Troubled History

By Josh Marshall

As we track the escalating number of incidents of right-wing fringers bringing guns to Obama events or other health create town hall events, we are, unsurprisingly, seeing various conservative websites mocking the public concern. "Oh, those Dems, they go all wobbly just because a few upstanding citizens show up with legal firearms." Call it the new girly-manism, it's a sign that Democrats are so many political panty-waists because they've never seen the gun culture up close or just get easily rattled.

It's true that there are some regional divergences at work here. Weapons just don't get carried around in public in say New Jersey or Connecticut the way they do in the South or especially the west.

Why the Public Option Isn't Dispensable

Health reform may not work without it.

By Timothy Noah
Posted Monday, Aug. 17, 2009, at 7:07 PM ET

---

Speculation is rife that the White House will cut loose the "public option"—i.e., the creation of a government health-insurance program to compete against private insurers. The signals aren't new; I began worrying about this nearly six months ago. (See "Is Obama Soft on Health Insurance?") The political mainstream seems to be greeting the latest hints from Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius and others with its usual shrug that politics is the art of the possible; to make a deal, all sides may have to give something up. The trouble in this instance is that political pragmatism conflicts with programmatic pragmatism. Without a public option, there's a very real danger that health reform simply won't work. It might even make things worse.

If the public option gets dropped, the likely reason won't be a lack of commitment in the White House so much as a lack of votes in the Senate. A recent count from the liberal blogger Chris Bowers indicates 43 senators are prepared to vote in favor. That's seven votes shy of the necessary 50 (Vice President Joe Biden being the tiebreaker) if we assume health care reform passes as a "reconciliation" bill not subject to filibuster. If the reconciliation route is averted, it's 17 votes shy of a filibuster-proof majority. Nate Silver, the numbers-crunching blogger at FiveThirtyEight, knocks Bowers' public-option count down to 41, in part because it's doubtful that the gravely ill Sen. Edward Kennedy, D-Mass., will live past the Labor Day recess. On the other hand, Kennedy's death might stir some recalcitrant Democrats to honor his legacy by supporting the public option. (It's worth remembering that a Kennedy death, admittedly under more gruesome and tragic circumstances, helped create Medicare and Medicaid back in 1965.)

DNA evidence can be faked and planted at crime scenes, researchers find

Until now, DNA was considered the "gold standard" of criminal investigations: Hundreds of wrongly convicted individuals have been freed around the world after DNA analysis proved them innocent of their crimes; and many of the guilty have been brought to justice through DNA evidence as well.

But the days of DNA's supremacy in the courtroom could soon come to an end, as researchers in Israel say it can be faked and planted at crime scenes, using basic DNA analysis techniques.

US healthcare debate sick to the heart

By Julian Delasantellis

Whether the late John Hughes will go down as one of the greatest directors of all times in terms of artistic proficiency will be a matter of debate among movie critics; what won't be in question was his ability to spin the box office numbers to amazingly elevated heights. Most prominent among them was 1990's Home Alone, at the time the third highest, and number one comedy, grossing film of all time.

The story begins as an extended American family is marshalling in Chicago for a trip to Paris. The adults, Peter, (John Heard) and Kate (Catherine O'Hara) run through a checklist to make sure they have made all the preparations for the trip, dealing with the house's utilities, their luggage, and, especially, all their nieces, nephews and their own children. To their horror, at the airport they realize that they have forgotten just one thing, their youngest child, 8-year-old Kevin (Macauley Caulkin).

Man carrying assault weapon attends Obama protest

Amanda Lee Myers And Terry Tang, Associated Press Writers
Mon Aug 17, 6:22 pm ET

PHOENIX – About a dozen people carrying guns, including one with a military-style rifle, milled among protesters outside the convention center where President Barack Obama was giving a speech Monday — the latest incident in which protesters have openly displayed firearms near the president.

Gun-rights advocates say they're exercising their constitutional right to bear arms and protest, while those who argue for more gun control say it could be a disaster waiting to happen.

