to extend an $8,000 homebuyer credit to... prop up the housing market. It's insane.

• In a story reminiscent of The Jungle, the New York Times did an expose of the meat inspection industry and its effects on the lives of people paralyzed for eating the wrong hamburger. The story was so powerful that the industry started striking deals for testing their meat for e.coli. Aside from the environmental concerns from eating meat altogether, at the very least we should be able to expect that we won't get paralyzed from it.

• Sonia Sotomayor was lively and active in her first week on the Supreme Court, asking more questions in an hour "than Justice Clarence Thomas has asked over the course of several years." Meanwhile, Antonin Scalia was trying to argue that the symbol of the cross wasn't actually a religious symbol. And he's supposed to be the conservative intellectual on the bench.

• This Karl Rove op-ed is as silly as the rest of them, but one part rings true.

The numbers may get worse for Democrats if they pass a health-care bill. Why? Because Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus (D., Mont.) wants to frontload the reforms with distasteful things. Under his plan, tax hikes and Medicare and Medicaid cuts kick in immediately, while new benefits are delayed for two-and-a-half years. Voters likely won't warm to reforms that slam them next year while promising benefits down the road.

This is unquestionably true, actually. You have to have some tangible benefits up front. I think the high-risk pools that could get the uninsured covered before the exchanges take effect could solve some of this problem.

• Good to see the DSCC taking this on - just why did 30 GOP Senators vote to deny rape victims justice in court?

• I'm still not sure whether the Senate is ready to pass a climate change bill, but the participation of Lindsey Graham in this op-ed doesn't hurt. Huckleberry often says one thing right before doing another, but it helps to put him in a box, saying that the Senate can pass the bill. Actually, it might help even more that a Midwestern Democrat like Sherrod Brown is leaning toward supporting the bill - the industrial-state Senators will make or break this.

• Not only did Rick Perry pull a bunch of members from a commission that wanted to look into his role in putting an innocent man to death, he cut the commission's funding. The rationalizations from the prosecutors aren't really cutting it, either.

• I didn't see Keith Olbermann's special comment on health care, but here's the transcript. It sounds like he took the experience of caring for his ailing father and interfacing with the health care system and pretty much came up with an hour full of stories. I don't know if he found out that some insurers consider domestic violence a pre-existing condition, or if his hospital charged a "facility fee" for his father to sit there, or if his father or someone in the hospital died from a preventable death. But the point is that, once you actually use the health care system, you have a far less positive view of it.

• You absolutely knew that Bill Frist would walk back his support of health care reform within about 24 hours. No surprise at all.

• I'm assuming that when Republicans get together, they use terms like "ghetto grandmothers" to describe all Democrats.

• I always hated the "look how many times that speaker used the words "I" or "me" as a proof of anything approaching narcissism, but Mark Liberman strikes a nail through the heart of this nonsense.

• In the grand scheme of things, $54 billion over 10 years is not a lot of money, certainly nowhere near the kind of numbers that Republicans always tout when they claim that medical malpractice reform is all that's needed to save health care.

• The ad I directed for Blue America targeting Blanche Lincoln for her stance on health care reform was featured on Rachel Maddow. Yay me!

• The latest conservative freak-out could be the dumbest ever - attacking Obama from choosing an artwork to adorn the White House because the wingnuts think it's a copy of a work by Matisse - when it's supposed to be a copy of a work by Matisse. I know it's not dogs playing poker, but really, maybe you should shut your mouth about things you don't understand.

• Well, blow me down - one of the top people in the Tea Party Movement owes the IRS a half a million dollars. Boy, he really doesn't like taxes!

• And finally, there's a Last Comic Standing show in Iraq. If they opened it up to the entire Muslim world, the head of the Pakistan Taliban would win in a walk.

Nobel Peace Prize-Worthy

2009-10-11T08:53:00.000-07:00

Who got these two longtime enemies together?

Armenia and Turkey signed a landmark agreement Saturday to establish diplomatic ties, after a dramatic last-minute intervention by Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton to keep the event from falling apart.

The accord, aimed at ending a century of hostility stemming from Ottoman Era massacres, was brokered by the Swiss over the past two years, with the help of French, Russian and U.S. officials. Clinton had been in frequent contact with the two sides in recent months to help seal the deal.

But just as she arrived at the University of Zurich for the signing at about 5 p.m. Saturday, Clinton heard that the Armenian side was objecting to a Turkish statement prepared for the ceremony, officials said. Clinton's motorcade made a U-turn and raced back to the hotel, where a U.S. diplomat was talking to the Armenians.

In the hotel parking lot, Clinton sat in her black BMW sedan in a soft rain for about an hour, talking on one phone to the Armenian foreign minister and on another to the Turkish foreign minister, Ahmet Davutoglu. Finally, she went into the hotel to invite the Armenian foreign minister, Edward Nalbandian, to drive with her to the university, where his Turkish counterpart was waiting.

Once there, further hours of negotiating ensued with a broader group of international diplomats, including Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, before the documents were signed. In an apparent compromise, neither the Turks nor the Armenians made a statement at the ceremony.

Could we see two in a row for the Obama Administration? (Probably not, the principals themselves are probably more deserving; this excerpt is written in an American paper for an American audience.)

Actually, some Armenians and their representatives in Washington are upset that the accord puts off the question of whether Turkey committed genocide against the Armenian people to a "committee of historical experts" for study. They want an immediate acknowledgement based on the known facts. Armenians throughout the world are not entirely pleased with the document. But the Armenian people will likely by helped innumerably by the opening of borders and normalization of relations with their most powerful neighbor.

Let's hope we see more agreements like this soon.

Obama Adds Nothing To HRC Dinner

2009-10-11T08:28:00.000-07:00

The President spoke at the Human Rights Campaign dinner, the biggest political event in the gay community, where he vowed to do the exact same things he's been vowing to do since he announced his campaign for President, without any timeline on when any of this would happen. About the only specific was that he would sign the Hate Crimes bill, which passed both houses of Congress in 2007 (even breaking a Republican filibuster). It's good that he didn't threaten to veto that bill, as George W. Bush did. But this is a speech that Obama could have made two years ago on the campaign trail. As John Aravosis said:

Barack Obama just promised us that if he becomes president, he's going to repeal Don't Ask Don't Tell, the Defense of Marriage Act, and get ENDA passed.

He didn't even bother to mention the two big ballot fights looming in November - Prop. 1 in Maine, where the theocrats are trying to overturn the gay marriage law, and Prop. 71 in Washington, where they are trying to take away domestic partner benefits. Those campaigns in blue states could have used a soundbite from a popular President.

If you think part of life is just showing up, well, at least Obama showed up. But Obama really needs to show up when it counts. Nobody in the gay community is buying the promises anymore.

Honduras, Red State

2009-10-10T10:13:00.001-07:00

I think the plan for the ruling regime in Honduras is to negotiate out the clock on restoring Mel Zelaya. He only has a few months left on his term, and so endless talks would just serve to push resolution past the end. While they talk the talk of diplomacy, the government is using mercenaries, in violation of international conventions, to suppress dissent and support the rulers.

Meanwhile, the ruling regime has spent over $600,000 in a high-profile lobbying campaign, hiring those responsible for America's bloody crackdown in Central America in the 1980s like Otto Reich, along with corporate whores like Lanny Davis who will literally say anything for money. This has allowed them to gather friends at the top of the government, particularly Congressional Republicans like Sen. Jim DeMint.

Let's see, endless delays in negotiations, use of mercenaries, fealty to lobbyists, PR as a national policy.

They really are a mirror for American democracy! Circa 2002, at least.

War Council After Peace Prize

2009-10-10T09:48:00.000-07:00

David Kilcullen, Paul McCartney to Stanley McChrystal's John Lennon for the COIN set, unsurprisingly thinks that an outright escalation is the only path to victory in Afghanistan.

(CNN) -- An influential adviser to the U.S. commander in Afghanistan declared Friday that anything less than 25,000 extra international troops in the country would not be enough to win.

David Kilcullen, who also advised U.S. commanders in Iraq, told CNN's Christiane Amanpour the window of opportunity to turn around the war is closing.

Kilcullen's comments came as President Barack Obama, only hours after being awarded the Nobel Peace Prize, again met with his top advisers to discuss strategy and troop levels in Afghanistan.

The U.S. commander in Afghanistan, Gen. Stanley McChrystal, is reportedly asking for up to 40,000 extra troops. Some reports say there is an option on the table to send 60,000 additional troops, almost doubling the U.S. force now in the country.

Kilcullen, who has just come back from Afghanistan -- said the Obama administration needs to finish the strategy review as soon as possible. While the war is not as bad as some say, "it's worse than any other time in the past," he said.

Kilcullen is also aware of the problems of governmental corruption and the lack of a partner in the civilian leadership in the country. But he's certainly foregrounding the use of military force to overcome the fact that we'd be protecting the population in service to an illegitimate government.

The discordance of the war council at the White House on the day Barack Obama was handed the Nobel Peace Prize was not lost on the Afghans.

"I'm not sure I understand -- this isn't for peace here, is it?" said bank worker Homaira Reza. "Because we haven't got any."

Irfan Mohammed, whose shop windows were rattled a day earlier by a massive blast outside the Indian Embassy in central Kabul, said he believed Obama was a good man, and perhaps deserving of the laurel.

"But so far as Afghanistan goes, he hasn't made up his mind what to do," Mohammed said.

I still think the Nobel Committee, consciously or unconsciously, is undertaking some behavioral economics here. I don't know if it will work, but clearly Obama is in some kind of box.

I'm So Pretty, Cosell, You Can't Stop Me!

2009-10-10T09:24:00.000-07:00

Hey Silvio Berlusconi, you're no Muhammad Ali:

ROME (Reuters) – Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi on Friday dismissed suggestions that he should step down for the good of Italy's image, saying he was the only person qualified to lead the country now and by far the best in Italian history.

Berlusconi, speaking at his first news conference since Italy's top court lifted his immunity from prosecution and opened the way for a resumption of corruption trials against him, also said he was the man most persecuted by judges "in the entire history of the world."

Berlusconi was asked by an American reporter about calls by critics that he step down because his personal and legal problems damage Italy's image in the world.

"The reality is completely the opposite," he said, remaining unusually calm in his response. "In my opinion, and not only mine, I am the best prime minister we can find today."

This is not a recent delusion of grandeur. Berlusconi has repeatedly claimed that he is the finest leader Italy has ever had, and all indications are that he actually believes it.

And if I essentially owned an entire country, and could shield myself from accountability at will - even with his immunity lifted, there are plenty of schemes he can and will use to avoid prosecution, and given his age he can never face jail time - I'd think I was pretty great myself.

Friday Random Ten... The Last?

2009-10-09T17:57:00.000-07:00

I've been toying with JUST keeping the site open for the Random Ten. So no, probably not the last. And I'm likely to have a few more things over the weekend if I have the time. So long but not goodbye...

On Call - Kings of Leon
Cosmic Sing-a-Long - Cryptacize
Party Up (Up In Here) - DMX
Everybody Loves Somebody - Dean Martin
It's Gonna Be (Alright) - Ween
What New York Used To Be - The Kills
The National Anthem - Radiohead
Smells Like Teen Spirit - Nirvana
No One's Gonna Love You - Nicole Willis & The Soul Investigators
Clouds - Cibo Matto

Have a great weekend.

CFPA Gets Big Boost From Obama

2009-10-09T15:42:00.001-07:00

The White House actually made news today. Really, and it had nothing to do with Norway. The President came out with a full-throated endorsement of the Consumer Financial Protection Agency, actually foregrounding it among all the other elements of financial regulatory reform.

But a central part of our reform effort is also aimed at protecting Americans who buy financial products and services every day -- from mortgages to credit cards. It's true that the crisis we faced was caused in part by people who took on too much debt and took out loans they couldn't afford. But my concern are the millions of Americans who behaved responsibly and yet still found themselves in jeopardy because of the predatory practices of some in the financial industry. These are folks who signed contracts they didn't always understand offered by lenders who didn't always tell the truth. They were lured in by promises of low payments, and never made aware of the fine print and hidden fees [...]

