Where's the Outrage?

I’m going to work. More later -

From Political Animal:

• Mexico: “President Barack Obama is ‘deeply saddened and outraged’ at news of the murders of a federal employee and two relatives of workers at the U.S. consulate in Ciudad Juarez, Mexico, an administration spokesman said.”
• Netanyahu is sorry U.S. officials are upset, but Israel isn’t changing course: “In the face of sharp American disapproval of an Israeli plan for an East Jerusalem building project, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu firmly rejected Monday any curbs on new Jewish settlements in and around Jerusalem.” (ed. This is a big deal. This is a very big deal.)
• And predictably, GOP leaders are attacking the Obama administration for being unhappy with Israel. (ed. the knee jerk reaction of conservatives is nauseating but what is worse is that democrats are apologizing for standing strong and asking Israel how are more settlements helpful?)
• Step one is done: the House Budget Committee voted 21 to 16 this afternoon to send the final health care reform package to the House Rules Committee. Two Blue Dogs — Texas’s Chet Edwards and Florida’s Allen Boyd — voted with Republicans. Both voted against reform in November.
• Senate Banking Committee Chairman Chris Dodd (D-Conn.) kicks off his initiative to reform the way Wall Street does business. The White House is pleased. More surprisingly, Elizabeth Warren seems to like the plan, too.
• Good to see industrial production edge up.
• Eyeing an overhaul of No Child Left Behind.
• Student aid bill “hobbles forward.”
• Fantastic interview with Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens from Jeff Toobin. Of particular interest: Stevens will retire before the end of Obama’s first term.
• Fareed Zakaria on the success of Obama’s approach to Pakistan.
• After Rep. Dennis Kucinich’s (D-Ohio) votes against health care, against the hate crimes bill, against the Democratic budget, against the cap-and-trade bill, and against financial regulation, Nate Silver considers the liberal lawmaker’s value to the Democratic Party.
• Utah’s House Republican majority leader resigned in the wake of his under-age, hush-money, hot-tub scandal. Probably a good idea.
• Fact Checking the Sunday Shows.
• Harry Reid issued a statement today, noting that he still expects his wife to make a “full recovery.” (ed. I’m happy for Reid and his family. Both his wife and daughter were in a serious car crash on Thursday.)

Tags: Economy, Healthcare, Israel, Legal, Obama administration, Pakistan by ecthompson
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I have a feeling that Glenn is probably correct on this. It was easy to point at the R’s and say they won’t play fair. This is what the Dems have done. We could pass healthcare reform is it wasn’t for the big, bad Republicans. We have 54 or 55 votes. Well, now it is time to put up or get voted out of office.

From Glenn:

A couple of weeks ago, I wrote about what seemed to be a glaring (and quite typical) scam perpetrated by Congressional Democrats:  all year long, they insisted that the White House and a majority of Democratic Senators vigorously supported a public option, but the only thing oh-so-unfortunately preventing its enactment was the filibuster:  sadly, we have 50 but not 60 votes for it, they insisted.  Democratic pundits used that claim to push for “filibuster reform,” arguing that if only majority rule were required in the Senate, then the noble Democrats would be able to deliver all sorts of wonderful progressive reforms that they were truly eager to enact but which the evil filibuster now prevents.  In response, advocates of the public option kept arguing that the public option could be accomplished by reconciliation — where only 50 votes, not 60, would be required — but Obama loyalists scorned that reconciliation proposal, insisting (at least before the Senate passed a bill with 60 votes) that using reconciliation was Unserious, naive, procedurally impossible, and politically disastrous.

But all those claims were put to the test — all those bluffs were called — once the White House decided that it had to use reconciliation to pass a final health care reform bill.  That meant that any changes to the Senate bill (which had passed with 60 votes) — including the addition of the public option — would only require 50 votes, which Democrats assured progressives all year long that they had.  Great news for the public option, right?  Wrong.  As soon as it actually became possible to pass it, the 50 votes magically vanished.  Senate Democrats (and the White House) were willing to pretend they supported a public option only as long as it was impossible to pass it.  Once reconciliation gave them the opportunity they claimed all year long they needed — a “majority rule” system — they began concocting ways to ensure that it lacked 50 votes.

All of that was bad enough, but now the scam is getting even more extreme, more transparent.  Faced with the dilemma of how they could possibly justify their year-long claimed support for the public option only now to fail to enact it, more and more Democratic Senators were pressured into signing a letter supporting the enactment of the public option through reconciliation; that number is now above 40, and is rapidly approaching 50.  In other words, there is a serious possibility that the Senate might enact a public option if there is a vote on it, because it’s very difficult for these Senators to vote “No” after pretending all year long — on the record — that they supported it.  In fact, The Huffington Post’s Ryan Grim yesterday wrote:  ”the votes appear to exist to include a public option. It’s only a matter of will.” (more…)

Tags: Healthcare, Obama administration, Party Politics by ecthompson
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With Christopher Dodd coming out with his new financial rules to save Wall Street from auto digesting itself and 60 minutes interviewing Michael Lewis, author of the new book, The Big Short, I thought I’d post some of his interview with 60 minutes. This is very good. Please take your time and take in what this guy is saying.

From NPR:

Nearly the whole financial system bought into subprime mortgages and the securities that were backed by them — and amounted to bundles of bad debt.

In his new book, The Big Short, Michael Lewis writes about people who didn’t buy in. In fact, they bet against the colossal tower of debt that Wall Street built. They shorted it — and they profited from its eventual collapse.

For Lewis, The Big Short is his return to the scene of the crime. Twenty years ago, he wrote about his experience working as a young bond trader at Salomon Brothers. Liar’s Poker was an astonishing tale of kids fresh out of Ivy League schools making huge decisions about other people’s money with no qualifications for doing so.

By the time of the financial crisis, the generation he wrote about in Liar’s Poker was established Wall Streeters, typically up to their eyeballs in mortgage-backed securities.

Part 2 of his interview with 60 minutes is below:

Tags: Books, Economy by ecthompson
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This is really neat. It clearly shows what people are worried about and what they are thinking.

From 538:

Gallup did something pretty cool in connection with their latest health care survey, which was to provide the verbatim responses (.xls) of the rationales given by people who would tell their Congressman to vote for or against the current health care bills, respectively.

