POLITICS - Scare Stories Hobble Government

"The Phantom Menace" by PAUL KRUGMAN, New York Times 11/22/2009

A funny thing happened on the way to a new New Deal. A year ago, the only thing we had to fear was fear itself; today, the reigning doctrine in Washington appears to be “Be afraid. Be very afraid.”

What happened? To be sure, “centrists” in the Senate have hobbled efforts to rescue the economy. But the evidence suggests that in addition to facing political opposition, President Obama and his inner circle have been intimidated by scare stories from Wall Street.

Consider the contrast between what Mr. Obama’s advisers were saying on the eve of his inauguration, and what he himself is saying now.

In December 2008 Lawrence Summers, soon to become the administration’s highest-ranking economist, called for decisive action. “Many experts,” he warned, “believe that unemployment could reach 10 percent by the end of next year.” In the face of that prospect, he continued, “doing too little poses a greater threat than doing too much.”

Ten months later unemployment reached 10.2 percent, suggesting that despite his warning the administration hadn’t done enough to create jobs. You might have expected, then, a determination to do more.

But in a recent interview with Fox News, the president sounded diffident and nervous about his economic policy. He spoke vaguely about possible tax incentives for job creation. But “it is important though to recognize,” he went on, “that if we keep on adding to the debt, even in the midst of this recovery, that at some point, people could lose confidence in the U.S. economy in a way that could actually lead to a double-dip recession.”

What? Huh?

Most economists I talk to believe that the big risk to recovery comes from the inadequacy of government efforts: the stimulus was too small, and it will fade out next year, while high unemployment is undermining both consumer and business confidence.

Now, it’s politically difficult for the Obama administration to enact a full-scale second stimulus. Still, he should be trying to push through as much aid to the economy as possible. And remember, Mr. Obama has the bully pulpit; it’s his job to persuade America to do what needs to be done.

Instead, however, Mr. Obama is lending his voice to those who say that we can’t create more jobs. And a report on Politico.com suggests that deficit reduction, not job creation, will be the centerpiece of his first State of the Union address. What happened?

It took me a while to puzzle this out. But the concerns Mr. Obama expressed become comprehensible if you suppose that he’s getting his views, directly or indirectly, from Wall Street.

Ever since the Great Recession began economic analysts at some (not all) major Wall Street firms have warned that efforts to fight the slump will produce even worse economic evils. In particular, they say, never mind the current ability of the U.S. government to borrow long term at remarkably low interest rates — any day now, budget deficits will lead to a collapse in investor confidence, and rates will soar.

And it’s this latter claim that Mr. Obama echoed in that Fox News interview. Is he right to be worried?

Well, spikes in long-term interest rates have happened in the past, most famously in 1994. But in 1994 the U.S. economy was adding 300,000 jobs a month, and the Fed was steadily raising short-term rates. It’s hard to see why anything similar should happen now, with the economy still bleeding jobs and the Fed showing no desire to raise rates anytime soon.

A better model, I’d argue, is Japan in the 1990s, which ran persistent large budget deficits, but also had a persistently depressed economy — and saw long-term interest rates fall almost steadily. There’s a good chance that officials are being terrorized by a phantom menace — a threat that exists only in their minds.

And shouldn’t we consider the source? As far as I can tell, the analysts now warning about soaring interest rates tend to be the same people who insisted, months after the Great Recession began, that the biggest threat facing the economy was inflation. And let’s not forget that Wall Street — which somehow failed to recognize the biggest housing bubble in history — has a less than stellar record at predicting market behavior.

Still, let’s grant that there is some risk that doing more about double-digit unemployment would undermine confidence in the bond markets. This risk must be set against the certainty of mass suffering if we don’t do more — and the possibility, as I said, of a collapse of confidence among ordinary workers and businesses.

And Mr. Summers was right the first time: in the face of the greatest economic catastrophe since the Great Depression, it’s much riskier to do too little than it is to do too much. It’s sad, and unfortunate, that the administration appears to have lost sight of that truth.

SCIENCE - Fusion Reactor Update

"ITER Fire-Up Delayed Again" by Tudor Vieru

Experts say 2018 is too soon

Scientists assessing the difficulties related to the construction of the International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor (ITER) facility in southern France have recently revealed that it may be unfeasible to fire up the reactor as soon as 2018, as current plans have it. The multi-billion-euro nuclear fusion test reactor was supposed to come online as fast as possible, so that experts could begin their research into the mysteries and issues surrounding this type of energy production at that point.

Representatives of the European Union met between November 18-19 in St Paul-lez-Durance, a town not far from the place where ITER is scheduled to be built. Delegates from the EU told the representatives of the other six countries involved in the project that the originally planned start date was no longer realistic, but declined to comment on the reason afterwords. European officials were, however, careful to point out that the reactor still enjoyed the full support of the Union, Nature News reports.

“Our guiding objective is to ensure a sustainable success for ITER at reasonable costs and with an acceptable level of risk,” Catherine Ray explained, quoted by Nature News. She is a spokesperson on science and research for the European Commission, based in Brussels. The stakes are terribly high in this endeavor. In addition to the large costs implied, the project could yield massive benefits for humankind, by providing us with a means of producing massive levels of energy without any of the harmful side-effects that greenhouse gases currently have on our planet.

Fusion is theoretically attainable through the merging of deuterium and tritium, which are both heavy isotopes of hydrogen. Their nuclei would merge, and an impressive amount of electricity would be produced, in addition to the useful chemical element helium. The thing is that the reaction can only take place at temperatures close to the ones inside stars, or around 150 million degrees Celsius. China, India, Japan, Russia, South Korea and the United States will each provide nine percent of the construction costs, with the other 45 percent coming directly from the European Union.

By the time the reactor is built, it's estimated that its costs will be more than double the originally planned ones, of US$7.4 billion. This would make ITER one of the most expensive scientific undertakings ever, and for just reasons. A success here would mean a cleaner future for us, and for our children.

Fusion is the atomic process that takes place in our Sun. Unlike Fission Reactors we use today, Fusion Power will be cleaner because there is little lasting radiation and little nuclear waste to dispose of, comparatively speaking. In addition, turning off the reaction is like turning off a gas stove (no rods).

WORLD VIEW - Global Warming

"Global Warming Report Finds Time Running Out" by BILL BLAKEMORE, ABC News 11/24/2009

Excerpt

There's even less time for humanity to try to curb global warming than recently thought, according to a new in-depth scientific assessment by 26 scientists from eight countries.

Sea level rise, ocean acidification and the rapid melting of massive ice sheets are among the significantly increased effects of human-induced global warming assessed in the survey, which also examines the emissions of heat-trapping gases that are causing the climate change.

"Many indicators are currently tracking near or above the worst-case projections" made three years ago by the world's scientists, the new Copenhagen Diagnosis said.

Nor has manmade global warming slowed or paused, as some headlines have recently suggested, according to the report, which you can see here.

The scientists also calculate that the world's emissions of heat-trapping gases must peak in less than 10 years and then dive quickly to nearly zero, if warming of more than another 2 degrees Fahrenheit above the current annual global temperature is to be prevented after 2050.

Any warming of more than 2 degrees F above current temperatures has been generally agreed among governments around the world to be "dangerous," though what "dangerous" means is still debated.

This is the first comprehensive update of leading peer-reviewed climate science in the three years since the last report of the intentionally thorough and slow-paced Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change was finalized.

That report is now widely recognized to be out of date in important ways.

This is because over the past three years, hundreds of new scientific field accounts of global warming's impacts, as well as improved peer-reviewed analysis of global warming itself in both the deep past and the very near future, have depicted earth's atmosphere as far more "sensitive" to the invisible CO2, methane and other human-sourced greenhouse gases than had been hoped.

"Mother nature puts a limit on how long you can dither and procrastinate," climatologist Richard Somerville, one of the study's authors, told ABC News.

'Abrupt or Irreversible Change' If It's 'Business as Usual'

"We found that several vulnerable elements in Earth's climate system -- like the Amazon and other big rain forests, like the great ice sheets that have so much sea level locked up in their ice -- could be pushed toward abrupt or irreversible change if we go on toward 2100 with our business-as-usual increase in emissions of greenhouse gases," he said.

This is just the latest. The nay-sayers have to be blind or not paying attention to the history of our planet, maybe they're too young.

The gathering evidence, including what's happening lately in Antarctica (East Antarctica, Long Stable, Is Now Losing Ice), is almost shouting for our attention. The WORLD Scientists are becoming more alarmed because if we do not take drastic actions NOW, it MAY be too late to advert the consequences.

It could be that the nay-sayers just cannot take the long view. They look at our world now and cannot see the danger, it's too long away for them. The old head-in-the-sand syndrome.

POLITICS - A Long View From the '70s

"What Ever Happened to That Prosperity the Tax-Cutters Promised?" by Sam Pizzigati, Too Much

Don't expect an answer from the ranters and ravers who frequent 'Tea Parties' — or the politicians who egg them on.

You don’t have to dig particularly deep, in the United States today, to find some striking similarities between today’s virulently anti-Obama “Tea Party” crowd and the media darlings who birthed the “Tax Revolt” phenomenon back in the late 1970s.

The Tax Revolters burst onto the national scene amid an inflation-battered economy. They blamed “big government” for what ailed America, and they offered a simple remedy: cut taxes. Lower taxes, they promised, would get average Americans back on track.

The Tea Party zealots have, like the Tax Revolters, also coalesced in tough economic times. They attack “big government,” too. They even make the same promises about taxes.

But the Tea Party types, so far at least, haven’t scored any early political success. The Tax Revolters did. In 1978, in a ballot-box stunner, they passed a statewide initiative in California known as Prop 13, an unprecedented cap on property taxes.

Within a few short years, almost half America’s states had followed suit with tax cuts and caps of their own. In 1980, at the national level, this Tax Revolt surge would carry Ronald Reagan into the White House. One year later, a pliant Congress would give President Reagan the biggest across-the-board federal tax cut in U.S. history.

Tax relief had become, in the wink of an eye, America’s most potent political creed. Tax cutting and capping would go on to dominate the nation’s political discourse for the next three decades, an entire generation.

And what do we have to show for all this cutting and capping? Last week, researchers offered up two new studies that offer up a useful assessment.

The first, funded by the Social Security Administration, looks at the wealth of American families. That wealth, the Tax Revolters assured us,would start amassing again once taxpayers yanked “big government” out of our pockets.

The second new study zeroes in on state and local taxes. After years of tax revolting, this Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy report asks, who exactly is paying taxes at the state and local level? Who has benefited the most, in tax terms, from the Tax Revolt the Tea Party zealots are now so fervently seeking to extend?

The answer: The rich have benefited the most. The Tax Revolt that began back in the late 1970s has, in state after state, let the affluent off the tax hook.

In fact, notes the new Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy analysis, “nearly every state and local tax system takes a much greater share of income from middle- and low-income families than from the wealthy.”

In the entire United States, the analysis adds, “only two states require their best-off citizens to pay as much of their incomes in taxes as their very poorest taxpayers must pay, and only one state taxes its wealthiest individuals at a higher effective rate than middle-income families have to pay.”

America’s most affluent 1 percent now pay, on average, just 6.4 percent of their incomes in state and local taxes. But they actually pay even less than that, since they can deduct their state and local taxes from their federal tax bill. The state and local tax burden on America’s rich, after taking this offset into account, drops to 5.2 percent.

Middle-income families — to be precise, those families who make up the middle fifth of America’s income distribution — pay, after the federal offset, 9.4 percent of their incomes in total state and local taxes.

America’s poorest families pay even more. Tax collectors take 10.9 percent of the incomes of households in the nation’s bottom 20 percent, more than double the share they take from the incomes of the nation’s top 1 percent.

The Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy paper, Who Pays? A Distributional Analysis of the Tax Systems in All 50 States, covers non-elderly households. Incredibly, the study details, some states “ask their poorest residents — those in the bottom 20 percent of the income scale — to pay up to six times as much of their income in taxes as they ask the wealthy to pay.”

Now you could argue that none of this matters. The Tax Revolters, after all, didn’t claim that their tax cutting and capping would have low- and middle-income people paying taxes at a lower rate than the rich. They claimed, instead, that massive tax cuts, taken as an amorphous whole, would help just about everybody get considerably richer.

That hasn’t happened, as Brookings Institution researchers Barry Bosworth and Rosanna Smart document in a paper just published by the Boston College Center for Retirement Research, with funding support from Social Security.

Bosworth and Smart “explore the consequences of the housing price bubble and its collapse for the wealth of older households.”

Along the way, the two investigators dive into the overall family wealth data the Federal Reserve has been collecting since the early 1980s. Tapping into another federal data set, they bring the family net worth picture up-to-date for 2009.

For low- and middle-income families, their numbers tell a depressing story.

All American households — poor, middle, and rich — have lost wealth since the subprime mortgage collapse and last fall’s financial meltdown. On average, since 2007, Americans have lost 26 percent of their total net worth.

But low- and middle-income households under age 50 haven’t just lost a big chunk of the wealth they held in 2007. These households have actually lost all the wealth they had gained since 1983, the first year with Federal Reserve family wealth data available.

Back then in 1983, the bottom third — by income — of U.S. families under age 50 had an average $24,000 in net worth to their names, as measured in year 2000 dollars. The housing bubble helped boost this bottom-third average net worth to $27,000 in 2007.

Today, in the wake of that bubble’s collapse, researchers Bosworth and Smart put average bottom-third net worth at just $17,000, in those same year 2000 dollars.

Middle-income households under age 50, meanwhile, held an average net worth of $50,000 in 1983. The current net worth of this middle third, after adjusting for inflation: $45,000.

Older households in the bottom and middle income thirds — those over age 50 — have, to be sure, seen their after-inflation net worths increase between 1983 and 2009. But these households have lost at least 22 percent of the wealth they held in 2007. As older families, Bosworth and Smart note, they now “have less time to recover.”

That recovery may take some time.

Back in the middle of the 20th century, governments in the United States routinely taxed the rich to pay for the programs that built a vibrant middle class. The Tax Revolt that began three decades ago, by demonizing taxes, gave the rich a free ride and gutted those programs.

That demonization today continues, with politicos beholden to that rich cynically fanning the Tea Party flames. They don’t care who gets burned. The rest of us should.

Isn't about time ordinary Tax Payers like us get angry? Isn't about time we STOP believing the GOP's Commandment "Lower Taxes?"

The truth is, the GOP only serves the rich.

POLITICS - A Win for New Orleans, Post Katrina

"In New Orleans, Elation Over Katrina Liability Ruling" by CAMPBELL ROBERTSON, New York Times

Since the first days after Hurricane Katrina, when the streets were still under water, many residents of New Orleans and its surroundings have maintained that the flood that wrecked their lives was the government’s fault, and that the government should pay for it.

On Wednesday night came news that many had hoped for but few had believed would ever actually happen: a federal judge agreed.

“My head is spinning,” said Pam Dashiell, a co-director of the Lower Ninth Ward Sustainability Project and a 20-year resident of the neighborhood. “Maybe things are really breaking for the people.”

The sense of vindication was widespread, but the practical implications were less clear. The morning after Judge Stanwood R. Duval Jr.’s decision that the Army Corps of Engineers’ negligent maintenance of a major navigation channel led to major flooding in the Lower Ninth Ward and the adjacent St. Bernard Parish, a pleasantly startled New Orleans was still trying to decipher what it meant.

Was it an opening for tens of thousands of lawsuits, or a big class-action lawsuit, that could add up to billions of dollars in compensation for residents? Or was it leverage for negotiating a broader, regionwide settlement with the government? Some experts suggested that it was a welcome but ultimately symbolic ruling that could be overturned on appeal.

Charles S. Miller, a spokesman for the Department of Justice, said that the government was still reviewing the decision.

“We have made no decision as to what the government’s next step will be in this matter,” he said in a statement.

But given the potential of liability, legal experts are expecting the government to appeal.

The United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit in New Orleans, where the case would go, has a record of hostility to plaintiffs in environmental cases, said Oliver Houck, a law professor at Tulane University. But, he said, Judge Duval’s decision is so technical and packed with details — it came with a 33-page appendix of graphs, charts and maps — that there are only a few areas where it would be exposed to a reversal.

“For an appellate court to reverse him on the facts is unthinkable,” Professor Houck said.

In 2008, Judge Duval dismissed a lawsuit arising from drainage canal breaches that flooded much of the city, ruling that a 1928 act gave the corps immunity for damages that came from a flood protection project. But his decision was scathing nonetheless, and he insisted that the government should not be free “from posterity’s judgment concerning its failure to accomplish what was its task.”

Wednesday’s decision was about a different corps project, the Mississippi River-Gulf Outlet, a navigation channel known as MR-GO (pronounced Mister Go). In the 156-page decision, the judge wrote nearly as much about complicated immunity issues as he did in determining that the corps’s negligent maintenance of the channel actually caused the flooding in two areas, including the Lower Ninth Ward.

Lawyers for the corps had raised a variety of immunity shields in addition to the Flood Control Act, and the judge knocked these down one by one. With every one, though, he created a potential opportunity for higher judges to overturn the decision on appeal.

The judge ruled that the corps was liable for damages because, he said, it should have been filing environmental impact statements as the landscape around the channel significantly changed: wetlands had disappeared, levee banks had eroded, and the channel had more than doubled in width.

This is a conclusion of law rather than of fact, experts said, and thus is open territory for appeals judges. When legal opinion is at issue, said Howard J. Bashman, a Pennsylvania lawyer specializing in appellate practice, “the court gets to make up its own mind, without any deference paid to the trial judge in how the law was applied.”

At a Thursday morning news conference, the plaintiffs’ lawyers painted the decision in superlative terms, even comparing it to the victory over the British in the Battle of New Orleans.

The lawyers said they hoped the decision, and the possibility of thousands more cases following, would compel Congress and the Obama administration to agree to some kind of larger settlement for the entire city, like the one for victims of the Sept. 11 attacks.

“It’s time that we stopped litigating and started negotiating,” said Pierce O’Donnell, one of the lead lawyers.

Mr. O’Donnell said that he and the other lawyers had scheduled meetings on Capitol Hill in the coming weeks at which they would push for damage compensation for property owners, billions of dollars to rebuild infrastructure projects, and restoration of the area’s coastal wetlands. They will also demand a widespread overhaul of the Army Corps.

For now, however, much of the city was just enjoying a rare sense of triumph. Friends who were watching the news Wednesday night grabbed for their cell phones. At a coastal planning meeting in St. Bernard Parish, people broke into applause.

Mark Madary, who was on the St. Bernard Parish Council at the time of Hurricane Katrina, had campaigned against MR-GO ever since he heard the forecasts of catastrophe at a sportsmen’s league meeting in 1978. He said he never thought the case would even make it to court, but now expects a regionwide settlement.

“Now that the corps has been thrown over and exposed, it’s their duty,” Mr. Madary said.

Others in New Orleans, a city that has become accustomed to disappointment over four long years, were not as elated.

“It is an answer to something that was obvious from the beginning, and we’re glad we finally got a federal judge to agree with us,” said Robert Green Sr., a resident of the Lower Ninth Ward, who lost his mother and granddaughter in the flooding.

But it was clear that Mr. Green was more interested in talking about a grocery store that could be coming to the neighborhood.

“The lawyers are happy and the people are happy,” Mr. Green said of the decision. “But at the same time, we waited four years. So you deal with the important issues that are right in front of you.”

WAR ON TERROR - A Thought.....

"Khalid Sheikh Mohammed And The Death Penalty: Why We Can't Kill Him" by Beau Friedlander, AirAmerica

Khalid Sheikh Mohammed is on trial for his life in New York City. He is the alleged mastermind of the 9-11 attacks that killed thousands and launched two wars that affected millions. If he is condemned to death, we all lose. Period.

I posted a survey on the Air America web site a couple days ago that posed the following question: If Khalid Sheikh Mohammed is found guilty of playing a role in the 9-11 attacks, should he get the death penalty?

By noon yesterday, Air Americans were feeling bloodthirsty. 53% wanted to see Khalid Sheikh Mohammed killed for the role he played in the attacks.

I have to confess that your reaction sickened me somewhat. Sorry, but much as I love talking about health care reform with you all and however the finer points of cap and trade may fascinate us mutually or the question of why Somalia's pirate problem twinkles like a new coin to our natural curiosity as a political type, I no longer feel like I'm on the solid ground of a shared worldview.

It would be so easy to point out that Khalid Sheikh Mohammed wants to get the death penalty so he can be martyred. That alone should suffice to make folks want to throw him in Florence, Colorado's Supermax for the rest of his life. But that is neither here nor there.

Disturbed by the numbers, I wanted to be sure I was seeing a real trend, so at noon Wednesday I reset the poll to 50% for the death penalty and 50% against it. Boo hiss. Deal with it. It was premeditated. I wanted to see how liberal you are.

Oddly, the momentum changed and by evening 54% of Air Americans were against the death penalty for KSM. What conviction! Regardless the herd instinct at work, I went to bed that night feeling a little better about the world. By yesterday morning, however, my mood was as dark as your apparent desire for mindless revenge: 53% wanted to see another murder to solve the problem of mass murder. A seven-point swing.

There is no solving the problem of mass murder. We can only hope to move past it, and perhaps that the spiritual and emotional wounds of 9-11 will turn into the proud flesh of a new humanist outlook.

Do you believe in capital punishment or not? In extreme cases, you say? Then you believe in it. And if you do, vote Republican. Get a gun, and send that annual check to the NRA. Buy a massive gas-guzzling sports utility vehicle, run your air conditioning day and night, beat your wife or husband or your kid or your dog, and just be a more obvious and honest part of the problem. And also? Go to church. Or maybe not. Somehow it seems like religion--or rather the subtle hate groups folks mistakenly call "organized religion" these days--(I consider myself religious, by the bye) is the last place to go if you want to find a humanitarian point of view. Do you think Pat Roberts would spare KSM's life if he had a gun pointed at the back of the man's head (or what would be more likely, had someone pointing it)? Is that who you want to be? Pat Roberts? Bill O'Reilly? Ann Coulter? Cry me a river, Glenn Beck.

It is the height of arrogance for a human being or a group of them to decide who gets to live and who doesn't. When someone takes it upon him- or herself to make that decision for another human being, they deserve to be removed from society. Prison is a good place to put these people.

Many of you out there will say I'm arrogant for denying someone the validity of their anger and desire for vengeance. To make matters worse, I would say that this point of view gave rise to the birthers and to tea party protests across the country this past year.

Wanting an eye for an eye is an outmoded point of view. Take a breath. Are you a killer, too? If so, don't you also belong in a prison separated from humanity?

Real progressives are not killers. That's the GOP. While conservatives live by fear and feel the need to destroy anyone and anything that does not agree with them, we try to open a space for discourse that allows people to see how they are similar, how we're all in this together.

We don't have to tolerate hate, and we as a global society will not, if we can help it, allow monsters to mingle with the rest of society. We can remove a bad element forever. But we cure our sadness in anger by helping others, not by helping ourself to the fire water of panicked hate and ire, and by doing the next right thing.

