Reich writes a letter

Robert Reich (TPM): Memo to the President: What You Must Do To Save Universal Health Care

Mr. President:

Momentum for universal health care is slowing dramatically on Capitol Hill. Moderates are worried, Republicans are digging in, and the medical-industrial complex is firing up its lobbying and propaganda machine.

But, as you know, the worst news came days ago when the Congressional Budget Office weighed in with awful projections about how much the leading healthcare plans would cost and how many Americans would still be left out in the cold. Yet these projections didn't include the savings that a public option would generate by negotiating lower drug prices, doctor fees, and hospital costs, and forcing private insurers to be more competitive. Projecting the future costs of universal health care without including the public option is like predicting the number of people who will get sunburns this summer if nobody is allowed to buy sun lotion. Of course the costs of universal health care will be huge if the most important way of controlling them is left out of the calculation.

If you want to save universal health care, you must do several things, and soon:

1. Go to the nation. You must build public support by forcefully making the case for universal health care everywhere around the country. The latest Wall Street Journal/NBC poll shows that three out of four Americans want universal health care. But the vast majority don't know what's happening on the Hill, don't know how much money the medical-industrial lobbies are spending to defeat it, and have no idea how much demagoguery they're about to be exposed to. You must tell them. And don't be reluctant to take on those vested interests directly. Name names. They've decided to fight you. You must fight them.

2. Be LBJ. So far, Lyndon Johnson has been the only president to defeat American Medical Association and the rest of the medical-industrial complex. He got Medicare and Medicaid enacted despite their cries of "socialized medicine" because he knocked heads on the Hill. He told Congress exactly what he wanted, cajoled and threatened those who resisted, and counted noses every hour until he had the votes he needed. When you're not on the road, you need to be twisting congressional arms and drawing a line in the sand. Be tough.

3. Forget the Republicans. Forget bipartisanship. Universal health care can pass with 51 votes. You can get 51 votes if you give up on trying to persuade a handful of Republicans to cross over. Eight year ago George W. Bush passed his huge tax cut, mostly for the wealthy, by wrapping it in an all-or-nothing reconciliation measure and daring Democrats to vote against it. You should do the same with health care.

4. Insist on a real public option. It's the lynchpin of universal health care. Don't accept Kent Conrad's ersatz public option masquerading as a "healthcare cooperative." Cooperatives won't have the authority, scale, or leverage to negotiate low prices and keep private insurers honest.

5. Demand that taxes be raised on the wealthy to ensure that all Americans get affordable health care. At the rate healthcare costs are rising, not even a real public option will hold down costs enough to make health care affordable to most American families in years to come. So you'll need to tax the wealthy. Don't back down on your original proposal to limit their deductions. And support a cap on how much employee-provided health care can be provided tax free. (Yes, you opposed this during your campaign. But you have no choice but to reverse yourself on this.) These are the only two big pots of money.

6. Put everything else on hold. As important as they are, your other agenda items -- financial reform, home mortgage mitigation, cap-and-trade legislation -- pale in significance relative to universal health care. By pushing everything at once, you take the public's mind off the biggest goal, diffuse your energies, blur your public message, and fuel the demagogues who say you're trying to take over the private sector.

You have to win this.

Your obedient servant, RBR

Wingnuts on Parade

John Cole: The Most Useless People On the Planet

Your United States Congress:

The House overwhelmingly approved a resolution Friday in support of Iranian dissidents as that country’s top cleric warned protesters to end demonstrations.

The resolution was approved in a 405-1 vote, with two members voting present. Rep. Ron Paul (R-Texas) was the only lawmaker opposed to the resolution. Reps. Keith Ellison (D-Minn.) and David Loebsack (D-Iowa) voted present.

They simply just can not keep their mouths shut, and rather than working on issues within their authority, they waste everyone’s time with this nonsense. Additionally, the administration had to scramble the troops to water down the resolution from the one wingnut in chief Mike Pence was offering:

The White House worked with House Democrats to moderate a fire-breathing resolution circulated by Republicans to rebuke Iran for its post-election crackdown on dissent, according to an Obama aide.

The new resolution, similar to a version introduced in the Senate, “condemns the ongoing violence against demonstrators by the Government of Iran and pro-government militias, as well as the ongoing government suppression of independent electronic communication through interference with the Internet and cellphones.”

It’s expected to pass the House today.

The language, while relatively strong, is a toned-down version of the resolution pushed for by House GOP Conference Chairman Mike Pence (R-Ind.).

There was no point in offering this resolution, and I bet that Iran and the rest of the world will find any resolution about as compelling as the Bush administration found the Berkeley City Council’s vote to impeach Bush and Cheney.

Only Ron Paul voted against it.

JedL is Paging Glenn Beck

Glenn Beck says he's not a partisan tool, and claims that the only thing he cares about is stopping the "brutal thugs" running the Federal government from telling states what to do.

Time for him to put up or shut up, because John Boehner is hailing a decision by the federal officials to force Ohio state officials to change their allocation of stimulus dollars.

The stated intent of the so-called stimulus package was to create jobs, and certainly a $57 million slush-fund studying projects did nothing to achieve that goal. With Ohio’s unemployment rate the highest it’s been in 25 years, I’m pleased that federal officials stepped in to order Ohio to use all of its construction dollars for shovel-ready projects that will create much-needed jobs.

So, Glenn, how about targeting John Boehner with one of your black helicopter rants about how the Federal government is coming to take us all away?

Or would that be biting the hand that's feeding you?

(Meanwhile, back on planet Earth, it's nice to see Boehner concede the stimulus bill will generate much-needed jobs.)

Yglesias: Mike Pence’s Dangerous Game

Tom Ricks watches a Mike Pence (R-IN) appearance on Fox News and comes away fearing for the lives of Iran’s brave protestors:

I just hope that Iranian protestors know not to take this clown seriously.

This problem goes to the essence of strategy: A “tough” stance that Fox’s anchors are pushing might feel good, but it likely would be unproductive. A sober stance of the sort that Obama has taken is more difficult but likely more effective in the long run.

For quite some time now I’ve been trying to emphasize the point that Pence is not an intelligent man. It’s good to see Ricks notice this as well. But I think it’s important for people in the journalism game to get a bit more interdisciplinary on this. Oftentimes people are inclined to grant the benefit of the doubt. A Ricks might say “well, this guy doesn’t know what he’s talking about on national security, but maybe his energy ideas make sense.” Ask around, though, and you’ll see it’s not the case. He’s just got dumb ideas on all sorts of topics. And it’s worth aggressively making that point. It’s all well and good to “hope” that Iranian protestors recognize that he’s a “clown” and shouldn’t be taken seriously. But the odds are actually pretty good that foreigners will take the situation at face value—he’s one of the highest-ranking and most prominent members of a major political party, so surely his pronouncements should be taken seriously. Right? Because if such a high-level party leader were, in fact, a “clown” then people would hear about that. Right?

• Benen adds: SO MUCH FOR 'WATER'S EDGE'....

  I remember a time -- I believe it's known as "2001 through 2008" -- when congressional Republicans believed politics had to end at the water's edge. They also believed that the United States couldn't have individual members of Congress coming up with their own foreign policies -- these responsibilities were in the hands of the president.

  Ah, the good old days.

  House Republican Caucus Chairman Mike Pence (Ind.) has spent the last few days advocating in support of a resolution, weighing in on developments in Iran. Pence has said he realizes where President Obama has "drawn the line," but he "respectfully disagrees" with the administration. Pence added that the U.S. can't "stay neutral," so his resolution is necessary to "condemn the violence."