I ran the responses through Wordle, a word-cloud generating tool, omitting certain words that were parts of speech or were otherwise nongermane.

Here are the words that were used most frequently by the 45 percent of the country who would tell their Congressman to vote for the health care bill:

And here are the words used most commonly by the 48 percent of the country who would tell their Congressman to vote against it:

In some sense, this is a very old-fashioned debate about the proper role of government. The message that the pro-reform voters have taken away comes through loudly and clearly: ‘PEOPLE … NEED … INSURANCE’, whereas concerns among the anti’s boil down to ‘GOVERNMENT’ and ‘COST’.

Tags: Congress, Healthcare, Party Politics by ecthompson
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I’d like to start with last Friday’s Bill Moyers Journal. Wendell Potter was his first guest. Mister Potter used to work for the insurance industry and has since had an epiphany. Although Mister Potter points out some flaws in the bill, he would vote for it. Moyers’ next guest was truly explosive. Doctor Marcia Angell is one of the representatives of physicians for a national healthcare program. She opens up on the current health-care bill in the Senate with both barrels. She is thoughtful, critical and informed. You can find the video — here. You can find the complete transcript — here. Below is a portion of what she had to say -

BILL MOYERS: But given that, why have the insurance companies, health insurance companies been fighting reform so hard?

MARCIA ANGELL: Oh, they haven’t fought it very hard, Bill. They really haven’t fought it very hard. What they’re fighting for is the individual mandate. And if they get that mandate, if everyone does have to buy their commercial products, then they’re going to be extremely happy with it.

BILL MOYERS: But this is all about politics now. It’s not about pure health care reform. So given that reality, what would you have the President do?

MARCIA ANGELL: Well, I think you really do have to separate the policy analysis from the political analysis and I’m looking at it as policy. And it fails as policy. Moreover, a lot of people say, “Let’s hold our nose and pass it, because it’s a step in the right direction.” And I say it’s a step in the wrong direction.

You’re right. Politics is different and there are a lot of people who say, “Look, it’s a terrible bill. Even a step in the wrong direction as policy goes. But we need to get Obama elected again and we need to continue with the Democratic majority in Congress. And so we need to give Obama and the Democrats a win. If we don’t, the Republicans will come in and take over Congress in the fall, and then the White House in 2012. But the problem with a political analysis is sometimes you’re right and sometimes you’re wrong. And Democrats and particularly liberals have a history of outsmarting themselves.

And I’m not so sure that if this bill goes down, it’s going to make it any harder for them politically. So I think it’s difficult times for the President and for the Democrats. But if you look at it as a matter of policy, the President’s absolutely right that the status quo is awful. If we do nothing, costs will continue to go up. People will continue to lose their coverage. Employers are dropping health benefits. Things will get very bad. The issue is will this bill make them better or worse? And I believe it will make it worse.

Currently, I would hold my nose and vote for this bill. I would work through the progressive movement to try to change the dynamics in Congress. Until the dynamics are changed, I don’t think we can get a better bill through Congress.

Representative Eric Cantor was on Meet the Press last Sunday. He had a few things to say about Medicaid. “The problem is with the president’s bill, it’s about expanding Medicaid. No one wants to, to go onto Medicaid. That’s why physicians in Florida and other states are leaving Medicaid in droves because of the imperfect reimbursement structure.” What I truly love about this statement is that Representative Cantor pretends that the reimbursement structure is because of something else or someone else. Republicans have been cutting physician reimbursement since the mid-1980s. Democrats jumped on the bandwagon sometime later. So it’s completely disingenuous for him to say the problem with the bill is that we are cutting physician reimbursement. He has the power to change that.

I’m really not going to spend much time talking about Eric Massa, because he is more of a side bar or distraction to real health care reform. He is the car crash on the side of the road that everybody stops to look at. You can read more about his craziness — here and here. From a healthcare standpoint, former Representative Massa stated that the Democratic leadership were pushing him out because he voted no against health-care reform. This seems to be completely false with no evidence to support it.

Representative Alan Grayson introduced a bill in the House supporting the public option. The bill basically allows the public to buy into Medicare at the existing cost of Medicare. This would give Americans the choice of buying into Medicare or simply buying private insurance. Personally, I think this is a good idea. It gives Americans options, but it is not the final solution.

Senator Bernie Sanders (Independent from Vermont) stated on Thursday that he was prepared to introduce an amendment introducing the public option into the Senate bill.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi announced that there will not be a public option in the final bill. This is the politics of reform. This is the House and the Senate trying to get a complex piece of legislation passed. There’s been a lot of reporting that the House does not trust the Senate. The Senate has made promises in the past and yet somehow it’s not been able to pass the legislation promised.

Since Rachel Maddow spent a good deal of her show talking about it, I figured I should talk a little bit about Representative Bart Stupak. Mister Stupak is a Democratic representative from Michigan who has tried single handedly to hold up the health-care legislation because of its abortion language. Rachel does a great job trying to figure out who these 12 congressmen are who agree with it and stand with Bart Stupak. It appears that the 12 congressmen may be only three or four. House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer stated unequivocally that he was not negotiating with Bart Stupak. It appears that he has neither enough congressmen nor enough votes to hold up legislation.

I saved one of the best statements of the week for last. Former Governor Mitt Romney decided that he would let us know that it is ridiculous that people die without healthcare. He said, “Look, it doesn’t make a lot of sense for us to have millions and millions of people who have no health insurance and yet who can go to the emergency room and get entirely free care for which they have no responsibility, particularly if they are people who have sufficient means to pay their own way.” This is not the first time a Republican has said that anybody can go to emerge room and get excellent care. This is such a crock of garbage. If you have high blood pressure, the best way to avoid complications of that blood pressure is not to go to the emergency room but instead to go to your family doctor. This is how you keep costs down. Regular checkups. Management by the same doctor over a prolonged period of time. One of the great ways to drive costs up is to wait to have a complication then go to the emergency room.

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I would encourage everybody to take a look at HR 676. This bill was introduced by John Conyers months ago. He introduces that almost every legislative session. He’s done so for more than 10 years. This is the United States national healthcare act. This is the single-payer bill.

