Quote Of The Day

On the January 24th edition of The Dylan Ratigan Show, Ratigan and Jane Hamsher of FireDogLake discussed the continued imprisonment of Army PFC Bradley Manning under conditions that many psychiatrists consider to be torture:

Dylan Ratigan: [W]hat is the implication, for a nation theoretically of rules and laws and rights, and all the rest of it that we teach our kids in public school, where clearly the government maintains the right to arbitrarily detain any individual that they see fit for whatever reasons that they see fit, not charge them, and torture them in our own country? What does that say about ... President Obama?

Jane Hamsher: Well it means, and I think it was Jimmy Darden at Boing Boing who said, you know, that we should all be very worried, because this represents the offshoring of the techniques used at Guantanamo Bay on enemies of the state [are now being moved] onto U.S. soil.

[Like I said, this is my transcript, not the official one. Apologies for any errors.]

This is one hell of a thing to have to listen to about events that are happening in America. If you'd told me thirty years ago that some day, journalists and activists would be having conversations like this about events happening in our own country, I probably would have thought you were nuts. And yet here we are, and you can still find very few progressives who seem to think that this is important, because if we complain the Republicans might win.

And that last sentence is the saddest thing of all.

Quote Of The Day

Jane Hamsher sums up the reaction of our "leadership" to the current economic situation:

[W]e‘ve got a country where there are 2 million people who are set to lose their unemployment benefits by the end of the year.

This Christmas time, there are people who can‘t feed their kids. For the love of God, show some leadership, do something about this.

This isn‘t a situation where people care about your cheap political theatrics and whose—what party‘s going to get the one up on each other. It‘s not the time for symbolic votes, it‘s the time for real leadership.

'The Last Word with Lawrence O'Donnell' for Dec. 1, 2010

President Obama has showed, both in his choice of advisors and his actions, that he buys completely into the Chicago School of economics. For those not familiar with that term, that's the school of thought that believes in "free markets" that will somehow magically fix all known problems. Yes, I'm exaggerating their central premise, but only slightly. People who think this have never been in the real world. You can safely count Barack Obama as one of those people.

Yet there are still people out there who demand that the President man up, or cowboy up, or whatever euphemism you prefer to describe summoning courage, and do what's right for Americans who aren't filthy rich. There is absolutely no reason to expect this of him. He is getting what he wants, and the Democrats are letting him do it. That's what's going on here.

The only difference between Democrats and Republicans in DC these days, at least when it comes to economic policy, is that the Democrats haven't yet had the nerve to let the unemployment checks run out. They'll probably leave that to the GOP, but right now I'm not even willing to bet they have that much compassion.

Marijuana Madness

Jane Hamsher asks the obvious rhetorical question about marijuana and the problems along our southern border, which is "When we discuss immigration, why aren't we talking about marijuana?"



It's a good question. As Dave Anderson observed at Ian Welsh recently:

One of the options for managing violence in northern Mexico is for the government to embrace a most favored cartel (mfc). Since at least April of this year, the Sinaloa cartel has been rumored to be a contender for the spot of the most favored cartel. The argument is that there is a tacit agreement that the MFC and the Mexican government would cooperate with each other to suppress other cartels. The MFC would agree to divert some of its kickbacks to the relevant governmental elites as well as maintain urban security with a tolerable and much lower level of violence as its competitors would no longer be alive or competing with it.

Most Favored Cartels And Car Bombs

The Mexican government, in short, cannot stop all the cartels from operating, so they have picked one to back, and let it either absorb or kill off the rest. That's what all the money we've sent to Mexico for marijuana has helped create: a state that can't even fight its own criminal elements.

This violence threatens to spill over into our country, but our politicians mostly don't have the nerve to say this is true.

Our current drug policy, particularly regarding marijuana, is madness. All it does is make the domestic prison industry happy, and corrupt the governments of our neighbors and allies.

Now, I Can Relax ...

Caption: All this hard work paid off! Time for my nap...

Image credit: St. Bernards Hotel, in Australia, who have absolutely nothing to do with this article, or with FireDogLake.



Congratulations, FireDogLake and Jane for meeting your fundraising goal. Keep up the good work.

Got The Fire, Got The Dog ...

