Shortcut through the Arctic sounds like trouble

The dream of shipping captains (or at least owners) for centuries suddenly doesn't sound very dreamy.

For hundreds of years, mariners have dreamed of an Arctic shortcut that would allow them to speed trade between Asia and the West. Two German ships are poised to complete that transit for the first time, aided by the retreat of Arctic ice that scientists have linked to global warming.

The ships started their voyage in South Korea in late July and will begin the last leg of the trip this week, leaving a Siberian port for Rotterdam in the Netherlands carrying 3,500 tons of construction materials.

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The lies from the anti-gay forces in Maine have begun, funded and spread by the Catholic Church

At gay.AMERICAblog.com, I posted the column from Bill Nemitz in today's Portland Press Herald, which called out the "disturbing lack" of truth in an email sent by Marc Mutty, the Bishop of Maine's staff person, who is on leave to help run the campaign against marriage equality.

The campaign to repeal Maine's new marriage equality law is facing the same kind of lies used by anti-gay forces in California's campaign to pass Prop. 8. That's not really surprising considering the same consultant from California, Schubert-Flint, is managing the Maine operation. What is different is that the Catholic Church in Maine has taken such a prominent role in spewing the lies. This weekend, the Bishop, Richard Malone, has ordered a special collection at masses to help fund the anti-gay campaign.

So, we're taking up our own special collection for No on 1/Protect Maine Equality. You can contribute here via our ActBlue page. All the money goes right to the campaign -- and our side will need it to counter the lies.

The Catholic Church has no shame these days. That's really shameful. Read More......

Even for bankers, this is low

If this is true, heads should roll. Incredible. These people already lost everything thanks to Madoff. Does anyone in the banking industry or Washington have a clue?

A Wells Fargo executive who oversees foreclosed properties hosted parties and spent long summer weekends in a $12 million Malibu beach house, moving into the home just after it had been surrendered to Wells Fargo to satisfy debts, neighbors said.

The previous owners of the beachfront home in Malibu Colony — a densely built stretch of luxury homes that has been a favorite of celebrities over the years — were financially devastated in Bernard Madoff's massive fraud scheme, real estate agent Irene Dazzan-Palmer said.

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THIS JUST IN: White House agrees with Baucus and Conrad, appeases "You Lie!" Wilson

No snark needed. They got yelled at, and they caved. Again. And as a result, it's going to make the plan more expensive, by decreasing savings we would have reaped by getting illegal immigrants out of the emergency rooms:

Many illegal immigrants must now seek medical treatment in emergency rooms, which by law cannot turn them away. In recent years, the federal government has spent $250 million a year to reimburse hospitals for bills that go unpaid as a result. The White House said those reimbursements would continue.

And our premiums more expensive.

It will probably also make average premiums higher, since the exchanges will be left with a smaller risk pool and there’s no real reason to believe that the subset of undocumented immigrants who are capable of affording an unsubsidized insurance policy are below-average health risks.

So why do it? Because they got yelled at by a crazy guy. (Background on this issue here.) Read More......

Focus group memo: Insurance industry attacks test best

Okay, I'm trying not to be sarcastic and angry in every post. Really trying. Here's a new story from Ben Smith. So, the Democrats have just realized that attacking the insurance industry actually resonates with the public and can help us win Americans over to our side of the health care reform debate.

Must. Not. Be. Snarky.

Sigh. Read More......

Some voters still have sense - "You Lie!" Wilson now trails challenger

What's particular interesting is that even though voters in his district are divided as to whether Obama was "lying" during his address, they overwhelmingly disapprove of Wilson yelling at him. From Public Policy Polling (pdf):

Republican Congressman Joe Wilson trails challenger Rob Miller 44-43 in the wake of his shouting out ‘you lie’ during President Obama’s speech to Congress on Wednesday night. Wilson defeated Miller 54-46 in the 2008 election.

62% of voters in his district say they disapprove of Wilson’s actions while just 29% think they were ok. While there is consensus on that, respondents were pretty divided about whether the substance of his comment- that Obama was lying- is correct. 42% say they think the President was lying while 46% believe he was not.