Tags: Healthcare by ecthompson
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I like this rule.

From HuffPo:

New Rule: Let’s not fire the teachers when students don’t learn – let’s fire the parents. Last week President Obama defended the firing of every single teacher in a struggling high school in a poor Rhode Island neighborhood. And the kids were outraged. They said, “Why blame our teachers?” and “Who’s President Obama?” I think it was Whitney Houston who said, “I believe that children are our future – teach them well and let them lead the way.” And that’s the last sound piece of educational advice this country has gotten – from a crack head in the ’80’s.

Yes, America has found its new boogeyman to blame for our crumbling educational system. It’s just too easy to blame the teachers, what with their cushy teachers’ lounges, their fat-cat salaries, and their absolute authority in deciding who gets a hall pass. We all remember high school – canning the entire faculty is a nationwide revenge fantasy. Take that, Mrs. Crabtree! And guess what? We’re chewing gum and no, we didn’t bring enough for everybody.

But isn’t it convenient that once again it turns out that the problem isn’t us, and the fix is something that doesn’t require us to change our behavior or spend any money. It’s so simple: Fire the bad teachers, hire good ones from some undisclosed location, and hey, while we’re at it let’s cut taxes more. It’s the kind of comprehensive educational solution that could only come from a completely ignorant people. (more…)

Tags: Education by ecthompson
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The Board of Education in Texas has long been a place were conservatives beat their conservative agenda into the heads of our youth. Now, this is taking ideology too far. This is simply wrong.

From TP:

The Texas Board of Education has been meeting this week to revise its social studies curriculum. During the past three days, “the board’s far-right faction wielded their power to shape lessons on the civil rights movement, the U.S. free enterprise system and hundreds of other topics”:

– To avoid exposing students to “transvestites, transsexuals and who knows what else,” the Board struck the curriculum’s reference to “sex and gender as social constructs.”

– The Board removed Thomas Jefferson from the Texas curriculum, “replacing him with religious right icon John Calvin.”

– The Board refused to require that “students learn that the Constitution prevents the U.S. government from promoting one religion over all others.”

– The Board struck the word “democratic” from the description of the U.S. government, instead terming it a “constitutional republic.”

As the nation’s second-largest textbook market, Texas has enormous leverage over publishers, who often “craft their standard textbooks based on the specs of the biggest buyers.” Indeed, as The Washington Monthly has reported, “when it comes to textbooks, what happens in Texas rarely stays in Texas.”

Tags: Education by ecthompson
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Do you remember Morris Day, the lead singer of one of the ultimate party groups, The Time? From the darkness, Morris Day would shout, “What Time Is It?” The music would start blaring and the party was on. It is time for health-care reform. It is time for us to have a universal program which covers everybody. We are currently spending 16% of our gross domestic product on health care. Personally, I think spending $2.3 trillion on health care is plenty of money. We should not have to spend any more to get everything that we want. We want access to quality primary care providers. We want these primary care providers to give us better outcomes — a better quality of life and a longer life. We want to be able to go to the drugstore to pick up our prescriptions without having to leave our first born as collateral. If we have an emergency – if we are in a car crash or fall off a roof; if we have a heart attack — we want to be able to be taken to a quality medical center where we can be treated with compassion, dignity and with the latest medical techniques. Why can’t we make this happen?

Last week, we had the rare opportunity to see Republicans and Democrats sit down and discuss a single issue. For over seven hours, we got to see our political leaders argue over healthcare. Yes, there was some political posturing on both sides but one thing should be clear to all Americans. The Democrats have a plan and a passion for health-care reform. Republicans had no plan, but they definitely have passion for stopping health-care reform. From Republican Minority Whip Eric Cantor to Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, not one Republican put together a thoughtful argument that would control the escalating healthcare costs, cover the 45 million people who live in the United States without health insurance, nor a plan that can be taken from Maine to Florida to California.

Democrats, for all of our passion, where is our spine? Democrats are causing me to reach for my Pepto-Bismol especially, those who cannot stand up for healthcare reform.People who follow politics, as I do, have seen for over a year that it is going to be nearly impossible to get 60 votes in the Senate to stop debate on healthcare reform. Therefore, the Senate would need to go to reconciliation to pass health care reform. I talked about this on my radio show back in February of 2009. This summer, Senator Jay Rockefeller made an impassioned speech for the public option. He said it was morally right. It was only a couple weeks ago he said that he did not believe that we should use reconciliation to get health-care reform passed. What? Didn’t he say it was morally right? Senator Rockefeller was 100% correct when he said this was a moral issue. We need to get health-care reform passed.

Meet 11-year-old Marcelas Owens. Watch the video:

I would urge you not to fall for the same old clichés about our government. Government can do this right. We have to get this right. This is as important as landing on Normandy beaches on D-Day. If we want to have money for defense, homeland security, bridges and roads, education and green energy we have to control costs of health care now. Economists have estimated that health care will eat up 25% of our gross national product in 20 years if we don’t do something.

Finally, I’ve been listening to these talking heads on the Internet telling me that Democrats, liberals and progressives are not energized. Someone even suggested that we are depressed. Depressed? From what? I’m not sure who thought electing Barack Obama would be a panacea. I know that I’ve talked about the need for progressives to push harder with a Democratic Congress. We’ve seen Democrats in the past waiver and succumb to the whims of Republicans. We knew this would happen. Deep in our hearts, we knew this was going to be a huge undertaking. Just look at what we’re trying to accomplish – reversing 30 years of Republican rule and ideology (Clinton was the only bright spot). We are trying to reverse 30 years of giveaways to major corporations. We’re trying to put the American citizen ahead of big business. Even Democrats have bought into the ideology that the markets could fix everything. This is an idea that’s been pushed by the Republicans for decades. We have a lot of work to do. President Barack Obama has told us that this is not going to be easy. So, it is time for us to be fired up. Once we get health-care reform passed, we still have more work to do – create a green economy, create millions of green jobs, fix the Patriot Act and concentrate on lasting financial reform that will work for all Americans. We need to write and call our legislators. We need for them to support health-care reform. It is time to get busy.

