Palin thinks people should be asking whether Obama is really American-born

She's Ann Coulter. But without the brain. From Ben Smith:

Palin suggested that the questions were fair play because of "the weird conspiracy theory freaky thing that people talk about that Trig isn't my real son -- 'You need to produce his birth certificate, you need to prove that he's your kid,' which we have done."

"Maybe we can reverse that," she said, returning to Obama's birth certificate, describing the type of thinking involved with a word that isn't clear in the audio.

Slight difference, dingbat - no Democratic presidential candidate publicly embraced the notion that maybe Trig wasn't really your son. I refused to even blog about it when people sent me the tip. (I did, however, blog about the fact that Palin's first child was born 8 months after she got married, because even the NYT confirmed that one.) Read More......

Japanese whaling season might be even more interesting this year

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

This Batmobile-looking boat is bound to change the game a bit this season. Read More......

Black caucus says Obama has done too little for African-Americans

What's most interesting about this story is two things. First, that blacks, another core Democratic constituency, are starting to be frustrated with the President, but second, that they're doing so publicly. It's thing to be ticked and to share it privately. It's quite another to go public with your concerns, which the Congressional Black Caucus is now doing. That usually means that you tried to work the privately behind the scenes, and you weren't successful. Read More......

Teabagger, the movie

This is an actual trailer for a new documentary about the Teabaggers. This isn't a joke. It's an actual serious documentary taking the Teabaggers seriously. The trailer is bizarre. These people are insane. And dangerous.

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Maybe the Taliban are the solution

I will admit to being poisoned by the Viet Nam experience, where the whole thing started as a "training" exercise. Maybe Afghanistan isn't Southeast Asia but the slope is just as slippery from training to something more. But what nobody seemed to realize after the President's speech was the massive reality gap between Afghan history and reality, and our stated mission of surging our troop strength to buy time to train the Afghans.

Training isn't and never was the problem in Afghanistan. We are talking about a people that defeated the Soviet Union without any formal training. Clearly, training isn't going make a huge difference to guys like that - they already know how to fight. The real issue is where people's loyalties lie. No amount of training is going to convince an Afghan to shoot his cousin. Similarly, if the Taliban is coming back, there is a limit to how far soldiers are going to go in rooting out people who are going to be their bosses at some point in the future.

Let's face it folks, the one point we know for certain is that at some point we are going to leave Afghanistan. Maybe not this year, but you can bet the rent that in ten years we won't be there any more. Who will then be in charge? I would bet double rent it won't be the corrupt Karzai and his drug-running relatives. It might well be the Taliban or some faction thereof.

So lets focus on what our real national interests are in that country. I think there are only two:

1. Don't harbor terrorists

2. Don't produce heroin

It would be nice to create a modern open society with equal rights for all in Afghanistan. It would also be nice to do that in the USA. But it really isn't in our own national interest to invade and occupy every country that isn't as free and Democratic as our own. The only question I have isn't whether we should get out. It's when. As it happens, the Taliban, abhorrent though they may be, are also xenophobic. It should be possible to convince them not to harbor foreign terrorists. They did indeed harbor them in the past, partly because they were paid well for doing it, but the result was that they lost control of their country. Many of them are reported to think that the cost/benefit ratio of harboring al Qaeda is way too high. The Taliban have also been the only government ever to succeed in curbing the heroin trade. They may be awful for the more enlightened Afghan people, and for most of us, but if they are going to eventually replace our corrupt puppet, no matter what we do, it's time to start recognizing that the devil we know may still enable us to meet our core national interests. Read More......

Young voters still approve of Obama, don't approve of how he's handling the issues

This seems to reflect what we've been hearing among all voters. Personal approval remains high while approval on specific issues is dropping.

What does this mean? Well it all depends on why you think people vote for a particular candidate. Primarily I think people vote for the man or woman, not their ideas. The voters want strong leaders with strong points of view, regardless of what those views are (within reason). Having said that, Bush was strong, and it worked for years, until his mismanagement caught up with him. Meaning, you can only get by on personal attributes for so long before voter perception of how you're actually handling the issues - whether the country is going in the right or wrong direction - catches up with you.

When does it catch up? It's not clear. It hasn't totally caught up with Obama yet. But it's still early. The trick is to either make enough "right" decision to keep the voters happy, or to get enough done early so that it doesn't matter. Read More......