That means there's still hope for civility. Read More......

Right-wing now selling "You Lie!" bumper stickers

The right wing is rallying around Joe "You Lie!" Wilson as a hero, and even Wilson himself is now backtracking on his apology. And now they're selling bumper stickers. (I'm not going to link.)



Conrad and Baucus' appeasement of Wilson, which we reported on this morning, is the worst possible thing that Democrats could do. And even worse - if you're going to cave to someone, at least don't admit it publicly.

In honor of Baucus and Conrad, we're creating a new category of tags for our site - "bad dems." Read More......

Consumer sentiment up, above expectations

It may be a small sign but still positive news.

U.S. consumer sentiment rose in early September to the strongest in three months with growing expectations the economy will improve, a survey showed Friday.

The Reuters/University of Michigan Surveys of Consumers said its preliminary index of sentiment for September rose to 70.2, the highest since June, from 65.7 in August. This was above economists' median expectation of a reading of 67.3, according to a Reuters poll.

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Now Baucus - the guy who just appeased Joe "You Lie!" Wilson - wants to be in charge of the climate change bill

This is bad. It's time for Senator Reid to step in and say enough is enough. Max Baucus has already shown that he can be bought off, and scared off. Can you imagine the kind of money industry is going to be throwing around to derail the climate change bill? Read More......

White House blames "the media" for brouhaha over unannounced terrorist attack exercise this morning on the Potomac

It's well known that local media, at the very least, listen to police scanners. This explanation does not suffice. The police scanners said that there were terrorists on the Potomac near the Pentagon while the president was speaking on 9/11. That kind of chatter would obviously cause a panic. The media makes a lot of mistakes, this is not one of them. Read More......

Lindsay Graham swoons: Obama is mean

It's clear that the GOP talking points have been distributed, and "mean" and "partisan" are at the top of their list. The religious right is using the same talking points, about Obama being mean and partisan during his joint address. Of course, he wasn't at all. He even refused to name names, let alone political parties.

But there's a method to the GOP's madness. They're still trying to play Obama because it worked before. When Republicans criticize Democrats, Democrats, especially of late, tend to cave in an effort to get the Republicans to stop being mean, and more generally, appease them. It's what happened with this morning's news that Dem Senators Baucus and Conrad have tightened the anti-immigrant provisions of their health care proposal in order to appease the concerns of Joe "You Lie!" Wilson. Generally speaking, the Dems on the Hill are terrified of being criticized, while our President often shows a visceral disdain for defending himself or his views. This only motivates Republicans to keep up the criticism, and intensity it, in order to get more Democratic concessions.

And that is why Lindsay Graham is having the vapors over Obama's speech. The Republicans hope to play on Obama's desire for comity. Will he bite? Read More......

Calls grow for Joe "You Lie!" Wilson's censure

Good. It's about time Democrats starting to handing out a little whoop ass. Not because it feels good, because it teaches a lesson not to f--- with us next time. A lesson Democrats rarely teach, and usually teach quite the opposite - screw with us and we'll cave.

Majority Whip Jim Clyburn (D-S.C.) and Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) are considering the move after Wilson adamantly refused to offer a mea culpa in the well of the House.

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British government apologizes for chemical castration of gay man who helped break Enigma code & was father of Computer Service

It's a horrible story, and one most people don't know. Alan Turing is considered by many the "father of computer science." His work was also instrumental in breaking the German Enigma code during WWII. But he was gay. So the Brits had him "chemically castrated," took away his security clearances (and thus his career), so he killed himself. TIME magazine has named Turing one of the 100 most important people of the 20th century. He was that big. And now he's been officially exonerated. Just a very sad story. Read More......

CNN: Coast Guard fired on "suspicious vessel" in Potomac River (UPDATE: It was "training exercise")

UPDATE @ 10:33 a.m.: CNN now reporting this was a Coast Guard training exercise. Seriously? On September 11th? When the President was at the Pentagon?

