http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09…
By THOMAS L. FRIEDMAN
There is no more “we” in American politics at a time when “we” can only manage, let alone fix, our huge problems if there is a collective “we” at work.
Loading ...From Open Left:
…a source on the Hill confirms to me the Senate HELP and Senate Finance committees will be merged by an informal, behind the scenes process involving the four major players in the Senate: Tom Harkin (Chair of HELP), Max Baucus (Chair of Finance), Harry Reid (Majority Leader), and the White House. Together, these four will meet and decide what sort of bill to send to the Senate floor for debate and amendments.
During this process, we can guarantee that Harkin will push for a HELP or Schumer-like public option to be sent the floor, while Baucus will push for no public option to be in the bill at all. Given his recent statements, the best bet is that Reid will probably push against a public option too, and instead favor either triggers (which he has called a good idea) or co-ops (which seems to be the sort of public option he likes best). With two against and one in favor, this means that the only way a public option ends up in the bill that is sent to the Senate floor will be if the fourth major player, the White House, demands it.[…] if [the White House] allows a health care bill to go to the floor without a public option, it is pretty unlikely that a public option will pass as part of health care reform. Here is why:
- Amendments won’t work. There simply is not any good chance of adding a public option to the Senate bill through floor amendments, because the 60-vote process will be in effect for floor amendments. While we might have 60 votes for cloture on a health care bill that includes a public option, we do not have 60 votes for a public option all by itself.
- Conference committee (almost certainly) won’t work. Even if the House passes a public option, which they are highly likely to do, do not expect them to overpower the Senate in conference committee. This is because the Senate will already have voted down adding a public option via amendment, and the White House will have already demonstrated that it isn’t going to demand the public option in the final bill. It wil be difficult to convince them to change their mind by the conference committee.
The Obama-is-always-blameless crowd will no longer be able to hang the blame for disappointment completely on Congress. Real reform is on the edge of failure, but has not yet failed. If Obama wants the public option in a final bill, it will happen. If he doesn’t, it won’t.
It’s now that simple.
(Note: Tim Wolfe already delivered this message in the comments in a much more concise fashion.)
We stomp off and take our toys home now, we own this defeat.
There are still good guys and bad guys in the health care battle (and I’m just talking about the Ds here – the Rs no longer matter – they are a given), and this is no time to back off. We always knew we would lose this round.
Nothing has changed – unless we let it. Here’s Harkin stating unequivocally that there will be a public option. Sure he’s just one guy, and its not like he’s magic – but he’s got the right attitude.
Let’s back him up, not leave him hanging out to dry.
Cross-posted from Rational Resistance:
LOS ANGELES — In a surprising move arranged by prosecutors in Los Angeles and Washington, the authorities in Switzerland arrested the film director Roman Polanski late Saturday as he arrived at the Zurich airport, paving the way for his possible extradition to the United States in connection with a 32-year-old sex case.
You've heard the news, right? Thirty-two years after he drugged and raped a 13-year-old girl, pleaded guilty to the crime, and then skipped out rather than face sentencing, Roman Polanski has been arrested in Switzerland where he faces possible extradition to the United States.
The remarkable thing is how many people seem sympathetic to Polanski and willing to blame his 13-year-old victim.
Here is a summary of the victim's grand jury testimony:
This testimony was the basis of the indictment, and the basis of the plea of guilty that Polanski agreed to, and of the conviction that the court then entered based on the guilty plea.
Polanski's defense seems to be that he didn't think he was going to be treated fairly by the trial judge, so he was apparently justified in fleeing the jurisdiction and spending the next three decades enjoying his career as a film director and the great wealth and acclaim that career bought him.
No. There is no doubt that there was misconduct involving the trial judge, but the defendant has options in such a case. If the court issues a sentence beyond the range of the plea agreement, the defendant can withdraw the plea and go to trial. It's not unusual. Or, if the defendant believes the judge has engaged in misconduct, the defendant can seek to have the judge removed and go before an impartial judge. What he doesn't get to do is decide that since he doesn't think he's going to like the sentence he will just exempt himself from the legal process.