  In our reality, Obama has already expressed "deep concerns about the election," and publicly shared his concerns about "violence directed at peaceful protesters," but maybe Pence wasn't paying attention. Maybe he doesn't care. Maybe he wants to intervene in such a way as to undermine U.S. foreign policy, just to see what happens.

  After watching Pence grandstand on (where else?) Fox News this morning, Tom Ricks expressed concern that Iranians might not realize why it's important to ignore Mike Pence.

  I just hope that Iranian protestors know not to take this clown seriously.

  This problem goes to the essence of strategy: A "tough" stance that Fox's anchors are pushing might feel good, but it likely would be unproductive. A sober stance of the sort that Obama has taken is more difficult but likely more effective in the long run.

  I was cautiously optimistic that Republicans would realize this, especially after Obama's approach was endorsed by prominent conservatives who focus on foreign policy (Lugar, Kissinger, Sick, et al). Alas, a few too many GOP leaders have other ideas.

  Watching this unfold, I am reminded of something Matt Yglesias wrote earlier this year: "The larger issue ... is that Mike Pence is a moron, and any movement that would hold the guy up as a hero is bankrupt.... I would refer you to this post from September about the earth-shattering ignorance and stupidity of Mike Pence.... [I]t's really staggering. In my admittedly brief experience talking to him, his inability to grasp the basic contours of policy question was obvious and overwhelming."

BarbinMD: Republican Tantrum: Your Tax Dollars At Work

If you thought the Party of No had already shown us the outer limits of what whiney-ass victims they could be, think again:

Republicans angry over what they regarded as mistreatment by the majority Democrats retaliated by demanding roll call votes 52 times on one bill, a $64 billion spending bill for law enforcement and science programs next year.

They asked for votes on some two dozen amendments, even noncontroversial ones that passed unanimously. Then they asked for revotes. Then they demanded votes on whether they could vote for a third time. Once they ran out of amendments they came up with a couple more revisions to the bill they could vote on.

And these are the people that Democrats are bending over backwards to placate on issues like health care reform.

Benen: ENSIGN'S EVOLVING MOTIVATION...

So, why did Sen. John Ensign (R-Nev.) publicly acknowledge his extra-marital affair with an aide? It's a humiliating revelation, which has already cost Ensign his leadership position among Senate Republicans, but it's still a little unclear what Ensign was hoping to achieve.

The original line was that Ensign believed his mistress' husband, another former aide to the senator, was going to blackmail him. Today, we get another possible explanation -- the husband sent a letter to Fox News' Megyn Kelly, giving her the scoop on the story.

In a letter dated five days before Sen. John Ensign's public confession of an extramarital affair, Doug Hampton pleaded to a national Fox News anchorwoman for help in exposing the senator's "heinous conduct and pursuit" of Hampton's wife.

Hours before the Sun obtained an unsigned copy of the letter, Ensign's spokesman said the senator disclosed the affair with Cynthia Hampton because her husband had approached "a major television news channel before Tuesday," the day Ensign admitted the affair. "We learned of this fact before the news conference," the spokesman noted in an e-mail.

Doug Hampton's letter to Fox News' Kelly is a little odd, but it explains Ensign's "relentless pursuit of my wife," which "ruined our lives and careers and left my family in shambles." He offered to present a "paper trail, phone records and personal witnesses" to bolster his accusation against Ensign, and urged Kelly to "please help" him.

He added that he "could have sought the most liberal, Republican hating media to expose this story, but there are people's lives at stake and justice is about proper process as well as outcome. Senator Ensign has no business serving in the US Senate anymore!"

The Politico added that this letter "sheds new light on why Ensign decided to make the announcement Tuesday." Well, maybe.

Doug Hampton wrote a long, strange letter to a pseudo-journalist who works at a network committed to helping conservative Republican officeholders and candidates. Are we to assume John Ensign's Senate office heard about the letter to Fox News and leapt into action, genuinely worried that Megyn Kelly would humiliate the senator by launching an exclusive Fox News investigation into this? Isn't it far more likely that Kelly would have ignored the letter?

Maybe Ensign and his aides figured that Hampton would, sooner or later, find someone in the "liberal, Republican-hating media" to report on this, and it was better to take control of the story before that happened. But I find it hard to imagine the senator and his team were seriously worried about a hard-hitting Megyn Kelly expose against a fellow Republican.

• Marcy Wheeler adds: Ensign’s Senate Colleagues Confronted Him about His Affair in February 2008
  

  The Las Vegas Sun has posted the letter John Ensign's cuckold, Doug Hampton, sent Fox News not long before Ensign admitted his affair. In it, he reveals there was a confrontation over the affair in February 2008 that Tom Coburn attended.

  The unethical behavior and immoral choice of Senator Ensign has been confronted by me and others on a number of occasions over this past year. In fact one of the confrontations took place in February 2008 at his home in Washington DC (sic) with a group of his peers. One of the attendee’s (sic) was Senator Tom Coburn from Oklahoma as well as several other men who are close to the Senator. Senator Ensign’s conduct and relentless pursuit of my wife led to our dismissal in April of 2008. I would like to say he stopped his heinous conduct and pursuit upon our leaving, but that was not the case and his actions did not subside until August of 2008.

  No wonder the Republicans don't really want to talk about this--they've known about it for over a year. Here's what Coburn had to say:

  Reporters mobbed Tom Coburn of Oklahoma, who shares an apartment with Ensign on Capitol Hill. "I'm not answering any Ensign questions," he announced. "You can ask all you want."

  "You don't have any thoughts?"

  "I don't have any thoughts."

  "Have you had a chance to talk about it?"

  "I'm just not going to comment."

  Finally, Coburn was badgered into making a defense. "He is a bright young man," the senator said of his 51-year-old colleague. "Lots of people make mistakes."

  Also in the letter, Hampton describes his fears that efforts to pursue justice in this matter may put his family "in harm's way."

  The actions of Senator Ensign have ruined our lives and careers and left my family in shambles. We have lost significant income, suffered indescribable pain and emotional suffering. We find ourselves today with an overwhelming loss of relationships, career opportunities and hope for recovery. Our pursuit of justice continues to place me and my family in harm’s way as we fear for our well being (sic).

  Ut oh--this is Las Vegas this guy is talking about.

  Hampton talks about a lot more details in this affar--I wonder who Hampton is going to give the exclusive to for that story?

Health Care

Yglesias: The Popularity of the Public Plan

There’s something very frustrating about the way public opinion polling plays into the legislative process. If you talk about the idea of increasing the gas tax, then you hear that even though that’s a good idea it can’t be done because it’s unpopular. But if you talk about health care reform and the inclusion of a strong public plan, suddenly public opinion becomes irrelevant. Ezra Klein pulled this number out of an NBC/WSJ poll:

And not only is the idea of a public option popular in the abstract, the inclusion of a robust public option would save a lot of money and thus allow the congress to minimize its reliance on unpopular measures like tax increases. But suddenly here public opinion becomes irrelevant. You never hear a Blue Dog say “my seat is so vulnerable that I can’t afford not to back a super-popular public plan.” Ben Nelson’s not talking about how if Democrats want to stay viable in red states they need to robustly back a 70-20 issue like the public plan. The WSJ doesn’t run a headline saying “Opposition to Public Option Spells Political Trouble for Republicans.” Public opinion, in other words, can be a reason to eschew sound progressive policy but never a reason to enact it.