Phoenix police said the gun-toters at Monday's event, including the man carrying an AR-15 semi-automatic rifle slung over his shoulder, didn't need permits. No crimes were committed, and no one was arrested.

In America, Crazy Is a Preexisting Condition

Birthers, Town Hall Hecklers and the Return of Right-Wing Rage

By Rick Perlstein
Sunday, August 16, 2009

In Pennsylvania last week, a citizen, burly, crew-cut and trembling with rage, went nose to nose with his baffled senator: "One day God's going to stand before you, and he's going to judge you and the rest of your damned cronies up on the Hill. And then you will get your just deserts." He was accusing Arlen Specter of being too kind to President Obama's proposals to make it easier for people to get health insurance.

In Michigan, meanwhile, the indelible image was of the father who wheeled his handicapped adult son up to Rep. John Dingell and bellowed that "under the Obama health-care plan, which you support, this man would be given no care whatsoever." He pressed his case further on Fox News.

In New Hampshire, outside a building where Obama spoke, cameras trained on the pistol strapped to the leg of libertarian William Kostric. He then explained on CNN why the "tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time by the blood of tyrants and patriots."

Paul Krugman: The Swiss Menace

It was the blooper heard round the world. In an editorial denouncing Democratic health reform plans, Investor’s Business Daily tried to frighten its readers by declaring that in Britain, where the government runs health care, the handicapped physicist Stephen Hawking “wouldn’t have a chance,” because the National Health Service would consider his life “essentially worthless.”

Professor Hawking, who was born in Britain, has lived there all his life, and has been well cared for by the National Health Service, was not amused.

Besides being vile and stupid, however, the editorial was beside the point. Investor’s Business Daily would like you to believe that Obamacare would turn America into Britain — or, rather, a dystopian fantasy version of Britain. The screamers on talk radio and Fox News would have you believe that the plan is to turn America into the Soviet Union. But the truth is that the plans on the table would, roughly speaking, turn America into Switzerland — which may be occupied by lederhosen-wearing holey-cheese eaters, but wasn’t a socialist hellhole the last time I looked.

Who's behind the attacks on a health care overhaul?

By Margaret Talev | McClatchy Newspapers

WASHINGTON — Much of the money and strategy behind the so-called grassroots groups organizing opposition to the Democrats' health care plans comes from conservative political consultants, professional organizers and millionaires, some of whom hold financial stakes in the outcome.

If President Barack Obama and Congress extend health insurance coverage to millions of uninsured Americans, raise taxes on the wealthy to pay for it, and limit insurers' discretion on who they cover and what they charge, that could pinch these opponents.

Rachel Maddow Slams Dick Armey for Stirring Up Hate in Town Halls

By Staff , MSNBC
Posted on August 17, 2009, Printed on August 17, 2009
http://www.alternet.org/story/142005/

David Gregory: This morning, a special hour-long discussion making sense of health care. What are the issues at the center of the debate? How would reform affect your health care? Separating fact from fiction in the fight. And what does it mean politically for President Obama? With us: former House majority leader Republican Dick Armey, now the head of FreedomWorks, a major organizer of protesters at town hall meetings; Republican Senator Tom Coburn of Oklahoma, a medical doctor and member of the Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions; former Senate majority leader Democrat Tom Daschle, an informal adviser to the White House and author of “Critical: What We Can Do About the Health-Care Crisis”; and Rachel Maddow, host of MSNBC’s “The Rachel Maddow Show.” Plus, additional perspectives from around the country: the chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee, Charlie Rangel of New York; Bruce Josten, executive vice president of the Chamber of Commerce; and Democratic Governor Bill Ritter of Colorado.

False ‘Death Panel’ Rumor Has Some Familiar Roots

By JIM RUTENBERG and JACKIE CALMES

WASHINGTON — The stubborn yet false rumor that President Obama’s health care proposals would create government-sponsored “death panels” to decide which patients were worthy of living seemed to arise from nowhere in recent weeks.