Tags: Business, Healthcare, Party Politics by ecthompson
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He is trying to stop all abortions with his bill; at least abortions that aren’t paid for in cash.

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From C&L:

The Rachel Maddow Show did some digging and it appears that Bart Stupak may not actually have all the votes he’s claiming he has to stop the health care bill from being passed in the House. As Rachel also notes, since Stupak’s requests for changes to the bill are either impossible to get passed under reconciliation or just based on lies about what’s even in the bill, it’s pretty obvious that he’s just doing his best to get himself on the television for some face time so he can demagogue the abortion issue and it has nothing to do with the health care debate.

Bart Stupak might come to regret that if Rachel doesn’t let up on the reporting she has done on the C-Street House and The Family. And as Susie noted, he’s now got himself a primary challenger.

You can Send The Democrats A Message They Can Understand and make a donation at Blue America to help Bart Stupak’s challenger Connie Saltonstall among others.

Tags: Healthcare, House of Representatives, Rachel Maddow Show by ecthompson
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I think it is kind of amusing that there is a large group of people who question the science of global warming (climate change secondary to man’s burning hydrocarbons). So I thought the best way to illustrate the craziness of the deniers would be to ask, how do you know oxygen exists? Almost all of us had some sort of biology and chemistry in high school. We did some sort of experiment and hopefully did not blow up the lab. I think that most of us remember the experiment that we did using a technique called electrolysis. We took water and passed an electric current through. Hydrogen went into one tube and oxygen into the other. But, how do we know that was oxygen? We’ve been told, over and over, that oxygen makes up 21% of our atmosphere. But you can’t see oxygen. You cannot taste it. (More about oxygen here.) How we know? Well, it is based on the molecular theory. Molecular theory? It’s a theory, not a proven fact.

This is the same line of questioning that the deniers are using. Yet, the same scientific methods that convinced us that oxygen exists have been used to prove climate change secondary to man’s burning of fossil fuels.

Climate change. Conservatives have taken this term and run with it. They played on the fact that most Americans know a little bit of science, but not much. Most of us remember that there were many ice ages. The earth warmed iand the ice receded. The earth cooled down and the ice proceeded over the large continents. So, every time a scientist mentions climate change, conservatives point to this natural cycle. They then ask, “how do we know that the warming trend that we’re seeing now is not part of this natural cycle?” Before I get to this answer, let me add one other thing. One of the final arguments that deniers use is that the world is so big and you and I are pretty small compared to the size of the world. How can we, as God-fearing little human beings, have an impact on this great big world of ours? This is probably the deniers’ weakest and simplest arguments. There are multiple ways to refute this argument. Let me just say that currently scientists have tested the air in California and have detected pollutants that were generated, beyond a shadow of a doubt, in China. Therefore, what happens in one part of the world can have an impact on people thousands of miles away.

How can climatologists point to some of the events that are happening now as evidence of climate change secondary to man’s burning fossil fuels? Well, thankfully, I don’t have to come up with an experiment off the top of my head. Smart people, scientists, have done this for us. There are a few places in the world that don’t change all that much. As a matter fact, they haven’t changed for thousands of years. One place would be Antarctica the other would be Greenland. In these two places, it gets extremely cold. The ice in some places is several miles thick. NASA explains it like this:

Throughout each year, layers of snow fall over the ice sheets in Greenland and Antarctica. Each layer of snow is different in chemistry and texture, summer snow differing from winter snow. Summer brings 24 hours of sunlight to the polar regions, and the top layer of the snow changes in texture—not melting exactly, but changing enough to be different from the snow it covers. The season turns cold and dark again, and more snow falls, forming the next layers of snow. Each layer gives scientists a treasure trove of information about the climate each year. Like marine sediment cores, an ice core provides a vertical timeline of past climates stored in ice sheets and mountain glaciers.

Tags: Big Oil, Environment by ecthompson
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The Obama administration is making a new effort to protect barrier islands and other coastal areas in the Gulf of Mexico area. Mississippi and Louisiana seem to be a specific focus of this program.

(Above–A picture of Ship Island off the Mississippi coast. In the background you see Fort Massachusetts. The federal government controlled the island in the Civil war and used the island as a prison for Confederate soldiers. Black combat units were also trained on Ship Island. Here are facts about Ship Island.)

From the Associated Press article on the Obama Gulf Coast effort—

“Since the 1930s, the Mississippi River delta has been slowly falling apart and eroding due to levee construction, oil drilling hurricane damage and other factors. Louisiana has lost about 2,100 square miles of coast and loses about 25 square miles a year, according to the U.S. Geological Survey…With sea levels on the rise due to global warming, experts warn that much of south Louisiana and Mississippi are at risk of being lost for good.”

Here is the full story.

This sure is interesting. You’d think that the good folks down in Mississippi  and Louisiana might oppose federal dollars to help remedy the effects of the great scam of global warming.

Here is a recent New York Times story about how people who think evolution is not real, are now adding global warming to their list of hoaxes.

I’m out of patience with this stuff. People are free to believe what they wish. Freedom of religion is a principle our nation is founded upon. But schools and public debates are places for facts. They are not places for ideologically-driven lies.

Maybe a referendum should be held in Mississippi and Louisiana to be sure that folks in these places believe in global warming. We don’t want to be wasting taxpayer dollars.

Here is a Times of London story about the possible impact of global warming on people and animal life across the globe.

Here is more from the Associated Press story—

“Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal said the report “clearly demonstrates a positive shift in direction, but must be coupled with aggressive action on the ground — turning dirt. There is no time for delay.”

You are reading this correctly—Republican Governor Bobby Jindal of Louisiana wants some swift federal action to help address a problem in his state.

Here is how Governor Jindal felt about federal money last year–

“Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal announced Friday that he will decline stimulus money specifically targeted at expanding state unemployment insurance coverage, becoming the first state executive to officially refuse any part of the federal government’s payout to states.”

I see.

Here is the White House press release about this federal help that the people of Mississippi and Louisiana will no doubt be glad to take.

From the release–

“Ultimately, successful implementation of the shared vision depends on access to the best available science in a form that is useful for management decisions.  The Working Group will assess current capacities and identify gaps in science so the Federal-State vision will be implemented based on the best information.”