C&L: Senate Finance Committee: We're Going to Make You Buy Insurance With No Public Option

This is just pathetic:

• Lower the medicaid coverage rate from 150% to 100% of the fFderal poverty line, 133% for kids and pregnant women (once you have the baby, too bad for you)
• Subsidies stop at 300% of the poverty line (was 400%)
• No Public Option mentioned
• Insurance exchanges at the State level
• Must buy insurance unless it costs more than 15% of your income
• A fine if you don't buy insurance unless you're below the Federal poverty line

For the most part, as Walker discusses, this is about the same as or worse than the plan put forward by America's Health Insurance Plans (AHIP). Yes, worse than the insurance industry's plan. Remarkable. Baucus is really earning his campaign donations these days.

Of course, this is only one proposal, and in principle others from the House and other Senate committees could be better, and the better ones could be enacted. Obama has said he wants a public option, and he may whip for it.

But, if something like this is what comes out as the eventual "reform" it is worse than nothing. Being forced to buy bad insurance, with huge co-pays without a public option to keep prices in check has as its primary value that it is a subsidy for the insurance companies and that it reduces catastrophic healthcare costs for hospitals, because due to forced purchases of bad plans, some of the folks who used to come in at the last minute, after having not gotten care, and then costing the hospital hundreds of thousands of dollars in emergency care, will be partially paid for. They'll still come in last minute and not have been properly cared for since the deductibles will mean they didn't get help, but 70% or 80% of their final death-rattle costs will be paid for.

The problem with this plan is that it won't control costs. Without a public option, the insurance companies will have no check on their prices, let alone pressure to actually reduce them. Because people will be forced to buy bad insurance, they'll hate the plan, and because "reform" has been passed, we'll have to wait another 10 or 12 years for another shot.

Obama desperately wants to pass health care "reform". The fear is that he may take the easy road, and pass any bill that is "better than nothing", and that progressives will once again accept the logic that it's better to get something rather than fight for an actual good bill.

But because Obama does desperately want to pass something, if progressives stand firm in the House or the Senate, and refuse as a bloc to pass anything without a good public option, nothing can pass unless Republicans cross the aisle, which is rather unlikely.

So the answer is to stop being taken for granted. Stand up for and demand a public option, and refuse to accept a bill which does less. Don't let Obama have a cheap victory; a cheap "medicare reform". If he wants it, make him whip for a real bill, a good bill, with a public option. He whipped for money to bail out banks in Eastern Europe. He whipped for TARP. He can whip for a good healthcare bill. And it won't even cost 700 billion.

Anonymous Liberal: Giving Away Your Bargaining Chips

I'm starting to get very pessimistic about the prospect of meaningful health care reform ever happening. We have a popular Democratic President who was elected less than a year ago with a mandate to reform health care and a very clear plan for doing so. We have large Democratic majorities in both houses, including a soon-to-be 60 seat majority in the Senate. The public is massively in favor of comprehensive health care reform. And yet, the Democrats seem to lack the will to even get a meaningful bill out of committee. Ezra Klein reports that the Senate Finance Committee has now dropped the public option from its bill and scaled back the bill significantly. The new plan is relies on government-seeded health care "co-ops" to provide more options to consumers. Remarkably, the plan still contains a mandate to buy coverage (along with subsidies for those who can't afford the cost).

Ezra concludes that while the new bill is far less than he would have hoped for, it would still incrementally improve the overall health care landscape in this country.

I'm sure that's true, but there's a massive opportunity cost to doing health care reform this way. First, from a political perspective, there will never be a more favorable climate for passing health care reform. The stars are aligned right now. The Democrats control all branches of government and have significant popular support. And with wide scale unemployment and lack of job security, many people are either uninsured or desperate for a system in which they don't have to constantly worry about losing their health care coverage. As time goes by and the next election nears, it will only get harder to pass meaningful reform.

Second, when you try to do health care reform piecemeal, you end up sacrificing the bargaining chips you need to get everyone on board. To take the most obvious example, the public option is incredibly unpopular with insurance companies. They know that the existence of a public option will eat into their profits and force them to be more competitive. Indeed, that's the entire point. On the other hand, insurance companies love the idea of an individual mandate. If everyone has to buy insurance, that means more customers for them, and a bigger risk pool.

By including a mandate but not a public option, the Finance Committee is essentially giving away our biggest bargaining chip with insurance companies. Once a mandate is in place, the insurance companies will have what they want and will simply devote all their lobbying efforts to killing any future attempts to create a public option. It's just bad strategy.

And frankly, it's bad politics as well. Mandates will be easy to demagogue. People don't like being told they have to buy something, even if there are lots of exceptions and subsidies. If the law is ever passed, Republicans will run ads highlighting the fines and penalties in the law for those who don't buy insurance. These attacks will be much easier to defend against if the bill also gives people an inexpensive, reliable public option. People like choices, and a great many of them would prefer the option of being insured by the government, knowing that the government won't deny them coverage because of a pre-existing condition or rescind their policy without warning based on some trivial omission in their application.

Moreover, if you have a mandate without a public option, it means that 100% of the subsidies the government is paying out to help people buy coverage go directly to the insurance companies. This amounts to a massive give-away of taxpayer money. Again, the insurance companies get to have their cake and eat it too. They get a whole bunch of new paying customers and no new competition to keep them honest and control costs.

I really think the Obama administration is being too cautious on this. They need to take the helm and really, forcefully make the case for the inclusion of a public option. If the public option doesn't happen now, it's not going to happen.

Media malfeasance

Go to this WaPost ombud link and read the comments. Really. Read them. Post Axes Froomkin's "White House Watch" Then go read this new post by Greenwald: The Washington Post, Dan Froomkin and the establishment media


Benen: TWO NEOCONS, ONE MESSAGE, ONE PAGE....

The Washington Post editorial page does it again. This morning, it publishes two separate columns from two separate neocons, both making the same (bogus) argument about the same issue on the same page.

First we have Charles Krauthammer who's convinced that President Obama is "afraid to take sides between the head-breaking, women-shackling exporters of terror [in Iran] -- and the people in the street yearning to breathe free."

Millions of Iranians take to the streets to defy a theocratic dictatorship that, among its other finer qualities, is a self-declared enemy of America and the tolerance and liberties it represents. The demonstrators are fighting on their own, but they await just a word that America is on their side.

And what do they hear from the president of the United States? Silence.

Sharing the page is Paul Wolfowitz, who offers similar criticism with similar language.

President Obama's first response to the protests in Iran was silence, followed by a cautious, almost neutral stance designed to avoid "meddling" in Iranian affairs.... Now is not the time for the president to dig in to a neutral posture.

Wolfowitz goes on to compare the Iranian presidential election in 2009 to "Reagan's initially neutral response to the crisis following the Philippine election of 1986, and of George H.W. Bush's initially neutral response to the attempted coup against Mikhail Gorbachev in 1991." Wolfowitz's claims don't stand up well to scrutiny, but then again, his claims rarely do.

The liberal media strikes again.

Update: Jacob Heilbrunn has more on the errors of fact and judgment in the Wolfowitz/Krauthammer criticism.

• snark from the comments:
  

  You don't see it do you.

  By giving voice to two discredit neocon voices to meander weakly against the president with empty sloganeering and no real, practical suggestions while at the same time silencing Dan Froomkin who made cogent, fact-based criticisms of Obama, they are playing into the Obama administrations plan to portray all critics as big losers and failed Bush appointees. It's all part of the media's velvet handed fawning of The GReat One!

  Well played, Washington Post.
  

  Posted by: Adolphus on June 19, 2009 at 9:23 AM |

• John Cole: Justice, American Style
  

  Have any of you ever watched The Corporation?