As we've seen over the last year, abuses like these don't just jeopardize the financial well-being of individual Americans -- they can threaten the stability of the entire economy. And yet, the patchwork system of regulations we have now has failed to prevent these abuses. With seven different federal agencies each having a role, there's too little accountability, there are too many loopholes, and no single agency whose sole job it is to stand up for people like Patricia, Susan, Maxine, Andrew and Karen -- no one whose chief responsibility it is to stand up for the American consumer, and for responsible banks and financial institutions who are having to compete against folks who are not responsible.

So under the reforms we've proposed, that will change. The new Consumer Financial Protection Agency that I've asked Congress to create will have just one mission: to look out for the financial interests of ordinary Americans. It will be charged with setting clear rules of the road for consumers and banks, and it will be able to enforce those rules across the board.

This was an idea from Elizabeth Warren that had absolutely no traction in Washington, and now the President of the United States is backing it in major speeches. He even attacked the US Chamber of Commerce for opposing it. To me, that's a big deal. But Oslo went and ruined everything. Oslo!!

I was on a conference call with Austan Goolsbee after the speech, and he emphasized three key points:

1) transparency - the importance of writing rules for credit cards, loans, etc., in clear language with full disclosures
2) fairness - it's time to get rid of unfair or predatory practices like payday lenders, and level the playing field for community banks.
3) accountability - not only would financial institutions and regulators be held accountable (the thinking is that the only thing a CFPA regulator would do is protect consumers, instead of the current disparate nature), but consumers would be able to take responsibility without being taken advantage of.

There was a reporter from the Philly Inquirer on the call who had the gall to say that the people affected by deceptive practices in the financial industry "made some dumb decisions." This is going to be the standard claim from the right (remember Rick Santelli's "I don't want to subsidize the loser's mortgages" rant?) so it's important to be armed with the facts. The fact is that regardless of whether you "go out there and shop" (another claim by this lunatic), financial products are written currently in deliberately obtuse ways, and the profit margins of the lenders or banks are directly proportional to how much of the fine print they can hide. People intuitively know this, and all the associated games along with it. And they deserve a federal agency at least tasked with looking out for them.

Now unfortunately, some of this comes a little late, as the National Community Reinvestment Coalition mentioned today:

“We applaud the President’s necessary leadership on financial reform. Clearly the President felt it necessary today to speak out against the weakening of the bill. Unfortunately, the damage from corporate lobbying in Congress may have already been done,” said John Taylor, president and CEO of NCRC. "The ability of the proposed Consumer Financial Protection Agency (CFPA) to protect the most financially vulnerable individuals and communities has already been undermined by substantial changes to the bill.”

“Most importantly, the proposed agency will not have sufficient independence from the existing regulators, whose failure to enforce the law was the reason for the establishment of the agency,” said Taylor. “The exclusion of enforcement of the Community Reinvestment Act was also a major concession to the financial services lobby, and allows them to continue to shirk affirmative obligations to serve and lend to working class Americans, within the constraints of safe and sound underwriting.”

In particular, Taylor is talking about the removal of "plain vanilla" financial products that would set a baseline standard for what's minimally required. And that's true. But it's good that Obama jumped in now before this weakens any further. And it would be good to re-emphasize this after the Nobel fervor blows over.

California's Past, California's Future

2009-10-09T14:47:00.000-07:00

Gordon Skene posted a fascinating echo of the past, from a Jerry Brown address to the state the day after the passage of Prop. 13 in 1978.

The Jerry Brown you hear is in full backpedal mode, telling voters that the message was received, that government spending is a scourge, that "we must look forward to lean and frugal budgets." Voters sent a message that they want their taxes cut, and the state will oblige. Brown offered a hiring freeze for state workers, proposed a round of budget cuts, and endorsed some kind of automatic limit on spending for the future. He offered a defense of state workers late in the clip, and he asked corporations to pretty-please take the huge windfall they would get by having their property taxes lowered to "invest in the state," but otherwise, it's a full-on co-opting of the Jarvis message.

Now, coming the day after passage of Prop. 13, you can argue that Brown was doing what he had to do. The people really did speak, although they didn't quite know the consequences of the words they were using, and Brown would have a re-election battle within 5 months, and he had to project a message that he "felt the pain" of those out there who voted to save their homes.

The problem is that this statement is directly analogous to the statement of Darrell Steinberg on May 20, 2009, the day after the special election went down in flames. Some would obviously ague that he was in the same position as Brown, and did what he had to do as well. As I said on May 20:

Where is the argument for DEMOCRACY in these statements? Since 1978 that democracy has crumbled and needs to be completely rebuilt. Everyone knows this but refuses to say it out loud. This is why the legislature and the Governor have historically low approval ratings. People are starved for actual leadership and see none. Only democracy will save us. This failed experiment with conservative Two Santa Claus Theories has now become deeply destructive. Because the democrats have provided no leadership and ceded the rhetorical ground, California public opinion holds the contradictory beliefs that the state should not raise taxes and also not cut spending. And if it persists without leadership and advocacy to the contrary, nothing will change.

Not once in those 31 intervening years has an argument been offered that leads proudly instead of placates meekly, that tells people about the future instead of the past, that makes stands on principle instead of trying to do the best with the system we have. That address in 1978 should have been replayed in a loop at every Democratic committee meeting and club event for 31 years, with the inevitable question asked afterward: "Is this a rallying cry? Is this the voice of a party that presumes to be on the side of the people? Is this giving people a vision, a dream, even a goal?"

People understand this in their lizard brains. They can naturally discern the strong and the weak, and gravitate toward the former even if their strength is repulsive. Since 1978, we have had exactly one other Democratic Governor in California, the kind of guy who signs on to amicus briefs with the Cal Chamber of Commerce defending illegal gubernatorial actions, and he was run out of Sacramento by a radical right movement that considered him too much of a hippie.

I have always thought that a strong defense of democracy, of the principles of majority rule, of government as a protector and a defender, would be rewarded in the public square. Instead we muddle through, and people suffer. I have not taken too much note of this "failure of the California dream" concept - for my money, as long as there were millions in poverty, gated communities and invisible barriers stratifying society, a separate California for the poor, the sick, the aged, then that dream was a good tool for marketers but a destructive proposition to tout. And while this has never been more true in our unequal society, it was ever thus. For the dream to be resurrected, it would have to be something fundamentally different. Not a "dream" of suburban sprawl and excess, but a dream of a society that takes care of one another, that seeks to maximize potential, that provides opportunity and allows individual dreams to take root. That can only happen in a flowering democracy reflective of the popular will.

I think leaders are emerging. While I won't be a part of day-to-day writing of the back and forth of California politics, as a citizen of the state I intend not to abandon it but to do whatever I can to involve myself in a movement toward fulfilling that new dream. It's deeply frustrating to analyze the politics of a state surrounded by brick walls to responsible governance at every turn, but paradoxically I think it remains an exciting time to be a progressive in California. The long march continues.

Radical Republican Steve King

2009-10-09T14:02:00.001-07:00

While in retrospect, I think comparing anyone who questions Barack Obama getting a pre-emptive Nobel Peace Prize today to the Taliban or terrorists is a pretty low road, I did appreciate the newfound aggressiveness from the DNC. Maybe they've hired some staffers from the RNC or something. And this latest project seems not only within bounds but a very canny way of painting Republicans with the beyond-the-pale extremist brush.

"Radical Republican Steve King" is repeated five times throughout the 1:15 piece. Surely this treatment will be given to some of the other figures of the GOP. And then GOP challengers will be forced to comment on these Radical Republicans.

You always want to take the lead in defining your opponent, and this campaign certainly does so. The more the GOP is the party of Limbaugh, Beck and Radical Republican Steve King, the more difficult it becomes for independents to embrace them.

Meanwhile, Steve King isn't exactly trimming his sails after the release of this video:

The hate crimes amendment attached to a defense authorization bill is Orwellian and provides protection to "sexual idiosyncrasies," Rep. Steve King (R-Iowa) asserted Friday.

King, a conservative Republican lawmaker, also charged that the 1998 murder of Matthew Shepard, which provided some impetus for hate crimes legislation, was not motivated out of hate against Shepard, who was gay [...]

King said that the hate crimes bill results in a "pedophile protection act," and is meant to create "thought crimes" and protect "sexual idiosyncrasies."

Once a Radical Republican, always a Radical Republican.

The Inevitable Nobel-As-Club

2009-10-09T13:45:00.000-07:00

Helen Thomas today at the White House:

Q Since there's so much talk of war now, will this have an impact and make him seek peace more?

MR. GIBBS: Well, look, Helen, I would point you to what the President said today. Obviously we've got -- the President and his team have worked since the very beginning of our administration to work toward bringing peace to the Middle East.

Q With more war that's going on.

MR. GIBBS: Well, we have these disagreements, you and me, Helen. (Laughter.) But obviously I think -- the President mentioned both his hopes for and work for peace in the Middle East, as well as the commitments that he has as Commander-in-Chief to protect the American people and to prevent the spread of the type of violent extremism that we see in Afghanistan and Pakistan.

Q But we're conducting wars there. Is he trying to find a way to peace?

MR. GIBBS: Well, again, Helen, we've done this before. There are people --

Q Don't say we've done this before. I'm asking you a question.

MR. GIBBS: I understand. There are those that sit there in that region of the world and actively are plotting and planning to do America harm.

Q How do you know that? And what are we doing to them?

MR. GIBBS: One, I watch the news. And two, I get that from the intelligence briefings.

I don't know if the President will have any problem sending in more troops after receiving the Nobel Peace Prize - he certainly didn't before - but this meme is absolutely out there. And it really shouldn't be a problem for a President who wants to live up to those promises, though Robert Gibbs was obviously flustered by it.

I don't buy the tradmed argument that the Nobel will somehow hurt Obama, and I don't know if it constrains future events, but it certainly gives himself something to live up to.

The Economics Of Military Action

2009-10-09T13:10:00.000-07:00

Here's something you don't see everyday - a member of Congress asking to fiscally quantify endless war:

“There are some fundamental questions that I would ask of those who are suggesting that we follow a long term counterinsurgency strategy:

1. As an Appropriator I must ask, what will that policy cost and how will we pay for it? We are now in the middle of a fundamental debate over reforming our healthcare system. The President has indicated that it must cost less than $900 billion over ten years and be fully paid for. The Congressional Budget Office has had four committees twisting themselves into knots in order to fit healthcare reform into that limit. CBO is earnestly measuring the cost of each competing healthcare plan. Shouldn’t it be asked to do the same thing with respect to Afghanistan? If we add 40,000 troops and recognize the need for a sustained 10 year or longer commitment, as the architects of this plan tell us we do, the military costs alone would be over $800 billion. And unlike the demands that are being made of the healthcare alternatives that they be deficit neutral, we’ve heard no such demand with respect to Afghanistan. I would ask how much will this entire effort cost, when you add in civilian costs and costs in Pakistan? And how would that impact the budget?

Warmongers have had the great luxury in this country of never having to justify their costs. Not just the human costs, but the real financial costs to constant military buildup. The usual retort is that you can't put a price on human lives. If that was the case, there would be no requirement for budget neutrality in health care reform, something that could save as many as 45,000 lives annually - the people who die from a lack of health insurance.

Rep. Obey's full remarks are well worth reading - he makes all the points about the futility of nation-building in a country without a partner in the government, the danger of angering local populations with a heavier occupying footprint, the fantasyland strategy of bringing democracy to Afghanistan, the need for an achievable policy, the potential for the war to crowd out any other Presidential agenda item. But I wanted to highlight this part because it's so alien to the contemporary political debate. It's certainly nothing you'd ever hear coming from the mouths of one of the fiscal scolds. The Pentagon budget, the budget for perpetual war, is inviolable and somehow magic - it doesn't create deficits, it doesn't produce burdens on long-term spending, it is never "at risk of going bankrupt." David Obey at least is trying to change that misimpression.

