Mage Soapbox

HEALTHCARE REFORM - The Way to Handle the Party-of-NO

noreply@blogger.com (Tecknomage) — Wed, 06 Jan 2010 17:48:00 +0000

"Dems Intend to Bypass GOP on Health Compromise" by David Espo, AP 1/4/2010

Page 1 of 2

House and Senate Democrats intend to bypass traditional procedures when they negotiate a final compromise on health care legislation, officials said Monday, a move that will exclude Republican lawmakers and reduce their ability to delay or force politically troubling votes in both houses.

The unofficial timetable calls for final passage of the measure to remake the nation's health care system by the time President Barack Obama delivers his State of the Union address, probably in early February.

Democratic aides said the final compromise talks would essentially be a three-way negotiation involving top Democrats in the House and Senate and the White House, a structure that gives unusual latitude to Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid of Nevada and Speaker Nancy Pelosi of California.

These officials said there are no plans to appoint a formal House-Senate conference committee, the method Congress most often uses to reconcile differing bills. Under that customary format, a committee chairman is appointed to preside, and other senior lawmakers from both parties and houses participate in typically perfunctory public meetings while the meaningful negotiations occur behind closed doors.

In this case, the plan is to skip the formal meetings, reach an agreement, then have the two houses vote as quickly as possible. A 60-vote Senate majority would be required in advance of final passage.

"I look forward to working with members of the House, the Senate and President Obama to reconcile our bills and send the final legislation to the president's desk as soon as possible," Pelosi said late last year as the Senate approved its version of the legislation.

"We hope to get a bill done as soon as possible," said Jim Manley, a spokesman for Reid.

The issue is so partisan that only one Republican, Rep. Anh "Joseph" Cao of Louisiana, has cast a vote in favor of the legislation.

GOP leaders have vowed to try and block a final bill from reaching Obama's desk. "This fight isn't over. My colleagues and I will work to stop this bill from becoming law," Sen. Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., the Republican leader, said shortly before the Senate cleared its version of the bill last month.

POLITICS - More on the GOP Sinking Ship

noreply@blogger.com (Tecknomage) — Wed, 06 Jan 2010 17:37:00 +0000

Here are just 2 more articles on the GOP and their fast sinking ship.

"GOP retirements in House may affect party's gains in November" by Chris Cillizza, Washington Post

While the recent political chatter in Washington has focused on Democrats retiring from Congress, Republicans are leaving the House in greater numbers, a trend that could blunt the party's momentum heading into the November midterm elections.

Rep. Henry E. Brown Jr. (S.C.) on Monday became the 14th Republican to announce that he will not run for reelection this year. Ten Democrats have said the same, including an attention-grabbing four in the past two months from swing and Republican-leaning districts.

A broad look at those seats suggests more parity, in terms of the two parties' opportunities and vulnerabilities, than conventional wisdom would suggest.

Each side has three seats won by the other party's presidential candidate in 2008. For Democrats, they are Louisiana's 3rd District and Tennessee's 6th and 8th districts; for Republicans, they are Delaware's at-large seat, Illinois's 10th District and Pennsylvania's 6th District.

Both parties face the prospect of tough campaigns in most of those open-seat districts. Nine of the Republican seats are in districts that GOP presidential candidate John McCain either lost or won with less than 60 percent of the vote in 2008. Democrats are defending seven seats that Barack Obama either lost or won with less than 60 percent.

The relative evenness of those numbers belies the perception in Washington that Democrats are rapidly losing altitude -- the switch of Rep. Parker Griffith (Ala.) to the GOP being a touchstone in that argument -- and are headed for major losses in November.

Retirements are only one factor in the midterms. Republicans still have several advantages and are nearly certain to score double-digit gains in November.

The largest factor in their favor is the weight of history. The first midterm elections for a new president are traditionally marked by significant House losses for his party.

This month will be critical in determining what direction the open-seat landscape is headed. Will a series of Democratic lawmakers -- fresh from conversations with their families and nervous about the political environment -- decide to step aside? (Keep an eye on such congressmen as Leonard L. Boswell of Iowa and Vic Snyder of Arkansas for an early indication of which way the wind is blowing.) And would those departures prompt even more lawmakers to consider leaving on their own terms?

If that happens, an election cycle that looked like a traditional midterm round for Democrats, with losses in the 20-seat range, could become one in which control of the House is up for grabs.

Expect Republicans to push hard on wavering Democratic lawmakers over the next month, letting them know what they are in for if they decide to seek reelection. But if the GOP's retirements continue, that pressure could ease.

"Greer Announces Resignation As Florida GOP Chair -- And Slams Right-Wing Critics On His Way Out" by Eric Kleefeld, TPM

On a conference call with reporters just now, Republican Party of Florida Chairman Jim Greer officially announced his resignation, effective on February 20. He took the opportunity to tear into his right-wing critics for wanting a smaller party and accused them of pulling apart the GOP itself in order to take him out.

Greer is an ally of Gov. Charlie Crist, a relative GOP moderate who is being vigorously challenged in this year's Senate primary by the more conservative former state House Speaker Marco Rubio. Supporters of Rubio had been accusing Greer of mismanaging party funds and of being biased in Crist's favor, all of which Greer has strongly denied. In his resignation, Greer said he could no longer put the party through this divisive process -- but he clearly didn't mind taking some parting shots on the way out.

"As you know, there is a great debate in our party on the direction, moderates vs. conservatives, whether we should have a big tent or a small tent," said Greer. "And while I have made it my utmost concern to try and keep those arguments and discontents out of the Republican Party of Florida, over the last six months there has been a very vocal group within our party that has become very active in seeking an effort to oust me as chairman. They have distorted facts, they have talked about misspending of money, when the facts have been shown over and over and over that that's not true. They have talked about my support of Gov. Crist for the U.S. Senate race. They have, as they say, thrown everything up against the wall as they possibly can, to either embarrass me or embarrass the Republican Party of Florida."

"They simply have two goals in mind, and if the first one fails, fall back to the second one," Greer explained. "And the first one is remove me as chairman, and if that doesn't work, burn the house down and destroy the Republican Party of Florida."

Greer further explained: "Their efforts and their own statements privately and even sometimes not so privately, to not be concerned about the future of the party, has led me to recognize that I cannot be a participant in the shredding and tearing of the fabric of the Republican Party. Many of my supporters, including the Governor, have continued right up to this day to support me as chairman. I would note that the Governor has not asked me to step down. In fact the Governor has continued to support me right through this process, and would have continued, because he does know the facts and the accomplishments we have had, through Saturday and beyond."

Greer also said he will remain active in the party. "I intend to be very engaged in supporting candidates," he said. "I intend to play a role in making sure common sense Republicans get elected to office, and Republicans I will support that believe we should be an inclusive party, and be one that lowers the political rhetoric and focuses on leadership and results. I'm not a purist as you all know. I have never been a purist. I believe that our party stands for principles and values that should always allow anyone who has an interest in being part of our party to participate."

A reporter asked Greer whether Marco Rubio is a "small tent" candidate who would hurt the party. Greer didn't give a definitive answer either way. "No, I'm not commenting on any particular campaign," he said. "And at the end of the day, the voters will decide what the Republican Party should look like. My vision as chairman, is what I was talking about, I have strived as chairman to make this party very inclusive and reach out to segments of the voting block that were not provided as much effort as I thought they should have."

TERRORISM - Yemen & Al-Qaeda

noreply@blogger.com (Tecknomage) — Wed, 06 Jan 2010 17:29:00 +0000

"Yemen Crucial to Obama's Vow to Defeat Al-Qaeda" by Mark Sappenfield, Christian Science Monitor

Due to security threats, the US closed its embassy in Yemen Sunday. The decision points to the strength of al-Qaeda in Yeman - and why the US is stepping up efforts there.

The US embassy in Yemen has closed one day after President Obama confirmed that Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, the failed Christmas Day bomber of Northwest Flight 253, was trained and equipped in Yemen.

The move points to the threat posed by Al Qaeda in Yemen. Already, Al Qaeda has struck the US embassy in Yemen once.

In 2008, it laid siege to the embassy, attacking it with mortars rounds and two car bombs – one detonated outside the gates and the second rammed into the embassy’s ramparts. The embassy was not breached, though 13 Yemenis and six terrorists were killed.

For Mr. Obama, though, the question of Al Qaeda in Yemen goes much deeper than Sunday’s decision to shutter the embassy temporarily. More even than Afghanistan, perhaps, Yemen goes to the core of his anti-terrorism philosophy.

Defeating Al Qaeda

In Obama’s months-long reassessment of the war in Afghanistan, one constant remained: the goal he laid out shortly after taking office. “So I want the American people to understand that we have a clear and focused goal to disrupt, dismantle, and defeat Al Qaeda,” he said in announcing his original Afghanistan strategy in March.