  Because that was the first thing I thought of when I read this story about a woman being fined for 2 million dollars for illegally downloading $20.00 in songs, and then I thought about the health insurance companies last week testifying to Congress that “Yeah, we’re screwing people and we’re not going to stop and I dare you to do something.”

  And then in other news, Froomkin is out, but the powers that be at the Washington Post publish a bullshit op-ed from Paul Wolfowitz (and don’t forget about his girlfriend at the World Bank, Dave) right along side their stable of neocon morons.

  Ain’t America great?

• tristero: One More Example

  Riffing on dday's post on WaPo's firing of Froomkin , it is quite clear he was hired because being a "leftist" meant "criticizing George Bush." But you're no longer a leftist to WaPo if you dare criticize the Obama administration's illiberal policies: You're a dangerous anti-American extremist. That's because obviously Obama is, as they say, the most leftwing president of our lifetime. To be to the left of Obama is to be so far left, you're over way beyond Hawaii, drowning up to your commie/fascist/Islamic eyeballs in the Pacific. You don't want someone like that sullying the reputation of the august, respected Washington Post. It just won't...work [scroll to Update III].
  
  As far as I can tell, that is the only reason - other than WH pressure, which seems unlikely - that WaPo would fire such a popular and intelligent commentator while retaining such dishonest morons as Krauthammer. I hope I don't have to explain to anyone reading this that such reasoning is nuts. Among other things, it's based on several false premises, including:
  
  1. Obama is a liberal. He's not; he's a centrist.
  
  2. Froomkin is a radical leftist. He's not; he's a moderate liberal.
  
  And so, we have one more example of what acceptable public discourse is in this country. The spectrum of opinion permitted in the mass media runs the full gamut from deep maroon to dark red.
  
  And that is why Republicans accuse Obama, of all people, of socialism. And they get away with it.

• Hamsher: Froomkin v. Washington Post — The Battle Continues

  Glenn Greenwald says most of what needs to be said about the Washington Post's firing of Dan Froomkin. But having been involved in the early rounds of this battle and watched it ferment over the years, I thought I'd add a few notes of context.

  When Debbie Howell wrote that Dan Froomkin was "highly opinionated and liberal," she didn't just think that up by her little old "yippie ki yeah motherfucker" self. It was the consensus of the newsroom, where it was believed -- correctly -- that Froomkin's writing about the war and US foreign policy were an inherent criticism of the WaPo's own coverage and editorial position.

  And so they wanted to make it clear that he was Not One Of Them, nor did he rise to their high standards. Here was Len Downie at the time:

  "We want to make sure people in the [Bush] administration know that our news coverage by White House reporters is separate from what appears in Froomkin's column because it contains opinion," Downie told E&P. "And that readers of the Web site understand that, too."

  And here's John Harris (now chief of Politico):

  They have never complained in a formal way to me, but I have heard from Republicans in informal ways making clear they think his work is tendentious and unfair. I do not have to agree with them in every instance that it is tendentious and unfair for me to be concerned about making clear who Dan is and who he is not regarding his relationship with the newsroom.

  But aside from the desire to play access footsie with the White House, Downie and Harris were bristling at Froomkin's critique of -- well, them. While they were fawning over Bush, his war and his codpiece, Froomkin was writing about Bob Woodward's "unique relationship" with the White House. When Froomkin was transferred into Fred Hiatt's fiefdom a couple of months ago, it didn't bode well for his consistently popular column.

  There was always a sympathetic ear in the halls of the Washington Post for anyone who wanted to complain about Dan Froomkin. The arrogant presumption that they were carrying on some sort of noble journalistic tradition that Froomkin violated is just baked into the concrete over there. In the end, the bitter petty people who discredited the entire profession with their coverage of the war and its fallout just did not like the mirror he held up to them.

  And an organization that has long felt it could change reality simply by refusing to acknowledge its existence runs true to form once again.

• Joe Klein: There Will Be Blood
  

  The Washington Post's increasingly strident op-ed page offers a double-barreled neocon assault on President Obama's Iran position today by Charles Krauthammer and Paul Wolfowitz. And it's interesting to see these fellows--among the smartest of the neos--deploy the usual intellectual shortcuts in the neoconservative bag of tricks: Broad, unsupported statements of opinion posing as fact...and false historical analogies.

  Take Krauthammer. He boldly states this:

  The demonstrators are fighting on their own, but they await just a word that America is on their side.

  They do? Which ones? Name one. And if that word came, what then? Would it be the same as the "word" Dwight Eisenhower sent, and later regretted, supporting the Hungarian protesters in 1956 when he had no intention of supporting them militarily? Or the "word" that George H.W. Bush sent the Iraqi Shi'ites after the first Gulf War, who then rebelled against Saddam Hussein and were slaughtered? In fact, it seemed clear to me when I was in Iran--and even more clear, given the events of the past few days--that the protesters realize that they have to do this on their own. And that an American endorsement would taint their movement, perhaps fatally.

  Wolfowitz deploys an interesting historical analogy from his own past--the Reagan intervention in the Philipine elections--but it is flawed as well. For one thing, no winner had been announced when Reagan intervened, after a period of restaint, in favor of Corazon Aquino and those who voted to topple President-for-Life Ferdinand Marcos. For another, the Philippines were a former U.S. colony that remained, at that point, very much a U.S. client state. We had military bases there. We had real power. (Wolfowitz also doesn't deal with the fact that there were announced results in the Iranian elections--and that Ahmadinejad might well have won without the fraud.)

  Iran is quite the opposite from the Philippines. It never was an American colony, but the U.S. policy toward the Persians was relentlessly neocolonial. The U.S. has had, in fact, a notably disgraceful history of intervening in Iranian affairs. There was the CIA involvement in the overthrow of the Mossadegh government in 1953, which Obama spoke about in his Cairo speech. There was the U.S. support for the Shah, who ran a regime every bit as repressive and arguably more brutal than the Mullahs. There was the U.S. support for Saddam Hussein in the Iran-Iraq war--and this remains a bleeding wound in Iran: I spoke with a woman in South Tehran last week whose husband is incapacitated by the poison gas Saddam used during the war (and which all Iranians, including those in the streets, are convinced was supplied by the Americans). There are many chemical victims of the war in Iran, and many war dead, a constant reminder of U.S. meddling. And there was George W. Bush's pronouncement of Iran as part of an Axis of Evil, which many of the Iranians I first met in 2001 and have kept in touch with ever since--vehement reformers all--found insulting.

  If Charles Krauthammer had bothered to ask anyone, he would have learned that the reform movement is every bit as outraged by the history of U.S. meddling as the Ahmadinejad supporters are--arguably moreso, because they are well-educated, sophisticated people who despise the neocolonialist condescension toward Iran that marked American presidents from Dwight Eisenhower to George W. Bush.

  The failure to understand this basic fact--the failure to even care what Iranians, even the Iranians who hate the regime, actually think--is at the heart of the lethal carelessness that marked the Bush Junior's Administration and neoconservative thinking in general. I would guess that the Supreme Leader--which is the man's actual title, no matter how Krauthammer disdains it--is itching for an excuse to send tanks into the streets. (Which he may well do anyway.) If Barack Obama were sounding like John McCain, the tanks would have been in the streets days ago, with hundreds, perhaps thousands of people killed, and a ready excuse that would have great credibility with the Iranian people: the U.S. was at it again, trying to foment a revolution to overthrow the duly elected government of Iran.

  But then, in the long-term scheme of things, the neoconservatives would undoubtedly argue, blood will be spilled in the pursuit of freedom. Undouboutedly true, but you don't want the blood to be on your hands. You want it to be the choice of those who are risking their lives in the streets.