I put the term “best available science” in bold so that nobody would miss what is being said. The Feds are coming down South to cram global warming down the throats of the people. Time for a tea party!

Is Republican Governor Haley Barbour of Mississippi going to tolerate this federal intrusion?

From Think Progress, here is a portion of Mr. Barbour’s record on the environment from when he was a corporate lobbyist–

“Back at his lobbying firm in early 2001, Barbour was hired “to help apply pressure in all the right places.” He convinced President Bush to break his campaign promise to reduce global warming pollution from power plants. Barbour’s memo “Bush-Cheney Energy Policy & CO2” belittled global warming as a “radical fringe issue,” and called the regulation of carbon dioxide pollution “eco-extremism.” He urged the President Bush to avoid making decisions informed by science, which would “trump good energy policy, which the country has lacked for eight years.”

Here is the full report on Mr. Barbour’s record on the environment.

The federal government has dominion over the states. In this case, the federal government is going to provide help for Mississippi and Louisiana no matter if they like it or not.

(Below–Fort Livingston on Grand Terre Island off the coast of Louisiana. This fort, named after a political figure from New York, was built by the federal government and fell back into federal hands after the fall of New Orleans in the Civil war. Here are some facts about Grand Terre Island.)

Tags: Domestic Issues, Environment by Texas Liberal
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The great pianist and songwriter Billy Preston once sang, “nothing from nothing leaves nothing.” Although over 15 to 16 months I have seen the promise of health care reform start with single-payer and then morph into some sort of public option which, were it robust, should be able to contain health-care costs. This is kind of what the House passed. The Senate, on the other hand, is one confusing mess. Senator Max Baucus was given the keys to the city. I’m not sure what exactly he came up with. As chairman of the finance committee, he was in charge of coming up with a health care bill that was attractive to at least a couple of Republicans. Olympia Snowe and others were courted with sweeteners which seem to have eaten away at the core of health care reform. Senator Kent Conrad decided that he would introduce his own health-care legislation which was some sort of co-op. Although he sold this idea on the Sunday talk shows and pushed it hard for 6-8 weeks, thankfully (hopefully), it is died a quick death.

The public option is been tossed around like a medicine ball. In junior high school, we were asked to throw a medicine ball in order to build up muscle strength and coordination. Every other throw, the ball was dropped, kicked and then picked up and thrown again. This is exactly what has happened with the public option. What was once a robust counterweight to private health insurance has turned into something that states can opt in or opt out of, depending upon the whims of their legislature. Oh, and it seems that opposing healthcare is a great way to get on TV and increase your image/status… as in the case of Bart Stupak.

I have stated both on my radio show and on this blog that health-care reform must include something that is cost-effective, portable and increases access to healthcare. Currently, we are looking at a health-care bill that seems to do none of this. Many progressives have decided that they cannot support this bill. They want something else done. I understand the sentiment. I find this whole process extremely frustrating. Democrats seem to be completely unable to stick to their principles and stand up for the middle class. It seems like the only difference between Republicans and Democrats is that Democrats know what is right but can’t do it. Republicans have no idea what is right and won’t do it. BTW, President Barack Obama is a leader-come-lately. Look, I love this man, but I’m telling the truth. Where was he in the middle of the heat of the summer when healthcare was taking the big hits? He needed to be out of front stating that we HAD to have a robust public option. Alas, he wasn’t there.

Here’s my problem. Washington seems to be controlled by big business. Lobbyists from K St. seem to surround the Capital like locusts. If we scrapped the health-care bill and start all over, how are we going to come up with a different outcome? We’re going to have the same politicians, the same White House and the same lobbyists. As a matter of fact, the lobbyists will be better armed to combat arguments they’ve already heard. They will probably be armed with more money. I’m afraid that starting over will leave us with a bill that’s even worse than what we’re looking at now — if that is possible.

We’re spending $2.4 trillion on health care every year (we spent that much in 2008). Isn’t that enough money? Why do we need to pay any more? Everyone agrees that insurance does not add any value to healthcare. Why is Washington coddling the insurance companies? The whole reason for their existence is not to improve health care, to help doctors deliver better care or to help increase access to doctors by patients. Instead, their whole deal is to simply make money. They make money by not paying claims.

$2.4 trillion is enough money to take care of all 300 million Americans. Combine Medicare and Medicaid and SCHiP and all of the state-run programs into one program. Medicare for All! The government will set up a system to negotiate prices with pharmaceutical companies and medical device/product manufacturers. Premiums are paid out of our taxes in a graduated fashion. The more you make, the more you pay. Let’s extend patent protection for pharmaceutical companies by 2-5 years. Since the government is negotiating drug prices, pharmaceutical companies can recoup some of their losses through this mechanism. Doctors will be awarded for opening early and staying open late and on the weekends. This way, Americans can go to their physicians without having to take off from work. This increases access. Anyway, Medicare for All, at least for now, is a pipe dream. Right now, I’m good to try to work with my congressional representatives to try to get the best bill possible.

Billy Preston was right. Nothing from Nothing leaves nothing. The Senate is trying to sell us nothing and tell us it is something. They need to do better.

Tags: Congress, Healthcare by ecthompson
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I’m on call tonight and the beeper is seizing, so I will not have time to post anything else today.  I will say that I’ll definitely have more on healthcare. I’m not sure that I agree with the Political Animal when he gives a thumbs down to Dennis Kucinich. I think that healthcare needs to be about something. I have mentioned multiple times that I wanted a bill that will be cost effective, be portable and increase access to healthcare. I’m not sure that the current version really does any of that. I think that Keith is right:

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From Political Animal:

• The potency of Iraq’s insurgency seems to be waning: “Defying a sustained barrage of mortars and rockets in Baghdad and other cities, Iraqis went to the polls in strength on Sunday to choose a new Parliament meant to outlast the American military presence here.”
• On a related note: “Iraqi forces are on track to assume control of the country’s security and the United States is on course to draw down its troops to 50,000 by President Obama’s August deadline, U.S. officials said today.”
• Incredible bloodshed in Nigeria: “Officials and human rights groups in Nigeria said Monday that about 500 people had died in weekend ethnic violence near the central city of Jos, considerably more than what had initially been reported.”
• Vice President Biden travels to Jerusalem today, hoping to kick start Israeli and Palestinian talks. Negotiations have been on a hiatus for 14 months.
• U.S. troops begin their withdrawal from Haiti.
• A new TSA nominee: “President Obama has chosen a retired army intelligence officer, Maj. Gen. Robert A. Harding, to head the Transportation Security Agency, a job that officials call the most important unfilled position in the administration.”
• Rep. Dennis Kucinich (D-Ohio), still prepared to vote with right-wing Republicans to kill health care reform.
• Virginia Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli II (R) is urging the state’s public colleges and universities not to extend discrimination protections to LGBT employees.
• CNN’s Wolf Blitzer never should have aired that ridiculous “Dept of Jihad?” segment, but I was glad to see him apologize.
• Jon Chait 1, Mike Allen 0.
• Fact checking the Sunday shows.
• Can online schools simply purchase legitimacy?
• The unintentional humor of The Weekly Standard.
• If I thought the National Review’s Mark Stein had any idea what he was talking about, I might not like health care reform either.
• Sullivan: “Halperinism really is part of what’s deeply wrong about Washington.”
• Anti-gay California Republican admits that he’s gay.
• Maybe someday racists will realize that their ugly emails can and should have consequences.

Tags: Healthcare, Iraq, Mess O'Potamia (Iraq/Iran/Israel/Palestine) by ecthompson
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I don’t think that this is much of a surprise.

From TP:

In November of 2009, Sarah Palin — who is always suggesting that health care reform will lead to socialism— insisted that Canada needs to reform its health care system to “let the private sector take over.” But this past Saturday in Calgary, Canada — at “her first Canadian appearance since stepping down as governor of Alaska last summer” — Palin seemed to deviate from her fear of socialized Canadian medicine when she revealed that her family may have benefited from the Canadian system:

PALIN: We used to hustle over the border for health care we received in Canada. And I think now, isn’t that ironic?

This isn’t the first time Palin highlighted the difficulty of obtaining affordable health care in America. During the presidential campaign, Palin discussed how she and her husband Todd had “gone though periods of our life herewith paying out-of-pocket for health coverage until Todd and I both landed a couple of good union jobs.” At the vice presidential debate, Palin recalled times in her marriage “in our past where we didn’t have health insurance and we know what other Americans are going through as they sit around the kitchen table and try to figure out how are they going to pay out-of-pocket for health care?” (more…)

Tags: Healthcare, Party Politics by ecthompson
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Bart Stupak, Democratic representative from Michigan, has been single-handedly holding up health care legislation. The question is why? This has nothing to do with integrity. It has nothing to do with standing up for his beliefs. Instead, I think this has everything to do with ego. As a representative, he has been mostly ignored by the national media. (I have no idea how well he has received in his home state of Michigan.) He has not sponsored legislation of any significance. He is on the Energy and Commerce Committee. During his eight terms in Congress, I know of no significant legislation that he is sponsored. Now, he can grab the spotlight and maybe, just maybe, it will propel him into the Governor’s mansion.

Rachel Maddow may have an idea:

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Political Animal has more:

Arguably the single biggest threat to health care reform is Rep. Bart Stupak (D-Mich.) and his dozen Democratic allies, who are threatening to kill the legislation over indirect, circuitous funding of abortion.

Efforts to work with Stupak are ongoing, but it’s worth emphasizing a relevant detail: Stupak is just wrong about the underlying policy dispute. Whether he knows he’s wrong, and he’s just hoping to kill health care reform, is unclear. But the accuracy of Stupak’s claims aren’t in dispute: the facts aren’t on his side.

ABC News did a nice job fact-checking Stupak’s argument this week, and Slate’s Tim Noah (a Monthly alum) published the definitive takedown a couple of days ago, explaining that some areas of the debate are open to interpretation and debate, but this isn’t one of them: “Stupak happens to be wrong.”

Ideally, this would be enough. Democratic leaders would explain the truth to Stupak and his allies, making the case on the merits — the Senate compromise language, endorsed by center-right Dems who oppose abortion rights, already does what Stupak & Co. want, which is to prevent public funding of abortion.

Tags: Healthcare, Party Politics, Rachel Maddow Show by ecthompson
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David Rivkin and Lee Casey wrote an op-ed in the Washington Post in August of last year (David Rivkin is to conservatives as Jonathan Turley is to progressives.) These two lawyers try to answer the question, can Congress require every American to buy health insurance? They argue that the commerce clause does not affect healthcare and that Congress cannot mandate coverage. “The otherwise uninsured would be required to buy coverage, not because they were even tangentially engaged in the ‘production, distribution or consumption of commodities,’ but for no other reason than that people without health insurance exist.”

I’m not a law professor. I will never profess to be one. Stephen Schwinn is an associate professor of law at the John Marshall Law School. He runs the blog constitutional law prof blog. Here’s what he had to say –

After reflecting on the case law, I agree with the Adler/Massey/Balkin formulation for several reasons. First, I think that Professor Adler correctly asserts that in Gonzales v. Raich, the Court made clear that the Commerce Power extends to the power to regulate markets.  Justice Stevens stated, “[W]hen a general regulatory scheme bears a substantial relation to commerce, the de minimis character of individual instances arising under that statute is of no consequence.”  The opinion goes on to say, “[W]e have no difficulty concluding that Congress had a rational basis for beleiving that failure to regulate the intrastate manufacture and possession of marijuana would leave a gaping hole in the [Controlled Substances Act].  These words seem to leave little to interpretation.  In fact, in dissent, Justice O’Connor interpreted the majority’s opinion in the same manner.  Thus, the regulatory scheme argument seems logical and sound.

