Robert Reich: "How Tough is Our President?"

As I wrote yesterday, these are friends writing these kind of stories with headlines like the above. They're not simply upset with the president because of a disagreement on policy. They're questioning his character and temperament as a result of those disagreements. And once Democrats start asking questions like whether the president has guts, it's only a matter of time before independents start asking the same question.

I just think it's very dangerous territory for a new president to be in eight months into his presidency. The issue isn't whether the Democratic base, or whatever folks like to call us nowadays, will vote for Democrats in the next election (though I do think a lot of folks won't care to vote in the mid-terms). It's whether the Democratic base will become so disaffected with the character of Democratic politicians, that they'll start talking about those politicians in a way that risks damaging the Democrats' brand (and the individual Democrats' reputation and credibility) with the public at large. That's the danger for Obama, and the Congress, here. Read More......

Senate Dems says they'll pass health care, by any means necessary

Does that include waterboarding Max Baucus? Read More......

Heat wave

It got up to 95 today in Paris. The thing is, they don't have air conditioning here. Not in a lot of homes. And even a lot of businesses don't have it. It just doesn't get hot enough, regularly, to merit having air conditioning (reminds me of visiting friends in Boston during a heat wave, same problem). This is why so many people died during the heat wave of 2003, that killed 15,000 (quite a lot in a country a fifth the size of the US). Fortunately, Chris and Joelle's place stays naturally cool.



Fortunately, for Parisians, there's Paris Plage - the annual event where the city of Paris turns the banks of the Seine river into a mile long beach. Including, a pool they bring in for the occasion. Today, during the heat, they were doing some kind of water aerobics or something. I love how they're all wearing bathing caps, it looks like 1950 - oh, and men are required - REQUIRED - to wear speedos in French swimming pools (seriously) - they consider American-style swimsuits, where guys don't bare it all, to be "unsanitary."



Here's a close up - love it. After I took the shot, my friend Fabian pointed out the sign informing us that it was illegal to take photos of the swimming pool from the very public sidewalk. Mind you, this is a country where woman bare their breasts sunbathing along this same stretch of beach, without batting an eye. But doh't get a picture of them in a one-piece bathing suit with a skullcap on. Perv. Read More......

$0 down, 0% financing, no payments

Funny article the other day about the Michigan Humane Society and their new ad campaign for adopting cats. (Both of our cats come from family and in one shape or form go back to the cat of one of Joelle's cousins who was killed by a drunk driver a few decades ago.) When we come down to the coast for summer vacation we use "the walk" as a test to see how well or not that we're doing. Not including the steps inside the flat (an additional 13 from the street, if one is counting) we have the pleasure of walking 672 steps and roughly 1,000 feet to get to the beach sitting below the old village. In bad years we cave in and drive the car down but thanks to my bike riding, the steps this year are still noticeable but no wobbly knees, sore muscles or anything like that.

Every year we enjoy what we call "cat alley" which is along our path to and from the beach. We finally met the man who takes care of the cats this year and discovered that all of them - we've counted at least 7 - are from the local humane society. A few of the bunch (such as the cute little gray guy and the black and brown girl above) crave back scratches and it's tough prying yourself away from them as they meow and walk alongside. Sometimes one even pulls the trick that Sushi does which is to meow and walk right in front of you, almost tripping you. Each cat has his or her patch along the route so as you make your way along the path one stops and another pops up. We add our treats to their food bowl coming down and surprise, surprise, they love fish. Read More......

Obama approval drops to 50%

A reader just wrote in the comments:

Aww, the red and black lines are coming together in bipartisanship!

Particularly troubling is that this isn't just one poll. Pollster.com aggregates all the polls out there, so that you can see which ones are clearly wrong, and more generally, you can see the trend over time. Move your mouse over the graphic, you can spot individual polls.

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Ted Olson/David Boies Prop. 8 case has a trial date: January 11, 2010

The trial date in the federal case against California's Prop. 8 has been set for January 11, 2010. Also, the federal judge precluded advocacy groups from intervening.

This is the case brought by superstar lawyers David Boies and Ted Olson working with the American Foundation for Equal Rights. Olson, who served as George W. Bush's Solicitor General, is profiled in today's NY Times. Some of Olson's right wing friends aren't happy that he's taken this case, but he doesn't seem to mind at all. Read More......