Dem Sen. Ben Nelson threatening to take down health care bill over abortion too (he wants it more anti)

And why shouldn't he? Nelson et. al. have already been told that if they whine enough they'll get their way, to wit, watering down the public option. So why shouldn't Nelson venture out and start whining about other do-or-die provisions he simply must have, or have not, in the legislation? It's the only way to get anything from the Democrats - you have to whine louder than the other guy. Lesson learned by all of us. Read More......

Would the liberal base of the Democratic party walk next election

In an interesting story from The Hill on whether there truly is liberal dissatisfaction with President Obama and Democrats, and whether liberals would truly walk, come the next election, if they get ticked of enough. This is a tough issue to analyze. The conventional wisdom in Washington is that the base will always be with you at election time because they have nowhere else to go. Is that true?

1. Back in 2000, had fewer Democrats voted for Ralph Nader, Al Gore might have been president. So, even if "not very many" of the base would walk, sometimes all you need is a few percent.

2. I think the effect will be more profound during the mid-term elections, in 2010, when lots of good Democrats don't think about voting anyway. And this time around, they'll be voting for what exactly? To support a House and Senate that many Democrats feel is too weak. Democratic voters fell for the "all we need is a few more Democrats in order to enact our agenda" line once already. I doubt they'll be motivated by it again. Democrats may not vote for Republicans. But in their minds they'll assume the Dems will retain power even without their vote - after all, most people think that an individual vote doesn't matter - so people will vote their conscience. I think a lot of Democrats will simply not vote in 2010, or they'll vote for Mickey Mouse or some other third party candidate, simply to register a protest - not realizing that collectively their no-votes could add up.

3. Finally, there's fundraising. I don't know a lot of Democrats who are very excited about giving to the party right now. Will they eventually? Perhaps. But certainly not as early as they would have in other times. And if early money makes yeast, per EMILY's List's mantra, then late money makes Republicans. Democrats can't afford for people to get involved in the election only in the final weeks.

Much more after the jump...

The party also argues that, even if liberals are disaffected, they'll come back once health car reform and other major initiatives are passed:

Senior officials at the White House and in Congress say liberals will rally to their side once healthcare reform and other major initiatives are passed. And some Democratic pollsters say their research shows Democratic voters are solidly behind Obama, even though he has slipped among Republican and independent voters.

A senior Democrat familiar with discussions at the White House said there will be plenty of time to energize liberals next year.

“This is not a time to worry about the base; we’ll have all of the election year to do that,” said the Democratic source. “We’ll have a long list of accomplishments to present for them to rally around.”

I think this is a complete misunderstanding of the problem. People aren't upset that nothing is getting done. They're upset that what is getting done is unnecessarily weak and watered down. For example:

* 40% of the stimulus package was handed over to the GOP in the form of tax cuts, in exchange for 3 Republican votes.

* The health care bill may be heading towards passage, but I don't know anyone on the left who is happy about it's current form. Then there are gay rights issues.

* A lot of gay voters aren't upset that nothing is being done, they're upset that what is being done is half-a-loaf (moving from a promise to repeal Don't Ask Don't Tell to a simple commitment to "change" the law, whatever that means), or worse, outright hurting the community (defending anti-gay laws like DOMA in court).

Nita Chaudhary of MoveOn echoes this sentiment:

White House officials could not excite liberal voters merely by waving a long list of accomplishments, Chaudhary warned, saying the details of healthcare reform and other legislation would determine the response.

“It’s a dangerous assumption that substance doesn’t matter,” she said.

Finally, there are those who simply don't believe that a significant portion of Democrats are getting peeved at the administration and Congress.

John Anzalone, a Democratic pollster, said that Obama has an approval rating in the “high 80s” among voters who identify themselves as Democrats.

“There’s a big difference between some complaining in the vacuum that is Washington, D.C., versus the base of Democrats nationally,” said Anzalone. “The notion that liberals are unhappy is a non-truth.”

I think that's dangerously naive. The old national organizations were in Washington. The new ones aren't. MoveOn isn't in Washington. Most of the gay Netroots aren't - most the Netroots in general isn't in DC. People are pissed. And they live all over the country, and are reflecting what they're hearing in their own communities. If the party wants to listen to pollsters who tell them that this is all just inside-the-beltway bellyaching, then we can wait until 2010 and see what happens. But at the rate it's going, I fear it's not going to be pretty. We have a chance to address these problems now. We shouldn't be sweeping them under the rug. Read More......

