Month: March 2010

More On Toxic Sludge

by tristero

Jill Richardson of La Vida Locavore, easily one of the most important food movement blogs on the net, has been writing about the toxic sludge being passed off as organic compost by San Francisco. I blogged about it once already, and now Jill has some more information. It’s pretty horrific:

When San Francisco, one of the greenest cities in America, offered its residents free compost, many were excited to take it. After all, purchasing enough compost for even a small 10 x 10-foot garden can cost over $50, and generating one’s own compost in high enough quantities for such a garden takes a long time.

Few of the gardeners who lined up to receive the free compost at events like last September’s Big Blue Bucket Eco-Fair suspected that the 20 tons of free bags labeled “organic biosolids compost” actually contained sewage sludge from nine California counties. On Thursday, March 4, angry San Franciscans returned the toxic sludge to the city, dumping it at Mayor Gavin Newsom’s office in protest.

Sewage sludge is the end product of the treatment process for any human waste, hospital waste, industrial waste and — in San Francisco — stormwater that goes down the drain….

When confronted by angry gardeners who had been duped into applying toxic sludge to their gardens, city and state authorities defended their actions. The California Association of Sanitation Agencies insisted that because San Francisco has “virtually no industrial facilities within its borders or sewer service area,” the waste was not a combination of “industrial, commercial, hospital, and household wastewater.” But, according to Organic Consumers Association, the San Francisco Public Utilities Commission (SFPUC) has documented the following in San Francisco sludge alone: p-Isopropyltoluene (an industrial chemical used in the manufacture of paint, furniture, etc); 1,4-Dichlorobenzene, a disinfectant, deodorant and pesticide; Tolulene (an aromatic hydrocarbon widely used as an industrial feedstock and as a solvent); 1,2,4-Trimethylbenzene (a product of petroleum refinery distillation); and Phenol (used in the manufacture of drugs, antiseptics, nylon and other synthetic fibers).

In a letter to Digby and me, Jill added:

On the whole though, this is covered up by the MSM because every single municipality has sludge they are trying to get rid of AND some of the largest environmental groups agreed not to oppose land application of sewage sludge.

To date, Jill informs us, there has been exactly one msm story on the toxic sludge, from the local CBS affiliate in San Francisco.

I’ll try to keep you posted. Meanwhile, if you are in the habit of accepting free compost/manure/biosolids/similar stuff from your municipality, it might be a damn good idea to ask a few questions about it before spreading it all over your garden.

Slick Play

by digby

Will pro-choice women finally be forced to accept the Stupak Amendment in order to get health care reform passed? I’ve been saying for a while that they probably would, not because I had any insight on how it would happen, but because I’ve known that the permanent political establishment would require that a large liberal interest group — preferably women,racial minorities or gays — sacrifice a matter of deep, fundamental principle to prove to them that they are not in charge of anything. Pro-choice women will get no sympathy and if they attempt to fight back, they will be vilified by the “serious” people for being foolish purists who only care about themselves. (Stupak and his gang, on the other hand, are widely seen as acting out of principle, which is admirable and unassailable.)

Dday writes:

Here’s an amazing little article from Politico.

The Roman Catholic bishops signaled Thursday that if agreement is reached with House leaders on anti-abortion language, the church would work to get the votes needed to protect the provisions in the Senate — and thereby advance the shared goal with Democrats of health care reform.

What are they talking about? Well, the bishops want the Stupak amendment, which would effectively end coverage of abortion services in all insurance markets over time. Never mind that the federal government already subsidizes abortions through the employer deduction for coverage that almost always includes reproductive choice. Never mind that the Nelson compromise in the Senate bill would probably do exactly what the Stupak amendment does, because the requirement of two separate payments – one for your health insurance and one for the portion that covers abortion services – “would be cumbersome for insurers and objectionable to customers.” Never mind that Linda Blumberg, a health policy analyst for the Urban Institute, said that “There will not be abortion coverage in the exchanges. There just won’t be.” Never mind that the design of two separate payments singles out insurers who offer abortion coverage, opening them up to anti-choice protests. Never mind that under the bill, employer-based coverage is meant to move to the exchanges over time, as the eligibility for the exchanges expand, meaning that this restriction in the individual and small-group markets will eventually be brought to everyone. And never mind even that Ben Nelson, who authored the Senate version, “tried to figure out language that would be as close to Stupak as you could be without repeating the language,” according to his spokesman. No, the Catholic bishops want to show a measure of dominance over the US government, and they want their way on this. And they have convinced Stupak to reject the “third bill” strategy, which House leaders offered to him.

