Inhofe says the birthers have a point, then tries to back off

Whenever a Republican like Oklahoma Sen. Jim Inhofe feels the need back away from anything he's said, then you know it must be really bad. Read the rest of this post...

Home Sales figures increase sharply, but don't get too excited

NYT:

Sales of new homes in the United States posted their largest monthly gain in eight years in June, the government reported on Monday, a sign that the housing market is bottoming as buyers take advantage of lower prices.

The Commerce Department reported that new single-family home sales rose 11 percent in June, an increase that dwarfed economists’ expectations of a 3 percent increase. The pace of home sales rose to a seasonally adjusted rate of 384,000 a year, the highest level since November.

Despite the monthly increase, sales of new homes were still down 21 percent from June 2008, and the market is still swamped by a glut of for-sale houses and foreclosed properties.

“These are still really bad numbers,” an economist at IHS Global Insight, Patrick Newport, said. “The market just couldn’t have dropped much further.” As sales rose, median prices of new homes continued to fall, slipping to $206,200 from $232,100 in June a year ago.

Read the rest of this post...

Eric Cantor is slamming the stimulus package but happy to take its money

From Katrina vanden Heuve of the Nation:

Virginia Congressman Eric Cantor may be a GOP rising star, but he sure is a hypocrite.

How else to describe someone who is a leading critic of President Obama's Recovery Act and yet also joins his congressional colleagues to urge Virginia's Department of Transportation to apply for stimulus money for high-speed rail? If that isn't two-faced, what is?

Read the rest of this post...

CBO undercuts GOP on health care reform

Seems a government-run plan can co-exist with private plans.

More than 160 million workers and family members now get health insurance through an employer. A widely cited study by the Lewin Group, a private health research firm, estimated that more than 100 million people would sign up for the public plan proposed by House Democrats, making it the dominant insurer in the land....

CBO estimates that only 11 million to 12 million people would sign up for the public plan — making it a much smaller player in the market. The government coverage would be available alongside private plans through a new kind of insurance purchasing pool called an exchange. CBO estimated about 6 million of those enrolled in the public plan would be workers and family members of employers that joined the exchange.

Read the rest of this post...

BREAKING: Sell-out group of Senate Dems cave to GOP, reach "bipartisan deal" on health care

Remember what "bipartisan" means to Democrats. It means we sell out our principles and adopt theirs. Then the GOP votes against the deal anyway. (Think $300bn in tax cuts in the stimulus package.) This really doesn't sound good. It will be interesting, to put it lightly, to see what the White House and Senator Reid have to say.

From AP:

After weeks of secretive talks, a bipartisan group in the Senate edged closer Monday to a health care compromise that omits a requirement for businesses to offer coverage to their workers and lacks a government insurance option that President Barack Obama favors, according to numerous officials.

Like bills drafted by Democrats, the proposal under discussion by six members on the Senate Finance Committee would bar insurance companies from denying coverage to any applicant. Nor could insurers charge higher premiums on the basis of pre-existing medical conditions.

But it jettisons other core Democratic provisions in a reach for bipartisanship on an issue that has so far produced little.

Read the rest of this post...

Evan Bayh's wife hauls in millions serving on corporate boards of companies including "nation's largest health insurance company"

For Evan Bayh, the Senator from Indiana who formed his own Blue Dog caucus in the Senate, health care isn't just a policy issue, it's personal. Not personal because of a health issue, but because his wife makes millions by sitting on corporate boards. And, some of those boards would be impacted by the health care reform legislation. Susan Bayh is one busy director:

As the debate over health-care reform intensifies, Bayh's wife is receiving lucrative payouts from some of the companies that could be most affected by that legislation.

Bayh contends the $2.1 million that his wife, Susan, earned from public health-care companies from 2006 to 2008 represents no conflict of interest. Questions persist, however, for at least two reasons. First, Evan Bayh has been unclear about his positions on many issues related to health-care reform. Second, there's the timing of Susan Bayh's rapid rise into corporate governance.

Susan Bayh, who was a midlevel lawyer for the politically active Eli Lilly and Co. while her husband was governor of Indiana, did not serve on the board of a single public health-care company until it was clear her husband was about to ascend to the U.S. Senate. Only one month before Evan Bayh was elected to the Senate in a landslide vote, his wife was appointed to serve on the board of what would become the nation's largest health insurance company -- and arguably the company with the most at stake in the health-care reform debate.