Caption: OK, I found a fire, I'm sure there's a lake around here somewhere. I'll look for it after my nap...

Image credit: St. Bernards Hotel, in Australia, who have absolutely nothing to do with this article, or with FireDogLake.


There are quite a few blogs out there. Some are good, some aren't. If you're a progressive, though, there's one blog that should stand out: FireDogLake.

Lots of folks think they know what it is: a shrill place where people are always finding stuff that's wrong with America. Actually, it's the place that tells you what's wrong with America when most news outlets, including a few other blogrollees, should be telling you. Marcy Wheeler, David Dayen, and Jon Walker provide reporting that often puts other news outlets to shame, and there are usually at least a few good user diaries on any given day.

Sure, there are days when FDL annoys me. On the other hand, more often than not, they annoy the right people. And if you want to see truly insane comments threads, you can do a lot better, um worse?, than FDL. So on the whole, I like them, and more importantly, I respect their work. It's valuable, useful work that might not get done if they aren't around to do it.

Until the end of this month, FireDogLake is running a pledge drive. They're trying to get enough contributions to keep the bytes flowing for the next six months. So if you have a few extra bucks that the government or the corporations that own it haven't screwed you out of yet, you'd do a lot worse than to head to their contributions page and leave them there.

If It Criticizes FireDogLake, It Must Be Right

Either Dave Weigel of the Washington Independent has no political sense, or he thinks it's possible to be elected to the House eight times without any:

Rep. Vic Snyder (D-Ark.) announced his retirement today, mixed–but mostly dire–news for Democrats, who were hopeful that he could hold on and defeat his likely, scandal-tainted GOP opponent Tim Griffin. One of the possible reasons for the retirement? A poll conducted by SurveyUSA, paid for by the progressive blog Firedoglake, which tested negative messages about the health care reform bill and whether it made voters sour on Snyder.
...
The question, raised by Nate Silver and others: Is Firedoglake trying to scare vulnerable Democrats into retirement in order to kill health care reform? All indications point to “yes.” I’m hearing that FDL will conduct more polls in vulnerable Democratic districts, based largely on this chart of the “top 20 Democrats who could lose their seat over health care vote[s]. Snyder was at the top of that list, posted by FDL’s Jane Hamsher on Jan. 6.

Did Firedoglake Take Out Vic Snyder?

I've added the link to Nate Silver's critique of the poll, some of which I think is right and some I'm not so sure of. The other links are from the original article.

What in the world possessed Weigel to write this sort of thing? I have no idea, but it's chock full of nonsense. Let's start with the basics.

Vic Snyder is a U.S. Representative. He can find money to conduct his own polls, and I'm pretty sure that he knows how they work. Certainly, someone on his staff or on the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, the Democratic Party's financial organization for House candidates and incumbents, could figure it out. This was a single poll commissioned by an inexperienced organization (albeit with a polling organization that Nate Silver gave high marks less than a year ago before slagging their work this time.)

If he trusted a poll commissioned by an inexperienced organization to decide his political future, then he's insane. I've never met the man, but I'll do him the favor of assuming he's not.

There's also the question of what Nate Silver was wondering. If you read Nate's article, it's hard to see where he got that. Nate's criticisms, while rather snotty at times, never even implied that FireDogLake was targeting these people. His criticisms were all about the questions that were asked and in what order. His only comment on strategy wondered if FDL were trying to affect Snyder's vote on the health care bill.

Since it criticizes FireDogLake, which seems to be about the only major blog that is taking on the health care issue from the point of view of people who don't owe their jobs to the government directly or indirectly, I'm sure this story will be quoted endlessly in the next day or two. It shouldn't be. I think what you can determine from those quotings is who are honest observers of what's going on in DC these days, and who are the cheerleaders.

Limited Time Only

Updated at 7:10 PM PDT

Updated at 11:30 PM PDT, Sept. 24

Caption: Rachel Maddow models a Razorback hat for, oh, just watch the video.

Image credit: Screenshot of MSNBC program The Rachel Maddow Show by Cujo359

This campaign has reached its goal. Thanks to everyone who contributed.