NOTE FROM JOHN: Idiots.
________________________________
Watching CNN now. They are reporting that the Coast Guard has fired shots at a "suspicious vessel" in the Potomac River. It looks like they're between the Memorial Bridge and the 14th Street Bridge. It's is September 11th and there was a memorial event at the Pentagon, with President Obama, so that part of the river was restricted.
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Analyst: Obama plan may give $1 trillion to insurance companies, raise your premiums

I'll let you read the article for yourself.

Now, it's just one analyst, so it's not clear why the AP is quoting him as some huge source. Having said that, a lot of people I know have been concerned about the underlying premise of the story - namely, that if we tell insurance companies that they can't ban pre-existing conditions, that they can't drop people, then they'll just increase all of our rates (mine are already going up 25% a year, will Obama's plan stop that?). It's not clear why that won't happen under the President's plan.

Others said Obama's plan might not raise costs as much as expected if everyone is required to have insurance and receive preventive care like regular checkups or mammograms, which can save money in the long run.

LOL Okay that just made me laugh. If we lower the costs for the insurance companies they'll, out of the goodness of their hearts, cut into their growing profits and lower our premiums. Just like the airlines, now that fuel prices have gone back down, have gotten rid of those pesky "temporary" baggage charges they imposed to make up for their losses. What, you mean the airlines are actually increasing those fees again? Oh never mind. With the insurance companies' history of generosity and customer care, I'm sure they'll be different. Kind of like the drug companies. They could charge us three to five times what the same drugs cost in Europe, but they don't because that wouldn't be nice. Oh, that's right, never mind.

And as an aside, for a trillion dollars, couldn't we have gotten a bigger concession out of the insurance companies? It's not clear that we got any concession out of them at all. Maybe the insurance companies yelled at a Democrat. Read More......

Baucus & Conrad cave again, toughen health care bill's anti-immigrant provisions to appease Joe 'You lie!' Wilson

Yes, because that's the first thing a sane person would think after Wilson's bizarre, and boorish, and untrue outbreak during the joint session, an outburst that has the GOP reeling: What can we do to appease Joe Wilson's legitimate concerns so he'll stop being mean to us? From TIME:

The controversy over Republican Rep. Joe Wilson's shouting out "You Lie!" at the President over his claim that illegal immigrants wouldn't benefit from health-care reform apparently sparked some reconsideration of the relevant language. "We really thought we'd resolved this question of people who are here illegally, but as we reflected on the President's speech last night we wanted to go back and drill down again," said Senator Kent Conrad, one of the Democrats in the talks after a meeting Thursday morning. Baucus later that afternoon said the group would put in a proof of citizenship requirement to participate in the new health exchange — a move likely to inflame the left.

First off, congratulations for once again caving to the teabaggers and telling them that all they need to do is go crazy and Democrats will run scared and cave.

Second, why would anyone think that Wilson, or any of the extremists he represents, will support Baucus and Conrad's plan, regardless of the changes? Have we learned no lessons from the stimulus debate, where the Obama administration and Democrats gave the Republicans 40% of the bill as tax cuts, and almost every single Republican in the Congress (save three) voted against it?

The Republicans went insane over August, disrupting Democratic townhall meetings on health care reform, and rather than blasting them, the Obama administration praised them and Democrats saw the raucous protests as a reason to cave. And now, a Republican congressman has an outrageous outburst during a joint session of Congress - an outburst that is still causing the GOP massive headaches 36 hours after it happened - and what do the Democrats do? Do they try to take advantage of Wilson's outburst, and the negative reaction to it, to force the GOP to cave and include something we want in the plan, like the public option?

Of course not. Conrad and Baucus, in response to the opportunity Wilson presented us, decided it was best to cave like the spineless cowards, in the hopes that Wilson and the Republicans would be stop being mean to our President. Beacause that tactic has worked so well with Republicans before. My anger goes far beyond the fact that these two wimps have been handed the keys to health care reform by our President. The message we are sending the GOP is horrible. It is now open season on President Obama's agenda. All you have to do is yell, and the Democrats will flinch. It seems one speech wasn't enough to change the heart and soul of a party of cowards.

UPDATE: Wilson is holding firm. Perhaps Conrad and Baucus can delete women from the bill too, or gays, or blacks. That might finally get Wilson on board. Read More......

