80 votes?

Reader Annita writes:

You know, Chuck Grassley and company are making the case that heath care reform is such an important issue that it really won’t be a worthwhile bill if it can’t get at least 80 senators to vote for it. As I recall, the “Authorization for Use of Military Force Against Iraq Resolution of 2002” passed in the Senate by a vote of 77 to 23. I’d say going to war was a rather weighty, important decision. Gee, I wish we’d known back in October of 2002 that we should really be requiring an 80 to 20 vote!

How can anybody with the intelligence of a six year old actually still believe the republicans are actually still interested in health care reform?

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More bank failures - 81 year to date

Another bank failure is hardly news but what is interesting is that the US regulators finally allowed a foreign bank to purchase one of the failures. Spain is currently one of the hardest hit economies in the EU during this recession and easy lending was also a major problem. What is interesting to note though is that despite the easy lending (compared to many other countries in Europe except perhaps the UK) Spanish banks have been aggressively buying up banks elsewhere. Somehow tougher regulation in Spain didn't destroy their banking system the way the free market phonies always say it will. Go figure. Read the rest of this post...

RNC Chair Michael Steele agrees with attack on GOP Rep. Roy Blunt (R-MO): "when stuff gets in the crapper, you gotta clean it out."

I finally think Michael Steele is right about something and it's good. Via FiredUp Missouri,, the RNC Chair agreed with a vicious -- but, accurate -- attack on GOP Congressman/Senate Candidate Roy Blunt from a conservative radio host in Missouri. Steele, on Blunt: "when stuff gets in the crapper, you gotta clean it out."



This is causing an intra-GOP battle. Blunt's former chief of staff, Gregg Hartley, tweeted that "Michael Steele is an idiot" and wants Steele fired. Attacking a GOP Senate candidate should probably be off-limits for the RNC Chair (even if it's true.)

Here's the transcript:

VINCENT JERICHO: “But I’ve also made my career here by challenging Baby Blunt [former Gov. Matt Blunt] and how he just absolutely, ah, betrayed every single Missourian that who worked so hard to get him elected on the ridiculous stand he took where he redefined what cloning is. And this is supposed to be a Republican governor. He’s not governor anymore for good reason.

“His [Matt Blunt’s] daddy [Roy] screwed around with a tobacco lobbyist. Then slips language into the homeland security bill favorable to the tobacco lobbyist. I mean here is a guy that has committed adultery multiple times. Yet he had a senior position, and still does, in the Republican Party. Guys like Papa Blunt make us sick to our stomach. They aren’t conservatives, and they sure don’t reflect moral absolute the way that we expect the Republican Party to stand up. You had the page boy scandal, you had all of that crap, and nobody stands up to it and says, ‘This is crap! What are you doing? [Steele tries to cut in; unintelligible] Behave like a man – not like, not like little boys who are running around with their little toy and can’t behave themselves.”

MICHAEL STEELE: Look, now don’t, don’t – I mean, I agree with you. And when stuff gets in the crapper, you gotta clean it out."

Who can argue with that? Read the rest of this post...

Lutherans lift ban on non-celibate gays becoming clergy

They're calling it a watershed moment in American Christianity. Times have changed. Will our political leaders ever catch up? Read the rest of this post...

Krugman: This IS a recovery

But, he warns, that we shouldn't expect job losses to get any better for a long while. Still, it is good news. Read the rest of this post...

White House reportedly put health care in Grassley's, gang of six's, hands

Bipartisanship apparently now means letting the Republicans, crazy ones at that, run the show. Unbelievable. From Robert Reich:

I really don't get it. We have a Democratic president in the White House. Democrats control sixty votes in the Senate, enough to overcome a filibuster. It is possible to pass health care legislation through the Senate with 51 votes (that's what George W. Bush did with his tax cut plan). Democrats control the House. The Speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi, is a tough lady. She has said there will be no health care reform bill without a public option.

So why does the fate of health care rest in Grassley's hands?

....Why has it come down to these six? Who anointed them? Apparently, the White House. At least that's what I'm repeatedly being told by sources both on the Hill and in the Administration.

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Bob Herbert: Losing faith in the president

As I've mentioned numerous times, the concerns of the "left of the left" have now gone mainstream. Team Obama can no longer claim that only "fringe" Democrats are concerned about the president's leadership, and worse, his character. We should not be seeing stories, only eight months into Obama's presidency, questioning whether he's "soft." The man won by a hearty margin, he was soaring in the polls just months ago, and now he's down to 50% and dropping.