HEALTHCARE - And the Band Plays On

"Senate Says Health Plan Will Cover Another 31 Million" by ROBERT PEAR and DAVID M. HERSZENHORN, New York Times

Excerpt

Democratic leaders in the Senate on Wednesday unveiled their proposal for overhauling the health care system, outlining legislation that they said would cover most of the uninsured while reducing the federal budget deficit.

Senator Harry Reid of Nevada, the majority leader, said at an evening news conference that the legislation, embodying President Obama’s signature domestic initiative, would impose new regulations on insurers, extend coverage to 31 million people who currently do not have any and add new benefits to Medicare.

Mr. Reid said the bill, despite a price tag of $848 billion over 10 years, would reduce projected budget deficits by $130 billion over a decade because the costs would be more than offset by new taxes and fees and by reductions in the growth of Medicare.

Democrats expressed confidence that they would have the votes needed to move forward when the legislation hits its first test in the Senate, probably later this week. To get past that first procedural hurdle, Mr. Reid will need the votes of all 58 Democratic senators and the two independents aligned with them.

That vote would clear the way for what is sure to be an unpredictable roller-coaster ride of a debate on the Senate floor through much of December. Earlier this month the House passed its version of the health care legislation.

Republicans have vowed to fight the legislation at every turn, saying it represents a dangerous expansion in the role of government that would increase taxes and insurance costs for millions of people. “It’s going to be a holy war,” said Senator Orrin G. Hatch, Republican of Utah.

Under Mr. Reid’s bill, the government would establish a new public insurance plan, which would compete with private insurers. States could opt out of the public plan by passing legislation.

In one last touch on Wednesday, Mr. Reid and his aides finally named the bill that he wrote over the last few weeks, selecting parts of bills previously adopted by two Senate committees. It is called the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act. “This legislation is a tremendous step forward,” Mr. Reid said. “It saves lives, saves money and will make Medicare stronger.”

Though broadly similar to the House bill, Mr. Reid’s proposal differs in important ways. It would, for example, increase the Medicare payroll tax on high-income people and impose a new excise tax on high-cost “Cadillac health plans” offered by employers to their employees.

Mr. Reid’s bill would not go as far as the House bill in limiting access to abortion. And while he would require most Americans to obtain health insurance, he would impose less stringent penalties on people who did not comply.

Many provisions of Mr. Reid’s bill, including the creation of insurance markets, or exchanges, would take effect in 2014, a year later than similar provisions of the House bill. The delay is intended primarily to reduce the cost of the legislation.

Both bills would create a voluntary federal program to provide long-term care insurance and cash benefits to people with severe disabilities.

Desperately seeking money to pay for the legislation, Mr. Reid came up with a new source of financing: a 5 percent tax on elective cosmetic medical procedures. The tax would be paid by patients, but collected by doctors and clinics and forwarded to the government.

The tax would be calculated as 5 percent of the amount paid for an elective cosmetic procedure, whether by the patient, insurance or other sources. The tax would not apply to cosmetic surgery for people with congenital abnormalities, disfiguring diseases or traumatic injuries.

The official cost analysis released by the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office shortly after 11 p.m. showed that Mr. Reid’s bill came in under the $900 billion goal suggested by Mr. Obama. But 24 million people would still be uninsured in 2019, the budget office said. About one-third of them would be illegal immigrants.

The Congressional Budget Office has said the House bill would reduce deficits by $109 billion over 10 years and cover 36 million people, but still leave 18 million uninsured in 2019.

POLITICS - Sun Rise (Dems), Sun Set (GOP)

"Poll: Dems big tent bigger than GOP's" by Aaron Blake, The Hill

Bad news for the GOP hoping to avoid future New York-23s: Polling shows Democrats have become the party of electoral pragmatism, while Republicans are more rigid in their choice of candidates.

A CNN/Opinion Research survey shows that, when faced with a choice between an ideologically pure candidate who has little chance of winning and a less pure candidate who has a good chance, Republicans chose the first one 51-43.

Democrats, who have built their majorities in Congress on the latter philosophy, favor that type of candidate 58-38.

The numbers are significant because they are both majorities. And that’s generally what it takes to get a candidate out of a primary.

WAR ON TERROR - Terrorists' Trial in America

"A terrorism trial's myths" by Andrew Cohen, Washington Post

It's official. Sooner rather than later, Khalid Sheik Mohammed, an al-Qaeda leader who by all accounts spearheaded planning for the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, will stand trial in a federal civilian court near the scene of the crime.

A Mohammed trial for Sept. 11 crimes -- the case might actually be styled United States v. Mohammed -- could be one of the biggest legal landmarks in American history. It's not surprising that bringing one of the "faces of terror" to within blocks of Ground Zero would generate a lot of fear, trepidation and political hysteria. So let's try to separate sizzle from steak. Here are six myths about Mohammed and his trial that ought to be destroyed:

-- One: Mohammed's lawyers are going to rely on the fact that he was waterboarded to get his case dismissed. Fact: Ain't gonna happen. Depending on who is running the show (Mohammed wanted to represent himself at his military tribunal at Guantanamo Bay), it's likely that the government's post-capture treatment of Mohammed will be a factor in the trial. But it won't determine the outcome, especially if the government does not seek to introduce any of Mohammed's post-torture statements to jurors. The fact that the feds are bringing him to New York to stand trial indicates that they have plenty of other evidence that they can use to get their conviction.

-- Two: Mohammed's judge won't be able to find an impartial jury. Fact: Media saturation has made jury selection in America a perversion of what it once was. Judges and lawyers no longer even pretend that they are seating jurors who don't have preconceived notions about a case. All they ask of jurors is that they be able to set aside their pre-judgments and fairly evaluate the evidence shown at trial. Under this low standard, Mohammed will get a jury, and, after he's convicted, the jury's verdict almost certainly will be upheld on appeal if the defense challenges its fairness.

-- Three: Trying Mohammed in New York will significantly raise the risk of another terrorist attack there. Fact: No one can determine how big that increased risk would be. But New York has long been able to safely host trials of terrorism suspects -- including the trial that followed the 1993 attack on the World Trade Center -- and its security systems are among the world's finest. I have seen, during the Zacarias Moussaoui trial in 2006, just how intense security can be in terrorism cases. It's awe-inspiring.

-- Four: The transfer of Mohammed to a federal civilian court is a concession of defeat by the government and a soft-on-terror approach to suspects. Fact: The Bush administration tried to prosecute these people in military tribunals but wasn't able to come up with a set of rules that were deemed constitutional. As a result, six years after Mohammed was apprehended, he still hasn't been convicted. A civilian trial is the best chance of ensuring conviction and sentencing. I don't consider that a defeat. I consider it progress. We are one step closer to the end of this guy's story. Remember, too, that the Republican senators who are crying loudest now about this civilian trial were the ones who precluded the use of military tribunals by insisting that they be constitutionally unfair to defendants.

-- Five: Mohammed will be acquitted on some technicality endorsed by a federal judge. Fact: After eight years of reporting on terrorism law, I am not aware of any judge, anywhere, who is eager to pervert the law to give Mohammed a break. The idea that the federal courts are soft on terrorism is unfair to the hundreds of jurists who have repeatedly endorsed government policy on terrorism, both before and after the 2001 attacks. Capital murder suspects get off on "technicalities" (read: constitutional rights) far less often than you see in prime time. And even if Mohammed is somehow acquitted, which isn't going to happen, the feds will then immediately pick him up and put him back in the military brig.

-- Six: Mohammed will turn his trial into political theater. Fact: Yes, he will try. But he will mostly fail. There are many rules in place to ensure that Mohammed behaves in court. There is upside here, too. It seems likely, given Mohammed's in-court conduct at Guantanamo Bay, that he will proudly declare in front of judge and jury his allegiance to al-Qaeda and his involvement in the Sept. 11 attacks. If this occurs, it will make it easier for jurors to convict him and for the appellate courts to endorse his sentence.

"Dem Congressman: 'It's Unamerican' To Oppose U.S. Terror Trials" by Evan McMorris-Santoro, TMPDC

Rep. Jim Moran (D-VA) has strong words for the Republicans opposing Attorney General Eric Holder's plan to bring five 9/11 suspects to New York City to face trial.

"They see this as an opportunity to demagogue," he said. "They will seize on any opportunity to do that, and that means they'll even take a stand that's un-American."

"It's un-American to hold anyone indefinitely without trial," Moran added. "It's against our principles as a nation."

Moran, who represents the Congressional district closest to D.C., was among the only members of Congress to advocate President Obama's plan to send prisoners from Guantanamo Bay to the U.S. so the military prison could be shut down. Obama first proposed the idea shortly after being elected and most in Congress rejected the plan, saying that bringing terror suspects to this country would endanger American lives.

Today, many politicians raised those same fears. Moran dismissed them.

"Right now, they're sitting in Guantanamo gaining sympathy," he said. "The sooner that we prosecute this guy, the sooner we can reduce the anti-American propaganda that surrounds his detention and inflames our enemies."

"Until we do that, it only strengthens the hand of people who recruit new terrorists with the claim we aren't true to our principles," he added.

My view; the crime was perpetrated in America, to Americans and citizens of other countries. I do NOT cower in fear of holding the trials here in America. To NOT hold the trials here would be a victory for terrorism. Fear is what all hoodlums depend on.

I would also encourage other countries who lost citizens in 9/11 join in the trial or hold trials in their countries for the accused.

POLITICS - One GOP Senator's Demonstration of "Supporting the Troops"

"Senator Tom Coburn holding up Veterans benefits bill" by Karen Harper, San Francisco Examiner

Senator Tom Coburn (R), Oklahoma, the same Tom Coburn who advised Senator John Ensign to end the affair he was having by paying off the husband of his mistress, is the single senator in the US holding up a Veterans benefit bill that would aid health care givers of veterans returning home after fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan.

According to The Marine Times, Coburn is using an informal but legal practice of putting a bill on hold to prevent consideration of S 1963, the Veterans' Caregiver and Omnibus Health Benefits Act of 2009.

When asked by reporters why he was putting a hold on the veterans benefit bill, Coburn said he opposed the bill because he doesn't know how the bill will be funded. When a reporter pointed out to him that he had voted for funding for the Afghanistan and Iraq wars amounting to trillions of dollars, Coburn excused himself by saying that he did that the first year he was in the Senate. He went on to say he only voted for funding for the war one time. Coburn seems to have forgotten that he voted for funding for the wars again in 2006.

Opposition to funding for veterans isn't new to Senator Coburn. S 1963 was introduced after Coburn put a hold on two earlier Veterans Health Care benefits bills, the Veterans Health Care Authorization Act of 2009 and the Veterans' Insurance and Benefits Enhancement Act of 2009. The two previous bills, S 252 and S 728 respectively were combined into the new S 1963 in an effort to get around Coburn's earlier opposition to veterans benefit bills.

The veterans who are returning from Iraq and Afghanistan deserve America's support and a majority of representatives in Washington agree. The bill is a bipartisan bill that is largely agreed on by both Republicans and Democrats, but Senator Coburn has successfully blocked the bill that would benefit veterans.

Thirteen military and veterans groups have banded together in an effort to force Coburn to release his hold up of S 1963 including The American Legion, Veterans of Foreign Wars, Disabled American Veterans, Military Order of the Purple Heart, AmVets, and Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America to name a few.

When Steve Robertson, legislative director for the American Legion contacted Coburn's staff about the holds on the earlier veterans benefit bills, Senator Coburn's aides tried to get Robertson to discourage veterans from calling the senator's office.

AFGHANISTAN - "End Game" Needed

"Official: Obama wants his war options changed" by BEN FELLER & ANNE GEARAN, AP

President Barack Obama does not plan to accept any of the Afghanistan war options presented by his national security team, pushing instead for revisions to clarify how and when U.S. troops would turn over responsibility to the Afghan government, a senior administration official said Wednesday.

