"Take a Stand for the Public Option" about to hit $300,000

Okay, this is quite astounding. The ActBlue page set up to on Tuesday reward the members of Congress who will vote against a health insurance reform bill that doesn't include a real public option is going to hit $300,000 -- with almost 5,000 contributors. (Howie Klein has me obsessively refreshing the page. It's been so fun to watch the numbers roll up.)

The message is getting through on Capitol Hill, although the White House still seems a little tone deaf. Progressives in the House are showing that they've got power -- and are willing to use it. According to her hometown paper Speaker Pelosi said the "House must pass an overhaul that includes a public option." I take that to mean the initial bill and the bill that comes back from conference. She added:

"I agree with the president when he said a public option was the best way to keep the insurance companies honest, that it would be the best way to increase competition so that we can lower costs, improve quality of care, retain choice and expand coverage," Pelosi said.

Pelosi agrees with what Obama said, so do I. On Wednesday, I wrote that it was Barack Obama who convinced me of the need for a public option to provide a counter to the out-of-control insurance industry. Now, if only Obama would put his words into action and fight for the public option. Really fight for it. To do that, he's going to have to overrule his top staffers, Rahm and Messina. They've been busy kissing the asses of the Blue Dogs and Max Baucus. Rahm already screamed and swore at the liberal groups, which was supposed to leave everyone quaking. Maybe that freaked out some of the D.C. groups, who worry about things like White House access, but the rest of us are still fighting for good policy. Policy that works.

The last chair of the DNC, Howard Dean, continues to be a champion. Today, the DNC chair before Dean, Terry McAuliffe, stepped up in a big way, too. We've got momentum. It's time for Democrats, including the President, to be Democrats.

I'm sick of Democrats in D.C. not keeping their word or coming up with half-assed compromises that won't work or selling out to Republicans and insurers and drup companies. This is too important to screw up.

We're being heard. And, the ActBlue page is one important way to get our message through. A lot of small contributions are having a huge impact. Read More......

Good night from Plage du Buse

Below "cat alley" is our favorite beach, Plage du Buse. Not too many people because there's very little parking. The beach is also galets (stones) which are hell on the feet but I like the sound of the stones and the water. No nasty jellyfish this week though last week our little nephew had seven stings on his back from a big one. We tend to wait until the sun is behind the mountains and get back to the village by 8-ish, just in time for aperitif with the neighbors on the street. Walking up is hot though I love walking under the lemon and fig trees which are everywhere.

There are no cars in the village as the castle is the oldest feudal castle in France and one of the little streets - and they're very small walking paths - dates back to the 13th century. Even my beloved Fiat 500 (the old one) would struggle to fit on these streets. A few steps from our front door is an amazing olive tree that must be about 20 feet wide and is even mentioned in Julius Caesar's "War of the Gauls." The street/path is an old Roman trade route and was used by Caesar's Legions. Today the village is mixed between French and Italians - the Italian border is within sight - so plenty of good food is available in the area that is a blend of the two cultures. Read More......

Amurika

Via Ben Smith:

One poll question indicative of how difficult it is to gain public understanding on a complicated issue asked if respondents thought the government should ‘stay out of Medicare,’ something inherently impossible. 39% said yes.

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Message guru George Lakoff on Obama and health care reform

A brilliant post by George Lakoff over at Daily Kos. It's a tad long, but even just reading the first half will open your eyes with wonder. A lot of our readers have asked us, "but what SHOULD Obama have done?" Lakoff tells you. (One quibble: Lakoff lumps "blogs" in with the usual suspects Obama has been using to date to fight for health care reform. That's wrong. Obama's people have barely used for the blogs for anything since they've taken office. Lots of folks are to blame for the fiasco that is becoming health care reform. We are not one of them.)

Barack Obama ran the best-organized and best-framed presidential campaign in history. How is it possible that the same people who did so well in the campaign have done so badly on health care?