Leading climate change scientist wants Copenhagen to fail

Sounds crazy but he may not be completely wrong about this. The Guardian:

In an interview with the Guardian, James Hansen, the world's pre-eminent climate scientist, said any agreement likely to emerge from the negotiations would be so deeply flawed that it would be better to start again from scratch.

"I would rather it not happen if people accept that as being the right track because it's a disaster track," said Hansen, who heads the Nasa Goddard Institute for Space Studies in New York.

"The whole approach is so fundamentally wrong that it is better to reassess the situation. If it is going to be the Kyoto-type thing then [people] will spend years trying to determine exactly what that means." He was speaking as progress towards a deal in Copenhagen received a boost today, with India revealing a target to curb its carbon emissions. All four of the major emitters – the US, China, EU and India – have now tabled offers on emissions, although the equally vexed issue of funding for developing nations to deal with global warming remains deadlocked.

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Despite strong support for public option, its prospects look less likely in Congress (but they'll keep the mandate anyway)

If you ever doubt whether Congress is out-of-touch with Americans, the public option debate in Congress proves it. Yet another poll shows strong support for the public option:

Most Americans would like to see a "public option" in health insurance reform but doubt anything Congress does will lower costs or improve care in the short term, according to a poll released on Thursday.

The survey of 2,999 households by Thomson Reuters Corp (TRI.TO)(TRI.N) shows a public skeptical about the cost, quality and accessibility of medical care.

Just under 60 percent of those surveyed said they would like a public option as part of any final healthcare reform legislation, which Republicans and a few Democrats oppose.

So, there is strong support for the provision, but every day, a real public option gets watered down and weakened because of that opposition from Republicans and some Democrats (those would be the members of Congress owned by the insurance companies.) So, more proof that Congress -- even a Democratically controlled Congress -- is a subsidiary of the insurance companies. Their interests come before ours.

Despite the continuing show of support for the public option, sccording to The Hill, that policy is in dire danger in the Senate (and there's still been no serious effort by the Obama White House to save the provision).

Much more after the jump...

The public option has gone through several stages of evolution this year, but it could soon face extinction unless one of the new versions picks up political momentum.

Senate Democrats have marketed a new “opt-out” public option in recent weeks, and another proposal is expected next week.

The proposals have fended off GOP calls for the elimination of the government-run healthcare plan. But it remains to be seen how much life is left in the public option, because no variation has attracted the backing of 60 senators.

Let's be realistic: Any proposal supported by the conservative Democrats won't be a real public option. (People on Capitol Hill and lots of professional Democrats in DC often think that the American people won't figure these things out.)

If there is no public option, it's hard to see how the health insurance reform package can force a mandate on the American people to buy health insurance from the greedy, ruthless health insurance companies. In fact, back in August, David Waldman wrote a post at DailyKos on the inanity of mandating insurance without a public option:

Maybe I'm just not sufficiently wonky on the health care subject, and after all, this isn't likely to happen to me right away, because I have insurance through my wife that I'm pretty sure we're keeping as long as we can. But I don't get how you can possibly hand me a health care bill with an individual mandate and no public option. If I'm uninsured or poorly insured, and the answer coming out of Congress is that I now have to buy crappy insurance from some private company that has no plan to actually help me pay for my health care without raking me over the coals, then I've gone into this fight an ardent supporter of strong reform, and come out a teabagger.

David was right -- and prescient. Because it's looking more and more like there won't be a real public option (which the insurance companies don't want), but there will be a mandate (which the insurance companies do want.) Yeah, that's reform that works -- for the insurance industry. Read More......

House GOPers having jobs summit with architects of the failed Bush economic policy

Can't make this stuff up. The economy is in a shambles because of the mess created by the failed policies of George Bush and Dick Cheney. Democrats have been trying to dig out of this disaster for the past year. Today, Obama is holding a jobs summit at the White House. The House Republicans are having one of their own:

House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-Ohio) has scheduled an "economic roundtable" today, to compete with the White House's job summit. Roll Call reported, "A spokesman for Boehner said the purpose of the meeting is to give a platform for economists who have a different perspective on how Obama's agenda has affected the economy."

And who are these experts? Apparently, House Republicans have turned to "former Bush administration and McCain campaign staffers, who have advocated disastrous tax and budget policies."