Of all the places most often linked with Al Qaeda, Yemen is, in many respects, the place where Obama’s efforts might bear the most fruit.

Unlike Afghanistan, Yemen has a robust Al Qaeda presence within its borders. Unlike Pakistan, Yemen appears to be an eager partner for the US. And unlike Somalia, Yemen still has at least the trappings of a functional government.

It’s one reason the Obama administration is now pumping $70 million in military aid into Yemen – a number that will double next year, according to Gen. David Petraeus, the US commander of forces in the region, who was visiting Yemen Saturday.

“A strong case can be made that Obama has narrowed the focus on Al Qaeda,” said political analyst Ronald Brownstein on ABC’s “This Week” Sunday.

Yemen: Where Al Qaeda Is

Obama’s decision to send 51,000 more troops to Afghanistan has put his stamp on that war. Yet Obama knows he cannot dismantle or defeat Al Qaeda from Afghanistan, because Al Qaeda is no longer there – it is across the border in Pakistan.

With Pakistan either unable or unwilling to dismantle the terrorist networks of Al Qaeda and its allies in its tribal areas, Obama can only hope to keep Al Qaeda from expanding into Afghanistan again and growing stronger.

In Yemen, however, he can strike at Al Qaeda directly and has a partner that is apparently willing to do so.

A Reliable Partner?

In fact, Al Qaeda in Yemen was virtually exterminated in 2003, a year after the US killed Qaed Salim Sinan al-Harethi, the top Al Qaeda operative in Yemen, in a missile strike. The new incarnation of Al Qaeda has arisen since 2006 amid distraction and neglect.

As was the case in Pakistan, Somalia, and Afghanistan, Al Qaeda gained strength in a country was preoccupied by other crises. Yemen remains troubled by a rebellion in the north, as secessionist movement in the south, and a 40 percent unemployment rate.

In short, the Yemeni government needs help if it is to take on Al Qaeda, which remains well down on its priority list.

Yet the Yemeni government appears willing to take on Al Qaeda if it is given this help. This represents something of a departure from the past. As recently as last year, the Yemeni government was alleged to have freed terrorists that it could could marshal against its domestic enemies. The leader of Al Qaeda in Yemen is a Guantánamo detainee sent back to Yemen, where he was freed in a prison break.

US Steps Up the Pressure

It appears as if Al Qaeda in Yemen has overplayed its hand, however. With US help, Yemen launched two airstrikes against Al Qaeda in the eight days before the failed airline bombing attempt on Flight 253 on Christmas Day.

But the attacks also give the US grounds for caution. Local media reports suggest that many women and children were killed in one of the strikes.

“Now you have something where there are all these pictures of dead infants and mangled children that are underlined with the caption 'Made in the USA' on all the jihadi forums,” Yemen expert Gregory Johnsen of Princeton University told AP. “Something like this does much more to extend Al Qaeda."

POLITICS - The Long View, War on Terrorism

noreply@blogger.com (Tecknomage) — Wed, 06 Jan 2010 17:16:00 +0000

"Inside Obama’s War on Terrorism" by Peter Baker, New York Times 1/4/2010

Excerpt

The evening before he was sworn into office, Barack Obama stepped out of Blair House, the government residence where he was staying across from the White House, and climbed into an armored limousine for the ride to a bipartisan dinner. Joining him in the back seat were John Brennan, his new counterterrorism adviser, and two foreign-policy advisers, Denis McDonough and Mark Lippert. The three men with the president-elect were out of breath, having rushed more than a mile from transition headquarters on foot after failing to find a taxi in Washington’s preinaugural madness. As the motorcade moved out, they updated Obama on gathering evidence of a major terrorist plot to attack his inauguration. After a weekend of round-the-clock analysis, the nation’s intelligence agencies were concerned that the threat was real, the men told him. A group of Somali extremists was reported to be coming across the border from Canada to detonate explosives as the new president took the oath of office. With more than a million onlookers viewing the ceremony from the National Mall and hundreds of millions more watching on television around the world, what could be a more devastating target?

“All the data points suggested there was a real threat evolving quickly that had an overseas component,” Juan Carlos Zarate, President George W. Bush’s deputy national security adviser for combating terrorism, told me in November. As the inauguration approached, signs of a plot “seemed to be growing in credibility and relevance.” Another senior Bush official involved in those tense events a year ago said last fall that protecting the new president was not enough. Even a failed attack would send a debilitating message to the world. “If something happens on the podium and there’s chaos,” this official told me, “that’s the first time you see the new president, and you really don’t want that.”

The threat seemed to weigh on Obama. He canceled a practice session to go over his inaugural address with aides at Blair House. David Axelrod, his senior adviser, later interpreted that as a sign that Obama was thinking about the suspected plot. “He seemed more subdued than he had been,” Axelrod told me not long ago. Obama had not yet taken office, and he was already being confronted with the threat that consumed his predecessor’s presidency. No matter how much he thought about terrorism as a senator or as a presidential candidate, it was another thing to face it as the person responsible for the nation’s security — and quite another thing again to know the threat was aimed directly at himself, his wife and their two daughters. “It’s not as if you don’t know what you’re getting into,” Axelrod said. “But when the reality comes and the baton is being passed and you’re now dealing with real terrorism threats, it’s a very sobering moment.”

There was little Obama could do but ask questions and rely on the people who had been fighting this fight for years. His advisers worked side by side with the outgoing administration. The two teams gathered in the Situation Room of the White House shortly before the inauguration to sift through what was known and to hash out what should be done about it. The final iteration of Bush’s team sat across the table from the brain trust of Obama’s administration — Condoleezza Rice, Stephen Hadley and their colleagues on one side, Hillary Rodham Clinton, James Jones and their colleagues on the other.

Clinton immediately put her finger on the problem. According to participants, she asked, what should Obama do if he is in the middle of his inaugural address and a bomb goes off somewhere on the mall? “Is the Secret Service going to whisk him off the podium so the American people see their incoming president disappear in the middle of the inaugural address?” she asked. “I don’t think so.”

Among those in the room was Robert Gates, who served two years as Bush’s defense secretary and would remain in that post under Obama. After the meeting, everyone eventually agreed that Gates should stay away from the inauguration in a secret location. With no other member of Obama’s cabinet confirmed by the Senate, Gates — an incumbent cabinet officer who also had the imprimatur of the newly elected commander in chief — was the most logical person in the line of succession to take over the presidency should the worst happen.

At the heart of the deliberations about what to do was John Brennan, a former C.I.A. officer. A Middle East specialist known for setting up the National Counterterrorism Center for Bush, Brennan was coming back after three years out of government as the top counterterrorism official in the Obama administration. He had wanted to be C.I.A. director but found his potential appointment sunk by liberal protests over his ties to the old order, so instead he was made assistant to the president for homeland security and counterterrorism and deputy national security adviser, a position that did not require Senate confirmation.

This is from the 1st page of a 9-page article that gives readers an idea of the Obama Administration's view of this threat to America.

POLITICS - Security Debate, PBS News Hour

noreply@blogger.com (Tecknomage) — Mon, 04 Jan 2010 18:13:00 +0000

"Shields and Brooks Examine Security Debate, Politics in 2010" (includes video) PBS News Hour 1/1/2010

Transcript Excerpts

DAVID BROOKS: Well, not so well. But, I mean, to me, the whole reaction was overwrought.

We have all these geniuses who are, post hoc, that they could have figured out if only they were in place, sort of a hysteria calling for Janet Napolitano's head, calling for this person's head.

The fact is that we have this vast bureaucracy. The NSA, National Security Agency, alone captures four times as much data per day as exists in the Library of Congress. They do a pretty good job of reducing the risk of terrorist attack. Occasionally, somebody gets through. That is going to inevitably happen.

We should have some sort of steady, level-headed response. That is the sign of a resilient nation. We don't have it. We have had the last week of the whole country going -- or at least the punditocracy -- going into semi-hysteria over this. And it's just not the sign of a serious country. And I think nobody has covered themselves with glory in all this.

JEFFREY BROWN (News Hour): Hmm. Mark, not a serious country.

MARK SHIELDS: Boy, not a serious country, that is a serious charge.

I do -- I mean the point David makes about -- that -- and that NSA information, which is four times as much as the Library of Congress, is just from cell phones and wireless. I mean, so, it is a remarkable amount of information to be processed.

But I think there is cause for concern, and there's no doubt about it, not -- there has been partisan overreaching, excessive and indefensible. But, at the same time, there were signs. There were warnings here.

And we're supposed to have, eight years later, some sense of communication, and especially some sense of urgency. And I think that was missing. And I think the president recognizes that. The president says, there was a systemic failure. He is accepting accountability from his administration. And I think it is serious. And I think it is something that has to be addressed.

