Modern Newt

Ezra Klein takes a little looksie at the new and improved Newt; which is the same as the vile, old Newt.

God Bless This Mess

Ezra Klein talks about a new ABC pilot that has Drudge (and the Drudgekateers) up in arms. Commander-in-Chief, starring Democrat activist Geena Davis as the President of the United States, for the fall schedule.

Jesse Taylor talks about it here: You do, however, have to love the unironic link to the Newsmax summary of the Joe Klein article in which Klein points out that it might be a bad idea for Hillary to run because publications like Newsmax will go batshit crazy.

via Ezra Klein:

EJ Dionne's firing on all cylinders today with a blistering column on the Paris Hilton Benefit Act, otherwise known as the estate tax...read on

Dionne argues for explicitly tying the tax to the Social Security shortfall. According to the CBO, even a reduced estate tax would cover fully 1/2 of the program's deficit, which means Republicans are going to have to decide between protecting Paris Hilton's inheritance and paying Grandma Millie's Social Security check. Democrats should be all over that choice, making sure it's made as publicly as possible. Go git' em.

Weird wingnuttery

or (A little Powerline bashing is always a good thing)

via Ezra Klein

Powerline's Hindrocket has a strange post about an apparent error that the NYTimes made in posting its article about the pope's death. They seem to have accidentally published it before it was finished, and so it read as follows: go to the article

I don't think I understand what the big deal is. The NYTimes article is very fair ("he defied easy definition: For all his conservatism on social and theological issues, he was decidedly forward-looking"), and Powerline's statement that they had their criticism ready to go, but had to go looking for a good quote is speculative at best. The only thing, in fact, that is clear is that the NYTimes intended to present more than one side. In the context of Heather's post below about the Washington Times' one-sidedness below, Hindrocket just looks like he's trying to pick a fight.

Michelle Malkin cites it as an example of how

The death of the Pope just couldn't stop the libs in the media from showing their true colors.

What are their true colors? That they wanted to make sure they had a quote from a supporter? Those crazy liberals, always trying to be fair...

...to vote! White lace and promises...

There are a bunch of votes still left to take in the Senate. How many, you ask?

Ezra Klein knows:

Louisville, Ky.: Ezra, can you shed some light on the process involved in moving the Health-Care bill through the Senate? I've heard bits and pieces about number of votes required, but would like some clarification about: voting to block filibuster in the Senate, taking the bill back to a joint Senate-House conference, then back to the floor for final vote. Would you expand on this? Thanks.

Ezra Klein: Sure. Next move is the Finance Committee vote on Tuesday: that requires a bare majority of the committee (I think that means 11 votes, but that's just memory). Then Reid and the Democratic leadership blend the HELP and Finance bills into one bill. That doesn't require any votes. Then the bill comes to the floor. It'll need 60 votes against a filibuster, and 51 votes in favor of the legislation.

Then we have to deal with the House bills. Do you have a headache? People are becoming very irritable in America. Haven't you noticed? The health-care debate and the economic situation is really, really making life miserable for most of America.

A kiss for luck and we're on our way...

Before the rising sun we fly...

So many roads to choose...

We start out walking and learn to run...

Have you wondered who started the whole euthanasia talking point going? Where did it originate and why was it put there? Of all the silly things.

It was Republican Johnny Isakson from Georgia who introduced the Soylent Green amendment in the Senate bill because he learned his lessons well from the Terri Schiavo incident. And he's shocked that conservatives have taken his amendment and made a mockery of it.

The most awesome Digby has the story:

Ezra found a semi-sane Republican on the "The Dingoes Want Moy Bayby" controversy. He's Johnny Isakson of Georgia, who turns out to be the guy who put the Soylent Green amendment in the Senate bill:

Is this bill going to euthanize my grandmother? What are we talking about here?

What we're talking about in the health care debate mark-up, one of the things I talked about was that the most money spent on anyone is spent usually in the last 60 days of life and that's because an individual is not in a capacity to make decisions for themselves. So rather than getting into a situation where the government makes those decisions, if everyone had an end-of-life directive or what we call in Georgia "durable power of attorney," you could instruct at a time of sound mind and body what you want to happen in an event where you were in difficult circumstances where you're unable to make those decisions.

This has been an issue for 35 years. All 50 states now have either durable powers of attorney or end-of-life directives and it's to protect children or a spouse from being put into a situation where they have to make a terrible decision as well as physicians from being put into a position where they have to practice defensive medicine because of the trial lawyers. It's just better for an individual to be able to clearly delineate what they want done in various sets of circumstances at the end of their life.

