Month: December 2009

Relive The Moment

by digby

Jim Warren at the Atlantic has a report on a recent panel at the Second City reunion with Colbert and his writers talking about the infamous White House correspondents dinner. It took me back to that amazing moment when I watched that performance and felt as if I were watching a true hero step forth and take on the Village dragons in their own territory. It was glorious.

Here’s just a short excerpt:

Colbert disclosed that he did substantial self-editing upon looking at the president and discerning that he wasn’t ecstatic. He had planned to play off Medal of Freedom awards Bush had given former CIA Director George (“It’s a slam dunk”) Tenet and former Iraq administrator L. Paul Bremer; joshing about how Bush was clearly giving awards to everybody in sight.

“‘But nobody gives this man an award,'” Colbert recalled as the thrust of the riff he scrapped. “‘That ends tonight. I’m going to give the highest honor I can give….a certificate of presidency.'”

It would be akin to “something you get from The Learning Annex for taking a course. ‘I, Stephen Colbert, acknowledge…'” Colbert looked at Bush and said to himself, “I’m going nowhere near this.”

When the dinner was over, “I don’t think I’m dying. I go to sit down and nobody’s meeting my eye. Only [the late journalist-turned-White House spokesman] Tony Snow comes over and says I’m doing a great job.” Then Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia came his way and told him he was brilliant.

“I said, oh, s-, don’t let me like Antonin Scalia!”

Wondering what exit he should use, Colbert recalls being approached by actor Harry Lennix, whom he knew from their days at Northwestern University. Colbert indicated that he sensed some of the audience wasn’t happy. “And he [Lennix] said, ‘f- these people.”

Oh, you betcha.

Read it all. It will bring joy to your world.

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The Next Steps

by digby

You’ve probably heard that the Senate bill passed today with much fanfare. Jonathan Chait says that it’s “the greatest social achievement of our time.” I think such pronouncements are as fatuous as those I heard just a year ago insisting that Barack Obama’s election changed the face of politics as we know it. (It’s funny to me that Chait condemns the liberals for being inappropriately cynical, when to me the problem is that they are almost always excessively ecstatic and prematurely triumphant — thus creating tremendous disillusionment when things inevitably don’t turn out to be as wonderful as claimed. Different strokes, I guess.) If this bill turns out down the road to have been the greatest social schievement of our time, nobody will be happier than I am. But in the here and now, I wish everyone would be a little bit more cognizant of the political landmines that await and lower expectations just a tad.

And despite what everyone seems to believe, the process isn’t over yet. The House has to agree and there will be more votes. So what’s next? Congress Matters has the scoop. Shorter Kagro: It ain’t over til it’s over.

That’s it for me on this subject until after Christmas. I need a break and I’m sure you do too.
Right now, it’s time to bake some cookies and wrap some presents and enjoy the season.

Update: What McJoan sez

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Spare Change

by digby

TPM reports that Obama has said that he will be personally engaged in hammering out a deal in the conference:

In an interview today with PBS, President Obama said he plans to begin working on merging the Senate and House health care bills before Congress returns from Christmas recess. “We hope to have a whole bunch of folks over here in the West Wing, and I’ll be rolling up my sleeves and spending some time before the full Congress even gets into session,” Obama said, “because the American people need it now.” Obama is expected to work with Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi to merge the bills. “I intend to work as hard as I have to work, especially after coming this far over the course of the year, to make sure that we finally close the deal,” Obama said. The House returns Jan. 12, and the Senate returns Jan. 18. Asked if he had a list of provisions that must be included to gain his signature, the President said the bill must improve care, reduce costs and reduce medical errors. But the public option is not a deal breaker.

At this point it’s hard to imagine him rolling up his sleeves to do anything that would upset the Senate bill so many people are breathlessly comparing to the enactment of Social Security. But if he cares at all about the specifics, John Amato came up with a short list of items that would improve this bill. I would add that figuring out a way to make the reforms kick in before 2014 would be very, very helpful. Anything’s possible.

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The Big Promise

by digby

There is a lot of back and forth about what Obama promised about a public option and what he didn’t. The PCCC is running ads today pointing out that just a few months ago he promised that he wouldn’t sign a bill that didn’t have one. Whether or not what he called a “public plan” during the presidential campaign is up for grabs.

