Digby makes me learn yet another word

DFH.

Damn it, Digby, stop making me feel old.

This is my post that started it. (Well, she started it.) Read the rest of this post...

Known "hate group" to hold anti-gay press conference in Maine tomorrow

Having a known "hate group" come to Maine to help the Catholic Church take away the civil rights of gays and lesbians. If anyone needed any proof of what the Catholic Church is really motivated by in Maine, we now have our answer. Who's next - the Klan? Read the rest of this post...

House libs want leadership and White House to fight harder for robust public option

Greg Sargent has the story. (I hear the numbers in the House are significantly higher than what Greg is reporting.) Read the rest of this post...

Never underestimate the ability of a red-stater to vote against their own self-interest

I'm skeptical of Andrew's argument on why the Opt-Out Public Option could spell trouble for the GOP.

Imagine Republicans in state legislatures having to argue and posture against an affordable health insurance plan for the folks, as O'Reilly calls them, while evil liberals provide it elsewhere.

Imagine Republicans in red states convincing voters who don't have a lot of money, have precarious jobs if any, have a bad school system, have under-educated and less-than-healthy children, and whose home is about to be foreclosed on - imagine the Republicans being able to convince that voter that abortion and gay marriage are more important than their family's livelihood.

That is the definition of Red State.

I fear that a lot of Red-Staters would rather die than let their children grow up in "communism." And don't think for a minute that every GOP governor and legislature won't be immediately opting out of this. I agree with Andrew, our side has a great argument, but it will take some skill to sell it. And our side doesn't always exhibit that trait. Read the rest of this post...

French hit Scientologists with nearly $1m fine

The French consider Scientology a cult. From the BBC:

Prosecutors had asked for the group's French operations to be dissolved and more heavily fined, but a legal loophole prevented any ban.

Instead, a Paris judge ordered the Church's Celebrity Centre and a bookshop to pay a 600,000-euro fine....

Unlike the US, France has always refused to recognise Scientology as a religion, arguing that it is a purely commercial operation designed to make as much money as it can at the expense of often vulnerable victims, the BBC's Emma Jane Kirby reports from Paris.

True to form, there's a creepy side to the story:

The court was unable to impose a ban because of a legal amendment that was passed just before the trial began, preventing the banning of an organisation convicted of fraud.

However, that amendment has now been changed.

"It is very regrettable that the law quietly changed before the trial," Georges Fenech, the head of the Inter-ministerial Unit to Monitor and Fight Cults, told French TV.

"The system has now been put in place by parliament and it is certain that in the future, if new offences are committed, a ban could eventually be pronounced," he said.

Read the rest of this post...

Glenn Beck admires Pravda

And somehow I suspect Pravda admires Glenn Beck too.



Pravda? You mean the propaganda organ of the Evil Empire? The "news" outlet that defended dictators who subjugated hundreds of millions of people, deported millions of ethnic minorities from their homes, signed peace pacts with Hitler, brutalized Eastern Europe for half a century, starved five to ten million of their own people, and executed 700,000 of their fellow citizens? That's who FOX News' Glenn Beck admires? (Hat tip to Jed Lewison at Daily Kos.) Read the rest of this post...

Chuck Todd thinks people like the public option because opponents haven't fought it very hard. Yeah, right.

Reader Joe writes in:

At 1:15 Chuck Todd, Political Director of NBC says the groups opposing the Public Option have not had a big campaign for their side aiming to kill Public Option. Apparently Chuck forgot that they were spending $1.5 million per day in advertising over the entire summer. Couple this with the campaign by FOX News and GOP advisors for the teaparties over the summer plus the lies of death panels, killing grandma, killing veterans and the like. He also forgot about the tens of tens of millions of dollars handed to our elected representatives for mysterious reasons...but don't call them BRIBES...call them...uh...mysterious reasons. The campaign to kill Public Option cannot be anything other than one of the most highly organized movements Washington has ever seen.

