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Woot! I love it when we get some plain-spoken truth on the House Floor. Such a refreshing change from the Republican lies and fear-mongering.

The Republican record defies their rhetoric. Remember their so-called Prescription Drug Benefit for Seniors passed in the dark of the night? No one read the bill, didn’t know what was in it. Cost 700 billion dollars ‘cause that was subsidizing the pharmaceutical and insurance industry. But now, they’re worried about costs. It gave the seniors a donut hole.

Now their concern is not about what they’re stating. It’s about their patrons in the insurance industry. Because this bill has real reforms of the worst abuses of the insurance industry. It takes away their unfair anti-trust immunity, so they can no longer collude to drive up premium prices or restrict coverages. The Republicans would continue the anti-trust exemption. This bill outlaws the unfair pre-existing condition restriction. Republicans would continue that for the insurance industry. This bill would not allow the industry to cancel your policy even though you’ve been paying your premiums when you get sick. It’s called recission. The Republicans allowed that abuse to continue. This bill, on our side, outlaws the small print that limits your lifetime coverage, which bankrupts families every day in America. The Republicans allow it to continue.

And that’s not enough. They’ve opened up a new loophole, their so-called national plan: a company would only be regulated by the laws of the state in which it was based when it sold you a policy. If you live in Oregon, but you bought a policy that was written--and oh, by the way, they expand the definition of state to include the territories in the Mariana Islands—so if you’ve got a problem, call the Mariana Islands Insurance Commissioner. That’s the Republican plan and profits to the insurance industry!

From an email by ChangeCongress:

We've got great news to report about our campaign shaming Sen. Richard Burr (R-NC) for taking $700,000 from the defense industry and Chamber of Commerce and then siding with them against rape victims and his constituents. Thousands of people have signed our national expression of outrage and told their friends to sign -- and the national and local media are reporting on our campaign!

We need to keep the momentum up. Can you check out our petition and sign today?

From the National Journal:

Reform group Change Congress launched a campaign yesterday to shame Sen. Richard Burr, R-N.C., for voting against legislation that would help ensure victims of rape have the right to bring their case to court. The government reform group hit cyberspace with an email asking people to sign a 'national expression of outrage.' Citing $700,000 in campaign contributions from the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and the defense industry, Change Congress accused Burr of putting special interests before rape victims.

The more signatures we get, the more the media will report on his campaign. We need to keep publicly shaming these politicians one by one until Congress realizes it's time to replace special-interest-funded elections with citizen-funded elections.

Until they do, Americans will continue to ask: Did you vote that way because it made good sense, or because it raised special-interest campaign dollars?

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What color is the sky in Mean Jean Schmidt's world? Because we are clearly through the looking glass when the Wicked Witch of Ohio claims that most Americans are against this bill (LIES), that the CBO says healthcare costs will not be reduced (LIES, although in fairness, they trashed the Republican version), and reduced Medicare benefits (LIES).

Maybe if the Republicans have nothing but lies and scare tactics to offer up as their objection to health care reform, that should tell their tea-baggin' supporters something.

video courtesy of Media Matters

Those uppity females in Congress. Who do they think they are, trying to participate in our democracy on one of the biggest bills in front of Congress?

Rep. Tom Price (R-GA), one of the GOP's minions, continues the Joe Wilsonification of Congress to prevent discussion over Stupak's amendment, one that may actually lead to effectively a ban on abortion for low income women:

“The real goal of abortion opponents isn't to maintain the status quo. It's to extend federal prohibitions into private pocketbooks. By restricting coverage offered through the exchange, they hope to make abortion coverage so unattractive that insurers eventually stop offering it in the market for individual and small-group policies.”

And they don't even want us to discuss it. Those white men of the GOP don't want women to insert their remarks into the record.

How dare they? Ladies and gentlemen, I give you The Party of No:

UPDATE: from Think Progress: GOP Gone Wild!

From Imagine Peace:

The World March for Peace and Nonviolence.
Prague – November 3, 2009.