And bad it is: The public option may well be gone. Neither Obama himself nor Senior Advisor David Axelrod even mentioned the public option in their pleas to the nation last Sunday (August 16, 2009). Secretary Sibelius even said it was “not essential.” Cass Sunstein’s co-author, Richard Thaler, in the Sunday NY Times (August 16, 2009, p. BU 4) called it “neither necessary nor sufficient.” There has been a major drop in support for the president throughout the country, with angry mobs disrupting town halls and the right wing airing its views with vehemence nonstop on radio and tv all day every day. As the NY Times reports, Organizing for America (the old Obama campaign network) can’t even get its own troops out to work for the President’s proposal.

What has been going wrong?

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Prime loans increasingly a problem

And again, higher unemployment is driving the bad news. Unemployment will get higher so the foreclosure problem is going to spread deeper in the not so distant future. CNBC:

The headline in today's big Q2 Delinquency Survey from the Mortgage Bankers Association is that the face of foreclosure is changing from subprime to prime. Deep in the many many many charts that the MBA included in the "press packet" was the Q109 to Q209 Change in Foreclosure Starts Rate for prime fixed. In the top twenty ten states that showed the biggest increases, only one of the "usual suspects" (CA, FL, AZ, NV) reared it's ugly head: Nevada.

The state with the biggest jump was actually Washington (state, not DC). Maryland, North Carolina, New York, Idaho, and Hawaii were all in the top ten. Job losses are clearly to blame for the foreclosures in these states, but price declines have served to exacerbate the problem.

"Prices are so low now that if you’re hit with an unemployment event, you have no choice but the foreclosure," says Susan Wachter of the Wharton Business School. Whereas in previous recessions, borrowers hit with job losses could simply chose to sell, today so many borrowers are underwater on their loans that selling is not feasible.

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More on the growing problem with the Obama brand

As John points out below, Marc Ambinder (who seems to have a direct line to someone at the White House) says there's concern over there about the Obama brand. There should be. Top staffers and anonymous advisers are ruining the brand.

Here's a good example of how, again from Ambinder:

Quietly, to secure and keep Democrats on board, the White House is going to bargain, providing inducements, like more money for favored projects, etc., in order to secure individual votes.

Really? Instead of pushing for good policy, they're going to buy votes with pork. That's the typical old politics of D.C. We'd expect that from a Rahm Emanuel White House. But, Obama promised something different. That's not change we can believe in. It's doing business the same old way, you know, the way Obama railed against during the campaign.

This really is about leadership. People want a leader who will fight for them -- and one who does the right thing, whatever he perceives that to be. Instead, we're seeing the White House bend over backwards for GOP support on every piece of major legislation -- support that will never, ever materialize. The Villagers (a perfect characterization first coined by Digby) love to overanalyze the process. But, real people don't care about the process, they want results.

We first saw this during the battle over the DOMA brief. That was not the change we expected. Yet, the White House defended their actions initially, then took some small steps to assuage us, then threw a party. Meanwhile, the Oval Office brain trust missed the damage that was done to Obama's brand through that craven, cynical process. Obama looked like he dumped his support for LGBT equality, something he proclaimed proudly during the campaign -- even more pro-gay than Hillary, he promised us -- in order to score some political points. He would have really scored points if he followed through on his promises.

Sometimes, I feel a little naive. I actually expect people to keep their promises -- even politicians. In D.C., that's not expected. And, no one here seems to understand that's one reason so many people don't trust politicians. Obama promised us all he'd be different. But, Rahm, Messina and the rest of the crew are turning him into just another politician who won't fight for what he believes and won't keep promises. That's what's ruining Obama's brand. Read More......

Sen. Kennedy wants to make sure Mass. has two Senators

The Senate is an institution where members tend to think about themselves and the institution first. But, today, we saw an exception. Senator Kennedy wants to make sure that health insurance reform is not derailed by a vacant Massachusetts Senate seat. He wants state law changed to insure any vacancy is filled immediately -- on an interim basis -- until the election is held for a successor. From the Boston Globe, which secured a copy of Kennedy's letter to Massachusetts officials:

In a personal, sometimes wistful letter sent Tuesday to Governor Deval L. Patrick, Senate President Therese Murray, and House Speaker Robert A. DeLeo, Kennedy asks that Patrick be given authority to appoint someone to the seat temporarily before voters choose a new senator in a special election.