Some insider leaked the idea that the top-level troop request is actually 60,000, in an effort to make the 40,000 number seem like the middle course. Maybe they can write down on paper how much that would cost. And do it in a ten-year budget window to make sure the costs are inflated as possible.

.

Moon, Bitches!

2009-10-09T11:33:00.001-07:00

The improbable story that Barack Obama won the Nobel Peace Prize obscured the actually far stranger story that we, um, bombed the moon last night.

NASA crashed a piece of space junk into the moon's south pole this morning to find out if the dark, cold craters there contain water in the form of ice.

The impact of the 2.2-ton empty rocket part kicked up a cloud of dust. Then, a second spacecraft flew down through that dust, checking for water, and sent data and live footage of the crash back to Earth.

NASA broadcast the images on its Web site, but it wasn't as dramatic as some had hoped — just a scene full of gray craters, and the craters slowly got bigger and bigger as the spacecraft seemed to creep toward the moon frame by frame.

I started reading about this on Twitter last night and I thought it was a joke meme. But no, we actually went ahead and bombed the moon.

For science!

Against Comprehensive Incrementalism

2009-10-09T09:54:00.000-07:00

Nancy Pelosi understands that her place ~~is in the home~~ in the health care reform debate is to position her caucus at the left edge of what is possible to get 218 votes. Everything she has been doing recently has moved toward that goal.

Speaker Nancy Pelosi is not among those praising Sen. Max Baucus (D-Mont.) for bringing his healthcare bill in well under President Barack Obama’s $900 billion limit.

Pelosi (D-Calif.), an advocate of the government-run health insurance option left out of the Senate Finance Committee chairman’s bill, criticized the means by which Baucus kept costs down.

“The savings come off the backs of the middle class,” Pelosi told a closed-door caucus meeting. “This is why we need a strong public option going into conference with the Senate.”

By contrast, Blue Dogs want to "pre-conference" the bill, so they don't have to take a tough vote. That's ridiculous and a corruption of the legislative process. The House reflects to a far greater degree the concerns of the American people; there's absolutely no reason that it cannot stake out its priorities with a vote.

The problem with simply accepting and rubber-stamping the Senate Finance Committee bill is not only that it isn't generous and doesn't cover as many people as needed. The real problem is that it's not going to feel different to the vast majority of people. Maybe that's a virtue, in some respects, but in the sense that health inflation will continue to ascend, costs will still rise, medical bankruptcies will still not be avoided, and the whole thing will be a "comprehensive incrementalism" rather than a sweeping change, I think people might look back and say, "what was the fuss about?" Now, I think Ezra is right here:

Which is only to say that this is not the end. That's true also for the House and HELP bills. All these proposals are major improvements for the uninsured and those left out of the employer-based market. That means they're major improvements for those who are hurting the worst. And in constructing exchanges and beginning the hard work of delivery system reform and creating a system of subsidies and an individual mandate, they're building the foundation of a better health-care system. But as they embark on that project, they're leaving most of our current health-care system virtually untouched, which means most of the systemic problems will remain unsolved.

I think that project can start now, particularly in the area of competition with the insurance industry in the form of a public option. Until we discover that this is all that is possible - and I don't think we're they're yet - Pelosi is absolutely right to engage and strategically position herself at the left edge.

The House still doesn't seem to grasp how to pay for the bill, knowing simply that they don't want to piss off labor with the tax on high-end insurance plans. A tax on "windfall insurance profits" would have a similar effect, however. And a public option that could lower costs would decrease the amount of people hit by the high-end insurance plan tax.

The real danger here is that the comprehensive incrementalism is so incremental that the industry decides the plan doesn't cover enough people, and they start breaking their own promises. This is what's intimated here. While I do subscribe to the "if the health industry hates it, well it must be good" theory, I think there's a real danger of not controlling rising costs because of the thinner risk pool. And that could incentivize insurers to continue their worst practices. More reform is really a cumulative answer to these problems, and we should not stop halfway.

Really Not Hiding It Anymore

2009-10-09T09:39:00.000-07:00

The conservative right treats politics like warfare, warfare like a video game, and actually participating in war with a shrug and a retreat to their gated community.

South Florida Republicans held a weekly meeting at a gun range, shooting at targets including cut-outs of a Muslim holding a rocket-propelled grenade launcher.

The GOP candidate to replace U.S. Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz fired at a full-body silhouette with "DWS" written next to its head.

And you wonder why a Democratic President received the Nobel Peace Prize essentially for not being a Republican.

...for more of this in action, see The GOP Speaks. Barking mad.

Hate Crimes Bill Should Be Just The Beginning

2009-10-09T09:14:00.000-07:00

Nobel Prize winner Barack Obama is speaking at a gay rights dinner this weekend. He at least might have some tangible progress to discuss.

The House voted Thursday to make it a federal crime to assault people because of their sexual orientation, significantly expanding the hate crimes law enacted in the days after Martin Luther King Jr.'s assassination in 1968.
With expected passage by the Senate, federal prosecutors will for the first time be able to intervene in cases of violence perpetrated against gays.

Civil rights groups and their Democratic allies have been trying for more than a decade to broaden the reach of hate crimes law. This time it appears they will succeed. The measure is attached to a must-pass $680 billion defense policy bill and President Barack Obama — unlike President George W. Bush — is a strong supporter. The House passed the defense bill 281-146, with 15 Democrats and 131 Republicans in opposition.

"It's a very exciting day for us here in the Capitol," said House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., saying hate crimes legislation was on her agenda when she first entered Congress 22 years ago.

More from the Speaker's blog. Getting 130 Republicans to vote against a defense bill because of their hatred of the ghey is quite a feat. I guess "support the troops" doesn't mean all that much anymore.

That said, this shouldn't be seen as any kind of great victory for the President in terms of getting right with the gay community. They are angry, and justified in that anger.

If the President wants to live up to his Nobel (I have a feeling this will be a familiar refrain), he would preach tolerance and acceptance through deeds.

...John Aravosis has similar thoughts.

...Jon Stewart had a good bit on DADT this week.

That Missing Republican Grace

2009-10-09T08:24:00.001-07:00

After Obama's speech, I just saw Larry Kudlow saying "I don't feel like slamming him, he's the President of the United States, he just won the Nobel Peace Prize, fine, good on him." Charles Boustany (R-LA) basically said the same thing. UPDATE: McCain, too.

That's probably the best the right can do with this. The reflexive anti-Americanism, by contrast, is really abhorrent. Republicans, like sharks, only know how to move forward against their adversaries.

On the brief remarks themselves, Obama was in a pretty tight spot, he knows this honor is premature, he said this honor is premature, but he knows that this can potentially stimulate the world - and more important, this sclerotic nation - to action, if used right. So he accepted the award "as a call to action on the challenges of 21st century." Hopefully, he recognizes that it's a call to action to him as well.

...Alan Grayson looks like a damn prophet.

"If the President had a BLT yesterday, the Republicans would try to ban bacon."

Nobel Committee Behavioral Economics

2009-10-09T07:44:00.001-07:00

Robert Naiman hits on a theme:

But anyone who thinks this award is unprecedented hasn't been paying attention.

The Nobel Committee gave South African Bishop Desmond Tutu the Nobel Peace Prize in 1984 for his leadership of efforts to abolish apartheid in South Africa. Apartheid wasn't fully abolished in South Africa until 1994. The committee could have waited until after apartheid was abolished to say, "Well done!" But the point of the award was to help bring down apartheid by strengthening Bishop Tutu's efforts. In particular, everyone knew that it was going to be much harder for the apartheid regime to crack down on Tutu after the Nobel Committee wrapped him in its protective cloak of world praise.

That's what the Nobel Committee is trying to do for Obama now. It's giving an award to encourage the change in world relations that Obama has promised, and to try to help shield Obama against his domestic adversaries. The committee is well aware that history is contingent and that Obama might fail. It knows very well that the same country that elected Obama also gave the world George W. Bush and Ronald Reagan.

Indeed, the chairman of the Nobel Committee said today that they wanted to “enhance Obama’s diplomatic efforts so far rather than reward him for events in the future.” At a time when the President is trying to figure out what to do in Afghanistan, and has reached conclusions that are far more minimalist than the hawks would have wanted, maybe the Nobel Committee is trying to "nudge" him in the right direction?

As it reviews its Afghanistan policy for the second time this year, the Obama administration has concluded that the Taliban cannot be eliminated as a political or military movement, regardless of how many combat forces are sent into battle.

That's just not something the previous Administration would have concluded.

I hope the nudge works. Sincerely.

...And as for the most important actor in the outcome of this award? George W. Bush isn't releasing a statement. Class act. Actually, I wouldn't either if I were him. "Congratulations on being recognized as the repudiation of everything I did!"

Did They Not See The SNL Sketch?

2009-10-09T07:19:00.001-07:00

The Nobel Peace Prize? Really? Really. Um, really? Srsly? OK. No, wait, really?

President Barack Obama won the 2009 Nobel Peace Prize on Friday

Say that again.

President Barack Obama won the 2009 Nobel Peace Prize on Friday

I'm going to have to ask for it one more time.

President Barack Obama won the 2009 Nobel Peace Prize on Friday in a stunning decision designed to encourage his initiatives to reduce nuclear arms, ease tensions with the Muslim world and stress diplomacy and cooperation rather than unilateralism.

Nobel observers were shocked by the unexpected choice so early in the Obama presidency, which began less than two weeks before the Feb. 1 nomination deadline.

OK. I've digested it.

Important to note that the President didn't go to Oslo to ask for this. He didn't have a team of lobbyists swirling around Norway. In fact, they seem as taken by surprise as anyone else.

FWIW, I think putting the United States on a path of diplomacy and multilateralism HAS made the world a more peaceful place. I think calling for the abolition of nuclear weapons IS noble. I think engaging the Muslim world WILL yield rewards. Cheneyist foreign policy was so damaging to the global equilibrium that anything contrasting it necessarily is a marked improvement.

That said, this is just weird. Not so weird that you have to be a malingerer about it like Richard Cohen or a concern troll like Mickey Kaus or a straight-up attack dog like the entire Republican Party. But weird, nonetheless.

I think Spencer Ackerman has as good a take as I've seen.

But turning it down would be a slap in the face to an international community that is showing, in the most generous way possible, that it wants the U.S. back as a leading component of the global order. The issue is not Barack Obama. It’s what the president represents internationally: a symbol of an America that is willing, once again, to drive the international system forward, together, toward the humane positive-sum goals of peace and disarmament. The fact that Obama hasn’t gotten the planet there misses the point entirely. It’s that he’s beginning, slowly, to take the world again down the path.

Still weird, but that's the closest interpretation I can manage. This is basically a real gift, and Obama can choose to use it on the journey toward global peace, or he can reject through in his actions. Maybe the enormity of the prize and the willingness to follow through on the mission will keep him from stumbling off the path.

...Wow, the DNC hits back HARD.

"The Republican Party has thrown in its lot with the terrorists - the Taliban and Hamas this morning - in criticizing the President for receiving the Nobel Peace prize," DNC communications director Brad Woodhouse told POLITICO. "Republicans cheered when America failed to land the Olympics and now they are criticizing the President of the United States for receiving the Nobel Peace prize - an award he did not seek but that is nonetheless an honor in which every American can take great pride - unless of course you are the Republican Party.

"The 2009 version of the Republican Party has no boundaries, has no shame and has proved that they will put politics above patriotism at every turn. It's no wonder only 20 percent of Americans admit to being Republicans anymore - it's an embarrassing label to claim," Woodhouse said.

The Grayson effect has really stiffened the spines out in Washington.

...I think what this says about the world is that yes, the Bush era was really that bad. Josh Marshall and Steve Benen have more.

We Don't Even Have A Partner To Receive Aid

2009-10-08T16:43:00.000-07:00

As a spoonful of sugar to help the medicine of war go down, the Administration and Congress has talked of a "civilian surge" in the Afghanistan/Pakistan region, providing more non-military and development aid to both countries. This was realized in the Kerry-Lugar bill, which gave $7.5 billion in aid over 5 years to Pakistan. It was one of Joe Biden's old bills that they repurposed, and would give an opportunity for the US to help Pakistanis out of grinding poverty and achieve some goodwill with them.

