They're coming for your Social Security — DCCC Chair Van Hollen joins the catfood crowd

This is an excellent segment by Cenk Uygur, subbing for Ed Schultz on The Ed Show.

First, Cenk bottom-lines the phony Social Security "crisis":

• There's a $2.5 trillion trust fund.
  
• They gave it to the rich and the military.

So clear, so obvious. (Our own discussion of the Trust Fund is here.)

Then Cenk interviews Democrat Chris Van Hollen, head of the DCCC (that's Rahm's old job; that's how we ended up with ilk like Heath Shuler). Ignore Van Hollen's pro forma Repub bashing; focus instead on Cenk's follow-up questions (starting at the 3:15 mark).



Would you like some Friskies with that obfuscation?

Van Hollen's weasel words are toast under these questions. "We won't cut benefits (but please don't notice I didn't mention the retirement age)." Note: Pelosi's an enabler; she has guaranteed a vote in the House on the Catfood Deficit Commission's "big complex" recommendations. (Click the link to see how she pulled that off.)

Social Security is also toast. Again, the DCCC is Rahm's old stomping grounds; it's the reason the Blue Dogs exist in such numbers. And Van Hollen runs the DCCC through the end of 2010 festivities.

It's gonna happen, folks. It's the end of an era, and Dems will be the reason. Like Nixon to China — Cenk said it right in his sign-off.

(Psst. Primaries.)

GP Read the rest of this post...

New torture tapes put DOJ to the test

Scott Horton on the newly revealed CIA torture tapes (my emphasis throughout):

So the CIA apparently failed to destroy all the [torture] tapes, and now it must confront the fact that, even though the tapes were found, it continued to falsely tell a federal court that such tapes did not exist. We will learn soon whether special prosecutor John Durham takes his job seriously, or whether he will follow in the path of his former boss Nora Dannehy and sacrifice his reputation for the interests of his party.

The tapes were discovered by the CIA in 2007; their existence was revealed just recently, three years later, to the AP by:

several current and former U.S. officials [who] spoke on the condition of anonymity because the recordings remain a closely guarded secret.

In between those two events, the CIA lied twice to a federal judge. Oops. Draw your own conclusions, and stay tuned.

GP Read the rest of this post...

Men are deadliest drivers for pedestrian

I see a large number of wives finally getting their revenge with this one. Read the rest of this post...

Eleveld on Obama and the mosque

Kerry Eleveld from the Advocate:

[W]hat exactly is the administration's communications team doing? They either miscalculated the national mood or they misjudged how the president’s words would be received on Friday. But they unquestionably should have seen flashes of the firestorm to come from Sarah Palin and her cronies eons before they sent the president out to carry the torch for democracy.

Or is it possible that the president and his advisers understood exactly where this was headed but just couldn’t take the heat once they stepped into the pit? No matter what the answer, the White House squandered the president’s most precious commodity: his word — his compact of trust with the American people.

Read the rest of this post...

Your cell phone photos may be stalking you

Kind of creepy.

When Adam Savage, host of the popular science program “MythBusters,” posted a picture on Twitter of his automobile parked in front of his house, he let his fans know much more than that he drove a Toyota Land Cruiser.

Instructions on how to disable the geotagging feature of an Android phone.
Embedded in the image was a geotag, a bit of data providing the longitude and latitude of where the photo was taken. Hence, he revealed exactly where he lived. And since the accompanying text was “Now it’s off to work,” potential thieves knew he would not be at home.

Security experts and privacy advocates have recently begun warning about the potential dangers of geotags, which are embedded in photos and videos taken with GPS-equipped smartphones and digital cameras. Because the location data is not visible to the casual viewer, the concern is that many people may not realize it is there; and they could be compromising their privacy, if not their safety, when they post geotagged media online.

Read the rest of this post...

Blago found guilty on only one count

The impeached Governor of Illinois was convicted of lying to the FBI. That's it:

A federal jury today convicted former Gov. Rod Blagojevich of only one count against him: lying to the FBI. Jurors said they were deadlocked on the other 23 counts against the former governor, and all four counts against his brother Robert.

Blagojevich faces up to 5 years in prison. The former governor pursed his lips and shook his head slightly.

As jurors filed out, Blagojevich's wife Patti collapsed into her seat and the former governor's attorney, Sam Adam Jr. moved next to Blagojevich and put his arm around him, rubbing his back.

Read the rest of this post...