Thousands of people have gathered in Prague’s Wenceslas Square to participate in the biggest event in the country organized as part of the World March for Peace and Nonviolence: Harlem Gospel & SuperStar singing Imagine. It was the last and the biggest event that concluded a three day stay of members of the World Marchs Base Team in the Czech Republic. More...

Open Thread below...

What happens after all the fear mongering that Iran is developing a nuclear weapons bunker turns out to be bunk?

U.N. inspectors found "nothing to be worried about" in a first look at a previously secret uranium enrichment site in Iran last month, the International Atomic Energy chief said in remarks published Thursday.

Mohamed ElBaradei also told the New York Times that he was examining possible compromises to unblock a draft nuclear cooperation deal between Iran and three major powers that has foundered over Iranian objections.

The nuclear site, which Iran revealed in September three years after diplomats said Western spies first detected it, added to Western fears of covert Iranian efforts to develop atom bombs. Iran says it is enriching uranium only for electricity.

ElBaradei was quoted in a New York Times interview as saying his inspectors' initial findings at the fortified site beneath a desert mountain near the Shi'ite holy city of Qom were "nothing to be worried about."

"The idea was to use it as a bunker under the mountain to protect things," ElBaradei, alluding to Tehran's references to the site as a fallback for its nuclear program in case its larger Natanz enrichment plant were bombed by a foe like Israel.

"It's a hole in a mountain," he said.

But, let's not let you get too comfortable about Iran...GuardianUK's Julian Borger comes up with a new scare:

The UN's nuclear watchdog has asked Iran to explain evidence suggesting that Iranian scientists have experimented with an advanced nuclear warhead design, the Guardian has learned.

The very existence of the technology, known as a "two-point implosion" device, is officially secret in both the US and Britain, but according to previously unpublished documentation in a dossier compiled by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), Iranian scientists may have tested high-explosive components of the design. The development was today described by nuclear experts as "breathtaking" and has added urgency to the effort to find a diplomatic solution to the Iranian nuclear crisis.

Ooooh...booga booga booga! Two things that glare out for me: one, Borger cites the IAEA unpublished report without one single quotation. Two, Borger claims the "two point implosion" is "officially secret" in the US and UK, but how secret can it be when it has its own Wikipedia page?

The media really does think you're dumb and can't figure out teh Google.

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Dear 24 Hour Cable News Channels:

I understand your dilemma, I really do. You have 44 minutes on the hour to fill with content. And it has to be compelling stuff, so that the viewer isn't tempted to channel surf to your rivals. In the situation like the Fort Hood shootings, where news is coming scattershot and conflicting, it's even more difficult.

See? I get it.

But having said that--and I say this with love and respect--PLEASE, SHUT. THE. F#@K. UP. Don't spend time guessing on motivations when there is so little information available. Don't surmise terrorist intent when you can't possibly know. And for the love of everything holy, don't go to criminal profiler Cliff "A Hammer Sees Everything As A Nail" Van Zandt (a crime of which Keith Olbermann is also guilty) to make up utter bovine excrement.

At the time that Van Zandt was waxing rhapsodic over possible terrorist inclinations, remember, the news was that there were two or three shooters, one of whom was dead (Hasan, the single shooter, was alive and being treated at the time). That Maj. Nadil Hasan was of Jordanian, Arab, or Palestinian birth (he was born in Virginia of Palestinian immigrant parents), that he was a recent Muslim convert (he had been a practicing Muslim his whole life), that he was suffering from PTSD, or secondary PTSD from his work with returning vets in Virginia, that he was sympathetic with suicide bombers, angry at bad evaluations, upset at being deployed to Iraq, frustrated by the Army's dismissal of the harassment he got at Ft. Hood about his faith and/or desperate to get out of his upcoming deployment.

Bottom line: we didn't know enough. It was irresponsible of you to try to make suppositions when the information (including the fact that he was alive) was so sketchy.

And to focus on the one known of his name and then presuming his faith (A lot of 2nd and 3rd generation immigrants don't necessarily practice the religions of their grandparents, yet still have Middle Eastern names, and I will reiterate, in those early hours, WE DIDN'T KNOW) to then suggest jihadist and/or terrorist sympathies was to give legitimacy to all those hate-mongers like Michelle Malkin and Fox & Friends anchors Doocy and not-Doocy to once again, call into question ALL Muslims.

