Digby's Hullabaloo Posts

Perpetual outrage machine

by digby

I’m thinking we’re about to break a hissy fit record today. Here’s your latest outrage and demand for an apology:

Poles and Polish-Americans expressed outrage today at President Obama’s reference earlier to “a Polish death camp” — as opposed to a Nazi death camp in German-occupied Poland.

“The White House will apologize for this outrageous error,” Foreign Minister Radek Sikorski tweeted. Sikorski said that Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk “will make a statement in the morning. It’s a pity that this important ceremony was upstaged by ignorance and incompetence.”

The president had been trying to honor a famous Pole, awarding a Presidential Medal of Freedom to Jan Karski, a resistance fighter who sneaked behind enemy lines to bear witness to the atrocities being committed against Jews. President Obama referred to him being smuggled “into the Warsaw ghetto and a Polish death camp to see for himself.”

Sikorski also tonight tweeted a link to an Economist story noting that “few things annoy Poles more than being blamed for the crimes committed by the Nazi occupiers of their homeland. For many years, Polish media, diplomats and politicians have tried to persuade outsiders to stop using the phrase ‘Polish death camps’ as a shorthand description of Auschwitz and other exemplars of Nazi brutality and mass murder. Unfortunately this seems to have escaped BaracK Obama’s staff seem not to have noticed this.”

Honestly, do you think it might be possible to unplug the phony outrage machine for a week or two? This is just getting exhausting.

Update: Thank God. I just hope it’s enough. (fingers crossed …)

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I wrote a bit about the Chris Hayes flap over a Mother Jones earlier. I think he was perfectly respectful and thoughtful as always and that his point was well taken. But his apology opened up a new topic that I think is worth exploring:

It does raise a question in my mind about “social distance.” Chris apologized saying that he “sounded like a typical out-of-touch pundit seeking to discuss the civilian-military divide and the social distance between those who fight and those who don’t, I ended up reinforcing it, conforming to a stereotype of a removed pundit whose views are not anchored in the very real and very wrenching experience of this long decade of war. And for that I am truly sorry.” I’ve always thought this “social distance” was a useful thesis, helping to explain why the Villagers are so out of touch with the average person. But what I hadn’t reckoned with until now is a sort of tyranny of “walking the walk” that results once you acknowledge it.

All citizens have a right and an obligation to participate fully in American civic life. If we are now going to say that those who haven’t “walked in the shoes” of whomever is directly affected by a policy are not sanctioned to have an opinion, we are essentially saying that we are only responsible to ourselves rather than the body politic. It becomes a fragmented sort of social responsibility in which we substitute experience and expertise for democratic participation.

Read on…

Global fecklessness

by David Atkins

Stories like this are infuriating:

Western nations expelled senior Syrian diplomats on Tuesday in a hardened and coordinated condemnation of the weekend massacre of more than 100 villagers in Syria, nearly half of them children.

The response by the United States and others came as the top United Nations peacekeeping official gave new credence to suspicions that pro-government Syrian thugs, known as shabiha, were at least partly responsible for the killings, despite official Syrian denials of complicity.

Outrage over the killings, which constituted one of the gravest atrocities in the 15-month-old uprising against President Bashar al-Assad, coincided with a visit to Syria by the United Nations special envoy, Kofi Annan, who met with Mr. Assad in Damascus to salvage a failing cease-fire.

Mr. Annan, speaking to reporters later, said he had warned Mr. Assad time is running out.

“We are at a tipping point,” he said at a news conference in Damascus. “The Syrian people do not want the future to be one of bloodshed and division. Yet the killings continue and the abuses are still with us today. As I reminded the President, the international community will soon be reviewing the situation. I appealed to him for bold steps now — not tomorrow, now — to create momentum for the implementation of the plan.”

Yes, I’m sure Assad is just shaking in his boots.

The international community needs to figure something out. It either cares about what the Assads of the world are doing, or it doesn’t. If it doesn’t care, stop the pretenses at outrage, the expulsions of diplomats, the security council handwringing and the rest of it. Let them consign themselves to the idea that no one should ever meddle in what happens within another nation state’s borders, that any change in a country must come from within, and that we should turn a blind eye to massacres by national leaders because any sort of intervention would just make things worse and lead to more deaths. Every nation and person for itself in a global federalism, and if your particular ethnic group or democratic reformist protest is marked for death, too bad. Not our problem.

