Americans whining about health care

It's not just the economy. One thing that stands out for me is that the article suggests Americans are upset with the quality if their health care (according to nurses and doctors) though I've never thought of that as the big issue. The issue of high cost, vast numbers of uninsured and complex insurance offerings as workers change jobs is what I tend to hear. What do you think needs to be addressed? Is quality of care an issue in the US? Read More......

Hideous day on Wall Street for regional banks

But Phil Gramm and Republicans know economics. Decades of work by the GOP has led us right to this point. Their friends are long gone, living well off of the profits based on pure bullshit. Charles Prince, Stanley O'Neal and Angelo Mozilo are all doing just fine, thank you very much. Too bad everyone else is stuck with this mess, but the little people really don't count now, do they? Go ahead and tell me who the goddamn elitists are now. Like many Americans, I want to vomit looking at this GOP handy work. The people who led us down this path are nowhere to be seen because they're all a bunch of cowards.

Regional-banking shares led the decline in the financial-services sector on Monday. Among the biggest losers were National City Corp., Washington Mutual Inc., Zions Bancorp Inc., Sovereign Bancorp Inc., KeyCorp, First Horizon National Corp., M&T; Bank Corp. and Regions Financial Corp.

Washington Mutual shares closed the session off nearly 35%. Lehman Brothers analysts in a report Monday said WaMu could be forced to "substantially" boost its reserves to cover an estimated $28 billion of losses on the balance sheet, with $21 billion coming from mortgages. They said home prices and mortgage credit are showing no signs of stabilizing.

Meanwhile, National City shares were briefly halted Monday amid a panic-driven plunge before the company in a statement tried to quell what it labeled market rumors. "National City is experiencing no unusual depositor or creditor activity," the Cleveland-based bank said. The stock rebounded from a low of $2.99 but still finished the day down almost 15%.

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On the changing politics of South Florida and the chance to defeat Ileana Ros-Lehtinen

Yesterday, the New York Times had an article on the political transformation underway in South Florida. The Democrats are making a move. It was interesting, but seemed to have a few facts wrong. For example, the reporter said Florida was "a state where [Obama] is not polling well against Senator McCain." I checked and that's not quite accurate according to the numbers at Pollster.com. McCain's "average" lead is 3.7 points, he's well under 50% and at least one of the recent credible independent polls shows Obama leading. I was also struck by the fawning tone towards Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, a Bush rubber stamp Republican, who represents Little Havana.

Over the weekend, we also learned from the South Florida Sun-Sentinel that Democrats are out-registering Repubs. by a 6 to 1 margin. Yes, 6 to 1:

An escalating number of voters registering as Democrats is providing evidence that the 2008 election could produce a wave of support for Barack Obama — and trigger a decades-long shift of party allegiance that could affect elections for a generation.

The numbers are ominous for Republicans: Through May, Democratic voter registration in Broward County was up 6.7 percent. Republican registrations grew just 3 percent while independents rose 2.8 percent.

Democrats have posted even greater gains statewide, up 106,508 voters from January through May, compared with 16,686 for the Republicans.

Something is happening in Florida for sure. It could be a big year for Democrats -- which brings me to Annette Taddeo.

Howie Klein deconstructed the internecine politics and the on-going shenanigans in Florida much better than I ever could. Read his post, which destroys the idea that Ros-Lehtinen is somehow safe in what is turning out to be a Democratic trending year in Florida. Howie met the woman who is going to beat Ros-Lehtinen: Annette Taddeo. And, as I learned first-hand, to meet Annette is to become a fan. Seriously. It's hard not to love once you meet her as Howie reports:

Today I attended an event put on by 11 Democratic congresswomen from Southern California. Each of the 11 donated a minimum of $1,000 to each of 8 women who are running for Congress from around the country. As soon as I walked in Blue America incumbent-- and one of the event's hostesses-- Hilda Solis, introduced me to Annette about who she was extremely enthusiastic. It didn't take long before I understood why.