But when I went back a looked at Obama’s speeches during the campaign to get an idea of how he talked about it and health care in general, I was struck by something else: how much his rhetoric revolved around changing the culture of special interest dominated Washington. In fact, virtually all of his domestic program was wrapped in that promise:

This election is about them. It’s about you. It’s about every one of the 47 million Americans in Virginia, in Tennessee and across this country, who are going without the health care they need and the millions more who are struggling to pay rising costs.

But let’s be honest – we’ve been talking about this for a long time. Year after year, election after election, candidates make promises about fixing health care and cutting costs. And then they go back to Washington, and nothing changes – because the big drug and insurance companies write another check or because lobbyists use their clout to block reform. And when the next election rolls around, even more Americans are uninsured, and even more families are struggling to pay their medical bills.

Well, we’re here today because we know that if we’re going to make real progress, this time must be different. Throughout my career, in Illinois and the United States senate, I’ve worked to reduce the power of the special interests by leading the fight for ethics reform. I’ve sent a strong signal in this campaign by refusing the contributions of registered federal lobbyists and PACs. And today, I’m announcing that going forward, the Democratic National Committee will uphold the same standard and won’t take another dime from Washington lobbyists or special interest PACs. They do not fund my campaign. They will not fund our party. And they will not drown out the voices of the American people when I’m President of the United States.

It’s time to finally challenge the special interests and provide universal health care for all. That’s why I’m running for President of the United States – because I believe that health care should be guaranteed for every American who wants it and affordable for every American who needs it.

I think that emphasis may be where some of the cognitive dissonance is coming from about this bill. The details of the campaign plan aren’t as relevant as the sense that the bill came as a result of the special interests (including pampered politicians) getting their usual carve outs from an administration that ran so explicitly on clean government and a congress that was elected on a platform against the “culture of corruption.”

It’s a serious problem and one that they’d better get a handle on. The Republicans are already going for it:

The way Democrats secured the 60 votes needed to break a Republican filibuster of health care legislation has exposed them to accusations that they have abandoned the “reformist” platform that swept them into office. No cameras were allowed in the room where the final bill was written. And legislative sweeteners were added to the product to win the support of wavering members. Senate Republicans, hell-bent on extracting every piece of political flesh they can in the current debate, quickly seized the initiative. And when they did, they turned to a familiar, self-proclaimed reformer to wield their message. In a withering address on the Senate floor on Sunday, Sen. John McCain accused the president and Democratic leadership in the Senate of abandoning pledges of accountability and transparency during the reform process. Pointing to the deals cut with the pharmaceutical industry, the American Medical Association and others, the Arizona Republican insisted that Democrats had “set up a tent out front and put Persian rugs out in front of it” – greeting special interests with specific gifts.

Now I agree that Republicans, McCain in particular, have no room to be making this accusation, but they are not constrained by charges of hypocrisy. But as I wrote earlier, this is probably the first time many people have paid attention to a piece of major legislation being cobbled together since the advent of the 24/7 cable news and internet. (The domestic bills during the Great War On Terror years were passed with much less fanfare and attention.) And what they saw wasn’t pretty.

The Republicans are going to run with that and as unlikely as it is for them to make the case, it is made easier by the fact that the overriding “change” message of Obama’s campaign was centered around the special interests and “business as usual” in Washington. The President and the Democrats failed to anticipate that this particular promise was probably the one promise people were going to remember they made.

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The Newest Lil’ Republican

by digby

Parker Griffith is a very conservative congressman who has belonged in the Republican party for a long, long time. But he was no fool — he allowed the Democrats to spend a million dollars of their money to get him elected before he switched.

This was no surprise to Howie Klein:

Last August DWT posed the question How Does One Justify Singling Out Just One Blue Dog– In This Case Parker Griffith Of Alabama– As The Worst Democrat In The House? It wasn’t a tough case to make, and back at the link I have a chart, a snarky photo and a video of another one nearly as bad. Then just over a month ago I tried to point out that Griffith, a multimillionaire whose personal self-interest is always with the GOP, was hysterical about the estate tax. Watch him on the House floor in November making duplicitous Republican Party talking points on the estate tax. It would be virtually impossible to watch this and not guess he was either already a Republican or about to join that party:

