It's Sci-Fi Friday

I pretty much stopped Sci-Fi Friday blogging when that crazy man ruined Battlestar Galactica in year three with all of his whimsy-inspired, erratic story lines. Well, Caprica just launched, and damn it's good. So far. Seriously, I hope to God they don't let him screw this one up too. But the first episode was great. If you're a Sci-Fi fan, watch it. (I know, it's SyFy now, I just can't get into that.) Read the rest of this post...

ABC: Mystery visitor to Poe's grave Is a no-show

Well that's kind of sad.

It is what Edgar Allan Poe might have called "a mystery all insoluble": Every year for the past six decades, a shadowy visitor would leave roses and a half-empty bottle of cognac on Poe's grave on the anniversary of the writer's birth. This year, no one showed.

Did the mysterious "Poe toaster" meet his own mortal end? Did some kind of ghastly misfortune befall him? Will he be heard from nevermore?

Read the rest of this post...

Poll: People still hate the GOP, they're just really ticked at Dems too now

Interesting post from Taegan Goddard about a new PPP poll (they're the polling group that Joe likes).

A new Public Policy Polling poll found that only 19% of voters nationally are happy with the direction of the Republican Party, compared to 56% who are unhappy with it. Even GOP voters are displeased with where the party's going: Just 38% say they are unhappy with the current direction to 35% who support it.

Analysis: "This much seems clear: if the Republicans keep winning even with a heavily damaged national brand it's an indication voters are choosing much more by what they're against right now than what they're for. I think a GOP controlled Congress for next year is still unlikely but it could be the best thing that ever happened to Barack Obama's reelection hopes."

In a related piece, Politico notes that "it is indisputable that the GOP has surged, especially in the past several months" but that it is "also indisputable that the rise has little to do with the voters' view of Republicans writ large -- and that the very concerns that got them booted from power persist today."

This means all is not lost, Dems have simply screwed up, and now they need to figure out exactly what they did wrong. I worry that, to a large degree, the screw up is message based. As someone wrote last night somewhere (it's tough keeping track of what you read online), the new focus on "jobs jobs jobs" belies the fact that Democrats inherited an economy teetering on another Great Depression, and managed to walk it back. The problem wasn't that they didn't focus on jobs, the problem was that they didn't promote or defend what they actually did. Democrats think they simply need to do, not sell - their actions will succeed, and speak for themselves, because they are "good." Republicans aren't interested in success, or doing good, they simply want their actions to be perceived as "good." Democrats worry about substance, Republicans worry about PR. And unfortunately, the public can be a little gullible sometimes - they fall for PR.

Democrats shouldn't give up on substance, but they should recognize that they already focused on substance, and it bit them in the ass because they failed at the messaging, they failed at fighting back against the GOP. It's time our party learned to fight. We don't need a new direction, we need new fighters.

And in all fairness, some of the Democratic substance sucked too. The stimulus package was 1/3 the size of what the economists said we needed, and even then, the White House gave 40% away to useless tax cuts. Ditto on health care reform, which quickly veered away from what was promised and needed. So there is a substance problem as well. But both the substance and the message come off weak. Read the rest of this post...

Holiday Inn in London offering human bed warmers

I'll take the one on the right. Read the rest of this post...

Yeah, let's break up HCR into a series of welfare bills, that ought to sell well

What are people smoking in the House that this is being floated as a good idea:

I should say, at the outset, that I'm not a fan of this idea. But there's no denying that breaking the health-care bill into different pieces is receiving serious consideration. Nothing is decided, but according to House aides, there would be at least four bills: one containing tax credits to help people up to 400 percent of poverty purchase insurance and insurance regulations; a second focusing on changes to Medicare, everything from pilot programs to the closing of the doughnut hole; a third including the Medicaid expansion; and a fourth with miscellanea like the health-care workforce and wellness and prevention programs and IT. Funding would be scattered across the bills in order to satisfy pay-go requirements.