That stance comes in the midst of forceful reservations about a possible troop buildup from the U.S. ambassador in Afghanistan, Karl Eikenberry, according to a second top administration official.

In strongly worded classified cables to Washington, Eikenberry said he had misgivings about sending in new troops while there are still so many questions about the leadership of Afghan President Hamid Karzai.

Obama is still close to announcing his revamped war strategy — most likely shortly after he returns from a trip to Asia that ends on Nov. 19.

But the president raised questions at a war council meeting Wednesday that could alter the dynamic of both how many additional troops are sent to Afghanistan and what the timeline would be for their presence in the war zone, according to the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss Obama's thinking.

Military officials said Obama has asked for a rewrite before and resisted what one official called a one-way highway toward war commander Gen. Stanley McChrystal's recommendations for more troops. The sense that he was being rushed and railroaded has stiffened Obama's resolve to seek information and options beyond military planning, officials said, though a substantial troop increase is still likely.

The president was considering options that include adding 30,000 or more U.S. forces to take on the Taliban in key areas of Afghanistan and to buy time for the Afghan government's small and ill-equipped fighting forces to take over. The other three options on the table Wednesday were ranges of troop increases, from a relatively small addition of forces to the roughly 40,000 that the top U.S. general in Afghanistan prefers, according to military and other officials.

The key sticking points appear to be timelines and mounting questions about the credibility of the Afghan government.

Administration officials said Wednesday that Obama wants to make it clear that the U.S. commitment in Afghanistan is not open-ended. The war is now in its ninth year and is claiming U.S. lives at a record pace as military leaders say the Taliban has the upper hand in many parts of the country.

Eikenberry, the top U.S. envoy to Kabul, is a prominent voice among those advising Obama, and his sharp dissent is sure to affect the equation. He retired from the Army this year to become one of the few generals in American history to switch directly from soldier to diplomat, and he himself is a recent, former commander of U.S. troops in Afghanistan.

Eikenberry's cables raise deep concern about the viability of the Karzai government, according to a senior U.S. official familiar with them who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss the classified documents. Other administration officials raised the same misgivings in describing Obama's hesitancy to accept any of the options before him in their current form.

The options presented to Obama by his war council will now be amended.

Military officials say one approach is a compromise battle plan that would add 30,000 or more U.S. forces atop a record 68,000 in the country now. They described it as "half and half," meaning half fighting and half training and holding ground so the Afghans can regroup.

The White House says Obama has not made a final choice, though military and other officials have said he appears near to approving a slightly smaller increase than McChrystal wants at the outset.

Among the options for Obama would be ways to phase in additional troops, perhaps eventually equaling McChrystal's full request, based on security or other conditions in Afghanistan and in response to pending decisions on troops levels by some U.S. allies fighting in Afghanistan.

The White House has chafed under criticism from Republicans and some outside critics that Obama is dragging his feet to make a decision.

Obama's top military advisers have said they are comfortable with the pace of the process, and senior military officials have pointed out that the president still has time since no additional forces could begin flowing into Afghanistan until early next year.

Under the scenario featuring about 30,000 more troops, that number most likely would be assembled from three Army brigades and a Marine Corps contingent, plus a new headquarters operation that would be staffed by 7,000 or more troops, a senior military official said. There would be a heavy emphasis on the training of Afghan forces, and the reinforcements Obama sends could include thousands of U.S. military trainers.

Another official stressed that Obama is considering a range of possibilities for the military expansion and that his eventual decision will cover changes in U.S. approach beyond the addition of troops. The stepped-up training and partnership operation with Afghan forces would be part of that effort, the official said, although expansion of a better-trained Afghan force long has been part of the U.S objective and the key to an eventual U.S. and allied exit from the country.

With the Taliban-led insurgency expanding in size and ability, U.S. military strategy already has shifted to focus on heading off the fighters and protecting Afghan civilians. The evolving U.S. policy, already remapped early in Obama's tenure, increasingly acknowledges that the insurgency can be blunted but not defeated outright by force.

POLITICS - The GOP Miranda Rights

You have the right to remain silent.

Anything you say will be misquoted then used against you.

"Obama tops Forbes world’s most powerful list" by Michael Noer and Nicole Perlroth, Forbes

The 67 statesmen, criminals, financiers and others who really run things

"I love power. But it is as an artist that I love it. I love it as a musician loves his violin, to draw out its sounds and chords and harmonies." — Napoleon Bonaparte

Power has been called many things. The ultimate aphrodisiac. An absolute corrupter. A mistress. A violin. But its true nature remains elusive. After all, a head of state wields a very different sort of power than a religious figure. Can one really compare the influence of a journalist to that of a terrorist? And is power unexercised power at all?

In compiling our first ranking of the World's Most Powerful People we wrestled with these questions — and many more — before deciding to define power in four dimensions. First, we asked, does the person have influence over lots of other people? Pope Benedict XVI, ranked 11th on our list, is the spiritual leader of more than a billion souls, or about one-sixth of the world's population, while Wal-Mart CEO Mike Duke (No. 8) is the largest private-sector employer in the United States.

Then we assessed the financial resources controlled by these individuals. Are they relatively large compared with their peers'? For heads of state we used GDP, while for CEOs, we looked at a composite ranking of market capitalization, profits, assets and revenues as reflected on our annual ranking of the World's 2000 Largest Companies. In certain instances, like New York Times Executive Editor Bill Keller (No. 51), we judged the resources at his disposal compared with others in the industry. For billionaires, like Bill Gates (No. 10), net worth was also a factor.

Next we determined if they are powerful in multiple spheres. There are only 67 slots on our list — one for every 100 million people on the planet — so being powerful in just one area is not enough to guarantee a spot. Our picks project their influence in myriad ways. Take Italy's colorful prime minister, Silvio Berlusconi (No. 12) who is a politician, a media monopolist and owner of soccer powerhouse A.C. Milan, or Oprah Winfrey (No. 45) who can manufacture a best-seller and an American President.

Lastly, we insisted that our choices actively use their power. Ingvar Kamprad, the 83-year-old entrepreneur behind Ikea and the richest man in Europe, was an early candidate for this list, but was excluded because he doesn't exercise his power. On the other hand, Russian autocrat Vladimir Putin (No. 3) scored points because he likes to throw his weight around by jailing oligarchs, invading neighboring countries and periodically cutting off Western Europe's supply of natural gas.

To calculate the final rankings, five Forbes senior editors ranked all of our candidates in each of these four dimensions of power. Those individual rankings were averaged into a composite score, which determined who placed above (or below) whom.

U.S. President Barack Obama emerged, unanimously, as the world's most powerful person, and by a wide margin. But there were a number of surprises. Former President George W. Bush didn't come close to making the final cut, while his predecessor in the Oval Office, Bill Clinton, ranks 31st, ahead of a number of sitting heads of government. Apple's Steve Jobs easily made the list, while Arnold Schwarzenegger, the movie star governor of California (alone, the world's fifth largest economy) did not.

This ranking is intended to be the beginning of a conversation, not the final word. Is the Dalai Lama (No. 39) really more powerful than the president of France (No. 56)? Do despicable criminals like billionaire Mexican drug lord Joaquín Guzmán (No. 41) belong on this list at all? Who did we overlook? What did we get wrong?

See Forbes list "The World's Most Powerful People"

POLITICS - Today's Ugly Americans

"How conservatives have become the Ugly Americans" by Marc Rubin, San Francisco Examiner

Excerpt

Extremist conservatives, which are most conservatives, run on fear, lies and intimidation. They fear of all kinds of things and are ripe for Republicans and those who try to manipulate them to use them as forces of intimidation by exploiting their fear and ignorance for their own political ends. Like Berlin in 1939.

As was apparent during the town hall meetings and the tea party protests, the most recent of which was the anti-healthcare reform protest in Washington, it is always the people who talk loudest, make the biggest noise, and are the most aggressive who are the most ignorant.

They show off guns at town hall meetings, carry Hitler signs and swastikas and talk big (as long as they are in a crowd) because, too afraid to look at their own failures and inadequacies, and the failures they supported, and dissatisfied with their own lives, they look for scapegoats. They think of themselves as the true Americans and its their values that are the true American values. Which of course is not only untrue, it's the opposite that's true.

Their attitudes, behavior and tactics are more closely related to fascism than anything American. Remember,it was the chairman of the New Hampshire Republican party a few years ago, who went to prison for jamming the phone lines of Democratic party volunteers offering rides to the polls on election day. This man and his party,and the Republicans who worked for him in order to win an election any way possible, trashed the memory of every soldier ever killed in battle since what they were trying to stop is what each gave his or her life for.

But like fascists always do, extremist conservatives wrap themselves in the flag and the constitution, half of which most of them would junk if they could and claim their great love and respect for the troops. Except they have no love for the things the troops risk their lives to defend.

John Boehner, addressing the tea party crowd in Washington last week tried to wrap himself in the constitution and got tangled up in it when he quoted from the Declaration of Independence thinking it was the preamble to the constitution. Proving for all to see that the Republican minority leader didn't know what was in either document. Which was okay because neither did the crowd he was speaking to.

The writer Sinclair Lewis wrote in 1935 that if fascism ever came to America it would come "wrapped in the flag and carrying the Bible". Samuel Johnson said that "patriotism was the last refuge of a scoundrel." One look at the tea party conservatives and town hall mobs and the congressional Republicans who embrace and exploit them and you can see what Lewis and Johnson were talking about. The fascism disguised as patriotism is everywhere.

Extremist conservatives think of themselves as the great arbiters of what everyone should do and believe. And yet most of them are the people who are most ignorant when it comes to understanding the issues and the facts.

They think its their values everyone should adhere to, yet few of them are content to just live their values which obviously aren't making them happy. Instead they have to try and force them down everyone else's throat to in order to validate them. There is no arguing that the values, held, expressed and implemented by a conservative president and a conservative congress did more damage to the United States in eight years than the Soviet Union could do in 50. And we are still dealing with it.

Conservatives claim to stand on principles but when these principles were violated for 8 years by George W. Bush they said nothing. Because what they are really all about is politics and power.Which is something else that makes them Ugly Americans.

POLITICS - One Man's Opinion, Afghanistan

"Obama weighs the Afghan abyss" by Brian Howey, Busco Voice

President Obama took a midnight trip to Dover Air Force Base and solemnly watched, then saluted, as the flag-draped coffin of Sgt. Dale R. Griffin of Terre Haute was marched off the C-17. Griffin was one of 18 Americans killed in Afghanistan earlier in the week.

Obama’s visit honoring Sgt. Griffin comes as he is grappling with a firm decision on Afghanistan that could ultimately destroy his presidency. It will be a gut-wrenching decision; he will be second-guessed and criticized regardless of which way he goes.

Former Vice President Dick Cheney accused him of “dithering” earlier this week. In urging Obama to “do what it takes to win,” Cheney said, “Make no mistake. Signals of indecision out of Washington hurt our allies and embolden our adversaries.”

Question: When Cheney controlled the war levers, why didn’t he do what it takes to win in Afghanistan?

U.S. Rep. Mike Pence said in a statement, “The sooner we get moving on the counter-insurgency strategy the better. Our soldiers and the people of Afghanistan cannot afford to wait any longer. Now is not the time to relinquish hard-fought, blood-bought gains in this critical front in the war on terror; now is the time for the President to act decisively to win the war in Afghanistan.”

Question: How do we define “winning?”

How - after nine years when the United States basically neglected Afghanistan for its disastrous decision to invade Iraq - do you build a winning strategy in a country that has rampant corruption, a literacy rate of about 25 percent, no local governments and virtually no urban cores? How can we build a military, police force and government with people that can’t even read? The U.S. would be nation-building from scratch.