JEFFREY BROWN: And, then, what about the opposition finger-pointing...

MARK SHIELDS: Well, no, I will be happy to address the opposition.

I do think there is no question that Secretary Napolitano's answer was an attempt -- misguided, inept -- to assure people who were traveling over Christmas that it was going to be safe, and which was a legitimate intention, but not a sensible assessment of the situation.

And I do think that what we are seeing as a result of this is, we're still in silos, we're still in smokestacks, as far as intelligence is concerned. I mean, we did have 9/11 recommendations that did require the director of national intelligence to coordinate all this.

I mean, there were failures at each level, I mean, whether the State Department on the visa, all the way along the line, the CIA on information, whether as to whether in fact this fellow was going to be a real problem. We had specific information from his dad.

So, I think there is cause for concern. I think the president has shown restraint. I mean, I really do. I mean, he insisted that he wouldn't do anything until the facts are there. But he addressing it as a serious problem.

JEFFREY BROWN: You think he got it right?

MARK SHIELDS: I do think he did get it right. And David's point is, as always, thoughtful.

JEFFREY BROWN: But wrong.

MARK SHIELDS: No, and, usually, about 85 percent incisive.

MARK SHIELDS: No. But, as far as the other side is concerned, I mean, Jim DeMint comes in, the senator from South Carolina, comes in for special treatment in this New Year's season. I mean, this is a man who has held up the appointment of the director of the Transportation Safety (sic) Administration, which is charged with airport safety and the travel -- or the safety of travel, and he said for one person -- reason.

And that is that he wants to get from this man, to extract from him, a guarantee that employees of the TSA will not be able to collectively bargain, Jeffrey. And, I mean, if this -- it's based on some know-nothingness that says, oh, they will -- union bosses will interfere with the safety of the country.

Now, this is a man who is a graduate of the University of Tennessee, has a master's in business from Clemson, was 50 years old on 9/11. When -- to go in to save, after the Twin Towers were leveled, the trapped and the terrified, 343 New York firefighters walked into the jaws of death and the fires of hell, and every one of them was a dues-paying union member.

And, I mean, the fact that, somehow, he associates that these people are not public servants, not interested in public safety is probably partisanship of the narrowest and the most unforgiving nature.

JEFFREY BROWN: Right. I was just going to bring him up, because he was...

DAVID BROOKS: Again, the idea, to me, this is endemic in the nature of this kind of warfare. We're going to have failures. And it's just because you can't predict the future.

The idea that it was, as Dick Cheney said, as the result of some ideological failure is also silly.

JEFFREY BROWN: He said the president was trying to pretend we are not war, was the way he put it.

MARK SHIELDS: This is a president who, much to the consternation of his base and his strongest supporters, will have tripled the number of American troops in Afghanistan, will have doubled the amount spent for the -- in support or aid of the democratic country of Pakistan, and hardly somebody who has been indifferent to it.

And, I mean, Dick Cheney would do well to heed the counsel of his alleged superior, the man who put him on the ticket, George W. Bush, who, when asked to criticize President Obama, said, "I owe him my silence."

And, compared to Dick Cheney, George Bush ought to be on Mount Rushmore. And it looks more like that every passing week.

JEFFREY BROWN: If we try to look forward now, how does -- how do these events and the new things you have just talked about, the counterterrorism, the intelligence problems that have now been re-raised, how does that complicate the president's agenda going forward?

DAVID BROOKS: Well, to me, the one lesson is, we will never get out of the paying attention to the Islamic extremism. This is just going to be an issue that will pop up in Afghanistan. It will pop up here at home...

Note, "And, I mean, Dick Cheney would do well to heed the counsel of his alleged superior, the man who put him on the ticket, George W. Bush, who, when asked to criticize President Obama, said, 'I owe him my silence.'" I totally agree, it is a lesson ALL Ultra-Conservative GOP ideologues need to heed.

Also see...
"Republicans Go Bonkers Over Obama and Flight 253" by David Corn, Politics Daily

Richard Reid ring a bell? Especially the Bush Administration response?

ALSO, and more important:
"Obama: Intelligence Failures Allowed Attempted Plane Attack" (includes video), PBS News Hour 1/5/2010

One Excerpt from Transcript

JIM LEHRER: We get three other perspectives now from Ken Button, director of the Center for Transportation at George Mason University -- he's also a professor of public policy there -- Steven Simon, former terrorism specialist at the National Security Council in the Clinton administration -- he's now with the Council on Foreign Relations -- and Clark Kent Ervin, former inspector general for the Department of Homeland Security in the Bush administration. He's now director of the Aspen Institute's Homeland Security Program.

Mr. Ervin, just a few moments ago, the White House issued a statement, or issued a statement that the president reportedly said to his folks that he met with, in other words, his team, his 12 folks that were there, and he -- he -- the president said this -- quote -- "This was a screw-up that could have been disastrous. We dodged a bullet, but just barely. It was averted by brave individuals, not because the system worked. And that is not acceptable. While there will be a tendency to finger-pointing, I will not tolerate it."

What do you make of that?

CLARK KENT ERVIN, former inspector general, Department of Homeland Security: I think that's absolutely spot on.

The president was exactly right to say that. He has said essentially in the public statement. You can't fix a problem until you acknowledge it. And the president has said this before. This was a systemic failure. It is the first impulse of government always to downplay crises. That was the first impulse here with the Department of Homeland Security.

And, so, the president is quite right. And the sense of urgency that he conveyed is also important.

POLITICS - 2009 Winners and Losers

noreply@blogger.com (Tecknomage) — Wed, 30 Dec 2009 15:38:00 +0000

(click image for larger view)

TERROR - Lesson Was NOT Learned

noreply@blogger.com (Tecknomage) — Wed, 30 Dec 2009 15:16:00 +0000

The following proves that we have yet to learn from our security mistakes of 9/11. America is not secure because Washington is still run by dunces and turf-protectors.

"U.S. Had Early Signals of a Terror Plot, Obama Says" by Peter Baker and Carl Hulse, New York Times

Excerpt

President Obama was told Tuesday about more missed signals and uncorrelated intelligence that should have prevented a would-be bomber from boarding a flight to the United States, leading the president to declare that there had been a “systemic failure” of the nation’s security apparatus.

Two officials said the government had intelligence from Yemen before Friday that leaders of a branch of Al Qaeda were talking about “a Nigerian” being prepared for a terrorist attack. While the attacker was not named, officials said it would have been evident had it been compared to information about Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, the 23-year-old Nigerian charged with trying to blow up an American passenger jet on Christmas Day.

The government also had more information about where Mr. Abdulmutallab had been and what some of his plans were before boarding the Northwest Airlines flight to Detroit. Some of the information was partial or incomplete at the time, and it was not obvious that it was connected, one senior administration official said, but in retrospect it now appears clear that had it all been examined together it would have pointed to the pending attack.

The official, who like others spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss the sensitive review, said the government was “increasingly confident” that Al Qaeda had a role in the attack, as the group’s Yemeni branch has publicly claimed. Such a conclusion could lead the United States to provide more intelligence and equipment to the Yemeni government and even consider fresh targets in a continuing campaign against radicals in Yemen.

The fresh information about what the government knew before the flight on Friday was provided to White House officials Monday night and to the president on Tuesday while he was here vacationing in Hawaii.

Shortly after being briefed, Mr. Obama told reporters that a review had revealed a breakdown in the intelligence system that did not properly identify Mr. Abdulmutallab as a dangerous extremist who should have been prevented from flying to the United States.

“A systemic failure has occurred, and I consider that totally unacceptable,” Mr. Obama said.

"Unacceptable" is putting it mildly. All these years after 9/11 we should not be having this type of problem.

The so-called Homeland Security was created with the idea of not having this problem. Instead we have an elephant that cannot move with any speed, when what America needs is a security agency that moves at the speed of a gazelle.

HEALTHCARE - Reform Update 12/24/2009

noreply@blogger.com (Tecknomage) — Tue, 29 Dec 2009 15:09:00 +0000

"Health Care Changes Wouldn’t Have Big Effect for Many" by Reed Abelson, New York Times

Excerpts

Now that the Senate has caught up with the House by passing a sweeping health care bill, lawmakers are on the verge of extending coverage to the tens of millions of Americans who have no health insurance.

But what about the roughly 160 million workers and their dependents who already have health insurance through an employer? For many people, the result of the long, angry health care debate in Washington may be little more than more of the same.

As President Obama once promised, “If you like your health plan, you can keep your health plan.”

That may be true even if you don’t like your health plan. And no one seems to agree on whether the legislation will do much to reduce workers’ continually rising out-of-pocket costs.

True, there is an important advantage for the working insured: more peace of mind for people who are worried about being laid off or would like to change jobs.