Or it can create an actual organization with teeth that can enforce principles of human rights with the same authority that a federal marshal can exercise against murderers within a nation state. Doing that would also delegitimize the selfish actions of individual nation states playing the world’s self-appointed cop.

One or the other. But enough pretense of outrage, horrified protestations, diplomatic expulsions and sternly worded letters. The Assads of the world couldn’t care less what anyone thinks of them as long as they don’t feel personally threatened.

Do something or don’t do anything and stop pretending you care. Expelling diplomats doesn’t count as doing something.

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Obama Campaign 2.0

by digby

I’m doing a little filling in for Kevin Drum over at Mother Jones this week and have a post up right now about the Obama Campaign strategy:

I will never understand why political campaigns think it’s helpful to telegraph their plans in public, but here’s the obligatory “inside the Obama campaign strategy” piece by John Heileman in New York magazine. To the extent it isn’t spin, it’s quite interesting, and since so much of it is unflattering, I’d have to guess that’s most of it.

The campaign principals (much like the administration itself in the first two years) are as convinced as ever that when it comes to brilliant strategy, they are the toppermost of the poppermost and show a level of confidence that borders on hubris. What seems to have changed since the last time around is that they are very, very worried about money

Please read on… I think you’ll like it.

One of the things I couldn’t find a way to easily fit in the piece is the fact that they are basically planning to re-run the Bush 2004 campaign. I can’t help but wonder if they’ve got Marine One all gassed up and ready to land in the football stadiums to the martial strains of the Top Gun theme song “Danger Zone.”

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Move over John Galt, Limbaugh’s in town

by digby

Somebody get the net:

Limbaugh: “I Have Created More Jobs Than Obama And Romney Put Together, Damn Right”

Apparently, his “EIB Radio Network” is right up there with General Motors and Microsoft for sheer entrepreneurial genius.

Rush is, by his own reckoning, and entertainer who makes money by performing a radio show a couple of hours every day (and destroying America in the process.) By this new standard, Hollywood is one of the greatest capitalistic achievements of all time. When will Rush give credit where credit is due?

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“He likes action, especially when he doesn’t leave fingerprints”

by digby

It would appear that when it comes to the fight against terrorism the main difference between the Obama administration and the Bush administration is that the current White House has upgraded from the old-fashioned playing cards to a Facebook layout:

This was the enemy, served up in the latest chart from the intelligence agencies: 15 Qaeda suspects in Yemen with Western ties. The mug shots and brief biographies resembled a high school yearbook layout. Several were Americans. Two were teenagers, including a girl who looked even younger than her 17 years.

President Obama, overseeing the regular Tuesday counterterrorism meeting of two dozen security officials in the White House Situation Room, took a moment to study the faces. It was Jan. 19, 2010, the end of a first year in office punctuated by terrorist plots and culminating in a brush with catastrophe over Detroit on Christmas Day, a reminder that a successful attack could derail his presidency. Yet he faced adversaries without uniforms, often indistinguishable from the civilians around them.

“How old are these people?” he asked, according to two officials present. “If they are starting to use children,” he said of Al Qaeda, “we are moving into a whole different phase.”

It was not a theoretical question: Mr. Obama has placed himself at the helm of a top secret “nominations” process to designate terrorists for kill or capture, of which the capture part has become largely theoretical. He had vowed to align the fight against Al Qaeda with American values; the chart, introducing people whose deaths he might soon be asked to order, underscored just what a moral and legal conundrum this could be.

Mr. Obama is the liberal law professor who campaigned against the Iraq war and torture, and then insisted on approving every new name on an expanding “kill list,” poring over terrorist suspects’ biographies on what one official calls the macabre “baseball cards” of an unconventional war. When a rare opportunity for a drone strike at a top terrorist arises — but his family is with him — it is the president who has reserved to himself the final moral calculation.

“He is determined that he will make these decisions about how far and wide these operations will go,” said Thomas E. Donilon, his national security adviser. “His view is that he’s responsible for the position of the United States in the world.” He added, “He’s determined to keep the tether pretty short.”

Nothing else in Mr. Obama’s first term has baffled liberal supporters and confounded conservative critics alike as his aggressive counterterrorism record. His actions have often remained inscrutable, obscured by awkward secrecy rules, polarized political commentary and the president’s own deep reserve.

In interviews with The New York Times, three dozen of his current and former advisers described Mr. Obama’s evolution since taking on the role, without precedent in presidential history, of personally overseeing the shadow war with Al Qaeda.