Don't you get it? "Terrorism" is not defined as "any violence by any Muslim anywhere at any time for any reason." If it's true that Hasan had been the victim of harassment because of his religion and that contributed to his state of mind, then those who create and foster an environment that makes it acceptable to demonize and dehumanize Muslims were right there with him, pulling the trigger. To focus on Hasan's faith as you did in those early hours was the lazy approach and avoids the deeper reasons:

Continue reading »

See that picture? That looks like a million people to G. Gordon Liddy's producer:

(T)oday’s anti-health care reform rally has been much more sparsely attended (than the 9/12 protests, but) that hasn’t stopped conservatives from inflating the numbers again. On G. Gordon Liddy’s radio show (Thursday), producer Franklin Raff, who was on the ground at the rally, told guest host Joseph Farah that the crowd is “just as big or bigger than” the 9/12 rally, which Raff estimated “at about a million.”

Uh yup. Rep. Eric Cantor dialed the number down, though not entirely into factual territory:

(S)hortly after addressing the crowd, Rep. Eric Cantor (R-VA) actually blamed Democrats for the hateful images on display. In an interview with MSNBC's Andrea Mitchell, Cantor suggested that the signs were the mere result of "frustration" over the democratically elected majority's "extreme policies." Mitchell pushed him to say whether he's "comfortable with those attacks against the President of the United States," but Cantor quickly changed the subject:

CANTOR: Listen, I don't think we should engage in personal attacks. But I think, and what I take the message from the gathering of tens of thousands of people on the steps of the Capitol today, and the elections on Tuesday, is the fact that, you know what, we need some balance here in Washington.

You know what, Cantor? You and the rest of your willfully ignorant and fear mongering party (and that includes your mouthpieces at Fox News) own every one of those sickening, disgusting, inexcusable signs, not Democrats.

The Politico, treading gracelessly between their GOP advocacy position and whatever journalistic integrity they still imagine themselves to have put the number at 10,000. Actually, according to reality-based sources, the number was around 3,000 - 4,000.

There's a joke I could make on how sad it must be for their wives when they must continually overinflate numbers, but I think their massive overcompensation speaks for itself.

There are, perhaps, only a few jobs for which you truly cannot prepare, but just leap in and do.

One of those jobs has to be President of the United States. No matter how much you think you've learned--be it in the Senate like Barack Obama, or as the governor of a state, like George W. Bush and Bill Clinton, or even as Vice President, like George HW Bush and Lyndon Johnson--the American presidency is a whole other animal. Often insulated and isolated from those who put you in office, the American president must juggle political, economic, foreign, security and partisan interests to lead the Executive Branch--and the free world--to the best of their abilities.

Obviously, some presidencies are more successful than others.

As journalists assigned to cover the White House, Craig Crawford of CQ Politics and Helen Thomas of the Hearst News Syndicate, together share decades of observing from the White House Press Room. They have watched and noted each success and each blunder. Helen Thomas has covered more presidents than any other present journalist, starting with JFK in 1960, but her career really began in 1945 during Roosevelt's administration. Craig Crawford, who actually interned as a college student in Jimmy Carter's press office, began covering presidential campaigns in 1988 with Ronald Reagan. So there's no shortage of presidential triumphs and stumbles between them, and it is that experience they have collated to create Listen Up, Mr. President: Everything You Always Wanted Your President to Know and Do, where they share the attributes of successful presidencies by looking at the choices made by predecessors: from Clinton's prickly and sometimes overly hostile handling of the press to JFK's deft deflectons with humor, from Johnson's brave stance on civil rights, knowing the political costs to him and his party to Reagan's Cold War fight, which alienated him with his conservative base when he began negotiating nuclear disarmament with Gorbachev.

Every presidency is marked with mistakes as the president navigates this unbelievably difficult and occasionally thankless job, but Helen and Craig have listed some basic principles which, if followed, should make any future president successful, such as finding trustworthy advisers, remembering they are not above the law, be honest, have the courage to do the hard thing and keep a clear vision.