So, what do they have in mind? It’s actually quite brilliant:

What they want to do is to put the changes to the abortion language in a reconciliation sidecar bill, the second bill. This ensures that it will get passed as part of the package, since the President and Senate leaders have already promised that the sidecar will become part of the agreement. But wait, you say. Reconciliation is intended only for budget-related items. How could the Stupak amendment language on abortion survive the inevitable point of order on the Byrd rule? Well, the bishops want to break that rule, and get 60 votes from the Senate to waive the point of order.

“We would strongly urge everyone, Democratic and Republican, to vote to waive the point of order,” Richard Doerflinger, an associate director of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, told POLITICO. “Whether it would be enough to get to 60 votes, I can’t predict. We would certainly try.” “I think it’s something we should explore,” said Rep. Dale Kildee (D-Mich.), a longtime opponent of abortion. “It could be something that could carry out the bishops’ objective.”

Reconciliation for me but not for thee …

It looks to me as if the play is to force all the Senate Democrats, along with just a couple of Republicans, to accept the Stupak language. The pro-choice senators know that at this late stage, if they even utter a peep of protest they will be excoriated for being selfish, obstructionist divas, unlike the deeply principled forced childbirth zealots who are only following their consciences. They must do this to themselves, as a sort of ritual self-sacrifice, for it to be meaningful.

I would expect to see every Democrat in the Senate acquiesce to this only to have whichever Republican had previously agreed to vote for it back out at the last minute. After all, after forcing these pro-choice Senators to cave on their principles time and time again, if the bill is defeated anyway, it will be the sweetest conservative victory ever.

Dday is right that this is a massive power play on the part of the Catholic bishops who, last I heard, were elected to nothing. But in the larger narrative, it serves the purpose that members of the ruling class all agree must be served: liberals must eat shit at every single step of this process or it cannot be seen as legitimate by Real Americans who, by definition, are against anything godless liberal freaks believe in.

This is something we should keep in mind going forward. Next time, they should be sure to put in some items for the sole purpose of having them stripped out. We’ll all agree in advance to howl and scream when they remove our beloved subsidies for oral sex instruction and mandatory jail terms for global warming deniers. Maybe that will satisfy them enough that the Democrats won’t feel the need to further sacrifice our true principles.

If that doesn’t happen, though, next time it’s the fella’s turn to give up some of their bodily integrity for the greater good. I’m thinking maybe they will agree to a law that requires them to seek permission from their wives and/or mothers before they have a vasectomy. Seems only fair.