Yet another advertiser dumps Glenn Beck. Racism doesn't sell.

Great work by Color of Change for leading the charge on this one. Corporate America understands that racism doesn't sell.

Glenn Beck, the leading racist on cable news, is losing advertisers in droves:

Already, twenty companies have agreed to pull advertisements from Glenn Beck's television show, within weeks of the Fox host calling Obama "a racist" and saying the president "has a deep-seated hatred for white people or the white culture."

Now, Farmers Insurance can be added to that list, a Farmers spokesperson confirms to POLITICO.

"We advertise on Fox News Channel which places our ads in the Network programming, and we ceased placing on Glenn Beck a week ago," said the spokesperson.

CNN should be paying attention here. They've got their own on-air racist: Lou Dobbs.

Hat tip, Media Matters, too. Being featured in videos like this isn't exactly great corporate public relations:
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NJ's GOP candidate for Governor, Chris Christie, loaned his "subordinate" $46,000, but failed to report it, as required

You know how so many Republicans who make family values (Mark Sanford, John Ensign, Larry Craig, etc., etc.) turn out to be hypocrites? There's another version of that playing out in New Jersey. The GOP candidate for Governor, Chris Christie, is running on an anti-corruption platform. But, turns out, he's not so clean himself. It's bad enough that Karl Rove coached him to run for Governor back when Christie was a U.S. Attorney.

Today, we find out that Christie gave a loan to a colleague, but failed to report it. Apparently, obeying ethics laws doesn't apply to a guy running for Governor who claims to wear the mantle of anti-corruption:

A contrite Christopher J. Christie, the Republican former prosecutor running for governor on a platform of corruption busting and ethical reform, apologized Tuesday for failing to report a $46,000 loan to a top aide on his tax returns and financial-disclosure forms.

“When I make mistakes, I’m going to admit them,” he said, adding that he had already amended some of those filings and would finish the rest by Friday. “It was certainly nothing that I was trying to conceal or hide.”

But Mr. Christie, who resigned last December as United States attorney for New Jersey to challenge Gov. Jon S. Corzine, stood by his decision to lend the money in 2007 to his subordinate, Michele A. Brown, whom he promoted several months later. He said he saw no reason to end that financial relationship when he left the office or now.

Am I the only person who finds it odd that Christie was loaning large sums to his "subordinate"? I'd like to hear more about the relationship between Christie and Michele Brown. This seems very shady -- and shady in that, "there has to be more going on here" way. Read More......

This isn't leadership

NYT:

For the second time in two days, Mr. Obama did not mention health care on Tuesday, a marked departure from the aggressive public relations campaign he mounted in July and early August. The White House is striving to stay out of the fray, aides said, until the president can get away on vacation this weekend.

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A guy named Barack Obama sold me on the importance of the public option

I guess John and I are part of "the left of the left" who are pushing for the public option. Some "senior White House adviser, who spoke on the condition of anonymity," told the Washington Post, the he or she doesn't get why the public option is such an important issue for so many Democrats. I don't know why that "senior White House adviser" is hiding behind the cloak of anonymity. Those of us on the "left of the left" aren't hiding who we are. That "anonymity" is pretty weak and runs counter to the kind of open administration Obama promised us.

Putting that aside, I'll explain part of the reason why I strongly support a public option: Barack Obama sold me on it.

Contrary to some people in the White House, I still actually try to believe what Obama says. Sure, he really let me down on LGBT equality, but health care is his main issue, right? So, I have think he's being upfront on that one.

On the July 20th conference call with progressive bloggers, Obama told us the bloggers are good at debunking myths, and that's why the progressive blogs were going to play such an important role in the success of passing real health care reform. Unlike some on his staff, he sounded like he wanted us on the team. This morning, I listened again to the audio of that call, which John Amato posted at Crooks and Liars.

But the key moment for me was when Cheryl Contee from Jack and Jill Politics asked Obama a question, which she said had been asked many times by the readers of her blog:

"Will self-employed individuals and small businesses be able to enroll in the public option and what will their benefit for this new health care reform be."