I'm happy to have Craig Crawford here with us today to discuss his book, Listen Up, Mr. President: Everything You Always Wanted Your President to Know and Do. Please join us to chat on what makes for a successful American presidency.

Jeez, between this guy and Pat Buchanan, what is up with NBC Universal?

Over the weekend, Meb Keflezighi became the first American to win the New York City Marathon since 1982. But CNBC's Darren Rovell isn't impressed. Darren Rovell doesn't think Keflezighi is really an American.

On his Twitter account yesterday, Rovell wrote "NYC Marathon winner Keflezghi may be a citizen, but can't count as American."

Rovell explained his bizarre views in an article on CNBC's web site:

It's a stunning headline: American Wins Men's NYC Marathon For First Time Since '82.

Unfortunately, it's not as good as it sounds.

Meb Keflezighi, who won yesterday in New York, is technically American by virtue of him becoming a citizen in 1998, but the fact that he's not American-born takes away from the magnitude of the achievement the headline implies.

"Technically American"? No: Keflezighi is American. Not on some technicality or by virtue of a loophole. He is, simply, an American -- and he isn't any less American simply because he did not share Darren Rovell's great good fortune to have been born in the U.S.

For the record, Keflezighi was born in Eritrea, but has been a naturalized citizen for 11 years, having immigrated to the US twenty-two years ago at the age of 12.

As the daughter and wife of naturalized American citizens, I find this wholly offensive, although I suspect that had Keflezighi had the Scandinavian looks of my husband, there would be absolutely no qualification of his citizenry.

UPDATE: Rovell apologizes:

All I was saying was that we should celebrate an American marathon champion who has completely been brought up through the American system.

This is where, I must admit, my critics made their best point. It turns out, Keflezighi moved to the United States in time to develop at every level in America. So Meb is in fact an American trained athlete and an American citizen and he should be celebrated as the American winner of the NYC Marathon. That makes a difference and makes him different from the "ringer" I accused him of being. Meb didn't deserve that comparison and I apologize for that.

Oh. My. God. In the "richest country in the world". There are no words for how unacceptable this is:

Nearly half of all U.S. children and 90 percent of black youngsters will be on food stamps at some point during childhood, and fallout from the current recession could push those numbers even higher, researchers say.

The estimate comes from an analysis of 30 years of national data, and it bolsters other recent evidence on the pervasiveness of youngsters at economic risk. It suggests that almost everyone knows a family who has received food stamps, or will in the future, said lead author Mark Rank, a sociologist at Washington University in St. Louis.

"Your neighbor may be using some of these programs but it's not the kind of thing people want to talk about," Rank said.

The analysis was released Monday in the November issue of Archives of Pediatrics and Adolescent Medicine. The authors say it's a medical issue pediatricians need to be aware of because children on food stamps are at risk for malnutrition and other ills linked with poverty.

"This is a real danger sign that we as a society need to do a lot more to protect children," Rank said.

Read more

My brother is an elementary school teacher in a mostly minority area, and we've talked about this before. He told me that the school lunch program is often the only meal many children at his school get each day. And we know how healthy those meals are. My brother (and other teachers) have taken to buying fresh fruit out of their own meager salaries to make available to these kids.

The ramifications of this heartbreaking demographic will reverberate over decades: in health statistics, in education levels, in our economy, in crime statistics. And it's a situation for which no one should be complacent.

Okay, maybe requiring minimum IQs as a standard to run for national office is a bit harsh, but can we at least insist that politicians prove that they are actually human and not some mindless automaton programmed with talking points?

(In the past,) Foxx has claimed Democratic reforms would mean seniors are “put to death by their government,” that health reform is a “distraction,” and that “there are no Americans who don’t have health care.” She was at it again today on the House floor, arguing that health reform is a greater threat to our country than “any terrorist right now in any country”:

Everywhere I go in my district, people tell me they are frightened. … I share that fear, and I believe they should be fearful. And I believe the greatest fear that we all should have to our freedom comes from this room — this very room — and what may happen later this week in terms of a tax increase bill masquerading as a health care bill. I believe we have more to fear from the potential of that bill passing than we do from any terrorist right now in any country.

