Happy Hour Roundup
* Looks like John Boehner isn’t going to apologize for his insulting comments about garlic earlier today. Boehner spokesman Michael Steel emails me:
“We can joke all we want, but the American people know that — like a garlic milkshake – the Democrats’ government takeover of healthcare just stinks.”
* Seriously, Boehner said today that he’s “still trying to find the first American” who favors the public option, but 57% in his home state say they do.
* Alan Grayson’s new fan base has already shelled out over $100,000 for him since “die quickly.”
* It turns out there’s a rhetorical line that Grayson won’t cross: His office distances him from an aide’s claim that failure to act on health care is “similar to murdering the uninsured.”
* Organizing for America concedes error in distributing talking points describing the public option as “just one small part” of reform.
* Joe Sudbay says OFA’s public option message is scrambled.
* This one may kick up a fuss: GOP Rep says top military officials may walk if Obama doesn’t get it right on Afghanistan.
* Interesting takes from Bob Somerby and Eric Boehlert on the real problem with The New York Times’s coverage of conservatives.
* No Republicans will be present to help write the final Senate health care bill, says a thoroughly unapologetic Tom Harkin.
* Eric Cantor says Republicans have been snubbed.
* Not much condemnation on the right, though there was a bit, of Newsmax’s “coup” article.
* And now that Ben Smith is moderating a health care debate between Anthony Weiner and original death panel creator Betsy McCaughey, he should really get himself a wet suit.
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There would be nothing better for America than to have a good chunk of the military brass walk. The ranks were purged of all but Bush yes men anyhow … I still can’t believe Obama put torturer extraordinaire McChrystal in charge of Afghanistan. That’s working out just as one would expect – he’s briefing in the press against the commander in chief. Pathetic lot these neocons.
Here’s the Cantwell ammendment that passed the Finance Committee today, 12-11 with only Lincoln as a nay. It’s only a couple of pages long. Maybe I’m mistaken but I think this is fairly good news, it’s certainly not perfect and hasn’t been scored by CBO yet, but it’s probably as good as we can get out of this committee. Just curiou what everyone else thinks.
http://big.assets.huffingtonpost.com/CantwellAmdmt.pdf
curious, sheesh!
Here is another decent article on Grayson.
I guess this guy is good at putting people on the spot. He’s grilled Bernanke and the Fed IG pretty hard on bailout info.
Sounds like an all around good guy.
Social Security was cash flow negative to the tune of ~$6 billion in August. Fabius Maximus has the numbers … and some really excellent analysis
http://fabiusmaximus.wordpress.com/2009/10/01/solvency-2/
Freehold
I especially like this section:
“This does not mean that social security will go broke. Social security contributions are just taxes. Social security benefits are promises by the US government, and can be changed at will. Instead this marks an inflection point for the government’s solvency. For decades the taxes for Medicare and social security exceeded expenditures on those programs. The government spent this money.”
With high unemployment and subsequent earlier retirement of 62+ year olds, I wouldn’t really expect the numbers to reflect anything different than what was shown. With the repeal of the Bush tax cuts and if we can find a way to begin defunding some of our military spending and also an end to this horrible recession hopefully things will get better. If we can also fix healthcare so it’s not eating up so much of individual, corporate and government wealth that would stem the losses.
Looks like we can cut health care spending by 30% without affecting health outcomes, if we have the will to do it.
lmsinca:
Looks like we can cut health care spending by 30% without affecting health outcomes, if we have the will to do it.
How?
For the pleasure of wingnuts here, Grayson on Ed’s show – a twofer… Enjoy “republican party = A Lie Factory” a$$kicking
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qtra54pbcNw&feature=player_embedded
“Government Ordered to Release Much of What Cheney Told Leak Investigators” http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/10/01/AR2009100102746.html?hpid=moreheadlines
Good ruling. Cheney’s obsession with keeping an opague wall between his activities and citizens is a behavior and philosophy closer to the totalitarian than to the democratic. We’ll see what comes out and what is held back.
I especially like this section:
Yea, I thought you might. Glad you found it interesting enough to get that far down. I’ve been reading him off and on for a couple of years. Lots of data, calm analysis, his comments on the comments are fun.
Did anyone note this graph from Gerson’s column this morning?
“In the end, it is American leaders who can talk Israeli leaders off the ledge of military confrontation. This is possible only if Israelis trust American goodwill, competence and strength of purpose. The immediate precedent does not encourage confidence. Israelis look at the North Korean crisis and see an example of meticulous, multilateral cooperation resulting in spectacular counterproliferation failure. Why, they wonder, is Iran going to be different? Weak American credibility on North Korea has strengthened the argument for direct Israeli action against Iran.”
Note “the immediate precedent” phrase. He means, but hasn’t the integrity to refer directly to, “the prior administration that I worked in and supported with nary a quibble”. He could also add, if he was honest in the slightest, “we pursued a policy of non-discussion, of threat and insult, and we hoped that if we looked all big and scary with the “shock and awe!!” thing then NK would get scared of our huge ****** and that would be that. But as everyone knows, NK made all these achievements while my administration was in charge and incompetently going about its foreign affairs duties.” I don’t much like Gerson.