We know the victim wants this dropped, but it's not her call. A criminal charge is brought by the state on behalf of the people, not the victim. The people are entitled to see that the laws are not violated, that crimes do not go unpunished. This would seem to be especially true in the case of child rape.
Oh lord, there is just so much silliness in the op-ed columns of late – what’s a poor, humble li’l liberal blogger to do?
I used to have a blast stopping by the Caledonian (Broken) Record site. Partly because their bizarre right-wing rants are so unhinged, they are strangely mesmerizing. I realize after a few moments that I like them so much precisely because I could often have written them myself, if I were trying to make fun of the more deranged wing of the Republican Party.
Case in point the latest, entitled “Greenpeace Arrives.” Oh trust me, dear readers, you do not want to miss this one – and those of you outside the circulation range of the CR will think I’m making this up.
I dunno who writes these things, but I picture him obsessively cutting out magazine pictures of Obama, drawing Hitler mustaches on all of them and pasting them all over his bedroom walls and ceiling. Op-ed follows, presented in the style of Mystery Science Theater 3000…
As if Vermont didn’t have enough problems with home-grown, wild-eyed liberals,
Hence our Governor and Lieutenant Governor.
we have now been invaded by Greenpeace,
Invasion! AAAAAAA!
‘Cause, of course, there were no Greenpeace members that already lived here, or were (gasp) born here.
Poor fellas in pretty serious denial about many of his fellow Vermonters…
one of the most radical environmentalist groups in America. If there is one radical group that we don’t need,
Wonder what “radical group(s)” he thinks Vermont does need.
in addition to all of the others that we have, it’s Greenpeace. How is it that it has decided to come here?
Just for you, Mr. Caledonian Record.
That’s easy. Vermont, Maine, and Oregon are the most liberal states in the union. Nowhere is there a more congenial place for far-left fringe liberals. Greenpeace’s arrival is a benchmark of Vermont’s progress into the radical left pantheon.
Does this mean you’re leaving?
Greenpeace moved into Burlington in June. In contrast with their usual stridency and theatrics when they squat somewhere, this time they are pretending to be staid, quiet workers from within the mainstream.
They could be your neighbors, your co-workers, your friends…
Hide the children, grab yer gun…
Nothing could be farther from the truth. The Holy Grail for Greenpeace, here, is their coming campaign to close Vermont Yankee. Their anti whaling and anti global warming zeal pales in comparison with their opposition to nuclear power.
(To say nothing of their anti-global-whale-warming zeal, or baby zeal, or something)
They will stop at nothing. Nothing.
We’re all going to die.
That which makes sense to half the world as the cleanest, cheapest power pushes Greenpeace into paroxysms of out-of-control fury.
Trust him, he’s an expert on paroxysms of out-of-control fury.
We are in for a fight if we are to succeed in defeating the far left in its holy mission to close Vermont Yankee, our only nuclear power plant and the source of nearly 40 percent of Vermont’s power, sold to us at prices that no other source of power or combination, thereof, can match.
We shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight on the landing grounds, we shall fight in the fields and in the streets, we shall fight in the hills; we shall never surrender!
The fact that there hasn’t been a nuclear accident since Three Mile Island,
Leaks, breakdowns, structural collapses don’t count.
and even that did not cause any deaths or damages to America or Americans,
And the kids loved it!
doesn’t mean anything to Greenpeace or to their radical supporters on the left. Atomic power is their bogeyman,
It was given by the mighty hand of God.
and everybody knows that bogeymen are pure evil and should be erased from the earth for everybody’s good.
Actually, most everybody knows there’s no such thing.
So, now we have them. Hunker down. This clash is going to get very rough.
…and oh how they like it rough at the Broken Record.
[Cross-posted at Broadsides.org]
The Vermont Press Bureau’s “Capitol Beat” column in Sunday’s Times Argus made an effort to cover the Boots Wardinski campaign for lite-guv. Well, actually, effort might not be the right word since much of the piece is little more than a shallow cut and paste from Shay Totten’s Seven Days blog post on Friday. They did, however, manage to stick to the Bureau’s apparent unwritten rule to cover political campaigns without mentioning a political issue. High five!
