Sketchy Santas

Because we all could use a break. Hysterical Web site. I laughed out loud, a lot.



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This isn't what we were promised

I'm sorry, but this sounds to me like a White House talking point to try to assuage Democrats who thought the President was going to fight for what he promised, not cave at the start and then cave at the middle and then cave at the end. It's great that the health care bill "may" save 22,000 people a year who otherwise would have died without insurance (and let's face it, no one should believe that number until this albatross has been around for a few years and we see just how the insurance companies react). But helping 22,000 poor people a year is not what we were promised. We were promised health care reform that would help all 304 million people living in our country, not simply half the population of the small town where I grew up.

It's an effective tactic to play on liberal guilt, arguing "don't you want to save all those poor people who are going to die?" But the fact remains that we the people handed this President and this Congress control of the White House, the US House of Representatives, and filibuster-proof control of the US Senate. We handed them a GOP that was in tatters, and a populace that desperately wanted change. And they blew it. They gave us weakness and cowardice and fear in return. The President went back on his promises from almost day one, and then stayed out of the entire debate until - well - he's still not really involved in the debate, other than to occasionally have his staff secretly try undercut his own campaign promises.

It's not a success when you could have had an A, and instead get a D+, strive for a D+, and then have the nerve to say "look mom!" It's really getting tiresome hearing Democrats suggest that because their bill does more than George Bush would have done, but otherwise they've gutted their most important campaign promises, we should suck it up and be happy. I voted for change, not pennies.

You had the best chance in decades to make a difference in all of our lives, and you chose to blow it. You don't deserve our praise. Or our votes.

And finally, a word about moral hazard. If we let them get away with it this time, on the supposed "most important issue" of Obama's presidency, then forget about any other issue you care about. The Democrats in Congress and the White House will use the same "hey, at least you got 1/100th of a loaf" strategy on climate change, gay rights, immigration, and more. Past is prelude. And the future is looking mighty bleak if you thought the next three years were going to be about change.

McJoan at DKos quoting Ezra Klein, then giving her own commentary:

By now, you're probably used to hearing about the $900 billion health-care bill. But what about the 150,000-life health-care bill?

Oddly, that label hasn't made its way into the conversation. But it is, if anything, a conservative estimate. The Institute of Medicine developed a detailed methodology for projecting the lives lost due to lack of insurance. The original paper estimated that 18,000 lives were lost in 2000, and the Urban Institute updated that analysis with data for 2006, yielding an estimate of 22,000 lives. As for 150,000, well, that's almost certainly too low. That's just the 2006 number across 10 years, which is the time frame we generally use for health care, with a third of the lives saved lopped off, as we're not going to cover all of the uninsured. But since the population of the uninsured grows every year, and so does the death toll, it would surely be higher. So call it the 150,000-plus-life health-care plan.

At this point, the assistance to the people who need it most is the critical moral and policy decision. Would it be a band-aid? Yes, but even a band-aid can staunch bleeding, and right now that's what we desperately need. The insurance reforms matter a great deal, too, and can be passed through regular process. It will be a lot harder for Senators to stand up and vote to allow insurance companies to continue to deny coverage to the American people.

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The decade according to 9 year olds

The decade according to 9-year-olds from allison louie-garcia on Vimeo.

A fun look at how the younger generation views the decade. Read the rest of this post...

TPM confirms again, it's the White House's fault

Talking Points Memo has confirmed the story, again, after Huffington Post already confirmed the story. Read the rest of this post...

Liberal Reaction on Twitter to Health Care reform #fail by Reid and Obama

Some views from Twitter on the historic cave tonight by Senator Reid and the White House to Joe Lieberman, gutting the health care bill by killing the Medicare buy-in (after they killed the public option, and replaced it with the Medicare buy in):

@markos Insurance companies win. Time to kill this monstrosity coming out of the Senate.

@HunterDK: Breaking: Senate agrees to drop healthcare reform from #HCR bill. Will be replaced with picture of Calvin peeing on you.

@johngcole: But hey- they got to posture for the Stupak amendment, so it isn't a total loss. Idiots.

@pourmecoffee Final health care reform now looking like mailer with healthy recipes from FLOTUS vegetable garden.

@stephanietaylor Sherrod Brown, asked what the bill DOES do: "30 million more people will be covered now." BECAUSE U R FORCING US TO BUY SHITTY INSURANCE.

@GregMitch In Japan, Harry Reid would have to, literally, fall on his sword.