FireDogLake is running another health care-related campaign, and there's a short suspense this time. I'll just quote the ActBlue page to explain the goal:

Arkansas Sen. Blanche Lincoln and Rep. Mike Ross are doing the bidding of the insurance industry to block the public health insurance option. But a majority of all Arkansans, and 80% of Arkansas Democrats, support a public option. Lincoln and Ross are out of touch with their constituents, and out of touch with the Democratic Party.

We want to air this ad in Arkansas, where 60% of Arkansas Democrats statewide and nearly 100% of Democrats in Mike Ross's district will see it over and over again for two weeks on prime time network TV.

Tell Blanche Lincoln and Mike Ross to Act Like Democrats

Jane Hamsher explains why time is short:

Meanwhile, our Mike Ross/Blanche Lincoln "Act Like Democrats" ad (above) started running in Arkansas today, and will play this weekend at the start of the Razorback game. We need about $4500 to finish off paying for the 2 week buy that will be seen on network TV approximately 10 times by almost every Democrat in Ross's district.

CREW Files Complaint Against Mike Ross

Rep. Ross (AR-04) in particular is an example of the effect that corruption in Congress is having on the health care reform effort. Back in 2007, Ross sold the pharmacy he owned for far more than it was worth:

But the $420,000 that USA Drug paid for the pharmacy’s building and land was just the beginning of what Ross and his wife, Holly, made from the sale of Holly’s Health Mart. USA Drug owner Stephen L. LaFrance Sr. also paid the Rosses $500,000 to $1 million for the pharmacy’s assets and paid Holly Ross an additional $100,000 to $250,000 for signing a noncompete agreement. Those numbers, which Mike Ross listed on the financial disclosure reports he files as a member of Congress, bring the total value of the transaction to between $1 million and $1.67 million.

And that’s not counting the $2,300 campaign contribution Ross received from LaFrance two weeks after the sale closed.

Mike Ross Raises Eyebrows With Healthy Haul

As the Rachel Maddow video notes, Ross has been a big friend of the insurers and drug companies. That this all sounds rather suspicious is an understatement.

As of this writing, the campaign still needs about $4,100. I've explained the cultural significance of football before, and this Saturday, the University of Arkansas' team will be playing the University of Alabama, which is ranked Number 3. That apparently means they're good at that sort of thing, and lots of people will be inclined to watch them play. So if you happen to have a few bucks of mad money lying around, why not spend it on better health care?

Maybe you could use that money you saved by not buying your drugs at USA Drug. They clearly can't make good choices when they're buying real estate.

UPDATE: Added a lot of information, which thanks to an interruption I don't remember.

UPDATE 2 (Sep. 24): They're still $1,600 short of the goal, so I'll leave this up a little longer. I'll demote it back to its rightful place after the goal has been reached.

UPDATE 3 (Sep. 24): The campaign has reached its goal. Well, they're $50 short, out of $78,000. I'll count that as having made it. There will be other campaigns like this soon, so if you haven't contributed to this one yet, wait. This is not your last opportunity, I'm sure.

No Square Deal Today

Image credit: Wikimedia Commons

Reading Jane Hamsher's rundown of the Democratic lobbyists in DC who are working against President Obama's proposal for credit card rights legislation, which followed her smackdown of the folks who have been spending millions to prevent mortgage renegotiation (AKA "cramdown") makes me mindful of the person who said this:

Practical equality of opportunity for all citizens, when we achieve it, will have two great results. First, every man will have a fair chance to make of himself all that in him lies; to reach the highest point to which his capacities, unassisted by special privilege of his own and unhampered by the special privilege of others, can carry him, and to get for himself and his family substantially what he has earned. Second, equality of opportunity means that the commonwealth will get from every citizen the highest service of which he is capable. No man who carries the burden of the special privileges of another can give to the commonwealth that service to which it is fairly entitled.

I stand for the square deal. But when I say that I am for the square deal, I mean not merely that I stand for fair play under the present rules of the game, but that I stand for having those rules changed so as to work for a more substantial equality of opportunity and of reward for equally good service...

Wikipedia: Theodore Roosevelt

It's emblematic of our times that the person who said this was a Republican President. The reason it's emblematic is that these are the words of Theodore Roosevelt, who was President a little more than a century ago.

