Gibbs Questioned on timeline for DOMA Repeal

He didn't have an answer.

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Blue whales returning to Alaska

That is fantastic news and encouraging to hear that the numbers are increasing. It's a far cry from the 350,000 a century ago but there is progress.

Blue whales are returning to Alaska in search of food and could be re-establishing an old migration route several decades after they were nearly wiped out by commercial whalers, scientists say.

The endangered whales, possibly the largest animals ever to live on Earth, have yet to recover from the worldwide slaughter that eliminated 99 percent of their number, according to the American Cetacean Society. The hunting peaked in 1931 with more than 29,000 animals killed in one season.

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BREAKING: Blue Cross trying to kill key plank of Obama health care plan

Well that didn't take long. Wasn't it just last week that the health insurance lobby pledged to work with President Obama to help rein in health care costs, as part of the overall health care reform effort? And now, just seven days later, Blue Cross insurance is going all out to kill a major plank in Obama's health care reform plan.

You'll recall that Blue Cross is the "insurance" that Joe and I both have. Joe's insurance just went up 25% this year. That's about how much mine has been going up for a few years now as well. As I've written before, funny, but Blue Cross' benefits don't go up that much each year. In fact, Blue Cross caps my prescription drug benefits at the same level they were at 14 years ago. In another decade I should be able to buy a Frappuccino with the value of my Blue Cross prescription drug benefits, after inflation. Blue Cross is the worst. Well, not the worst. They all stink. I remember my friend Michael, who had an HMO at the time, and was working on health care issues on the Hill, being told that he couldn't go to the emergency room, even though he was having trouble seeing in one eye that was scratched and now swelling shut, because all the folks at his HMO were at lunch. Seriously. They told him they were at lunch and he should call back later to see if he would be permitted to go the emergency room.

I remember how Blue Cross tried to screw my dying Spanish teacher in Chicago, Fernando Mendoza, and then tried to screw his wife after he died.

I remember how I tried to cut back on my health care expenses by buying drugs online, by buying generics, only to have Blue Cross make the process so impossibly hard, only to have Blue Cross's own staff be so totally incompetent, only to have Blue Cross refuse to let me use my insurance to purchase cheaper drugs online from Costco (supposedly because Blue Cross has a more-costly sweetheart deal with Walgreens).

Thieves.

And now Blue Cross is trying to kill the provision of Obama's plan that would give us the option to buy into some kind of public health care program. Why? So they can ensure that all of us still have to pay for their lousy insurance, so they can continue to milk us dry with 25% annual premium increases, so they can continue to let your prescription drug benefits wither away with the years.

Honestly, the government should look into regulating Blue Cross and its brethren as posing a danger to public health. We ought to be having a debate as to whether the government shuts down Blue Cross, or takes over its management, rather than whether Blue Cross gets the option to kill our only hope at getting real health care.

One final word. Blue Cross wants to play the socialism card, which is exactly what its new ads are doing sotto voce. They want to suggest that government involvement in health care is bad, like in Europe, as Blue Cross' Republican friends keep telling us? Okay, let's talk about health care in Europe. Let's talk about why France is number one in health care in the world. About how I went to the doctor to check on a chest cold I'd had for six weeks. About how I saw the doctor within 12 hours of requesting the appointment. About how my appointment cost me only 30 bucks. About how she told me I needed a chest X-Ray. About how I was able to make the appointment for the X-Ray four hours from when I called. About how I arrived and they had me in the X-Ray in three minutes after I arrived. About how in 15 minutes the doctor was diagnosing me. About how in 20 minutes, I walked out the door, X-Rays and diagnosis in hand, having paid only 40 euros (50 bucks) or so for the entire thing. About how the chest x-ray in the states would have cost me $400, and certainly wouldn't have happened four hours after I called, and I sure as hell wouldn't be permitted to waltz into the office and get the X-Ray three minutes after arriving.

Let's talk about how I called Blue Cross to find out if they'd cover my chest X-Ray - this was before I knew it was so cheap, the French doctor told me it was going to be "expensive." I spent almost half an hour on the phone with some idiot at Blue Cross - I was calling her from Paris, mind you - who could not figure out if they would cover my stupid chest X-Ray while I was in France. Nice lady, but a blithering idiot. I finally gave up, after nearly half an hour, and figured I'd take my chances and just pay the bill anyway - better option than getting pneumonia.

I've been through American health care. I've done my time at Georgetown Hospital (truly a horror show). I'm only 45 years old and I already have enough minor health care problems that Blue Cross cut my prescription coverage off last year at the beginning of November. God forbid if I live another ten, fifteen years. What new ways will Blue Cross find to torture me then?