Chuck completely misses the point the numbers show us. The best way to put this would be to say that the buried headline here would be the following -

"Public Option takes deep breath and flourishes despite lies, obfuscations, misdirection and big money corporate BRIBES to kill it. America is speaking."

Read the rest of this post...

White House admits still not "actively engaged" in health care fight

The bad news:

"I have not heard of any specific calls that the President has made."

The good news:

The White House will get more actively engaged in the healthcare fight "in due time," press secretary Robert Gibbs said today.

Maybe they're too busy working on all those gay rights promises they postponed because they're too busy working on health care reform. Read the rest of this post...

Lieberman's wife Haddassah worked for a health care/pharmaceutical lobbyist

And not for the kind of folks who represent the good guys. But I'm sure this has nothing to do with why Lieberman is trying to undercut the President and Senator Reid by threatening to join a Republican filibuster of health care reform.

Joe Conason has much more:

Among Hill & Knowlton's clients when Mrs. Lieberman signed on with the firm last year was GlaxoSmithKline, the huge British-based drug company that makes vaccines along with many other drugs. As I noted in July, Sen. Lieberman introduced a bill in April 2005 (the month after his wife joined Hill & Knowlton) that would award billions of dollars in new "incentives" to companies like GlaxoSmithKline to persuade them to make more new vaccines. Under the legislation, known as Bioshield II, the cost to consumers and governments would be astronomical, but for Lieberman and his Republican cosponsors, Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, and Sen. Sam Brownback, R-Kan., the results would be worth every penny. Using the war on terror as their ideological backdrop, the pharma-friendly senators sought to win patent extensions on products that have nothing to do with preparations against terrorist attack or natural disaster.

As the New Haven Register, Lieberman's hometown newspaper, noted in an editorial headlined "Lieberman Crafts Drug Company Perk," that bill is even more generous to the pharmaceutical industry than a similar proposal by the Senate Republican leadership. "The government can offer incentives and guarantees for needed public health measures," it said. "But it should not write a blank check, as these bills do, to the pharmaceutical industry that has such a large cost to the public with what may be an uncertain or dubious return."

What the editorial didn't mention was that the Lieberman bill had also been written by Chuck Ludlam, a former pharmaceutical industry lobbyist who then worked on the Connecticut senator's staff. From his office to his bedroom, Lieberman was totally surrounded by current and former employees of Big Pharma.

Read the rest of this post...

Lieberman says he'll filibuster health care bill with public option, yet two years ago he said he's for universal coverage and a national plan

UPDATE: Ambinder just tweeted that he thinks Lieberman is posturing:

Senate leaders and the WH still think they'll get Lieberman''s vote on final cloture. They think he's posturing for power but will cave.

UPDATE: CBS catches Lieberman lying:

Lieberman has said he opposes a public option because of the potential burden it could place on taxpayers. However, Democrats have crafted a public option that would be financed by premiums rather than federal funds.

What a surprise. Joe Lieberman to the rescue to screw the Democrats, like he always does.

Two things here:

1. Lieberman needs to be told that he's out of the caucus and loses his committee chair if he does this.

2. President Obama can switch Lieberman's vote. It was Obama, after all, who campaigned for Lieberman when everyone else deserted him, and it was Obama who intervened to save Lieberman's position in the Democratic caucus last December. Lieberman owes Obama. Currently, Lieberman is making a mockery of Obama by letting Obama save him, and then knifing the president every step of the way. It's time for the President to call in his chits with Lieberman, or destroy Lieberman - Obama has the power to do both. And after all, the White House endorsed Reid's plan yesterday, and we take them at their word that they're on board. So this is a perfect opportunity for them to show how on board they are.

Here's Lieberman in 2006 vowing his unconditional support for a federal program of universal health care (way beyond the bill Reid is considering):

Read the rest of this post...