Today, when the mainstream media suddenly discovered Parker Griffith for the first time, as he announced he would be joining the GOP, Media Matters was prepared to show that his voting record had never strayed from that of any slimy Republican. In fact there are 7 House Republicans with either an identical ProgressivePunch score on crucial votes or a better one! He opposed equal pay for women, opposed the stimulus bill, opposed clean energy legislation, opposed healthcare reform, voted against the budget and against regulating the banksters. Basically, from the day he slipped into the House he was a charter member of the Boehner Boys. His latest ProgressivePunch score on crucial issues is not just closer to every single Republican in the House than it is to progressives like Donna Edwards and Barbara Lee, it’s closer to every single Republican than it is to fellow Blue Dogs and conservatives like Leonard Boswell, Dennis Moore, Jim Cooper and Allen Boyd (the only Democrat to sign on to Bush’s plan to abolish Social Security).

The Republican Party used to hate him and feel he was the perfect target for their fear and smear tactics (click that NRCC ad). Now they have to decide how heavily to lean on their hand-picked candidate who was due to run against him in November, Madison County Commissioner Mo Brooks. If today’s statement from Brooks’ campaign is any indication, it should be a delightful GOP primary.

“We’ve known for a long time that Parker Griffith’s principles are either for sale to the highest bidder or can change depending on how the poll results are looking,” [Brooks campaign manager Bruce] Tucker said. 

“He seems to speak out of both sides of his mouth. When he’s in Washington, he gives his support to [House Speaker] Nancy Pelosi. When he’s in the district, he makes her sound terrible.”

Are the Democrats better off without Griffith in the House, forever and inexorably dragging the caucus further right and further away from the interests of working families? Well… you know where the Pope goes poo-poo, right? This is the guy, as we mentioned last summer, who promised his constituents that if they re-elected him, he would vote against Nancy Pelosi, who he referred to as a mental case, as Speaker next year. Now the DCCC won’t have to waste another $1,000,000 trying to save a seat for someone who votes with the GOP all the time. Come to think of it, they’ll need that money to try to save the seat of the only other House Democrat as bad as Griffith, Mississippi reactionary Travis Childers. Blue America has a page, Bad Dogs, dedicated to defeating Blue Dogs. If you have any interest in helping out, please let us know.

You just can’t be conservative enough for the Republican Party these days. These Bad Dog Dems are suddenly finding themselves without a home.

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Rights

by digby

Today Harry Reid said:

“It is long past time call health care a right and not a privilege.”

Chris Dodd added:

“Tomorrow we will meet on Christmas Eve to finally pass right legislation that will make decent health care a right for every American citizen.”

If this bill has done that then it truly is a step forward. But it might be a good idea to make that explicit because I’m not sure that’s how it looks when people like Max Baucus describe the reform this way:

We have worked tirelessly to deliver more affordable health care. To deliver an insurance market that works for patients not profits. To deliver millions of dollars in tax credits to help families and small businesses purchase insurance. And to control health care costs to get American families, businesses and the economy back on track…

We can proud that every American in every state can benefit from new consumer protections and a more stable, secure health care system.

How that translates into a right for all Americans remains to be seen.

I certainly agree that everyone has a right to decent health care — it’s implicit in the Declaration of Independence. But if this reform another one of those rights that’s difficult to exercise then it will need quite a bit of tweaking before it can be declared to have delivered on such a promise.

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Note To Terrorists

by digby

… wear a bow tie:

The man who was arrested with two guns and hundreds of rounds of ammunition near the Capitol during President Barack Obama’s health care speech in September had been an employee of the George W. Bush White House. The arrest of the man, Joshua Bowman, was widely reported at the time, but the news stories made no mention of his previous employment: For several years he worked in the Executive Office of the President, dealing with tech issues, including White House emails, his lawyer, George Braun, tells Mother Jones.

On the night of September 9, Bowman was on his way to meet Braun, a Bush administration political appointee, at the National Republican Club on First Street, SE when he was stopped by Capitol Police around 7:45 p.m.—minutes before Obama was scheduled to deliver a major address to Congress pushing his health care initiative. Bowman had driven up to a security checkpoint and told officers he wanted to park, but his lack of a permit for the area aroused their suspicions, and they asked to search his car.