America can't afford to have people like Blue Cross deciding if we live or die. Enough is enough. If these pigs are going to try to Harry and Louise health care reform again, then the groups running this battle, and the administration, need to take Blue Cross down. It's time to stop playing nice. It's time to stop doing what Washington politicians and Washington non-profits always do. It's time to play hardball. Blue Cross and its ilk either need to help us pass this legislation, or we need to take them down, hard. Read More......

The GOP is shrinking across every demographic (except one)

Gallup broke down the shrinking Republican Party:

The decline in Republican Party affiliation among Americans in recent years is well documented, but a Gallup analysis now shows that this movement away from the GOP has occurred among nearly every major demographic subgroup. Since the first year of George W. Bush's presidency in 2001, the Republican Party has maintained its support only among frequent churchgoers, with conservatives and senior citizens showing minimal decline.

Almost all heading in the negative direction:

The age losses don't bode well for the GOP. The party of NO has no future.

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The right wing's blatant misogyny

This video from Media Matters puts the recent right wing hysteria into perspective:

Frankly, I think Pelosi is tougher than all of them. But, this kind of talk is beyond the pale. Read More......

Is Geithner serious about his job or the economy?

Is Obama? It's unthinkable that such a critical area has been ignored for so long. If either Obama or Geithner are serious about fixing the economy this should be a top priority. Geithner doesn't give the impression that he full appreciates the seriousness of the situation. GM's fired CEO Richard Wagoner is still on the payroll while Timmy huddles with his closest friends that he dragged down rom Wall Street. What is he thinking?

Wagoner's removal has been held up because senior Treasury officials have yet to decide whether he should get the $20 million severance package that the company had promised him.

The delay is one of many hitches that have slowed a host of important policy actions in the four months since Timothy F. Geithner became Treasury secretary. While Geithner has taken dramatic steps to address flashpoints in the economy, the work of carrying out those policies has bogged down because critical decisions about how to do so aren't being made, interviews with a broad range of federal officials show.

Government officials, inside the Treasury and out, say the unresolved issues are piling up in part because of vacancies in the department's top ranks. But some of the officials also cite the Treasury's ad-hoc management, which is dominated by a small band of Geithner's counselors who coordinate rescue initiatives but lack formal authority to make decisions. Heavy involvement by the White House in Treasury affairs has further muddied the picture of who is responsible for key issues, the officials add.

It was somewhat understandable a few months ago. Not great, but they were the early days. Four months in, it's well past annoying and falls into the category of just plain stupid category. While there have been some encouraging signs, the negatives are much greater with Geithner and there is little to suggest he will ever turn things around. Read More......

Something fun you can do on the blog

When we relaunched the updated blog a few months ago we added a small feature that I think is kind of cool. It's a map that shows the last 100 visitors to the blog. Currently, you can find this function at the top of the next column (I move it around from time to time). You'll see that it's a small map of the world. The dots on it represent the last 100 visitors to the blog (we get several thousand visitors an hour, so you're seeing the people who visited the blog in the past 2 minutes or so:



And before anyone worries about privacy, that train left the station a long time ago. Every Web site you visit already has this information on you. Fortunately, they don't necessarily know WHO you are or exactly WHERE you are, but they can figure that out too, if they're smart. Anyway, back to the fun stuff, you can click the image of the world and it will open a page where you can look at the detailed information about where everyone is coming from:



And then if you really want to get creepy, you can zoom in and see where the visitor is getting their local Internet service from (it's not where the person physically is, but rather where their local Internet service is coming from (more or less)):



And here's a look at the recent visitors from the US, Canada and Mexico - and some loser apparently reading our blog while on vacation in Cancun :-)

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More GOP Cheney bashing

From Greg Sargent:

The latest: GOP strategist Ed Rollins, who smacked Cheney on Friday night in a little noticed comment on CNN. “Well, he’s giving [the GOP] a voice, defending what he has done and I think to a certain extent that’s his right,” Rollins said, according to Nexis. But he added:

“He’s not helping the Republican Party long-term because we need to look forward, we don’t need to look back…the bottom line is, we need to move forward.”

Elsewhere in the interview, Rollins appeared to show frustration about this problem during a heated exchange with Dem strategist Robert Zimmerman, exhorting that “you got to forget George Bush. George Bush is gone.”