And Pakistan went apeshit:

The Obama administration's strategy for bolstering Pakistan's civilian government was shaken Wednesday when political opposition and military leaders there sharply criticized a new U.S. assistance plan as interfering with the country's sovereignty.

Although President Obama has praised the $7.5 billion, five-year aid program -- approved by Congress last week -- Pakistani officials have objected to provisions that require U.S. monitoring of everything from how they spend the money to the way the military promotes senior officers.

Their criticism threatens to complicate the administration's efforts in the region, where Pakistan's assistance is seen as crucial to the war in Afghanistan.

"Obviously, it demonstrates we've still got work to do," White House spokesman Robert Gibbs said of the Pakistani criticism.

Kerry and Lugar tried to push back by calling out some myths being put forward by the Pakistanis. For example:

MYTH: The $7.5 billion (Rs. 62, 500 crores) authorized by the bill comes with strings attached for the people of Pakistan.

FACT: There are no conditions on Pakistan attached to these funds.

The $7.5 billion (Rs. 62,500 crore) authorized is all for non-military aid. These funds are unconditioned— they are a pledge of U.S. friendship to the Pakistani people. There are strict measures of financial accountability on these funds that Congress is imposing on the U.S. executive branch—not the Pakistani government, to make sure the money is being spent properly and for the purposes intended. Such accountability measures have been welcomed by Pakistani commentators to ensure that funds meant for schools, roads and clinics actually reach the Pakistani people and are not wasted.

MYTH: The bill impinges on Pakistan’s sovereignty.

FACT: Nothing in the bill threatens Pakistani sovereignty. Period.

This bill is an extended hand of friendship, from the people of America to the people of Pakistan. It will fund schools, roads, energy infrastructure, and medical clinics. Even when Americans are going through a deep recession and tough economic times, the United States is pledging $7.5 billion (Rs. 62,500 crore) as a long-term commitment to Pakistan. Those seeking to undermine this partnership, to advance their own narrow partisan or institutional agendas, are doing a serious disservice to the people of the United States and of Pakistan.

But this isn't going to be good enough. The real problem here is that the Pakistani people HATE the Americans, and any effort to infringe on their sovereignty will be met with this kind of anger, whether true or false. There are many in Pakistan who would probably want to be left alone rather than be given aid as a fig leaf for the destruction and death in the region. And disapproval of this package probably equals popular support across much of the country. In particular, the Pakistani army is angered by this, I would guess because so much of it is non-military aid, and they control a lot of the economy there. And remember, the Pakistani army and Pakistani intelligence is intimately linked to insurgent forces of the kind who may have blown up the Indian Embassy in Kabul, just like they did a year ago.

If we can't give money to Pakistan without an international incident, it says quite a lot about our prospects for controlling outcomes in the region.

Power Begets Power

2009-10-08T16:12:00.001-07:00

Marcy Wheeler has the gory details of today's markup for the renewal of the Patriot Act. Basically, the Obama Administration and friendly Democrats in Congress - mainly DiFi and Pat Leahy - have used the Mohammed Zazi investigation to reauthorize provisions of the Patriot Act, some of which have never been used, some of which represent deep intrusions into our civil liberties.

So the Obama administration has its first allegedly big Terrorism case, and they can hardly contain themselves as they exploit it to justify a continuation of the very Patriot Act and FISA powers which Democrats (and, in the case of FISA, Obama himself) long claimed to oppose. Indeed, key Obama ally Dianne Feinstein has worked diligently in the Senate not just to block Patriot Act reforms, but to make the law even worse, and has repeatedly cited the Zazi case to justify that.

Absolutely none of the methods used in the Zazi investigation would have commenced without Zazi being tied directly to Al Qaeda. But Feinstein and the White House doesn't want to have this burden of proof. They want the ability to engage in fishing expeditions, to use roving wiretaps or "sneak and peek" searches or the use of business records without having to prove that the subject is suspected of terrorist activity. It's pretty clear that this is leading toward tracking the records of anyone who bought large quantities of hydrogen peroxide. So look out, women who dye their hair and like to stock up!

This has come in conjunction with major pronouncements by Administration officials about how very dangerous the Zazi case was and how it proves that law enforcement needs these tools. I rebutted that earlier - they need tools, but not OPEN-ENDED ones. It also makes a mockery of Administration boasts that they're not politicizing terror - the juxtaposition of these press events and the Patriot Act markup is pretty obvious.

But that's apparently what they're getting. Russ Feingold is upset. Only him, Dick Durbin and Arlen Specter (!) managed to vote against the final bill from the perspective of civil liberties.

Before I get into the specific provisions that concern me, I want to say how disappointed I was in the debate in the committee. Today particularly, I started to feel as if too many members of the committee from both parties are willing to accept uncritically whatever the executive branch says about even the most reasonable proposed changes in the law. Of course we should consider the perspective of the FBI and the Justice Department. Keeping Americans safe is everyone’s priority. But we also need to consider a full range of perspectives and come to our own conclusions about how best to protect the American people and preserve their freedoms. Protecting the rights of innocent people should be a part of that equation. It's not the Prosecutors’ Committee; it's the Judiciary Committee. And whether the executive branch powers are overbroad is something we have to decide. The only people we should be deferring to are the American people, as we try to protect them from terrorism without infringing on their freedoms [...]

Specifically, the bill reported out of the Committee today on an 11-8 vote (five Republicans and only three Democrats voted No) fell short in a few key areas. Perhaps the most important was the failure to include the reasonable 3-part standard for issuing a FISA business records order under Section 215 of the PATRIOT Act. This standard was in a bill unanimously reported by the Committee, under Republican control, in 2005, and it was in Sen. Leahy’s original bill this year. Last week, Senator Durbin offered an amendment to put the standard back in the bill. It would have ensured that these secret authorities can only be directed at individuals who have some connection to terrorism or espionage. The standard is broad and flexible, but it places some limits on this otherwise very sweeping authority. Unfortunately, Senator Durbin’s amendment failed. When it did, I hoped the Committee would instead consider at least adopting that same standard for issuing National Security Letters, which are not approved by any court, and which were seriously abused by the FBI. Today, that, too, was rejected.

The bill that passed out of committee did include some positive changes. I was pleased my amendment to reform invasive "sneak and peek" searches was included, as well as my amendment to require the executive branch to issue minimization procedures for NSLs. But these improvements did not make up for the bill’s shortcomings, and I was unable to support it on the final vote.

I only wish that Julian Sanchez could make another rebuttal video and we'd be done with this, but Fox News is hardly the problem. We've morphed pretty solidly into a surveillance state, a factor of being a state at permanent war.

I tend to side with Anonymous Liberal that at least Obama isn't asserting the divine right to break the law just by dint of being the unitary executive. That theory is on the dustbin of history, I hope. But if he's gathering the same powers, that's a distinction without a difference.

CA-03: Gary Davis Appears To Be Out

2009-10-08T16:09:00.002-07:00

I got the same email that Randy Bayne did:

All indications are that Gary Davis is dropping his bid for the 3rd Congressional District and switching to another run for Elk Grove City Council. Just a few minutes ago, I was alerted that his Facebook page had changed, and just after that was forwarded a copy of a newsletter from Gary Davis – Elk Grove City Council announcing his run for the council. The logo was even the same as his congressional campaign logo — changed to Elk Grove City Council — of course.

Davis had trouble keeping up with the other two candidates, Bill Slaton and Ami Bera, in fundraising. With Q3 just ending, obviously it wasn't happening for him, so he cut his losses.

Bera, a doctor who challenged incumbent Dan Lungren directly at a town hall meeting in August, has raised the most cash so far, but Slaton entered the race just a few weeks before last quarter's deadline, so we'll see.

While CQ Politics lists the CA-03 race as leans Republican, Lungren has not been offered help by national Republicans in their next campaign arm fundraiser. Only Mary Bono Mack of CA-45 figures in that fundraiser. That's probably more a function of Palm Springs Mayor Steve Pougnet outraising Bono Mack last quarter - she needs the help more than Lungren in the money chase. But overall, I'd still mark CA-03 as a top target seat in 2010, with CA-45 next on the list. And Democrats know this.

All It Took Was A Handshake

2009-10-08T14:48:00.000-07:00

This is kind of all Mark Sanford needs at this point, another example of him being above the law:

The trooper pulls the guy over, the driver says "that's the Governor," the trooper says "That's not a good reason to be speeding," he walks over to the vehicle, the Governor shakes his hand, and that's it.

People in South Carolina, including most Republicans, already think he's abused his office for personal gain. And now this.

The Senate Progressive Block

2009-10-08T14:30:00.000-07:00

Jason Rosenbaum has the news on that secret letter I was talking about yesterday that Senate Democrats were pushing, demanding that Harry Reid include a public option in the bill that comes to the floor. We now have the letter, and it calls for a "robust, Medicare-like" public option, which is right where the House Progressives have drawn the line. The letter has 30 signatures:

Sherrod Brown (D-OH) John D. Rockefeller (D-WV)
Russell D. Feingold (D-WI) Patrick J. Leahy (D-VT)
Daniel K. Akaka (D-HI) Tom Udall (D-NM)
Kristen E. Gillibrand (D-NY) Roland W. Burris (D-IL)
Ron Wyden (D-OR) Debbie Stabenow (D-MI)
Barbara Boxer (D-CA) Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI)
Michael F. Bennet (D-CO) Dianne Feinstein (D-CA)
Jack Reed (D-RI) Jeff Merkley (D-OR)
Frank R. Lautenberg (D-NJ) Benjamin L. Cardin (D-MD)
Al Franken (D-MN) Robert P. Casey, Jr. (D-PA)
Barbara A. Mikulski (D-MD) Daniel K. Inouye (D-HI)
Edward E. Kaufman (D-DE) Arlen Specter (D-PA)
Maria Cantwell (D-WA) Robert Menendez (D-NJ)
Bernard Sanders (I-VT) John F. Kerry (D-MA)
Herb Kohl (D-WI) Paul Kirk (D-MA)

Some VERY interesting names on this list. Michael Bennet. DiFi (!). Arlen Specter. Newest Democrat and former pharma lobbyist Paul Kirk. Ron Wyden.

To be sure, nobody here is saying that they won't vote for a bill without a public option in it. But these would be the main possibilities for such a strategy. And you would only need 11 of these 30 to pull that off. And really, you would only need one, if you're tying it to a 60-vote filibuster-proof hurdle.

Despite the rumors and compromises being floated, it is NOT a given that Harry Reid puts a public option in the merged bill. This show of support by fully 1/2 of the caucus - and with public option supporters who voted it out of committees not on this list, the real number is higher - is very important to reaching that goal.

Everyone Loves An Opt-Out

2009-10-08T13:49:00.000-07:00

Here we have yet another compromise on the public option that sets moderates in Washington stirring. The "opt-out" national public option, which would offer states a chance to eliminate it for their own jurisdiction, is gaining support on Capitol Hill. Chuck Schumer says it's being "very seriously considered". Max Baucus says through an aide he would consider supporting it. Howard Dean said he'd support it if he were a Senator. Richard Kirsch from HCAN says it's better than triggers, co-ops and opt-ins, which is faint praise but praise nonetheless.

I think there's some good and bad to it. We don't know what the opt-out would look like - a referendum? Gubernatorial veto? Federal waiver? A policy bill with a hurdle in state legislatures? Tied to funding? - and how easy it could be surmounted, as well as how easily gamed by special interests. Insurance companies are spending $1 million a day to beat the public option in Congress, you don't need that much to beat it in the states. Would this have a chilling effect on all federal legislation, with every big bill subsequently requiring a state opt-out, balkanizing the country? Or would every red state Governor bluff at opting out, and then, after seeing the numbers for how this would really help people, grudgingly accept it? We also don't know what kind of public option this would bring into being. Would it be Chuck Schumer's weak conception with no tie to Medicare bargaining rates? Or a robust public option with Medicare + 5% rates and Medicare's provider network? I think Nancy Pelosi is doing something very smart by scoring both versions just so the fiscal conservatives can choke on the numbers.

Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) will submit multiple versions of the House's healthcare bill for cost estimates, she announced on Thursday.

The first proposal will include a "robust public option," which would tie doctor reimbursement rates to that of Medicare plus five percent. The remaining two drafts submitted for the Congressional Budget Office's consideration would include a public option based on "the negotiated rates that some in our caucus have supported and which was passed by the Energy and Commerce Committee," the speaker explained during Thursday's press briefing.

"And then we'll see back from the CBO what the scoring is on all of that," Pelosi said. "And, of course, we have promised not a dime to the deficit. This is our promise. We will not take a bill to the floor, the president will not sign a bill that adds a dime to the deficit."

We already know that the CBO considers the robust version to save $85 billion more than the weak version, so this will just cement that even more.

All the while, House Progressives, which have formed a block requiring a straight national public option with no opt-out and ties to Medicare rates, continue to say they won't compromise, won't blink, and claims that they have the votes they need to pass their plan in the House, although some have questioned the numbers.

I think the strategy should be maximalist - pass the best of what you can in the House, and the best of what you can in the Senate, so that when the two bills are merged, you at least are dealing with the best possible from both chambers. A merger, for example, could see a Medicare-tied public option with the opt-out clause.

However, the nagging feeling is that nobody wants to stop the public option, or at least nobody wants to be responsible for it. In that case, shouldn't the plan for supporters be to say to them, "We dare you to kill this"?

Nice Admission

2009-10-08T12:50:00.000-07:00

Paul Ryan (R-WI), on Republican efforts on health care:

FRANK: I just want to ask Paul one question. … When did you figure that out? Because apparently for the 12 years that the Republicans were in control — eight of which had a Republican president — that hadn’t occurred to you. So I’m glad you now understand that. Can you tell me at what moment the revelation occurred?

RYAN: First of all, I introduced on this subject about six years ago.

FRANK: You had control of the Congress. Why didn’t the Republican Congress fix it?

RYAN: I will have a moment of bipartisan agreement. We should have fixed this under our watch and I’m frustrated we didn’t.

The simple answer is that Republicans have no interest in policy. They have an interest in power and profit-taking. That's pretty much it.

Taxing High-End Insurance Plans

2009-10-08T12:32:00.000-07:00

Democrats are getting a lot of pressure from unions to eliminate the one provision that would corrode, or at least stop privileging, the inefficient employer-based health care system we have for the majority of this country:

As Democratic leaders prepare to bring healthcare legislation before the full House and Senate for votes this month, they soon must decide who will be taxed to pay for expanding coverage -- the wealthy or the insurance companies.

Legislation emerging from the House would slap a surtax on upper-income people. But many Democrats, especially in the Senate, fear the political fallout over voting to raise anyone's income taxes.

The most prominent Senate bill would impose a tax on insurance companies that provide expensive policies, sometimes dubbed "Cadillac" plans. But labor unions -- a powerful force within the Democratic Party -- bitterly oppose the idea, saying the tax would be passed on to workers in the form of higher premiums or shrunken benefits.

This would have been mitigated greatly by passing the Employee Free Choice Act first, because now it looks like Democrats are just dumping on labor unions. They need to pass EFCA very soon.

But let's be clear what the tax on insurers would do. It would only affect 10% of all insurance plans, and a lower percentage of those are union plans. And it's the only way to take in revenue for health care that extends beyond the cost of health inflation. I don't think the excise tax is entirely well-designed - it isn't adjusted by region based on cost-of-living, and without indexing it will quickly affect the average plan - but the House bill financing is not at all well-designed. It's just a budget-buster, with the effects past the budget window to hide them. That's a recipe for getting the bill dismantled in the future.

In other words, surpluses in the early years make up for deficits in the later years. But since time doesn’t actually stop when the CBO ten-year scoring window expires, what you’re left with is legislation that worsens the long-run fiscal outlook. That’s not really so awful since it basically just means that you’ll need to change the law sometime in the next ten years, and the law will definitely be changed in the next ten years anyway. But I’d say it’s definitely worse than the more robust form of deficit neutrality given by a bill that includes a revenue source which grows over time in line with costs.

To be clear, I think they should impose the surtax TOO, and use that money to expand the subsidies in the exchange. But the real goal here should be getting employers out of the business of providing health care, or at least into the regulated exchange. Taxing high-end plans does this, and does it in a mostly progressive way.

Blackmail Acknowledged

2009-10-08T12:07:00.000-07:00

As Brian Leubitz covers (see, they don't need me!), Arnold Schwarzenegger has threatened to veto every bill in the last legislative session if he doesn't get what he wants on water. The leadership is working toward a solution, but still remain far apart. They haven't figured this out for 30 years, but Arnold needs a solution in 30 hours or an entire year's worth of work gets vetoed for no reason.

I just want to add to the chorus of how appalling this is. We're talking about legislative blackmail.

And incredibly, Arnold has an ally in palace courtier George Skelton:

It's ugly. But it's an available political tool that the governor would be derelict not to use when an issue as critical as water is at stake.

This isn't about some narrow scheme important only to a narrow interest. Nor is it merely about a governor's pet project -- other than his legacy-building, which should be encouraged as long as it helps the state. It's about finally resolving an acute, decades-old problem that is worsening and affects practically all Californians.

Here's another old white man with health insurance who could give a crap if women get maternity care in their health insurance plans, to just pick one bill at random. Or who could care less if people who have insurance get dropped from it when they want to use it, to pick another. George Skelton would actively make the lives of Californians worse because he thinks it's sporting to see the Governor "use his power." That the power is illegal is of no consequence.

Then there's this whopper:

These and other arguments -- such as details of a new governing system for the delta -- have raged for years. Schwarzenegger apparently doesn't much care what the Legislature decides. He just wants it to compromise and send him a bill.

Yeah, he doesn't care at all. He actually invented the Latino Water Coalition, the fake-grassroots group pushing all the Republican solutions in water negotiations, but he's really just an innocent bystander. An innocent bystander who would destroy women's health and allow insurance companies to kill people for profit and a host of other things, all with an asshole like George Skelton cheering him on.

Grayson's Victory

2009-10-08T11:30:00.000-07:00

CNN interviewed me about Alan Grayson and his health care speech:

"What happened was his floor speech and the fact that he didn't back down set a new standard for how Democrats deal with Republican hissy fits," said David Dayen, a liberal blogger who often writes on the Daily Kos Web site. "He's been a hero to Democrats since his term started, but now he's a hero on health care."

To be sure, Grayson already had shown he was a different kind of freshman congressman before the "die quickly" speech, having forcefully taken Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke to task in what was an instant YouTube moment at a House Committee hearing less than a month into the job.

He also held up a vote on global warming legislation until he secured a $50 million hurricane research center in his district -- a move more characteristic of the chamber's longtime lawmakers. And he's won liberal support for his steadfast support of ACORN, even as many Democrats voted to defund the community organizing group, and for his forceful anti-war stance.

But it was the late-night diatribe last week -- presumably seen by no more than a few dozen C-SPAN viewers before going viral -- that netted Grayson more than $500,000 from 5,000 donors around the country. It's also garnered a media tour worthy of a national celebrity peddling a tell-all book, appearing on a bevy of cable and national news programs to amplify his attacks on Republicans.

The writer goes on to add the concern trolling from Republicans that Grayson's honesty won't play in his swing district. That seems to miss the point that Grayson has pretty much always been an outspoken leader, and it didn't just start up during that health care speech. This is the ad that won him election in that swing district.

That's not a meek, mushy message. You can find 10 Democrats to touch war profiteering, maybe. It's an issue that can open a politician up to "you don't support our troops" or "you don't want to protect America" or any number of attack. And he carried this to victory, because it was a truthful message and a populist one.

Grayson won, by the way. The Republicans smelled blood in the water, ramped up their hissy fit, and then had to back down. They did so because they knew it wouldn't be successful. Alan Grayson backed up his words. And so they had nothing. The boasts of how they're going to beat him in November are also just words. They have nothing for that either, not even a candidate.

The (Not So) Symbolic Middle Finger From The Insurance Industry

2009-10-08T11:03:00.001-07:00

Here's a nice detail from an LA Times story about Hilda Sarkysian:

Surrounded by supporters, Hilda Sarkisyan marched into Cigna Corp.’s Philadelphia headquarters on a chilly fall day, 10 months after the company refused to pay for a liver transplant for her daughter.

"You guys killed my daughter," the diminutive San Fernando Valley real estate agent declared at the lobby security desk. "I want an apology."

What she got was something quite different.

Cigna employees, looking down into the atrium lobby from a balcony above, began heckling her, she said, with one of them giving her "the finger."

There's video of this confrontation. Check it around 3:40:

Sadly, this exchange is the only ledge on which the Sarkysians can hang a wrongful death lawsuit on CIGNA. A judge threw out the case on the basis of a 1987 ruling from the Supreme Court as well as ERISA (the Employee Retirement Income Security Act), which bars individuals from holding insurers of employer-paid health care plans responsible for their coverage decisions, but they can claim that the finger incident caused them "emotional distress." Even Hilda Sarkysian calls this absurd: "They kill a beautiful 17-year-old girl, and I get to go after them for a finger? That's sick."

But of course, the insurance industry sticks their proverbial middle finger up at the country every day, with plans that cost more every year for the same coverage, companies that rescind policies when patients want to use them, and byzantine rules that they use to get out of providing care. The only surprise about this gesture is that it's not one of the health insurer's corporate logos.

...Five more people were arrested at CIGNA HQ yesterday. I wonder how many of them were flipped the bird.

And This Is The Bill With The Smooth Sailing

2009-10-08T10:26:00.000-07:00

Barron YoungSmith (I'll admit to the name irking me) reports on President Obama's student loan reform, one of the most no-brainer bills of all time, but one which has been stymied for decades by business interests wanting to cash their corporate welfare checks:

Last month, taking cues from Obama, the House of Representatives passed the Student Aid and Fiscal Responsibility Act, which would alter the way the government funds Pell Grants and other student loans. Under the current system, the government gives banks huge subsidies to encourage them to lend to students. Effectively, this means the government is bribing banks to extend student loans by handing them money and letting them cream huge profits off the top. It is a vast waste of taxpayer money, since Uncle Sam could accomplish exactly the same thing by cutting out the middleman and lending directly to students [...]

The next hurdle is the Senate, where Tom Harkin's HELP Committee plans to introduce a student loan bill as soon as it's cleared some *ahem* backlog on health care reform. It looks as if Harkin's committee will introduce a bill that, like the House version, hews very closely to President Obama's proposals as well. And, since the bill is moving through the notorious budget reconciliation process instead of the normal legislative track--a decision made by Obama's allies who want to increase the likelihood of passage--it will pass through no other committees, save the quiescent Budget Committee, and it will not face the threat of a filibuster.

Game over? Not quite. In a testament to the sway that student lenders exercise over the Senate, it's not clear that Democrats have the 51 votes necessary to pass the bill in its current form. Ben Nelson, the staunch friend of lending companies, is against it--as are Blanche Lincoln, Mark Begich, Jeff Bingaman, and Tom Udall. And Senators Bob Casey, Arlen Specter, Bill Nelson, Mark Warner, Jim Webb, and Mary Landrieu are all said to be wavering because their states contain student loan companies. Many are searching for a way to keep lending companies involved in the process--an anguished Senator Casey even held a field congressional hearing in Philadephia this week, hoping to clarify his thoughts on the issue--and they'll be tempted to back some of the numerous pro-lender amendments that will be offered once the bill is open for floor debate. (Even in the House, Democrats couldn't prevent a mass revolt until they watered down the legislation by exempting existing state-based non-profit lenders from subsidy cuts.)