@aravosis When it still feels like Bush is in the WH and Gingrich the Congress, I don't call that 'change'

@markos Bye bye, Reid. You weren't a bad MINORITY leader.

@HunterDK: Private mandate still in. Apparently Senate only feels they can regulate individual citizens already struggling to get by.

@Atrios: 2010 gonna be grim

@HunterDKT Well, I'm out. There's more to be gained from purging corporate whores in Dem party than having 60 votes... or even 55.

@SamSeder In the words of Mr. Rotten, "Ever get the feeling you've been cheated?" F U Joe Lieberman and the caucus you rode in on.

@markos They're still trying to stick us with the mandate, right? Another government bailout of a broken industry.

@HunterDK Somehow I don't see "Let Them Eat Cake" being a winning campaign slogan for senate Dems in 2010, but what do I know.

@pourmecoffee Children of Aetna management not allowed to go to sleep tonight before writing thank-you note to Lieberman.

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BREAKING: Harry Reid caves to Lieberman/White House, kill Medicare buy-in and public option

UPDATE: Markos calls on Twitter for bill to be killed:

@markos Insurance companies win. Time to kill this monstrosity coming out of the Senate.

Washington Post:

Senate Democrats emerged from a special caucus meeting Monday night determined to pass a health-care bill by Christmas -- but without the Medicare buy-in plan that liberals had sought as an alternative to a government insurance option....

"To use an old cliche, the general consensus was we shouldn't make the perfect the enemy of the good," Bayh said.

Oh honey, the good left the barn of this administration and this congress so long ago you wouldn't even recognize it. Read the rest of this post...

Evening document dump

I'm going to attempt to start a new feature that I've seen on a number of blogs, and have liked. And you've seen me do it sporadically, especially today. Monday to Friday at 6pm Eastern, or so, I'll try to put up a post linking to a number of the day's stories that we never got to, but are still worth checking out. They may be big news we didn't get to, or small news that simply didn't deserve a full post by itself. But all will be, from our perspective, interesting, and worth a look. I think it's a useful form of posting, so we'll see if folks like it.

22 million Bush White House emails suddenly found. Imagine that.

Lieberman stabs health care in the back.

In other news, adultery is still a crime in NH, after 200 years.

Sam Stein at Huffington Post:

The simplest explanation for Lieberman's pirouette is that he is in the pocket of the insurance industry. He has been criticized along those lines since his days as attorney general of Connecticut. Back in 1988, he was dogged for accepting campaign donations from the insurance company Advest Inc. one month after Connecticut Insurance Commissioner Peter W. Gillies had requested an opinion from his office in a case involving the company. Over the course of his career in the Senate, meanwhile, Lieberman has taken more than $1.04 million in campaign contributions from insurance companies, according to the Center for Responsive Politics.

The religious right extremists at the bigoted American Family Association want Obama's Nobel.

Mitt Romney gets the stimulus wrong, by about 1.6m jobs.

Conservative radio network slurs Latinos.

A tourist dies of Legionnaires' disease in Miami.

Interest rates are low but banks are still refusing to refinance.

Republicans are the biggest deniers of global warming. (And probably due to FOX News and conservative talk radio.)

China thinks it should be bailed out for supporting climate change.

Ambassador Lieberman. Read the rest of this post...

Huff Post: Second source confirms Rahm personally pressed Reid to cut deal with Lieberman

Ryan Grim at the Huffington Post:

Rahm Emanuel visited Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid in his Capitol office on Sunday evening and personally urged him to cut a deal with recalcitrant Sen. Joe Lieberman, two Democratic sources familiar with the situation said.

Emanuel, President Obama's chief of staff, has long been identified as leading a faction of White House advisers who have been pushing the Senate simply to pass any health care bill, no matter how weak.

His direct message to Reid (D-Nev.), according to a source close to the negotiations: "Get it done. Just get it done....

The report, however, according to the two sources, was entirely accurate. "We're long past time for these kinds of games," one source said.

Read the rest of this post...

And even more about Lieberman

I've been thinking about the report that the White House is denying that they told Harry Reid to give up on the Medicare opt-in and find some settlement with Lieberman. Regardless of who's lying and who's telling the truth, the story is quite telling as to just how bad the relationship has gotten between the Majority Leader and the President. Either Barack Obama is trying to strong arm Harry Reid, and Harry Reid is going public about it to kill the effort and embarrass the President. Or Harry Reid is planning on caving to Lieberman, all on his own, and wants to pin the blame on the President. Either possibility suggests that the relationship between the two man is crap.