While it hasn't given up its bellicose foreign policy or its fetish for a huge military, today's Republican Party has certainly given up giving the working people of this country any thought. Today, it seems utterly ironic that a GOP leader would rate his potential successor as a progressive, and think of that as a good thing. Not long after, though, the Republicans gave up that concern for ordinary Americans in exchange for the corruption of Warren Harding and the indifference of Herbert Hoover.

Twenty years later, Teddy's cousin Franklin Roosevelt would make the Democratic Party the progressive party. With the coming of the Democratic Leadership Council, the Democratic Party has largely abandoned the idea of a square deal in favor of wealth and corruption. Now, we have no party that truly represents the 95 percent of us who haven't benefited from the last thirty years.

It might seem that I'm counseling despair when I write this, but the truth is a bit more complicated. In the past, we have been led by people who felt that what America needs is an honest living for honest work. We can have such people running things if we're willing to be informed, to educate ourselves and vote in our own best interests. It's happened before, and it can happen again. But it won't be easy, and it should be abundantly clear that the job of fighting for our rights against the rich and corrupt will never be done.

Learning From Mistakes - It's What We Do

Over at FireDogLake Jane Hamsher wrote today about a race in Illinois, and a disagreement of sorts among progressives about who should have been supported that I wasn't aware of until now:

I don't think Chris Bowers owes anyone an apology for backing Tom Geoghegan, he's a great guy and a true progressive who really inspired people. I also understand that people are upset. I appreciate Chris offering his thoughts on what his decision making process was in supporting Tom, so I thought I would offer mine as to why I didn't.

There will no doubt be endless stupid stories about how "the netroots can't win an election" focusing on this race, but the fact is that the two biggest netroots Act Blue fundraising efforts -- Kos's Orange to Blue and our Blue America -- didn't endorse Geoghegan. Many wonderful, smart people endorsed Geoghegan, and I support that decision completely, he's an inspirational guy who has been a guest here on FDL before with his book. I can only speak to my own decision making process and let people know why I didn't feel right about backing him.

IL-05 and Geoghegan: The Day After

Tom Geoghegan, whom Chris Bowers of Open Left had supported, ran what was apparently an unfocused and badly organized campaign. He lost, by a lot. Apparently, some folks recognized that problem, and some didn't.

Jane's point here is particularly important:

I spoke to the person on the campaign running the field operation. I did not get a sense that there was a solid plan in place, though I certainly did not know the district well enough to make that judgment definitively. As I recall, their plan was to get 20,000 contacts in the district through a volunteer network they had not started building at the time I spoke with them, which was shortly before the end of January. I was also getting information from Emily's List which indicated Sara Feigenholtz had already made that many contacts, had a big fundraising advantage, and the somewhat formidable power of their organization behind her. With little time to make up the difference and no real plan for doing so that I could see, it appeared Tom could be heavily out-gunned.

IL-05 and Geoghegan: The Day After

The campaign wasn’t organized at a time when it should have been. Assuming you’re trying to win an election, backing such a candidate really will be a waste of time, unless he can already count on name recognition.

Often times when you make a decision can be the difference between being right and wrong. I could see myself early in this process backing someone like Geoghegan, thinking that he was good on the issues and therefore worth backing. I can also see myself, later in the process, asking the same questions Jane did: Where’s the organization? What’s the plan? Do we have resources in place? If I could see that the answers to those questions were unsatisfactory, I’d conclude that this candidacy wasn’t a happening thing.

Recognizing signs of trouble early on will be key to ensuring that we don’t waste time and effort on campaigns that won’t work. That's why it's good to have discussions like this, and for everyone to remember that this really is a learning process, and that the problem itself is always changing.

Anyway, not backing this candidate at this time was a good decision. Jane concludes by writing:

But before anyone writes any articles about “netroots failures,” they need to allow for the fact that the netroots is a broad and heterogeneous group that doesn’t run in lockstep. At any given time any number of people or groups with a netroots presence can get behind a particular candidate.

IL-05 and Geoghegan: The Day After

Frankly, I wouldn’t have it any other way. Discussion and disagreement produce correct decisions, not lockstep adherence to the wishes of the leaders. That’s what The Other Guys do, and it’s not working too well for them.

Hey, even Chris Bowers can be wrong.

