Daily Kos

At Climate Progress, Joe Romm critiques a bad headline on a good story:

Headlines are important because research shows that most newspaper readers don’t get much beyond them. And NY Times headlines sweep across the internet through twitter, facebook, news aggregators and search engines.  Probably 10 to 50 times as many people see the headlines as read any substantial portion of the story.

So when The New York Times publishes a front-page piece eviscerating Dr. Richard Lindzen and his “discredited” theory—the NYT’s word—that the cloud feedback could somehow save us from catastrophic global warming, it ought to have a better headline than “Clouds’ Effect on Climate Change Is Last Bastion for Dissenters.”

Even worse, the heavily-trafficked front page of the NY Times website has this teaser for the piece:

Again, far more people are going to read this teaser—written by the editors, not the reporter—than actually read the story. What they are going to come away with is the notion that climate skeptics aka deniers aka disinformers have legitimate arguments that might “save us.”

Obviously nothing could be further from the truth, especially when it comes to the discredited Dr. Lindzen. As the article notes:

When Dr. Lindzen first published this theory, in 2001, he said it was supported by satellite records over the Pacific Ocean. But other researchers quickly published work saying that the methods he had used to analyze the data were flawed and that his theory made assumptions that were inconsistent with known facts. Using what they considered more realistic assumptions, they said they could not verify his claims.

Today, most mainstream researchers consider Dr. Lindzen’s theory discredited. He does not agree, but he has had difficulty establishing his case in the scientific literature. Dr. Lindzen published a paper in 2009 offering more support for his case that the earth’s sensitivity to greenhouse gases is low, but once again scientists identified errors, including a failure to account for known inaccuracies in satellite measurements. [...]

I get that even the NY Times is under pressure to write headlines that will appeal to the most people, headlines that suggest controversy and dispute. But such headlines are inappropriate for articles whose actual content does not reflect controversy and dispute. It is time for the paper to review its headline policy, at least on climate, and, I think, give reporters some sort of a veto power.

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Blast from the Past. At Daily Kos on this date in 2004:

Seymour Hersh asks [How Far Up Does The Responsibility Go? (for Abu Ghraib) in his New Yorker piece. It's a question that has to be answered. So does the question about what we do about it. A slap on the wrist won't do.

Karpinski was rarely seen at the prisons she was supposed to be running, Taguba wrote. He also found a wide range of administrative problems, including some that he considered "without precedent in my military career." The soldiers, he added, were "poorly prepared and untrained . . . prior to deployment, at the mobilization site, upon arrival in theater, and throughout the mission."

General Taguba spent more than four hours interviewing Karpinski, whom he described as extremely emotional: "What I found particularly disturbing in her testimony was her complete unwillingness to either understand or accept that many of the problems inherent in the 800th MP Brigade were caused or exacerbated by poor leadership and the refusal of her command to both establish and enforce basic standards and principles among its soldiers."

This is rapidly becoming an international PR disaster here, here, and here (that last bit about civilians in Fallujah... once you're seen as flouting Geneva conventions, expect criticism about everything else you do, too), not just for Bush (he's disgusted) but for Tony Blair (he's appalled). I will assume it's the military as well who is horrified to hear about this, as are conservatives, as are we. Maybe for the same reasons, maybe not, but no matter.

Okay, but what are they going to do about it? That's where the true test of leadership lies. Put up or shut up, fellas. And quickly. The whole world is watching.

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High Impact Posts. Top Comments. Overnight News Digest.

Reposted from Daily Kos Elections by Steve Singiser

For the first time, we get both uniform movement and results from the pair of daily tracking polls (Gallup and Rasmussen). Both of them edged incrementally in the direction of the president, and both polls also showed exactly the same result: a 46-46 tie between Barack Obama and Mitt Romney.

Normally, that kind of consensus would seem to make an ironclad case that these polls are in the fairway of providing an accurate picture of the state of the presidential campaign. There is still enough contrary data out there, however, to make us wonder.