A successful entrepreneur, Annette is a thoughtful progressive who backs women's rights, gay rights, a quick, responsible end to the occupation of Iraq (which she has opposed from the very beginning of Bush's misadventure) and she is eager to work to get corporate bribes out of the political system. She took a strong position against warrantless wiretaps and retroactive immunity. She is extremely charismatic and made a spectacular speech during the lunch, if not stealing the show, at least sharing the spotlight with Linda Sanchez and Darcy Burner, each of whom also was greeted with thunderous applause.

Don't forget our ActBlue page for Annette. She will be the kind of Democrat we really need more of in D.C. -- a better Democrat. Interesting, too, that as far as I can tell, Annette is the only Democratic Latina running as a challenger this year.

This is the year to turn South Florida blue. It's the first time in a presidential year when there have been credible challengers to the South Florida Republicans. Help Annette turn South Florida into a Democratic stronghold.

And, this is a special note for any of you who have ever vacationed in South Beach or Key West -- or anywhere along in between. You have a stake in this race because that's the district Annette will represent. Won't you feel better knowing one of your favorite place is finally represented by a Democrat? Read More......

AP's star reporter to Karl Rove in April 2004: Keep up the fight.

The donuts are starting to make more sense.

Last month, at the Associated Press meeting with the presidential candidates, Obama was referred to as "Osama" -- McCain got a box of donuts from Liz Sidoti and her boss, Ron Fournier. They got the right kind: "Dunkin Donuts with sprinkles." And, McCain got coffee "with a little cream and a little sugar" the way he likes it, too. Sidoti explained that she and Fournier used to spend a lot of time on the bus with McCain. Jed has the the video.

It was a bizarre, but telling exchange.

Sidoti's boss, Ron Fournier, AP's Washington bureau chief, is profiled at Politico today on the new "style" he's bringing to AP.

Fournier was also involved in another bizarre, yet telling exchange back in April of 2004 -- right after Pat Tillman died in Afghanistan.

TPM Muckraker revealed that Fournier and Karl Rove were email pals. Oh, sure, Rove emailed with a lot of reporters. But, how many reporters wrote to Rove "Keep up the fight." This e-mail was dated April 23, 2004 -- right smack in the middle of the presidential campaign.

The Associated Press: In 2004, "Keep up the fight." In 2008, "Dunkin Donuts with sprinkles." Read More......

China still failing on open access for foreign media

What fools in the West actually thought the communist regime would live up to the promise of open access? It's a joke that some US media outlets are reporting that China has lived up to their promises because they haven't. Open access means open access. Limited hours in specific locations and 24 hour advanced notification is hardly open access. Read More......

Secret email chain reveals the New Yorker's upcoming covers

Brilliant.

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A vet from the Afghanistan war weighs in

After the news broke that nine U.S. soldiers were killed in Afghanistan, I got this email from a friend who did a tour of duty in that war zone back in 2003. From his perspective, it's pretty clear the situation has deteriorated dramatically:

Coming up on the five year anniversary of when I deployed. Yesterday's attack – full frontal on a base – NEVER would have happened when I was there. We used to joke when we pulled perimeter security for the FOB (forward operating base) that the only real danger was from a sergeant catching you racked out. The enemy was disorganized and didn't even have the capacity to mount a serious attack on an American base. ACMs (anti-coalition militias) focused on soft targets (aid workers, civilians) almost exclusively.

The first time I went into the mountain villages, I was really shocked by all the Karzai posters in peoples' homes. The Afghans were really on board with us. The biggest difference between Afghanistan and Iraq – and there are a lot – is that Afghans have been at war since 1978. They were exhausted. They didn't want to fight anymore. They were happy to have us take over for them.

I'm not there, now, so I don't know what I'm not seeing, but it seems like that's gone. We've been there almost 7 years, and we still can't get decent roads built? We can't protect our friends and allies? It's bullshit, but it was clear even in '03 that no one at the highest levels really cared about our theater. Newsweek was already calling it the Forgotten War. We never resourced it properly, so we didn't kill the insurgency in its cradle.