But, seriously, at what point in the political campaign process are issues allowed to be covered? Apparently we’re not there yet. Because in the several hundred words they gave to Wardinski’s recent decision to run as a Prog in next year’s primary, they didn’t mention one issue, instead getting bogged down in rhetorical gamesmanship like this:
“No sooner did State Rep. David Zuckerman, a prog, say he might run for lieutenant governor as a Democrat – while hoping to win the Progressive primary as a write-in candidate — than perennial candidate and protester (or maybe it should be perennial protester and candidate) Boots Wardinski announced he was running, too.”
Cute.
But I’d call Boots a “constant” protester – ever seen how the fella lives? – and a regular political participant. You know, kind of like what we used to think of as a functioning citizen back in the good old days.
By ignoring the issues and labeling Boots as a “perennial” candidate, the Press Bureau basically gives itself a free pass to skip out on its job. High five!
Besides, don’t they know that snarky writing and skipping out on journalistic responsibility is for bloggers? Yo fellas, you’re reporters.
Interestingly, media bias also comes into play in the Press Bureau’s short piece on the Wardinski campaign. There are six other politicians and/or past candidates for public office mentioned in the article, but only Wardinski got the dismissive “perennial” tag. Um, how about Anthony Pollina? Or Martha Abbott? They’ve both ran for office on many occasions and are the in same position as Boots: On the outside looking in.
Worse, not only does Abbott get away with dodging the “perennial” tag, she also gets to accuse Wardinski of “marginalizing” her party’s statewide efforts. Despite being inadvertently funny (how do you marginalize a zero-percent success rate on statewide elections?), I think it’s Pollina who ought to be getting the blame for marginalizing the Progs. It was Pollina, after all, who’s lost every statewide Prog race he’s entered and then ditched the party last time around to “better his electoral changes.” Yo Tony, how did that work out for you? Ouch.
It’s also a shame that the Press Bureau allowed the Abbott dig to go unchallenged from Wardinski. But, then again, that would require actual reporting work and, damn it, it was a Friday deadline and it was a lot easier to cut and paste Totten’s work than to make a couple of phone calls. Three Penny Taproom, here we come! High five!
Elected politicians mentioned in the article who also dodged the “perennial” tag included Zuckerman and Peter Welch, two fellas who have certainly been constant candidates for years (Zuckerman) and decades (Welch). Of course, the use of the word “perennial,” based on the words definition, has nothing to do with success – only effort. Unless, of course, you’re a lazy political reporter who wants to signal a dismissive tone without doing your homework. High five!
Whatever.
At least they spelled Broadsides correctly.
( – promoted by odum)
In his op-ed piece in Sunday’s Times-Argus Jim Douglas 1) lies about the good faith offers state employees have made to ease the state’s financial woes, and 2) lies about the salaries Vermonters are asked to pay their state employees for the quality services upon which they rely.
Jim Douglas writes (emphasis mine):
With the average state employee making over $71,000 a year with benefits and in light of two consecutive pay raises over the course of the recession…it is not unreasonable to ask state employees to make some sacrifices to preserve the workforce and help struggling Vermonters afford their government…
How convenient that Douglas fails to mention VSEA’s February 2009 cost savings proposal. In that proposal, VSEA offered to give up two years worth of cost-of-living pay raises as well as delay contractual “step” pay raises. The offer was rejected by the governor, who is more interested in pursuing his job cutting ideology than in actually saving the state money. Now he has the gall to accuse the VSEA of receiving the very pay raises they sought to refuse!
He continues:
In effect, the average Vermonter working in the private sector who earns under $50,000 a year and likely has not seen a raise during this recession, is being asked to pay state workers who make $20,000 a year more and had two raises in the last two years.
Although it’s difficult to tell for sure from his manipulatively vague language, it appears that Douglas is comparing an average state employee salary INCLUDING benefits to an average private sector employee NOT INCLUDING benefits – as if these two statistics are comparable.
The Burlington Free Press lists salaries for all state employees by name and job title (http://miva.burlingtonfreepress.com/miva/cgi bin/miva?SOVWageform.mv). According to the Free Press numbers, there were 8689 state employees (including Governor Douglas) as of October 2008. 5216, well over half, earned less than $50,000 (not including benefits, which are not available from the Free Press site).