There are still many gaps to bridge between the House and Senate bills. But even before the House-Senate negotiations begin in January, both bills offer this assurance: If you lose your job or move to one that does not provide benefits, there should be better alternatives when shopping for your own coverage.

And both the House and Senate bills share the same basic goal of placing new rules on insurers so that even someone with a pre-existing medical condition, or a few years to go before qualifying for Medicare, should have a much easier time finding a relatively affordable policy.

The legislation should give most working people “the guarantee of security if their circumstances change,” said Karen Davis, the president of the Commonwealth Fund, an independent research group that has studied the House and Senate bills.

Of course, with more security will come more obligation. Congress seems likely to impose an individual mandate that will require people to be insured or face a financial penalty.

The other proposed changes for employer-provided coverage seem aimed mainly at workers whose benefits are either very generous or exceedingly skimpy.

The “impact of this change will be minimal on most employers, but would be quite meaningful for the small number of employees who meet the limits,” according to the study, conducted by policy analysts from the University of California, Berkeley, the benefits consultant Watson Wyatt Worldwide and the National Opinion Research Center at the University of Chicago.

Congress is also considering annual limits on out-of-pocket medical costs. The House seems to think $5,000 is as much as somebody should pay in medical bills, while the Senate has picked a figure closer to $6,000.

Under the Senate proposal, the new limits would not apply to self-insured employers — big companies that provide their own insurance and have enough employees to effectively spread the risk of paying any large claims.

The real unknown, of course, is whether any final legislation will accelerate the rise in premiums or slow it. At least one impartial analysis, by the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office, concluded that the legislation was not going to have much of an effect on the cost of premiums either way.

HEALTHCARE - The Gamble the GOP Lost

noreply@blogger.com (Tecknomage) — Mon, 21 Dec 2009 17:34:00 +0000

"The Republican Health Care Blunder" by Jonathan Chait, New Republic

The United States is on the doorstep of comprehensive health care reform. It's a staggering achievement, about which I'll have more to say later. but the under-appreciated thing that strikes me at the moment is that it never would have happened if the Republican Party had played its cards right.

At the outset of this debate, moderate Democrats were desperate for a bipartisan bill. They were willing to do almost anything to get it, including negotiate fruitlessly for months on end. We can't know for sure, but Democrats appeared willing to make enormous substantive concessions to win the assent of even a few Republicans. A few GOP defectors could have lured a chunk of Democrats to sign something far more limited than what President Obama is going to sign. And remember, it would have taken only one Democrat to agree to partial reform in order to kill comprehensive reform. I can easily imagine a scenario where Ben Nelson refused to vote for anything larger than, say, a $400 billion bill that Chuck Grassley and a couple other Republicans were offering.

But Republicans wouldn't make that deal. The GOP leadership put immense pressure on all its members to withhold consent from any health care bill. The strategy had some logic to it: If all 40 Republicans voted no, then Democrats would need 60 votes to succeed, a monumentally difficult task. And if they did succeed, the bill would be seen as partisan and therefore too liberal, too big government. The spasm of anti-government activism over the summer helped lock the GOP into this strategy -- no Republican could afford to risk the wrath of Tea Partiers convinced that any reform signed by Obama equaled socialism and death panels.

The role of Olympia Snowe is interesting here. Snowe negotiated seriously for months, and Democrats met what seemed to be her substantive concerns, but, like the Russian army retreating before Napoleon, she insisted that the bill be drawn out indefinitely. Snowe demanded that the process not be rushed, but she never defined what a reasonable time frame would be. In the summer, "taking your time" and "doing it right"meant waiting until after the August recess. In the fall, it meant until after Thanksgiving. Now it means until after Christmas. If it lasted until next year, eventually Republicans would demand that the process not be rushed before the midterm elections, and that the fair thing would be to let the people decide in the 2010 elections.

The GOP leadership has every incentive to stretch the process out as long as possible. It runs out the clock on the first two years of the Obama presidency, after which high unemployment and the natural effects of an off-year election would produce a Congress far less likely -- perhaps totally unwilling -- to cooperate with Obama. Snowe might have diverged from the party line on substance, but she seems to have agreed to hold the line on process. At some point, process becomes substance. Thus Snowe effectively removed herself from the negotiations.

And so Democrats found themselves all alone. It seems to be around August when the party realized that bipartisan dealmaking was not at hand, and it had to pass a bill or face the same calamity as it did in 1994. Politically speaking, there were no good options left, but passing a bill offered the least bad option. The unified partisan front of the Republican Party forced the Democrats to adopt their own unified partisan front, something that appeared impossible as recently as this last summer. This passage from the New York Times is telling:

Faced with Republican opposition that many Democrats saw as driven more by politics than policy disagreements, Senate Democrats in recent days gained new determination to bridge differences among themselves and prevail over the opposition.

Lawmakers who attended a private meeting between Mr. Obama and Senate Democrats at the White House on Tuesday pointed to remarks there by Senator Evan Bayh, Democrat of Indiana, as providing some new inspiration.

Mr. Bayh said that the health care measure was the kind of public policy he had come to Washington to work on, according to officials who attended the session, and that he did not want to see the satisfied looks on the faces of Republican leaders if they succeeded in blocking the measure.

Evan Bayh! When you've turned the somnolent, relentlessly centrist Indiana Senator into a raging partisan, you've really done something. The Republicans eschewed a halfway compromise and put all their chips on an all or nothing campaign to defeat health care and Obama's presidency. It was an audacious gamble. They lost. In the end, they'll walk away with nothing. The Republicans may gain some more seats in 2010 by their total obstruction, but the substantive policy defeat they've been dealt will last for decades.

Further prof that the GOP gamble with the well-being of the American people, and badly, for ideology.

HEALTHCARE - Reform Updates 12/19/2009

noreply@blogger.com (Tecknomage) — Mon, 21 Dec 2009 17:26:00 +0000

"Defense Bill Clears Senate Hurdle" by Carl Hulse, New York Times 12/18/2009

Excerpt

The Senate voted early Friday morning to force final action on a Pentagon spending measure as Democrats broke a Republican attempt to use the military money to stall action on the health care overhaul.

In an unusual dead-of-night session that opened just after midnight, senators voted 63 to 33 to shut off debate on the $626 billion plan, which is the last spending measure due to pass this year and was easily passed by the House earlier this week. A final vote is expected early Saturday.

Democrats had to struggle to line up all 60 of their members in support of a key procedural vote to overcome anticipated Republican opposition to a bill Republicans would normally rally behind and have criticized Democrats for politicizing in the past.

Senator Russ Feingold, the anti-war Wisconsin Democrat, was the key for Democrats after he agreed to vote for the measure, citing Republican tactics to hold the Pentagon money hostage in the fight over health care. His initial resistance left Democrats one vote short and his colleagues cheered him when he announced his reversal in a closed-door party meeting Thursday evening.

“I am against continued funding for the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq,” said Mr. Feingold, who was personally encouraged by President Obama to vote with the party. “But it became apparent that this was really an effort to slow down a bill they were going to vote for anyway to destroy health care and that is not something I wanted to see happen.”

Once Democrats had the 60 votes in hand, three Republicans joined them in voting to end the filibuster rather than go on the record voting against the Pentagon money.

Does the "Call Roto-Rooter" commercial ring a bell? And the GOP says they "support the troops" so they holdup a Defense Bill because of Healthcare Reform.

"Democrats Clinch Deal for Deciding Vote on Health Bill" by David M. Hersxenhorn & Carl Hulse, New York Times 12/19/2009

Excerpt

Senate Democrats said Saturday that they had clinched an agreement on a far-reaching overhaul of the nation’s health care system and forged ahead with efforts to approve the legislation by Christmas over Republican opposition.

As the Senate convened in a blizzard, Democratic leaders hailed a breakthrough that came when Senator Ben Nelson, Democrat of Nebraska, agreed to back the bill after 13 hours of negotiations on Friday, making him the pivotal 60th vote for a measure that President Obama has called his top domestic priority.

“Change is never easy, but change is what’s necessary in America,” Mr. Nelson said at a morning news conference. “And that’s why I intend to vote,” he said, “for health care reform.”

Mr. Obama, appearing on television from the White House, said: “Today is a major step forward for the American people. After nearly a century-long struggle, we are on the cusp of making health care reform a reality in the United States of America.”

POLITICS - Time to Find a New Ship

noreply@blogger.com (Tecknomage) — Fri, 18 Dec 2009 20:03:00 +0000

"Happy Hour over: Fundraising firm drops Bachmann" by Muriel Kane, Raw Story

Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-MN), who can't seem to hold onto a chief of staff for more than a year at a time, has now lost her fundraising firm as well.

According to a report which first appeared in Roll Call on Wednesday, "The Gula Graham Group, a Republican fundraising and consulting firm, ended their three-year relationship with Bachmann last week."