(Seriously, what the fuck, Tom Udall? I expect this from a lot of the others, but you?)

It's insane that there would be eleven lawmakers who call themselves Democrats opposed to something this obvious. It's a pure bank subsidy with no reason to exist whatsoever. There's no argument to be made other than "let's give the banks we bailed out even more free taxpayer money." And yet, I count eleven Senators up there wavering, despite the fact that this bill would create the largest benefit to students in history and cement Democratic gains among young people, while saving the government money. With college costs rising we're not even going to have a higher education system in this country, at least not one for anyone but the super-rich, if we don't accomplish this. Even this bill, which would expand Pell Grants with all the savings from no longer subsidizing banks to make student loans, would fall short of keeping pace with costs (although they would index an increase to inflation).

Really, if we can't do this, Congress might as well pack it in and go home for a couple years to do some soul-searching.

The Last Tycoon's Luck Runs Out?

2009-10-08T09:56:00.000-07:00

I've been obsessed with Silvio Berlusconi ever since I read "The Sack of Rome" by Alexander Stille. It's incredible that someone so corrupt, so obviously a thief, so clearly in politics to enrich himself and save himself from personal harm, was able to become Prime Minister, and do so entirely on the back of his own media empire and public relations effort. In the book, Stille details that Berlusconi basically entered politics to ensure that he not lose his business or suffer from prosecution for his past illegal actions. He immediately set to work on having his puppets in Parliament pass laws to that effect. A huge blow to those efforts occurred yesterday, as the pillar of his protective bubble - an immunity law for himself - was ruled unconstitutional by Italy's top court.

Italy was cast back into political turmoil tonight when the country's constitutional court threw out a law passed by Silvio Berlusconi's government that gave him immunity from prosecution for as long as he remained prime minister.

The majority decision represented a severe blow for Berlusconi, who was already struggling to contain the damage from a lurid sex and drugs scandal in which he is accused of using the services of prostitutes.

With some of Berlusconi's associates claiming that the judges of the country's top court had joined a plot to remove him, there was also a clear risk that Italy could be plunged into a constitutional crisis.

In a statement, the prime minister dampened speculation of an early election. He said the decision had not in any way altered his "will to carry on" in government.

He said: "I cannot but respect the response from the constitutional court." But he appeared to foreshadow an attempt to bring the court under tighter political control when he said that "this system, and above all the way in which the members of the court are chosen, risks upsetting over time the correct balance between the powers of the state".

Fabrizio Cicchitto, the leader of Berlusconi's party in the lower house of parliament, blamed the outcome on a "process of politicisation of the court which is joining the line of attack against prime minister Berlusconi".

This is what they always do when the law breathes down their necks. They cry politicization, just as they did with the magistrates in Milan who were closing in on Berlusconi. In that case, it worked, and this may as well. In a way, he's already won. Italy has a law that you cannot be jailed if you are over the age of 70. Berlusconi delayed the tax evasion case against him long enough to hit that milestone.

The BBC has more. Berlusconi's reign is fascinating and depressing.

FL-Sen: The Crist-Rubio Race Is A Race

2009-10-08T09:25:00.000-07:00

Charlie Crist will have more money to spend in his primary race against right-winger Marco Rubio, but Rubio will have the funds necessary to compete. If he didn't raise $1 million dollars last quarter, I'd say he was done. But having the minimal amount necessary to get his message out, combined with all the grassroots energy (Howie Klein has been following this obsessively) tells me that he has a chance. Not a good chance - name ID will maybe be enough to swamp him - but a chance, especially given that all Govenors are endangered species right now, given the state of the economy. I don't think Charlie Crist is a slam dunk for the nomination.

The Narrowness Of The Afghan Debate

2009-10-08T09:00:00.000-07:00

The White House, a day after stating that the only part of Afghanistan war policy off the table is ending it, is throwing up a trial balloon that they will pull back on their nation-building project there:

President Obama’s national security team is moving to reframe its war strategy by emphasizing the campaign against Al Qaeda in Pakistan while arguing that the Taliban in Afghanistan do not pose a direct threat to the United States, officials said Wednesday.

As Mr. Obama met with advisers for three hours to discuss Pakistan, the White House said he had not decided whether to approve a proposed troop buildup in Afghanistan. But the shift in thinking, outlined by senior administration officials on Wednesday, suggests that the president has been presented with an approach that would not require all of the additional troops that his commanding general in the region has requested.

It remains unclear whether everyone in Mr. Obama’s war cabinet fully accepts this view. While Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. has argued for months against increasing troops in Afghanistan because Pakistan was the greater priority, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton and Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates have both warned that the Taliban remain linked to Al Qaeda and would give their fighters havens again if the Taliban regained control of all or large parts of Afghanistan, making it a mistake to think of them as separate problems [...]

The White House appears to be trying to prepare the ground to counter that by focusing attention on recent successes against Qaeda cells in Pakistan. The approach described by administration officials on Wednesday amounted to an alternative to the analysis presented by General McChrystal. If, as the White House has asserted in recent weeks, it has improved the ability of the United States to reduce the threat from Al Qaeda, then the war in Afghanistan is less central to American security.

I'm glad that there's at least some pushback on the silly "safe havens" theory, which if allowed to predominate would lead us down a road of endless escalation. So scaling back the mission from one that is simply unachievable to a more achievable one makes sense. The counter-insurgency cult is quite dangerous. The best you can say about it is that it keeps warmongers away from an anti-China defense buildup.

Joking aside, it’s worth keeping in mind when you see arguments about counterinsurgency that there are really two different debates happening. One is the debate inside the military and the defense policy establishment which is really a debate about COIN versus non-COIN military activity. Another is a debate about that pertains to the larger question of the strategic and budgetary priorities of the United States. In my experience COIN enthusiasts tend to have the better of the limited argument about the relative allocation of military resources, but generally decline to engage in a serious way with the larger question of national priorities. In other words, a debate that ranges from “we should fight a series of small wars against Muslims” to “we should prepare for a big war against China” is really seen as “lively” rather than incredibly cramped and narrow.

Perhaps policymakers are coming to their senses about COIN, but not about the overall need to disengage from pointless wars. But they should. New liberal hero Alan Grayson, who's been saying this stuff for a while, effectively articulated the alternative the other day:

"I think that the aid program is a fig leaf trying to make congress and the American people feel better about the war and about killing. I think that diplomacy in the areas of fig leaf to try to make the American people think that there is some constructive alternative to the war when the war itself is destructive and not constructive [...]

If we wanted to rethink Afghanistan in our image, we’d have to destroy the north to save it, and I don’t think the American people are ever going to do that to anybody. So I think that the underline premise is simply wrong.

I’ve been to 175 countries all around the world including Afghanistan, including every country in that region, and what I’ve seen everywhere I go is that there are some commonalities everywhere you go, everywhere you go people want to fall in love. It’s an interesting thing. Everywhere you go, people love children. Everywhere, they love children. Everywhere you go, there’s a taboo against violence. Every single place you go. And everywhere you go, people want to be left alone. And that’s the best foreign policy of all. Just to leave people alone."

President Obama is holding a troop request in his hands and deciding between a big escalation or a small escalation. Nowhere is there a strategy for no escalation, to shut it down, in the words of Charlie Wilson, the original American interventionist in Afghanistan.

Stating The Obvious

2009-10-08T08:26:00.000-07:00

I'm very pleased that Debbie Stabenow and Debbie Wasserman Schultz called out the sexism of the GOP yesterday.

The call targeted Republican gubernatorial candidates Chris Christie in New Jersey and Bob McDonnell in Viriginia, as well as Sen. Jon Kyl (R-AZ) and Republicans in general.

"I think we have an outdated view, an extreme view, a lack of understanding of what women's lives are like today and the role of women in America," Stabenow said. She wouldn't, however, use the word "sexist."

The lawmakers cited Republicans' opposition to health care reform as evidence, since women are usually in charge of their families' health care, and are disproportionately hurt by current health insurance policy.

But they also called out the NRCC's statement yesterday about House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, specifically that Gen. Stanley McChrystal "should put her in her place." That, said Wasserman-Schultz, is evidence of "a total lack of respect for women."

"It's perhaps understandable they wouldn't understand the needs of women," she added, saying 80 percent of House Republicans are men. (Although no one said "sexism" on the call, Wasserman-Schultz appeared on MSNBC soon after and said the NRCC comment "shows the shocking sexism in the Republican party today.)

Stabenow, who recently got into a tussle with her Finance Committee colleague Kyl, said she was shocked by the Republicans' attitude toward things like requiring insurers to cover basic maternity care.

"One of the most shocking things of the Senate Finance Committee markup was the extent to which my Republican colleagues weren't even aware of what they were saying that was so offensive to women," she said. Maternity care "is not a frill. This is not an extra for the majority of Americans who happen to be women."

In fact, it's Chris Christie's position on women's health issues, particularly mammograms, that is killing him in New Jersey. My sister-in-law, who lives in NJ, just finished her breast cancer treatments, and under Christie her health plan wouldn't have had to cover the early detection procedure that caught the tumor. Why should he care, as a white man? He doesn't need a mammogram or a papsmear.

Wasserman Schultz went further with her criticism on MSNBC:

"I think the place for a woman is at the top of the House of Representatives," said Wasserman Schultz.

"It's evidence they long for the days when a woman's place was in the kitchen. Now a woman is third in line for the presidency... But it's not surprising, coming from a party that's 80 percent male and 100 percent white," she added, referring to the composition of the House GOP conference.

We are a terrible country when it comes to female political representation, and the crap they have to go through probably enters into that. You have one political party that feels no compunction against acting like it's 1952 and women in politics are their secretaries. And that has a real-world effect on women's health and women's pay issues, among other things. Wasserman Schultz is absolutely right to push back on this.

As I was saying. When you have sexual harrassers like Bill O'Reilly leering at you every day, why would you want to deal with that? And I know he's talking to Michele Bachmann, who's in another stratosphere and clearly doesn't care, but this is the approach of the old boy's network. It's kind of sickening.

"Major Power Brokers On The Left"

2009-10-08T07:57:00.000-07:00

Last night, Rachel Maddow tells me broke some news.

We can report exclusively tonight that two major power brokers on the left have told MSNBC that they are encouraging a Senate strategy now in which the leadership would revoke chairmanships and other leadership positions from any Democrat who sides with a Republican filibuster to block a vote on health reform. Regardless of how individual senators would vote ultimately on the bill, committee chairmen or subcommittee chairmen who allowed Republicans to force a 60-vote requirement for passing health care...under this type of strategy would be in danger of losing their chairmanships.

I don't know what that means. "Two power brokers on the left"? Who? Senators? Fundraisers? People who want health reform? I'm encouraging this, am I one of the power brokers? If it's Senators, this isn't really news, as Tom Harkin said this about Max Baucus back in July, even before the vote. Jay Rockefeller has intimated it as well, with respect to having a vote on leadership and chairmanships instead of using seniority. And with Rockefeller and Baucus not even speaking to each other before this critical vote, I'm assuming that hasn't changed.

Mind you, I'd LOVE for this to be the strategy. It wouldn't take effect until 2011, and I don't know if it can filter down to subcommittees - Ben Nelson and Mary Landrieu don't chair any committee, for example - but it's one of the tools in the shed for the Senate caucus leadership. I hope they use it. This report doesn't convince me they will, however.

And I'll Miss You Most Of All, Scarecrow

2009-10-07T18:11:00.001-07:00

You can read my weepy, tear-stained goodbyes to Hullabaloo and Calitics. And now, you're probably wondering what that's all about...

Well, I've accepted a position with Firedoglake running a new site over there that will be called FDL News. The site has not yet gone live bit will come into being in the next couple weeks; in the meantime I'll be posting on the main site over there, starting next Monday (today was kind of a preview). It's an opportunity to do a mix of breaking news, analysis and some original reporting. Firedoglake has some fine bloggers in their stable and I'm excited about the opportunity.