Where does the U.S. find the military resources when our Army and National Guard have already been stretched thin by the six-year Iraq war? And then there is the budget deficit every Republican likes to tag on Obama. The Bush-Cheney administration got around it by keeping the Iraq and Afghan wars off the budget (thus avoiding the towering deficits that plague Obama). That is a bizarre luxury beyond Obama’s scope.

If the U.S. price tag for Iraq comes to $1 trillion for a country that has some local governments, urban areas, a relatively high literacy rate and fledgling military and a national government, what will the 20-year price tag be to rebuild Afghanistan and defeat the Taliban?

Would it be $2 trillion? Can we afford this when our own problems on the home front need investment in education, infrastructure, and energy?

Then there’s the public support. An NBC/Wall Street Journal Poll released Wednesday showed support for sending additional troops to Afghanistan at 47-43 percent. That is a reversal from September when 51 percent were opposed and 44 percent supported it. Just 43 percent support sending 40,000 more troops to Afghanistan, which is the recommendation of Gen. McChrystal. The numbers come during the deadliest month, when a total of 70 coalition soldiers died, including Sgt. Griffin and 55 other American soldiers.

The political support will almost certainly erode during what will be a long slog over many years, perhaps decades. Or as Sen. Evan Bayh told me last month, “Afghanistan will not be a perfect place in our lifetimes. Once we can withdraw securely, we should.” Those are not the words of a politically astute senator willing to make the commitment to the nation-building required.

Reporter Dexter Filkins wrote in a recent New York Times Magazine article: The magnitude of the choice presented by Gen. McChrystal, and now facing President Obama, is difficult to overstate. For what McChrystal is proposing is not a temporary, Iraq-style surge - a rapid influx of American troops followed by a withdrawal. McChrystal’s plan is a blueprint for an extensive American commitment to build a modern state in Afghanistan, where one has never existed, and to bring order to a place famous for the empires it has exhausted. Even under the best of circumstances, this effort would most likely last many more years, cost hundreds of billions of dollars and entail the deaths of many more American women and men.

If we are concerned about Pakistan’s several dozen nuclear warheads falling into the hands of the Taliban, perhaps we should consider confiscating and removing the warheads that Pakistan should never have been allowed to have to begin with.

A wiser investment would be to keep the drones in the air and recruit and train the intelligence networks in Afghanistan and Pakistan needed on the ground to keep Osama bin Laden in his cave and the terror camps in USAF crosshairs.

Final question: Will Obama, Cheney, President Bush, Pence and Bayh commit their own sons and daughters to fight this war and rebuild Afghanistan?

POLITICS - Reining In the Abuse of Power

"Obama Restores Power To Intelligence Oversight Board" by Pamela Hess, Huffington Post

President Barack Obama Thursday restored an independent intelligence advisory agency's authority to tell the attorney general if it thinks that a U.S. intelligence agency may have broken the law, a move intended to improve oversight of those agencies.

That power was stripped away by former President George W. Bush more than a year ago. Bush's executive order limited the Intelligence Oversight Board to exposing potential violations of law to only the national intelligence director, the president and the agency involved.

Obama amended that Bush-era decision Thursday with his own executive order, ruling that the attorney general would also have to be notified of any possible intelligence-related violations.

Obama's amendment applies to the President's Intelligence Advisory Board, a larger intelligence advisory panel which has been coordinating with the White House on the adequacy of U.S. intelligence for more than 50 years. The IOB is a subcommittee of that larger panel.

In 1976, in the wake of widespread abuses by U.S. intelligence agencies, the five-member IOB was created and given full investigative powers and the authority to report potentially illegal activities to the attorney general.

Suzanne Spaulding, a former assistant CIA general counsel and national security expert now in private practice, applauded Obama's move.

"The president, the intelligence community, and the American people will be better served by an advisory board that has the authority to get the information it determines it needs. Greater independence gives the board greater credibility, which is particularly important for oversight in an area so shrouded in secrecy," she told The Associated Press.

The larger 16-member board is comprised mostly of business and political leaders. Obama appointed co-chairs for the board Wednesday, tapping Republican former Nebraska Sen. Chuck Hagel and Democratic former Sen. David Boren, of Oklahoma.

In a rare public report in 1996, the board chastised the CIA for not informing the State Department that its foreign operatives in Guatemala were involved in kidnapping, murders and other human rights abuses.

YES! The much needed curtailment of Bush fascist-government policies.

A push-back against those who wrongly believe we need to "protect" America by violating our own Constitutional principles, and Human Rights.

ECONOMY - Controlling the Robber Barons of Wall Street

"6-Obama wins first financial reform victory in months" by Kevin Drawbaugh and Charles Abbott, Reuters

Excerpt (3 page article)

The Obama administration scored its first financial regulation reform victory in months on Thursday when a U.S. congressional committee approved new rules for over-the-counter derivatives.

In a 43-26 decision, the House of Representatives Financial Services Committee voted in favor of slapping new rules on the largely unpoliced $450-trillion OTC derivatives market, widely blamed for amplifying last year's financial crisis.

The committee's bill strives to balance a desire to curb speculative market excess with preserving the market's useful role in helping corporations hedge against operational risks.

That effort, which meant watering down parts of an earlier administration proposal, got mixed reviews.

"It does not do enough to protect taxpayers and our economy," said Heather Booth, director of Americans for Financial Reform, a consumer advocacy group.

"Unregulated derivatives trading was a major cause of the economic crisis ... But the big Wall Street firms who make tens of billions of dollars from these trades -- and then left the taxpayers to clean up their mess -- want to continue with business as usual," Booth said in a statement.

Commodity Futures Trading Commission Chairman Gary Gensler called the committee's action "a significant step," but added he wanted to work with lawmakers toward legislation "that covers the entire marketplace without exception."

The committee delayed until next week voting on a bill to create a Consumer Financial Protection Agency, but not before amending it to ease the impact of CFPA inspections on small banks and credit unions. Proposed by the administration, the CFPA would regulate mortgages and other financial products.

"Obama financial reforms advance in Congress" by Kevin Drawbaugh, Reuters 10/28/2009

The Obama administration made gains on Tuesday in its push for U.S. financial reform, unveiling a landmark bill to tackle systemic risk in the economy and winning congressional committee approval for a measure to expose hedge funds to more government scrutiny.

The systemic risk bill would grant vast powers to a new systemic risk regulatory council, the Federal Reserve and the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp to monitor and address risks to economic stability posed by shaky financial holding companies.

Those deemed severely undercapitalized by the council could be restructured or even shut down by regulators. Managers could be dismissed, credit exposures limited, pay and bonuses restricted, acquisitions and new ventures blocked.

In a measure meant to reverse decades of weakened oversight of Wall Street and the banks, the bill aggressively asserts government power to prevent bailouts like last year's rescues of AIG, Citigroup and Bank of America.

It also attempts to shift the cost of future financial stabilization efforts toward industry and away from taxpayers by forcing financial firms with more than $10 billion in assets to foot the bill for any losses from Federal Deposit Insurance Corp actions to resolve the problems of failing firms.

President Barack Obama said on Tuesday the bill was urgent and crucial to prevent excessive risk-taking by big firms.

"We cannot meet these tests with a set of small changes at the margin," Obama said in a letter to Barney Frank, chairman of the House of Representatives Financial Services Committee, that also stressed the importance of building a stronger financial system in which no firm was "too big to fail."

If approved by Congress, where industry lobbyists and Republicans were certain to push back against it in weeks ahead, the bill would form the centerpiece of a sweeping effort by Democrats to tighten bank and capital market oversight.

After the worst financial crisis since the 1930s, Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner told a packed room of Wall Street dealers and bankers on Tuesday they could not look America in the eye and argue that financial regulation is fine as it is.

Geithner said the financial system was tragically fragile after the crisis and the government must respond by adding new regulations and strengthening old ones.

"It's a war of necessity, not a war of choice," he said at the Securities Industry and Financial Markets Association annual meeting in New York. "And it's a just war."

Another part of the administration's reforms -- requiring hedge funds and private equity firms to register with the government -- won approval from Frank's committee on Tuesday.

The committee already has approved bills to form a new watchdog agency to protect consumers of mortgages and credit cards, and to regulate over-the-counter derivatives.

The full House was expected to vote as early as Thursday on the financial consumer watchdog bill, also a central piece of the administration's reform program.

Frank will meet this week with House Agriculture Committee Chairman Collin Peterson to reconcile their panels' OTC derivatives bills, said Commodity Futures Trading Commission Chairman Gary Gensler on Tuesday at a roundtable meeting.

The CFTC is working with both panels, which are targeting a vote on the House floor for a single bill next week, he said.

Frank's committee was expected to vote on Wednesday on a bill to regulate credit rating agencies. The panel put off for now a proposed bill to set up a new National Insurance Office to monitor insurers, which are now policed at the state level.

While House Democrats have been making steady progress on financial reforms, despite stiff resistance from lobbyists and Republicans, the Senate has been moving very slowly.

Key lawmakers in the upper chamber of Congress are still far apart of key issues, including the consumer watchdog, known as the Consumer Financial Protection Agency, aides said.

HEALTHCARE - The Cost of NOT Reforming

"Healthcare system wastes up to $800 billion a year" by Maggie Fox, Reuters

The U.S. healthcare system is just as wasteful as President Barack Obama says it is, and proposed reforms could be paid for by fixing some of the most obvious inefficiencies, preventing mistakes and fighting fraud, according to a Thomson Reuters report released on Monday.

The U.S. healthcare system wastes between $505 billion and $850 billion every year, the report from Robert Kelley, vice president of healthcare analytics at Thomson Reuters, found.

"America's healthcare system is indeed hemorrhaging billions of dollars, and the opportunities to slow the fiscal bleeding are substantial," the report reads.

"The bad news is that an estimated $700 billion is wasted annually. That's one-third of the nation's healthcare bill," Kelley said in a statement.

"The good news is that by attacking waste we can reduce healthcare costs without adversely affecting the quality of care or access to care."

One example -- a paper-based system that discourages sharing of medical records accounts for 6 percent of annual overspending.

"It is waste when caregivers duplicate tests because results recorded in a patient's record with one provider are not available to another or when medical staff provides inappropriate treatment because relevant history of previous treatment cannot be accessed," the report reads.

Some other findings in the report from Thomson Reuters, the parent company of Reuters:

* Unnecessary care such as the overuse of antibiotics and lab tests to protect against malpractice exposure makes up 37 percent of healthcare waste or $200 to $300 billion a year.

* Fraud makes up 22 percent of healthcare waste, or up to $200 billion a year in fraudulent Medicare claims, kickbacks for referrals for unnecessary services and other scams.

* Administrative inefficiency and redundant paperwork account for 18 percent of healthcare waste.

* Medical mistakes account for $50 billion to $100 billion in unnecessary spending each year, or 11 percent of the total.

* Preventable conditions such as uncontrolled diabetes cost $30 billion to $50 billion a year.

"The average U.S. hospital spends one-quarter of its budget on billing and administration, nearly twice the average in Canada," reads the report, citing dozens of other research papers.

"American physicians spend nearly eight hours per week on paperwork and employ 1.66 clerical workers per doctor, far more than in Canada," it says, quoting a 2003 New England Journal of Medicine paper by Harvard University researcher Dr. Steffie Woolhandler.

Yet primary care doctors are lacking, forcing wasteful use of emergency rooms, for instance, the report reads.

All this could help explain why Americans spend more per capita and the highest percentage of GDP on healthcare than any other OECD country, yet has an unhealthier population with more diabetes, obesity and heart disease and higher rates of neonatal deaths than other developed nations.