Of course, what's interesting is that both new Republicans (those who want to reach out to moderates and get away from the conservatives) and old Republicans (the conservatives) distance themselves from Bush. But not from Cheney. The conservatives still like Cheney. Ironically, they probably think that Cheney didn't have enough influence in the Bush administration, and that's why Bush didn't do so well - if only he'd been more true to conservative principles... That the GOP civil war/bloodletting has now moved in the direction of Cheney is quite interesting. Of course, Cheney invited it, with his unusual grandstanding as a recently ex-VP. Read More......

Michael Steele's strategy to reach young voters: Oppose gay marriage for "business" reasons

Yeah, because nothing says today's youth like talking about how you can save money by bashing gays. No, Mr. Steele, youth in the early 80s might have been willing to bash gays for money - maybe - but not today. You don't win back moderate voters by figuring out new ways to justify your hate and intolerance of minorities.

From AP via TowleRoad:

"Steele said that was just an example of how the party can retool its message to appeal to young voters and minorities without sacrificing core conservative principles. Steele said he used the argument weeks ago while chatting on a flight with a college student who described herself as fiscally conservative but socially liberal on issues like gay marriage. 'Now all of a sudden I've got someone who wasn't a spouse before, that I had no responsibility for, who is now getting claimed as a spouse that I now have financial responsibility for,' Steele told Republicans at the state convention in traditionally conservative Georgia. 'So how do I pay for that? Who pays for that? You just cost me money.'''

I understand that ending slavery cost southern plantations a lot of money too. Read More......

"If it's 2012 and our party is defined by Palin and Limbaugh and Cheney, then we're headed for a blowout."

Wow, now GOP strategists are equating Sarah Palin with Limbaugh and Cheney, and not in a good way. There may be some hope for the Republicans yet, if people are finally starting to speak out against the "conservatives."

The Republican strategist who helped Utah Gov. Jon Huntsman prepare for a possible presidential run says the Republican party is in for a devastating defeat if its guiding lights are Sarah Palin, Rush Limbaugh and Dick Cheney. "If it's 2012 and our party is defined by Palin and Limbaugh and Cheney, then we're headed for a blowout," says strategist John Weaver, who advised Huntsman and was for years a close adviser to Sen. John McCain. "That's just the truth."

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Republicans on Obama's Supreme Court pick: “Elections have consequences; he won.”

I don't often agree with Republicans. Rarely, in fact. But, today, two of them (not for attribution, of course) actually acknowledged the political reality the GOP is facing in the upcoming Supreme Court nomination battle:

A senior Republican Senate official not connected to Mr. Sessions said, “Everyone up here can see the political pieces on the board.” The official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity in order to discuss the situation candidly, added, “No one is talking about the possibility of defeating any nominee, barring something coming out of left field.”

The official said that not only did Democrats have command of the committee and a strong majority in the Senate, but that any nomination would also come at a time when the president’s public standing was high.

A second top Republican Senate aide, also not connected to Mr. Sessions, said, referring to Mr. Obama, “Elections have consequences; he won.”

Now, if only the Senate Democrats could come to the same conclusion, we'd be doing a lot better up there on Capitol Hill.

The Senate Republicans will play a political game on the nomination -- to appease their base. They did the same thing on the confirmation of Kathleen Sebelius. But, they've lost already. Elections do have consequences. Read More......

Republicans love Cheney (when it's on-the-record)

Last week, several Republicans told the Washington Post (off-the-record) how the re-emergence of Dick Cheney as the leader of the GOP was making them queasy -- and they're afraid of him:

That is why his high-profile defense of controversial Bush administration policies has caused queasiness among Republican political strategists. But Cheney remains powerful enough that most of his GOP critics are not willing to take him on in public. "The fact that most people want to talk [without attribution] shows what a problem it continues to be," said one Republican strategist who spoke on the condition of anonymity in order to be candid. "Cheney continues to be a force among many members of our base, and while he is entirely unhelpful, no one has the standing to show him the door."

So from the safety of off-the-record, Republicans trash talk Cheney. On-the-record is a different story.

Yesterday, on the talk shows, we saw the RNC Chair and the leader of the GOP in the House sing the praises of their leader, Dick Cheney:

Republican leaders on Sunday backed Dick Cheney’s attacks on President Barack Obama, calling the former vice president a strong asset for the party.

"It doesn't hurt us, it helps us,” House Minority Leader John Boehner said on CNN’s “State of the Union," calling Cheney a “big member in our party.”

Republican National Committee Chairman Michael Steele meanwhile dismissed a report from the Washington Post’s Dan Balz claiming Republicans “wince” at Cheney’s newfound desire for the limelight.

“There was no wincing here, the vice president expressed his view,” Steele said on NBC’s “Meet the Press.”