They describe a paradoxical leader who shunned the legislative deal-making required to close the detention facility at Guantánamo Bay in Cuba, but approves lethal action without hand-wringing. While he was adamant about narrowing the fight and improving relations with the Muslim world, he has followed the metastasizing enemy into new and dangerous lands. When he applies his lawyering skills to counterterrorism, it is usually to enable, not constrain, his ferocious campaign against Al Qaeda — even when it comes to killing an American cleric in Yemen, a decision that Mr. Obama told colleagues was “an easy one.”

Wow. Just wow. I guess we should be happy he didn’t call it a “no-brainer”.

Back during the Bush administration we all used to make the argument that Bush and Cheney’s power grab was dangerous and we always asked, “imagine how you will feel if this power is in the hands of … Hillary Clinton or Barack Obama” to make our point.

It would appear to have had the opposite effect. Instead of teaching the lesson to the Republicans that unrestrained presidential power is bad, it’s taught the Democrats to love it too. And it hasn’t bought a single Republican vote.

This isn’t the first time that we’ve glimpsed the eagerness with which the president embraces his role as the decider. I have written about it several times. In the article I just linked to, David Ignatius, no critic of covert action, wrote this:

There is a seduction to the secret world, which for generations has charmed presidents and their advisers. It’s easier pulling the levers in the dark, playing the keys of what a CIA official once called the “mighty Wurlitzer” of covert action. Politics is a much messier process – out in the open, making deals with bullies and blowhards. But that’s the part of the job that Obama must master if he wants another term.

There’s been a lot written recently about how President Obama has been thoroughly seduced. Frustrated by his inability to deal with the Republicans he’s turned to the area of the Executive branch where he doesn’t have to rely on anyone. And that’s a very unhealthy thing to do. Here’s how Ignatius describes it:

It’s an interesting anomaly of Barack Obama’s presidency that this liberal Democrat, known before the 2008 election for his antiwar views, has been so comfortable running America’s secret wars. Obama’s leadership style — and the continuity of his national security policies with those of his predecessor, George W. Bush — has left friends and foes scratching their heads. What has become of the “change we can believe in” style he showed as a candidate? The answer may be that he has disappeared into the secret world of the post-Sept. 11 presidency. […]

Obama is the commander in chief as covert operator. The flag-waving “mission accomplished” speeches of his predecessor aren’t Obama’s thing; even his public reaction to the death of bin Laden was relatively subdued. Watching Obama, the reticent, elusive man whose dual identity is chronicled in “Dreams From My Father,” you can’t help wondering if he has an affinity for the secret world. He is opaque, sometimes maddeningly so, in the way of an intelligence agent. Intelligence is certainly an area where the president appears confident and bold. James Clapper, the director of national intelligence who has been running spy agencies for more than 20 years, regards Obama as “a phenomenal user and understander of intelligence.” When Clapper briefs the president each morning, he brings along extra material to feed the president’s hunger for information.

This is a president, too, who prizes his authority to conduct covert action. Clapper’s predecessor, Adm. Dennis Blair, lost favor in part because he sought to interpose himself in the chain of covert action. That encroached on Obama, who aides say sees it as a unique partnership with the CIA… Perhaps Obama’s comfort level with his intelligence role helps explain why he has done other parts of the job less well. He likes making decisions in private, where he has the undiluted authority of the commander in chief. He likes information, as raw and pertinent as possible, and he gets impatient listening to windy political debates. He likes action, especially when he doesn’t leave fingerprints.

I think the saddest part about all this is that the campaign is probably thrilled with this story. Even sadder, I’ve no doubt that most people are too.

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One week to go until Progressive Super Tuesday

by digby

This is the letter Blue America sent out to all of our friends today. It’s important:

Next Tuesday, June 5th, is primary day in several states, including three where we have critical contests pitting progressive, dynamic leaders against, at best, garden variety Democrats. In California, two races stand out above and beyond all others: the CA-2 primary to replace retiring Lynn Woolsey and the first shot in twenty years for the Democrats to replace corrupt reactionary curmudgeon Buck McKeon. Our candidates, respectively, are Norman Solomon and Lee Rogers. Also here in the West, there is a primary for Montana’s one at-large House seat and there is one outstanding candidate, state Rep. Franke Wilmer. Similar story in New Mexico, where the Albuquerque district has a corrupt conservative and a well-funded careerist being challenged by one of the most important progressive leaders running anywhere in America, state Sen. Eric Griego. These are 4 of the most outstanding candidates for office running anywhere and it’s crucial to elect each of them– and polling in all 4 races looks good.