What does that mean for this site, a labor of love for the past five - count 'em, five - years? Well, the large majority of my material will be produced at FDL News. I'm going to keep this site live for a variety of reasons, mostly to keep the archives open. Maybe I'll post some personal insight or two every now and again. But for the most part, "the balcony is closed," as Gene Siskel liked to say.

I'm a little torn up about this. I built this thing from nothing into... only slightly more than nothing. I've written over TWELVE THOUSAND posts here. It will be profoundly odd starting next week to have that not happening anymore. Profoundly odd. I started this out as a hobby, it became an obsession and has now progressed into a career. And it all started right here.

But I'll now have a much higher profile and a better depository for stories that would otherwise drift into the ether. It's going to be a huge challenge and in order to be able to meet the task, I have to focus.

As I said, I start Monday. I'll dim the lights here starting Friday - the weekend will be entirely taken up with moving. I will really miss this scruffy old place.

Thanks to everyone who ever came across this site. It's ridiculous that anyone would spend more than a minute reading what I have to say. It's even more ridiculous that more people will do it from this point on. You've all been great. Knowing me D-Day knowing you readers A-ha!

The Blue State Public Option

2009-10-07T17:35:00.000-07:00

Sam Stein has a pretty major development:

Senate Democrats have begun discussions on a compromise approach to health care reform that would establish a robust, national public option for insurance coverage but give individual states the right to opt out of the program.

The proposal is envisioned as a means of getting the necessary support from progressive members of the Democratic Caucus -- who have insisted that a government-run insurance option remain in the bill -- and conservative Democrats who are worried about what a public plan would mean for insurers in their states.

"What folks are looking for is what gets 60 votes," said a senior Democratic Hill aide. "The opt-out idea is very appealing to people. It has come up in conversations. I know personally that a handful of members have discussed it amongst themselves."

In conversations with the Huffington Post, sources have said that while the opt-out approach to the public plan is in its nascent stages it has been discussed with leadership in the Senate. It was pulled out of an alternative idea, put forth by Sen. Tom Carper (D-Del.) and, prior to him, former Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle, to give states the power to determine whether they want to implement a public insurance option.

But instead of starting with no national public option and giving state governments the right to develop their own, the newest compromise approaches the issue from the opposite direction: beginning with a national public option and giving state governments the right not to have one.

Essentially you'll end up with a blue-state public option, with the possibility of a few referenda to remove it in the states that allow ballot initiatives. Although, as we saw on the stimulus, threatening to opt out of a federal program is far easier than actually doing it. I'd guess that most states would go ahead with it.

As compromises go, this is about as good as anything that's been discussed, certainly better than triggers, co-ops or Tom Carper's "opt-in" proposal. It needs to be a good public option, one with Medicare's provider network and hopefully some relationship to Medicare rates, but if that's the case then it probably even beats Schumer's weak natonal proposal.

The entire exercise is to get to the conference committee with some kind of public option in both houses. That way, getting something out of conference is virtually assured. If you have no public option in the Senate bill, you're not going to get one in the final bill. That's just an educated guess. So Democrats are trying to figure out something that can get through a Senate vote. It's a difficult lift.

Outside pressure remains a factor here. But we're now talking about which kind of public option to have, not whether or not to have one at all. That's a better place to be.

Trying To Exit

2009-10-07T16:25:00.000-07:00

Andrew Sullivan, 15 years after the fact, kinda sorta apologizes for Betsy McCaughey but not really, calling it not his finest hour but saying that he was somehow roped into publishing it:

I do not think it's professional to air the specifics of internal battles after the fact, and I take full responsibility for being the editor of the magazine that published the piece. I accepted an award for it. I stood behind it. In my view, it had many interesting points and as an intellectual exercize in contemplating the full possible consequences of Hillary Clinton's proposal, it was provocative and well worth running. But its premise that these potential consequences were indisputably in the bill in that kind of detail was simply wrong; and I failed to correct that, although all I can say is that I tried. One key paragraph - critical to framing the piece so it was not a declaration of fact but an assertion of what might happen if worst came to worst - became a battlefield with her for days; and all I can say is, I lost. I guess I could have quit. Maybe I should have. I decided I would run the piece but follow it with as much dissent and criticism as possible. I did discover that she was completely resistant to rational give-and-take. It was her way or the highway [...]

Again, I take responsibility.

This is taking responsibility? Who else but the editor of the magazine should be responsible for its content? Who was Sullivan fighting with, as the editor of the magazine, that forced him to label the piece as fact instead of as one woman's opinion? Martin Peretz? Betsy McCaughey herself, as he seems to intimate here? Who was in charge? As Kevin Drum says, he surely owes us the rest of this story. As much as Sullivan tries to discount it, the piece was crucial to killing health reform:

But look: it was one piece in a magazine. It's being treated as if it were a turning point in history. Please. There's one reason the Clinton healthcare bill failed and it isn't Betsy McCaughey. It's Hillary Clinton.

Sullivan is offering the "innocent bystander" theory of journalism, where journalists have no effect on public opinion. In this case, it's mixed in with his visceral hatred of Hillary Clinton, which is nonsense. But the original "No Exit" had huge implications for the health care debate in 1994, not least of which because of its impact on OTHER JOURNALISTS. They figured that McCaughey had some kind of authority and took her claims as important ones, which they subsequently disseminated across the media. That's how opinion leaders get their information, and that dribbles down into the public at large. There is no question that the article hurt health care reform, and Sullivan doesn't want the responsibility, so he tries to wriggle off the hook. In fact, he was defending the article a couple years ago before McCaughey resurfaced. Sullivan's mistake actually has affected the health care debate TODAY, 15 years later, by making McCaughey's claims viable, at least to conservatives who knew how to use them. And he doesn't come out of this exchange looking good.

When an editor publishes something that he admits that he knew at the time to be false--"[McCaughey's] premise that these potential consequences were indisputably in the bill in that kind of detail was simply wrong; and I failed to correct that, although all I can say is that I tried"--there should be consequences.

And I think there should be consequences for the Atlantic Monthly, and for other publications that continue to employ Andrew Sullivan.

As Ezra Klein says, that Sullivan won't defend McCaughey anymore shows how toxic she is, though she still manages to get on the teevee at will. But this is a very weak effort to bury the past.

Whitman Gets a HUGE Bailout As Santa Clara Co. Acknowledges Registration In 1999

2009-10-07T15:40:00.000-07:00

Meg Whitman was seriously on the ropes for her apparent lack of voting or even registering to vote until she was 46 years old. Her contradictory and downright puzzling alibis and statements after the fact were utterly mockable, and Chris Kelly did the honors, as he's wont to do. But all along, Whitman was looking for a lifeline - some discrepancy in the reporting that she could use to muddy the entire story, to "prove" that the Sacramento Bee was wrong in their reporting, even if 99% of the story remains true. She has found that lifeline.

Republican candidate Meg Whitman was registered to vote in Santa Clara County for nine months in 1999, Santa Clara elections officials said today, admitting that they supplied inaccurate information to The Bee and other news organizations on the issue.

The Registrar of Voters had previously told The Bee and other media outlets that there was no record of Margaret Cushing Whitman being registered to vote or voting in Santa Clara County in its current voter registration database, on its older microfiche records, or in a separate database of canceled voter registrations.
On Monday, Whitman's campaign said its own team had last week discovered a previously unknown record of Whitman being registered to vote. They said they found it in an archived Santa Clara County voter registration database [...]

DFM then found an archival voting registration record for Whitman on an old back-up file of the county's 1999 registration records not available to county staff, he said.

"The back-up file confirmed that Ms. Whitman was registered to vote in Palo Alto from February 8, 1999 to October 4, 1999," Moreles said.

Importantly, no votes took place in Santa Clara County between February and October 1999. And while Whitman, according to the Registrar of Voters, re-registered in a different county sometime after that, there is not yet a record of such a registration - at least not until 2002.

The point is that this doesn't fundamentally change the story about Whitman's voting record. She still hasn't produced the full records on her own; still hasn't confirmed any registration or vote prior to 1999, when she was 43 years old; still hasn't accounted for the "I clearly remember voting in 1984" remark she made on Fox News yesterday; still hasn't clarified numerous contradictions in her evolving set of stories; and still hasn't shown a voting record befitting any kind of engaged citizen.

However, she has one little data point where the Bee made a mistake. And she's sure to use that to try and discredit the whole article and the whole issue. Whenever asked about this from now on, she'll start with "The Sacramento Bee article was inaccurate." And she'll be technically right. And it won't answer the question.

It'll probably work, too.

It's at least good enough for Rudy Giuliani to endorse her.

That All-Important CBO Score

2009-10-07T14:56:00.000-07:00

The CBO score for the newest version of the Senate Finance Committee bill is in, and the word incrementalism comes to mind.

According to CBO and JCT’s assessment, enacting the Chairman’s mark, as amended, would result in a net reduction in federal budget deficits of $81 billion over the 2010–2019 period (see Table 1). The estimate includes a projected net cost of $518 billion over 10 years for the proposed expansions in insurance coverage. That net cost itself reflects a gross total of $829 billion in credits and subsidies provided through the exchanges, increased net outlays for Medicaid and the Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP), and tax credits for small employers; those costs are partly offset by $201 billion in revenues from the excise tax on high-premium insurance plans and $110 billion in net savings from other sources. The net cost of the coverage expansions would be more than offset by the combination of other spending changes that CBO estimates would save $404 billion over the 10 years and other provisions that JCT and CBO estimate would increase federal revenues by $196 billion over the same period [...]

By 2019, CBO and JCT estimate, the number of nonelderly people who are uninsured would be reduced by about 29 million, leaving about 25 million nonelderly residents uninsured (about one-third of whom would be unauthorized immigrants). Under the proposal, the share of legal nonelderly residents with insurance coverage would rise from about 83 percent currently to about 94 percent.

We have an $829 billion dollar paid-for bill that lowers the deficit over time, but leaves 25 million residents uninsured, 2/3 of them American citizens. The bill doesn't cover as many people because Senate amendments reduced the penalties for non-compliance with the mandate and increased the hardship exemption. Without a public option, I actually agree with that, but it narrows the risk pool, and insurance companies don't want that because they'll be forced to cover a higher ratio of sick people, in their opinion. They could all handle this by increasing the subsidies, but Obama basically put a cap on the bill at $900 billion, and the more conservative Finance Committee went even lower than that. There's also a "trigger" of sorts that will reduce subsidies to people by a fairly large amount:

In the aggregate, the Senate finance bill reduces the deficit. But there are a couple individual years when it increases it. The CBO thus estimates that "the failsafe provisions would require a reduction in exchange subsidies averaging about 15 percent during the years 2015 through 2018." That's a very bad thing, particularly in the first years of the plan. It means that, with no warning, subsidies will be cut by 15 percent, and insurance that families were able to afford the year before will become totally unaffordable. That needs to be changed.

That's not the only problem with the exchanges. An amendment in the Finance Committee basically eliminated all policy benefits to them:

In the bills that passed three House committees and the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions (HELP) Committee, the exchange would be a "prudent purchaser." In other words, it would have a staff that bargained with insurers to bring down premiums--and that made sure all plans lived up to strict guidelines for coverage and customer service. In effect, any insurer that wants to offer coverage through the exchanges has to get the equivalent of a "Good Housekeeping Seal of Approval" from the administrators. This is precisely how it works in Massachusetts.

By contrast, the Senate Finance bill envisions much weaker exchanges. Instead of choosing which plans to make available, the exchange administrators would, by law, have to accept any plan that meets a relatively minimal set of standards.

Jon Kingsdale, who runs the Massachusetts exchange, calls that a recipe for "policy disaster," as consumers faced a dizzying array of more expensive, less regulated choices. "It would be like telling your grocery store they have to offer every single kind of bread baked by every single bakery. ... The exchanges would be nothing more than an automated Yellow Pages."

Cappy McGarr, who ran an exchange that failed in Texas, says that the exchanges will fail if they don't attract a considerable market share. Making them user-unfriendly like this is a sure way to have people just run in the other direction. And firewalling them from employees of bigger businesses is another. Insurers outside the exchanges will only need to use good marketing to entice consumers into their web, especially if the exchanges are not designed well.