First, the numbers:

(GOP) PRESIDENTIAL PRIMARY POLLING (yes...again!):

NORTH CAROLINA (SurveyUSA): Romney 55, Santorum 15, Paul 12, Gingrich 11

PRESIDENTIAL GENERAL ELECTION TRIAL HEATS:

NATIONAL (Gallup Tracking): Obama tied with Romney (46-46)

NATIONAL (PPP for Daily Kos/SEIU): Obama d. Romney (49-44)

NATIONAL (Rasmussen Tracking): Obama tied with Romney (46-46)

NORTH CAROLINA (SurveyUSA): Obama d. Romney (47-43)

VIRGINIA (PPP): Obama d. Romney (51-43); Obama d. Paul (50-39); Obama d. Gingrich (53-37)

WEST VIRGINIA (RL Repass and Partners): Romney d. Obama (54-37)

DOWNBALLOT POLLING:

KY-06 (Mellman Group for Chandler): Rep. Ben Chandler (D) 54, Andy Barr (R) 30

MT-AL (PPP): Steve Daines (R) 33, Kim Gillan (D) 27; Daines 36, Franke Willmer (D) 25

MT-AL—D (PPP): Kim Gillan 21, Diane Smith 13, Franke Willmer 11, Dave Strohmaier 9, Sam Rankin 4, Rob Stutz 1

MT-SEN (PPP): Sen. Jon Tester (D) 48, Denny Rehberg (R) 43

NV-SEN (Rasmussen): Sen. Dean Heller (R) 51, Shelley Berkley (D) 40

NC-GOV—D (SurveyUSA): Walter Dalton 32, Bob Etheridge 23, Gary Dunn 5, Bill Faison 5, Gardenia Henley 3, Bruce Blackmon 2

NC-GOV—R (SurveyUSA): Pat McCrory 65, Jim Harney 3, Scott Jones 3, Charles Kenneth Moss 3, Jim Mahan 2, Paul Wright 2

NC—ANTI-MARRIAGE EQUALITY AMENDMENT (PPP): Yes 55, No 41

NC—ANTI-MARRIAGE EQUALITY AMENDMENT (SurveyUSA): Yes 57, No 37

WV-GOV (RL Repass and Partners): Gov. Earl Ray Tomblin (D) 60, Bill Maloney (R) 32

WV-SEN (RL Repass and Partners): Sen. Joe Manchin (D) 74, John Raese (R) 22

A few thoughts, as always, await you just past the jump...

This is likely the biggest non-issue to come up in a Senate campaign this cycle. Massachusetts Democrat and Senate candidate Elizabeth Warren has Native American heritage. She identified this heritage in a directory of law schools, and was listed as a member of a minority group.

In the 1990s, Harvard listed her as a minority faculty member "to counteract criticism that its faculty was too white and too male." The Scott Brown campaign has seized upon all this with a bizarre set of criticisms: first, doubting that she really does have Native American heritage, and then blasting her for using it to take advantage of affirmative action programs.

There's a problem with that, though, because:

[O]fficials involved in her hiring at Harvard, the University of Pennsylvania, the University of Texas and the University of Houston Law Center all said that she was hired because she was an outstanding teacher, and that her lineage was either not discussed or not a factor.

“To suggest that she needed some special advantage to be hired here or anywhere is just silly,” said Jay Westbrook, chairman of business law at the University of Texas.

Desperate much, Scott Brown? He's going to have to settle on a narrative here. He's trying to claim both that Warren is an elitist egghead and that she's not enough of an egghead to get a job on the merits, but had to rely on affirmative action. And is he really concerned that she's somehow exploiting Native Americans, claiming heritage she isn't entitled to, or is he damning the programs that could benefit them?

Or is he just flailing wildly to try to find an issue that distracts from the myriad of problems Brown is going to have trying to sell himself as the people's candidate instead of Wall Street's candidate?

Don't let this kind of bullshit go unanswered. Please, contribute $5 to Elizabeth Warren on Orange to Blue.

Today's award for totally clueless Democrats who want the Very Serious People to love them is a tie: former Lousiana Sen. John Breaux, and Alice Rivlin, the former head of the White House's Office of the Management and Budget in the Clinton administration. They say Democrats are ready and waiting to go along with Rep. Paul Ryan's plan to end Medicare as we know it, they're just waiting until after the election to do it.