I think we probably can still pull Afghanistan out, but not as long as we're stuck in Iraq, and every day we delay, getting to win gets more and more unreachable. We saw it yesterday. We're losing Afghanistan slowly. When I think about the fact that we're losing two wars, and so many people, it's so fucking depressing.

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John McCain gets some help to learn to get online by himself

Help is on the way:

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Joseph Stiglitz and the $3 trillion war

Our first speaker at the Symi Symposium I'm attending in Greece is economist Joseph Stiglitz. (Stiglitz is at left, on the left, sitting next to conference chair, and Greek opposition party leader, George Papandreou.) The economists among you certainly know of Stiglitz, and the rest of us may recognize him as the man who cowrote a recent book about Iraq and the US economy title "The Three Trillion Dollar War: The True Cost of the Iraq Conflict." I am definitely getting an interview for you guys with Stiglitz.

Here's an excerpt from a recent colummn Stiglitz wrote in the Guardian about the real cost of the Iraq war:

"President Bush has tried to give the impression that the $3 trillion dollar estimate of the total cost of the war that we provide in our new book may be exaggerated.

"We believe that it is, in fact, conservative....

"In adding up the quantifiable costs of the war, it is hard not to come up with a number in excess of $3 trillion. In putting a $3 trillion price tag on the war, we believe we have been excessively conservative - a $4 or $5 trillion tag would be more reasonable. And remember - this is just the cost for America."

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Washington Post on McCain's economic plan: Not credible

By almost any objective account, John McCain had a disastrous week on the campaign trail last week. There was one gaffe after another from McCain and his top advisers, Carly Fiorina and Phil Gramm. That trio bungled key issues: Social Security, Birth Control and the Economy (blaming the whining American People.) Yet, the biggest Broder wannabe of all, Mark Halperin, who fancies himself the purveyor of the conventional wisdom for the kook kids, claimed McCain won the week.

That is what we're up against. The corporate, traditional media loves John McCain despite his disastrous campaign. They continue to prop him up.

So, that's what is so surprising about an editorial in today'sWashington Post. Seems whoever wrote the Post editorial actually read McCain's economic plan, such as it is. For the Post to be this scathing, McCain's economic plan has to be an unmitigated disaster:

SEN. JOHN McCain says that President McCain would balance the federal budget by 2013. The plan is not credible.

The Congressional Budget Office projects a deficit of $443 billion in 2013 if President Bush's tax cuts are extended, as Mr. McCain wants, and the alternative minimum tax is merely patched to make certain it does not hit growing numbers of taxpayers. But Mr. McCain is proposing far more tax cuts. The only way he avoids having them add hundreds of billions more to the deficit in 2013 is by phasing them in and adding other caveats. Mr. McCain says on the campaign trail that he would repeal, rather than merely adjust, the alternative minimum tax, slash the corporate tax rate, now 35 percent, to 25 percent, and double the exemption for dependents. It turns out that none of that would be fully implemented by the end of the first McCain term. The nonpartisan Tax Policy Center estimates the extra cost of the scaled-back plan at $47 billion in 2013, bringing the deficit to a daunting $490 billion. Sen. Barack Obama's campaign claims it would be far higher, somewhere between $650 billion and $750 billion.

The McCain campaign says it will fill the hole with spending cuts. It would "reclaim billions" by rooting out existing earmarks and prohibiting new ones; impose a one-year freeze on discretionary spending other than for defense and veterans; and "reserve all savings from victory in the Iraq and Afghanistan operations" to use toward deficit reduction. These claimed savings are illusory.

Not credible. Strong words. But, do the facts matter to the punditry? Read More......

Bush to lift executive ban on offshore drilling

Predictable and pandering to the far right. It was only last week that Bush thumbed his nose at the world when he joked about the US being the biggest polluter in the world. Oh what a funny guy.

The White House says President Bush is planning to lift an executive ban on offshore oil drilling.

In a Rose Garden statement on Monday, the president plans to lift the ban. But by itself, the move will not lead to more drilling off America's coastline.