Daou: Don't bother waiting for bloggers to get credit for the Public Option

Peter Daou, writing in the Huffington Post. Peter was Hillary's online adviser:

Not surprisingly, despite lots of buzz about the use of the Internet as a fundraising and organizing tool, the outsized role played by blog denizens was buried in the gush of excitement that followed Election Day. Ultimately, that relatively small band of online progressives received very little of the credit they deserved for changing the course of American history.

Now, a similar dynamic is playing out. Although it's far from clear what the final health care bill will look like, especially the public option (opt-out, trigger, etc.), there's absolutely no doubt that it is alive primarily because of the vigorous efforts of online progressive activists and bloggers on Huffington Post, Firedoglake, Daily Kos, TPM, Think Progress, Media Matters, Salon, AmericaBlog, Crooks and Liars, and hundreds of smaller sites (not to mention MoveOn).

But don't hold your breath waiting to read about the netroots' pivotal role in forcing the inclusion of a public option -- it's just not the way things work in our current media and political world. Instead, at most expect to hear vague allusions to the 'left'. Or even more likely, the credit will go to liberal-leaning legislators and will reference "public support," neglecting the fact that it took bloggers to draw attention to the polling that showed a majority favored the public option.

Your thoughts? Read the rest of this post...

Pro-lifers burn Pelosi and Reid in effigy

But seriously, the GOP is not inciting violence against Democrats.

Really.

Come on, stop laughing.

Mom!

Read the rest of this post...

The Superman Option

Politico:

“The White House needs to step up here and needs to indicate what they want on the public option and whether it is important for them to get to 60 or not, and they need to implore both moderates and liberals in the caucus to get agreement on this, or they could see this bill fall on the Senate floor,” said a Senate Democratic aide.

“The White House has got to be more forthright and more forceful with members,” the person added.

Still, Brown and other public-option supporters say that the president’s strategy has turned out to be effective thus far, even if by accident.

“It’s worked so far,” said Brown. “I knew we would have a public option, even back in August when we thought it was dead and buried.”

It's worked so far. Hmm. Let me give you an analogy:

Your child has cancer. The doctor tells you that your child's condition is deadly if untreated, but the good news is that he has a 90% chance of survival if he gets radiation and chemotherapy now. You decide to forgo the treatment, and instead you sit at home and pray. The doctor takes you to court, and the court forces your child to get the chemo and radiation. In the end, the treatment works, your child's cancer goes in to remission.

When your friends criticize you for not supporting the doctor, for refusing to treat your child's cancer, you respond: Hey, my child is in remission, so obviously my "crazy" course of action has worked so far.

Moral of the story. You don't get credit for sitting on your butt, or worse, choosing a really bad option, and forcing someone else to come to the rescue and do your job for you. At some point, the Superman Option will fail. Read the rest of this post...

The Revenge of the Teabaggers, Missouri

Marco Rubio is the conservative Florida Republican running against Governor Charlie Crist in the GOP Senate primary. The D.C. crowd has already had a coronation for Crist, but, in Florida, Rubio has momentum and is closing the gap. Crist is too moderate for the modern day GOP.

In Missouri, something similar is happening. From a distance, Roy Blunt, the long-time GOP Congressman, is considered a shoo-in for his party's Senate nomination. But, he's got a hard-core Republican State Senator, Chuck Purgason, running against him. Blunt is trying to ignore Purgason. In fact, this weekend, Blunt failed to show up at a GOP event where Purgason was also speaking. No wonder, given Purgason's tough message about Blunt:

[Purgason] also asserted that some Republicans in Congress have contributed to the country's current money problems -- notably his unnamed primary opponent, U.S. Rep. Roy Blunt, R-Mo.

"My opponent was in (House) leadership when this occurred," Purgason said.

Yes, he was.