The Gula Graham Group arranges fundraising events for a select group of Republican members of Congress, like the "Happy Hour" they put on for Bachmann last spring at the Sonoma Restaurant and Wine Bar with an admission fee of $500 per attendee.

The firms's co-founder, Mike Gula, told Roll Call, "I can confirm that the Gula Graham Group no longer works for Congresswoman Bachmann. We chose to go in a different direction."

Bachmann also lost her chief of staff, Michelle Marston, just last month. “I’m just not talking about it, and frankly I don’t think there’s a story here,” Marston told Politico at the time. A conservative Republican member of the House, however, suggested the real problem was that “when your captain’s crazy, it’s time to find a new ship.”

Marston had joined Bachmann's staff only last February, replacing Rich Dunn, who hadn't held the position very long either. In April 2008, Think Progress noted of Bachmann, "The Hill reports that 'ten of the 14 people' she 'hired early last year have left' her office. 'The casualty list includes two chiefs of staff, a district director, a press secretary, two legislative assistants, a staff assistant, a caseworker, an outreach and grants coordinator and a district scheduler.' A third chief of staff 'rescinded his decision to take the position prior' to being officially placed on the payroll."

A comparison of the Gula Graham Group's current client listing with a version in the Google cache, shows that Rep. Jim Gerlach (R-PA) has recently been dropped from the list as well. Gerlach, however, was a client of Mike Gula's for many years, and his departure might merely reflect the fact that he is now running for governor of Pennsylvania and not seeking reelection to Congress. In Bachmann's case there is no such obvious explanation.

"It’s time to find a new ship" like one that's NOT sinking.

POLITICS - Anti-Healthcare Reform Liar of the Year

noreply@blogger.com (Tecknomage) — Fri, 18 Dec 2009 19:48:00 +0000

"Health Care Misinformer of the Year: Betsy McCaughey" Media Matters 12/16/2009

Excerpt

The debate over health care reform has dominated much of the media spotlight this year, and the conservative media have responded with a wide array of falsehoods and distortions aimed at twisting the debate and stopping progressive policies from being enacted. From Fox News host Sean Hannity's repeated cries that progressive plans are "socialized medicine" to The Wall Street Journal's falsehood-laden crusade against health reform, there has been no shortage of misinformation purveyors attempting to get in on the action.

But there has been one misinformer who outshines them all, relentlessly attacking health care reform by spreading falsehoods and distortions through opinion pieces and television appearances at nearly every stage of the debate. This individual is noteworthy not only for her prolificacy, but because of the broad extent to which her outlandish claims about health legislation have reverberated throughout the conservative media echo chamber.

As Media Matters for America senior fellow Jamison Foser pointed out, what is most problematic about this individual is not simply her false and misleading claims, but that despite her consistent pattern of promoting falsehoods, the media continue to provide her with a platform -- and a veneer of legitimacy. Most notably, Rupert Murdoch-owned papers The Wall Street Journal and the New York Post have repeatedly provided her space on their op-ed pages, and Murdoch's Fox News Channel has repeatedly hosted her and advanced her claims. As The Atlantic's James Fallows has noted, she is an example of someone for whom there "seems to be almost no extremity of being proven wrong which disqualifies" her from being given a platform in the media. Indeed, the media's willingness to treat her as if she were a legitimate policy expert has continued even after she has backtracked on many of her claims after they were debunked.

Moreover, media covering the 2009 health care reform debate should have been aware that she was not a reliable source, given that she spent the last major health care policy debate similarly advancing falsehoods aimed at obstructing reform. As Fallows noted, "[i]n the early 1990s [she] single-handedly did a phenomenal amount to distort discussion of health-care policy and derail the Clinton health bill ... through an entirely fictitious argument about what the bill would do." For these reasons, Media Matters' debunking of this serial health care misinformer's claims is equally an indictment of the media that enable her.

Without further ado, Media Matters presents its first-ever Health Care Misinformer of the Year award to Betsy McCaughey.

McCaughey Lies List (from full article):

McCaughey cooks up falsehood that recovery act puts government bureaucrats between you and your doctor

McCaughey ignites firestorm with false claim that House bill will promote euthanasia of seniors

McCaughey launches false attacks against "Health Rationer-in-Chief" Ezekiel Emanuel

False claims continue: McCaughey spreads misinformation about recent versions of House, Senate health bills

Credibility further undermined: McCaughey has health-care conflicts of interest dating back to '90s

The details for each item on the list are in the full article.

MEDIA - Comment on the Gossip Mongers

noreply@blogger.com (Tecknomage) — Fri, 18 Dec 2009 18:50:00 +0000

"Everything You Think About Tiger Woods is Wrong" by Michael Bader, AlterNet

[Disclaimer:I don’t know anything at all about Tiger or Elin Woods but am going to write about them anyway.]

Everything that's been written about Tiger Woods is wrong; that is, every inference and judgment about the meaning of his actions (the paltry slivers of it that we think we know) has nothing to do with him and everything to do with us.

Not a single author or commentator among the hundreds who have weighed in on Woods' life, marriage, morals, choices, or psychology has ever met or spent any time with him. Thus, everything that's been said has been a response to our projections onto images that Tiger Woods and we have jointly created.

For example, consider the following statements culled from recent press:

Tiger is a sex addict. He has to repair the damage he's done to his family. He has to grow up. He should “man up” and have a press conference to publicly apologize. He is a typical alpha male. He was a “bad boy” in order to undermine the burden of being the “good boy.” He is irresponsible and immature. He's got the same syndrome as Kobe Bryant, Michael Jordan, and Magic Johnson. He obviously doesn't care about his kids. He's a liar. He and Elin are in “deep discussions” about whether they can save their marriage. Elin's a fighter and is fighting like hell now to keep her family intact.

All nonsense. All fictional narratives about someone we know absolutely nothing about, except that he's the best golfer in the world. Some of these opinions might be right—but then so is a stopped clock, twice a day. All of these views are only projections of things inside us. In this one sense, the tidal wave of Tiger reporting is interesting, much like responses to an ink blot test can tell us a lot about the responder.

The problem is when people don't know that that's what they're doing. Or they know, but they don't admit it. It's not exactly a news flash—the awareness that we don't know anything about the motivations and interior lives of celebrities. But the pull to weigh in and make judgments is irresistible. I like to read celebrity gossip; it's titillating, funny, and often outrageous. I suppose that it's a comfort to know that celebrities and others we put on pedestals are screwed up just like us. Then, for just a moment, we don't have to feel badly about our own problems. But I try not to confuse this game with reality.

Most people, though, don't really know that they're just making shit up and applying it to Tiger for personal reasons of their own. They think it's true. They have conviction. They may know that we live in a sick celebrity-obsessed culture but don't realize that their opinions about Woods stem from this very pathology.

We think we own Woods, that he's a commodity about which we have every right to publicly judge. After all, he invited us to love and admire him in order to make money. Isn't he simply reaping what he sowed? O.K. Fair enough. But let's make that explicit. Let's insist that athletes who sign contracts with corporate sponsors include a stipulation that the corporation owns their image and that fans who buy products based on this image own the athlete's personal life. I'm buying Nike golf balls because of you, Tiger. I'm giving you and Nike my money. So, I deserve access to your personal life if it should in any way trigger negative feelings in me, e.g. betrayal, disgust, envy, or guilt. You're an extension of me, man, so what are you complaining about?

These celebrity male adulterers and their wives are a gigantic blank screen onto which we displace our own feelings about sex, loyalty, betrayal, abandonment, temptation. Poor Elizabeth Edwards. God, I never trusted John Edwards—too slick. Spitzer got what he deserved….what a hypocrite! Imagine Silda, standing there in shame while her husband confessed! But how can you blame Tiger!? I mean, tell me this, buddy-- if everywhere you went, beautiful women were offering themselves to you. What would you do? Be honest, now. But Elin is so beautiful—what was Tiger thinking? Typical man, led around by his…… Blonde women and a black man—I mean, we know what that's about, right?

Again, we don't know anything about anything. But the theorizing goes on and on, all the while reinforcing the fact that the various human strains and stresses and fears and hurts and conflicts that no doubt occupy the minds of celebrities don't really afflict us. We're the judges and no longer the defendants.

The fact is that we're the victims, the perpetrators, and the observers. We act selfishly, lust after people other than our partners, feel rejected and abandoned, have fetishes and weird fantasies, feel guilty, make amends, love and hate. We are afflicted and we sometimes afflict others. But we're desperate for relief from these internal states and are therefore relieved to find them in others. I suppose it can entertaining, but we should know that we're doing it.

That's why I began this essay with a disclaimer. I think that everyone who write about this situation ought to do the same.