Update:Tim Noah has more

In a March 4 interview, ABC News’ George Stephanopoulos asked Rep. Bart Stupak (who leads the somewhat dishonest pro-life opposition to health care reform) how the change Stupak desires could possibly be included in a budget-reconciliation bill. Under Senate rules, reconciliation can deal only with matters relating to the budget, and the Congressional Budget Office has already determined that replacing the Senate language on abortion with Stupak’s more restrictive language would have no budgetary impact. Stupak’s reply was a head-scratcher. “You can do it,” he said. “If there’s a will, there’s a way. That’s just an excuse that they’re giving.” Stupak said the same thing to Greta Van Susteren of Fox News (adding the additional possibility of a third bill, which would meet parliamentary requirements but which would probably render an already-politically-difficult maneuver impossible). “They have strange rules over there,” Stupak told Van Susteren. But he suggested those rules could be got around.I stopped wondering what Stupak meant when I read a March 5 article in Politico by David Rogers (“Bishops Offer Help With Senate“). Richard Doerflinger, associate director of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, told Rogers, “We would strongly urge everyone, Democratic and Republican, to vote to waive the point of order. Whether it would be enough to get to 60 votes, I can’t predict. We would certainly try.” Allow me to explain. Under a rule devised in the mid-1980s by Sen. Robert Byrd, D-W.Va., the Senate parliamentarian decides whether this or that item in a reconciliation bill is sufficiently relevant to the budget. If it isn’t, the parliamentarian advises Senate leaders to toss it out. The parliamentarian’s rulings carry great weight with the Senate, but they are not in themselves determinative. If Vice President Joe Biden, in his capacity as president of the Senate, decided to ignore any such ruling, he could. (As I’ve reported previously, Vice President Hubert Humphrey did so more than once back in the 1960s.) If he did so, however, some member of the Senate could raise a point of order opposing that decision. Apparently Biden would need 60 votes to override it, even though the bill itself would require, under reconciliation rules, only 51 votes to pass.So here’s the play. The parliamentarian, observing correctly that altering the bill’s abortion language would not affect federal spending, gives the Stupak language a thumbs-down. Biden ignores him, and a point of order is raised. The bishops then work the Senate floor madly to cobble together a 60-vote coalition of pro-health-reform Democrats and pro-life Republicans. As Rogers notes, they did a pretty good job of this in November when the Stupak amendment came to the House floor, where it passed 240-194. Even hard-core health reform opponents like House Republican Leader John Boehner, R.-Ohio, and House Republican Whip Eric Cantor, R-Va., voted for the Stupak amendment. They did this knowing it would smooth the path toward health reform’s House passage. They did it because they couldn’t cast a vote that would be seen as pro-choice on abortion.I hold no reverence for Senate canon law on reconciliation. Indeed, I’ve suggested in the past that Biden might overrule it. But to do so in this instance would require Senate Democrats to flout the parliamentarian on a matter that lacks any ambiguity whatsoever. The health reform’s abortion language will not affect federal spending, because neither the Senate bill nor any language acceptable to Stupak would allow the federal government to spend taxpayer dollars on abortion. (See “Why Stupak Is Wrong.”) Moreover, the bishops would be urging Democrats to overrule the parliamentarian in order to do something most of them consider morally abhorrent—prohibit many private insurers from covering abortions. Finally, overruling the parliamentarian in a fashion so blatantly illegitimate would invite the health reform bill’s opponents to challenge the parliamentarian’s favorable rulings on other reconciliation items, which might conceivably unravel health reform altogether. For these reasons, I consider this strategy highly unrealistic.

Maybe. Let’s hope so. But it won’t fail because the pro-choice Democrats refuse on moral grounds. They would be excoriated by fellow liberals for being purists if they tried it, believe me. You are only allowed to hold fast to morals in this country if they are directed by bishops or James Dobson.

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Taking It To the Streets?

by digby

Mike Lux writes:

On Tuesday, March 9th, several thousand people will be marching in Washington, DC – not to the capitol, but to the Ritz-Carlton, where the insurance industry that is still running things is meeting. There may be mass arrests, and serious disruption of the insurers’ event. On Sunday, March 21st, the immigrants’ rights movement is marching in DC. I hear that there will be several tens of thousands at this one, and that immigrant advocates are extremely angry at the Congress and White House for doing nothing on the issue after all the promises that have been made. And I’m hearing reports from community organizers working on banking issues that anger at the big banks has reached a boiling point, that with Congress listening to Wall Street more than the people, people are planning to take new kinds of demonstrations and direct action in the coming months directly to Wall Street and the K Street lobbyists running things. They will be taking demonstrations to bankers’ and business lobbyists’ offices, and picket their favorite lunch places and country clubs. And they will be moving their money out of the big banks and into community based banks and credit unions…People are going to be doing a different kind of dancing in the streets over the next few weeks and months – dancing and shouting and carrying sings and risking arrests.

Well that would be interesting, wouldn’t it?

In the interest of having that happen, I offer up this asinine discussion among AIG executives upon the suggestion that they might want to forgo their bloated bonuses for a while since the country was in a very bad mood after having been financially raped:

[E]mployees at AIG’s Financial Products division — the very unit whose trading had hastened the insurance giant’s collapse — were defiant, saying they were merely getting what they were due, recoiling at public accusations that they were behind their capitalizing on the company’s massive taxpayer bailout.

“I will stand behind every action I have taken in this company from Day One,” one employee said, according to a newly obtained transcript of a conference call the division’s head held last March with some of his staff.

But when another employee asked whether the staff would be getting a second round of bonuses promised for March 2010, his colleagues burst into laughter, apparently considering this a preposterous notion amid the public outrage.

Yet they did see that money, at least most of it. Last month, under a deal in which employees agreed to take a cut in their upcoming retention bonuses in return for an accelerated payment, AIG paid out about $100 million to employees at the firm. AIG is scheduled to pay the last of the bonuses this month.