Normally, this is where my head makes a very loud thunk against my desk at the stupidity, but instead I just find myself really angry at this illogical fear mongering and ugliness. But what can you expect from a politician ugly enough to call Matthew Shepard's murder "a hoax"?. Obviously her lip service towards valuing life doesn't really mean any living people.

Rep. Foxx, the lives of those 44,000 Americans who die needlessly every year because they do not have insurance is blood on your hands.

Even with cognitive dissonance this striking, they still think they've got a right to withhold civil rights from a whole segment of the population:

Maggie Gallagher's disdain for Marriage Equality New York board president Cathy Marino-Thomas was palpable. The feeling, we're guessing, was mutual. The two shared the stage at Hofstra University's “Day of Dialogue," and even outside the confines of a 30-second spot, Gallagher was still trafficking in misinformation. And eye rolls.

We do appreciate the debate over whether our "intolerance" for bigotry is, by definition, hate — of the very same variety we call out and despise daily on this website. That's Gallagher's position: By labeling Prop 8 supporters as advocates of hatred, we're being intolerant ourselves, showing no respect for a difference in viewpoints.

But what Maggie does not, and may never understand is the difference between agreeing to disagree, and actively endorsing discrimination against an entire group of people. For that, we cannot be tolerant. [..]

But here's the soundbite we're holding on to, as Maggie addresses Marino-Thomas: "[Your marriage] may be better, but it's not a marriage. … It's probably better than my marriage to hear you talk about it. I wouldn't talk about my marriage in such glowing terms."

It's so sad that someone who cannot speak well of their own marriage feels it's their right to fight to keep others from having that legal union.

On a related note, it's not a serious move so much as a political statement, but here in California, someone has decided to fight a real threat to the sanctity of marriage: the ability to divorce:

California Secretary of State Debra Bowen today authorized the backer of an initiative that would ban divorce to begin collecting signatures to put the proposed constitutional amendment before voters.

John Marcotte now has until March 22, 2010, to collect 694,354 signatures of registered voters in order to get the measure on the ballot next year. The proposal would change the California Constitution to "eliminate the ability of married couples to get divorced in California."[..]:

ELIMINATES THE LAW ALLOWING MARRIED COUPLES TO DIVORCE. INITIATIVE CONSTITUTIONAL AMENDMENT. Changes the California Constitution to eliminate the ability of married couples to get divorced in California. Preserves the ability of married couples to seek an annulment. Summary of estimate by Legislative Analyst and Director of Finance of fiscal impact on state and local government: Savings to the state of up to hundreds of millions of dollars annually for support of the court system due to the elimination of divorce proceedings.

While I obviously don't want my rights taken away (not that I'm planning on divorcing my husband, mind you. He's stuck with me.), I do appreciate the sentiment behind it. My gay uncle's marriage does not harm my marriage, threatens no one else's relationship and it's a ludicrous argument to claim it does. However, the ease in which we may end marriages (one-third of all first marriages end within 10 years, according to the CDC) certainly does. If these wingnuts want to hold up marriage as the foundation of society, then put up or shut up.

Just like we here outside the Beltway Bubble, sometimes you've just had enough and there's no more need for diplomacy:

President Barack Obama is “getting bad advice from… clowns” on Afghanistan and “sucking up to the wrong people” on health care, U.S. Rep. John Conyers told a Detroit radio audience this morning, according to show host Rev. Horace Sheffield.

Conyers, a Detroit Democrat, made the comments during a discussion about the effects of the economic recession on the urban poor, Sheffield said. The liberal congressman expressed frustration that health care legislation pending in Washington, D.C., was too solicitous of insurance companies and special interests, Sheffield said.

“He wasn’t angry. He was just deeply concerned that some of the issues being focused on don’t address the human reality,” said Sheffield, who hosts the program “On The Line” on WGPR-FM radio.

From Bizarro, h/t Harvard Avenue.

Open thread below...