Although Kennedy, who is battling brain cancer, does not specifically mention his illness or the health care debate raging in Washington, the implication of his letter is clear: He is trying to make sure that the leading cause in his life, better health coverage for all, advances in the event of his death.

In his letter, which was obtained by the Globe, Kennedy said that he backs the current succession law, enacted in 2004, which gives voters the power to fill a US Senate vacancy. But he said the state and country need two Massachusetts senators.

“I strongly support that law and the principle that the people should elect their senator,’’ Kennedy wrote. “I also believe it is vital for this Commonwealth to have two voices speaking for the needs of its citizens and two votes in the Senate during the approximately five months between a vacancy and an election.’’

Under the 2004 law, if Kennedy were to die or step down, voters would select his successor in a special election to be held within five months of the vacancy. But the law makes no provisions for Massachusetts to be represented in the Senate in the interim. In the meantime, President Obama’s plan to overhaul the nation’s health care system, the fate of which may hinge on one or two votes, could come before Congress.

Oddly, I was having a conversation about this very subject yesterday. The shared sense of the people with whom I was speaking was that Ted Kennedy would put the issue of health care first -- above and beyond his own interests. He proved that with his letter.

Very few people know the actual condition of Senator Kennedy. Right now, that is a private matter. But, it was widely reported that the Senator missed the funeral of his sister, Eunice, last week. The Globe noted Kennedy aides "were adamant yesterday that the timing of the letter did not reflect any imminent emergency in the health of the senator." Okay. But, the situation doesn't sound good.

One other thing: The Globe reported that Vicki Kennedy, the Senator's wife, doesn't want an appointment and won't run. There had been rumblings that she was interested in the job. This should put those rumors to rest once and for all. Read More......

Live chat NOW with Congressional Candidate Tony Woods at 3 PM Eastern/Noon Pacific

We've finished up the live chat. John and I want to thank Tony. This was great from our perspective. We look forward to having him back when he's Rep. Anthony Woods.

There are a lot of reasons Tony should be in Congress, but he needs help. He's not a life-long pol with a rolodex of lobbyists who will write him checks. That's why he needs our help. This is going to be a low turnout election. Tony can win if he has the resources to get out his vote. You can donate here.
____________________________
Tony is here, we're chatting in the comments - please join us - JOHN

UPDATE: Here's the candidate typing away, answering our questions:

___________

At 3pm Eastern, noon Pacific, we'll be joined by Anthony Woods for a live chat in the comments section of this post. He's a candidate for Congress in California's 10th Congressional District. The Democratic primary in the special election to fill the seat vacated by Ellen Tauscher (who took a job in the State Department) is in just two weeks: September 1st.

I met Tony a couple months ago when he was thinking about getting in this race. He's a very impressive person. He's a graduate of West Point, served two tours in Iraq and got kicked out of the military under Don't Ask, Don't Tell.

Tony is not your usual politician and we certainly have enough run-of-the mill pols in this town. I think he could bring an important perspective to Congress representing the district where he grew up.

There's more about Anthony Woods after the break.

He wrote a brief intro for us before we begin the chat, which I posted below. And, you can check out this interview I did with Tony in June.


Think of some questions...Tony was endorsed by the Bay Area Reporter today. And, here's the post from Tony:

It’s great to be back on Americablog today.

As many of you may know, on September 1st, there will be a Special Election in California’s 10th District to replace Ellen Tauscher, who recently resigned to become Undersecretary of State for International Security and Arms Control in the Obama Administration.

Tauscher’s departure has attracted a virtual swarm of career politicians from Sacramento in search of a promotion. I am not a Sacramento politician.

The 10th District is my home. I’m running for Congress because the issues at stake in this election---like the wars we’re fighting abroad, and the battles for universal healthcare and equality here at home, are personal to me. I know what it’s like when politicians fail, and I think to change those outcomes, we need more leaders who understand the challenges we’re facing from first hand experience in Washington.