At some point, we need to stop blaming Rahm and Messina for this growing mess, and put the responsibility with the man who has the power to turn things around, but doesn't even seem to recognize that there's a problem. From Bob Herbert:

It’s still early, but people are starting to lose faith in the president. I hear almost daily from men and women who voted enthusiastically for Mr. Obama but are feeling disappointed. They feel that the banks made out like bandits in the bailouts, and that the health care initiative could become a boondoggle. Their biggest worry is that Mr. Obama is soft, that he is unwilling or incapable of fighting hard enough to counter the forces responsible for the sorry state the country is in.

More and more the president is being seen by his own supporters as someone who would like to please everybody, who is naïve about the prospects for bipartisanship, who believes that his strongest supporters will stay with him because they have nowhere else to go, and who will retreat whenever the Republicans and the corporate crowd come after him.

People want more from Mr. Obama. They want him to be their champion. But they don’t feel that he is speaking to them in a language that they understand. He is seen as more comfortable speaking the Wall Street lingo. People don’t feel that the voices of anxiety are being heard.

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Saturday Morning Open Thread

Good morning.

It's hazy, hot and very humid in D.C. today -- again. The president has left town for vacation. He's going to Martha's Vineyard on Sunday, but the National Hurricane Center issued a tropical storm warning at 8:00 a.m. for Massachusetts:

A TROPICAL STORM WARNING IS IN EFFECT FOR THE COAST OF MASSACHUSETTS FROM WOODS HOLE TO SAGAMORE BEACH...INCLUDING THE ISLANDS OF MARTHAS VINEYARD AND NANTUCKET. A TROPICAL STORM WARNING MEANS THAT TROPICAL STORM CONDITIONS ARE EXPECTED SOMEWHERE WITHIN THE WARNING AREA WITHIN 24 HOURS.

I am a bit of a weather geek, especially for big storms that move up the east coast.

Tim Beauchamp (a.k.a. cowboyneok) has provided another original poem for our Saturday morning moment of zen:

Mouth of the Cave

Violently wakened
from boiling ink
acidic fingers
claw my stomach
squeeze my heart
ice and sweat
suspended on brows
grey fuzziness
crawls within
Memory dangles
A willow shoot
fails to touch the ground
Meaning scatters
into deep caverns
My rope is exhausted
Should I explore
or wait
at the mouth
of the cave?

-Timothy Beauchamp

Thanks, Tim. And, let's get it started.... Read the rest of this post...

Early morning coffee from the village

This is our normal view down the hill to our beach below from the roof upstairs. We have been sticking to the lighter patch because there are cold water springs under the water that help keep the jellyfish away. Joelle and I are doing the journey over to San Remo, Italy this morning to visit the big Saturday market that everyone has been talking about. Word is the fruit and vegetables are high quality and much cheaper than on this side of the French border. And then there are the stories of nice gloves at nice prices. Read the rest of this post...

Iran chooses Interpol suspect for cabinet position

Loonier by the day.

A former commander of Iran's Revolutionary Guards has been nominated by Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Iran's president, to head the country's defence ministry, despite being listed on Interpol's wanted register for the 1994 bombing of a Jewish cultural centre in Argentina.

Argentinian prosecutors joined Jewish groups last night in condemnation of Ahmadinejad's decision to propose Ahmad Vahidi for the senior cabinet post.

Vahidi has been on an Interpol "red notice" since November 2007, in connection with the car bomb attack on the Israeli-Argentine Mutual Association (AMIA) building in Buenos Aires that killed 85 people and injured 150 – the worst attack on a Jewish target outside Israel since the second world war.

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Oil futures hit 2009 high

Stocks up, dollar down. These numbers are getting out of control, again. At this rate the recovery - if you want to call it that - is going to be even worse than expected.

Crude-oil futures rose above $74 a barrel Friday to their highest level in 2009 buoyed by weakness in the dollar and by positive U.S. and European economic data.

In contrast, natural-gas futures fell sharply to end at a fresh seven-year low, pressured by a glut in supplies.

Crude oil for October delivery rose 98 cents to end at $73.89 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange. The October contract surged 6.1% this week.

Earlier Friday, October crude futures rose to an intraday high of $74.72 a barrel in electronic trading on Globex. That's the highest level for a front-month contract since late 2008, according to FactSet Research data.

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Politico: Obama DOJ punts on warrantless taps' legality

I'm not sure to what to make of this. Another case, seemingly, of splitting the baby in half. Read the rest of this post...