Lieberman was for a Medicare buy-in program only three months ago. Since then, the idea actually might save health care reform, so Lieberman is now against it.



Matt Yglesias welcomes us to the Lieberman Administration:

I agree with Chris Bowers that in a lot of ways the real story here is that the Senate leadership has, at every step of this process, underscored that a “reconciliation” path to a health care bill is off the table. That means Lieberman has unlimited control over what happens, and no incentive to compromise, so it shouldn’t surprise anyone that he’s being uncompromising.

FDL on the Liebocrats winning control of the Senate.

Andrew has even more reactions to Lieberman from various pundits around the Web. Read the rest of this post...

Please welcome our good friend Naomi Seligman, who joins us today as a new writer on AMERICAblog

Joe, Chris and I have been wanting to slowly expand the blog, which is why we launched AMERICAblog Gay this past summer, and it's why we're always on the look-out for new talent. Today we welcome our good friend Naomi Seligman as a new writer on AMERICAblog.

Some of you may not have heard of Naomi, but you'll know her last place of work, where she was the number 2 in the office for the last several years - ethics watchdog CREW (and she was at Media Matters before that). Naomi recently moved from DC to the west coast, somewhere on the beach near LA (Santa Monica, I think). The point is, her move to the left coast has freed her up to finally accept our longstanding offer to write on the blog.

Naomi will be writing about whatever issue strikes her fancy, but she's told us she has a particular interest in covering issues from a woman's angle, which we heartily welcome. You can check out Naomi's bio on Blogger.

UPDATE: Naomi's next first post will go up later. The one she wrote earlier today about Tiger and Accenture relied on an article from the Associated Press that ended up being wrong. AP had a mistake in its report, which made its way around the Internet on various news sites before it was corrected a couple weeks later. Naomi checked her sources before publishing - unfortunately she found one of the news stories that wasn't corrected. Joe and I would have done the same thing. Read the rest of this post...

White House denies caving on Medicare opt-in, TPM confirms allegations

It's not clear who is telling the truth, Reid's office (we presume that's where the anonymous source came from) or the White House. Both have a stake in this battle. Here's TPM's take. Read the rest of this post...

THIS JUST IN: White House reportedly abandons Medicare opt-in, tells Reid to cut a deal with Lieberman

Gee, what a surprise. And I'll bet Lieberman's list of demands just got ten times longer. And more power to him. The White House is afraid of a fight, so its opponents are going to take advantage of the President's weakness. Nature abhors a vacuum, and politics abhors a wimp. So do voters. Read the rest of this post...

I heart Suze Orman

Sounds like the idea of a windfall tax on the banks is gaining momentum. Either that or a strong change in the tax code to help influence behavior. It would be nice if someone in Washington decided to join the public instead of standing up time after time for Wall Street. Let's forget about the flimsy talk that we hear so much of in DC and let's see some action. Read the rest of this post...

Time to give up on health care reform? And other updates...

A third of Dems say they're less likely to vote in the 2010 election if public option doesn't pass. Only 7% say they're more likely.

Last week Lieberman said he didn't know how anybody could decide which way they'd vote on the health care bill before they saw the actual language (which still hasn't been shown to anyone). Yet, yesterday Lieberman decided he was going to filibuster the bill if it included the Medicare buy-in that he had previously said he was fine with.

Washington Post says the next 48 hours are crucial, if Senate wants to pass reform before Christmas.

Robert Reich is not happy about where health care "reform" is heading.

Ezra Klein on Lieberman's lack of principles. Ezra thinks Lieberman is simply doing all of this to get back at liberals. Hell of a way for a US Senator to decide which way to vote on legislation affecting the lives of millions.

NYCeve at DailyKos is asking everyone to help "Remove Hadassah Lieberman as paid shill for the Susan G. Komen Foundation."

And Joe Paduda at Managed Care Matters says maybe it's time to just give up on the entire bill:

After months of negotiation, compromise, and horse-trading, we're getting close to a health reform bill that will come to a vote - probably in the next couple or three weeks. There's much work to be done to get to the magic sixty Senate votes, but it looks like no compromise, concession, or giveaway is too big to stand in the way of this must-pass (for the Democrats) legislation.

Yet after all this, we're going to end up with a bill that won't work - it will not appreciably reduce health care costs today, tomorrow, ever.