Within a few years, numerous companies recruited her, and she eventually served on the boards of eight companies. At least one of them asked her to reduce the number of boards she served on, apparently because she was spread too thin to be effective.

Adding to speculation about a connection between her board memberships and her husband's office is Susan Bayh's unwillingness to discuss the matter, including for this story. She has declined several requests for comment on her corporate interests, making it difficult to tell where those interests end.

What a surprise that Susan Bayh won't answer questions.

Bayh is going to be one of the biggest obstacles to health care reform in the Senate. As Think Progress told us back in March, one of the reasons Bayh set up the Blue Dog Senate caucus to block Obama's agenda. It won't hurt his wife's business interests either. Funny thing, huh?

Here's something Evan and Susan Bayh should be proud of: Indiana has fallen into the bottom third of state rankings on health of its citizens. But, Evan and Susan have great health care coverage -- and lots and lots of money from the health care industry.

Hat tip to reader Chuck in Indy who sent the link. Read the rest of this post...

Howard Dean filling in for Keith Olbermann Tue and Wed this week

Very cool. Read the rest of this post...

Is AT&T; censoring the Net

A number of AT&T; DSL users say the Internet/Cable/Phone giant has started censoring which Web sites its customers can access. It's an interesting issues, the notion of your Internet provider itself deciding what sites you should and shouldn't see. There are a number of reports on this, including some suggesting that perhaps this was not motivated by a desire to censor the site in question, 4chan (which I'm told can be pretty NSFW, so I won't link).

Should Internet providers be in the business of censoring which sites their customers have access to? What if the sites are calling the murder of specific abortion doctors, or calling for people to hurt you? Should the Internet provider ever be a place to go for redress? Read the rest of this post...

Jefferson Beauregard Sessions III won't support Sotomayor

This really isn't a surprise, but the ranking Republican on the Senate Judiciary Committee, Jefferson Beauregard Sessions III (R-Confederacy) isn't going to vote for Sonia Sotomayor's confirmation:

The senior Republican on the Senate Judiciary Committee says he'll vote against Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor.

Alabama Sen. Jeff Sessions says he doesn't think Sotomayor has the convictions to resist the pull of judicial activism once she becomes a justice.

Sessions has proven he doesn't have the ability to resist the pull of racism. It's marked his career. Why the Republicans put him front and center on this one is beyond me.

Sotomayor's confirmation will be approved by the Senate Judiciary Committee tomorrow -- and she'll get a vote in the full Senate by the end of next week. Read the rest of this post...

Krugman: "the Blue Dogs aren't making sense"

Paul Krugman:

Right now the fate of health care reform seems to rest in the hands of relatively conservative Democrats — mainly members of the Blue Dog Coalition, created in 1995. And you might be tempted to say that President Obama needs to give those Democrats what they want.

But he can’t — because the Blue Dogs aren’t making sense.

He then deconstructs what the Blue Dogs are complaining about -- and what they actually want:

So what are the objections of the Blue Dogs?

Well, they talk a lot about fiscal responsibility, which basically boils down to worrying about the cost of those subsidies. And it’s tempting to stop right there, and cry foul. After all, where were those concerns about fiscal responsibility back in 2001, when most conservative Democrats voted enthusiastically for that year’s big Bush tax cut — a tax cut that added $1.35 trillion to the deficit?

But it’s actually much worse than that — because even as they complain about the plan’s cost, the Blue Dogs are making demands that would greatly increase that cost.

Hypocrites.

Now, Blue Dogs being Blue Dogs, they probably like being attacked by the New York Times. But, every one of them should be embarrassed by what Krugman exposed.

Over at DailyKos, slinkerwink has an excellent post titled, Tell Democrats Not To Let Blue Dogs Kill Health Reform! We've all got to tell House Democrats not to let that happen. Slinkerwink provides all the names and numbers. The insurance industry is spending millions and millions on lobbying. But, Democratic leaders and members need to hear from real people about the need for real reform. Read the rest of this post...

I got to join a "flash mob" yesterday in Paris, as a tribute to Michael Jackson

(Tourists watching the Michael Jackson flash mob in Paris on July 26, 2009.)