Blue America would like to appeal to you to help us hit the ground running for these candidates for the general election. We want to get right into action against House Armed Services Committee chairman/bigot Buck McKeon in northeastern L.A. County and against extremist crackpots Janice Arnold-Jones in New Mexico and Steve Daines in Montana. And, because California’s strange new “jungle primary” is likely to force Norman Solomon to face off against a corporate garden variety type Democrat, Jared Huffman, we need to help explain to voters why Norman is the exceptional candidate worth their trust and support. A lot of work. And we’re asking for your help again.

Here on our Blue America ActBlue page, it’s easy to contribute to all of our candidates or any one or two or more of them. And we love you for doing it. We’d also like to ask you to think about contributing to the Blue America PAC this week as well, a fund we use for one thing: communicating to targeted voters. We’ve been using TV, Internet and radio spots, mailers and billboards. There is no such thing as a contribution being too small. So whatever you can do, we’d be really grateful.

Last week Dennis Kucinich sent a note out to his own northern California supporters– as did Alan Grayson and Raúl Grijalva. (By the way, Raúl has also endorsed Lee Rogers, Franke Wilmer and Eric Griego.) This is what Dennis told his folks why he’s so enthusiastic about Norman, who he referred to as “one of the top peace candidates for Congress anywhere in the country”:

Norman and I have been friends for almost 15 years. He is a powerful intellectual, a gifted writer and an activist who is willing to put himself on the line for the principled causes of peace, justice and the environment. He will be one unique member of Congress… Norman is a true progressive. He is an independent thinker. Too many Democrats go along with outrageous military spending, deadly wars and Wall Street greed, all of which demoralize our nation, drain our federal treasury and cause resentment around the world. Norm Solomon is unafraid to stand up and speak out when others are silent. Norman will stand up to the Wall Streeters who continue their high-stakes gambling at public expense. He refuses to take corporate PAC money or lobbyist donations. That puts him at a disadvantage in this primary battle. As you know, I will not be returning to Congress next year. We need Norman in Congress so that he can share his insight with all members. Because of his fierce dedication to the public interest, Norman will be an instant leader in Congress– on war, on bloated military spending, on Wall Street, on threats to Social Security and Medicare (from either party). Norman Solomon was an advocate for the 99%– challenging the 1%– before there was an Occupy Wall Street movement. Every supporter of mine should be a natural supporter of Norman. Help him carry on the legacy of strong peace and justice advocacy in the U.S. Congress.

And that is what Blue America has sought out in all of our candidates and it’s what these four candidates all have in common– proven leaders who will be advocates for the 99% and will not buy into the abysmal bipartisan corrupt ways of Washington. Unless you live in Montana you’ve probably never heard of Timm Twardowski. He runs AFSCME in that state and knows Rep. Wilmer well. “There is no doubt that Franke is the only candidate that understands what it means to do the ‘work’ for Montana in Washington,” he told us. Which is why AFSCME endorsed Franke. “Franke’s Montana experiences have shaped her deep commitment to the issues that affect us here at home and I know she will bring that message and hard work to Washington. Franke understands the unique nature and challenges of America’s working families and will work to protect the middle class and restore the American Dream. It’s not about politics; it’s about doing the ‘right thing’ and putting our trust into someone who has walked in our shoes. Franke understands the work that needs to be accomplished in Washington and will always defend our beliefs.”

This year Raúl Grijalva (D-AZ), chair of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, is working harder than I’ve ever seen progressives work to help elect more progressive candidates to Congress. Raúl has endorsed all 4 of these candidates. Here’s what he had to say about Eric Griego in the state next door, New Mexico:

Eric Griego believes that “the last thing we need to send to Washington is a Democrat who’s a kinder, gentler version of the Republicans.” I agree. Democrats must fight for a government that works for all people, not just those with deep pockets and fancy titles. Eric fought to get corporate money out of politics as an Albuquerque City Councilor, where he passed one of the strongest local campaign finance reforms in the nation. As State Senator, he took on the Big Oil companies and put middle-class workers first by passing a green jobs bill into law. Eric is supported by leading progressive groups and major labor unions– and he is the only candidate in the race to have a lifetime 100% rating from Conservation Voters New Mexico. I need Eric Griego fighting by my side in Congress.