Sure, we'll end up with lots more Americans covered, better/smarter regulation of insurers, and maybe even lower Medicare costs. But ten years from now, the system will be pretty much the same - a fee-for-service based health system with costs increasing well above inflation.

Why, you say? Aren't there cost controls in the bill? Pilot programs that promise to reduce cost inflation by rationalizing the care delivered to patients?

No, there aren't. What we have is a mishmash of ideas that have long been on the table, demonstrated to work, and completely without traction. Not to mention the huge costs not addressed in the current bill - like the current quarter-billion dollar deficit in the Medicare physician reimbursement program, a deficit that will have to be added to the total cost of any reform initiative that changes how docs are compensated under Medicare.

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CEOs of Goldman, Citigroup and Morgan Stanley weren't at White House meeting with the President. They called in.

There's been an enormous amount of attention focused on Obama's meeting with top "fat cat" bankers. So, how did the leaders of three of the biggest -- and most controversial -- banks manage to miss the meeting with the President? Fog, we're told:

Three top bankers invited to the White House on Monday will not be able to attend in person because their flight was delayed due to bad weather but will participate by phone, the White House said.

The three are: Lloyd Blankfein, chairman and CEO, Goldman Sachs (GS.N); John Mack, chairman and CEO, Morgan Stanley (MS.N); and Dick Parsons, chairman, Citigroup (C.N).

A source familiar with the situation said all three were on the same plane and the flight was delayed due to fog.

It's quite amazing, actually. They could have taken the Bolt bus, for Christ sakes. It's not like they needed to get to D.C. from Siberia.

This line from the WSJ blog is pretty much spot on:

This appears to be the downside of not having a private plane to fly in, or not traveling to Washington the night before the meeting or not thinking to take the train.

John adds: Or not fearing the President. Read the rest of this post...

More on Lieberman and health care reform

TNR: Did Lieberman double-cross Reid?

Ezra Klein:

To put this in context, Lieberman was invited to participate in the process that led to the Medicare buy-in. His opposition would have killed it before liberals invested in the idea. Instead, he skipped the meetings and is forcing liberals to give up yet another compromise. Each time he does that, he increases the chances of the bill's failure that much more. And if there's a policy rationale here, it's not apparent to me, or to others who've interviewed him. At this point, Lieberman seems primarily motivated by torturing liberals. That is to say, he seems willing to cause the deaths of hundreds of thousands of people in order to settle an old electoral score.

Ezra, quoting Sam Stein, notes a few options that Reid has. Most include appeasing Lieberman, or finding a GOP Senator to vote for the bill instead of Lieberman. Sam misses an important additional option: Beat the crap out of Lieberman. That is, after all, what we were told Rahm was so good at. So where is he?

Walker Report:

This pattern has been repeated for like the tenth time. Liberals in Congress create a “compromise,” their supposedly left-wing media apologists rush to say how great it is, and the conservative Democrats move the football again. No one should be surprised by the rapid death of the Medicare buy in idea.

It seems the only choice left for progressives in Congress is reconciliation or the nuclear option. Joe Lieberman, Blanche Lincoln, and Ben Nelson have so completely gutted the bill that there is almost nothing of value remaining in it. The few remaining pieces worth passing are quickly being picked apart at the request of industry lobbyists. What is remains is only one of the biggest corporate give-aways in history.

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81% of Dems want Lieberman punished for health care filibuster

From Sam Stein:

Eighty-one percent of Democrats said they would like to see the senator's chairmanship -- which he was allowed to keep despite campaigning for Sen. John McCain in 2008 -- taken away should he sustain a filibuster. Only 10 percent of Democrats said there should be no punishment. Even fewer (nine percent) said they had yet to make up their minds, underscoring just how divisive Lieberman is within the party.

An additional 43 percent of independents agreed that Lieberman should lose his post, with 30 percent saying no. Only ten percent of Republicans, meanwhile, thought Lieberman should be punished under such a scenario -- while 66 percent said he should not.

All told, 47 percent of the public said Senate leaders should remove Lieberman from his chairmanship if he joins the Republican filibuster; 32 percent said they should allow him to keep the post; 21 percent said they weren't sure.

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Obama gives himself a B+ for his first year, and an A- if he gets health care

UPDATE: Now that I think about it, how does getting health care reform only up Obama's grade by one small fraction of a point, from a B+ to an A-? This was his most important initiative of his presidency. Le me give an analogy:

You procrastinate until the last minute, then pull an all-nighter the night before your thesis is due (well, actually, instead of finally buckling down, you only half-heartedly study) - and the next day you flunk your thesis. Your final grade isn't lowered from an A- to a B+.