Steady As She Goes, Andy

Image credit: The Franklin Institute

Updated at 10:35PM PST

For a while, after the departure of the much celebrated Deborah "Lil Debbie" Howell, some among us were afraid that journalistic standards might be enforced by the next ombudsman of the Washington Post. Perhaps one of the best summations of the problem with Howell, and her role at the WaPo, was written by Jane Hamsher back in 2006, when many of us were trying to get the paper to correct an obviously false story about Jack Abramoff and the Indian tribes he was fleecing:

Somebody much more intelligent than Lil' Debbie obviously held her hand and put up some charts for her showing Democrats took money from the Indian tribes, listing Patrick Kennedy as one of the largest recipients. As they well know from their own reporting, Kennedy had a relationship with the tribes that predated the appearance of Abramoff. Do they have any evidence to support that Abramoff's "lists" were not somehow taking into account donations that the tribes themselves insisted on covering? Have they interviewed anyone at the tribes to see what their involvement was, were they the ones that demanded that Kennedy be included? We'll never know, at least not from the Post, because it clearly does not serve their purposes to ask these questions.

Somebody from the WaPo: please, please go check out Wampum. They are so far ahead of you on this one you should have the good sense to be embarrassed.

The propaganda assistance rendered to the White House and the GOP by such obfuscation is immeasurable. By pointing to carefully chosen "facts" which may be technically true (people like Kennedy did take money from the Indian tribes) without placing it in the proper context has lead to polling results that must have Ken Mehlman doing the lambada. According to the latest Diageo/Hotline Poll, a plurality of voters now do not associate Abramoff with any political party (PDF). That is just a remarkable achievement, considering everyone involved in this little wool-pulling scam -- with the exception of Lil' Debbie, of course, whom we assume is just too stupid -- knows that Abramoff was nothing but a bag man for the GOP.

WaPo You’ve Outdone Yourself

[links from original. My guess is that some don't work, but I didn't check. The Wampum link just leads to the blog address of that time. Please post any updates in comments.]

FDL was on them like a tick on a dog's back. Taylor Marsh was running a blog called Open Letter To The Washington Post, which administered almost daily brow beatings about its inaccuracy. Wampum and Think Progress, among others, were way ahead of them. The comments pages at the online WaPo were inundated with complaints and criticisms. Yet Lil' Debbie withstood all that, and kept her job. From this, you can only conclude that her employers felt she served them well.

Cynics among us noted that the same people who hired Howell hired her successor, Andy Alexander. Well, I know I did, anyway. I, and anyone cynical enough to agree with me, assumed things weren't going to change one bit.

Anyone who is still in doubt needs to read this article by Hilzoy at Washington Monthly, regarding Alexander's response to numerous complaints about George Will's preposterous column on climate change in last Sunday's WaPo:

Until I read this, I had been under the impression that newspapers didn't do as much fact-checking as magazines, because of deadline pressure; and I had imagined that the inaccuracies in George Will's column might result from applying standards designed for reported stories to columns. But on reading that Will's column had been subjected to a "multi-layer editing process", and that this "process" had checked the facts "to the fullest extent possible", I realized that I had been wrong. Naturally, I clicked the link Mr. Alexander provided, and read it. Did he? I don't know what would be worse: that he did, and takes it to support Will, or that he didn't take his job seriously enough to bother.

The Washington Post's "Multi-Layer Editing Process"

(h/t Dana Hunter)

(Hilzoy's article is well worth a read, by the way. It points out the sort of quote mining that is often used to justify climate change denialism.)

It doesn't matter what Alexander's motivation is, does it? From an organizational perspective, Alexander has found his niche. What the Washington Post expects of its ombudsman is to be the human equivalent of voice mail or those "webmaster@" e-mail addresses. He's an obstacle put in place to frustrate anyone trying to get the newspaper to correct itself when it quite clearly doesn't want to be corrected. Howell played that role admirably, and it appears that Alexander will be a worthy successor.

UPDATE: Apparently, I missed this article on my first pass through Pharyngula today. It's written by Carl Zimmer, a science writer who publishes in the New York Times, among other publications. Here is his description of how the fact checking by the WaPo should have gone:

If someone from the Post’s crackerjack multi-layer squad of fact-checkers had bothered to pick up the phone, they could have simply asked, “Is it indeed true that global sea ice levels now equal those of 1979?”