Second, Rivkin and Casey may be overselling the non-economic quality of the decision not to purchase health care.  While Rivkin and Casey are clearly well-versed in the relevant cases, it appears that some critical portions of those cases are omitted from their reasoning.  For instance, Lopez and Morrison do stand for the proposition that the Congress should use its Commerce Clause power primarily to regulate economic activity.  However, the authors mention, but seem to discount, the breadth of the definition of “economic” provided in the Gonzales case.  In her dissent, Justice O’Connor stated, “The Court’s definition of economic activity is breathtaking.  It defines as economic any activity involving the production, distrubution, and consumption of commodities . . . [T]he Court’s definition of economic activity for purposes of Commerce Clause jurisprudence threatens to sweep all of productive human activity into federal reach.” Thus, after Gonzales, we still have a Commerce Clause jurisprudence that favors economic activity.   However, as pointed out by Justice O’Connor’s dissent, the definition of economic is now so broad that the number of activities coming within its ambit has been increased, rather than decreased.  Since health insurance is certainly a commodity, it stands to reason under our new, broader difinition, that Congress can regulate the “production, distribution, and consumption” of said commodity, even where a person may not wish to become a consumer.  In other words, if Congress can regulate the purchasing of goods, it should be able to regulate their non-purchase, as Professor Balkin suggests.  To suggest otherwise would not only invite a sort of tortured logic, but would overlook the spirit of cases such as Wickard, a spirit which was soundly reaffirmed by the Gonzales majority.  Thus, I believe an argument can be made that even the non-purchase is an economic act able to be regulated by Congress.

Finally, it is worth noting that the Court’s decision in Morrison is broader that Rivkin and Casey’s analysis admits.  Though the Morrison court was careful to state that gender violence was not an economic activity, Chief Justice Rehnquist went on to state, “. . . we need not adopt a categorical rule against aggregating the affects of any non-economic activity . . .”  Here, the Court left an opening, realizing that a fact pattern could occur which might allow for the aggregation of non-economic activity.  Assuming (contrary to my prior paragraph) that a refusal to purchase health care is a non-economic decision and the regulatory argument does not work, the game might not be over.  An individual person’s decision not to purchase healthcare might not be regulable on its own.  But in the aggregate, that person’s choice would obviously affect the interstate healthcare market.   Due to the strong, strong connection between the refusal to purchase health care and interstate commerce (something sorely lacking in both Lopez and Morrison), if there were a case for arguing for non-economic aggregation, this would seem to be a perfect test-case.

For those who are still not convinced Jack Balkin debated David Rivkin and Lee Casey. The two-part debate can be found here.

The Tenthers believe that states should have to the right to tell the federal government to stick healthcare where the sun don’t shine.  Again from Professor Schwinn -

If Congress has authority to enact an individual health insurance mandate, these state measure run up against the Supremacy Clause: They are almost surely unconstitutional, as conflicting directly with the federal requirement.

But advocates of the measures nevertheless claim that they interfere with “state sovereignty.”  As one advocate in the last line of this morning’s story said, “No Supreme Court has ever been more sympathetic to state sovereignty than the current Court.”

Whether that’s right or not, it almost surely would not affect the Supremacy Clause analysis (unless the Court were willing to undo well settled Supremacy Clause principles).  So what does it mean?

One possible answer: A mandate’s interference with “state sovereignty” means that Congress lacks authority under the Commerce Clause and Necessary and Proper Clause to enact a mandate in the first place.  This interpretation might draw support from U.S. v. Lopez (holding that Congress lacked authority under the Commerce Clause to enact the Gun Free School Zone Act) and U.S. v. Morrison (holding that Congress lacked authority under the Commerce Clause to enact the civil damages provision of the Violence Against Women Act).  The majority in both of those cases referred to the slippery slope that might result if Congress had authority to enact those laws: “Congress could regulate any activity that it found was related to the economic productivity of individual citizens . . . .  Under the[se] theories . . . it is difficult to perceive any limitation on federal power, even in areas such as criminal law enforcement or education where States historically have been sovereign.”  But neither case turned on this slippery slope, and the interference with traditionally state regulated activities alone is surely not enough to render congressional action unconstitutional.  See Gonzales v. Raich (upholding a federal drug possession law).

I must add the 1st and 5th amendment challenges that conservatives have mentioned from time to time.  Professor Mark Hall has addressed these and other challenges in a 26 page brief. Here’s what Professor Hall has to say about the 1st and 5th amendment challenges -

Challenges under the First and Fifth Amendments relating to individual rights may arise, but are unlikely to succeed. The federal government should include an exemption on religious grounds to a health insurance mandate as an added measure of protection from legal challenges based on religious freedom. In the alternative, the federal government can simply exempt a federal insurance mandate from existing federal legislation protecting religious freedom.

Finally, it really doesn’t matter what law I site. To those who want to kill healthcare at any costs, I’m sure they will never be convinced by any rational argument. They simply want to hear that they are right. Unfortunately, in this case, it doesn’t look they are even close to being right.

Tags: Healthcare, Legal by ecthompson
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• I was on call Wednesday night and unfortunately had meetings and a dentist appointment most of Thursday. My friends will tell you that I will commonly say, “Sleep is for wimps.” Well, right now I’m feeling pretty wimpy.
• Blogging stuff – I’m going to change my comment section. I have tried to work with the folks at Echo because I like the functionality of their product. Unfortunately, the product comes with no customer service. I have been unable to get my comments to synchronize for more than three weeks. Therefore, I will probably be dumping their product in the morning. There may be some transition but it shouldn’t take long. Thank you for your patience.
• Every now and then, I find out things that I already knew, like snowboarding is dangerous. There are several people in the hospital right now suffering from multiple different ailments because of snowboarding. A slick board, snow and no breaks — bad combination.
• One of my commenters was trying to point out the unconstitutionality of health care reform. There has been a move among conservative bloggers to point out that there is no healthcare provision in the Constitution (concrete thinkers). One of the leading conservative lawyers penned an op-ed in the Washington Post supporting this half-baked idea. Fortunately, healthcare reform is constitutional. The Senate passed a resolution supporting its constitutionality. Legal scholars have been focusing on the commerce clause in the Constitution as the basis for its legality. I’ll have a more thorough discussion on this tomorrow when my brain is working better.
• NFL free agency becomes a free-for-all just after midnight. Who are the top free agents? Julius Peppers is #1 in my book. If a team can get Peppers to play for 16 games, wow!!
• Many of the senators who voted against extending unemployment benefits come from states where unemployment is the worst.
• There appears to be a lawless vigilante group in Texas which is targeting gays. It would be nice to see them stopped.