• Sully's Quote For The Day III

  "With the sacking of Dan Froomkin, I've given up on even looking at the Post. For a long time, I mostly read it to make fun of their OpEd clowns, but they've just gotten too ugly and vicious to laugh at anymore. It's like reading a spell-checked Free Republic," - a commenter on Joe Klein's column, exposing the ignorance and arrogance of Krauthammer and Wolfowitz.

Lunchtime Reading: What an embarrassment! Edition

Atrios: A Brief Reminder

The last coalition of the willing helped cause the deaths of hundreds of thousands of innocent people in a war based on lies.

Awesome branding, assholes. Surprisingly appropriate, however!

Roth (TPM): Ensign Admits He Helped Girlfriend's Husband Get Jobs

The sex is looking like the least interesting aspect of the John Ensign story.

Ensign's camp has confirmed to the Associated Press that the Nevada senator helped Doug Hampton, his old friend and the husband of his girlfriend, to get a job after the affair ended and Hampton left Ensign's office.

"Just as he has done for many other staff members, Senator Ensign made recommendation calls for Mr. Hampton," a spokesman told the AP in a statement.

Hampton works as a vice president for government affairs for Allegiant Air, a company whose CEO is a major Ensign backer, as we've reported. Hampton's son Bandon also now works for Allegiant, as we reported as well.

Hampton has also worked since leaving Ensign's office for November Inc., a Nevada political consulting firm with close ties to the senator. Mike Slanker, the firm's founder -- who, as we reported, ran Ensign's Senate campaigns in 1998 and 2000 -- told the AP that Ensign "was supportive, but there was no pressure" on the decision to hire Hampton. Slanker said Hampton worked for the company from May 2008 -- the month he left Ensign's office -- to August 2008.

The AP puts the significance of all this nicely:

Doug Hampton's easy transition from the political to corporate worlds isn't unusual. It does, however, raise questions about to what extent Ensign used his influence to assist two former employees who could have done damage to his career.

Sargent: Poll: Republican Party Now Less Popular Than Dick Cheney

Lost in the news yesterday about the polls showing eroding support for Obama’s policies was a funny detail in the NBC/Wall Street Journal poll: The overall popularity of the Republican Party has now dropped below even the abysmal level of approval enjoyed by Dick Cheney.

The poll found that 26% of respondents have a very positive or somewhat positive view of Cheney, up eight points from April. Meanwhile, it found that the GOP overall is viewed very or somewhat positively by only 25%, down four points from April.

Okay, the difference is within the margin of error, making this a statistical tie. But still, this is pretty awful for the GOP, given that for a long time Cheney’s historic unpopularity seemed to define a kind of low-water mark among Republicans.

There a couple of takeaways here. First, it appears that Cheney is doing a better job of making his own case than the current crop of GOP leaders are doing on behalf of the party as a whole, even though he’s no longer in office. And second, it gives the lie to the notion that Cheney’s ongoing media tour is helpful to the GOP overall, as some party leaders have publicly claimed to think. In reality, he only seems to be helping himself.

• atrios adds that This Is Excellent News For Republicans. Though I'm not sure how, I'm sure that the fact that everyone hates them is excellent news.

Benen: INHOFE DROPS THE PRETENSE....

The same day Sonia Sotomayor was nominated by the president, Sen. James Inhofe (R-Okla.) issued a statement that argued, without a shred of evidence, that the judge's ability "to rule fairly without undue influence from her own personal race, gender, or political preferences" is in doubt.

In other words, Inhofe was unlikely to ever treat Sotomayor fairly. But I foolishly expected him to show more class than this.

Sen. Jim Inhofe (R-Okla.) is dead set on voting against Sonia Sotomayor's nomination. In fact, he's so certain of his position that he refuses to even meet with her.

Sotomayor has been meeting privately with Senators over the last few weeks, but when it was Inhofe's turn, he declined.

Inhofe's spokesman explained that since the Senator has already decided to vote against the nomination, there's no reason to waste time on a sit-down discussion.

Given the decorum of the Senate, members usually try to maintain the appearance of dignity. In the case of evaluating a judicial nominee, senators are generally inclined to say they're "open minded" and willing to consider the would-be judge's background on the merits.

Inhofe, without looking at Sotomayor's rulings, without evaluating her career, without even speaking to her, has made up his mind.

What's more, Inhofe said he voted against Sotomayor 11 years ago, so he feels comfortable reflexively rejecting her nomination now. He called his opposition a "foregone conclusion."

It's worth noting just how little sense this makes. Inhofe voted against Sotomayor in 1998, convinced she would be a bad judge. But now he has a chance to see if he was right or wrong, scrutinizing her record and analyzing her career on the bench. He can see whether Sotomayor met or exceeded his expectations, and reverse course if confronted with new evidence.

Instead of doing that, Inhofe has decided to effectively stick his fingers in his ears and shout, "La la la, I can't hear you!"

What an embarrassment.

• David Corn: Kenneth Starr Endorses Sotomayor
  

  Kenneth Starr, the lawyer who chased after President Bill Clinton and his wife, said on Thursday that he supports President Barack Obama's first Supreme Court nominee, federal appeals court Judge Sonia Sotomayor.

  Starr voiced his backing of Sotomayor while delivering the keynote speech at a luncheon held in Los Angeles for Loyola Law School's program for journalists who cover legal issues. He said that he "thinks very well of her." He noted that he has not written any official endorsement letter for Sotomayor but that no one had asked him to do so—suggesting he would if requested. Starr said that he has told more than one US senator that he supports her nomination, but he wouldn't identify which senators he has spoken to about Sotomayor.
  

  Starr, dean of the Pepperdine University School of Law and a member of the rightwing Federalist Society, is one of the leaders of the conservative legal movement. A former judge and solicitor general, he served as the independent counsel who probed the Clintons on a number of fronts, most notably Bill Clinton's affair with intern Monica Lewinsky. The long and quite graphic report he produced on the Lewinsky matter led to the Republican's divisive and failed impeachment campaign against Clinton. Since then, Starr has worked on several death penalty cases, trying to overturn death sentences. He also represented a school board in Alaska sued by a student suspended for unfurling a banner declaring, "Bong Hits 4 Jesus." He has worked for Blackwater (now known as Xe). More recently, he represented groups in California defending Proposition 8, which outlawed gay marriage in that state.

  This isn’t the first time Starr has publicly offered support for an Obama nominee under fire from the right. In April, he wrote a letter to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, urging it to confirm Harold Hongju Koh to be the top legal adviser at the State Department and praising Koh’s "irreproachable integrity."

  Starr has something of a working relationship with Sotomayor. As he noted during his luncheon talk, she twice came to Pepperdine to participate in a program the school runs for judicial clerks. "She was a huge hit with the students," Starr said.

  Starr has made supportive remarks about Sotomayor earlier. On May 26, appearing on Fox News, he noted that she had a "very fine record." He said:

  One of the most characteristics of a Justice is that she be humble, that she be modest in her approach to the Constitution.

  He predicted that as a Supreme Court justice Sotomayor would be "modest, always listening carefully to the lawyers, listening carefully to her colleagues." But he did add that her controversial remark about appeals courts making policy was "a little troubling." He did not endorse her at that time.

  But now he's out of the closet as a Sotomayor booster. How will Rush Limbaugh, Newt Gingrich, and other conservatives who have tried to depict Sotomayor as a race-obsessed liberal activist take this news? More important, will Starr's endorsement--this is true conservative cover--make it even harder for Senate Republicans to go after her?