WASHINGTON -- Democrats who are staking the 2012 election in part on the charge that Republicans will "end Medicare as we know it" likely will join in on that transformation once the election is over, according to high-powered lobbyist John Breaux, a Democrat and former senator from Louisiana.

"You're going to have to get past Nov. 5 or whenever the election is," Breaux told reporters after a Friday House hearing on "premium support," which is at the heart of Republican Rep. Paul Ryan's Medicare reform plan -- that Democrats equate with ending Medicare. [...]

Rivlin, who also testified Friday, recently told The Huffington Post that Democrats "are lying, not to put too fine a point on it," when they say that premium support will end Medicare. Her vision (watch her explain it here), like Breaux's, includes aggressive oversight meant to ensure Medicare survives. [...]

"People are starting to realize that you have to start in the center," Breaux added. "I'm hearing talk from members about that; I think they're open. Max Baucus on the Senate Finance Committee is a type of centrist that can help put together a deal like this. And Orrin Hatch, after the elections."

That's ever so helpful, Breaux and Rivlin, in helping Democrats in this election. Of course, they don't want to help Democrats, because even though that's what they call themselves, it would just be far too nasty and partisan of them to not trash their party in public.

This is how these so called centrist Democrats, including Rep. Steny Hoyer and Sen. Kent Conrad, like to work. Either turn the decision-making over to some unelected, unaccountable commission (preferably with actual power) and have them make the critical decisions about the economic future of every middle-class and low-income American behind closed doors. Alternatively, have a bunch of lame duck Congress members who won't be back next term and who also aren't accountable to their constituents do the dirty work.

Our job is to tell them no backroom deals on Medicare or Social Security.

John Bolton:

I think what offends people is that instead of recognizing it as a national triumph and having everybody share in it, that the [...] administration has tried to make it look like the president did everything [...] That's what I find most objectionable. [...] I think it's unpresidential [...] and beneath the dignity of the office [...]

Really?

Reposted from Daily Kos Labor by Meteor Blades It shouldn't be news to anyone that when lots of people are unemployed, it's tough getting a raise or getting a job that pays as well as a previous one before the lay-offs happened. After all, there was a guy a century and a half ago who talked rather extensively about the negative impact of the "reserve army of the unemployed." Negative, that is, for workers. For employers, a large reservoir of out-of-work people instills fear in those who still have a job: Don't ask for more money, do whatever the boss says even if it's wrong or unfair, don't talk about starting a union and do put up with all kinds of impositions nobody should put up with because there is always a hungry guy ready to take your place if you get too uppity.

Despite the official end of the recession, the situation for workers remains tough. At last count, there was an average of 3.7 job-seekers for every job opening and some 25 million Americans were unemployed or underemployed. That's the acute problem. But one of the chronic problems underlying it is the tremendous number of workers who earn low wages who have seen their benefits ever more reduced over the past couple decades and who have no collective bargaining power with which to change these two facts of life. Those low wages aren't just low; their buying power is less than it was four-and-a-half decades ago.

At the Economic Policy Institute, Rebecca Thiess has analyzed the future of work and come to a number of both obvious and not so obvious conclusions. In a nutshell, she says, government policy directed toward creating access to good jobs for low-wage workers will accomplish more if it isn't focused so much on raising educational levels or upgraded job skills and more on doing something about the buying power of the minimum wage, loss of health and retirement benefits, and the loss of workers' bargaining power.

Contrary to the conventional wisdom, her analysis showed that:

...the education and training levels projected to be necessary for the labor force of 2020 shows that jobs will not require a significantly greater level of education or training than workers currently possess. Therefore, a simple increase in the share of workers with a college degree will not ensure that tomorrow’s economy generates better and more equitable outcomes than today’s economy.

Fact is, the workforce currently contains a much larger share of workers with at least a college degree than the projections indicate are needed for 2020.

What will produce more equitable outcomes?