Let me summarize: two welfare bills; one Medicare related; and the fourth tech and other miscellanea.

Um, what about the rest of us who aren't in poverty and aren't retired? Read the rest of this post...

NOW: 'Kill the Senate health bill entirely'

From Raw Story:

[National Organization for Women President Terry] O'Neill said as a result of Nelson's amendment, "insurance companies will in a few years stop offering abortion care even in private policies because it's too much of an administrative hassle," forcing women to "pay for abortions out of their own pockets."

"That's the conclusion of the George Washington University School of Public Health," she added.

"The Nelson amendment achieved the same outcome -- through very different means -- as the Stupak-Pitts amendment over on the House side. It takes a little bit longer, maybe 2 to 4 years longer."

"Health care is a basic human right, and both the Senate bill and the House bill presume to take this human right away only from women, and not from men. Only women are targeted. So we say, you know what, kill the health bill entirely."

Put yourself in NOW's shoes. Progressives across the board were cut out of the process of forming the current health care reform bills in the House and Senate. Republican concerns and conservative Democrat concerns were addressed at each and every step of the way, while progressives and liberals were ignored because everyone just assumes that progressives will have to suck it up and support the bill anyway. Now both health care bills, the House and Senate, have language that pro-choice groups find untenable. Those groups, who were cut out of the process, can either support the legislation and admit that they're irrelevant to the process, or they can try to find a way to stay relevant, try to find a way to help their community and their issue now and in the future.

Regardless of whether you want the current House and Senate bills to pass, you need to look at this politically. When you cut people out of the process, you don't give them a stake in the outcome. And when you affirmatively harm those same people in the process, you actually give them an incentive to oppose you in the end, both on substantive grounds and on political grounds as well. If NOW, and women's groups in general, are ignored by Democrats, and the legislation passes, including language that is harmful to pro-choice women, then NOW becomes irrelevant, and more generally, pro-choice women become irrelevant. That is an untenable position for any interest group, and for any community.

This is why you involve people in the process from the beginning, and you listen and act on their concerns. Otherwise, when you need them in the end, they feel no need to help you after you saw no need to help them first.

Or in simpler term, we've all had that friend who only calls whenever they need something, but they're never around when WE need something in return. After a while, you stop taking that friend's calls. Read the rest of this post...

Assorted health care tweets of the past several hours

@LarrySabato: Most interesting stat in new Post poll of MA SEN is that 29% of Brown voters had backed Obama in 2008. That is the #1 warning sign to POTUS.

@benpolitico: Brutal TPM mockery of Obama http://is.gd/6PfcN

@ezraklein: Beneath health care, there's a bigger question: Are Democrats capable of governing? http://bit.ly/7eByQw

@dwescott1: he says he'll never stop fighting. I'm wondering when he'll start.

@HunterDK: In final bipartisan compromise, Dems seek to drop "reform" from healthcare reform. Problem solved! http://bit.ly/5a5ovD

@mattyglesias: Change I can't even remotely believe in: http://bit.ly/6J5vpK

@brianbeutler: If you can, do. If you can, but don't want to, commit ritual group suicide.

@mmaction: Only 19% Of Americans Are Happy With The Direction Of The GOP http://bit.ly/85n5ji

@Atrios: i still blame jane hamsher

@peterdaou: So baffling when a party that won't fight tooth and nail for its core values has a reputation for being weak...

@fivethirtyeight: Make sure to check out the new Kaiser poll on health care. You'll be shocked at how little people know about the bill. http://bit.ly/8GhbLl .... Only 60% know bill bans discrimination on pre-existing conditions; only 40% knows it bans coverage limits, only 70% know about subsidies.