Harry & the Mosque

"Harry" is Harry Reid. The "Mosque" is a community center. The problem in a nutshell:

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid [D-2500 miles from New York] was prompted today to state that he thinks the so-called "ground zero mosque" should be built somewhere else.

Republicans have threatened to make the mosque debate a 2010 campaign issue, and a few candidates -- including Reid's challenger Sharron Angle -- are beginning to do so.

Way to throw an interception with first-and-goal, sir.

We are so screwed (and not in a nice way).

GP Read the rest of this post...

Economic crisis leading to cutbacks in routine health care

We're number one!

The economic crisis in the United States has reduced the use of routine medical care, and the cutbacks here are much deeper than in countries with universal health care systems, researchers say in a new report.

The study, published by the National Bureau of Economic Research, finds that “Americans, who face higher out-of-pocket health care costs, have reduced their routine medical care” much more than people in Britain, Canada, France and Germany.

Read the rest of this post...

Republicans pander over 'Ground Zero mosque'

Sounds pretty dangerous.

First, it's not at Ground Zero. The site in question is two blocks north of the former World Trade Center site in Lower Manhattan; an existing mosque is just a few hundred feet more distant from the site of the collapsed towers. Second, while the planned building would indeed house a place of worship, it is designed to be more of a community center along the lines of a YMCA. Plans include a fitness center, swimming pool, basketball court, bookstore, performing arts center and food court. Kebabs do not threaten our way of life.

Most important, organizers have made clear that the whole point of the project is to provide a high-profile platform for mainstream, moderate Islam -- and to stridently reject the warped, radical, jihadist worldview that produced the atrocities of Sept. 11, 2001.

"It will have a real community feel, to celebrate the pluralism in the United States, as well as in the Islamic religion," Daisy Khan, executive director of the American Society for Muslim Advancement, said in May as she argued for permission to build the center. "It will also serve as a major platform for amplifying the silent voice of the majority of Muslims who have nothing to do with extremist ideologies. It will counter the extremist momentum."

Read the rest of this post...

'The Hammer belongs in the slammer'

Is Hot Tub Tom home free? If so, guess why? Melanie Sloan at CREW (my unhappy emphasis):

In response to the Justice Department’s decision not to prosecute disgraced former House Majority Leader Tom DeLay (R-TX), Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) Executive Director Melanie Sloan released the following statement:

“It’s a sad day for America when one of the most corrupt members to ever walk the halls of Congress gets a free pass. As we continue the work of building a Washington that is worthy of the American people, the Justice Department’s decision not to prosecute Mr. DeLay for his actions sends exactly the wrong message to current and future members. The fact that Jack Abramoff and Bob Ney (R-OH) are the only two people who went to prison for one of the worst corruption scandals in congressional history is shocking. The Hammer belongs in the slammer. Mr. DeLay still has crimes to answer for in Texas – generally not considered the best place to be a criminal defendant.”

Embed, sir? Or something else?

GP Read the rest of this post...

So the GOP basically wants to give old people coupons instead of Medicare

That's what it sounds like. From Ezra Klein:

There's nothing false about the claim that Ryan's plan would end Medicare as we know it. In fact, it's unambiguously true. Currently, Medicare is a government-run insurer that pays the health-care costs of all senior citizens. Under Ryan's plan, senior citizens would be given vouchers that they could use toward private insurance. Poor seniors would get more-generous vouchers, and rich seniors would get less-generous vouchers. The way Ryan saves money is by holding the growth of the vouchers beneath the growth of health-care costs, so as care costs more and more, the vouchers cover less and less.

Read the rest of this post...

The mosque-that-isn't-a-mosque is messing with Republicans too

The hedging - they have the right, but they're wrong - is sounding awfully familiar. The thing is, that's almost the "Nazis have the right to march in Skokie" argument. But, whereas in the Skokie case, we get the meaning, in this case, it does sound an awful lot like splitting hairs and trying to have it both ways.

Republican congressional candidate Richard Hanna reversed himself Monday on the planned Lower Manhattan mosque, saying he opposed the project one week after he’d said he supported it.

Hanna’s new position came hours after U.S. Rep. Michael Arcuri, D-Utica, said he doesn’t believe the mosque should be built two blocks from the site of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attack on the World Trade Center.

“As I said in previous statements, they have a constitutional right to build this, but with rights come responsibilities,” Hanna said in a statement issued Monday afternoon by his campaign. “This is the wrong location. Building a mosque near Ground Zero is insensitive, an affront to the victims of 9/11, and it lacks respect for the general public’s feelings.”

Read the rest of this post...