Even so, neither time nor money has softened the employees’ feelings of wrongful persecution and their anger over becoming the subjects of scorn and ridicule. Seldom was that sense of victimhood more clear or more visceral than in the conference call of March 23, 2009.

Gerry Pasciucco, who had been hired to wind down Financial Products after the AIG bailout, was in Wilton, Conn., broadcasting his image and his voice to shaken, frustrated and furious employees in London, Paris and Hong Kong. Pasciucco quickly encountered a buzz saw of complaints over demands that they forgo the bonuses they were due. Emotions were running especially high in the London boardroom, where scores of staffers had gathered around a large table.

“I think it violates everything I believe in, and it’s un-American,” one employee said that day, according to the transcript of the call.

“This country is supposed to stand on due process,” said another…

“You made a commitment to us, and we made a commitment to you. And for anybody to look beyond that, as the politics and the media are at the moment, is missing the point,” said an employee. “You can’t expect us to just roll over and ignore that commitment because there is a bunch of immoral bigots that intend us to do something different. It’s not going to happen.”

Another was even more irate, lashing out at the public for scapegoating AIG employees. “To be honest with you, I really hope it blows up. I think the U.S. taxpayer deserves to lose a trillion dollars over this thing for the way they have behaved.”

And then he turned on politicians who had joined the anti-AIG posse. “They only care about the next election, just like we only care about the next bonus. Well, none of them cares about the country, none of us cares about the institution,” he said, adding: “They really don’t care, and I really don’t care. And frankly, if a trillion dollars gets lost, fine.”…

“Is this blackmail? To a certain extent, it is,” Pasciucco told employees that morning. “If the only reason you would give money back is because you are afraid for your family and you are afraid for your safety, then it is.”… I think it’s distasteful. It’s unfair. It’s unjust. I agree with you, it’s not American. It is McCarthy-ite. . . . It will be viewed as a horribly dark period.”

This is how the Masters of the Universe responded when told that their near destruction of the world economy meant they wouldn’t make as much money that year as they anticipated. That’s your free market in action — the big boys get paid no matter what.

I don’t honestly know if the country has caught on to this or not. It seems to me that the right has successfully misdirected the blame for this away from these arrogant asses and on to the Big Liberal Government, which failed to stop them (true) and is now inhibiting them from being the extremely upstanding productive citizens we all know they are (false). At the very least they’ve muddied the waters significantly which makes people fall back on comfortable anti-government tropes.

If, however, activists were able to get some attention with public demonstrations and the like (and force the mainstream media to cover it) it might help pass financial reform. There’s really no reason why the teabaggers should be able to corner the market on populist frustration.

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Who’s Yer Holy Father, Beyotch?

by digby

Abortion and the Catholic Church: Randall Terry Leads Delegation to Vatican from March 17-24

Participants will ask Vatican Officials: “Do Vatican Officials stand by the words of Cardinal Ratzinger (now Pope Benedict XVI) to American bishops in 2004?” Also: Bishop Rene Henry Gracida writes letter of introduction, encouraging Vatican Officials to meet with Mr. Terry and The Vanguard of St. Catherine of Siena. See letter: www.ahumbleplea.com/Docs/vanguard.pdf. In 2004, Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger, Prefect of the Congregation of the Doctrine of the Faith (now Pope Benedict XVI), issued an instruction to American bishops that a “Catholic politician” who is “consistently campaigning and voting for permissive abortion and euthanasia laws…” must be “denied the Eucharist.” See Cardinal Ratzinger’s two page instruction at: www.ahumbleplea.com/Docs/WorthinessToReceiveHolyCommunion.pdf In his clear instruction, entitled, Worthiness to Receive Holy Communion General Principles Cardinal Ratzinger stated: 5. Regarding the grave sin of abortion or euthanasia, when a person’s formal cooperation becomes manifest (understood, in the case of a Catholic politician, as his consistently campaigning and voting for permissive abortion and euthanasia laws), his Pastor should meet with him, instructing him about the Church’s teaching, informing him that he is not to present himself for Holy Communion until he brings to an end the objective situation of sin, and warning him that he will otherwise be denied the Eucharist. 6. When “these precautionary measures have not had their effect or in which they were not possible,” and the person in question, with obstinate persistence, still presents himself to receive the Holy Eucharist, “the minister of Holy Communion must refuse to distribute it” (cf. Pontifical Council for Legislative Texts Declaration “Holy Communion and Divorced, Civilly Remarried Catholics” [2002], nos. 3-4). This decision, properly speaking, is not a sanction or a penalty. Nor is the minister of Holy Communion passing judgement on the person’s subjective guilt, but rather is reacting to the person’s public unworthiness to receive Holy Communion due to an objective situation of sin. Members of The Vanguard of St. Catherine of Siena will ask for an affirmation from Vatican officials about Cardinal Ratzinger’s (now Pope Benedict) statement regarding Communion and Catholic politicians who promote child killing. Randall Terry states: “Our quest is for a simple answer from every Vatican official we meet: ‘Do you stand by the words of Cardinal Ratzinger in 2004? Is this the teaching of the Church?'”
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Respect