@ThePlumLineGS: Andy Stern threatens Dems: If you don't pass Senate bill, labor might not work for your reelection in 2010: http://bit.ly/82Pfva

@wonkroom: In the Battle of Waterloo, Democrats are prepared to surrender: http://tr.im/Lgob

@postpolitics: Mass. poll is up: Nearly 2/3 of voters for Brown say they did so at least in part to express opposition to Dem agenda. http://ow.ly/Zu6O Read the rest of this post...

Hysterical health care reform parody

(H/t Alan Colmes) Read the rest of this post...

A memo on what happened in Mass., and how Dems should proceed

An interesting read. This memo was just distributed to all Senate chiefs of staff:

STRATEGY MEMO TO SENATE CHIEFS OF STAFF

From: Adam Green, co-founder, Progressive Change Campaign Committee -- on behalf of the PCCC, Democracy for America, and Credo Action

RE: The right lesson from Massachusetts & the path forward on health care

We wanted to make sure you saw the Massachusetts Research 2000 poll, reported on by the Wall Street Journal, NBC, Politico, Huffington Post, TPM, and others.

It polled critical 2010 swing voters: the 18% of Obama voters who returned to the polls and voted for Republican Scott Brown.

• On health care, they oppose the Senate bill because it "doesn't go far enough" and a whopping 82% support the public option.

• On the economy, by 2 to 1 they think Democrats have put special interests ahead of folks like them -- and by large margins think stronger regulation of Wall Street is more important than cutting spending.

• And 57% say Democrats are not "delivering enough on the change Obama promised."
Why did they vote for Scott Brown? They are angry and want Congress to fight on their side against entrenched power. Scott Brown pretended to be a populist, so he won.

Joe Lieberman, Evan Bayh, and Mark Penn are telling Democrats to learn exactly the wrong lesson: Slow down. Give Americans less change.

It's not an accident that each of these men have crashed presidential campaigns into the ground. Don't listen to them -- their thinking got Democrats into this political mess. Voters want bold populism, and if Democrats don't give it to them Republicans are ready to pretend they will.

The best thing Democrats could do in 2010 is fight big corporations like insurance companies and Wall Street. On health care, the path forward is obvious:

Step 1 -- The Senate passes a "reconciliation" bill with the popular public option and other budget-related fixes to the original Senate bill on issues like the national exchange and excise tax. This takes only a simple majority.

Step 2 -- The House passes both the original Senate bill and final reconciliation bill back-to-back and sends them to the President.

Step 3 -- A signing ceremony takes place that Democrats and voters can be proud of.

What would this "public option through reconciliation" strategy achieve? A popular public option, 30 million new Americans insured, pre-existing conditions provisions, a national exchange that "gives people access to the same kind of plan Congress gets," and all the other insurance industry reforms Democrats have been pushing. All without worrying about Joe Lieberman's vote.

Plus, Democrats would be popular -- for finally taking on insurance companies by passing the public option. Again, among the swing Obama voters, only 32% support the current Senate bill but 82% want a public option.

All the old arguments against using reconciliation are gone. It's now the only way to pass a comprehensive health care bill, building off the Senate's prior work. And once reconciliation is being used, the Senate has the votes to pass a public option.

After Massachusetts, passing the public option is a no-brainer -- it's populist, it's good policy, and it's what 2010 swing voters want.

That's why in the 48 hours after the Massachusetts election, over 150,000 people signed a petition advocating the "public option in reconciliation" strategy. More are signing literally every minute, and our three organizations will deliver these signatures to you in the near future.

You can see the Massachusetts poll here and our recent national poll here.

Please feel free to reply with any feedback. And if you would like to be part of the Progressive Change Campaign Committee's ongoing dialogue with Hill staff, please click here and let us know.

Thanks for your time.

Read the rest of this post...

Jobs, jobs, jobs. Been there, done that.