So, to summarize, less than a year from the last administration, congressional Republicans believe it's time to re-embrace the Bush/Cheney agenda that didn't work, and listen to the architects of the Bush/Cheney agenda that didn't work.

The thing that really sucks is that if Democrats don't fix the economy and create more jobs by next fall, the elections could be a disaster. That will empower the same Republicans who destroyed the economy in the first place. It's as if the GOP economic plan is also their 2010 campaign plan: Ruin the economy in order to defeat Democrats. Read More......

It's official: Comcast buying NBC from GE

Now that it's pretty much a done deal, this seems pretty big. Comcast, which is a conduit of content, is buying a major creator of content:

After nearly nine months of negotiations, Comcast, the nation’s largest cable operator, finally reached an agreement on Thursday to acquire NBC Universal from the General Electric Company.

The deal valued NBC Universal at about $30 billion.

The agreement will create a joint venture, with Comcast owning 51 percent and G.E. owning 49 percent. Comcast will contribute to the joint venture its stable of cable channels, which includes Versus, the Golf Channel and E Entertainment, worth about $7.25 billion, and will pay G.E. about $6.5 billion in cash, for a total of $13.75 billion. For now, the network will remain NBC Universal, but ultimately Comcast could decide to change the name.

Almost immediately, the transaction reshapes the nation’s entertainment industry, giving a cable provider a huge portfolio of new content, even as it raises the sector’s anxieties about the future.

Does this mean I can call Matt Lauer and Meredith when my cable goes out? Read More......

Thursday Morning Open Thread

Good morning.

I'm back from an amazing trip to South Africa. I've wanted to see animals in the wild since I was a kid. And, I did. Lots of them. We spent several days in Kruger National Park and I couldn't get enough of it. We also spent a couple days in Cape Town, which is a great city.

Coming back to the loss in the New York State Senate on marriage was a punch in the gut. Same-sex marriage is legal in South Africa. But, in my own country, which purports to offer its citizens full equality, LGBT Americans aren't equal.

I'm catching up on the news that I missed over the past two weeks. I can say for the record that I don't care about Tiger Woods or the White House party crashers. Congress, meanwhile, is busily holding hearings on the party crashers. There really are many, many other serious issues that warrant Hill hearings.

The President is holding his "Jobs and Economic Growth Forum" today at the White House. Jobs is the issue for 2010. That will be the top priority for Hill Democrats over the next few months -- and everything will be filtered through how it impacts jobs creation.

Anyway, let's get threading. And, to get the day started, some of Kruger's young baboons:
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Sarkozy promotes affirmative action in France for women

This is a very positive change for a male dominated work society. It would have been better if this also included minorities though admittedly, it's a very positive start. The numbers in France are dismal and an embarrassment. That said, the US is still stuck on this issue as well compared to northern Europe. Between under representation in board rooms and in politics, it's not what anyone should expect or tolerate.

I remember arguing about affirmative action with a cousin years ago. She was completely against it as a Socialist Party supporter. In the minds of many, the law already guarantees this so it's not necessary. Of course, in practice, the law was hardly effective but that was beside the point apparently. The concept of affirmative action is considered more of a right wing idea by many here in France. It's one of those words such as "liberal" that has different meanings in different countries.

Nicolas Sarkozy's centre-right party has put forward legislation that would see women make up half the figures in France's leading boardrooms by 2015, under a bold plan to impose gender equality on the male-dominated business world.

In a bill submitted to the French parliament this week, all companies listed on the Paris stock exchange would have to ensure female employees made up 50% of their board members by 2015. If passed, a gradual implementation of the law would see businesses obliged to have women in 20% of board seats within 18 months, and 40% within four years.

Jean-François Copé, president of the majority UMP party, said it could give a "much-needed electro-shock" to the French corporate world, long considered a bastion reserved for the male elite in which only 10.5% of board members in CAC 40 (French stock market index) companies are female.

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Iran torture whistleblower dead from poisoning

Did anyone really expect anything else? The extremists in Iran will not tolerate dissent of any kind.

A 26-year-old doctor who exposed the torture of jailed protesters in Iran died of poisoning from a delivery salad laced with an overdose of blood pressure medication, prosecutors say. The findings fueled opposition fears that he was killed because of what he knew.

Investigators are still trying to determine whether his death last month was a suicide or murder, Tehran's public prosecutor Abbas Dowlatabadi said, according to the state news agency IRNA.

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