by digby

I’m getting a few lectures about how wrong it is for me to be so hard on the tea partiers because they are mostly good-hearted folks who hate the bailouts/outsourcing/corporatism just like the rest of us. But that argument makes me feel the same way I felt when people told me that Bush wasn’t really that bad or that Rush is just an entertainer or that the rush to war with Iraq made sense. It’s an awful lot like being told you can believe me or you can believe your lying eyes. I know what I see.

What I see of the tea partiers are a group that used to be called John Birchers or Buchanan Brigades or Perot voters (or when the Republicans are fully empowered, “the GOP base”.) When they say they hate the Republicans it’s because they are embarrassed by them for being losers, not because of any ideological differences they have with them. They aren’t interested in ideology. They are interested in keeping the country from being destroyed by … us. The details are irrelevant.

Amanda Marcotte says it very well:

Their complaints about the federal government need to be understood in terms of right wing speak, where very few beliefs are stated straightforwardly, but usually bundled up in a bad faith argument designed to give the intended audience a belief that the person is speaking from principle instead of prejudice. In other words, they flit around from one right wing argument about the feds and spending to another, because that’s not really what’s motivating them. That’s just the cover story. I honestly think what’s going on is a big time identity politics temper tantrum, and unlike all but the worst kinds of identity politics on the left, it’s got very little attachment to policy outside of those policies that reinforce their identity politics argument. And that argument is that they are the Real Americans®, and the rest of us need to submit. Maddow and Rich kick around this idea of libertarianism, but that’s not really what’s going on. That gay marriage wasn’t a major issue with the CPAC voters says more about priorities than beliefs, so I hardly think it’s an endorsement of gay rights, for instance. It’s just that it seems small in the grand scheme of things, which is that they feel “their” country is sliding away from them and turning into something they don’t understand, and they’re pissed. They’re either weeping or sneering, but it’s not that they’re trying to advance arguments about what’s good for the country. They’re mostly screaming, “Me first!”

Read the whole post because she gets to something I don’t think most people understand:

Right wing populists shut up and get behind Republicans when they’re in office. They only do this shit when Democrats have power, especially if the sitting President isn’t a member of their perceived tribe. What that says to me is that even as they preen around about how they’re not loyalists to the Republican party, that is in fact what they are. And the reason is that Republicans do the work of telling the right wing populists that they’re the only real Americans. And that’s what matters to them more than anything else.

I’m not going to second guess myself about these people. I know who they are. I’ve known them my whole life. This is not something new, it’s something very, very old. I give them the respect of taking them seriously because they are organized around nothing more than the destruction of liberalism and their political vehicle is the Republican party. They can be very powerful. All the rest is a smoke screen.

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Quote of the Day And The Birth Of A New Acronym

by tristero

Dave Neiwert:

All I know is that if this had been a Muslim man who had walked into the Pentagon and opened fire, all the talk this morning would be about an “act of terrorism”. Instead, it’s just another “isolated incident.” Funny how that works, isn’t it?

INTIWGDI Got that?

It’s Not Terrorism If White Guys Do It.

What’s He Babbling About?

by digby

In case you’re wondering what Bart Stupak and the Catholic Bishops are going on about when they say that everyone’s going to have to pay a dollar for abortions, Tim Noah has unpacked it all for you. Suffice to say that it’s dishonest. What they are upset about is that individuals who choose to buy abortion coverage with their own money won’t have to spend a lot for it and that the Hyde Amendment will continue to be renewed annually, which means that someday they might not do it.