From Steven Pearlstein in the Washington Post:

One of my favorite bits of Monday morning quarterbacking is that President Obama should have put health care and Afghanistan and climate change and everything else on the back burner for the past year and insisted that he and everyone else focus exclusively on jobs, jobs, jobs. What do you call a $787 billion stimulus package of tax cuts and increased spending, a $50 billion auto industry bailout, a $1 trillion prop to the housing sector and nearly another $1 trillion in old-fashioned monetary stimulus -- chopped liver? And how exactly do you square the idea that the president and Congress should be working 24-7 to "create" jobs with that other nugget of conventional wisdom, that Americans are demanding smaller government, less spending and lower budget deficits?

Bingo. The problem is messaging, not substance. Democrats need to get out of the ivory tower - or as Maureen Dowd would say, stop being Spock - and learn that legislating well takes two things: good substance and good messaging. We're often good at the former, but we're lousy at the latter. And if Obama didn't get credit for the first round of "jobs jobs jobs," why should we expect that he'll get credit for anything he does this year either? The problem is messaging.

(Well, to be fair, the White House also has a serious problem with negotiating with itself, which harms both the substance and messaging.) Read the rest of this post...

More evidence that Dems. are seriously considering dropping language on pre-existing conditions

As Democrats scramble to figure out what to do on health care, there is more evidence, which John first noted earlier, that one of the most popular provisions is on the chopping block:

Obama has suggested shifting the focus to popular proposals such as banning denial of coverage to those with medical problems. That particular fix is unlikely because it would encourage people to put off getting health insurance until they get sick, driving up the cost of premiums for everybody else.

"In health care, everything fits together," said Sen. Jay Rockefeller, D-W.Va. "It's very hard to say we can cut this out and do that." Banning pre-existing condition denials would have to go hand-in-hand with coverage for all.

Hard to imagine how the Democrats can convince the American people that health care has been reformed if insurance companies aren't reined in on the pre-existing conditions issue. Only people living in an out-of-touch bubble would think that's a good political move.

And, before any policy wonks weigh in with a 10-minute explanation of how these policies are inter-related, let me say, I get that. But, I'm talking about the politics of the issue. The President made it a tenet of his campaign to fix pre-existing conditions. In fact, it was the top item on the website of the transition's plan to "Make Health Insurance Work for People and Businesses -- Not Just Insurance and Drug Companies":

Require insurance companies to cover pre-existing conditions so all Americans regardless of their health status or history can get comprehensive benefits at fair and stable premiums.

This is one part of reform that people get -- and expect. Read the rest of this post...

New Dem concern: GOP may just vote for watered down package of health care fixes, and claim hero status

It's a valid concern. The Republicans can then claim credit that they stopped the Democrats' evil death panel-y plan. This is the danger of not fighting back effectively each and every time the other guy punches you in the face. The lies, the attacks, accumulate and start to do damage in ways you didn't expect. Now, ironically, even agreeing to some weak-tee health care changes might help the GOP more than it helps Democrats. Read the rest of this post...

Banks now checking your Twitter and Facebook activity to see if you're worthy of getting a loan

Please write financially secure comments to this post:

Your social networking chit-chat could have an impact on your credit - specifically on whether banks think you are worthy of a loan.

Creditors are checking out what you post to your Facebook and Twitter accounts. They're checking out who your friends are and who the people are in your networks.

The presumption is that if your friends are responsible credit cardholders and pay their bills on time, you could be a good credit customer...

How long until health insurance companies do the same?

The banks claim they're just checking you out for "marketing" purposes, then they admit it's actually about whether to give you loans or credit:

Pretty much everything you and your network reveal may be compiled, including status updates, "tweets," joining online clubs, linking a Web site or posting a comment on a blog or news Web site....

Another reason credit issuers are looking to this data is to reduce lending risk. Social graphs allow credit issuers to know if you're connected to a community of great credit customers. Creditors can see if people in your network have accounts with them, and are free to look at how they are handling those accounts.

The presumption is that if those in your network are responsible cardholders, there is a better chance you will be, too. So, if a bank is on the fence about whether to extend you credit, you may become eligible if those in your network are good credit customers.