This & That

Aravosis: Key Senate Dems sell out on health care reform

Joe and I called it. They're caving folks. Total freaking mess. Interesting that the lead bad guy is Democratic Senator Max Baucus, whose former chief of staff is now the deputy chief of staff for who? President Barack Obama.

Kiss real health care reform goodbye.

This is what happens when you have a Democratic president and Congress who fear angering the right, who put "bipartisanship" - read: appeasing Republicans - above substantive policy. They cave on everything of importance that might cause "controversy." But hey, passing crap still lets you claim a victory, provided nobody reads the fine print (or in this case, gets sick).

Get ready for the health care version of the gay "benefits" bill. Less filling, tastes great. Coming to an Oval Office near you.

Now do you get why I made such a freaking huge deal about gay rights this past week on this blog. As Joe has been saying for a while now, we are the canary in the coal mine. Now it's another key Democratic constituency's turn to get screwed on the altar of political expediency.

UPDATE: Surprise! Guess who's plan is almost identical to Baucus'? The insurance industry!

• Ezra Klein: Health Care Reform in Danger
  

  Health reform is, I think it fair to say, in danger right now. The news out of the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee was bad. The Congressional Budget Office had scored a partial bill and the result was a total fiasco. But the news out of the Finance Committee is much, much worse.

  Put simply, the Finance Committee wanted its bill to cost $1 trillion over 10 years. The CBO returned an early estimate to the panel on Tuesday night: $1.6 trillion over 10 years. The specifics of the estimate have not been made public. But the final number changed everything. Max Baucus, the chairman of the committee, pushed markup back behind the July 4th recess. He has promised to get the bill below $1 trillion over 10 years.

  That's very dangerous.

  It is, for one thing, an arbitrary target. Why $1 trillion? Why not $1.3 trillion or, for that matter, $700 billion? And it's an arbitrary financing target. It's not $1 trillion with coverage expanded to 40 million people. Just $1 trillion.

  There are two ways to make a $1.6 trillion bill a $1 trillion bill. The first is to do less reform. The second is to do more reform. That sounds confusing. But it shouldn't be: In health care, the less you change, the more it costs.

  Right now, I'm told Finance is going down the road of less reform. They're cutting the subsidies, cutting the generosity of the basic benefit package and cutting the number of people who will ultimately be insured by their proposal. This reflects a simple reality: If you're going to try to leave the central features of the health-care system untouched, you can't get to universal coverage, or even anywhere near it, on $100 billion a year.

  But there's another path. This CBO estimate could be the first step towards making health reform better rather than worse. Rather than capping the employer tax exclusion, the Finance Committee could end it entirely and convert it, as Ron Wyden does, to a progressive standard deduction. Wyden's plan, incidentally, was scored by CBO as being revenue neutral in two years and revenue positive in four. Rather than protecting the private insurance system, the Finance Committee could include a public plan with the ability to bargain to Medicare rates, thus saving, according to the Commonwealth Fund, 20 percent to 30 percent against traditional private insurance. Ezekiel Emmanuel, brother to Rahm and health-care adviser to Peter Orszag, has a proposal for a universal voucher system funded by a value-added tax. All these ideas would make health reform better, cheaper, and more sustainable. None of them, so far as I know, are under serious consideration.

  But health reform has just gotten harder. The hope that we could expand the current system while holding costs down appears to have been just that: a hope. And CBO doesn't score hopes. It only scores plans. The question now becomes whether we want health-care reform that achieves less of what we say the system needs, or more. Doing less would be cruel to those who have laid their hopes upon health reform. But doing more will be very, very hard.

via TPM Daily Show's Jason Jones Goes To Iran To Discover "Evil"

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart	Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c
Jason Jones: Behind the Veil - Minarets of Menace
www.thedailyshow.com
Daily Show Full Episodes Political Humor Jason Jones in Iran

Sully: The Unserious Right, Ctd.

Larison is tired of the GOP leadership's howling over Iran:

All of this comes back to the problem of Republican denial about why they lost power. They are supremely confident about their views on national security and foreign policy, and they cannot conceive that a majority of the country would reject them because of the policies they advocated and enacted. Worse still, they remain wedded to the hectoring, moralistic and aggressive approach of the last administration, in which sanctions and condemnation are the only “soft” tools they understand.

They are so wedded to this approach that that they think this is not only the best kind of foreign policy, but that anything other than this is fecklessness and surrender. To a disturbingly great extent, replacing the current leadership may not have much of an effect on shoddy foreign policy thinking on the right, because the rot is so deep and widespread, but it is particularly important that Republicans in positions of responsibility at least attempt to play the role of credible, informed opposition, which may sometimes mean acknowledging that the President has handled an issue correctly. It will also mean building up the credibility and knowledge to challenge and resist the President if he embarks on misguided or irresponsible courses in the years to come. Cantor and Pence have shown this week that they do not have either one.

Iran on the brink June 18: Reza Aslan, columnist for The Daily Beast and author of "How to Win a Cosmic War: God, Globalization, and the End of the War on Terror," talks with Rachel Maddow about the latests protests in Iran and what the next few days could hold.

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

Attaturk has A few Friday thoughts

Cruising through the blogosphere left me with the following thoughts.

Like most all of you, I'm really disappointed to see the Washington Post terminate Dan Froomkin. But in the Post's defense, they need to save money to land Liz Cheney as a columnist.

Amazing how wealthy guys with good health insurance hate the possibility of non-rich people having health insurance that's anywhere near as good as theirs. Next thing you know, those filthy non-rich are going to want political power by voting rather than obtaining it the old fashioned way, from their parents.

Dear Obama Administration, I would advise not treating gay rights advocates the way the Republicans treat anti-abortion reactionaries. First of all, they actually are discriminated against and have a legitimate issue; second, they are generally wealthier and much better educated; third, they aren't nuts. I hated Bill Clinton's triangulating so stop doing it yourself.

The Roberts Court finding a way to overturn precedent and help employers in discrimination suits, it's not judicial activism if you're a Republican, INJAIYAR.

Is there nothing Krauthammer could not make worse if given the chance? Why, no. But, like Robert Kagan, he still gets paid by the Washington Post, so there.

Aravosis: Andrew Sullivan declares war on the DNC

Regardless of your opinion of Andrew, he's a player in both liberal and conservative politics. He was the White House's favorite blogger, and putatively their favorite gay. He's now out for blood. Taken in conjunction with the top gay Democratic organization pulling out of the DNC gay fundraiser and excoriating the party, it's not clear who the DNC and the White House have left in the community.

And lest the Democrats take solace in the few public or private gay apologists they have left, their apologists aren't running the show. The people are. The dogs aren't going to be called off, ever, until the party convinces the White House and the Congress that this has to stop, and ultimately, they give us what we want.

Let me quote Andrew's post (and I apologize, I'm just going to quote the entire thing, it's difficult to excerpt and do it justice), then a bit more analysis from me:

One way to get the Obama administration's attention on civil rights is for gay people to stop funding the Democrats. That's all these people care about anyway when it comes to gays: our money. If the Democrats refuse to support us, refuse to support them. This is a start. But we need to get more creative. We need actions to highlight the administration's betrayals, postponements and boilerplate. We need to start confronting the president at his events. We need civil disobedience. We need to tell him we do not want another fricking speech where he tells us he is a fierce advocate for our rights, when that is quite plainly at this point not true. We will not tolerate another Clinton. No invites to these people for dinners or fundraisers. No cheering him at events while he does nothing to follow up on his explicit promises. Of course these things can be done. If anyone high up in the Obama administration or the Pelosi-Reid Congress gave a damn, much would have been done.