ON THE LITE SIDE - Costco Forever!

noreply@blogger.com (Tecknomage) — Thu, 17 Dec 2009 19:18:00 +0000

"Clueless in Costco" by Timothy Egan, New York Times

For a native Westerner, the slights from the other end of the country start early, and build through a lifetime: national broadcasters on election night who cannot pronounce Oregon (it’s like gun) or Nevada (it’s not Nev-odda), or a toll-free clerk who thinks New Mexico is part of old Mexico.

“You’ll have to go through your own embassy,” a resident of Santa Fe was told when trying to order Olympic tickets for games on American soil.

Geographic illiteracy from the Eastern Time Zone is a given, especially among the well-educated. A New York book publisher, and Harvard grad at that, once asked me if I ever take the ferry up to Alaska for the afternoon. No, I replied: do you ever go to Greenland on a day trip?

Norman Maclean, the great Montana writer, had a worse experience. He complained that an editor turned down his masterpiece, “A River Runs Through It,” because it had too many trees in it.

A media titan, The Washington Post, recently announced they were calling home their remaining national correspondents, explaining that the paper was perfectly capable of covering the rest of the country from inside the Beltway. By that reasoning, the Fairbanks Daily News-Miner can discern what’s happening in the capital from their home base near the Arctic Circle.

Sports is a grievance category all its own. If you Google “East Coast Bias,” up comes a long litany of stories about how the West never gets any respect from those great deciders in the East.

So, naturally, Toby Gerhart of Stanford didn’t receive this year’s Heisman Trophy, awarded annually to the nation’s best college football player, despite leading elite colleges in rushing yards, rushing touchdowns, total touchdowns and points scored. Many of the voters were asleep, or Saturday-night-blotto, when Gerhart was dazzling the football world this fall. The voting map was a geography of bias.

These are all minor annoyances, mind you, in a world with daily reminders that an embittered, small-hearted senator from Connecticut can hold up health care for millions, or some people would rather read a “book” by Hulk Hogan than a short story by Sherman Alexie.

But every now and then those of us who reside on the sunset side of the 100th meridian get a chance to rub one in the other way.

Consider the fuss over Costco landing on the island of Manhattan last month. Costco is the nation’s third largest retailer, with more than 400 warehouse stores in the United States alone. Liberals love Costco because they pay their workers about 40 percent more than their big box rivals.

Conservatives love them because they sell Sarah Palin’s book by the pallet, next to the camo wear.

Costco is a brilliant retail concept, but it’s not news. It’s been around for, oh . . . a quarter-century or so. Some of the gushing posts on New York-based Web sites after Costco opened on East 117th Street have all the breathless urgency of a tourist who has discovered bagels in Boulder.

“It’s amazing how many things you can get for a fairly decent price!” One shopper wrote on Yelp New York, the online review site. Um, that’s the idea. And other observers have seemed befuddled in the big box, overwhelmed by the lure of tube sox and toilet paper to last a lifetime.

Most Westerners may not know schmear from schmaltz, but they can tell a sophisticated urban shopper to stick with the to-die-for olive oil, cold-pressed just a few weeks ago in Tuscany, and the $1.50 quarter-pound hot dog when under the high fluorescent sky of a Costco warehouse.

Speaking of my newspaper — please, it’s the holidays, a time for indulgence in all things — they recently discovered a newsworthy item from the Mountain West: Jews in Montana. Imagine!

One more bit of news on this front: the nation’s first elected Jewish governor was a Western man. And a Democrat. In Idaho. Moses Alexander governed the land of famous potatoes from 1915 to 1919.

As a longtime Western representative of The New York Times, which is well read in these provinces, I feel the rub of faux-rube pandering both ways. Here, people are amazed I can find Twitty, Texas, on a map, and — more surprising, can vouch for the peach cobbler. There, the wonder is that I know which side of the plate to keep the salad fork. Sort of.

LAW - New Technologies and the First Amendment

noreply@blogger.com (Tecknomage) — Thu, 17 Dec 2009 16:05:00 +0000

"Supreme Court Takes Texting Case" by Adam Liptak, New York Times

The Supreme Court agreed on Monday to decide whether a police department violated the constitutional privacy rights of an employee when it inspected personal text messages sent and received on a government pager.

The case opens “a new frontier in Fourth Amendment jurisprudence,” according to a three-judge panel of an appeals court that ruled in favor of the employee, a police sergeant on the Ontario, Calif., SWAT team.

Orin S. Kerr, an authority on the Fourth Amendment at George Washington University’s law school, said the case was simultaneously significant and idiosyncratic. “This is the first case on Fourth Amendment protection in data networks,” Mr. Kerr said. But the case arose from unusual circumstances, making it fairly likely that the eventual Supreme Court ruling will be narrow.

The Supreme Court has given public employers wide latitude to search their employees’ offices and files. But it has also said that the Fourth Amendment, which forbids unreasonable government searches, has a role to play in any analysis of that latitude.

The Ontario Police Department had a formal policy reserving the right to monitor “network activity including e-mail and Internet use,” allowing “light personal communications” by employees but cautioning that they “should have no expectation of privacy.” It did not directly address text messages.

Members of the department’s SWAT team were given pagers and told they were responsible for charges in excess of 25,000 characters a month. Under an informal policy adopted by a police lieutenant, those who paid the excess charges themselves would not have their messages inspected.

The lieutenant eventually changed his mind and ordered transcripts of messages sent and received by Sgt. Jeff Quon. In one month in 2002, only 57 of more than 450 of those messages were related to official business. According to the trial judge, many of the messages “were, to say the least, sexually explicit in nature.”

Sergeant Quon and some of the people with whom he messaged sued, saying their Fourth Amendment rights had been violated. Judge Kim McLane Wardlaw, writing for a three-judge panel of the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, in San Francisco, said the department’s formal policy had been overridden by the “operational reality” of the lieutenant’s informal policy.

Dissenting from the full Ninth Circuit’s decision not to rehear the case, Judge Sandra S. Ikuta said the panel had violated “the dictates of reason and common sense” and had hobbled “government employers from managing their work forces.”

The City of Ontario and its police department, in asking the Supreme Court to hear the case, said “a lower-level supervisor’s informal arrangement” should not be allowed to trump “the employer’s explicit no-privacy policy.”

“It is not objectively reasonable to expect privacy in a message sent to someone else’s workplace pager,” the brief said, “let alone to a police officer’s department-issued pager.”

The Supreme Court’s decision, the brief went on, will affect “a seemingly never-ending stream of new technologies.”

Though the legal issue in the case, City of Ontario v. Quon, No. 08-1332, concerns only text messaging in government workplaces, the Supreme Court’s decision may provide hints about its attitude toward privacy in the Internet era more generally.

The larger question, Judge Stephen G. Larson of the Federal District Court in Riverside, Calif., wrote in declining to dismiss Sergeant Quon’s case before trial, is this: “What are the legal boundaries of an employee’s privacy in this interconnected, electronic-communication age, one in which thoughts and ideas that would have been spoken personally and privately in ages past are now instantly text-messaged to friend and family via hand-held, computer-assisted electronic devices?”

The comment about "stream of new technologies" is very valid. I remember the day when Pagers ONLY showed you the phone number to call back.

ON THE LITE SIDE - For UFO Buffs

noreply@blogger.com (Tecknomage) — Wed, 16 Dec 2009 18:37:00 +0000

"Anyone for some Arctic roll? Mystery as spiral blue light display hovers above Norway"

Much more in full article.

POLITICS - SuperMax and Gitmo Detainees

noreply@blogger.com (Tecknomage) — Wed, 16 Dec 2009 18:25:00 +0000

"SuperMax Illinois Prison to Soon Hold Gitmo Detainees" ChattahBox

After months of listening to the Republican’s fear-mongering nonsense that bringing Gitmo detainees to American soil would lead to terrorist attacks, President Obama has finally caught a break. Obama will announce today that the federal government will acquire the Thomson Correctional Center in a small town in Illinois, to house terrorist detainees from Guantánamo Bay prison in Cuba. This move is a major step towards reaching Obama’s goal of closing the controversial Guantánamo Bay prison.

Gov. Patrick J. Quinn of Illinois and Sen. Richard J. Durbin (D-IL), will be briefed about the administration’s plan at the White House on Tuesday afternoon. Both Illinois officials support the government’s move to purchase the prison to use it to house maximum security prisoners and terrorist detainees, as a job creating strategy. The supermax prison has been empty, since it was constructed in 2001 with a price tag to taxpayers of about $120 million.

Illinois Republicans, including Reps. Donald Manzullo and Mark Steven Kirk condemned the government’s plans, claiming housing terrorists in the state’s supermax prison would prompt terrorists to attack Illinois. But the majority of residents in Thompson support the transfer of terrorist detainees to their town, which has been hit with job losses.

And the Obama administration makes the case that the transfer of detainees would actually make the US more secure, because the abuses that occurred at Guantánamo during the Bush administration, were used as a recruiting tool for Al Qaeda.

