Month: October 2009

Total Body Workout

by digby

“It hurts”

I just can’t understand why a people which insists that it reveres freedom are standing for this. The evidence suggests that they actually prefer to be subjects.

Teabaggers, what say you? Do you think that government authorities calmly electrocuting citizens at their discretion is freedom?

h/t to mm

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Drop Out

by digby

So it looks like the teabaggers have bagged their first RINO and are headed for a big victory. Far be from me to speculate about why, but sometimes you just have to say “life is short.”

And she was clearly feeling intimidated. When you call the cops on right wing reporters you are obviously having some trouble dealing with the heat Remember this?

The campaign of Dede Scozzafava, the moderate Republican candidate who is in a three-way race with a Democrat and a Conservative Party candidate in the NY-23 special election, called the police on a Weekly Standard reporter for asking her too many questions. The Standard’s John McCormack reported that he asked Scozzafava repeated questions about her support for the Employee Free Choice Act, her positions on health care, taxes and abortion. After a staffer got in between him and the candidate, he followed her to the parking lot and kept trying to ask questions. Then things got interesting:

After she got into her car, I went to my car and fired up my laptop to report the evening’s events.

Minutes later a police car drove into the parking lot with its lights flashing. Officer Grolman informed me that she was called because “there was a little bit of an uncomfortable situation” and then took down my name, date of birth, and address.

“Maybe we do things a little differently here, but you know, persistence in that area, you scared the candidate a little bit,” Officer Grolman told me.

Maybe she’s just very sensitive, but I would guess that having every event turn into a spitting, screaming townhall freakshow can probably make you a bit paranoid.

Seriously, it appears that the teabaggers are gaining steam. And lest we think they are just a funny joke, it would probably pay to recall instances in history when radical, paranoid right wingers got legitimate political power. The joke can easily turn into a nightmare.

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Bombshell

by digby

Dick Cheney had a severe cognitive impairment during his time in office:

Notes from former Vice President Dick Cheney’s interview with the FBI about the leak of Valerie Plame Wilson’s covert CIA identity were finally released on Friday afternoon after a lengthy legal battle…

Here’s a non-comprehensive list of 22 things Dick Cheney claimed he couldn’t recall about the Plame case, in the order they appear in the FBI’s notes.

To think he ran the country with a memory like that. How could he find his way to work every morning?

For the full story, go to the expert. She’s got it all.

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They Really Do Think We’re Stupid

by digby

Ron Brownstein is just full of Village wisdom today on Hardball. First he says that the American people are probably going to give Obama a lot more room on Afghanistan to occupy the country indefinitely than anyone thinks, even though the outcome is most likely to turn out to only stave off something worse happening. This is because of 9/11, although he doesn’t really spell out why, other than apparently believing Americans are still hooked on that shallow bullhorn nonsense from Bush.

(Matthews, meanwhile insists that the choice is to either beat the Taliban or get out. What that really means here on planet Earth, of course, is that the choice is between endless violent military occupation and getting out. Tweety hasn’t wrapped his mind around the fact that the United States military services are not actually Jedi Knights.)

It was a predictable insider take on serious matters. But Brownstein’s comments on health care were what really got me:

Brownstein: If Harry Reid did not make an effort for a significant public plan, the left forever would have said, “you never tried.” And now it becomes an empirical question, if there are 60 votes for an opt-out version, it’ll be there. If there aren’t, 60votes for the opt-out version, you’ve got to move on.

Matthews: I think he’s won the affection of my colleague Ed Shultz already. Shultz is very much a public option guy and I think he considers him his champion right now.

Brownstein: And I think that’s kind of the reverse of Cronkite I suppose. “If you have Ed Shultz, you have America.”

Matthews (with wonderment): Yeah …

Brownstein: The fact is that the left would never have forgiven Reid and the Democrats if they had not made an attempt, and now the onus is really back on the left. Can they deliver 60 votes? Can they pressure some of those moderate Democrats? In the end, probably not, but they have to make the try first.

And then the Meet The Press braintrust David Gregory offered this bizarre non-sequitor:

Gregory: One important piece of this is to get a public option do they have to cover fewer people do they have to drop taxes and can they do less? Can they do less?

Uhm, ok Stretch. Whatever.

First, Ed Shultz may be a sort of version of what the village thinks of as “America” (look for Matthews to start saying that, which isn’t an altogether bad thing) but I doubt seriously he’s going to be happy if Reid fails to get 60 and then asks for an E for Effort. I know they think that all Real Americans are morons, but Shultz isn’t quite that dumb. He may not be willing to blame Obama, but he’ll be pissed.

Brownstein seems to think that all this public option stuff is some sort of a bid for attention and that we’re just thrilled to have been invited to the party at all. It seems to elude him that the Democrats did recently win a big election and the vast majority of the party (not to mention a solid majority of the public) wants a public option. It’s not some fringy teabag thing.

But what I love is that “the left” now has to deliver the moderate wing of the party. Really? The last I heard that was the White House and the leadership’s job. We on “the left” don’t actually have the capacity to deliver anything but the liberals and progressives. And that hasn’t exactly been easy. Reid and Obama have to figure out how to deliver a bill with the PO. Counting on “the left” to be happy with a jolly, good try is serious wishful thinking. The left is ready to have a full blown meltdown if the leadership has played them for Charlie Browns on this one.

The Democrats have to make a decision: do they believe their job is to reform the health care system to the benefit of the American people or protect the health care industry? To my way of thinking the reform bills are already healthcare industrial complex protection plans, within which the public option is only a possible way to keep the door open for further reform. It’s very small potatoes as it is and slightly embarrassing to have to be fighting for at all. To pretend that this complicated mishmash without even that is the best they can do with a huge majority and a President who ran on the issue should be more than slightly embarrassing to them.