One thing that is quite clear from perusing the Free Press site is that many of the 890 state employees earning top salaries (greater than $70,000 plus benefits) are non-union, “exempt” employees – i.e. employees not eligible for membership in VSEA; the Commissioners, Agency Secretaries, and PR hacks whose numbers have increased disproportionately under Douglas’ governance. Douglas doesn’t indicate where his “average state employee making over $71,000 a year with benefits” figure comes from. But the relevant statistic would actually be the average VSEA-eligible state employees making over (fill in the blank) a year with benefits, which Douglas does not cite. It’s the VSEA-eligible employees whose jobs are on the line and whose bargaining representatives have offered generous but fair concessions to ease the state’s budget deficit.
To claim that Vermonters earning $50,000 are being asked to pay exorbitant salaries to state employees who “make $20,000 more” is a gross misrepresentation based on deceptive math. Vermont’s rank and file state employees are not overpaid. In fact, Vermont’s public payroll per capita ranks 27th in the country – about average (see http://www.greenmountaindaily….
Douglas is correct that Vermonters are suffering. Indeed, I agree that “it is not unreasonable to ask state employees to make some sacrifices to preserve the workforce and help struggling Vermonters afford their government.” VSEA has repeatedly and sincerely offered to make just such sacrifices during the past few months. Douglas has rejected them all – in pursuit of his mission to gut vital state services. Please don’t fall for it.
The classical definition of fascism is a melding of business/corporation and state further combined with a militant foreign policy.
Your ears should certainly prick to attention when you read
President Obama scored a big victory on Thursday as the Senate Finance Committee rejected a proposal to require pharmaceutical companies to give bigger discounts to Medicare on drugs dispensed to older Americans with low incomes.
(Senate Panel Rejects Bid to Add Drug Discount, NY Times, 09/25/09)
The rejected proposal apparently would have brought in over $100 billion (a thousand thousand thousand dollars) over the next decade in Medicare savings via drug purchases rebates.
In arguing against the proposal, [DC Democratic Senator] Carper said, White House officials told him that “a deal is a deal,” and he agreed.
(ibid)
Yeah, a deal with big corporate daddies is a deal, but for you and me? The middle finger. (And don’t forget this is the DC “leadership” Leahy, Sanders and Welch continue to fawn over.)
Hey … now all we need is a huge military complex on the home front to keep the war machine working overseas!
Oh, we already have that?
Shit.
The Two Most Visible Right-Wing Figures in the Media Have Crossed the Line With Beck Calling the President a ‘Racist’ Without a Shred of Proof and Limbaugh Falsely Claiming Obama Is an Arab and Calling for Racial Segregation of School Buses
(Posted 5:00 a.m. EDT Monday,September 28, 2009)
================================
A ‘SKEETER BITES REPORT EDITORIAL
================================
Can you believe their chutzpah?
Just who are Rush Limbaugh and Glenn Beck trying to impress with their wild, unprovable claims that President Obama is a big, badass black boogeyman who’s out to make life miserable for white people in this country?
Has Limbaugh’s admitted past addiction to OxyContin and other prescription drugs driven him totally paranoid? Has Beck’s own admitted past addiction to cocaine and alcohol similarly pushed him over the edge?
Or have America’s two most visible and controversial right-wing pundits come totally unglued by the changes in America’s political and social landscape that they both know they cannot stop?
It’s indeed a blessing that Obama is as cool as a cucumber. Rather than take Limbaugh and Beck’s racially-charged bait, the nation’s first African-American president has ignored them, instead moving on with the same calm demeanor of optimism that won him the presidency at a time when America is facing its worst economic crisis since the Great Depression.
Indeed, it would be very un-presidential of him to do otherwise.
But it would be the height of irresponsibility at best — and outright enabling at worst — for anyone else to either ignore or dismiss as “boys will be boys” the racially-charged venom that Limbaugh and Beck are injecting into the public discourse.