"Credit card companies have been stung very hard during this downturn, and they're going to work that much harder to avoid extending credit to people with a high level of predictable losses," says Ken Clark, author of "The Complete Idiot's Guide to Boosting Your Financial IQ." "Social graphs can preemptively cut the amount of charge-offs by not giving high-risk people a card. It may translate into hundreds of millions of dollars industry wide."

Read the rest of this post...

China angry as US asks for help investigating cyber attacks

Uh, yeah, because asking for help with a criminal investigation is so wrong. If this upsets the Beijing government, there's quite a bit wrong with them. It also makes them look even more guilty.

The US secretary of state yesterday portrayed tackling censorship as a new priority for American foreign policy and called on Beijing to conduct a full and open investigation of Google's claims of a China-originated cyber attack targeting the emails of human rights activists.

"The US has criticised China's policies to administer the internet and insinuated that China restricts internet freedom," said foreign ministry spokesman Ma Zhaoxu, in a statement published on the ministry's website. "This runs contrary to the facts and is harmful to China-US relations.

"We urge the United States to respect the facts and cease using so-called internet freedom to make groundless accusations against China."

Read the rest of this post...

Corporations, Lobbyists and Republicans are big winners from Supreme Court decision

Yesterday's Supreme Court decision ending the ban on corporate spending in elections is a boon for Republicans. And, don't think for a second that politics was on the minds of Roberts, Alito, Scalia, Thomas and Kennedy. Supreme Court Justices are, after all, political appointees. (Lots of lawyers hate it when people say that, as if somehow becoming a judge erases one's past political leanings.)

The full impact of the decision will be felt in the hall of the U.S. Capitol and State Houses around the country. New York Times:

The Supreme Court on Thursday handed a new weapon to lobbyists. If you vote wrong, a lobbyist can now tell any elected official that my company, labor union or interest group will spend unlimited sums explicitly advertising against your re-election.

“We have got a million we can spend advertising for you or against you — whichever one you want,’ ” a lobbyist can tell lawmakers, said Lawrence M. Noble, a lawyer at Skadden Arps in Washington and former general counsel of the Federal Election Commission.

That sounds like extortion, but that's what the Supreme Court gave us.

The Washington Post also highlights the "winners" from the Supreme Court decision:

The far-reaching ruling marks a triumph for those who have fought the McCain-Feingold provisions, including Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, and numerous other business and conservative groups. It also overturns laws in two dozen states limiting corporate expenditures in local races.

Your government is going to the highest bidder. Read the rest of this post...

Friday Morning Open Thread

Good morning.

What a week. What a mess.

I think the best word to describe the current state of affairs among Democrats is probably "chaos." This is a time that cries out for leadership. But, as John pointed out in the post below, the White House is waiting for "the dust to settle." Maybe Obama should step in to settle the dust.

Now, "everyone" assumes that if a health care bill passes (and that's a big "if"), it will include the popular provisions like ending the insurance industry practice of not covering pre-existing conditions. Not so fast. Via the NY Times, some geniuses on the Hill floated the idea of making it applicable to only people under 19. Could our leaders be so clueless that they wouldn't address pre-existing conditions?

Remember back in 2008 when we thought we were electing a leader who was going to change Washington and deliver on his promises? Within days of Obama's victory he picked Rahm Emanuel to be his Chief of Staff. It feels like it's been down hill since then.

Let's get threading... Read the rest of this post...

White House weighs in on health care reform confusion

From tomorrow's Washington Post:

White House spokesman Robert Gibbs said Obama thinks the best path is "giving this some time, by letting the dust settle, if you will, and looking for the best path forward."

By the time the dust settles, all that's going to be left of the Democrats is a broken statue of a guy declaring he's the king of the world. Read the rest of this post...

The Democratic majority is still not dead

Read the rest of this post...