The pundits look at the anger among the GOP teabagger crowd and think it's aimed mostly at Democrats. But, as we're seeing in New York's 23rd CD, they're fighting among themselves more. It's the D.C. GOPers vs. the teabaggers up there -- and the teabaggers are wreaking havoc.

Which brings me back to Florida and Missouri. As noted above, Crist is in trouble with the GOP base for being a squishy moderate. After looking at Florida polls and straw polls of GOP activists, Senate Guru predicted Rubio will win the nomination.

It's not on the radar screen yet, but Missouri's GOP primary could be on a similar trajectory. Roy Blunt's problem is that he's become too-DC. That makes him part of the problem -- and subject to the wrath of the GOP base. Having dumped his wife for a high-powered D.C. lobbyist feeds that image of Blunt and doesn't help with the fundamentalists. Check out this diatribe against Blunt from a Missouri right wing radio host who was interviewing Michael Steele this past August:

“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

That's what the GOP base is hearing in Missouri. Just this weekend, we learned from Fired Up! that Missouri teabaggers were telling Blunt that they were coming for him.

Keep an eye on this one. Purgason isn't raising a lot of money. But, he's building up grassroots support. And, he's unrelenting in his criticism of Blunt. In a low turnout primary that could be key. And, Missouri's primary is held in the middle of summer: August 3, 2010.

Photo credit:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/dlytle/ / CC BY 2.0

Read the rest of this post...

Media Matters: Fox News' rhetoric echoes Ailes' long history of race-baiting

From Media Matters:

Under its president, Roger Ailes, Fox News routinely employs racially charged appeals to foment opposition to the Obama administration and other progressive figures, such as Glenn Beck's comments that President Obama is a "racist" and "has a deep-seated hatred for white people or the white culture." Before launching the Fox News Channel, Ailes worked as a media consultant for several Republican campaigns where evidence shows he similarly appealed to racial fears and biases for political gain, and as executive producer for Rush Limbaugh's television show, during which Limbaugh made several controversial statements.

Read the rest of this post...

Administration official: Public option proven to lower costs, trigger not so much

This is very good. It's the kind of thing administration officials should be saying:

Dr. Christina Romer, Chair of the Council of Economic Advisers, said that she had "personally been quite persuaded that the public option can be an important source of cost growth containment," during a speech at the Center for American Progress.

Romer cited a case study of counties in California where the introduction of a government-run plan helped bring down overall costs in the private market....

Romer would not make the same predictions of cost-containment when asked about the trigger, saying that there was insufficient data as to how it would work.

"As I said, the evidence even on public and private,I think, isn't all there still. It is something where we are still collecting evidence. Knowing what a trigger will do is, I think, beyond anything that we have a lot of evidence on.

Read the rest of this post...

Tuesday Morning Open Thread

Good morning.

So, big day yesterday for health insurance reform. Now, the fun really begins. The United States Senate is just full of landmines that can blow the legislation up. But, one thing is now crystal clear: Republicans are irrelevant. This is a Democratic bill. It always should have been. President Snowe is losing power, as it should be. Now, it's President Obama's time to deliver on his top legislative priority.

The President starts the day in Florida. He'll be in Arcadia for an event the DeSoto Next Generation Solar Energy Center talking about renewable energy and other related topics. Then, Obama is heading to Norfolk, Virginia for a campaign event with the Democratic candidate for Governor, Creigh Deeds. The latest Washington Post poll shows Deeds trailing GOP Bob McDonnell, a closet theocrat, by a margin of 55% - 44%.

I'm leaving for Maine shortly. Carlos and I are driving up (so we can bring Petey.) We'll be working on the get-out-the-vote operation for No on 1. The latest poll in Maine shows our side ahead by a 53% - 42% margin, with a margin of error of =/-5%. But, ballot measures, especially on controversial issues, are notoriously hard to predict. It's all about turnout. I'll have reports from Maine starting tonight.