Workers of the future, particularly low-wage workers, will only experience rising living standards if the policy status quo is replaced by more-progressive tax and transfer policies, increases in the real value of the minimum wage, a reversal of falling unionization rates, an expansion (and definitely not a retrenchment) of publicly financed social insurance programs, and, crucially, a real commitment to full employment.

Yes, a real commitment to full employment. Improving the wage situation depends on improving the job situation. The government can and should provide an assist. A first step ought to be raising the minimum wage to at least parity with its 1968 buying power. As my colleague Laura Clawson pointed out here last week, the United States is a low-wage nation when compared with other developed countries:

The growing prevalence of low-wage work in the United States contributes to income inequality from the bottom, just as the increasing wealth of the top 1 percent, and especially the top 0.1 percent, adds to inequality from the top. The middle is a shrinking place, and you can bet that, without a major shift of economic and political direction, its future is not only to shrink but to be be squeezed downward.

Policies can change that, just as it has in those other developed countries. But first there must be the will to propose such policies, and then the willingness to fight without retreat against those who benefit from the current situation.

Like a a couple of million other American families Sen. Scott Brown's family has been helped by the Affordable Care Act by being able to keep his 23 year old daughter on his Senate health insurance plan. But he's probably among very few of those millions who want to take it away and might be in a position to do so.

Brown said the extended use of his congressional coverage is not inconsistent with his criticism of the federal law, enacted over his objection after he won a special election in 2010, because the same coverage could be required by individual states.

On the campaign trail this year, Brown has said he still wants to repeal the law, which he argues is inferior to the health care law enacted by Massachusetts in 2006.

“I’ve said right from the beginning, that if there are things that we like, we should take advantage of them and bring them back here to Massachusetts,’’ the senator said.

Massachusetts just happens to be one of the states that has extended that option, though it's not as comprehensive as the ACA, and Brown voted for those reforms when he was in the state senate. But it's very convenient for Brown now. His daughter could still be covered if he gets his political way and helps repeal Obamacare, but other people's adult children are shit out of luck.

How very Republican of him.

Let's get him out of the Senate. Chip in $5 to Elizabeth Warren's campaign.

First Mitt Romney tried to get the Obama campaign to stop talking about Romney's error in judgment on entering Pakistan to get bin Laden. Then he knuckled under, cried uncle, and praised the president for killing him. Now Romney is explaining himself by saying he only meant that then-Sen. Obama shouldn't have made his position on a major foreign policy matter clear to the public:

“I said that very clearly in the response that I made, but that I thought — and many people believed as I did — that it was naive on the part of the president at that time, the candidate, to say he would go in to Pakistan. It was a, if you will, fragile and flammable time in Pakistan and I thought it was a mistake of him … to announce that he would do this.”

He's alluding to his support for former Pakistani President Musharraff:

We do not go out and say to a nation which is working with us, where we have collaborated and they are our friend and we’re trying to support Musharraf and strengthen him and his nation, that instead that we intend to go in there and potentially bring out a unilateral attack.

This is another dumb foreign policy blunder on Romney's part. Especially considering what we have seen take place in Pakistan since 2007.

Musharraf, the guy whom Romney said we should support, was subsequently run out of the country under an oncoming impeachment for suspicion of assassinating Benazir Bhutto and other violations of Pakistan's constitution. He is now exiled in London. There is an outstanding warrant for his arrest that Pakistan has forwarded to Interpol.

What Romney is saying is that President Obama shouldn't have announced he would strike unilaterally into Pakistan because it would have damaged relations with Musharraf. In the political turmoil swirling in Pakistan at that time, his decision was to side with the guy that was subsequently run out of the country and remains a fugitive on the lam.

By contrast, what did candidate Obama say about Musharraf at that time?

Musharraf resigned on Aug. 18, 2008, rather than face imminent impeachment proceedings, and two days later Sen. Barack Obama issued a bit of an I-told-you-so.

"I argued for years that we need to move from a 'Musharraf policy' to a 'Pakistan policy,'" Obama said in a speech before the Veterans of Foreign Wars National Convention on Aug. 19. "We must move beyond an alliance built on mere convenience or a relationship with one man. Now, with President Musharraf's resignation, we have the opportunity to do just that. That's why I've co-sponsored a bill to triple nonmilitary aid to the Pakistani people, while ensuring that the military assistance we do provide is used to take the fight to the Taliban and al-Qaida in the tribal regions of Pakistan."