Obama started his answer this way:

They are some of the primary beneficiaries of the potential public option.

As a self-employed individual who feels trapped by his insurance company, Obama's answer struck a chord with me. And, it really helped me get my head around the public option.

I support the public option because Barack Obama explained it to me, not only on that call, but several times. Other experts take a similar view of the public's option importance to real reform and reining in the out-of-control insurance industry.

Maybe some people who work with the President, especially the anonymous "senior White House adviser," should spend more time listening to their boss instead of bitching to the Washington Post about the people who put them into office.

We want Obama to succeed. And, that's why we're pushing Obama to fight for what he has said is the right thing to do. We're only asking Obama to do what he told us he'd do. That's the kind of change I want to believe in. Still. Read More......

Barney confronts patriotic American at health care event

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Ezra: Co-ops solve a political, rather than health care, problem

Ezra explains that co-ops aren't intended to work. They're intended to get 51 votes without having to expend any political capital.

Obviously, a lot of people don't like [the public option]. Among them are insurers, Republicans and, crucially, providers like doctors and hospitals, who fear that a large public insurer will hold down costs, which will in turn hold down incomes. They have argued, credibly, that they can unite and kill a bill that contains a strong public option.

In early June, Max Baucus asked Kent Conrad to solve this argument. Conrad came up with the co-op proposal. And I literally mean "came up" with it. Conrad told me that the idea emerged "out of conversations in my office after we were asked to see if we couldn't come up with some way of bridging this chasm." To put it bluntly, the co-op does not solve a policy problem so much as it solves a political problem. That political problem was, "How do you finesse a compromise on the public option?"

.... As the situation stands, there's no existing model for co-ops to follow and no policy specifics on Conrad's idea, so it's impossible to say whether, or how, they will work. I could imagine very good co-ops or totally useless ones. But given the political forces arrayed around the issue, I think that's sort of the wrong question. The idea works if it somehow solves the political problem that birthed it.

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Somebody at the White House needs to be fired

Apparently, the health care reform issue has caught the White House by surprise. They had no idea that folks on the left cared about the public option, they're now telling the Washington Post.

What?

They had no idea, they say, that it was a make or break issue for people.

Again, what?

That is either a lie, or the president is being staffed by idiots.

How many times do we have to tell people in the White House that their lack of outreach to Democrats is going to bite them in the ass?

Read this in today's Washington Post, about the uproar over Obama caving on the public option:

"I don't understand why the left of the left has decided that this is their Waterloo," said a senior White House adviser, who spoke on the condition of anonymity. "We've gotten to this point where health care on the left is determined by the breadth of the public option. I don't understand how that has become the measure of whether what we achieve is health-care reform."

"It's a mystifying thing," he added. "We're forgetting why we are in this."

Another top aide expressed chagrin that a single element in the president's sprawling health-care initiative has become a litmus test for whether the administration is serious about the issue.

"It took on a life of its own," he said.

"The left of the left." That would be people like me, a former Republican, Markos, former military and a former Republican, and Arianna, a former Republican. Yes, we're such wacky tree-hugging liberals, all of us. That would be all of you who read the progressive blogs. And all of you who are members of unions like the AFL and SEIU. And all of you who belong to MoveOn, or who are members of any of the myriad non-profits around town who are working on the health care reform issue. All of you, to this White House, are "the left of the left." The crazies. The wacko fringe. But next election, Barack Obama will be happy to take your money and your votes, just like he did last time for promises that are now too wacky to keep.

You don't hear similar criticism coming out of the White House about the crazy teabaggers shutting down the town hall meetings and accusing Obama of being a socialist, and Hitler. You don't hear senior White House officials calling them the right of the right, or questioning their dedication to the cause. No, they're patriotic Americans exercising their First Amendment rights, White House officials tell the press. And Republican Senator Chuck Grassley, who's been running around the country telling people that Barack Obama plans to put millions of elderly to death - never a bad word from the White House about him either. The only people that Barack Obama's White House feels comfortable deriding and dismissing in the media are the people who put him into office in the first place. Democrats.