We need to swamp Pelosi with phone-calls.

We need to target Reid for his inaction. We have to pressure Barney Frank and Tammy Baldwin not to excuse the disdain that the Obama administration is showing toward gay equality, and their cynical use of our votes, money and passion to enforce real and potent discrimination against us and our families. And we have to refuse to attend White House signing ceremonies like yesterday's farce. Really: until they are serious, we should not be coopted and placated with pathetic sops. I am not a Clintonite. I worked my ass off to get this man to power. On many issues, I support him and will continue to do so.

But I am a proud, self-respecting gay man with HIV. And I am not going to take this crap for much longer on civil rights. Fight back. Act Up.

Now, sure, it's possible the White House is loving the headlines - the gays hate us, they might be saying, this brands us as true centrists! Perhaps. Or perhaps it brands the President as so young, naive and malleable that his advisers lead him, and he dutifully follows. If and when that happens, the Sista Souljah will be ours.

I don't look forward to this happening. But I see it happening on the present course the White House and the Democratic party have chosen.

Your Daily Wingnuts

Kleefeld (TPM): Twitter Users Heckle Hoekstra En Masse

Earlier today, Rep. Peter Hoekstra (R-MI) put up this astonishing post on Twitter, likening the oppression of the Iranian people to the plight of House Republicans:

Iranian twitter activity similar to what we did in House last year when Republicans were shut down in the House.

In the hours since, the Twitter community has responded -- with massive heckling. Here's just a small sample of some of the best ones:

ArjunJaikumar @petehoekstra i spilled some lukewarm coffee on myself just now, which is somewhat analogous to being boiled in oil

chrisbaskind @petehoekstra My neighbor stopped me to talk today. Now I know what it is like to be questioned by the Basij!

luckbfern @petehoekstra I stand in solidarity with the oppressed rich white men of Repub Party in the House. #GOPfail Allah Akbar!

aciolino @petehoekstra Today I poked my finger on a hanger. Now I know what all those aborted babies go through.

ceedub7 @petehoekstra I got a splinter in my hand today. Felt just like Jesus getting nailed to the cross.

netw3rk @petehoekstra Someone walked in on me while I was in the bathroom. Reminded me of Pearl Harbor.

MattOrtega Walked out onto Constitution Ave in D.C. and was almost hit by a taxi. Reminded me of Tienanmen Square.

tharodge @petehoekstra maybe now is a good time to reconsider whether you are ready for national politics?

TahirDuckett @petehoekstra ran through the sprinklers this morning, claimed solidarity with victims of Hurricane Katrina

paganmist @petehoekstra Had to move all my stuff to a new office w/o a corner view. Now i know what the Trail of Tears was like. #GOPfail

John Cole: Forrest Shrub

Bush weighs in on Gitmo:

“The way I decided to address the problem was twofold: One, use every technique and tool within the law to bring terrorists to justice before they strike again,” he said, adding that the country needs to stay on offense, not defense. On Guantanamo, which while in office Mr. Bush said he wanted to close, the former president was diplomatic.

“I told you I’m not going to criticize my successor,” he said. “I’ll just tell you that there are people at Gitmo that will kill American people at a drop of a hat and I don’t believe that persuasion isn’t going to work. Therapy isn’t going to cause terrorists to change their mind.”

I, for one, am really glad Obama dropped his plan to send all of these guys to therapy instead of trying them for alleged crimes. Nice double negative, btw, Bush.

John Cole: The Mess at Justice

Wonderful:

Two months after prosecutors abandoned the criminal conviction of former senator Ted Stevens, the Justice Department unit that polices public corruption remains in chaos, coping with newly discovered evidence that threatens to undermine other cases while department leaders struggle to reshuffle the ranks.

William Welch and Brenda Morris, senior managers in the department’s Public Integrity Section who supervised the case against the Alaska Republican, have been moved into other roles following the transfer this month of two of their subordinates, who worked on lengthy investigations of Alaskan influence peddling, according to four sources.

At the same time, document-sharing lapses that provoked the Stevens turnaround are also affecting other bribery prosecutions in the state, prompting authorities to take the extraordinary step of releasing two Alaska lawmakers from prison late last week. A new team of government lawyers and FBI agents is reviewing thousands of pages of evidence, trying to assuage the concerns of judges and fielding complaints from defense attorneys.

There is not one part of the government that is not a smoking ash heap after the last eight years.

Benen: BACHMANN VS. THE CENSUS....

Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-Minn.) sure does love her conspiracy theories.

In February, Bachmann explained her belief that President Obama is orchestrating an elaborate scheme involving the Census Bureau. As she sees it, the White House will use the 2010 census to redraw congressional lines to keep Democrats in power indefinitely. The argument was obviously crazy, but the Minnesota Republican seemed quite excited about it.

This week, we learn that Bachmann's census-related conspiracy theory has evolved, and now includes ACORN.

Outspoken Republican Rep. Michele Bachmann says she's so worried that information from next year's national census will be abused that she will not fill out anything more than the number of people in her household.

In an interview Wednesday with The Washington Times' "America's Morning News," the Minnesota Republican said the questions have become "very intricate, very personal" and that she feared ACORN, the community organizing group that came under fire for its voter registration efforts last year, would be part of the U.S. Census Bureau's door-to-door information collection efforts.

Bachmann added, "I know for my family, the only question we will be answering is how many people are in our home. We won't be answering any information beyond that, because the Constitution doesn't require any information beyond that."

First, Bachmann's creative legal thinking notwithstanding, it's illegal to refuse to answer census questions. It's generally not a good idea for sitting members of Congress to boast in advance about law-breaking.

Second, ACORN has applied to help recruit census workers, but has not yet been chosen to take on any specific role. Should ACORN play a role in the process, it's not clear what Bachmann thinks these workers would do with census data, but the lawmaker said the very possibility is "very concerning."

What's "very concerning"? Only Bachmann knows for sure.

Anonymous Liberal: Palin = Fail

Via Mudflats, this is the person who was almost Vice President:

Hannity: …The price of oil is going up again. It’s not quite at $140 a barrel, but it’s on its way up to $70 and $80…

Palin: Yeah, well and I thank God it’s not at $140. You know people say, “Hey, Alaska! 85% of your state budget is based on the price of a barrel of oil. Aren’t you glad the price is going up?” I say, “No!” The fewer dollars that the state of Alaska government has, the fewer dollars we spend. And that’s good for our families and for the private sector.

This may be the stupidest thing I've ever heard a politician say, and it so beautifully illustrates the level of Republican intellectual decay that Palin represents. You can see what's going on here. She's memorized the talking point (government spending = bad) but doesn't understand the argument underlying it. She knows the punchline but not the joke.

Republican dogma holds that government spending is bad because, in order to pay for it, you have to raise taxes, and it's generally better and more productive to leave that money in private hands. In other words, even Republicans don't believe that government revenue itself is bad; their issue is with the source of revenue, which is almost always taxation.

But the question that Palin was asked had nothing to do with taxation. If the price of oil goes up, Alaska gets a revenue windfall. Palin could simply pass that extra money directly to the people of Alaska. That's the equivalent of a tax cut for everyone in her state.

By Palin's logic, Alaska should drastically cut back on the production of oil in the state. After all, 85% of the state's revenue comes from oil production and revenue is bad. The fewer dollars the state has, the fewer it will spend and that's apparently "good for our families and good for the private sector."

Remember, this is the person John McCain selected to be Vice President of the United States.

Benen: ADDING SOME SPICE TO THE 'VANILLA'....