Advanced even this week by Republican stalwarts including the party’s last vice-presidential nominee, Sarah Palin, and Charles E. Grassley, the veteran Iowa senator, the nature of the assertion nonetheless seemed reminiscent of the modern-day viral Internet campaigns that dogged Mr. Obama last year, falsely calling him a Muslim and questioning his nationality.

Dean Baker: The Crazies and the Media

No, I'm not talking about the people who show up at the townhalls yelling about "death panels." I'm talking about folks who are a step down on the evolutionary ladder the people who run the Washington Post.

They were out in full force today spreading misinformation in every direction. In both the lead editorial and a David Broder column we got stern lectures about how the government will soon have to get its fiscal house in order now that the worst of the recession is over.

Don't Blame the Community Reinvestment Act

Homeownership rates and CRA enforcement soared in the 1990s, but sub-prime came later. CRA shouldn't be the scapegoat for the housing meltdown.

Ellen Seidman | August 7, 2009

The mortgage crisis is far from over. Foreclosure filings in the first quarter of 2009 increased 24 percent over the already-heady 2008 levels; April filings were up 1 percent over March and 32 percent over the prior April. During 2008, foreclosure notices were filed on over 2 million properties, and banks took back more than 850,000 properties. Delinquencies continue to climb: 7.88 percent of all mortgages on one- to four-unit buildings were delinquent at the end of 2008, the highest rate on record. For sub-prime loans, the rate was 21.88 percent and almost 14 percent of sub-prime loans were in foreclosure. With home prices still falling -- in March 2009 prices were down 32.2 percent from their 2006 peak -- and unemployment now at 9.4 percent and still rising, it is unlikely the situation will get better any time soon.

The Penance Has Not Been Paid

Following up on this item from yesterday, I had an interesting conversation via email yesterday with Bruce Bartlett, a veteran of the Reagan and H.W. Bush administrations. Bruce made a point that really resonated with me, and he was gracious enough to allow me to republish it here.

I believe that political parties should do penance for their mistakes and just losing power is not enough. Part of that involves understanding why those mistakes were made and how to prevent them from happening again. Republicans, however, have done no penance. They just pretend that they did nothing wrong. But until they do penance they don't deserve any credibility and should be ignored until they do.

Barak Obama: Why We Need Health Care Reform

OUR nation is now engaged in a great debate about the future of health care in America. And over the past few weeks, much of the media attention has been focused on the loudest voices. What we haven’t heard are the voices of the millions upon millions of Americans who quietly struggle every day with a system that often works better for the health-insurance companies than it does for them.

These are people like Lori Hitchcock, whom I met in New Hampshire last week. Lori is currently self-employed and trying to start a business, but because she has hepatitis C, she cannot find an insurance company that will cover her. Another woman testified that an insurance company would not cover illnesses related to her internal organs because of an accident she had when she was 5 years old. A man lost his health coverage in the middle of chemotherapy because the insurance company discovered that he had gallstones, which he hadn’t known about when he applied for his policy. Because his treatment was delayed, he died.

Homeowners tell how banks failed to modify mortgages

By Kevin G. Hall | McClatchy Newspapers

Nearly three years into the deepest U.S. housing slump in generations, lenders are modifying only a small number of problem mortgages, and rising foreclosures are restraining the economy's recovery.

Frank Rich: ‘Mad Men’ Crashes Woodstock’s Birthday

IN our 24/7 mediasphere, this weekend’s misty Woodstock commemorations must share the screen with Americans screaming bloody murder at town hall meetings. It’s a vivid reminder that what most endures from America, 1969, is not the peace-and-love flower-power bacchanal of Woodstock legend but a certain style of political rage. The angry white folk shouting down their congressmen might be — literally in some cases — those angry white students whose protests disrupted campuses before and after the Woodstock interlude of summer vacation ’69.