Yes, the same way the smartest people in the world over at the White House were mystified that a simple issue like comparing gay marriage to incest and pedophilia would cause an outright rupture with the gay community, after we warned them for months, publicly and privately, that there would be such a rupture, here we go again with the surprise over the rupture over health care reform. No one could have seen it coming. Right.

And, a senior Obama aide has the gall to suggest that "we're forgetting why we are in this"? Et tu, Brute? You people have forgotten why you were elected in the first place. You've forgotten promise after promise that your boss made to community after community on the left. And now you have the nerve to criticize us for trying to hold you accountable for your growing string of broken promises after we busted our asses getting your boss elected.

President Obama's White House simply doesn't care about having a real relationship with actual Democrats. They don't like anyone they can't control. They don't like non-profit advocacy groups, and have been actively working to defund them (just as they did with the 527 during the campaign), and they don't like the blogosphere, so during the campaign they instead created their own blogosphere.

Yes, yes, they send us emails and do call to check in from time to time. And we appreciate that. But there is no effort made to include the blogosphere in any kind of larger strategy on issues ranging from the stimulus to health care reform. As a reader of ours noted a few months back: Can you imagine the Republicans pushing their top agenda items and not asking talk radio and FOX News to help them out?

And all that leads to a situation where a key component of the health care plan, that even Joe and I (who are hardly experts on health care reform) knew months ago was going to cause an uproar among Demorats if it wasn't included, gets dropped by Obama, causes an uproar, and senior White House aides talk about how they never saw it coming.

Can you say "Heck of a job, Brownie"?

And then, in classic Obama White House style, when you get upset about President Obama backing off a major campaign promise, you're the bad guy for expecting Barack Obama to keep his word and do the thing he promised he'd do in exchange for your vote.

To some degree, it's understandable that senior Obama advisers are giving quotes like this to the Washington Post because you'd have to be seriously out of touch, and a bit of an idiot politically, to have gotten an overwhelmingly popular president, with control of both houses of Congress, into this mess in the first place.

How many times do we have to have the same blow ups with Barack Obama's people, for the same reasons, before someone in the White House realizes that they have a serious problem on their hands? Is this what the next four years are going to be like? Read More......

Wednesday Morning Open Thread

Good morning.

The progressives in Congress sure have found their spine. Finally. And, progressives around the country are responding by saying thanks. The ActBlue page to thank the progressives in Congress who are standing up and standing strong for the public option, which was set up yesterday, has already raised almost over $100,000. That's quite amazing. We have to thank our friends -- those who are actually following through on their campaign promises of real health insurance reform. And, in Congress, whether we like it or not, money is one way to say thanks. The White House better be paying attention.

You know, all we want is what Obama and the Democrats on Capitol Hill said they'd deliver. The Democrats control the White House, the Senate and the House. They won for a reason: To deliver on their promises. Yet, have you noticed how those of expecting them to deliver are somehow the bad guys? That's just the warped way D.C. works...

Meanwhile, very serious issues are at stake that affect our lives and well-being. But, the TODAY Show is debating whether Michelle Obama should be wearing shorts while on vacation. "Some people" don't like it. The absurdity never ends.

I need to walk Petey... Read More......

How much worse can the system get?

As an American who lives abroad in the country that is at the top of the health care rankings, this is almost laughable to read. Who are the people who actually believe that the US has the best health care system in the world? Sure you can get quality health care but the system is a disaster yet some complete buffoons somehow believe that it can get worse. Worse? Compared to what or where? Good grief people. It's already the worst system in the industrialized world and is nestled in between Costa Rica and Slovenia.

Somehow I doubt the "USA #1" in everything crowd could even place either country on a map let alone explain how the system could become "even worse." Let them wear flag t-shirts and lapel pins and see how well that helps when they have a medical emergency. NBC News:

A plurality believes Obama’s health plan would worsen the quality of health care, a result that is virtually unchanged from last month’s NBC/Wall Street Journal poll. What’s more, only four in 10 approve of the president’s handling of the issue, which also is unchanged from July.

And a majority — 54 percent — is more concerned that the government will go too far in reforming the nation’s health care system, while 41 percent is more worried that the reform will not do enough to lower costs and cover the uninsured.

“Things have not changed radically in the past two weeks,” says Democratic pollster Jay Campbell of Hart Research Associates, which conducted this survey with Republican pollster Bill McInturff of Public Opinion Strategies.