The Washington Post ran a Style-section piece on Sen. John Ensign's (R-Nev.) adulterous affair, largely dismissing its significance. The headline says this is "no affair to remember," because it doesn't match up to the salacious details of other recent political sex scandals (Craig, Foley, Spitzer, Edwards, Vitter).

The piece quotes an expert from a D.C. crisis management firm, calling the controversy "really vanilla."

At first blush, that sounds plausible. Hypocritical politician promotes "sanctity of marriage," then cheats on spouse with former aide. Hardly unprecedented stuff.

But there are still a few unresolved angles to this story.

The son of the couple at the center of the sex scandal that has engulfed Sen. John Ensign was being paid by National Republican Senatorial Committee in 2008 at the same time his mother was having an affair with the Nevada Republican.

Both Doug and Cynthia Hampton were already working in senior positions for Ensign when their son Brandon Hampton was hired to do "research policy consulting" for the NRSC in March 2008.

The younger Hampton, 19, was paid $5,400 before he left the Ensign office in August last year, Federal Election Commission records show.

The bi-weekly payments to the 19-year-old employee ended when the affair ended.

There's also the matter of whether Ensign came forward to disclose the extra-marital relationship because he faced possible blackmail threats from his former mistress' husband. That's questionable, too.

David Kurtz added, "The closer you look at the John Ensign love triangle, the stranger it becomes.... It's a very tangled web."

"Really vanilla" is not the first phrase that comes to mind.

Yglesias: Holding Up Koh and Johnsen

Marc Ambinder reports that there will be no recess appointments for Dawn Johnsen or Harold Koh:

The true culprits, though, are Republicans, who refuse to allow the Democratic majority to pass the nominees through the Senate by unanimous consent, which would require 50 votes. Non-unanimous consent implies a full debate, which Republicans intend to use to reduce the policy-making energy of the Democratic majority. If the Democrats bring a controversial nominee to the floor, Republicans will filibuster, knowing that there aren’t 60 aye votes. That would eat up precious legislative time.

I continue to be a little bit astonished by how little attention the political establishment is giving to the implications of the routinization of a 60-vote supermajority requirement for all Senate business. This is a very new “tradition” in American governance, it goes against everyone’s common understanding of how democratic procedures are supposed to work, and there’s very little reason to believe that the results will be beneficial in the long run. The fact that the Democrats currently hold 58-59 Senate seats is, I think, to some extent clouding people’s thinking about this. It’s quite rare for either party to have a majority that large. And the implication of the currently evolving norm is that a new president with a 54 or 55 copartisans in the Senate could find himself completely unable to confirm vast numbers of subcabinet nominees, rendering the country essentially ungovernable.

Meanwhile, the administration and the Senate leadership seems to be shockingly ineffective in bringing attention to this. Consider especially the case of Johnsen, who’s apparently being filibustered on the grounds that she’s pro-choice. How is it that Susan Collins and Olympia Snowe, both pro-choice Senators from a pro-choice state that voted for the Democratic Presidential nominee in 1992, 1996, 2000, 2004, and 2008 feel they can participate in this obstruction with impunity?

• Benen: PUSHING BACK AGAINST RECONCILIATION....

  It's always fascinating to watch center-right Democrats take a firm stand in support of Republican obstructionism.

  A bipartisan group of House members is demanding that special budget rules allowing Democrats to pass healthcare legislation by a simple-majority vote be taken off the table.

  Democratic leaders have signaled they are open to using reconciliation to force President Obama's signature domestic issue through the Senate along party lines if need be.

  The House group says that is not acceptable.

  "Reconciliation is not an option for health care reform," read a news release sent out Thursday morning by Democratic Rep. Jim Cooper (Tenn.), a member of the conservative Blue Dog Coalition. "By rule, any bill that passes under reconciliation cannot make the changes needed to reform the American health care system," the release read. "Working together is the only option."

  This, oddly enough, positions the Blue Dog Democrats to the right of former Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist (R-Tenn.), who said Senate Dems can certainly pass health care reform through the reconciliation process. He told radio host Bill Bennett on Tuesday, "[Reconciliation is] legal, it's ethical, you can do it. And it has been suggested and accepted by the administration, pretty directly that if it came down to it, they're going to drive this thing through a 50-vote door. And if they do that...they can pass whatever they want to."

  But Blue Dogs and House Republicans disagree. The majority party can pass reform, they say, but it's paramount to protect the right of Republicans to demand supermajorities and block the legislation, even if it enjoys the support of a majority of the House, a majority of the Senate, a majority of the public, and the president.

  Matt Yglesias, on an unrelated point, noted this morning: "I continue to be a little bit astonished by how little attention the political establishment is giving to the implications of the routinization of a 60-vote supermajority requirement for all Senate business. This is a very new 'tradition' in American governance, it goes against everyone's common understanding of how democratic procedures are supposed to work, and there's very little reason to believe that the results will be beneficial in the long run."

  Quite right. The American system of government has was never supposed to work this way, and wasn't designed to force 60-vote minimums on everything of significance. At some point fairly recently, without a word of debate or discussion, the political world simply accepted as fact the idea that a small and shrinking Senate minority can require supermajorities for every piece of legislation. It quickly became something everyone simply "knows," despite the fact that this is a fairly radical departure from historic legislative procedure.

  And now, Blue Dogs and House Republicans are adamant that Senate Democrats take the one procedure that can guarantee an up-or-down vote on health care reform off the table. Incredible.

Benen: BIRTHER BILL SPEAKS OUT....

Rep. Bill Posey, a conservative Republican congressman from Florida, is perhaps best known for his efforts to require presidential candidates to present a valid birth certificate before seeking national office. It was, of course, legislation driven entirely by ridiculous attacks on President Obama. (Posey is also rumored to be the illegitimate grandson of an alligator, but that's another matter.)

In the three months since Posey unveiled his Birther-inspired legislation, most of the House Republican caucus, filled with some very right-wing members, kept its distance from his proposal. Dave Weigel reports today, however, that Posey has found four new co-sponsors for his silly idea -- Reps. John Carter (R-Texas), John Culberson (R-Texas), Randy Neugebauer (R-Texas), John Campbell (R-Calif.) -- and explains how he's found new allies on his little crusade.

"I was talking to Neugebauer about it, and my good friend John Culberson was listening to the conversation and so Randy said, 'Yeah, I told my staff I wanted to sign up on that already.' And having heard the conversation, Culberson says, 'Yeah, sign me up.' And the judge (Carter) was sitting in the next row listening to the conversation and he said, 'By God, sign me up!' So you know, we might start getting a little bit of steam here pretty soon," he reported.

"I didn't strong arm these people," Posey explained. "I haven't begged anybody to sign on this thing, I haven't asked anybody, really. The people that come up and slap me on the back and say, "Good luck to you!' I say, 'Hey, there's room for you on here!' And of course, they start doing the moonwalk, you know? 'Oh no, no, no, congressman!' he laughed. "But you know, times change and time wounds all heels."

One unhinged lawmaker finds other unhinged lawmakers, and the original unhinged lawmakers suddenly seems pretty pleased with himself.

What's more, Posey added that he's spoken to "high-ranking members" of the House Judiciary Committee about the chances of the president "being removed from office."

And to think no one takes this clown seriously. Imagine that.

Posey added that he's tempted to appear on "The Rachel Maddow Show" to discuss his little endeavor, but he doesn't want to "give her the ratings."

Yeah, I'm sure Rachel's heartbroken that the crazed right-wing Birther, who's even too embarrassing for most of the House Republican caucus, won't be around for sweeps. A bitter disappointment, to be sure.