Congress must still lift its own legislative ban before offshore drilling can happen.

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McCain says Obama wants American soldiers to lose (and presumably die) in Iraq

Where is Mrs. Greenspan? You know, NBC's Andrea Mitchell, and her sidekick, Bob Schieffer. Where are they now that John McCain has told America that Barack Obama sides with the terrorists. Of course, John McCain's top adviser Charlie Black already said that McCain would benefit if Al Qaeda attacked America again and killed another 3,000 or so Americans before the election, so does that mean that John McCain wants America to be attacked? Oh, I'm sorry, that's right, I just questioned Saint McCain's patriotism, even in the hypothetical. Everyone knows that isn't allowed. The only thing permitted in America today, especially by corporate media sycophants like Mrs. Greenspan, is questioning a Democrat's patriotism. McCain already questioned Obama's patriotism a few weeks ago, suggesting that Obama didn't support our troops. And now McCain is saying that Obama wants the terrorists to win, and US service members to lose, in Iraq.

What a pig.

Where has John McCain been the past 7 years while George Bush let Osama get away? Where was John McCain when George Bush dismantled the CIA office in charge of finding Osama? Where was John McCain when George Bush took his eye off the ball of finding Osama in Afghanistan and Pakistan, and moved our intelligence assets and military over to an unnecessary war in Iraq? And where was John McCain as the Taliban slowly but surely came back to Afghanistan and now threatens our entire mission there?

Crickets, Mr. McCain. We heard big fat crickets when John McCain had the job of overseeing George Bush's non-attempt to catch the biggest mass murderer in recent, if not all, American history.

But the larger issue is whether the media - the same media that never misses a beat when it comes to criticizing Democrats for being "mean" towards John McCain - when will the media call John McCain on his sleazy, un-American rhetoric? We expect this kind of McCarthyite crap from George Bush and Karl Rove, but we were sold a bill of goods that John McCain was a new kind of Republican. Oh that's right, Karl Rove is now advising John McCain. And suddenly John McCain calls Barack Obama un-American.

Mrs. Greenspan, where are you? Read More......

To the corporate media, Obama is black and McCain is white

Ben Smith from Politico writes:

"I'm a little on the fence here. It's obviously satire, made clearer by the fact that the New Yorker is a deeply friendly publication to Obama and the Democrats these days. So is the outrage -- encouraged here by the campaign -- an appropriate reaction? Or the new, pro-Obama PC? (If the latter, all's fair on the campaign trail in any case... but it could prove a worryingly powerful tool used from the White House.)"

I like Ben, but I don't recall any such concern when his own story from two weeks ago was used by the McCain campaign, and corporate media pundits like Mrs. Greenspan and others, to repeatedly eviscerate Wesley Clark and me, among others, for questioning the connection between John McCain's wartime experience and whatever qualifications he may or may not have as commander in chief. We're told that it looks an awful lot like pro-Obama PC to object to the depiction of Mrs. Obama as some blackxploitation gunslinger, of Senator Obama as a look-alike for Osama, of both as flag burners who would defile the Oval Office. Depicting Obama and his wife in this offensive, stereotypical, and borderline racist manner is okay and fair game because, as Ben says, "all's fair on the campaign trail." But, as we learned just two weeks ago, asking questions and drawing conclusions about actual experiences from John McCain's life, and their impact on his qualifications for president, is beyond the pale, gutter politics, and downright un-American.

And what's worse - no one in the corporate media suggested that it was pro-McCain PC when the pundits-that-be declared McCain's military record, and more generally his qualifications as commander in chief, whiter than the driven snow and totally off-limits to any criticism or even questioning. All is not fair, by any means, when John McCain is the topic.

It's the classic problem of American journalism, and American society, vis-a-vis Democrats and the left. Tangentially suggest that getting shot down doesn't necessarily qualify John McCain to be president and you are the one who hates America. There's no discussion, no debate. The question simply cannot be asked because the conclusion is "obvious" and unworthy of debate, and debate itself is deemed offensive. But portray Barack Obama and his wife as a walking racial - nay, racist - stereotype, and it's not just acceptable, but anyone who would question the propriety of such a portrayal is, again, un-American.