It's telling that Obama's doesn't qualify his remarks with regards to what kind of health care package gets passed. Any package is apparently sufficient. And thus the reason, I'd argue, that Joe Lieberman, Ben Nelson, and all the rest feel that they can hold Harry Reid and Barack Obama hostage on any and every provision of the bill - they know that passing a bill is more important to the Democratic leadership than passing a good bill.

Said Obama: "A good solid B-plus. I think we have inherited the biggest set of challenges of any president since Franklin Delano Roosevelt. We stabilized the economy... We are on our way out of Iraq. I think we've got the best possible plan for Afghanistan. We have reset our image around the world."

Why only B-plus?

"B-plus because of the things that are undone. Health care is not yet signed. If I get health care passed we tip into A minus."

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Monday Morning Open Thread

Good morning.

The Senate health care debate has officially turned into the "Joe Lieberman Show." Yesterday, he made it clear to Harry Reid and the other Democrats that it really is all about Joe. After Barack Obama saved his butt -- and his chairmanship, Lieberman is trying to destroy Obama's top agenda item. Classy guy. And, what's clear is that there is no real policy reason for Lieberman's actions. It's spite. He's doing it because he can. Oh well. They can't say they weren't warned.

The House is heading for recess this week. The President is heading for Copenhagen later this week.

Let's get it started... Read the rest of this post...

Copenhagen deal appears far off

Will the poor countries fall into the "hey look, the rich country leaders are here so let's do a deal" trap or will they walk away? The Guardian:

More than 110 heads of state, mainly from developing countries, are due to begin arriving on Thursday for an intense 24 hours of final negotiations.

Delegates hope for a deal on Friday that will ensure temperatures do not rise by more than 2C, and that hundreds of billions of pounds is pledged to help poor countries adapt to climate change. But tonight it appeared that many did not want to risk being pressured into signing an agreement they believe would be against their national interests.

"The industrialised countries want to hammer out a large part of the deal on the last day, when the heads of state arrive," one senior African negotiator told the Guardian on the condition of anonymity. "It's a ploy to slip through provisions that are not amenable to developing country efforts. It's playing dirty."

Read the rest of this post...

Berlusconi attacked with statuette of the Duomo

It's hard to say what was more bizarre during the event where Berlusconi was praising himself, opening his shirt, showing his chest and talking about how tough he is to the cheering crowd. The crazy attack using the mini statue or him wanting to jump out of the car to show everyone his bloody face, again. The attacker was clearly wrong and should suffer the legal consequences. Maybe he's not the only person who should seek help though. Everything about that scene was about as strange as it gets.

Berlusconi, 73, had been signing autographs and shaking hands with the public minutes after addressing thousands of people at a rally for his People of Freedom party in front of the city's Duomo, when he was hit in the mouth.

He fell to the ground and was quickly ushered into a car by aides, but he repeatedly tried to get out again to show his bloodied face to the crowds and cameras in the square.

He was taken to a Milan's San Raffaele hospital, where an x-ray showed he had suffered a small fracture to his nose, damage to two teeth and cuts to his lip. Medical staff said he would be kept under observation there for 24 hours.

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Wall Street vs. Main Street views of economy from two top Obama staffers

On the talk shows today, we got competing views of whether or not the recession is over -- from two of the top economic advisers to the President.

Of course, Larry Summers thinks things are better. Wall Street is booming and he (along with Geithner) personifies the Wall Street perspective:

Appearing on ABC’s "This Week," Larry Summers, the White House’s top economic adviser, defended the president’s economic record and predicted unemployment rates to decrease significantly in just a few months.

“Today, everybody agrees that the recession is over, and the question is what the pace of the expansion is going to be,” he said.

Actually, not "everybody agrees." In fact, Summers' colleague, Christine Romer, had a different take, since millions of Americans are suffering:

“For the people on Main Street and throughout this country, they are still suffering, the unemployment rate is still 10 percent,” she said on NBC’s "Meet the Press."

Romer also said the jobless rate could go up before it comes down.

“I would anticipate some bumps in the road before [a full economic recovery],” she said.

In this administration, as Chris in Paris as so often pointed out, we've usually seen Wall Street win. Read the rest of this post...