Democratic Senator Charles Schumer said on Sunday that Senate Democratic leaders are close to securing enough votes to pass legislation to start reform of the country's $2.5 trillion healthcare system.

More bad news for the Party of NO! (aka GOP).

POLITICS - The War on Fox GOP-News

"8 Reasons Fox Is Not a News Organization" by Adele Stan, AlterNet

Even before Barack Obama was elected to the presidency, Rupert Murdoch had declared war on him via the personalities of Fox News Channel, a subsidiary of Murdoch's media conglomerate, News Corp.

Since Obama's election, the cable channel's hosts and paid analysts have launched a full frontal assault on the president, smearing his nominees, calling him a racist and suggesting that his administration was trying to persuade disabled veterans to off themselves.

Now the fearmongers at Fox are crying foul since the president and his aides declared Fox not to be a news organization. Earlier this month, White House Communications Director Anita Dunn called Fox an "arm" of the Republican Party. Obama went even further, suggesting this week that Fox "is operating basically as a talk-radio format," and we know what that means: A format in which the most provocative opinions dominate the discourse and facts are optional.

Yet that's just the tip of the iceberg. Setting Fox apart from the two other cable news networks is its ownership by a corporation whose CEO and major shareholder is a mogul with an ideological agenda -- who operates his News Channel as a propaganda machine for his anti-government cause.

He even has his own community organizer, a fellow named Glenn Beck, who can turn out a mob on a dime at your local town-hall meeting. His big ratings-getter, Bill O'Reilly, is a professional bully, handsomely paid to physically intimidate progressive commentators -- on video -- and to vilify others.

Murdoch's agenda is simple: He's against regulation of any kind. Famous for smashing the unions at his U.K. properties, Murdoch also has a pronounced disdain for labor.

In essence, Murdoch's agenda tracks closely with that of the current GOP, that far-right rump of a party that once claimed to embrace a range of views under the canvas of a big tent. So he uses the Fox airwaves to raise funds for Republican political action committees.

We've seen the Fox News-branded hosts and pundits -- such as Michelle Malkin and John Stossel -- sent out gin up the fearful folk gathered by astroturfing groups funded by corporations that seek to derail government intervention of any kind, whether in the nation's dysfunctional health care system or in its increasingly compromised environment.

Murdoch saves money by farming out the investigative-journalism functions of his alleged news enterprise to Republican Party entities, whose error-laden press releases are passed off as original Fox News research.

When you watch Fox News Channel, what you see is the advancement of that agenda through a media organ that seeks to turn regular people against their own interests -- the better to enrich the coffers of Murdoch and his heirs -- and that actively organizes those whose paranoia it has fed with lurid and untrue tales.

How else would you turn their fear of a bitter economy and an unstable world into rage against a president who ran for office on an economic platform geared toward the needs of everyday people?

Here we list a few of the reasons why Fox News Channel is anything but a news operation in the hope of shedding light on what it actually is: a massive media campaign for the consolidation of wealth through unfettered markets.

Here is just the list of "Why Fox News is not a news operation"
(read full article for details):

1. Glenn Beck, the community organizer


2. Fox's alliance with the corporate-funded astroturf group Americans for Prosperity


3. On-air fundraising for Republican PACs


4. Bill O'Reilly, stalker of those whose opinions he doesn't like


5. Sunday talk-show host who promotes Republican falsehoods


6. Fox News anchors, show hosts and pundits parrot GOP press releases, or just make up stuff


7. Fox News hosts urge viewers to join a particular political group


8. Glenn Beck, deranged inventor of paranoid conspiracies

POLITICS - Hay, What Else Is NOT-New?

"Gen. Eaton: Dick Cheney Was 'Incompetent War Fighter'" National Security Network 10/22/2009

Today, National Security Network Senior Adviser Gen. Paul Eaton (Ret.), who served more than 30 years in the United States Army and from 2003-2004 oversaw the training of the Iraqi military, responded to Dick Cheney's accusations on Afghanistan from last night:

"The record is clear: Dick Cheney and the Bush administration were incompetent war fighters. They ignored Afghanistan for 7 years with a crude approach to counter-insurgency warfare best illustrated by: 1. Deny it. 2. Ignore it. 3. Bomb it. While our intelligence agencies called the region the greatest threat to America, the Bush White House under-resourced our military efforts, shifted attention to Iraq, and failed to bring to justice the masterminds of September 11.

"The only time Cheney and his cabal of foreign policy 'experts' have anything to say is when they feel compelled to protect this failed legacy. While President Obama is tasked with cleaning up the considerable mess they left behind, they continue to defend torture or rewrite a legacy of indifference on Afghanistan. Simply put, Mr. Cheney sees history throughout extremely myopic and partisan eyes.

"As one deeply invested in the Armed Forces of this country, I am grateful for the senior military commanders assigned to leading this fight and the men and women fighting on the ground. But I dismiss men like Cheney who inject partisan politics into the profound deliberations our Commander-in-Chief and commanders on the ground are having to develop a cohesive and comprehensive strategy, bringing to bear the economic and diplomatic as well as the military power, for Afghanistan -- something Bush, Cheney and Rumsfeld never did.

"No human endeavor can be as profound as sending a nation's youth to war. I am very happy to see serious men and women working hard to get it right."

HEALTHCARE - Two Congressmen Say.....

"No anti-trust exemption for health insurers" by Rep. Raúl Grijalva (D-Ariz), The Hill

When I announced my support for a full repeal of the health insurance industry’s anti-trust exemption yesterday, I was thinking of three things: regulatory fairness, consumer protection and the economy. If we’re going to fix the problems in our health care industry, we need a policy that adequately addresses all three.

Repealing the exemption is fair because, frankly, the status quo is unfair. Members of most American industries are forbidden to fix prices, create de facto local monopolies or divvy up the country in ways that hurt consumers. We need to make sure health insurance is subject to these same unobjectionable regulations.

The policy I support protects consumers by giving the Federal Trade Commission the power to investigate alleged wrongdoing by insurance providers and, if necessary, to sanction guilty parties. Health insurance companies today argue that state anti-trust laws are enough to keep them honest. In fact, few industries enjoy such lax oversight. With many states seeing major budgetary shortfalls, who believes there’s enough regulatory authority at the state level to truly protect consumers? Giving the FTC the support it needs, and should have had in the first place, is the best way to guard against future predatory business practices.

Tightening up these regulations will help the economy by cutting overall health care expenses. When people – for instance, in rural areas – are denied coverage by the only insurer within 50 miles, they don’t just sit at home hoping to get well. They go to the emergency room, and that costs everyone money. We need to make sure insurers play by the rules because we’ve seen what happens to health care costs when they don’t.

The exemption granted in the 1945 McCarran-Ferguson Act was only intended to last until lawmakers addressed the issue more comprehensively. Let’s eliminate it now and tell the government to treat health insurance the way it treats the rest of the economy.

"We have nothing to hide," says the fox to the farmer. Yah, American citizens should just "trust" that the healthcare industry is not ripping us off.


"Building a house of health" by Rep. Jim McDermott (D-Wash), The Hill

President Obama is trying to bring about the largest change in social policy in more than 75 years. To do that, he has to get consensus among 300 million Americans who fall into two basic categories: those worried that change will not go far enough, and those worried they will be worse off when the process is done.

The President tried to allay the fears of those who already have health insurance by assuring them that they could stay where they were. At the same time he promised to create a health insurance system for all 300 million. It would be as though you were living in a house and the president came and said he was going to build a new one that would house everyone on your block, perhaps even you.

The President is trying to build a house of health in which all Americans can live without fear of losing their coverage or being threatened by bankruptcy. In the process of building this house he is promising the American people that it will be a better place to live and will not cost more than it presently does.

Congress has shaped the president's vision into legislation that includes major provisions like a public option, prevention and wellness, increased competition and assistance for small business. Together, the president and the Congress have started to pour the foundation and build the structural supports. Much of the argument that is going on today is over the details of what the house will look like, what will be included, and at what cost.

From the beginning, the President clearly understood that not every detail could be worked out before construction started. This house of health is a work in progress that will be created over the next three years. There are those who feel that if we can't know all the details of the construction then we should not begin to build the house. Their plan is to do nothing until everything is decided in final form. People who feel this way don't want a house of health.

The President has succeeded in convincing the majority of the Congress that the most effective way to provide both access to health care and control the cost of health care is to have everyone living in the same house that is universal coverage. No one can be excluded from the house because of where they lived before (pre-existing condition) and no one can be thrown out of the house because of problems they develop while living in a house. Today in the United States some 50 million people do not have a roof over their head and another equal number have a leaky roof that does not protect them when the storms come. Every other industrialized nation in the world has built a house of health for their people. It is inconceivable that the richest democracy on earth cannot provide a house of health to cover everyone.

When one builds a house there is not unlimited money available, so choices have to be made. None of these decisions are simple or easy, but they will be made over the course of the next three years as we build the house of health. Cost estimates will be made, but anyone who has done home construction knows that unexpected things come up which require decisions.

In 1965 when we built the house of health for senior citizens called Medicare, we could not anticipate all the changes that would occur in health care delivery since then. Congress has changed Medicare many times since it was created to keep up with the times and the needs of older Americans. This compassionate flexibility is at the heart of Medicare's popularity and success. The same process will go on as we build the house of health for the American people.

The President and the Congress are about to lay the foundation so that all Americans can live securely in the house of health, unafraid of the consequences of an illness or injury. This house will protect the American people from the weather they cannot predict. We must begin now.

I have to say that Congressman Grijalva's way of presenting the issue MAY make it more understandable to our citizens. It also emphases the (in my opinion) moral issue of providing healthcare to all American citizens.

POLITICS - Of Selective Memory?

"No hint of irony" by John Feehery, The Hill

President Barack Obama, with no hint of irony, had this to say about former Goldman-Sachs CEO and current New Jersey Gov. Jon Corzine: “Now, listening to Jon's opponent, you'd think New Jersey was the only state that's been swept up by the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression," said Obama, "which, by the way, didn't start under Jon Corzine's party's watch. There seems to be some selective memory about how we got into this fix."

Well, how we got in this fix is because guys like Jon Corzine, who made hundreds of millions of dollars at Goldman-Sachs, and George Soros, who made billions manipulating currencies, did everything they could to stop the regulation of unregulated over-the-counter derivatives.

As the liberal public television program “Frontline” exposed earlier this week, the efforts to stop regulations were led by Robert Rubin, President Bill Clinton’s Treasury secretary, Larry Summers, President Obama’s national economic adviser, and Timothy Geithner, President Obama’s Treasury secretary.

Obama said the state's economic problems are part of the nation's overall crisis, which is in turn the product of lax regulation and trickle-down economics promoted by the GOP: "They got a lot of nerve — they leave this big mess and suddenly they're complaining about how fast we're cleaning it up."

Well, the fact of the matter is that the Democrats have thus far done nothing to clean it up. In fact, many analysts think the situation is actually getting worse.

Corzine won his election as governor because of the millions of dollars he made at Goldman-Sachs. I don’t know if they were ill-gotten gains or not, but I do know that when Corzine was there, he was fighting hard to stop the regulations that could have prevented last year’s meltdown. As governor, Corzine has been a complete disaster, and his only campaign strategy thus far has been to call his opponent fat and hope that the third-party candidate saves his bacon.

Barack Obama, of course, became president because he was able to ride a wave created in large part by the donations of George Soros. Soros and a couple of his colleagues put in millions of dollars to fund front groups, including MoveOn.org. Without the help of those front groups, I doubt Obama would be our president today.

And for those who have short memories, last year Soros said that last year’s financial crisis was good for his bottom line. In other words, Soros made lots of money off of everybody else’s misfortune.