Criticize McCain, you're un-American. Defend Obama, you're un-American.

Now, imagine had Barack Obama said that he didn't love his country until he was a 30-something. Do you think Obama would face criticism? Do you honestly think he'd even survive as a candidate in post 9/11 America? And then imagine were John McCain mocked on the cover of the New Yorker, dressed in POW garb, with a drug addicted, pill popping, gun-toting wife and depicted in a manner that suggested that he loves Osama bin Laden and hates America. Would the corporate media be talking about pro-McCain PC-ists who can't take a joke? Or would the New Yorker get Dixie Chicked? Read More......

Interview with Greek Foreign Minister Dora Bakoyannis

I'm in Greece this week attending a retreat of progressive leaders from around the world, called the Symi Symposium. It's organized by George Papandreou, the head of the main liberal opposition party in Greece, PASOK. It's an annual conference of around 30 progressive political leaders from around the world, including the head of Greenpeace and the president of Estonia (who personally led the economic miracle that turned the country around they left the Soviet orbit). We'll be discussing issues ranging from the gas crisis to the Obama phenomenon. The actual meeting starts today, so nothing to report as of yet, but I hope to get some interviews on cam for you guys with several of the more interesting attendees.

In the meantime, I received an email a little over a week ago from a staffer to the Greek Foreign Minister, Dora Bakoyannis. He said that Minister Bakoyannis is a big fan of blogs and the Internet, and she was interested in meeting with me, as a prominent Greek-American blogger. After I determined that it wasn't a joke, I of course said yes, and met with the minister this past Friday in her office in the Foreign Minister (it's the same office, and even the same desk, my uncle John had when he was Foreign Minister, which was kind of cool from a family perspective). Anyway, we talked for about half an hour, off the record (at the Minister's request), and then she agreed to let me ask her a few questions on camera. Below is my brief interview with her. She's quite an interesting personality, as I'd mentioned the other day. She was the first female mayor of Athens in its entire history of 3000 or so years, and she's the first female Greek Foreign Minister, and highest women in government in Greece ever (she's also likely to take over the helm of the conservative party in Greece in the upcoming years). Since I only had a few minutes, I asked her about what it's like being a woman leader in Greece, then about Iraq, and finally about Barack Obama, since he came up during our private chat earlier. Anyway, here's my interview with her - hope it's interesting.

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On tape: Bush Homeland Security adviser sells access to Bush officials for contributions to Bush Library

So this is what Bush's Homeland Security Advisory Council members do. Another example of why we're not safer. Via Think Progress:

The Sunday Times reports Stephen Payne, a Bush pioneer and a political appointee to the Homeland Security Advisory Council, was caught on tape offering access to key members of the Bush administration inner circle in exchange for “six-figure donations to the private library being set up to commemorate Bush’s presidency.”

In an undercover video, Payne is seen promising to arrange a meeting for an exiled leader of Krygystan with Dick Cheney or Condoleezza Rice. (Not President Bush because “he doesn’t meet with a lot of former Presidents these days,” Payne says. “I don’t think he meets with hardly anyone.”) All it will take for him to arrange this high-level meeting, says Payne, is “a couple hundred thousand dollars, or something like that”:

PAYNE: The exact budget I will come up with. But it will be somewhere between $600,000 and $750,000, with about a third of it going directly to the Bush library. […]

200, 250, something like that. That’s gonna be a show of “we’re interested, we’re your friends, we’re still friends.”

Watch the startling video here.

Heckuva job, Payney. Read More......