In summary, Romney says we shouldn't have said out loud we would go after Osama bin Laden with or without Pakistan's permission because doing so would hurt Musharraff. But considering how things played out with Musharraff, President Obama's comments were actually exactly the thing that should have been said under Romney's own logic. President Obama insisted on being neutral on Pakistan's internal politics while Romney supported propping up a doomed dictator.

Romney's clarification of his comments about entering Pakistan only serves to highlight how wrong his judgment was on an important foreign policy matter.

President Obama will address the nation tonight from Afghanistan, discussing the new strategic partnership agreement signed today between the U.S. and Afghanistan, honoring the troops that have served in the conflict, and marking the one year anniversary of the death of Osama bin Laden.

The partnership agreement will call for Afghan forces to take over complete control of security by the end of 2014, effectively ending the war. Any U.S. forces remaining after that point will be limited to training and anti-terrorism, a category that could end up becoming a loophole.

Obama will remind the country that an additional 23,000 troops will leave Afghanistan by the end of the summer, after which Obama will be faced with another decision about drawdowns. For context, there are currently 88,000 U.S. troops in Afghanistan. In December, 2008, there were just over 38,000 U.S. troops there.

We'll track the speech as it develops and post the remarks as prepared when they are available for posting. Watch in the video at the top of this post and join the conversation in the comment thread below.

4:28 PM PT: They put a lot of thought into the backdrop—no Mission Accomplished banners, but President Obama will be speaking in front of a flag adorned armored vehicle.

4:28 PM PT: Here's a screen capture of the staging:

4:34 PM PT: Right out of the gate, Obama makes it clear he wants this to be seen as the speech defining the end of the war in Afghanistan: "A future in which war ends," he says.

4:36 PM PT: That future will be at least 13 years after 9/11. Obama notes one of the reasons it took so long is the misguided war in Iraq. But it is now "within our reach" to defeat al Qaeda. "Tonight I would like to tell you how we will complete our mission and end the war in Afghanistan."

4:36 PM PT: After this summer's drawdown of another 23,000 troops, "reductions will continue at a steady pace, with more and more of our troops coming home."

4:39 PM PT: No U.S. military bases after 2014 will remaining Afghanistan.

4:39 PM PT: The tightrope President Obama's walking:

As we move forward, some people will ask why we need a firm timeline. The answer is clear: our goal is not to build a country in America’s image, or to eradicate every vestige of the Taliban. These objectives would require many more years, many more dollars, and many more American lives. Our goal is to destroy al Qaeda, and we are on a path to do exactly that. Afghans want to fully assert their sovereignty and build a lasting peace. That requires a clear timeline to wind down the war.

Others will ask why we don’t leave immediately. That answer is also clear: we must give Afghanistan the opportunity to stabilize. Otherwise, our gains could be lost, and al Qaeda could establish itself once more. And as Commander-in-Chief, I refuse to let that happen.

4:42 PM PT: I've added the remarks as prepared below the fold.

4:46 PM PT: I'm not normally a sap, but the end of this speech moved me:

This time of war began in Afghanistan, and this is where it will end. With faith in each other and our eyes fixed on the future, let us finish the work at hand, and forge a just and lasting peace. May God bless our troops. And may God bless the United States of America.

2.5 years—the end of 2014—is too long for me, and I think it's urgent that the drawdowns be accelerated as much as possible, but this statement—that Afghanistan where the war started and where it will end, gives me hope that finally this national nightmare will be over.

4:50 PM PT: Oh, and yeah, re: Mitt Romney. Can you imagine him pulling that off? Didn't think so. But he tried to make the most of being overshadowed by Obama by leaking the news about how he wouldn't stand up for a gay staffer who ended up resigning.