How did this become a question of euthanasia?

I have no idea. I understand -- and you have to check this out -- I just had a phone call where someone said Sarah Palin's web site had talked about the House bill having death panels on it where people would be euthanized. How someone could take an end of life directive or a living will as that is nuts. You're putting the authority in the individual rather than the government. I don't know how that got so mixed up.

You're saying that this is not a question of government. It's for individuals.

It empowers you to be able to make decisions at a difficult time rather than having the government making them for you...read on

Keep reading the piece to find out Why is the state of Georgia trying to kill your grandmother? Where will it end?

Why haven't the media interviewed Johnny Isakson dozens of times so the truth can get out to America? Instead, we have crazy people yelling Beckerwocky and shouting down the town halls.

Good job, Ezra, for going to the source. Your pals at the WaPo can learn something.

Ezra Klein writes from his new gig at the Washington Post: Should California Get a Bailout?

That said, a lot of companies that proved too big to fail weren't too big to change. Wall Street was given compensation caps. GM had to renegotiate its labor contracts. If Washington is going to bail out the Golden State, it should make the money contingent on structural reforms that leave the state better able to balance budgets in the future.

This should be like an IMF intervention (maybe Simon Johnson has some thoughts?). California's legislature is in a strange position: It needs a two-thirds vote to raise taxes but also has to fund ballot propositions that require a simple majority of an uninterested public. The majority party in the legislature, in other words, can neither control how much money it raises nor how much money it spends. That's not a sustainable state of affairs

Howie Klein:

I think President Obama should direct his staff to think about bailing out California instead, and let the Europeans borrow the billions of dollars they need directly from the Chinese and leave us out of it. We have-- largely because of corrupt hacks like Rahm NAFTA Emanuel-- enough problems right here at home.

The Campaign Silo writes:

Funding the IMF: White House Should Honor Left’s Critique, Allow for Conditionality Review

Digby says:

"This bail-out for European banks by the American taxpayer is such a bad idea that they had to attach it to a "support the troops" emergency supplemental in order to get it passed.

Dear President Obama, please help California. We have a major league moron for a Governor and the 2/3 vote needed to make any substantial changes in the legislature is killing us. Stan Van Gundy's horrendous coaching of last night's Laker-Magic game is nothing compared with what we have to deal with.

The Mahablog: The GOP Advantage: Stupid is easy. Smart is hard.

The G Spot: Health Care, Obama, and the perils of post-partisanship

Faithful Progressive: New McCain ads based upon other classic Russian novels

The Root: It Breaks A Village

Right Wing Watch: "New Evangelical" Warren just like the old ones. He calls pro choice pols "holocaust deniers."

Ezra Klein: The rich define the rich

(click for larger image)

BEIJING - AUGUST 10: President of the United States, George W. Bush holds up the American Flag the wrong way before wife Laura Bush instructs him to turn it around at the swimming arena at the National Aquatics Center during day 2 of the Beijing 2008 Olympic Games on August 10, 2008 in Beijing, China. (Photo by Ezra Shaw/Getty Images)

Write your own caption.

The Washington Post, for reasons that defy comprehension, published a 1,700-word thought piece yesterday on women in America being dumb, shallow, and generally kind of pathetic. The author, Charlotte Allen, made her spectacularly dumb case with the kind of nonsense one might expect from a misogynistic child — women are bad drivers, they have physically smaller brains, they’re awful at math, they have bad taste in entertainment, etc.

The problem, it seems to me, is not Allen. Her foolish attack on women is easy to dismiss as petty nonsense, best suited for a He-Man Woman-Hater’s Club blog. Instead, the fault lies with Washington Post editors who thought Allen’s anti-feminist hit-job deserved to be published on the front page of the paper’s Outlook section.

The WaPo’s Outlook editor took a moment to respond to criticism.

“If it insulted people, that was not the intent,” Outlook editor John Pomfret told me this morning, calling the piece “tongue-in-cheek.” […]

Pomfret said that being an opinion article, he’s not surprised readers reacted to it strongly. But added: “Perhaps it wasn’t packaged well enough to make it clear that it was tongue-in-cheek.”

I found it hard to believe Pomfret would publish such tripe. I find it even harder to believe this is his explanation for such poor judgment.

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