But, with no hint of irony, standing next to a former Goldman-Sachs CEO, Barack Obama has the temerity to blame Chris Christie and the GOP for the problems that haunt New Jersey’s economy.

HEALTHCARE - Opt-In or Opt-Out for States

"Obama And Reid May Be Leaning Toward Opt-Out" by Jon Walker, Fire Dog Lake

Sen. Ben Nelson (D-NE) told Poltico that he felt Harry Reid (D-NV) and the White House were leaning toward a national public option with an opt-out:

Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus (D-Mont.) briefed Nelson and other Democratic centrists on Thursday morning.

“I keep hearing there is a lot of leaning toward some sort of national public option, unfortunately, from my standpoint,” said Nelson, a key swing senator. “I still believe a state-based approach is the way in which to go. So I’m not being shy about making that point.”

Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY) has been pushing strong for a national public option (presumably his “level playing field” plan) with a provision that would allow states to opt out if they choose. Given how closely Schumer has been working with Jay Rockefeller (D-WV) on the issue of the public option, I assume Schumer’s personal push for the opt-out compromise played a large part in Rockefeller’s public expression of tentative support for the opt-out.

Many important questions about the opt-out idea remain to be answered. What kind of national public option would it be (negotiated rates or rates tied to Medicare)? How would states opt-out (decree by governor, pass a bill, popular vote by state legislature, state wide referendum, etc.)? How soon could a state opt out (right away or not until 2013)? What would a state need to do to opt back in if it previously opted out? Who will pay for the added cost of states opting out?

Depending on the answer to these question only a few states might opt out, or over half the people in this country might be denied access to the public option.

POLICIES - 3 On the Down-slide of the GOP

"The biggest threat to the GOP" by John Feehery, The Hill

The latest poll numbers don’t tell a very good story for the Republican Party. Their national approval ratings aren’t very good (in fact they are really bad). Their congressional approval ratings aren’t much better. But those approval ratings aren’t the thing that worries me the most.
I still believe that come next year, most Americans are going to want a check on the power of the Obama administration and congressional Democrats. That should give Republicans a clear shot at taking back the House and doing much better in the Senate than most believe.

And yet, Republicans have a huge problem that is playing out in two elections this fall. Chris Christie should be beating Jon Corzine handily. And in the race to replace now-Army Secretary John McHugh, Republican Dede Scozzafava should be beating Democrat Bill Owens in a solidly Republican district.

But in both races, conservative independent third-party candidates are running insurgent campaigns that just may give the election to the Democrats.

In fact, the Club for Growth, a nominally Republican-leaning but actually Republican-slaying organization, is pouring money into the third-party candidate in the New York race, attacking the Republican candidate. The third-party challenger has no chance of winning, so this seems like a conspiracy to give the Democrats another seat in a Republican district. Former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich (R-Ga.) weighed in, endorsing Scozzafava, making that very point. The mysterious Dick Armey, once the House majority leader and now Tea Party provocateur, has weighed in on the side of the Democrats and the independent Club for Growth.

Part of this is caused by disenchantment with the particular Republican candidates (Christie and Scozzafava) by the hard right wing, and part of it is disenchantment with the Republican brand in general.

The hard-rock conservatives don’t seem to be in much of a mood to make accommodations to a broader base. And that could spell doom for Republicans as they try to take back the House and make inroads in the Senate.

It seems to me that Republicans have to get to work on a real reform agenda that will unite the hardcore conservative base and more moderate elements. Simply opposing Obama is not enough, because as of now, opposition to Obama has not yet made the Republicans somehow more palatable to those independent elements who feel the need to run third-party candidacies.

Republicans do better as reformers. They need to get to work soon on a reform agenda that can better unite those who oppose the radical agenda of congressional Democrats and the Obama administration.

"The GOP's Violence Problem" by Matt Finkelstein, Media Matters

In an interview out this morning, Rep. Gregg Harper (R-MS) joked that he "hunt[s] liberal, tree-hugging Democrats, although it's a waste of good ammunition." When asked about the remarks, a spokesman for Harper was unapologetic. "It's supposed to be fun...It's having a good time," he said.

Harper may have been making a "joke," but there's nothing funny about the GOP's increasing taste for violence. Over the last several months, Republican lawmakers, commentators, candidates, and activists have turned to violent rhetoric with alarming frequency. Media Matters Action has compiled some examples below:

• Rep. Gregg Harper (R-MS) said, "We hunt liberal, tree-hugging Democrats, although it's a waste of good ammunition."


• During a GOP event at a gun range, South Florida Republican Robert Lowry fired at a target with the initials of his opponent, Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz, written on it.


• Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-MN) said that House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) would "bludgeon" blue dogs "to death" to get their votes for health care reform.


• A columnist for Newsmax, which has rented its email list to the Republican National Committee, promoted the possibility of a military coup against President Obama.


• Sen. Jim Inhofe (R-OK) told supporters, "We're almost reaching a revolution in this country."


• After a man brought an assault rifle to an Obama event, Rep. Phil Gingrey (R-GA) said people "should" bring guns to public meetings.


• Rep. Todd Akin (R-MO) joked about Democratic members who "almost got lynched" at town hall meetings.


• At an anti-health care reform event, protesters hung an effigy of Rep. Frank Kratovil (D-MD)


• Rep. Michele Bachmann said conservatives need to "slit our wrists, become blood brothers" to make sure health care reform doesn't pass.


• Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison's (R-TX) former press secretary wrote a column favorably comparing the Tea Parties to "Project Mayhem" -- a fictional terrorist organization in the movie Fight Club that blew up banks.


• Rep. Michele Bachmann said she wanted the American people "armed and dangerous" to fight cap-and-trade legislation.

This is an incomplete list, to be sure. Even before factoring in the paranoid rantings of Glenn Beck, or the hateful rhetoric of far-right activists like Randall Terry, it's clear that the "mainstream" conservative movement has a violence problem. Unfortunately, the GOP doesn't seem to realize that violent words can have consequences.

"Rohrabacher: House GOP leadership 'constantly trying to play a political game'" by Michael O'Brien, The Hill

House GOP leaders are too interested in playing "political games" to score attention, one Republican congressman said this weekend.

Rep. Dana Rohrabacher (R-Calif.) took shots at his own party's leaders in the House currently, and blasted fellow Republicans for having failed to have reform healthcare during the first six years of the Bush administration, when Republicans held Congress and the White House.

"Unfortunately, I see a lot of Republicans simply involved in political games," Rohrabacher said in an interview with conservative bloggers at this past weekend's Western Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC), in videos posted by the conservative blog Hot Air.

"The Republican leadership in the House right now is constantly trying to play a political game every day to try and get a headline, and I don't think that's going to take us anywhere," he added.

The California lawmaker, who was elected in 1988 and most notably sits on the House Foreign Affairs Committee, pulled no punches when speaking about fellow Republicans, accusing them of only being interested in the "next couple days of headlines," and describing the GOP as facing a rift between populist and business interests.

"The American people rightfully think the Republicans are just complaining, because we had power -- we had both houses of Congress and we had the presidency," Rohrabacher explained. "What did we do with it? All of these changes that we could make to have improved our healthcare system we didn't do during the Bush years when we had both houses in Congress."

He described a battle within the Republican party as being between "regular Americans" and powerful business interests, as well.

"There is a rift between some very powerful forces within the Republican Party, who are very wealthy interests and powerful in the economic arena and business community and what's going on with regular Americans," Rohrabacher said. "And either we side with regular Americans -- the patriots -- or we won't win."

POLITICS - Overheard at a GOP (behind closed doors) Meeting!

Good morning, Worm your honor.
The crown will plainly show
The prisoner who now stands before you
Was caught red-handed showing feelings
Showing feelings of an almost human nature;
This will not do.

"The Trial" by Pink Floyd

OUTSIDE USA - Aid to Muslim World

"A new approach to US aid in the Muslim world" by Ghassan Michel Rubeiz, AltMuslim

While America tries to improve its image in the Muslim world, it is slowly realizing that providing aid for programmes that will benefit a country's people, not just the state, can help immensely.

The American University of Beirut (AUB), from which tens of thousands of Arab leaders have graduated over the last 140 years, is a shining example of foreign aid put to good use. What distinguishes the graduates of AUB is not only leadership and a sense of service to the Arab world; graduates of this New York-chartered university are often also strong believers in American culture and ideals.

But foreign aid to poor countries is not always put to such good use. Donors can reach the hearts and minds of recipients when aid creatively addresses human needs such as education, employment, gender equality or health. Unfortunately, however, aid has also been used as compensation for damage done in punitive wars, and has often been squandered through corruption on the side of the donor or recipient. In Iraq, for instance, the Center for Global Development's Commitment to Development Index (CDI) of 2008 calculates that only 11 cents of every dollar actually goes to aid because of wide scale corruption–a great disappointment for the Iraqi people.

Regrettably, in Iraq, as in many other countries in the Middle East and South Asia, the bulk of foreign assistance is military-based. Military aid encourages developing countries to depend on weapons to achieve security. Israel, Egypt, Iraq, Pakistan and Turkey receive the lion's share of US foreign assistance, mostly for defense contracts that ultimately benefit US companies and dull the sensitivity of the recipients to peace and reconciliation. Israel and Egypt alone consume over half of the US foreign aid budget.

In absolute volume–over $25 to $30 billion dollars annually–America spends the more than any other country in foreign aid. Despite the impressive quantity, however, American aid is scant in relation to its national wealth. America donates about 0.016 of its gross national product, according to Robert McMahon at the Council on Foreign Relations but, according to international standards, every donor country is expected to spend about 0.7 per cent of its gross domestic product.

Over the past decade, though–especially in light of 9/11–the United States has realized that the status quo must change. As a result, there has been serious progress reforming the process of American foreign aid delivery. New literature on state building, such as Carnegie Endowment for International Peace's foreign and humanitarian aid expert Thomas Carother's Aiding Democracy Abroad, has challenged the dominance of politics in foreign aid. Think tanks and economists that favor trade and foreign investment as strategic methods for wealth building and poverty reduction argue that foreign aid is of no real long-term value to donor or recipient countries. Development experts are also speaking up about the need to improve the level and effectiveness of humanitarian aid while improving other avenues of development.

The new US approach to foreign aid parts with the practice of linking help, first and foremost, to US "strategic" needs, which often translates to rewarding autocratic regimes with humanitarian or military assistance for political compliance.

The Millennium Challenge Corporation, a US government agency that started in 2003 under the George W. Bush Administration, ties massive foreign aid that comes from tax dollars to the competitive performance of the recipient country. Only countries that invest in human development, respect the rule of law and exercise free market principles are eligible to receive large government grants in human investment.

The popularity of the MCC has increased US commitment to development and improved the quality of empowerment initiatives. Reform-oriented countries like Mali, Senegal, Gambia, Morocco, Jordan, Malaysia and Indonesia are among the Muslim-majority countries which have received MCC support or are expected to be awarded large US grants in the future.

While America tries to improve its image in the Muslim world, it is slowly realizing that providing aid for programmes that will benefit a country's people, not just the state, can help immensely. Extricating the United States' development-oriented assistance fully from its strategic political and military objectives will take time, but US investment in agencies like the MCC–and the countries it benefits–demonstrates that it is on the right track.

POLITICS - Grab a Mop GOP

Obama to GOP: "Grab a Mop."

POLITICS - Rant of the Week

"New name for Republicans: Hate America Party" by Bill Press, Milford Daily News

For a while, after they got trounced in the last election, it was hard to figure out what the Republican Party stood for. They were floundering around without direction. But no longer.