I’m looking forward to chatting with you all about these and other issues today, but by way of background, here’s a little more about me.

I was born and raised on Travis Air Force Base in Fairfield, the son of a single mother who ran a small housekeeping business. For most of my life, I have been one of 47 million Americans without access to affordable health coverage.

I graduated from the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, and served two tours in Iraq as a platoon leader. I received a Bronze Star for my service but my greatest accomplishment was brining all 81 of my soldiers home.

After my second deployment, I went on to earn a Master’s Degree from Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government, and while preparing to continue my Army career and teach economics at West Point, I was discharged after challenging the “Don’t Ask Don’t Tell Policy.”

Since my discharge from the military, I’ve gone on to work as an Economic Policy analyst in both the public and private sectors.

Our campaign has been going extremely well. We’ve amassed a genuine grassroots army---both online, and on the ground in CA 10. We’ve won the endorsement of VoteVets.org, the Human Rights Campaign, the Victory Fund, the Veterans Press, and today, the Bay Area Reporter.

I’ll leave it there for now, and am looking forward to answering your questions.

You can learn much, much more about our campaign at at www.anthonywoodsforcongress.com, and if you like what you hear today, I hope you’ll consider making a contribution to our campaign.

My name is Anthony Woods, and I am excited to be with you all today.

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Obama health care forum

We're not terribly hopeful, but it is news. You can watch and decide for yourselves. We can't embed the video because because they made it too large for many blogs to embed. Watch it here. Starts at 230pm Eastern. Read More......

GOP attacks Obama for not being bipartisan enough

No one could have seen that one coming.

Former presidential candidate Mitt Romney said Thursday that Obama is struggling to get a health care bill because he has been too deferential to the liberal wing of his party. Romney, who may challenge Obama in 2012, said on CBS's "The Early Show" that "if the president wants to get something done, he needs to put aside the extreme liberal wing of his party."

So what have learned in the past 8 months?

1. Give the Republicans 40% of the stimulus package for wasteful tax cuts and they will:
a. Vote against the bill anyway;
b. Claim that you're the one who wasted all the money; and
c. Say that the bill isn't working, when their provisions were the only ones supposed to kick in immediately.

2. Unilterally cave on one of your biggest promises on health care reform and the GOP will:
a. Still claim that you're being partisan.
b. Still oppose anything you come up.
c. Vote against the bill anyway.

And actually, we learned all of this in the past eight years rather than eight months. Democrats tried for years to get the Bush White House to stop being mean to them. They caved on issue after issue, tried to out-war-on-terror the GOP by being more Bush than Bush. And what happened as a result? George Bush, Dick Cheney, Karl Rove and Rush Limbaugh still called the Democrats names and did everything they could to halt any Democratic initiative.

And now after everything Obama has done - or has refused to do - on health care reform, the GOP is claiming - surprise - that he hasn't done enough, and is in fact doing the exact opposite. Perhaps if Obama caves on a few more promises and betrays a few more Democratic constituencies, then the Republicans will stop throwing sand in his face. Read More......

Majority of Republicans believe health care bill will force elderly to decide how and when they will die

At some point, you have to come to terms with the fact that some people are unreachable, and you can't reach a bipartisan consensus with a rock. But just as troubling, the Republican party needs to do some serious soul-searching. They've become the party of far right, crazy, Bible-thumping, black helicopter-hating secessionists, with a bit of racism and homophobia thrown in for spice. Crazy is all they've got going for them, but there have to be a sizable chunk of folks on the right who are very uncomfortable of what his happening to their party. Read More......

Insurance companies want you to stop them before they kill again

Paul Waldman via C&L;:

"Illness doesn't care where you live," the narrator says sympathetically, "or if you're already sick, or if you lose your job. Your health insurance shouldn't either." The ad ends with the hope that "the words ‘pre-existing condition' [become] a thing of the past." So say the people who won't insure you if you have a pre-existing condition and who will cut you off if you get a serious illness. It's kind of like a gang of home invaders expressing the fervent hope that people will get better alarm systems and stronger deadbolts....