We absolutely don’t buy Limbaugh’s lame excuse that he’s merely an “entertainer” and his rants are merely sarcastic parodies. As we said in an editorial last week, that’s a crock of pure, unadulterated B.S. What Limbaugh has done — and continues to do — is ugly and poisonous.
Indeed, it is beyond ugly. It is beyond poisonous. Limbaugh and Beck have crossed the line into deliberate race-baiting that, in the opinion of The ‘Skeeter Bites Report and many others — including a growing chorus of conservatives — a flat-out abuse of the First Amendment’s guarantee of free speech. The time is long overdue that they be held accountable.
LIMBAUGH AND BECK SHOULD BE SUED FOR SLANDER, DEFAMATION
Limbaugh and Beck also crossed a line into outright slander and defamation of character, for which both clearly deserve to be sued in a court of law. Limbaugh’s claim that the president is an Arab was a thinly-disguised attempt to demonize the president as a Muslim, when in fact, he is a Christian.
In making that comment, Limbaugh gave tacit –if not overt — support for the “birther” movement, which insists — despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary — that Obama is not a native-born U.S. citizen but a native of Kenya, his father’s homeland.
He also, whether consciously or unconsciously, stoked the rabid Islamophobia of so-called “Birther Queen” Orly Taitz, whose ties to a radical Jewish extremist group that considers Obama a threat to Israel were exposed by The ‘Skeeter Bites Report on September 7 and whose latest lawsuit against the president was thrown out as “frivolous” by a federal judge — ironically, an appointee of Obama’s predecessor, George W. Bush..
Beck’s accusation that Obama “is a “racist” with “a deep-seated hatred for white people or the white culture” was a clear attempt to stoke the passions of rabid white-supremacists. It was also so patently false and defamatory toward the president that the only reason Beck hasn’t been sued is that the president, being the nation’s chief executive as well as a public figure, cannot take legal action against Beck — or anyone else — until after he leaves office and becomes a private citizen.
LIMBAUGH: SEGREGATE BUSES — ROSA PARKS AND FEDERAL LAW BE DAMNED!
Limbaugh went over the line when he called for the re-segregation by race of school buses. “We need segregated buses,” he said, commentating on an incident aboard a school bus on September 15 in which a white teenager was attacked by two black teens.
Seizing upon the incident to fire yet another slam at President Obama, Limbaugh said, “I think not only it was racism, it was justifiable racism. I mean, that’s the lesson that we’re being taught here today. [The] kid shouldn’t have been on the bus anyway. We need segregated buses — it was invading space and so forth. This is Obama’s America.”
One big problem with that, Rush: Segregation by race on buses and other public accommodations is illegal. It’s been illegal for more than half a century. But apparently, Limbaugh doesn’t care about that.
Nor, apparently, does Limbaugh care about the long struggle by African-Americans to end the practice that began in 1955 when Rosa Parks, an African-American seamstress, refused to obey the bus driver’s order that she give up her seat at the front of the bus to a white passenger and move to the back of the bus where blacks were required to sit.
Parks’ act of defiance became an important catalyst to the modern civil rights movement with the subsequent launch of the Montgomery bus boycott, led by a young African-American minister named Martin Luther King, Jr. The boycott launched King into national prominence in the civil rights movement and made Parks an international icon of resistance to racial segregation.
The Federal Communications Commission takes a dim view of broadcasters using the radio and TV airwaves to openly advocate breaking the law, but is generally powerless under the First Amendment to do anything to stop them — unless they openly incite violence or the violent overthrow of the government, the latter of which is illegal under the federal Smith Act of 1940.
While neither Limbaugh nor Beck have gone so far as to advocate the violent overthrow of the government — yet — one has to wonder how much longer will it be before they cross that red line.
BECK INFLUENCED BY ‘CRACKPOT’ CONSPIRACY THEORIST?
This isn’t the first time that Beck has gotten himself in trouble over racially-charged remarks. In fact, Beck has been playing the “race card” on the radio for years.
According to columnist Joe Conason, long before he went national with his syndicated radio show, Beck, while a “shock jock” morning-show host on a Kentucky radio station, “regularly mimicked African-American speech patterns for fun.” Conason, citing a lengthy profile of Beck written by Alexander Zaitchik for Salon.com, quotes a former colleague of Beck’s as saying that Beck “used to do a funny ‘black guy’ character, really over the top.”