And they would have probably gotten an answer like this: “Well, what do you mean by now? Today? And what do you mean by 1979? Exactly thirty years ago today? If that’s what you mean, the answer is no.”

A good fact-checker would then say, “Well, it seems this claim is based on an article that came out January 1.”

To which the scientist would say something along the lines of, “At that point it was near or slightly lower what was observed in late 1979.”

At the very least, that discrepancy would have to be corrected. But a good fact-checker would see a deeper problem, saying, “Whoa, that changed a lot in a month and a half.”

Which would then lead to a discussion of the fact ice cover is such a noisy process that picking out a single day to compare these numbers does not say a lot about how it is affected by climate change. Climatologists look over longer time scales.

The Sea Ice Affair, Continued

This article is also worth reading, because it provides some insights into both the sea ice phenomenon, as well as how science articles are fact checked by serious publications.

It's hard to imagine that a science writer could get away with such a badly-researched piece, or even a sports writer. But political columnists write utter tripe on a daily basis and no one seems to think anything of it.

Another Senator Kennedy?

Image credit: Martyna Borkowski/Wikipedia. Converted to JPEG by Cujo359.

Looks like there may be another Senator Kennedy soon, according to the New York Times:

“[Caroline Kennedy] told me she was interested in the position,” [New York Governor David] Paterson said at a news conference outside Albany on Monday. He added, “She’d like at some point to sit down and tell me what she thinks her qualifications are.”

The governor, who has sole authority to fill the Senate vacancy, insisted that he had not yet chosen a successor to Mrs. Clinton and said that Monday’s conversation with Ms. Kennedy was the first he had had with her since an initial discussion almost two weeks ago.

But several people who have counseled the governor on the pending vacancy said that Ms. Kennedy has emerged as a clear front-runner, if she proves able to withstand the intense scrutiny and criticism that her decision to seek the seat is likely to provoke.

Caroline Kennedy Is Seeking Seat Held by Clinton

So, who is this woman, besides being the daughter of President John F. Kennedy? For the answer to that question, I started by checking in with my goto gal on the Kennedys, Taylor Marsh:

Again, I don't care one way or the other about this one, though I do have an interest in the story as a life long studied expert of J.F. K. There are obviously good arguments to be made for other candidates besides CKS. The ones against Caroline Kennedy (Schlossberg) begin because she's a Kennedy, which is part of the "aristocracy" nonsense. Remember, our Founders were rich land owners. The other is that she's not experienced enough. Again, when our Founders created the country they hadn't a clue what they were doing.

Also let me say that I learned through my older big brother what politics is all about, which isn't a bad way to go. On a differently level entirely, to say that Caroline Kennedy (Schlossberg) has learned quite a bit from her family isn't exactly a bad way to get to know about politics either.

Senator Caroline Kennedy (Schlossberg)

She raises a good point. Another good point is that the Senate is composed of mostly rich and very rich people already. What's one more? I don't find that argument all that compelling. If there are going to be rich people in the Senate anyway, I'd rather that they were rich people who actually think they owe something to the country, and the citizens, that helped make them rich. The Kennedys are certainly that. As Taylor observes:

We don't penalize people in this country for coming from a famous family, especially one whose members have given their lives in public service, which certainly applies to the Kennedys. It's not like a black sheep Bush snuck in and dismantled the Constitution, you know. Something for which Jeb Bush should not be punished either, by the way, if he decides to run for the Senate in Florida.

Caroline Kennedy for Senate

What has Mrs. Schlossberg been doing in all her spare time? A commenter to the Wall Street Journal's blog sums it up:

Caroline has an undergraduate degree from Radcliffe College/Harvard University and a law degree from Columbia Univeristy. She passed the NY bar exam on the first try. She has written books on constitutional law. She has led an exemplary and inspiring life of community service. She has reared three children, who are now in college or prep school. How could anyone compare her edu[c]ation and life experiences to Sarah Palin? Caroline is as qualified as most Senate first-termers. Run, Caroline, run.

WSJ Blog: Comment by Mary - December 5, 2008 at 6:26 pm

A quick check of her Wiki bio shows that she's co-written two books on civil rights, and four others. She earned a law degree, and interned with her uncle Ted Kennedy. The bio mentions at least a half-dozen charities or foundations she works with. She's been busy. She's been doing things for the benefit of the country, and carrying on her family's traditions. In fact, she's been what I'd term a typical Kennedy.