The most historically resonant television event this weekend, however, may be none of the above. Sunday night is the premiere of the third season of “Mad Men,” the AMC series about a fictional Madison Avenue ad agency in the early 1960s. The first episode is to be simulcast in Times Square after a costume party where fans can parade their retro wardrobes. This promotional event is Woodstock, corporate style, with martinis instead of marijuana, Sinatra instead of Shankar and narrow ties supplanting the tie-dyed.

Woodstock’s 40th anniversary is being celebrated as well — with new books, a new documentary, a new Ang Lee movie and the inevitable remastered DVDs and CDs. But it’s “Mad Men” that has the pulse of our moment. Though the show unfolds in an earlier America than Woodstock, it seems of far more recent vintage, for better and for worse.

Loophole in government program to buy toxic securities could cost taxpayers

Without safeguards, traders in the $40-billion program could use inside information to profit -- and any losses would be largely borne by taxpayers.

By Ralph Vartabedian

August 14, 2009

Reporting from Washington

A controversial $40-billion government program to buy toxic securities from ailing banks has a flaw that law enforcement and financial experts say could allow traders to illegally profit from inside information.

Critics of the program say that without adequate safeguards, traders could use the tens of billions of dollars provided by the government to manipulate prices and exploit the price swings in other trades.

I’ll Stop Calling it “Destroying” Social Security When They Stop Trying to Destroy Social Security

Gail Collins offers a bit of the own pox on both houses:

I like partisanship. What I don’t like, and what nobody likes, is the brain-dead variety we see in Congress where the minority party would rather make a bill worse in the hopes that it would fail than make it better in case it passes. So the Republicans make it impossible for the Democrats to put cost controls in the health care plan by howling “rationing!” And back when the Democrats were in the minority, they made sure that any attempt to contain the cost of entitlements was immediately branded “destruction of Social Security”…

Look. Social Security is projected to face a deficit over the long haul. Expenditures, in other words, are projected to exceed revenues. People concerned about this problem will be proposing some mixture of higher revenues and lower expenditures.

Katha Pollitt: Healthcare We Can Believe In

I am not a wonk. Usually this is not a problem. But when it comes to healthcare reform, it matters. You see, I long to dash forward, flaming sword in hand, to champion President Obama's healthcare plan. Every day I get e-mails from Health Care for America Now, Organizing for America, MoveOn.org and similar groups urging me to write my Congressman, attend a town-hall meeting, host a gathering. But how can I speak knowledgeably about a plan that does not yet exist and in which the parameters keep shifting?

I'd like to tell people, Obama's plan is great--for example, it has a public option that will insure those who can't afford private coverage, help rein in the insurance companies by competing with them for members and drive down drug prices through forceful negotiation. But maybe the final bill won't allow the government to negotiate drug prices, because that's the price of Big Pharma's support, which apparently the Obama administration negotiated for in secrecy. Maybe it won't even have a public plan; it will have insurance co-ops instead. And then, maybe, I should say those will be just as good, as Rahm Emanuel's brother, Ezekiel Emanuel, the MD/PhD bioethicist, says.

John Brennan's Dangerous National Security Advice

by Marcy Wheeler

Last year, Glenn posted some statements from now-Deputy National Security Advisor John Brennan [1] on counterterrorism. The post contributed to pressure that led Brennan to withdraw his candidacy to be CIA Director (which is how he ended up as Deputy NSA, which doesn't require congressional approval).

In addition to passages on rendition and torture, Glenn linked to an NPR story [2] attributing Obama's switch on counterterrorism issues -- particularly his infamous flip-flop on retroactive immunity for the telecoms that had illegally spied on Americans -- to Brennan.

What's important in that statement is Obama's reference to "the information I've received." He's advised on intelligence matters by John Brennan, the former director of the National Counterterrorism Center. Like many intelligence professionals, Brennan says the FISA program is essential to the fight against terrorism.

By adopting Brennan's view, Obama improves his standing with the intelligence community; for someone looking ahead to a presidential administration, that's important.

So it was under Brennan's tutelage that Obama came to the following conclusion about Bush's illegal domestic surveillance program.