More from Political Animal:

• Iraq: “Iraq opened its polls early on Thursday for hundreds of thousands of soldiers and police officers responsible for protecting the country’s electorate, and they came under assault themselves. In all, three attacks in Baghdad, two in Mosul and another in Diyala struck near polling stations where Iraqi forces mustered to vote, a potentially ominous foreshadowing of the violence extremists have vowed to carry out in an effort to mar Sunday’s pivotal election of a new parliament.”
• Jobs bill: “Democrats’ jobs agenda is moving again after stalling briefly, as the House passed one measure designed to boost employment Thursday and the Senate pressed forward on another. The House voted Thursday afternoon, 217-201, to approve a $15 billion jobs measure whose centerpiece is a Social Security tax break for companies hiring new employees. Six Republicans joined the vast majority of Democrats to approve the bill.”
• Still not good, but slightly better: “Claims for U.S. jobless benefits dropped last week from a three-month high, pointing to an improvement in the labor market that is slow to develop.”
• You know who’ll win if health care loses? Wellpoint.
• Robocalls as part of the NRCC’s “code red” program: “National Republicans are planning to unleash a huge wave of robocalls tomorrow targeting dozens of House Dems and warning their constituents that Obama and Nancy Pelosi are plotting to ‘ram’ their ‘dangerous’ health reform plans through Congress.”
• On a related note, the robocalls are filled with deceptive claims. Try to contain your surprise.

Rachel has more on the robocalls:

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• New chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee: Rep. Sander Levin (D) of Michigan.
• The House approved a resolution yesterday characterizing the Feb. 18 suicide plane attack in Austin as “terrorism.” The final vote was 408-2. Both opponents were Republicans.
• Get well soon, Michael Froomkin.
• I have to admit, I enjoy these stories immensely: “It’s no good for a family values Republican to get picked up on a DWI. But substantially worse to get picked up for a DWI after leaving a gay nightclub with an unidentified man in a state vehicle.”

Tags: Healthcare, Party Politics, Sports by ecthompson
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I really like this. Students have gotten the shaft in this country for 30 years. Reagan raised student loan fees and interest rates. The states followed and it has been open season on students ever since. Why is tuition so ridiculously expensive?

From CNN:

A movement born of $1 billion in budget cuts to California’s state university system has blossomed into a nationwide protest, as students and professors in 33 states will challenge administrators and state lawmakers to ante up.

Most of Thursday’s demonstrations will focus on cuts to state-funded colleges and universities, which supporters say drive up tuition, limit classes and make higher education unobtainable to many.

A blog called Student Activism said in a Twitter update that 122 events are slated from coast to coast — most on campuses, and some at state capitals.

Dissatisfaction, anger and an uncertain future have led professors and students to call for a day of action to defend education. (more…)

From LAT:

A day of passionate protest against education funding cuts attracted thousands of demonstrators Thursday to generally peaceful rallies, walkouts and teach-ins at universities and high schools throughout California and the nation.

From Los Angeles to New York and from San Diego to Humboldt, students, faculty and parents at many schools decried higher student fees, reduced class offerings and teacher layoffs in what organizers described as a “Day of Action for Public Education.”

“We are paying more to get less of an education. That’s why I’m out here today to protest against that,” said Cal State Long Beach art education student Jessica Naujoks, who joined an estimated 2,500 others at a campus rally there.

There were reports of some trouble in Northern California. Demonstrators blocked access to UC Santa Cruz and smashed the windshield of a car, triggering denunciations of such violence. At UC Berkeley, fire alarms were pulled in some classroom buildings, interrupting lectures. But statewide, no arrests were reported by early evening. (more…)

Tags: Domestic Issues, Education by ecthompson
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I first read about the blogger Jon Swift dying from the update below.  Jon, which wasn’t his real name, was one of the first major bloggers to answer one of my e-mails. He put my little blog on his blog roll. He engaged me in conversation. After a while, I was able to engage just about all of the major bloggers except for Jane, Huffington and Digby (they have never answered any of my e-mails). Jon was the rarest of conservatives, he was thoughtful, open, humorous and engaging. I know that the world would be a better place if there were more people like him around.

From Political Animal:

• Iraq: “Three powerful suicide bombings killed at least 33 people and wounded more than 50 Wednesday in the restive Diyala province northeast of Baghdad, authorities said. Most of those killed and wounded were Iraqi police officers charged with securing the province’s capital city ahead of elections Sunday. “
• Rep. Charlie Rangel (D-N.Y.) announced a “leave of absence” from his powerful post as chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee today. Whether he’ll ever get his gavel back remains unclear.
• Marriage equality reaches the nation’s capital. Western civilization remains unaffected.
• Matters get slightly worse for New York Gov. David Paterson (D).
• Greece tried to alleviate creditors’ fears today with a new $6.5 billion austerity plan.
• Sen. Jim Bunning (R-Ky.) is blaming Harry Reid for Bunning’s five-day hostage standoff over unemployment benefits.
• On a related note, Kevin Drum explains, “Bunning is a moron.”
• Rep. Raul Grijalva (D-Ariz.), the co-chair of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, is threatening to vote with far-right Republicans to kill health care reform. This isn’t the first time Grijalva has talked like this.
• I was very sorry to hear that the blogger known as “Jon Swift” has died.
• Rep. Steve King (R-Iowa) is not above trying to connect his hatred for gays to his opposition to federal wage requirements.
• As part of our ongoing coverage of SUNY Binghamton’s troubling transition to Division I athletics, the school announced this week that its basketball team will not be participating in the America East tournament this year.
• Leave Grant’s picture on the $50 alone.
• And finally, Rod Blagojevich was — in all seriousness — the “guest of honor at a Northwestern University panel on ethics in politics last night.” The disgraced former governor reportedly “elicited laughs from the audience — and not necessarily intentionally.”

Tags: Civil Rights, Economy, House of Representatives, Senate by ecthompson
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We need Representatives like Anthony Weiner. He knows the facts. He understands the issues. He can articulate his thoughts. He doesn’t give any ground.  I love this guy!!

Tags: Healthcare, Media, Party Politics by ecthompson
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