Bush's failures fester: Afghanistan erupts and terrorists reconstitute

I was planning to post a link to yesterday's column by Frank Rich anyway. But, the news about the deaths of nine soldiers in Afghanistan makes it an imperative read:

As The Times reported two weeks ago, Iraq has monopolized our military and intelligence resources to the point where we don’t have enough predator drones or expert C.I.A. field agents to survey the tribal areas where terrorists are amassing in Pakistan. Meanwhile, the threat to America from Al Qaeda is “comparable to what it faced on Sept. 11, 2001,” said Seth Jones, a RAND Corporation terrorism expert and Pentagon consultant. The difference between now and then is simply that the base of operations has moved, “roughly the difference from New York to Philadelphia.”

Yet once again terrorism has fallen off America’s map, landing at or near the bottom of voters’ concerns in recent polls. There were major attacks in rapid succession last week in Pakistan, Afghanistan (the deadliest in Kabul since we “defeated” the Taliban in 2001) and at the American consulate in Turkey. Who listened to this ticking time bomb? It’s reminiscent of July 2001, when few noticed that the Algerian convicted of trying to bomb Los Angeles International Airport on the eve of the millennium testified that he had been trained in bin Laden’s Afghanistan camps as part of a larger plot against America.

In last Sunday’s Washington Post, the national security expert Daniel Benjamin sounded an alarm about the “chronic” indecisiveness and poor execution of Bush national security policy as well as the continuing inadequacies of the Department of Homeland Security. Mr. Benjamin must feel a sinking sense of déjà vu. Exactly seven years ago in the same newspaper, just two months before 9/11, he co-wrote an article headlined “Defusing a Time Bomb” imploring the Bush administration in vain to pay attention to Afghanistan because that country’s terrorists “continue to pose the most dangerous threat to American lives.”

And so we’re back where we started in the summer of 2001, with even shark attacks and Chandra Levy’s murder (courtesy of a new Washington Post investigation) returning to the news. We are once again distracted and unprepared while the Taliban and bin Laden’s minions multiply in Afghanistan and Pakistan. This, no less than the defiling of the Constitution, is the legacy of an administration that not merely rationalized the immorality of torture but shackled our national security to the absurdity that torture could easily fix the terrorist threat.

That’s why the Bush White House’s corruption in the end surpasses Nixon’s. We can no longer take cold comfort in the Watergate maxim that the cover-up was worse than the crime. This time the crime is worse than the cover-up, and the punishment could rain down on us all.

We're going to be paying for the misguided rush to war in Iraq and the illegal program of torture for a very long time. George Bush is the worst offender. But, every member of Congress who voted for Bush's war back in 2002 and failed to hold him accountable shares responsibility for the failure to finish the job. American soldiers are paying the price. And, the rest of us aren't any safer. Read More......

Did Senator Schumer cause a bank failure? Uh, no.

Not unless you are a complete buffoon like Larry Kudlow's Mini Me. This is the same guy who just informed us all how the current economic problems are completely unrelated to the credit crisis that began last year. According to this rather unique theory, our current problems are directly linked to Obama's positive showing in the polls. Yes, that's right. Mini Me is detailing how the economic recession is all Obama's fault and it has nothing to do with too much debt and too little money on hand. It's a small school of thought that is limited to the cheerleaders of yesterday who promoted the dimwitted policy changes that opened us up to today's credit crisis. Sounds like this guy comes from the Phil Gramm school of economic theory. You know, the theory that dragged us into this financial quicksand.

Are Republicans ever going to accept any responsibility for their catastrophic failures? Responsibility is only an important issue for them when they're talking about the poor and disadvantaged. Read More......

BBC provides evidence China violating Darfur arms embargo

No surprise here and of course, they are also providing arms and ammunition to Robert Mugabe for years. If China wants to sit at the grownups table on the world scene, they're going to have to live with the fallout that comes with playing there. This also means that people like Bush need to call them out and not become props in their TV spectacles for the world:

The BBC has found the first evidence that China is currently helping Sudan's government militarily in Darfur.

The Panorama TV programme tracked down Chinese army lorries in the Sudanese province that came from a batch exported from China to Sudan in 2005.

The BBC was also told that China was training fighter pilots who fly Chinese A5 Fantan fighter jets in Darfur.

China's government has declined to comment on the BBC's findings, which contravene a UN arms embargo on Darfur.

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