Krugman says Social Security is not in peril

Paul Krugman:

About that math: Legally, Social Security has its own, dedicated funding, via the payroll tax (“FICA” on your pay statement). But it’s also part of the broader federal budget. This dual accounting means that there are two ways Social Security could face financial problems. First, that dedicated funding could prove inadequate, forcing the program either to cut benefits or to turn to Congress for aid. Second, Social Security costs could prove unsupportable for the federal budget as a whole.

But neither of these potential problems is a clear and present danger. Social Security has been running surpluses for the last quarter-century, banking those surpluses in a special account, the so-called trust fund. The program won’t have to turn to Congress for help or cut benefits until or unless the trust fund is exhausted, which the program’s actuaries don’t expect to happen until 2037 — and there’s a significant chance, according to their estimates, that that day will never come.

Meanwhile, an aging population will eventually (over the course of the next 20 years) cause the cost of paying Social Security benefits to rise from its current 4.8 percent of G.D.P. to about 6 percent of G.D.P. To give you some perspective, that’s a significantly smaller increase than the rise in defense spending since 2001, which Washington certainly didn’t consider a crisis, or even a reason to rethink some of the Bush tax cuts.

Read the rest of this post...

Terrorist tapes found under CIA desk

Look mom! Read the rest of this post...

Tuesday Morning Open Thread

Good morning.

The President is waking up in Los Angeles this morning. He's heading to Seattle to do an event with small business owners in the morning and a fundraiser for Senator Patty Murray in the afternoon. Then, he's heading to Columbus, Ohio. Sounds like a campaign day.

I have to admit, I'm embarrassed. That building the mosque in Lower Manhattan has become the dominant issue in this country is just disturbing. It sounds like the kind of fight people might have had in the Middle Ages, not in the 21st century in a country that purports to espouse religious freedom and tolerance. I remember watching former National Security Adviser Richard Clarke explain how the U.S. played into the hands of the terrorists by invading Iraq:

"Osama bin Laden had been saying for years, 'America wants to invade an Arab country and occupy it, an oil-rich Arab country. He had been saying this. This is part of his propaganda," adds Clarke.

"So what did we do after 9/11? We invade an oil-rich and occupy an oil-rich Arab country which was doing nothing to threaten us. In other words, we stepped right into bin Laden's propaganda. And the result of that is that al Qaeda and organizations like it, offshoots of it, second-generation al Qaeda have been greatly strengthened."

Many of our so-called "leaders" are stepping right into Bin Laden's propaganda again. They've turned this into an attack on Islam. Well played, Sarah and Newt, among others. Those two would have fit right in during the Crusades. And, thanks for the lack of leadership (again), President Obama.

And, of course, the Ninth Circuit issued a stay of Judge Walker's decision on marriage. The appeal is on the fast track (fast for the Ninth Circuit anyway.) Arguments will be held in early December -- and no extensions.

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

Of mosques and marriage

Robyn Blumner in the St Petersburg Times:

He recounted New York's backward history, and how, in the mid-1600s the notoriously anti-Semitic Dutch Governor Peter Stuyvesant turned down the request of the small Jewish community to build a synagogue. And in the early 1700s, how it was illegal for Catholic priests to enter New York. Such intolerance reflected the abiding sentiments of the time. Jews and Catholics were disfavored, even despised. Now it's Muslims.

So too did U.S. District Judge Vaughn Walker invoke an invidious past to demonstrate how public policy surrounding marriage has historically reflected entrenched social inequality, and how it often took the courts to move things along.

Public sentiment once strongly supported the anti-miscegenation laws that were still in force in 16 states when the Supreme Court struck them down as unconstitutional in 1967. People generally believed that if they allowed marriage across color lines, they would somehow degrade and devalue the institution. Similarly, the American public saw rigid gender roles within marriage as the institution's essential characteristic. Laws codifying women's subjugation to their husbands, denying married women their own earnings or the right to own property, were seen as vital reinforcements to the institution of marriage.

Read the rest of this post...

DOD Secretary Gates wants to retire in 2011

Good riddance. I still worry that even with a more Democratic Secretary of Defense we'll still get bamboozled by the Pentagon on issue after issue.

Gates, who turns 67 in September, says he wants to leave the job and retire, this time for good, sometime in 2011. "I think that it would be a mistake to wait until January 2012," he said. It might be hard to find a good person to take the job so late, with just one year to go in the president's current term. And, he added, "This is not the kind of job you want to fill in the spring of an election year."

Read the rest of this post...