By the way, the CBO now says that the public plan premiums will end up being more expensive, but they don’t tell you why: they assume that the private plans will find ways to evade the intention of the law and deny coverage to sick people. And why not? They are for-profit entities who are required to maximize their shareholder value however they can. They’ve literally got to make a buck. Essentially, the CBO has baked into their numbers the idea that you can’t trust the health industry to cover everyone because they make money by taking your payments and not paying claims.

Marissa McNee wrote in by email:

• anybody afraid of that “government take-over of health care” ought to be a hell of a lot more afraid of private insurance.

Why?

• Because the non-partisan CBO just basically told us all that the private insurers will keep their premiums lower by being better at standing between you and your doctor.

Ben Nelson really believes that what’s good for Wellpoint CEOs is good for America and if a few sick people have to suffer a little bit, it’s the patriotic thing to do to save the free market system in healthcare. But I don’t think most Americans agree with that.

And I certainly don’t think “the left” agrees with that nor will they be appeased because Harry Reid gave one good press conference and brought the public option to the floor. I know it’s all about scoring points with these villagers, but out here in the hinterlands it’s about something much more vital than that. Life and death vital.

Update: Lawrence O’Donnell on Olbermann leads with a story that the CBO numbers are “devastating” and “shocking” for reform and implies that it’s not worth doing because of it. But then he’s been saying the public option is a loser for months, so he has a big stake in seeing it fail.

Anthony Weiner indicates that this is all fallout from the failure of Medicare +5 and seems to be positioning that failure as a big disappointment to the liberals so they can go into the conference having already compromised.

Wendell Potter says that they need to open the PO to more people so they have a better pool, which indicates either better subsidies or Wyden style choices. (Maybe that was what Stretch was mumbling about?)

Perhaps this is where the liberals are going. Let’s hope they’re going somewhere.

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Wingnut Revisionists

by digby

From Blue Texan:

Reagan not only had the nerve to be photographed with the dead. He announced it in a radio address.

In a few hours I’ll undertake one of the saddest journeys of my Presidency. I’ll be going to Andrews Air Force Base to meet one of our Air Force planes bringing home 16 Americans who died this week in the terrorist attack on the United States Embassy in Beirut.

And you’ll notice that he even brought Nancy with him.

This is idiotic. Presidents often greeted the dead soldiers until Bush senior was shown on a split screen yukking it up while coffins were shown coming in at Dover. Then the whole thing became a political calculation. Clinton was photographed at Dover greeting the coffins of civilians killed in terrorist attacks and accidents rather than military. (Of course he didn’t have any soldiers killed in combat during his term.) Bush didn’t bother to go at all and they banned all photography of the returning coffins during his term purely for political reasons. They didn’t want the citizens seeing how many dead bodies there were.

Any discussion that there’s something untoward in the President greeting dead soldiers is wingnut revisionist crap. Kings and leaders have been doing this since time began. It’s a sign of respect for the fallen and they do it publicly as gesture on behalf of the people . That these so-called patriots think there’s now something wrong with that tells you everything you need to know about their sincerity

Why do they hate the troops so much?

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Opting Optics

by digby

John Harwood interviewed Ben Nelson’s hair earlier today and it said that it believed that no bill would pass with a public option that “destabilized the insurance industry,” and then repeated that it believed there would be an “opt-in” clause of some sort.

Harwood: You’d agree that unless a comprehensive health care bill would pass that it would cripple his presidency.

Nelson’s hair: Well, I don’t know that we should conclude that some form of health care reform won’t pass. I believe that some form of health care will pass.

Harwood: What in your mind are stoppers, things that, knowing this place, things that either because you oppose them or other senators oppose them, simply can ‘t be in the final product to have it pass?

Nelson’s hair: Well, it’s very difficult to see how that CLASS Act that was in the HELP committe bill would make it [that’s long term care provisions] I think also any kind of public option that would undermine or destabilize the private insurance that 200 million Americans have, I don’t see that that would make it. But some version such as an opt-in, for the states with a state option, that could very well be in.

Harwood then interviewed Jeff Zelaney of the NY Times, who pointed out (as Harwood failed to do) that Nelson is a former Insurance Company executive and therefore has something of an agenda. And then he said this:

The White House right now is sort of leaving these moderate Democrats alone a little bit at least that’s what they’re saying. They’re not having them into the White House for public meetings because that’s not helpful. That’s not helpful to Blanche Lincoln at home in Arkansas to be seen coming into the White House for meetings with President Obama. So right now, they’re trying to give them a little bit of space and hope that they sign on to this opt-in public option.

Maybe Zelaney misspoke there. But I am still suspicious that there might be a play to make opt-in the reasonable alternative to opt-out. It just keeps cropping up in all kinds of places, often from White House reporters. It’s worth keeping an eye on anyway.

Harwood thinks that Nelson will stick with them on cloture and I haven’t heard otherwise. (and if Harwood asked him he didn’t say, the putz.) But he certainly keeps dangling himself out there as a vote for opt-in, so if this thing really comes down to the wire I could see it happening. Again, I don’t think the village media have clue about just how different the two things are. It’s just bumper sticker slogans to them.

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Claude Rains, Please Go To The White Courtesy Phone

by digby

So an ethics investigation about defense contractors and members of the defense sub-committee was accidentally leaked today. Norah O’Donnell asked Lisa Myers what it was all about:

This is a very serious matter Norah. What you have going on here, you have a pattern of members of this sub-committee steering multi-million dollar earmarks to clients of this lobbying groups and clients of the lobbying group reciprocating the favor by steering lots of campaign money to the members of congress.

Is that illegal? If it is then somebody needs to inform all members of congress and every lobbyist on K-Street because I don’t think they’ve heard about it.

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