Oh-so-very-eager not to politicize 9/11, and saying it was "inappropriate" of the Obama team to take credit for the killing of Osama bin Laden in an election year, on Tuesday, Mitt Romney joined another guy who has been careful not to politicize the worst terror attack in U.S. history, former New York City Mayor Rudy Guiliani. They arrived at Engine 24, Ladder 5, Battalion 2, a firehouse in Manhattan that lost 11 firefighters in the 2001 attacks.

The all-but-crowned GOP presidential nominee arrived with pizzas. He paid the Greenwich Village pizza-maker in cash, $136, including tip. Quite the non-politicized photo op on a day unconnected to the 9/11 attack other than its being the anniversary of the death of the man behind all those deaths that terrible day.

If the firefighters were wondering as they downed their slices what kind of president Romney might make, they could take a look at his record as governor of Massachusetts:

During Romney’s tenure, cuts to local aid resulted in about 500-700 police officers being taken off the streets, according to a survey in 2007 by Deval Patrick’s campaign. Cuts that hit teachers, firefighters, police offices, and librarians – constituencies from which the Democrats usually draw their base – led to the laying off of about 14,500 workers in total over the course of Romney’s term.

During his first year in office, in an attempt to streamline the Massachusetts budget, Romney proposed expanding the state's legal definition of a manager, a move that would make thousands of government workers illegal for union benefits.

The move was described as “complete union busting," by the National Association of Government Employees. The 12,000-member Professional Firefighters of Massachusetts said it would result with 1/3 of their members losing union protection. [...]

"During his last year in office Romney vetoed about $2.5 million dollars for fire safety equipment, a veto that was unanimously overridden in the Massachusetts’ House and Senate.

Thank goodness for some good news. The beleaguered public sector can expect a bigger pizza budget from a Romney presidency. Hold the onions.

American Family Association director Bryan Fischer is known for his rabidly, head-spinningly anti-gay conspiracy theories—none of which seem to get him booted from media Rolodexes, when they need someone from "the right" to say anti-gay things on television. He was on CNN just last week railing about Richard Grenell, the openly gay Romney adviser who had to resign from the Romney campaign due to those conservative attacks:

During the segment this morning, Fischer said, “you cannot separate religious liberty from the issue of the homosexual agenda. In fact, the homosexual agenda represents the single greatest threat to religious liberty and association in America today.” [...]

“My complaint about Governor Romney all the way along is not that he’s Mormon, but he’s not Mormon enough,” Fischer told Phillips. “The Mormon Church believes homosexual behavior is sinful and that homosexual acts are offensive to God. So the question that needs to be asked of Governor Romney, do you agree with the teaching of your Church? If you do — that homosexual acts are offensive to God — then why have you made the face of your campaign someone who engages in conduct that your own Church says is offensive to God?”

Wow, thanks, CNN. I'm really effing glad that a raging, bigoted nutcase can use your network brand to peddle his bigotries and hate speech against one random gay man on Mitt Romney's campaign staff. Good fucking show. What a credit to journalism you are.

I keep bringing this up, but when you ask for commentary from hateful jackass bigots, even knowing full well that they're going to use the airtime to be hateful jackass bigots, you own that. It's not enough for the host to push back gently on how gosh, that sure does sound a little controversial, Mr. Batshit Crazy Person. No. He's still in your rolodex because, apparently, you want him to come on your show and say that stuff.

And now Fischer is giddy over the resignation, thinks this is a "huge win" for the radical right, saying that after this incident he can "flat-out guarantee you" that "there is no way in the world that Mitt Romney is going to put a homosexual activist in any position of importance in his campaign."

Bryan Fischer isn't some conspiracy-mongering nobody having fever dreams about ammo-hoarding and the national security dangers of Teh Gays. I wish he was, but he's not. He gets to go on CNN and attack people. He gets to attack Romney campaign staffers for their suspicious, suspicious homosexuality, and Mitt Romney's campaign has to pander to these clowns by pulling said controversial gay guy from public view. This crackpot conspiracy theorizing is recognized by both media and campaigns alike as the "base" of the Republican Party. CNN treats it as legitimate, and legitimizes those views in front of the nation. Mitt Romney then has to cower to those views, because he is a spineless halfwit whose entire campaign hinges on not pissing these conspiracy theorists off.

But here's his long form birth certificate too.