Conason also writes that Beck is a devotee of author and conspiracy theorist W. Cleon Skousen. “Among Skousen’s pet theories was that Southern slave owners were actually the victims of the plantation system, which according to him, favored the lazy and pampered slaves, whose children he called ‘pickaninnies.'”
Does that mean Beck is a bigot? “If Obama had ever endorsed the writings of Louis Farrakhan,”Conason wrote, “replete with vile slurs against whites and especially Jews, that would certainly be enough for Beck — who says he believes that the president has ‘a deep-seated hatred for white people, or the white culture.’ That must be why the Obama White House has so many whites of all ethnic and religious backgrounds advising the president, from the Cabinet down.”
CONSERVATIVES’ GROWING ALARM OVER BECK
Beck’s increasingly bizarre comments are drawing ire from a growing number of conservative commentators. Lat Tuesday, MSNBC morning host Joe Scarborough, a conservative former Republican congressman, lashed out at Beck, telling viewers, “When you preach this kind of hatred, and say that an African American president hates all white people — hates all white people, you are playing with fire. And bad things can happen. And if they do happen, not only is Glenn Beck responsible, but conservatives who don’t call him out are responsible.”
Scarborough went on to say that he was starting an “honor roll” of conservatives willing to come out against Beck. He made multiple references to Beck’s “race-baiting,” and “wallow[ing] in conspiracy theories.”
Other conservatives, however, are going after Beck’s assertion made during an interview with “CBS Evening News” Anchor Katie Couric on her new Web-only program that John McCain would have made a worse president than Obama — apparently coming to the realization that Beck is a totally unpredictable “loose cannon” whose growing popularity with the radical right-wing fringe is posing a direct threat to the mainstream conservative movement.
A “loose cannon” who apparently doesn’t care for an African-American being president of the United States. Make that two “loose cannons.”
Sincerely,
Skeeter Sanders
Editor & Publisher
The ‘Skeeter Bites Report
# # #
Copyright 2009, Skeeter Sanders. All rights reserved./
cross-posted from www.asrblog.com
Credit to the Burlington Freepress for reporting last week that federal stimulus money slated for road projects may not be distributed wisely throughout Vermont. Because distribution is based on economic hardship in a county and not on the condition of its roads, rural Essex county in the Northeast Kingdom will receive more money than Chittenden County, the state’s largest metropolis. According to the road surveyors, Essex does not have one road that is considered to be in bad shape, while 25% of Chittenden County’s roads are considered “unacceptable.” The rationale for this decision is that the stimulus money must be injected into the economy as quickly as possible, which would not be possible if it were concentrated only in the areas with the worst roads, considering you can’t work on 25% of the roads in one county at the same time. Furthermore, because the unemployment rate in Essex is higher than Chittenden and mean incomes are roughly $22,000 and $42,000 respectively, Essex is getting more money.
While I am fundamentally against the concept of federal stimulus money for reasons such as this glaring inefficiency of spending, not to mention inflation, I am forced to accept that it is being done and will provide a suggestion as such. The primary goal is clearly to get the money in the hands of citizens by way of road construction, with a secondary goal of fixing unacceptable roads, but everyone knows that there is always wiggle room when tabulating business expenditures. So to avoid turning “acceptable” roads in Essex into “super acceptable” roads, bring all the Essex workers into Chittenden county. The drive is too long to commute each day, so spend Essex’s money paying their workers, and spend Chittenden’s money on trailors to house these guys, buses to get them to the job sites, caterers to BBQ for them each night, launderers to take their clothes every couple days, cleaners to keep the trailers looking nice, and of course we can’t forget to make big signs that say PAID FOR BY THE AMERICAN RECOVERY AND REINVESTMENT ACT. Chittenden county has cleaners, sign makers, launderers and caterers, all of whom could be employed to ensure the roads are constructed well. The money will be shot into the economy as fast as if we had only paid road workers in both counties and neglected all these other folks, with an end result of fixing the same number of unacceptable roads in Chittenden.