Liz Cheney should be appearing on Fox News with her offensive fear-mongering soon, condemning the transfer of Gitmo prisoners to the Thompson facility and condoning the torture methods used at Guantánamo.

What else would you expect from the hide-under-the-bed GOP? (aka we-fear-everything GOP)

POLITICS - Of Climate Change, Poll 12/15/2009

noreply@blogger.com (Tecknomage) — Wed, 16 Dec 2009 18:14:00 +0000

"Poll: Climate Change Action will Boost, Not Hurt US Economy" by Alec Rivera, Lipman Times

The Associated Press reports that, according to a recent AP-Stanford University poll, 40% of Americans believe that climate change action will create jobs and 46% believe that action will boost the economy. The poll shows that, despite Republican attempts to label the Congressional climate change proposal as a “job killer”, Americans still trust President Obama’s economic argument more.

The same poll found that less than one third of Americans believed that the proposal would hurt the economy. Republicans hope to take the message of such proposals hurting gains in the job market to the final days of the Copenhagen Conference on Climate Change, where representatives from all over the world are scrambling to orchestrate a global plan to combat global climate change.

“They’re wrong,” Ron Classen of Seattle, who participated in the poll, said of the GOP stance. “People are going to be shifted from one job to another,” said Classen, a self-described fan of environmentalist and former Vice President Al Gore.

The survey’s results seem to boost Democratic efforts to curb global warming pollution and sign on to an international agreement to reduce heat-trapping gases, despite the concerns many Americans have about the recession and the high unemployment rate.

For some, the recession has manifested itself in a nothing-left-to-lose attitude when it comes to tackling climate and to sparking a revolution in where and how the nation produces its energy.

“I don’t know if anybody has looked around lately, but the economy is dead,” said Jake Berglund, a home-improvement contractor from Portland, Conn. “We are in a sinking ship, and Obama has bought us enough life rafts to keep on going. But we need to figure out how to build a new boat when we are still on the water.”

Americans do have a limit to how much they’re willing to pay, in terms of their energy bills, for a Democratic proposal on climate change with a cap-and-trade emissions system for big businesses. Over 75% wouldn’t support any measure that increased their energy costs by $25 per month, and 59% wouldn’t support a measure that increased energy costs by over $10 per month.

ECONOMY - Will They Learn?

noreply@blogger.com (Tecknomage) — Wed, 16 Dec 2009 18:04:00 +0000

"Disaster and Denial" by Paul Krugman, New York Times

When I first began writing for The Times, I was naïve about many things. But my biggest misconception was this: I actually believed that influential people could be moved by evidence, that they would change their views if events completely refuted their beliefs.

And to be fair, it does happen now and then. I’ve been highly critical of Alan Greenspan over the years (since long before it was fashionable), but give the former Fed chairman credit: he has admitted that he was wrong about the ability of financial markets to police themselves.

But he’s a rare case. Just how rare was demonstrated by what happened last Friday in the House of Representatives, when — with the meltdown caused by a runaway financial system still fresh in our minds, and the mass unemployment that meltdown caused still very much in evidence — every single Republican and 27 Democrats voted against a quite modest effort to rein in Wall Street excesses.

Let’s recall how we got into our current mess.

America emerged from the Great Depression with a tightly regulated banking system. The regulations worked: the nation was spared major financial crises for almost four decades after World War II. But as the memory of the Depression faded, bankers began to chafe at the restrictions they faced. And politicians, increasingly under the influence of free-market ideology, showed a growing willingness to give bankers what they wanted.

The first big wave of deregulation took place under Ronald Reagan — and quickly led to disaster, in the form of the savings-and-loan crisis of the 1980s. Taxpayers ended up paying more than 2 percent of G.D.P., the equivalent of around $300 billion today, to clean up the mess.

But the proponents of deregulation were undaunted, and in the decade leading up to the current crisis politicians in both parties bought into the notion that New Deal-era restrictions on bankers were nothing but pointless red tape. In a memorable 2003 incident, top bank regulators staged a photo-op in which they used garden shears and a chainsaw to cut up stacks of paper representing regulations.

And the bankers — liberated both by legislation that removed traditional restrictions and by the hands-off attitude of regulators who didn’t believe in regulation — responded by dramatically loosening lending standards. The result was a credit boom and a monstrous real estate bubble, followed by the worst economic slump since the Great Depression. Ironically, the effort to contain the crisis required government intervention on a much larger scale than would have been needed to prevent the crisis in the first place: government rescues of troubled institutions, large-scale lending by the Federal Reserve to the private sector, and so on.

Given this history, you might have expected the emergence of a national consensus in favor of restoring more-effective financial regulation, so as to avoid a repeat performance. But you would have been wrong.

Talk to conservatives about the financial crisis and you enter an alternative, bizarro universe in which government bureaucrats, not greedy bankers, caused the meltdown. It’s a universe in which government-sponsored lending agencies triggered the crisis, even though private lenders actually made the vast majority of subprime loans. It’s a universe in which regulators coerced bankers into making loans to unqualified borrowers, even though only one of the top 25 subprime lenders was subject to the regulations in question.

Oh, and conservatives simply ignore the catastrophe in commercial real estate: in their universe the only bad loans were those made to poor people and members of minority groups, because bad loans to developers of shopping malls and office towers don’t fit the narrative.

In part, the prevalence of this narrative reflects the principle enunciated by Upton Sinclair: “It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends on his not understanding it.” As Democrats have pointed out, three days before the House vote on banking reform Republican leaders met with more than 100 financial-industry lobbyists to coordinate strategies. But it also reflects the extent to which the modern Republican Party is committed to a bankrupt ideology, one that won’t let it face up to the reality of what happened to the U.S. economy.

So it’s up to the Democrats — and more specifically, since the House has passed its bill, it’s up to “centrist” Democrats in the Senate. Are they willing to learn something from the disaster that has overtaken the U.S. economy, and get behind financial reform?

Let’s hope so. For one thing is clear: if politicians refuse to learn from the history of the recent financial crisis, they will condemn all of us to repeat it.

POLITICS - Bush Era Hide-and-Seek

noreply@blogger.com (Tecknomage) — Wed, 16 Dec 2009 17:51:00 +0000

"Bush E-mails Found: 22 Million Missing E-mails From George W. Bush White House Recovered" by Pete Yost, Huffington Post

Computer technicians have found 22 million missing White House e-mails from the administration of President George W. Bush and the Obama administration is searching for dozens more days' worth of potentially lost e-mail from the Bush years, according to two groups that filed suit over the failure by the Bush White House to install an electronic record keeping system.

The two private groups – Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington and the National Security Archive – said Monday they were settling the lawsuits they filed against the Executive Office of the President in 2007.

It will be years before the public sees any of the recovered e-mails because they will now go through the National Archives' process for releasing presidential and agency records. Presidential records of the Bush administration won't be available until 2014 at the earliest.

Former Bush White House spokesman Scott Stanzel said the 22 million e-mails already had been recovered while Bush was still in office and that misleading statements about the former administration's work demonstrate "a continued anti-Bush agenda, nearly a year after a new president was sworn in."

"The liberal groups CREW and National Security Archive litigate for sport, distort the facts and have consistently tried to create a spooky conspiracy out of standard IT issues," Stanzel said in a statement.

The 22 million e-mails "would never have been found but for our lawsuits and pressure from Capitol Hill," said Anne Weismann, chief counsel for CREW. "It was only then that they did this reanalysis and found as a result that there were 22 million e-mails that they were unable to account for before."

Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., said the Bush administration had been dismissive of congressional requests that the administration recover the e-mails. Leahy said it was "another example of the Bush administration's reflexive resistance to congressional oversight and the public's right to know."

The tally of missing e-mails, the additional searches and the settlement are the latest development in a political controversy that stemmed from the Bush White House's failure to install a properly working electronic record keeping system. Two federal laws require the White House to preserve its records.

"I'm not a crook. I have nothing to hide!" Ya, ~~right~~ correct, NOT.

POLITICS - The Government Game Ratings, Australia

noreply@blogger.com (Tecknomage) — Wed, 16 Dec 2009 17:40:00 +0000

"Game over for adult players: ratings made for children, bemoan fans" by Amy Corderoy, Sydney Morning Herald

THE average age of video game players in Australia is 30.

But they say governments are treating them like children because state and federal authorities are failing to agree on a ratings system.

The shooting game Aliens vs Predator, based on the film of the same name (which was rated M), was refused classification by national censors last week.

It was the 74th video game to be banned in Australia since 1995.

Most of these games have been refused classification because they include detailed instruction or promotion of violence, or rewards for drug use or sexual violence.

Unlike the film rating system, which goes to R18+, the highest classification for games in Australia is MA15+, so games deemed inappropriate for older teenagers are banned outright for all players.