Today, the Republican agenda is clear. If it's good for America, they're against it. If it's bad for America, they're for it. You think I'm kidding? Just check out their recent record.

It started last winter, when economists, liberal and conservative, warned that only massive government intervention could save our economy from a second Great Depression. Obama stepped up to the plate with a $787 billion recovery package to create new jobs in construction, education, and green technology, and to save existing jobs in state and local governments.

Not one Republican in the House, and only three Republicans in the Senate, voted for it. Fast forward: On Oct. 13, the National Association of Business Economists announced that, thanks to Obama's recovery package, the recession is over and the economy is on the rebound. No thanks to Republicans. The stimulus was good for America. They voted against it.

Last July, in a similar move to goose economic recovery, the Obama administration offered its "cash for clunkers" program, offering consumers a $3,500 to $4,500 rebate for trading in older cars with lousy gas mileage. The program was such a phenomenal success it revived moribund dealerships and sparked 625,000 new car sales. But it also ran out of money within a month, and Congress was asked to extend the program. Once again, the anti-America crowd stepped in. The cash for clunkers program was good for America. Republican leaders in the House and Senate campaigned, unsuccessfully, against it.

We saw the same reaction when Chicago made the final cut for the 2016 Summer Olympics. As we had previously learned in Los Angeles, Atlanta and Salt Lake City, hosting the Olympic Games anywhere in the United States brings prestige, jobs and tourist dollars to the entire country. Surely, this was one time when all Americans would set politics aside and cheer on the American team.

Fat chance. When President Obama went to Copenhagen to make a personal pitch for Chicago - over Madrid, Tokyo and Rio de Janeiro - Republicans actually accused him of shirking his duties as president. The Olympics would have been good for America. But Republicans were against them. Some openly rooted for Brazil, instead.

And imagine Barack Obama's surprise when he was awakened by Press Secretary Robert Gibbs on Friday, Oct. 9, and informed that he'd won the Nobel Peace Prize. Obama himself was the first to admit he didn't deserve the award for his accomplishments, but only as a "call to action" for progress in efforts he'd already begun to revive the peace process in the Middle East, fight global warming, and rid the world of nuclear weapons.

Deserved or not, the honor was as much a tribute to the American people as it was to the president, and a recognition of the new, positive standing America enjoys around the world as a result of the election of Barack Obama. The Nobel Peace Prize was good for America. But leaders of the Republican Party, starting with Chairman Michael Steele and House Minority Leader John Boehner, not only condemned it, they said Obama should refuse to accept it.

Same with health-care reform. Today's health-care delivery system is so expensive, so inefficient, and so unfairly distributed, that fixing it by making sure every American enjoys basic, quality, affordable health insurance would be good for America. Yes, and that's why Republicans are against it.

Is there nothing Obama-related that Republicans are willing to embrace? Apparently not. Not even good news on Wall Street. On Oct. 14, seven months after bottoming out at a 12-year low, the Dow Jones Industrial average soared to more than 10,000.

Now, there's good news all Americans could celebrate. Right? Wrong! House Republican leader John Boehner pooh-poohed the significance of the market rebound, insisting, "The American people aren't looking at the stock market in terms of putting food on the table." Of course, this is the same John Boehner who blamed Obama when the market hit its 12-year low back in March. But, once again, Dow 10,000 was good for America. So, Republicans were against it.

There's only one thing left: to rename the party for what it really stands for. It's no longer the Republican Party; it's the Hate America Party.

ECONOMY - Cheat Net (not a WEB site)

"US tax amnesty nets thousands of cheats" by Matthew Allen, Swiss News World Wide 10/15/2009

Excerpt

A United States tax amnesty, part of a campaign to crack down on perceived tax havens such as Switzerland, has netted 7,500 repentant tax dodgers.

An investigation into UBS, that found that the Swiss bank had helped US citizens evade tax, helped fuel a crusade to weed out cheats who were using offshore accounts to hide undeclared assets.

The amnesty, that ended on October 15, offered reduced punishments for those who voluntarily declared their guilt. Culprits will pay a fine between five and 20 per cent of their stashed assets as opposed to a 50 per cent levy and a possible prison sentence faced by those who did not come forward.

The IRS even extended the amnesty for a month to help tax lawyers cope with a deluge of worried clients who wanted to come forward.

It is not yet clear how many of the 7,500 had accounts in Switzerland. But Doug Shulman, commissioner of the Internal Revenue Service (IRS), said the disclosures would be scoured to identify which institutions had helped the tax evaders.

WAR ON TERROR - Increasing Threat of Muslim Militancy

"Pakistan Attacks Show Tightening of Militant Links" by JANE PERLEZ, New York Times 10/15/2009

Excerpts

A wave of attacks against top security installations over the last several days demonstrated that the Taliban, Al Qaeda and militant groups once nurtured by the government are tightening an alliance aimed at bringing down the Pakistani state, government officials and analysts said.

More than 30 people were killed Thursday in Lahore, the second largest city in Pakistan, as three teams of militants assaulted two police training centers and a federal investigations building. The dead included 19 police officers and at least 11 militants, police officials said.

Nine others were killed in two attacks at a police station in Kohat, in the northwest, and a residential complex in Peshawar, capital of North-West Frontier Province.

The assaults in Lahore, coming after a 20-hour siege at the army headquarters in Rawalpindi last weekend, showed the deepening reach of the militant network, as well as its rising sophistication and inside knowledge of the security forces, officials and analysts said.

The umbrella group for the Pakistani Taliban, Tehrik-e-Taliban, claimed responsibility for the attacks in Lahore, the independent television news channel Geo reported on its Web site.

But the style of the attacks also revealed the closer ties between the Taliban and Al Qaeda and what are known as jihadi groups, which operate out of southern Punjab, the country’s largest province, analysts said. The cooperation has made the militant threat to Pakistan more potent and insidious than ever, they said.

The government has tolerated the Punjabi groups, including Jaish-e-Muhammad and Lashkar-e-Jhangvi, for years, and many Pakistanis consider them allies in just causes, including fighting India, the United States and Shiite Muslims. But they have become entwined with the Taliban and Al Qaeda, and have increasingly turned on the state.

The alliance has now stepped up attacks as the military prepares an assault on the Taliban stronghold of South Waziristan, where senior members of the Punjabi groups also find sanctuary and support.

“These are all Punjabi groups with a link to South Waziristan,” Aftab Ahmed Sherpao, a former interior minister, said, explaining the recent attacks.

In a rare acknowledgment of the lethal combination of forces, Interior Minister Rehman Malik said that a “syndicate” of militant groups wanted to see “Pakistan as a failed state.”

The rise in more penetrating terrorist attacks may now add its own pressure on the Pakistani government to crack down on the Punjabi militants. It is time for the government to come out in public and explain the nature of the enemy, said Khalid Aziz, a former chief secretary of North-West Frontier Province.

Note that this is a threat TO Shiite Muslims as well as America and the "West" in general.

All militant fanaticism, especially religious based, is a threat to freedom. This includes Christian based fanaticism that turns militant. People who are religious zealots and militant will not be persuaded by "normal" means because they believe they are fulfilling God's Will. This is the REAL threat to freedom.

POLITICS - Another Example of Dishonesty

"Obama EPA releases Bush-era global warming finding" by DINA CAPPIELLO, AP

A controversial e-mail message buried by the Bush administration because of its conclusions on global warming surfaced Tuesday, nearly two years after it was first sent to the White House and never opened.

The e-mail and the 28-page document attached to it, released Tuesday by the Environmental Protection Agency, show that back in December of 2007 the agency concluded that six gases linked to global warming pose dangers to public welfare, and wanted to take steps to regulate their release from automobiles and the burning of gasoline.

The document specifically cites global warming's effects on air quality, agriculture, forestry, water resources and coastal areas as endangering public welfare.

That finding was rejected by the Bush White House, which strongly opposed using the Clean Air Act to address climate change and stalled on producing a so-called "endangerment finding" that had been ordered by the Supreme Court in 2007.

As a result, the Dec. 5 e-mail sent by the agency to Susan Dudley, who headed the regulatory division at the Office of Management and Budget was never opened, according to Jason Burnett, the former EPA official that wrote it.

The Bush administration, and then EPA administrator Stephen Johnson, also refused to release the document, which is labeled "deliberative, do not distribute" to Democratic lawmakers. The White House instead allowed three senators to review it in July 2008, when excerpts were released.

The Obama administration in April made a similar determination, but also concluded that greenhouse gases endanger public health. The EPA is currently drafting the first greenhouse gas standards for automobiles, and recently signaled it would attempt to reduce climate-altering pollution from refineries, factories and other large industrial sources.

In response, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and Republican lawmakers have criticized the EPA's reasoning and called for a more thorough vetting of the science. An internal review by a dozen federal agencies released in May also raised questions about the EPA's conclusion, saying the agency could have been more balanced and raising questions about the difficulty in linking global warming to health effects.

The agency released the e-mail and documents after receiving requests under the Freedom of Information Act.

Adora Andy, a spokeswoman for EPA administrator Lisa Jackson, said Tuesday that the draft shows the science in 2007 was as clear as it is today.

"The conclusions reached then by the EPA scientists should have been made public and should have been considered," she said.

Bold emphasis mine

HEALTHCARE - When Health Insurance Executives Fix the Game

"New Ad Blasts Insurance Companies, Renews Push For Public Option" by Greg Sargent, Who Runs GOV

There’s a growing sense in Washington that the insurance industry inadvertently breathed new life into the public option by releasing that report yesterday predicting reform would hike premiums, creating a new argument in favor of creating competition for the industry in the form of a public plan.

Now the labor-backed White House ally Americans United For Change is going up with a new ad timed to capitalize on that sense to renew the push for the public option:



The ad, which is airing on D.C. cable in an effort to target lawmakers, concludes: “When health insurance executives fix the game, they get rich. Time for competition when it comes to health insurance. We need the choice of a public health insurance plan.”

The spot is designed to amplify the message — perhaps best delivered yesterday by Congressman Anthony Weiner — that the insurance companies made one of the strongest cases yet for a public option by essentially vowing to raise rates. The report also makes it easier for reform proponents to argue that the industry, which had been making nice with the White House, is a bad-faith actor not to be trusted.

It seems like a potentially big tactical error by the insurance industry, and it’ll be interesting to watch how proponents of the public option capitalize on it to pressure the White House and Senate leadership to put a public plan — or some form of it — into the final Senate bill that’s being negotiated this week. The public option lives!

POLITICS - NOT All Members of the GOP are Dimwits

"GOP's Graham gets it right on climate change" by Yael T. Abouhalkah, Kansas City Star

Showing political courage, Republican Sen. Lindsay Graham has spoken out in favor of passing a climate change bill. Unfortunately, that may not be good enough.

Graham joined Democratic Sen. John Kerry in calling for action.

"We refuse to accept the argument that the United States cannot lead the world in addressing global climate change," they wrote in The New York Times on Sunday.

"We are also convinced that we have found both a framework for climate legislation to pass Congress and the blueprint for a clean-energy future."

Graham's action is significant because it is a break from the official GOP position that climate change legislation would hurt the U.S. economy.

Many energy companies, especially coal interests, have been campaigning against the bill in Washington because it could raise their costs of doing business.

True, a climate change bill that would cap and trade emissions would raise costs to consumers. But some kind of penalty is needed to coerce U.S. industries into reducing their harmful emissions.

Graham's support for some kind of cap and trade system at least gives President Barack Obama a chance to pass an emissions-reduction program sometime in the near future.

The question is, how many -- if any -- GOP votes can Graham bring with him when it's time to vote?

A carbon tax would be an even better and simpler idea than cap and trade. The straightforward tax would be harder for industries to "game."

But there's little stomach in Congress right now for passing the tax.