Alan Grayson also wants one of our candidates fighting on his side when he’s back in Congress next year. Last year Alan sat down with Lee Rogers at a medical convention in Orlando and got to know him and to give him some of the helpful advice that is helping Lee beat the Buck McKeon machine. Here’s the endorsement of Lee Rogers that Alan Grayson sent us yesterday:

I’m happy that Dr. Lee Rogers, candidate in CA-25, is a solid progressive. I’m happy that a Rogers victory means the defeat of Buck McKeon, who has been called the most corrupt Member of Congress. But I’m especially happy that Dr. Rogers knows something about something– a quality that Congress sorely needs.

When I was a lawyer, I had a client with a severe case of diabetes. I watched his health deteriorate over the years. The circulation in his legs weakened to the point where a foot was amputated.

It was terrible.

Dr. Rogers is a podiatrist and medical researcher. He pioneered a new protocol for such cases that reduced amputations by 72%.

Dr. Rogers runs the Amputation Prevention Center in Los Angeles. He teaches medicine. He has received awards for his research.

Healthcare is now one-sixth of the US economy. Imagine how good it would be to have someone in Congress who knows it so well.

Let’s face it; many Members of Congress are good at only two things: getting elected, and getting re-elected. Whether Dr. Rogers is good at either of those things remains to be seen. But for the good of Congress, and our health, I’d like to see it happen.

All the Blue America candidates are on the same page. And they all will need the help to go all the way in November. And the race to keep an eye on for today? Progressive insurgent Beto O’Rourke is challenging corrupt El Paso incumbent Silvestre Reyes in Texas’ 16th CD. This could be another blow against the DC Establishment Machine and polls show Beto winning handily among early voters..

A societal crime

by David Atkins

Many will already have seen this excellent piece of work by the L.A. Times, but it bears repeating:

A Long Beach hospital charged Jo Ann Snyder $6,707 for a CT scan of her abdomen and pelvis after colon surgery. But because she had health insurance with Blue Shield of California, her share was much less: $2,336.

Then Snyder tripped across one of the little-known secrets of healthcare: If she hadn’t used her insurance, her bill would have been even lower, just $1,054.

“I couldn’t believe it,” said Snyder, a 57-year-old hair salon manager. “I was really upset that I got charged so much and Blue Shield allowed that. You expect them to work harder for you and negotiate a better deal.”

Unknown to most consumers, many hospitals and physicians offer steep discounts for cash-paying patients regardless of income. But there’s a catch: Typically you can get the lowest price only if you don’t use your health insurance.

That disparity in pricing is coming under fire from people like Snyder, who say it’s unfair for patients who pay hefty insurance premiums and deductibles to be penalized with higher rates for treatment.

The difference in price can be stunning. Los Alamitos Medical Center, for instance, lists a CT scan of the abdomen on a state website for $4,423. Blue Shield says its negotiated rate at the hospital is about $2,400.

When The Times called for a cash price, the hospital said it was $250.

“It frustrates people because there’s no correlation between what things cost and what is charged,” said Paul Keckley, executive director of the Deloitte Center for Health Solutions, a research arm of the accounting firm. “It changes the game when healthcare’s secrets aren’t so secret.”

Snyder’s experience is hardly unique. In addition to Los Alamitos, The Times contacted seven other hospitals across Southern California, and nearly all had similar disparities between what a patient would pay through an insurer and the cash price offered for a common CT, or computed tomography, scan, which provides a more detailed image than an X-ray.

This is not a political problem. It’s a crime against society.

And a political system that takes the only obvious solution to this problem, single-payer healthcare, off the table from day one is broken beyond all reason.

This election will be fought between two men whose “solutions” to this debacle are based on a system that cannot possibly solve it, and who contradict their own positions on the subject from just a few short years ago. The makeup of what passes for our legislative branch is already guaranteed to produce no answers of any kind when it deadlocks after the next election, even as what passes for our judicial branch seems likely to throw the entire muddled mess into turmoil with an abjectly partisan, closely divided ruling.

At what point will the jingoists step back and admit that not only do we not have the best healthcare system in the world (which is obvious to anyone paying the slightest attention), our political system is pretty rotten, too?

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Quebeckers!

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Droney, the friendly flying death robot

by digby