But here's a question: If the insurance companies have finally come to understand that it's wrong to kick people off their coverage when they get sick; and it's wrong to deny coverage to people who have previously been sick; and it's wrong to hide lifetime limits in the fine print, forcing people into bankruptcy if they face a serious illness; and it's wrong to discriminate against pregnant women and their families; why don't they stop doing these things? Like, how about today? Why are they waiting for Congress to outlaw their most abominable practices?

They won't do that, of course. They're hoping to squeeze every dollar they can out of patients in the current system, up until the last possible day they can. And things are going great for them at the moment. According to the Kaiser Family Foundation, the average premium for a family plan in 1999 was $5,791. By 2008, the average premium was $12,680. So over a decade in which inflation increased prices by 29 percent, the price of family health insurance went up 119 percent.

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Bend over and say ah

More David Sedaris on health care. Read More......

Ambinder: White House will reverse Obama's slump in polls by being even more bipartisan; Will bribe Dem members of Congress with pork to get votes

Marc Ambinder, who in the past has written a number of pieces that struck Joe and me as stories planted by the White House, has quite a doozy today. Apparently, Obama is going to go even more bipartisan, he's going to leave it to Congress to sell the public on his own campaign promises on health care reform, and he's going to buy votes on the health care bill.

1. The White House is finally worried that Obama's brand is being tarnished. Joe and I have written a lot lately about our concerns that Obama's constant caving on issues, and backtracking on promises, is damaging his brand. The White House is convinced that Obama's slipping approval numbers - he's down to 50%, and dropping - can be reversed by showing independents how bipartisan he truly is.

More worrisome, officials said, was the growing belief that Obama's brand is being tarnished. A new Pew poll shows that voters don't think Obama is working with Republican leaders, and that a plurality blame Republican leaders. They believe that Obama's favorability rating declines, largely from independents (and within that group, women), can be reversed if he reminds these voters of the bipartisan instincts in his bones.

You see, according to the polls, after caving on so many issues, including gay rights, giving the GOP 40% of the stimulus bill for tax cuts even though only 3 of them voted for it, and now abandoning the public option in health care reform while the GOP continues to oppose even co-ops, independents still don't believe that Obama is being bipartisan. So he's going to double up to be even more bipartisan.

What's next, switching parties?

2. The president still doesn't realize that he's now the president. He apparently thinks, according to White House officials, that he has no role in influencing the public debate on health care reform. It's all Congress. This is the same argument the White House is using to justify its inaction on Obama's gay rights promises - it's Congress' domain, not his.

Privately, White House aides have communicated to the House leadership that the onus on changing minds about the public plan is on Congress, not on the president.

Why is that? Why is the onus on Congress to change the public's mind on health care reform when we're doing health care reform because it was Obama's top priority for his entire presidency? The president has the bully pulpit, not Congress. Since when does the president abdicate responsibility on leading the nation towards specific policy goals? We are now seeing a trend whereby this White House refuses to take a position, refuses to take the lead, on issue after issue that during the campaign the president claimed he would fiercely advocate. The White House has decided that it's not worth sticking the president's neck out, using his political capital, on the number one priority of his entire presidency. (We saw some of this already yesterday.) That should give everyone pause.

3. Ambinder says that the White House is going to bribe individual Democratic members of Congress with pork projects in order to convince them to vote for the health care bill, even if it's gutted by "bipartisanship." That should do wonders for Obama's numbers.

Quietly, to secure and keep Democrats on board, the White House is going to bargain, providing inducements, like more money for favored projects, etc., in order to secure individual votes.

Here's a thought. If the president is going to bribe members of Congress to support his initiatives, then why not bribe them to support a good one? Why cave? I mean, we're already going to waste taxpayer money on pork projects in order to get a bill passed - so why not make it a good bill, the bill you promised? Read More......

Thursday Morning Open Thread

Good morning.