If Congress now creates new exchanges, as seems increasingly likely, it must prevent this phenomenon by setting two national rules: Insurers have to accept everyone and have to charge everyone the same rates regardless of health status.

Such rules would force insurers to spread risk. But enforcement would also be difficult. Every aspect of health insurance — from the rules for underwriting and setting premiums to the marketing of policies — would need to be monitored stringently to prevent companies from steering all bad risks to the exchanges.

It would be smarter for Congress to revisit the idea of creating a public plan that could provide an attractive choice for consumers and real competition for private insurers, to give them the incentive to offer good coverage at affordable prices.

Max Baucus trashed Ron Wyden's effort to design the exchanges better (there's now documented proof of this), significantly weakening them.

Igor Volsky has more. To me, it's no wonder that Republicans are starting to concede on this health care bill. Aside from the fact that they can't stop it, they know that Baucus-care isn't all that likely to work, which will help them in the long run.

...is this a good starting place? Maybe. I'm worried about its survivability. We've seen a lot of exchanges die off over the years, and while there will be some default position toward making this viable in the short-term, if for example Obama loses in 2012 I could easily see a repeal, given that the exchanges wouldn't even be in place by then.

He Sure Loves A Klieg Light

2009-10-07T14:27:00.000-07:00

Maybe the worst thing about Russ Feingold's czar hearing yesterday is that it got got Joe Lieberman a-thinking:

Hey, so guess who is mulling new legislation to solve the alleged problem of Obama’s “czars”? Joe Lieberman!

He may even hold hearings on the czars, as the chair of the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee. Since this will confer legitimacy on an attack that has mostly emanated from Glenn Beck and the hothouse right, it could prompt an “I told you so” chorus from those who argued that Lieberman should be stripped of his committee slots.

Leslie Phillips, a spokesperson for Lieberman’s committee, confirms by email that Lieberman’s legislation is “in the early conceptual stage.” She also said a hearing is in the works, with its schedule up the air until the committee can nail down witnesses.

Feingold's hearing yesterday should have actually ended this debate in Congress, not begun it. The panel, assembled on a bipartisan basis by Feingold and Tom Coburn, pretty unanimously argued that the Obama Administration was within Constitutional boundaries to have Presidential advisors in the White House. But Lieberman loves those Fox klieg lights (you know, the network who gives you "what we believe to be the facts"), and so does his partner in crime on the Committee, Susan Collins:

John Harrison, a University of Virginia law professor, compared the czars to the position of White House chief of staff, saying both hold great influence and can speak for the president, but their legal powers are limited.

Their "practical authority . . . is not legal authority, and as long as the distinction is rigorously maintained there will be no legal problem," Harrison said in his written testimony.

Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine), who had also written Obama questioning the czars, said in a statement the issue was not dead. The Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, where she is the ranking member, will hold a similar hearing next week.

"The appointments of so many czars have muddied the waters, causing confusion and risking miscommunication going forward," Collins said.

Lieberman's call for legislation is the first time that has come up, taking this to an additional level. And it's not surprising coming from Holy Joe. You may recall that he got Glenn Beck into Yale. Yes, that's right:

"One local politician who appreciated Beck's regular digs at the governor was the man who had defeated Weicker in a bitterly contested 1988 senate race: Democrat Joe Lieberman. Beck and the senator were friendly throughout the '90s, until they fell out over Lieberman's refusal to back the impeachment of Bill Clinton in 1998. But before they parted ways, Lieberman would play a role in Beck's search for a worldview and identity by helping Beck enroll part-time at Yale in the fall of 1996. The ADHD-diagnosed Beck didn't last long at Yale. He took one class, "Early Christology," and dropped out."

Lieberman has appeared on Beck's show in the past. And once he submits this legislation, I'm sure he will again. He loves that klieg light.

It's definitely looking like keeping Lieberman as the chair of the committee in the Senate that can investigate the executive branch was a sound decision by Democrats.

Objectively Pro-Rape

2009-10-07T13:59:00.000-07:00

Al Franken went out deep on a limb and made his first amendment to face a roll-call vote to stop the practice of defense contractors essentially allowing consequence-free rape on their overseas bases:

On Tuesday night, the Minnesota Democrat got his first piece of legislation passed by the United States Senate via roll call vote. The amendment stopped federal funding for those defense contractors who used mandatory arbitration clauses to deny victims of assault the right to bring their case to court. It passed by a 68-30 margin with nine Republicans joining each voting Democrat. And in the immediate aftermath, Franken was granted the chance to revel, ever so slightly, in his victory.\

"The story came to my attention of Jamie Leigh Jones who, when she was 19, went to Iraq to work for [defense contractor] KBR and she was put in the barracks with 400 men and was sexually harassed," Franken told the Huffington Post in a brief interview shortly after the vote. "She complained. But they didn't do anything about it. She was drugged and gang raped and they locked her up in a shipping container. She tried to sue KBR and they said you have a mandatory arbitration clause in your contract. She tried to fight back and said this is ridiculous. She took it to court and they have been fighting her for three years."

"This bill would make it so that anybody in business with the Department of the Defense can't do this," he concluded emphatically. "They can't have mandatory arbitration on issues like assault and battery."

You'd think this kind of amendment wouldn't only get 100 votes, but somehow former Senators would storm the floor and demand that they too could offer their support for the legislation. Instead, in the culture we now have in Washington, 30 Republicans voted against this. I don't know how you characterize this other than saying that they think it's perfectly reasonable for women to be raped on Defense Department-funded American bases, left in shipping containers, and barred from bringing up charges subsequently. They actually called this a political attack aimed at Halliburton, even though the bill named no contractor specifically.

Um, what would you call the "Defund ACORN Act," exactly? And while I know that was the biggest scandal in the history of scandals, AFAIK ACORN has never protected their employees from raping someone and detaining them in a shipping container. Again, to the best of my knowledge.

These Republicans should be completely ashamed of themselves.

I would be remiss if I didn't mention that, while the Franken amendment was nice, the overall defense authorization bill includes lots of spending for the war in Afghanistan, and would ban the transfer of any detainee at Gitmo to the United States. As Franken would say, "Oy."

Two Tickets To The Gun Show

2009-10-07T12:51:00.000-07:00

Mike Bloomberg is in an election that is surprisingly tough (in single digits) despite spending around $75 million dollars, and despite his faults he's always been a strong supporter of gun control. So I'm not surprised he launched this investigation into gun show practices and released some damning hidden-camera video.

Even though private unlicensed sellers are not required to run background checks using the FBI National Instant Criminal Background Check system, it is a federal felony for them to sell guns to people they have reason to believe are prohibited purchasers (such as felons or the mentally ill). In purchases attempted on 30 private sellers, the undercover investigator showed interest in buying a gun by asking about stopping power or by dry-firing the weapon. After agreeing on a price, the undercover would indicate that he probably couldn’t pass a background check. At that point, the seller is required by law to refuse the sale – but only 11 out of 30 sellers did so. Investigators found private dealers who failed these integrity tests at every show, including two sellers who failed at multiple shows. In total, 19 of the 30 private sellers approached failed the integrity test.

The 11 sellers who terminated the sale confirmed that private sellers know the law. As one seller in Columbus, Ohio, explained “I mean even as a private citizen, I’m kind of allowed a certain latitude, but once you say that [you can’t pass the background check], I’m kind of obligated not to….I think that’s what the rules are.”

The investigation also revealed that some private sellers are in fact apparently “engaged in the business” of selling firearms without a federal license, in violation of the law. For example, one seller sold to investigators at three different gun shows and acknowledged selling 348 assault rifles in less than one year.

There are more videos at Gun Show Undercover. The gun show loophole seriously needs to be closed, and this investigation could provide that. The ATF Bureau reports that 30% of all illegal guns are coming in through these gun shows.

Media Matters wonders if this undercover investigation will tickle the fancy of outlets like Andrew Breitbart and Fox News, who have shown such an affinity for this kind of operation in the past.

And Digby writes:

There's lots of anger and frustration out there right now. The zeitgeist is as angry and negative as I've ever seen it. Economic stress almost always leads to a rise in crime. The conservatives' only answer to this problem is to allow business to exploit their customers even more than they already have and create an ever more authoritarian police capacity to "keep people in line." The real answer is to find ways to ease the economic stress and get some of these deadly weapons out of the hands of criminals. You can probably guess which way this is likely to go.

But still, there is a need to shine a light on this out of control gun industry. I'm not a gun control absolutist, but the kind of activity that's exposed in these undercover videos is far more unacceptable than somebody giving tax advice to phony pimps. This is a deadly business that's killing innocent people.

One can only hope that this legitimate undercover investigation will get the kind of attention the ACORN videos did. It's a matter of life and death.

Indeed.

Pwned By Bill Ayers, Ferchrissakes

2009-10-07T12:21:00.000-07:00

You don't need to respect Bill Ayers' past actions to respect the unbelievable stupidity of the wingnut faction.

[Y]ou shouldn’t believe everything you hear about me, [Ayers said,] you know nothing about me. I said, I know plenty–I’m from Chicago, a conservative blogger, and I’ll post this [...]

Then unprompted he said–I wrote Dreams From My Father. I said, oh, so you admit it. He said–Michelle asked me to. I looked at him. He seemed eager. He’s about my height, short. He went on to say–and if you can prove it, we can split the royalties. So I said, stop pulling my leg. Horrible thought. But he came again–I really wrote it, the wording was similar. I said I believe you probably heavily edited it. He said–I wrote it. I said–why would I believe you, you’re a liar.

He had no answer to that. Just looked at me. Then he turned and walked off, and said again his bit about my proving it and splitting the proceeds.

Unbelievably, a good bit of the wingnutosphere picked this up and ran with it today.

Ayers is messing with conservatives. People he’s duped so far: Jonah Goldberg, his mother Lucianne Goldberg, Tom Maguire, Dennis Byrne, Carol Platt Lieblau, and a bunch of other conservatives, some of whom try to split the difference by suggesting that Ayers is revealing a little bit of truth behind the sarcasm. How embarrassing.

More morons believing that Bill Ayers would just blurt out a wingnut conspiracy theory here. If Confederate Yankee is the smartly suspicious one in this scenario, your movement is bankrupt.

The Non-Existing Condition

2009-10-07T11:53:00.000-07:00

Valerie Scaglione's story is almost comical:

Monthly premiums for Blue Cross coverage for them and their three daughters have soared over the years to almost $2,000, Scaglione says.

She estimates that in the past six years, the family has spent more than $140,000 on premiums and co-payments.

Yet when she tried to switch from the family's expensive individual insurance to a Blue Shield group plan that's more affordable, she said, she and her oldest daughter were denied coverage. She said neither of them has the medical conditions that were listed as reasons for being denied - bronchitis and a skin ailment.

"I have three children," said Scaglione, 47. "We have to have insurance. Stitches may be required. A broken bone may have to be set. We have no chronic diseases. We're a normal family. This is crazy."

Consumer advocates consider their story emblematic in many ways of complaints that plague the entire health insurance industry.

"We've seen people denied for things as minor as heartburn," said Anthony Wright, executive director of Health Access California, a statewide health advocacy coalition. "It gets to the point where living is a pre-existing condition.

Mrs. Scaglione's health insurance coverage costs three times as much as the family's MORTGAGE. And she can't get out of it and into a group plan, because Blue Shield flat-out invented reasons to deny the coverage. She has demanded to see the medical records that show her daughter having bronchitis and her having a skin condition called rosacea, but the health insurer refused the request.

As the debate continues, the Scagliones remain among California's 3 million consumers in the pricey individual insurance market.

"I wonder how many other families are like ours," Scaglione said. "What's the option, to be uninsured? This forces me to stay with our same plan. Premiums will go up and up and up. What, do we not feed the kids? It gets to the point of being absurd."

Blue Shield of California can be reached at (866) 256-7703. You might want to ask them what health care ailments they think you have of which you're unaware.