There is something to be said for the idea that what we need less dynastic politics rather than more. Jane Hamsher's said that pretty well:

Her leadership could have been really helpful when we were trying to keep the progressive lights on and getting the stuffing beaten out of us by a very well-financed right wing for the past eight years. But when things were tough, she was nowhere to be found.
...
The woman has never run for office in her life. We have no idea how she'd fare on the campaign trail, or how well she could stand up to the electoral process. She simply picks up the phone and lets it be known that she just might be up for having one of the highest offices in the land handed to her because -- well, because why? Because her uncle once held the seat? Because she's a Kennedy? Because she took part as a child in the public's romantic dreams of Camelot? I'm not quite sure.

Caroline Kennedy? Thanks But No Thanks

Today, she wrote:

It appears Ms. Kennedy thinks that US Senate seats are something to lobbied for amongst political elites when one decides one wants them, and that the public should be happy to simply fall in line. The fact that one has a family political machine currently in the process of steamrolling David Paterson and a famous last name should be enough for the little people.

Caroline Kennedy Lets Political Elites Know She Expects a US Senate Seat

In this case, unfortunately, the seat is something to be lobbied for. As the New York Times article mentions, Gov. Paterson has the right to appoint a successor. There apparently are no alternative means for filling the vacancy at this point, which expires in 2010 anyway. There may be other deserving candidates out there, but they'll all go in through that same door.

Call it an early test of political skill.

For my part, I find it hard to agree with Jane and others who have expressed such sentiments. Caroline Kennedy has been around. She's raised children, who are now grown. She wants to do something with the rest of your life. Most of us would do something like join a charity or start a blog. When you're a Kennedy, though, you can do more.

I'd like to see what she does with the opportunity, should she get it.

UPDATE: (Dec. 16): Added what now appears as the first Jane Hamsher quote. It was the one I had in mind before, but hadn't remembered to do a search for it.

NPR Finds Some Strange Bedfellows

A late night hit alerted me that National Public Radio (NPR) is doing some research on Strange Bedfellows, the blogger campaign for FISA accountability. It turns out that yours truly has the number one article on that search at the moment.

It turns out that Martin Kaste has a report on us that will be out tomorrow morning (9AM EDT). It begins:

Bloggers across the political spectrum have been raising money in recent weeks in an effort to punish certain members of Congress for supporting a government surveillance bill backed by the White House.

Angry Bloggers On Left And Right Unite Over FISA

It mentions the television ad that was just placed in Chris Carney's district:

Opponents say it gives the president too much power to tap private communications without court oversight. That argument was made none too subtly by a TV ad that ran in the home district of Chris Carney, a Pennsylvania Democrat who supported the new FISA law.

"Chris Carney is surrendering to Bush and Cheney the same un-American spying powers they have in Russia and communist China," the ad says.

Apparently, the ad hit a nerve. A Carney spokeswoman called the ad a "smear campaign" and said NPR should not do a story about it. But the ad was paid for by Carney's fellow Democrats.

Angry Bloggers On Left And Right Unite Over FISA

Personally, I hope that burns for Rep. Carney. I was one of the folks who supported him, and now he's turned around and pissed on his country's citizens and the Constitution he swore to uphold. He deserves that "smear" and worse.

Targeting Carney also strikes me as good strategy. He represents a rather conservative district. It's possible he'll lose this election, and any ad that makes that more of a possibility is worth it. Only by making some of these people pay with their jobs are the others going to get the message.

Jane Hamsher gets the best quote, though:

"I'm very upset with my party right now," Hamsher says. "They were given the majority, and they have a 9 percent approval rating right now for a reason."

Angry Bloggers On Left And Right Unite Over FISA

It's telling that people think Congress is doing a worse job than President Bush. Bush sucks at his job, for reasons I've covered already. The Congress, though, hasn't missed a chance to do the wrong thing.

So don't forget, August 8th is the moneybomb date. If you haven't pledged yet, please do so. Of course, you don't have to pledge to contribute. If you want, you can let it be a surprise.