But I like Goldfarb and his boss even less…
“As Think Progress notes, last night the boss floated a very well-sourced rumor that Secretary Gates will be out by the end of the year and replaced by Chuck Hagel, who the boss described as an “advocate of retreat everywhere.” Indeed Hagel is not only an advocate of retreat everywhere, he is set to be the keynote speaker at J Street’s Israel-bashing conference at the end of the month. If Kristol’s intel is on target, watch for Hagel to skip the J Street confab in favor of something more respectable…like a Van Jones seminar on the collapse of World Trade Center 7.”
“J Street’s Israel bashing”. Criticism of Likud policies, by other jews than the war-mongering neoconservative crowd related to Kristol on settlement and on negotiations with Palestinians and on beginning a war with Iran equals – always – Israel bashing and jewish self-hatred.
http://www.weeklystandard.com/Weblogs/TWSFP/TWSFPView.asp#13444
Israel/Iran/Obama and prior administration failures as seen by the reality-based community… http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/
ps to fh…couldn’t resist that last bit
Folks,
Notice how this Mark C. jerk is just a comments parasite. He just feeds off of other people’s comments.
Do not engage such a parasite. Let him come up with some original comments of his own.
Bernie,
I read the link.
Personally, I do not find it credible that Iran is going to all this trouble and cost to develop civilian nuclear power and medical isotopes. They are sitting on huge gas fields, and I suspect could buy turnkey nuclear plants with fuel from several countries if they really wanted that. Occam’s razor, I think they are after nuclear weapons.
As for the negotiations, they have managed to drag this out for a long, long time … with no real impediment to doing what they want to do. Deadlines come and go.
I’d really like Obama to be successful in this. I don’t think he will be. We’ll see.
@freehold – I’m certain that Iran is after nukes. Their resistance to international checks and their denials precisely mirror what Ben Gurion did and said some years ago. Couldn’t resist that one either, but it’s true.
The consequences of Khan’s push of technology out into the world has been seriously detrimental. This is one corner of it. But it is the present reality. And what to do about it is on everyone’s mind. My opinion is that an Israeli attack on Iran would have consequences far more dire and certain than allowing (if that ends up being another reality) Iran to hold such weapons (which I really don’t want). I consider there is zero (or next to it) chance that Iran will attack Israel for the obvious massive retributive strikes on them that would follow. The neoconservative camp (and extremists in Israel) do not, I think, demonstrate any actual desire for peaceful international relations. This seems to arise from a deeply Hobbesian view of the world and of human behavior (the PNAC is precisely this).
And I want to point out another bit of deeply deceitful propagandizing by Kristol and Hewitt…
“When Hewitt asked him [Kristol] if a resignation by one of Obama’s top foreign policy advisers “would mobilize public opinion” against Obama’s decisions, Kristol said “it would help.” http://thinkprogress.org/2009/10/01/kristol-hagel-rumor/
They are talking here about Galbraith (who else?) and there is likely not a single issue on which Kristol and Hewitt would agree with Galbraith on. They use this merely as a means to project a negative notion about Obama and his policies.
It’s been a colorful fight. http://www.newsy.com/videos/not_much_of_a_healthy_option
Bernie,
“They are talking here about Galbraith (who else?) and there is likely not a single issue on which Kristol and Hewitt would agree with Galbraith on. They use this merely as a means to project a negative notion about Obama and his policies.”
If you follow the links to the transcript, you will see that you are in error.
Not sure what about this is “deeply deceitful propogandizing” anyway, except that you apply such descriptions to essentially any expression of opinions contrary to your own.
Bernie,
Yea, off-the-cuff I think Iran would actually have been better off to just say they have as much right to nuclear weapons as France or Pakistan (kind of hard to argue with that), that they have decided to build them because they think its in their national interest, and avoided doing/saying things that make them look irrational. They could ask the French and Brits for C&C and weapon interlock and security advice, for instance.
Nobody worries much about the French having nukes.
As you note, Iran having nukes is probably a bad thing. If they have them other regional powers are going to want them too. More possibility for weapons getting into the hands of non-state actors. Eventually something very bad is likely to happen if there are enough players.
Bernie said:
“Good ruling. Cheney’s obsession with keeping an opague wall between his activities and citizens is a behavior and philosophy closer to the totalitarian than to the democratic. We’ll see what comes out and what is held back.”
Has Obama taken a materially different position on secrecy and transparency? Did Clinton?
The reason more conservatives didn’t react to John L. Perry’s column is probably that most conservatives, like me, have never heard of him and, after reading the column after it was highlighted by the hysterical left, just thought it was a stupid and ill-conceived piece written by some guy who is not altogether in touch.
(Oh my, that grammarian blogger linked by Greg would be offended by my double use of “after,” but then he is in need of some help with English himself. And with reading and logic, despite chiding others on those issues.)
And Perry’s bio does indeed show his background is Democratic. I never read Newsmax, but their bloggers do include liberals and Democrats.
Sorry, but I’m not going to get worked up about it.
qb:
Not sure what about this is “deeply deceitful propogandizing” anyway, except that you apply such descriptions to essentially any expression of opinions contrary to your own.
You’ve noticed that too?