Friday Morning Open Thread

Good morning.

Yesterday, Crooks and Liars noted how Chuck Todd at NBC referred to the public option as a "fetish." I've been watching too much CNN and its "talent" treat the public option like some kind of political game, too. They don't get it. This is about trying to get real health insurance for real people. But, how could they get it? Anyone who works for NBC/General Electric or Turner, especially the big dogs, must have very good health insurance. I know the people at CNN do. They live in the same protected bubble that many members of Congress live in. They were immune from the recession and they're unaffected by the real impact of the health insurance debate.

But, some day, when they lose their cushy jobs, some of those reporters better hope the public option exists. Some of those people sure don't look like the healthiest people around -- and when they don't have corporate health insurance, they'll find out just how rough the market is.

I need coffee...

NOTE FROM JOHN: Come back at 830am Eastern and check out what I'm about to post. Your head will explode. Read More......

British 'anti-tax' conservatives rear their ugly heads

Glad to see the real heart and soul of the conservatives coming out ahead of the elections in the UK. Forget about the touchy-feely David Cameron who is leading the party because this is what everyone has been waiting to see. It's the same old brutal tactics that got the right into trouble before. Leave business alone and chop benefits for children and hack government jobs, as if that will somehow solve the serious problems that the UK is facing today. Better to see this now than after the election because we all know how election promises get thrown aside. Reuters:

Britain should freeze state pensions for a year, scrap child benefits for middle-class families and axe one in ten civil service jobs to cut its growing budget deficit, a top business group said on Friday.

In a joint report with low-tax lobby the Taxpayers' Alliance, the Institute of Directors detailed quick steps the government could take to save 50 billion pounds from its annual budget, which is forecast to be 175 billion pounds in the red during the current tax year.

Deficits are absolutely a problem but then again, isn't unemployment? What happens to the troubled housing and the banking industry when more people are on the dole? Read More......

'The Arctic as we know it may soon be a thing of the past'

Obviously the Republicans who fight against action don't get out of their airtight environment much. One doesn't even have to visit the Arctic to see change. Anyone who spends any time outside of a closed environment can't help but notice the changes. MSNBC.com

Arctic warming is affecting plants, birds, animals and insects as ice melts and the growing season changes, scientists report in a new review of the many impacts climate change is having on the far north.

"Arctic ecosystems ... have been severely perturbed," the experts wrote in Friday's edition of the journal Science.

As the global climate changes, the Arctic Circle has been warming faster than other regions and scientists have documented a series of affects on wildlife in the region.

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French minister has his own macaca moment

And it doesn't appear to be a one off remark either. Considering the continuing racial strife that has been fed by those on the right, he really needs to go now. A few years ago there was plenty of talk about forcing change in the stodgy system and yes, Sarkozy's initial cabinet was a step in the right direction. None of real changes proposed during his campaign such as affirmative action ever made it out of the gate and now the cabinet looks like any traditional French cabinet.

The French interior minister Brice Hortefeux, one of Nicolas Sarkozy's closest friends, is at the centre of a race row after he was accused of making apparently insulting jokes about France's large North African community.

In a video on Le Monde's website, Hortefeux is seen bantering with young members of Sarkozy's ruling centre-right UMP party outside a summer conference meeting last weekend. He is posing for a picture with activists including a young man referred to as Amin. A person in the crowd says of Amin: "He eats pork, he drinks beer" and Hortefeux is seen joking: "So he doesn't at all correspond to the prototype." A woman in the crowd shouts: "He's our little Arab". Hortefeux says: "There's always one. When there's one, that's OK. It's when there are a lot of them, that there are problems."

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Taxpayers face losses on Bush's auto bailout... but so what?

Yeah, I read the headline and thought "damn, we got screwed." But you know what, what else were we supposed to do? Potentially two million jobs were at stake, and we were on the brink of a depression. We were going to chuck two million jobs, and guarantee a depression, in order to stick to our money-saving principles? If we can get some money back, great. And as much as I don't like these ongoing bailouts, it's better than sending the nation into another great depression. Read More......