I had a very cool experience yesterday in Paris. I got wind last Friday that there was going to be a flash mob in Paris on Sunday, honoring Michael Jackson. For those who aren't familiar, a flash mob is... well... I may just link to a few to show you (you might remember I linked to the Sound of Music flash mob in Belgium a while back). Basically a lot of people, usually organized online, decide to get together at a specific location, and at a set time they all do the same thing simultaneously, then disperse. It's a mob that occurs in a flash. Oh, and the public already at the location has no idea the mob is about to occur.

The French were planning on having a few hundred people mill about famous, busy tourist centers, like the Pompidou Center, the Montorgueil district, and Trocadero (overlooking the Eiffel Tower), and then at a specific time the music from Michael Jackon's "Beat It" would start playing on a loudspeaker. Within moments, a soul guy would start dancing to the exact choreography in Jackson's "Beat It" video. Then, within moments, a woman would join him - then, six more people - and slowly another 150 to 200 people would join in, all dancing simultaneously to Beat It, and then - in a flash - they'd all disperse in the crowd of tourists and it would be over. The flash mob was inspired by this previous one held in Stockholm recently. The organizers urged other cities to join in.

I was lucky enough to join these guys from early Sunday morning, when they were practicing, all through the day to the various flash mob sites. I made a video documenting the practice, the mob actions themselves, and then interviewed the organizers (in English). You can check out the video below, then after the jump I have more photos from the day.



And here are some photos of the practice, and various locations right before the mob started dancing.



Some 200 people showed up at the Eglise Saint Paul in Paris, just north of the Seine, to learn the dance steps for the flash mob. Basically, 7 or so professional dancers learned the steps the day before, then on Sunday morning at 11am, they taught the few hundred people who showed up and wanted to participate. Within 2 hours, they were ready.



Yep, dead ringer for MJ.



The practice area was in a beautiful part of the city. People were watching and dancing from the windows of the apartment buildings while the practice was going on. I couldn't join in because of my eye surgery this past week (not allowed to exercise or violently move my head).



This is little Ethan. My favorite. He's a young French kid who showed up at the rehearsal with his parents, and really wanted to learn the dance and join in the mob. So he did. Ethan showed up at all three flash mobs, and I got to talk to him and his parents briefly at the last one near the Eiffel Tower. he was just adorable. I got some great clips of him practicing in the video above. (In the freeze frame of the video you'll see Ethan, he's the little guy in the bright yellow shirt.)



This is the Montorgueil neighborhood of Paris, moments before the flash mob.



And this is the Pompidou Center (known as Beaubourg in French), moments before the mob kicked in there. Read the rest of this post...

Health care reform is a snail. Get it?

This is what goes for "hard hitting" in the land of Democratic consultants and big-money organizations. A snail. It goes slowly. Then it gets stepped on. So health care reform had better not go slowly too, or else it'll get stepped on. Get it? Watch the newest ad from our groups, then read my thoughts below.



Are you motivated now? Do you think members of Congress who gets millions from the health insurance and pharmaceutical companies are going to think "wow, a snail, I guess I'd better ignore the millions of bucks I'm going from the lobbyists"? Do you think Americans, many of whom are under the false delusion that their own health coverage is actually good (since they haven't yet had a serious illness), will watch this snail being stepped on and suddenly realize that their own health insurance isn't as good as they think it is? Will the snail put the fear of God into the Blue Dogs, and Max Baucus, and make them finally support their own party? Do you think this snail is making Republicans quake in their boots?

How many times do we have to hire the same people to run these same organizations, and then screw up a major issue, before things change in Washington? The White House has a 12m person email list at their disposal (yes, I know - Organizing for America (formerly Obama for America) isn't run by the White House, wink wink). Why aren't we winning this? Democrats have a majority in both houses of Congress, including a filibuster-proof majority in the Senate - why aren't they winning this?

We're told that the smartest Democrats in the world inhabit the White House, the House, the Senate, and our liberal national organizations. So why aren't we winning this? It certainly doesn't feel like we're winning, nor is the quiet scuttlebutt among Democrats in town that we're winning.

Where are the ads and the campaigns calling on Congress to give up it's cushy health care if they won't give Americans the same fabulous coverage at dirt cheap rates? Oh that's right, running a campaign that would create a national media frenzy, educate the public, excite our advocates, and truly pressure Congress would be mean. And we don't do mean. We do snails.

Health care reform isn't a snail. Our leadership is a snail. And it should be squashed. Read the rest of this post...