“But they have changed enough to illustrate an environment that has gotten tougher” for the White House, he says.

Three and a half more years of this? Read More......

US politics needs a platinum parachute leader to run for office

I hear people really like the idea of a pampered executive who walked away with $21 million despite being a failed leader. It especially goes over well during a recession and when there's little hope for an economic turnaround any time soon. Good luck with that strategy. CNN:

Former Hewlett-Packard CEO Carly Fiorina is taking the initial steps to challenge California Democrat Barbara Boxer for her Senate seat, a move that could lay the groundwork for one of the most high profile and expensive contests of 2010.

Fiorina, the first woman to lead a Fortune 500 company and a former surrogate for John McCain's presidential bid, filed a tax identification number and registered a campaign committee with the IRS Tuesday called "Carly for California."

"The people of California have serious concerns about job creation, economic growth and the role of government in solving problems that touch each of ourlives," Fiorina said in a statement. "I have received a great deal of encouragement to make a run for the Senate in 2010 from people across the political spectrum because these are all issues that need focused attention in Washington, D.C."

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Oil rights in exchange for human rights?

This does not sound very encouraging for Gordon Brown. It would be expected under Blair but Brown? If this turns out to be true, someone is indeed, very sick.

Gordon Brown has been accused of rushing through the ratification of a treaty with Tripoli that could pave the way for the repatriation of the Lockerbie bomber as part of a British push to protect oil interests in Libya.

Amid signs that a decision on the release of Abdelbaset al-Megrahi could be made within days, senior MPs and peers said ministers in London had overlooked human rights in their haste to ratify the agreement.

Kenny MacAskill, the Scottish justice secretary, is poised to decide whether Megrahi, who has terminal prostate cancer, should be allowed to return home on compassionate grounds. The former Libyan intelligence agent, 57, is serving a life sentence with a minimum term of 27 years after being convicted in 2001 of the bombing of Pan Am flight 103, which killed 270 people.

Today,three judges at the high court in Edinburgh accepted an application by Megrahi to drop his second appeal against his conviction. The bomber's move has fuelled speculation that he has brokered a deal with the Scottish authorities to clear the way for his return home.

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Former secret service worker charged with stealing 130 million IDs

I keep forgetting how irrelevant and unimportant data privacy is. To be fair to the do-nothing-and-let-the-issue-pass crowd, it's not as though the alleged crime involved 305,000,000 Americans. That would be serious and cause for alarm.

A serial hacker has been charged with carrying out the largest theft of credit card identities ever recorded in the US, in a sophisticated scam in which he and accomplices allegedly stole at least 130m accounts from big retail companies.

Albert Gonzalez, 28, of Miami, who once worked with the US secret service, is accused of working with two unidentified Russian conspirators to hack into the databases of retail chains, selling the information around the world. According to a 14-page indictment, the hackers stole credit card numbers from Heartland, a New Jersey-based company that processes payments, from the store 7-Eleven, and the supermarket chain Hannaford.

The three also targeted two other, unnamed corporations, according to the US attorney's office in New Jersey.

Heartland Payment Systems and Hannaford Brothers had separately acknowledged the breaches, but the scope of the fraud had not been known.

Gonzalez — known online as "soupnazi" — was formerly employed by the US secret service to track down hackers, but was found to have been passing information on investigations to criminals.

At least we can rest comfortably tonight knowing that we have a "cyber czar" on the job now. All of our problems will now be solved by czars. Read More......

And now pretending to be a First World country

This is what you expect in a Third World country. Too bad there are enough people in the US who find this to be acceptable. CNN:

A man toting an assault rifle was among a dozen protesters carrying weapons while demonstrating outside President Barack Obama's speech to veterans on Monday, but no laws were broken. It was the second instance in recent days in which unconcealed weapons have appeared near presidential events.

Video from the protest in Phoenix, Arizona, shows the man standing with other protesters, with the rifle slung over his right shoulder.

Phoenix police said authorities monitored about a dozen people carrying weapons while peacefully demonstrating.

"It was a group interested in exercising the right to bear arms," said police spokesman Sgt. Andy Hill.

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