Bowman had a bumper sticker like this one on his car, according to court records. (Patriot Depot).Bowman had a bumper sticker like this one on his car, according to court records. (Patriot Depot).The previous weekend, Bowman and Braun had gone duck-hunting, according to Braun. But Bowman forgot that he still had the guns in his car when he consented to a search of his vehicle, a Honda Civic with a bumper sticker proclaiming, “I’ll keep my guns, freedom, and money…. you keep the change.” The officers found a Beretta 12 gauge automatic shotgun, a .22 caliber long rifle, and over 400 rounds of ammunition in Bowman’s trunk. The guns were unloaded and in their cases, according to court records. Braun says they were disassembled. The Capitol Police took Bowman into custody and charged him with two counts of possession of an unregistered firearm and one count of unlawful possession of ammunition. He faced up to $3,000 in fines and as much as three years in jail. (The case is still pending.)

When Braun—who was at the National Republican Club, hanging out with congressmen including Iowa’s Tom Latham and Nebraska’s Lee Terry—finally heard from Bowman, it was around 10 p.m. Bowman told Braun he needed Braun to get him out of jail, explaining that he had been stopped with guns in his car. “Don’t you know that’s illegal?” Braun asked. Both men were surprised when they heard the story on the radio as they left jail the next day. Braun thought the coverage was excessive. “They were making him sound like a terrorist,” Braun said. “Does [Bowman] look like a terrorist? He has the élan to walk around with a bowtie.”

I’ll bet those party crashers wish they had such highly placed defenders.

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Letting His White Slip Show

by digby

I’ve had a number of readers tell me that I’m wrong, wrong, wrong to worry that the Medicaid expansion funding might be vulnerable to future budget cuts, particularly my argument that the right will demonize it as “welfare” with all that that implies. Those days I’m told, are over.

Lindsay Graham:

If you don’t live in Nebraska, here’s what’s coming your way. Your state is gonna be required to cover more people under Medicaid because the eligibility, I think, goes up to 133% above poverty, which is an increase over the current system. So throughout the nation, there are gonna be thousands of more people enrolled in Medicaid. And every state except one is gonna have to come up with matching money. I have 12 percent unemployment in South Carolina. My state is on its knees. I have 31 percent African American population in South Carolina.

The key to fixing that little problem, of course, is to not have a separate health care system for the poor, but rather have everyone with an equal stake in the same system. It’s what makes the safety net stable over time.

In our bigoted country we have this sad history of government social welfare services being stigmatized, largely because there weren’t any private social welfare services with any money or desire to help African Americans. It would be nice to think that’s all gone away, but Huckleberry shows that in the heart of Dixie at least it’s still so much a part of the social fabric that he just blurts it out without even knowing what he’s saying.

If there’s one thing we are going to be fighting for for a long time, it’s to keep the coverage for the poor that’s in this health care reform. And if history is any guide, it’s not going to be easy.

Update: I almost wonder if Ben nelson didn’t insist on his Medicaid payment sharing exemption with the knowledge that it was going to bring attention to this issue and set the stage for legal action. I say “almost” because I don’t think Nelson is that clever. It’s far more likely he just wanted to be able to tell his fellow Nebraskans that he made sure they weren’t going to have to pick up the tab for the freeloading you-know-whats.

Update II: Maybe more clever than I thought. Here’s Nelson yesterday:

As a governor — and my colleague is a former governor — we fought against federal unfunded mandates. And as a senator back here, I’ve also fought against unfunded and underfunded federal mandates. And this was in fact exactly that. While we weren’t able to get in this legislation an actual opt-out or opt-in for a state-based decision, what we did get was at least a line, if you will, so that in the future other states are going to be able to come forward and say, hey, either the federal government pays for that into the future or the state will have the opportunity to decide not to continue that so that we don’t have an unfunded federal mandate.

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They Don’t Quit

by digby

Here’s a story about insurance companies. It’s about auto insurance in California, a state which has for 20 years mandated insurance but regulated the companies to keep the premiums down. The regulations have been under continuous attack from the insurance companies. This is the latest:

Mercury Insurance’s Deceptive Initiative: An Attack on Consumers, Working Families and the Newly Unemployed

The deceptively titled “Continuous Coverage Auto Insurance Discount Act” would impose massive premium surcharges on Californians who were previously uninsured. The purpose of the initiative is to gut Proposition 103’s anti-discrimination provision that states: “The absence of prior automobile insurance coverage, in and of itself, shall not be a criterion… for automobile rates, premiums, or insurability.”