Advair costs 1/3 the price in Europe

One of the values of traveling abroad is getting to see just how #1 your own country really is. It's easy to think your country is best in everything, that nothing ever needs to change, and that Europe and Canada are somehow "broken" and thus great examples for what we shouldn't do, when you don't have a passport.

I went to the pharmacy in Paris the other day to get the cat's asthma medicine (yes, every morning and night after inhaling my asthma medicine I get to hold down Nasdaq, the big fat black cat, and administer her asthma medicine). Nasdaq's medicine, ironically the same as mine, was absurdly cheap. I decided to check and see how much my medicines cost in Europe. Here's what I found.

(US prices are from Costco, which is usually the cheapest, and the French drugs are not the same brand names as the American drugs, but medical equivalents).

Advair 500-50 DISKUS - 1 month supply

US: $272.79 (gotta love the 79 cents)
France: 63 euros, or $89 (mind you, that's with a very weak dollar)

So a one year supply of Advair will cost you $2200 more in the states than in Europe.

Symbicort 160-4.5 MCG, 11g - 1 month supply

US: $194.47 (again, 47 cents?)
France: 54 euros, or $77

And a year's supply of Symbicort will cost you $1400 more in the states than in Europe.

As for the US pharmaceutical industry's argument that they'd just go broke if we didn't let them charge us a 300% mark-up over the cost of the drugs in Europe, then how does France's very well-to-do pharmaceutical industry survive? Read the rest of this post...

Robert Reich: Every day, health reform is more endangered

From Robert Reich's blog:

Every day that goes by without a vote in the House or Senate on universal health care makes it less likely that major reform will occur, because (1) opponents have more time to stir up public anxieties about it; (2) Democrats up for reelection next year come ever closer to the gravitational pull of the midterms, and grow increasingly worried about voting for a bill that could be a political liability in a year when unemployment may well reach double digits and the electorate is restless and unhappy; and (3), as a result of the first two, proponents increasingly have to rely for support and cover on industries like Big Pharma and insurance, as well as physician specialists and equipment suppliers, none of whom have any interest in fundamental reform but all of whom see possibilities for making more money out of whatever bill emerges.

In other words, next fall we get something called "universal health insurance" that still leaves millions of Americans uninsured and doesn't substantially slow the meteoric rise of health-care costs. That would be a tragedy.

Yes, groups like MoveOn (to their credit) are turning out lots of supporters to their health care rallies. But. Have the health care reform groups really created a national conversation about health care? Have they really convinced the public (which shouldn't need any convincing at all) that our health insurance system is broken, and that our health insurance companies can't be trusted? Is the American public truly demanding change? I'm just not sure our groups are quite doing their jobs. This is not what a national campaign looks like. At least one that's effective. Where's our Harry & Louise ad that burns in the mind of every American? Where's our catch phrase like "Hillary Care"? We keep hiring the same people who simply don't seem to understand how PR advocacy and guerrilla advocacy work. And then we're surprised that we get the same results over and over again. Read the rest of this post...

CNN: Palin is another Huckabee, the party loves her but she can't win

God bless her, and more like her. The more moderates who leave the GOP, the more conservative and extreme the GOP becomes, and the more the party will pick people like Sarah Palin and Mike Huckabee in their primaries - people who can't win a general election. The only danger, or the big danger at least, is that Democrats will keep trying to be "bipartisan" with an increasingly fringe GOP, moving the Democrats further and further to the right. Compromising with extremism is not bipartisanship. Read the rest of this post...

Monday Morning Open Thread

Good morning.

The House of Representatives starts its recess at the end of this week. Will we get a health care reform bill passed in the House by then? We better. Stay tuned. It's going to be a wild week.

Sarah Palin is no longer the governor of Alaska. The people of Alaska are free of her. But, the rest of us are stuck with Palin now.

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

Is health care reform going to happen?

What do you think? Is health care reform going to happen? And if it does happen, is it going to be something good, or too much of a compromise?

(NB Chris is traveling the next few weeks, thus the reason I'm house sitting for him, and sharing the overnight shift with Joe. Chris should be back, at least part-time, mid August - you know those French and their month-long vacations, God bless 'em.) Read the rest of this post...

Judd is good

We've written about our friend Judd Legum before. He's running for the Maryland delegate seat representing Annapolis. Steve does a great job explaining why Judd is a great candidate. Watch the video. He's good.

Judd Legum (MD-HD-30)
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