None of the GOPers dare to stand up to Dick Cheney. Dick Cheney is a friend of Rush -- and Rush is a friend of Dick. That combo makes Republicans quiver.

So, I'll ask this question again:

How could we trust Republicans to keep our nation safe when they can't protect their own party from Dick Cheney?

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Monday Morning Open Thread

Good morning.

A new week begins.

The Prime Minister of Israel, Benjamin Netanyahu, is in D.C. today to meet with Barack Obama. They'll be talking Mideast peace and Iran. (Iran has become a major powerhouse in that region because of George Bush and Dick Cheney's war in Iraq.)

Congress will be out next week for the Memorial Day recess. Obama keeps saying he wants to sign the credit card reform bill before Memorial Day. The bill passed the House. The Senate is working through it. But, the credit card industry is VERY powerful -- and has lots of influence over Senators (and many don't seem to care that we know.) Maybe a good bill will pass the Senate. Maybe gouging will continue. Let's see how bad the White House wants the legislation...

And, let's get this week rolling... Read More......

Richard Branson to challenge banks

For all of those wobbly-kneed status quo types who are afraid to take on the banks, read on. Massive failures as we have today from big banks will always create new opportunities for someone else. Always. In the UK it is retailer Tesco and now Richard Branson who are keen to step in and create rival banks to take on the old boy network who probably also play tennis with their Treasury chief. Branson has always enjoyed a good fight against the large players in an industry so this should turn out to be another success for everyone, consumers included. Why not in the US too?

Richard Branson is to launch an internet bank in a move designed to exploit public disgust with Britain's big banks in the wake of the credit crunch.

Branson follows Tesco, which is also planning to capitalise on disenchantment with traditional banking via a big push into financial services.

The entrepreneur will act through his Virgin Money subsidiary, which is headed by Jayne-Anne Gadhia, a former boss of RBS's mortgage division and marketing director of Norwich Union.

Virgin Money is understood to be poised to apply for a banking licence from the Financial Services Authority to allow it to take deposits and offer mortgages for the first time. Branson is talking to US investment banks and other investors about financial backing.

If only someone in the US was allowed to create a viable competitor. No, then we might have competition and then what would we do? Read More......

Study: CCTV not as effective as previously believed

The British are much more of a surveillance society than any Western democracy and have invested heavily into CCTV. It's been a helpful tool in identifying people quickly though in terms of actual prevention, there is none. Adding CCTV to a new location is easy but monitoring everything is much more resource intensive and it will never replace feet on the street. For me it's always creepy to think about how many times per days I'm being picked up on CCTV while visiting the UK. Researchers estimate the average person is picked up 300 times per day. What ever happened to privacy?

The review of 44 research studies on CCTV schemes by the Campbell Collaboration found that they do have a modest impact on crime overall but are at their most effective in cutting vehicle crime in car parks, especially when used alongside improved lighting and the introduction of security guards.

The authors, who include Cambridge University criminologist, David Farrington, say while their results lend support for the continued use of CCTV, schemes should be far more narrowly targeted at reducing vehicle crime in car parks.

Results from a 2007 study in Cambridge which looked at the impact of 30 cameras in the city centre showed that they had no effect on crime but led to an increase in the reporting of assault, robbery and other violent crimes to the police.

Home Office ministers cited the review last week in their official response to the critical report from the House of Lords constitution committee on surveillance published earlier this year. The peers warned that the steady expansion of the "surveillance society", including the spread of CCTV, risked undermining fundamental freedoms, including the right to privacy.

The privacy issue somehow slipped away years ago and for what? There is no perfect solution but CCTV is so invasive and the return is not there to substantiate the high cost. Read More......

Tony Blair wins achievement award

Normally one might have to actually achieve something but then again, one would normally have to be a banker to make seven figures a year from a bank, but not Tony. The Guardian:

Tony Blair last night received the $1m Dan David prize for leadership at a ceremony at Tel Aviv university, a prize awarded for "achievements having an outstanding scientific, technological, cultural or social impact on our world."

Blair's office said 90% of the money from the prize – which is named after the international businessman and philanthropist Dan David – would be donated to the Tony Blair faith foundation that promotes religious understanding, by bringing together young people of different faiths across the world to learn directly with, from and about each other.

The former prime minister has been envoy to the Quartet of the EU, the US, Russia and the UN, for the past two years, putting him at the heart of negotiations over one of the world's most intractable conflicts. One of the flagship causes he has championed can be found on the northern edge of the Palestinian city of Jenin, on the occupied West Bank.

A million bucks? Bah! Pocket change for the old boy and possibly even insulting it's so small. Read More......