It's election day in Afghanistan. The Taliban has vowed to disrupt the elections and there has been some violence. They're not so down with democracy, as you might imagine.

The first t.v. ad from supporters of the campaign to save marriage equality in Maine is on the air.

Later today, around 3 PM Eastern/12 noon Pacific, we're going to be doing a live chat with Tony Woods, who is running for Congress in California's 10th Congressional District. There's an election on September 1st to fill the vacancy left by Ellen Tauscher. Tony's a West Point grad and Iraq vet, who got kicked out of the military because of Don't Ask, Don't Tell. Check out the interview I did with him earlier this summer -- and join the chat later today. Tony is a very impressive guy.

Obama is also doing a call today at 2 PM Eastern on health insurance reform. Maybe we'll get a clue about what the strategy is from the White House. Bottom line is that progressives in Congress are standing strong for the public option. And, progressives around the country are supporting them. The ActBlue page for to thank the members who are standing up for the public option keeps piling up. It's amazing. The D.C. pundit-types can't get their heads around the idea that we're fighting for good policy.

Let's get rolling... Read More......

FDIC folding under pressure by private equity?

We will know more next week but the heavy lobbying efforts by this wealthy special interest are likely to get results at the next FDIC meeting. Following the financial collapse and required bailout, is it critical that the government bends (again) to the wishes of this industry? Asking this industry to be properly capitalized hardly sounds like it should be a problem. Let them gamble their own money instead of always having the government helping hand there to bail out their gambles. Reuters:

The U.S. Federal Deposit Insurance Corp will meet next week to vote on a proposed policy that would force private equity groups to maintain high capital levels and put a large amount of their own money at stake when investing in failed banks.

The FDIC provoked a backlash when it proposed the guidelines in July and is expected to soften the policy when it meets Aug. 26. The meeting's agenda was posted to the FDIC website Wednesday, but provided few details on the specific proposals.

Some investors and regulators said earlier that the proposed rules were too harsh and would quash the interest of private equity groups at a time when the FDIC is trying to court investors for an increasing number of failed banks.

And the value of private equity groups is what? There's certainly a need for it but it's hardly a pivotal sector that requires special privileges. Read More......

Lockerbie bomber likely to be released

If this is indeed an oil rights deal I would be furious but even if it's not, this is wrong. I may be against the death penalty but I see no reason to show compassion to someone who lacked any compassion for the innocent victims.

The Libyan convicted of killing 270 people in the Lockerbie bombing is expected to be freed from jail on compassionate grounds tomorrow because he is now thought to be close to death, with prostate cancer that is aggressive and advanced.

Kenny Macaskill, the justice secretary for Scotland, will defy intense pressure from Hillary Clinton, the US secretary of state, to keep Abdelbaset al-Megrahi in jail. Tonight the Scottish government confirmed that an announcement would be made in Edinburgh at 1pm tomorrow, coinciding with news bulletins on the eastern seaboard of the US, home to many of the disaster victims.

Relatives of the 270 victims on both sides of the Atlantic were told by officials this evening that the announcement would be made to avoid American relatives waking up to discover Megrahi had been freed.

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Potential new problem related to plastic bags

They were convenient but they're too much of a problem everywhere. They won't go away and now scientists believe they are giving off potentially toxic substances. The Independent:

Until now it was thought that plastic rubbish is relatively stable chemically and, apart from being unsightly, its principle threat to living creatures came from its ability to choke or strangle any animals that either got caught in it or ingested it thinking it was food.

But the latest research suggests that plastic is also a source of dissolved substances that can easily become widely dispersed in the marine environment. Many of these chemicals are believed to toxic to humans and animals, the scientists said.

The scale of plastic pollution in the sea has only been widely recognised in recent years when sailing yachts reported vast areas of ocean, such as an area estimated to be twice the size of Texas in the North Pacific, that seem to be permanently covered in a layer of floating marine litter caught up in swirling ocean currents or gyres.

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DeLay Unsure Whether Obama Was Born In The U.S.: I Want To See His ‘Gift Certificate’

No matter how bad our guys get, their guys are always worse. Read More......