I still maintain that the Catholic Bishops, long ago having made political common cause with the rest of the social conservatives, have simply decided that they have more clout under a Republican government and so want HCR to fail. Since they believe female reproduction trumps poverty or saving the lives of people who are dying for lack of health care, they are probably right — there are far more forced childbirth advocates in the GOP. The fact that they are willing to deep six the rest of their social justice agenda for political reasons is their moral problem to sort out.

And according the Sarah Posner, there are plenty of Catholics out there who disagree with their stance:

Chris Korzen, Catholics United’s executive director, told me this morning, “The fact that many on the pro-life side are opposing Nelson language suggests that they’re not really serious about finding a workable solution.” Even though Catholics United believes that the Nelson language also goes too far in restricting abortion coverage, Korzen added, “I understand that can’t be addressed through [reconciliation] so it’s probably not worth holding up health care reform over.” Korzen said a survey of Catholics United members showed 48% of them believed the Nelson amendment goes too far in restricting abortion. A survey conducted earlier this year by Catholics for Choice showed that majorities of Catholics in the districts of four pro-Stupak amendment Democrats actually favored covering abortion in health care reform.

That, apparently, doesn’t matter.

Update: In case you haven’t heard Stupak trying to explain what he wants, here’s how he does it, with the help of the criminally misinformed Chris Matthews:

MATTHEWS: So according to your reading of the bill that‘s passed the Senate, which the House is going to have to vote on in the next couple weeks, insurance covers abortion services.STUPAK: That‘s what it insures. And we will not vote for that type of legislation. The majority of the House has spoken. We will not support legislation that has public funding for abortion.You know, Chris, the president said, OK, here‘s his four or five proposals he‘s doing today. So what we‘re voting on can‘t really be the Senate bill there. It has to be a conglomeration…MATTHEWS: Right.STUPAK: … or compromise. So look, we‘re willing to work with him. Let‘s keep current law, which says no public funding for abortion. There are at least eight programs, everything from Department of Defense, children‘s health initiative, Medicare, Medicaid, you name it, it says no public funding for abortion. Let‘s keep the current law. And I‘m willing…MATTHEWS: OK…STUPAK: … to work with the president and the Speaker to do that.MATTHEWS: Here‘s what I don‘t understand, what I want to understand, because I want this reconciled, like a lot of people do. It seems to me that Hyde is pretty clear, the Hyde amendment that‘s been carried for years now in the House on every spending bill. Why can‘t you attach it to another bill, to any or all of the upcoming appropriations bills this year, or a continuing resolution, and include in the language on something that would get a majority because the Republicans would all vote for it in that case, where you‘d get 218, the required number of majority votes, on any measure later this year that said—and get Nancy Pelosi to approve that, guaranteed promise that there‘ll be—there will be a rider attached to every spending bill henceforth that says the Hyde amendment‘s in effect on all federal legislation. Could you do that?STUPAK: As long as it (INAUDIBLE) dealt with under this act, this health care—health care proposal act. You‘re right, Hyde applies only to appropriation bills. This will be a new act that will be creating health care for Americans. It has to be in this act. This act is not necessarily an appropriation bill.MATTHEWS: Right.STUPAK: It‘s an enacting legislation. As long as they put the language in it…MATTHEWS: But can you pass it—can you pass it as part of another bill, so that you could get Republicans? The problem, you know, is, Mr. Stupak—you know, Congressman, the problem here is the math. To get Hyde passed, you need a lot of Republican votes to get it, to pass it, if you had an up-or-down vote on Hyde at any moment on any appropriations bill.STUPAK: Right.MATTHEWS: This time, no Republicans are going to vote for it. None are going to vote for this health care bill. So how can you get Hyde to pass as a rider, as a separate vote in this case unless you jam it down the throats of the pro-choicers?STUPAK: Right. It would have be a separate bill. It would have to be tie-barred (ph) to the final health care bill. You could do it that way, Chris. You could tie bar it to the final health care bill. You could do it that way.MATTHEWS: Yes. What does that mean in English?[I had never heard of this either. A cursory google search turns it up as a common occurrence in the Michigan legislature, in which one bill cannot be allowed to become law unless another is. I don’t think this is in use in the US Congress, but I could be wrong — digby]
STUPAK: I mean, you‘re right…MATTHEWS: What does that mean?STUPAK: One bill doesn‘t pass without the other. They go jointly together. They walk down the aisle together and have that vote…(CROSSTALK)STUPAK: Two separate votes, but they‘re tied together.MATTHEWS: Have you—would Republicans vote for that, or would they say that would be helping health care pass?STUPAK: Good question. But the principle for myself and the Republicans, I think, is greater and they would vote for it.MATTHEWS: OK. Well, let me ask you this. Has the Speaker responded to that proposal, tie barring these?STUPAK: No, they have not.MATTHEWS: Have you offered it?STUPAK: Yes. I‘ve talked to people—yes. We have had discussions and here‘s one way we could do it. Yes.MATTHEWS: OK. Well, thank you. Let me ask you this about Eric Cantor. He is definitely trying to fish in troubled waters here. He‘s the Republican whip. He‘s the ramrod on that side of the aisle. He‘s loving the fact you‘re in dispute. And I understand this is an issue of conscience. I completely understand, let me tell you. Here he is, singling out you and a list of 12 other members, including that Republican from Louisiana, from New Orleans, who‘s voted—he‘s in Jefferson‘s district. It‘s a Democratic district. He‘s now switching the other way. Is this an accurate list of people that will vote against the Senate version if it comes up because it doesn‘t have the restriction on abortion?STUPAK: I haven‘t seen the list, Chris, but it‘s accurate to say there are at least 12 of us who voted for health care who have indicated to the leadership and others that unless you fix this abortion language, we can‘t vote for a final version of the bill.MATTHEWS: What do you think the Speaker meant when she made that statement, that the law of the land is there‘s no public funding of abortion in these bills? What does she mean? I mean, try and understand her. What does she mean? Does she mean the government doesn‘t buy and pay doctors for abortion, that it simply pays for insurance premiums that will then cover abortion? What jesuitical language are you accusing her of here, if that‘s what you‘re saying.STUPAK: Well, if she‘s talking about the Senate language, again, go to the pages I cited, page—I believe it‘s 38 to 44. If you go look at it, it says every enrollee in the OPM, Office of Personnel Management—every enrollee in one of those plans must play one dollar per month for reproductive rights, which include abortion. So not only are you talking about abortion coverage in insurance policies, but now you‘re asking everyone who enrolls in these plans to pay at least $1 per month into a fund to help pay for abortion. So you‘re making the insurance companies…MATTHEWS: OK…STUPAK: … provide it, plus, you‘re making people pay for it. She‘s wrong.MATTHEWS: Do you believe the Democratic Party, the majority of the party you‘re in, is willing to go down to defeat on the major legislative issue of this presidency because of its pro-choice position?STUPAK: No. No, because…MATTHEWS: You don‘t think they‘re willing to go down to defeat.STUPAK: No, because if you look at the pro-choice letter that Diana Degette and others claim to have 40-some signatures on—if you read that letter very carefully, it says, We must maintain current law. Current law. That‘s all the Stupak amendment does, maintain current law. Just take my name off it. Call the Hyde amendment. Just maintain current law…MATTHEWS: I know what the law says.STUPAK: Put it in the health care act, and we‘re OK.MATTHEWS: I don‘t understand why they don‘t—let me ask you this. Are you willing to bring down the House on the issue of life?STUPAK: Well, look, we‘re going to do what we have to do. We‘re not compromising on this issue. We‘ve gone as far as we can. They know that. We‘re not—I want to see health care as much as the president and the Speaker, but this is a principle and belief that the only bill…MATTHEWS: OK…STUPAK: … the only amendment ever had a vote was this one. It‘s bipartisan. We want to see it. We want it passed.

Read the Noah piece to get an idea of just how slimy he’s being there. Matthews, as usual, confuses more than he clarifies.

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War Of The Worlds

by digby

I’ve had several friends write to me to point out that John Adams represented British soldiers in the Revolutionary War which means that Lynne Cheney’s charge that lawyers are suspected traitors for representing terrorists suspects is obviously wrong. One would think so. But as I have tried and tried to impress upon you people for years, that comparison fails to recognize that today we are dealing with a foe so terrifying, so powerful, so existentially threatening that it cannot be compared to any enemy the world has ever known, much less any enemy the United States has faced. (Sure, the British trying to end the very existence of the new country before it began might be considered an existential threat by some, but that’s wrong because the British weren’t all foreign and icky.)