Elsewhere in the developed world, including the US, the European Union and New Zealand, ratings can restrict games for use by “mature” or “adult” players only.

Kane Theodore, 27, a Sydney IT worker and passionate gamer, said governments were stuck in the mindset that video games were played by children.

“They should understand that we're not kids and we are part of an industry that is growing,” he said.

Aliens vs Predator is a “first-person shooter” game, with players able to choose between killing space creatures or human soldiers.

Many gamers blame South Australian Attorney-General Michael Atkinson – a fierce opponent of adult classifications for games – for the delay in changing the laws.

But Mr Atkinson said “other attorneys-general who are opposed to introducing an R18+ classification are content to let me be the lightning rod for the gamers”.

A federal discussion paper on the issue was initially touted for release in the middle of this year after the state and territory attorneys-general failed to reach agreement on the issue. That paper was still “under consideration”, a spokesman for the federal Attorney-General's department said last week.

Shane Stockwell, merchandising director for retailer EB Games, said he was furious there was still no adult classification for games.

He said another shooting game, Left 4 Dead 2, had been re-edited to remove the most violent content before being released in Australia. It sold millions of copies overseas but “the numbers of games we sold you could probably count on one hand”.

“That game was an unmitigated disaster for us,” he said.

This is an example of where government should NOT be the ones to address this issue.

Also see: "Australia inviting public to make case for 18+ game ratings"

POLITICS - Waaaa ..... I Don't WANT to Play

noreply@blogger.com (Tecknomage) — Mon, 14 Dec 2009 16:14:00 +0000

"New Childish Republican Obstruction Tactic: Refusing To Use Their Assigned Cards In Order To Delay Votes" by Lee Fang, Think Progress

In September, the Orlando Sentinel reported that Rep. Alan Grayson (D-FL) had noticed Republicans House lawmakers intentionally forgetting or losing their voting cards in order to delay votes. Starting late in the summer, Grayson said he saw 60-70 GOP congressmen engaging in this tactic:

GRAYSON: They’d all walk to the front of the House and, laughingly and jokingly, put their arms around each other’s shoulder like it was some kind of clownish fun. And they did this over and over to make sure every vote took half an hour. That’s how low things have gotten. I could give you countless examples just like that. They’re simply obstructionists and there’s nothing you can do about it.

Yesterday at the Center for American Progress Action Fund, Majority Leader Rep. Steny Hoyer (D-MD) delivered an address on unprecedented minority obstruction of reform. ThinkProgress spoke to him afterwords, and the Majority Leader confirmed that even the House parliamentarian had criticized Republicans for this very tactic. Hoyer admonished what he called “such a transparent effort at solely delay”:

Hoyer on GOP's Childish Tactics

All year, Republicans have dedicated themselves to reflexively blocking progressive legislation rather than even attempting to participate in the legislative process. The examples are boundless:

In July, Minority Leader Rep. John Boehner (R-OH) forced the House clerk to read aloud a 55-page motion to recommit in order for House Republicans to attend a “2009 Boehner Beach Party” fundraiser.

Sen. Tom Coburn (R-OK) attempted to block the veterans’ benefits bill because of unrelated concerns with the Recovery Act.

Republicans have “filibustered” committee markups by offering dozens of frivolous amendments.

Sen. Judd Gregg (R-NH) went so far as authoring a memo on various parliamentary maneuvers Senate Republicans can use to delay and kill health reform in the Senate.

The voting card delaying may be the least mature of all obstruction measures, however.

Like we've been saying, GOP = Party of NO!

POLITICS - The "Swiftboaters"

noreply@blogger.com (Tecknomage) — Mon, 14 Dec 2009 16:11:00 +0000

"Fox host’s book title implies Swift Boat veterans were liars" by David Edwards & Muriel Kane, Raw Story

Conservatives have long railed against media turning 'swiftboat' into pejorative or 'hate term'

As former President George W. Bush attempts to salvage his tarnished legacy, Fox News Radio host John Gibson has eagerly joined in the effort to rehabilitate the previous administration's image.

Gibson, the author of Hating America and The War on Christmas, has a new book out titled How the Left Swiftboated America: The Liberal Media Conspiracy to Make You Think George W. Bush Was the Worst President in History.

In order to make his point, however, Gibson has to suggest that the Swift Boat Veterans, whose attacks on Democratic candidate John Kerry helped Bush win re-election in the midst of an unpopular war, were unconscionable liars.

"They were lying through their teeth and they got away with it," Gibson told the hosts of Fox & Friends on Wednesday morning -- referring not to the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth but to Democrats and liberals who have portrayed Bush as incompetent and indifferent.

Lie, cheat, slander, anything to "win." What else would you expect from a GOP neo-Nazi group? NOT honest game-playing.

WORLD - President Accepts Peace Prize

noreply@blogger.com (Tecknomage) — Mon, 14 Dec 2009 16:05:00 +0000

Wartime President Accepts Peace Prize with an 'American Speech'"

Shields and Brooks on Obama's Nobel Speech, senate Health Bill"

These are excerpts I find most meaningful.

BARACK OBAMA:

These extremists (today's) are not the first to kill in the name of God; the cruelties of the Crusades are amply recorded. But they remind us that no Holy War can ever be a just war.

Such a warped view of religion is not just incompatible with the concept of peace, but I believe it's incompatible with the very purpose of faith -- for the one rule that lies at the heart of every major religion is that we do unto others as we would have them do unto us.

For, if we lose that faith -- if we dismiss it as silly or naive; if we divorce it from the decisions that we make on issues of war and peace -- then we lose what's best about humanity. We lose our sense of possibility. We lose our moral compass.

Like generations have before us, we must reject that future. Let us reach for the world that ought to be -- that spark of the divine that still stirs within each of our souls.

POLITICS - Purity for Dummies

noreply@blogger.com (Tecknomage) — Tue, 08 Dec 2009 21:56:00 +0000

"G.O.P. Considers ‘Purity’ Resolution for Candidates" by ADAM NAGOURNEY, New York Times

The battle among Republicans over what the party should stand for — and how much it should accommodate dissenting views on important issues — is probably going to move from the states to the Republican National Committee when it holds its winter meeting this January in Honolulu.

Republican leaders are circulating a resolution listing 10 positions Republican candidates should support to demonstrate that they “espouse conservative principles and public policies” that are in opposition to “Obama’s socialist agenda.” According to the resolution, any Republican candidate who broke with the party on three or more of these issues– in votes cast, public statements made or answering a questionnaire – would be penalized by being denied party funds or the party endorsement.

The proposed resolution was signed by 10 Republican national committee members and was distributed on Monday morning. They are asking for the resolution to be debated when Republicans gather for their winter meeting.

The resolution invokes Ronald Reagan, and noted that Mr. Reagan had said the Republican Party should be devoted to conservative principles but also be open to diverse views. President Reagan believed, the resolution notes, “that someone who agreed with him 8 out of 10 times was his friend, not his opponent.”

Hence the provision calling for cutting off Republicans who agree with the party on fewer than eight of 10 items. The resolution demands that Republicans support “smaller government, smaller national deficits and lower taxes,” denial of government funding for abortion, and “victory in Iraq and Afghanistan.” It calls on candidates to oppose amnesty for illegal immigrants and repealing of the Defense of Marriage Act.

The development is going to put pressure on Michael Steele, the party chairman, as he tries to maintain a balance between those in his party who have been saying the road to victory is to include divergent views, and those who say the party needs to embrace conservative principles that have been at its core.

Mr. Steele managed, at his party’s last meeting, to steer clear of potentially contentious resolutions, including one that equated Democrats with socialists.

Gail Gitcho, a spokeswoman for the committee, said it was not clear what Mr. Steele would do.

“The deadline for submitting resolutions for the R.N.C. Winter Meeting is more than 30 days away,” she said. “At this point, we do not what resolutions will be submitted nor what the final language of any resolution ultimately submitted may be.”

Here is the resolution’s list:

We support smaller government, smaller national debt, lower deficits and lower taxes by opposing bills like Obama’s “stimulus” bill;

We support market-based health care reform and oppose Obama-style government run health care;

We support market-based energy reforms by opposing cap and trade legislation;

We support workers’ right to secret ballot by opposing card check;

We support legal immigration and assimilation into American society by opposing amnesty for illegal immigrants;

We support victory in Iraq and Afghanistan by supporting military-recommended troop surges;

We support containment of Iran and North Korea, particularly effective action to eliminate their nuclear weapons threat;

We support retention of the Defense of Marriage Act;

We support protecting the lives of vulnerable persons by opposing health care rationing and denial of health care and government funding of abortion; and

We support the right to keep and bear arms by opposing government restrictions on gun ownership.

Hummm... Sorta puts the GOP in a Straight Jacket.

Hay! They ARE crazy!