Under this Mercury Insurance-sponsored proposal, people who stop driving and cancel their auto insurance – after being laid off, for example – will face a steep penalty when they need to restart their insurance for a new job.

[…]

Drivers cancel coverage for many reasons: a layoff may cause someone to stop driving in order to cut back on gas and insurance costs, or a family may miss an installment payment during the upheaval of a foreclosure. Senior citizens who stop driving for a time to recover from major surgery may cancel auto insurance to save money while they cannot use their car. Students, stay-at home spouses or others may simply choose not to drive a motor vehicle for a time. All of these people will pay a penalty under this initiative, even if they have an excellent driving record. With unemployment in California at a devastating 12%, people who are forced by their economic circumstances to drop insurance now would now be penalized for restarting their auto insurance coverage as they try to get back on their feet.

[…]

The political consultants running Joseph’s latest anti-consumer campaign know that concerned Californians won’t stand for an initiative that imposes an insurance surcharge, so they conveniently fail to disclose this fact. That is why the Mercury initiative does not disclose that its language guts a key Proposition 103 protection against the practice of using prior insurance status in the setting of rates and premiums.

Mercury claims that its initiative will put California in line with other states. Is that a good thing?

In 1988, Californians voted for the most sweeping insurance consumer protections in the nation by passing Proposition 103. Since then, California drivers have saved more than $62 billion on auto insurance alone, according to a 2008 study by the Consumer Federation of America. Our rules remain far stronger and more protective than any state in the nation. The Mercury Insurance proposal would send us back to the old discriminatory practice (still allowed in too many states where insurance companies have blocked reforms) of arbitrarily surcharging the most financially vulnerable citizens.

[…]

This proposed initiative is sponsored by Mercury Insurance, which has long sought to end Prop. 103’s protections against insurance discrimination and excessive prices. In the past, Mercury has sponsored legislation to restore “territorial rating,” in which insurance companies base auto premiums primarily upon a motorist’s zip code, a practice outlawed by Proposition 103.

In 2003, Mercury distributed millions of dollars in campaign contributions to elected officials in Sacramento in order to pass legislation (SB 841) that legalized surcharges for those who experienced a lapse in coverage. A California Court of Appeal struck down the law out… This initiative is an attempt to get around that ruling.

They have the money and they will spend it to pass a disingenuous ballot initiative that will improve their bottom line and get around the intention of the original reforms. And consumer groups will have to fight tooth and nail to stop it. And you can just imagine how they will do it in Washington, behind closed doors, at fund raising dinners and out on the links. They don’t give up.

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Big Ben’s Blinders

by digby

So I read this piece from Michael Hirsh about how Ben Bernanke doesn’t deserve to be scapegoated for all the problems in the world and wondered if maybe his reputation was being ritually sacrificed for the sins of all the financial elites.

And then I read this:

In January 2005, National City’s chief economist had delivered a prescient warning to the Fed’s board of governors: An increasingly overvalued housing market posed a threat to the broader economy, not to mention his own bank and others deeply involved in writing mortgages.

The message wasn’t well received. One board member expressed particular skepticism — Ben Bernanke.

“Where do you think it will be the worst?” Bernanke asked, according to people who attended the meeting, one in a series of sessions the Fed holds with economists.

“I would have to say California,” said the economist, Richard Dekaser.

“They have been saying that about California since I bought my first house in 1979,” Bernanke replied.

No shit. And that’s because it was true.

Kevin Drum:

California went through a housing bubble in the 1980s that burst in 1990. I should know: I bought a house in 1989 and lost $40,000 on it before finally caving in and selling it four years later. In all, it took nearly a decade for housing to regain its pre-bubble value — at which point, a brand new bubble was heating up.

It was myopic enough to believe in 2005 that housing wasn’t overpriced on a nationwide basis. But to specifically dismiss concerns about California even though it had been in the trough of a housing crash a mere 10 years earlier? That’s just willful blindness.

I’m frankly shocked that he said it. If there’s one thing California is known for it’s boom and bust real estate. It’s been happening as long as I can remember.

Sure, it tends to work out if you can hold on for the long run (especially if you bought before Prop 13) but you know what they say — in the long run we’ll all be dead.

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