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

EU breaking up mega bank to stop 'too big to fail' problem

There is a bit of momentum in the US for this now that Washington has taken notice of voter anger over the bank bonuses. For now, the Dutch are leading the pack though we may be seeing much more of this in the coming months. It's unfortunate that the bankers failed to notice how fortunate they were to still have jobs despite driving their businesses and the global economy into the ground. As they always do, they viewed the bailout as a way to maintain their excessive lifestyle and as a confirmation of their superiority. ("We're so damned important and everyone knows it.)

Everyone has had enough and the Volcker plan to eliminate "too big to fail" may finally be making progress. Break them up and if they fail, tough luck, but we'll be fine. The global powerhouse ING is about to be broken apart. This better be the new trend.

The group said Monday that it had wrapped up talks with European Union officials that had led to its decision to separate its banking and insurance businesses, seeking to divest the latter over the next four years.

“Negotiations with the European Commission on the restructuring plan have acted as a catalyst to accelerate the strategic decision to completely separate banking and insurance operations,” the company said. “ING will explore all options, including initial public offerings, sales or combinations thereof.”

Read the rest of this post...

Toulouse installs heat sensitive streetlights

They expect the new lamps to both save money and also to help address the problem of too much night light. There is a movement in many European towns to reduce energy costs by stopping night lights at a certain hour and this would help by turning the lights on briefly for humans, but then turning off again. The idea is somewhat like apartment hallways in France though you won't have to press a button every ten minutes. I also like that they are actively trying to reduce light pollution. If only they could start doing something about the annoying, lawnmower-like noise of cheap motorcycles and scooters.

Installed on a 500-metre section of pavement last weekend, the lampposts double the strength of the light they cast when they detect human body heat. Ten seconds later they revert to normal.

"It's a prototype. Nothing like this exists anywhere in the world. We pretty much built the technology ourselves," said Alexandre Marciel, the deputy mayor in charge of works, highways, sanitation and lighting.

The aim is to cut energy consumption by around 50%, first on the busy street which runs between a sports stadium and university halls, then more widely. If it is a success, it will be rolled out across the city of around 450,000 people, France's fourth largest.

Read the rest of this post...

Bank charge-off rates higher now than during Great Depression

Ug-ly. Again, these are the self-important bankers who keep telling everyone that if they don't get their fat bonus money, they will leave. Can we even afford to keep them at this rate? Let them show their value flipping burgers. Even then, you just know they're going to screw up your order and overcharge in the process.

The rate of loan charge-offs by major U.S. banks has exceeded those seen in the early years of the Great Depression as the credit crisis continues to take a toll, Moody's Investors Service said Monday.

Bank charge-offs — loans written off as uncollectable — have reached $116 billion year to date, or 2.9 percent of outstanding loans on an annualized basis, Moody's said in a report.

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Clotheslines or dryer?

Interesting read in the Times today by a number of people who are discussing the environmental and practical issues related to clothes drying. Obviously not everyone is going to find this one a thriller but it's interesting to see how different people view clothes drying. Like many (most, probably) Americans I grew up with a dryer. I bought one when I moved to Paris and wondered how the heck those nutty French did without one. Even though I observed plenty of people who could buy one (at least) but didn't, I still swore by my dryer.

Paris is miserably humid which means clothes can take a day, sometimes more to dry. And besides, who really wants one of those fold out dryers clogging up a room? During our own financial crisis a few years back our trusted dryer stopped being trustworthy. As much as I wanted to buy another it was going the way of the TV that died and would never be replaced. We simply didn't have the spare cash to buy another so we bought a used fold out drying rack and never looked back.

It's still ugly in the room and yes, it can take time but we notice the lower energy costs. We also notice our clothes last a lot longer since they're not being trashed by the dryer. It took a while but now I finally see why few people bother to buy the energy sucking beasts. Where it could easily get more challenging though is in a larger household with more than two people. People do it, but it has to be a bit more tricky keeping the process moving. Read the rest of this post...