The threat of Islamic fundamentalism is so unique so unparalleled in human experience that we must completely abandon all of our civilized institutions and constitutional principles and react like feral animals. It’s all they understand. It’s our only hope.

If you aren’t fouling your trousers every single day at the knowledge that everything you know and love is in imminent danger of being torn asunder by Muslim fanatics with box cutters, you are simply not a serious person.

Update: A reader reminds me that John Adams defended the British for the Boston Massacre, which happened, coincidentally, 240 years ago today. Clearly, John Adams was a traitor to America.

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When The US Military Loses, It’s The Gays’ Fault

by tristero

It’s a free country, true, but nothing gives you the inalienable right to promote your fact-less bigotry in the New York Times. Unless you hate gays:

Combat is not a contest between individuals, like poker or tennis; it is a team event whose success depends on group cooperation and morale. So the behavior that concerns us is not individual achievement but the social dynamics of relationships and groups. The issue is whether and how the presence of openly declared homosexuals in the ranks affects the solidarity of the unit.

We have already seen the fault lines form in the current debate: the individual service chiefs have expressed reservations about Admiral Mullen’s views. This lack of cohesion will likely make the Joint Chiefs less effective in the latest round of this debate.

Armies have to care about what succeeds in war. Sometimes they win or lose because of material factors, because one side has the greater numbers or better equipment. But armies are sure to lose if they pay no attention to the ideas that succeed in battle. Unit cohesion is one such idea. We know, or ought to, that warriors are inspired by male bonding, by comradeship, by the knowledge that they survive only through relying on each other. To undermine cohesion is to endanger everyone.

I know some will see these ingredients of the military lifestyle as a sort of absurd, tough-guy game played by overgrown boys. But to prepare warriors for a life of hardship, the military must remain a kind of adventure, apart from the civilian world and full of strange customs. To be a fighter pilot or a paratrooper or a submariner is to join a self-contained, resolutely idealistic society, largely unnoticed and surprisingly uncorrupted by the world at large.

I do not see how permitting open homosexuality in these communities enhances their prospects of success in battle. Indeed, I believe repealing “don’t ask, don’t tell” will weaken the warrior culture at a time when we have a fight on our hands.

Got that, everyone? The reason that “permitting open homosexuality…will weaken the warrior culture” is because…because…because….well…it just will.

No. That’s not fair to Merrill A. McPeak (Merrill A. McPeak?? You kidding? And they think Barack H. Obama is a weird name!). He’s saying that in combat, you have to have unit cohesion or you might get hurt, even killed, even lose.

Wow! When you put it like that, DADT makes perfect sense. Let me explain:

No doubt unit cohesion is very important. And how can you have cohesion in your unit if, while the enemy is shelling you, the guy next to you suddenly decides this is the perfect time to tell you he’s loved you since the moment he saw you in the shower at boot camp? I mean, aside from everything else, how are all the other guys gonna feel, right? Like they’re not worthy or something. Talk about a morale-killer, and just when you need your morale to be at its highest.

And let’s face it, you just know that’s gonna happen all the time. You just can’t count on the openly gay guy to keep his mind focused on the bullets whizzing about him. And why, you ask, is that? Because YOU are right there and YOU ARE SOOOOOOO HOT! Because unlike normal young heterosexual men, homosexuals have only one thing on their mind: sex, sex, and more sex. Even when they’re being shot at, even when they’re defusing roadside bombs, even when the missiles raining on their heads are turning everyone around them into bloody, nidorous, non-cohering blobs. Don’t you get it? That’s a turn on! That’s what get these deviants off!

Think I’m crazy? Need proof? Why, just look at what happened to the Joint Chiefs! Why, the mere IDEA of repealing DADT is so divisive that they’ve already started to lose their mojo. Therefore, gays shouldn’t serve openly in the military. QED.

Now that’s an argument that’s fit to print. On the stuff that lines birdcages.

Shameful

by digby

They’re just asking:

Ten long minutes, spent questioning whether or not lawyers who represented terrorist suspects are too disloyal to work for the government.

CNN — unless we have officially become a police state, this is not a debate. Really.

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