Understatement Of The Day

Jane Hamsher, quoting Paul Krugman, gets the Understatement Of The Day award:

Also got to meet Paul Krugman. It was surprising that the most confident of intellects, the one that can navigate his way with complete self-assurance when everyone around him has lost their mind, is quite shy and sort of compulsively, unintentionally funny. He said that we're living in the age of the anti-Cassandra --- she was the one who was always right, and never believed. But we're ruled by people who are never right, and always believe. Well, when we look back on this era I think we'll be saying once again that we should've listened to Krugman.

EschaCon08: Dirty Fucking Hippies Forever

Truth is, we should have listened to lots of people, like Juan Cole on Iraq, for instance, instead of the parade of raving lunatics we see on the cable news networks. Sadly, they don't write or say what's convenient to the people who run those networks, so they don't get much air time.

Gosh, Thanks Senator Clinton

"Individual mandates". It's the new way for politicians to say that insurance companies count more than their constituents do.

Senator Hillary Clinton has just announced her (yawn) health plan:

"I believe everyone — every man, woman and child — should have quality, affordable health care in America," the New York senator told an audience in Iowa. She vowed to accomplish the goal in her first term.

Clinton unveils health care plan

Uh huh. So, you know what's coming next, right? Grab your wallet:

The centerpiece of Clinton's "American Health Choices Plan" is the so-called "individual mandate," requiring everyone to have health insurance — just as most states require drivers to purchase auto insurance. Rival John Edwards has also offered a plan that includes an individual mandate, while the proposal outlined by Barack Obama does not.

Clinton unveils health care plan

"Individual mandates", as far as I'm concerned, mean that health insurance providers still get to determine who gets health care, and they get to set the price. The insurance companies have a history of intimidating people who try to collect the money they are owed. And as Jane Hamsher pointed out not too long ago based on her own experiences, they aren't in the least bit shy about doing it to people who are sick. In fact, as PBS's Now showed not too long ago, that's become their policy in home insurance, and profits have soared. The government doesn't interfere, because political candidates love all that money they receive from insurance companies. That's one thing that no fault auto insurance should have taught us. And here's another fun thing - if your credit rating is low, like as in you're poor, insurance companies are allowed to charge you more. Don't believe me? Read the fine print on your next insurance bill.

So far, I'm not impressed by any of these plans. As NOW observed recently:

"Universal health care" has become the grand Democratic mantra, found on every campaign web site and repeated in every stump speech and debate. But the phrase itself is misleading—most often, it actually means "universal health insurance." While the plans do outline some modest and not altogether meaningless reforms, especially when it comes to care for children, most are designed to preserve—and even benefit—the twin scourges of the U.S. health care system: the insurance companies and the pharmaceutical industry. With the exception of the acknowledged mavericks Dennis Kucinich (D-Ohio) and Mike Gravel, no one has suggested anything resembling a single-payer national health care system (that is, one that is managed and administered by the federal government), which would boot out the rapacious middlemen of the insurance industry and reign in Big Pharma—the primary obstacles to quality, affordable health care in this country.

Health Care and the Horse Race

As Taylor Marsh has observed, Clinton's plan is rich in details. Yet, you can provide details out the wazoo and still be spectacularly and utterly wrong if you start with wrong assumptions. That's what Clinton and John Edwards have both done. Obama's plan hasn't really been fleshed out yet, but I suspect it will have similar flaws, minus "individual mandates".

They need to do better.

UPDATE: One difference I'm seeing between Clinton's health plan and John Edwards' (PDF) is that the latter clearly states that individual mandates don't start until the rest of the plan has kicked in and lowered health costs:

Finally: Individual Responsibility. Once insurance is affordable, everyone will be expected to take responsibility for themselves and their families by obtaining health coverage. Some Americans will obtain coverage from public programs like Medicare, Medicaid, and SCHIP and others will get coverage through their jobs. Other families can buy insurance through the regional Health Care Markets. Special exemptions will be available in cases of extreme financial hardship or religious beliefs.

Universal Health Care Through Shared Responsibility

I find this an optimistic feature, but at least it moves the burden to where it should be - after costs have been reduced.

UPDATE 2 (Sept. 18): Since a giveaway to the insurance industry seemed to be daft enough, I didn't even touch on other issues. One is Clinton's proposed tax break for medical expenses. Not only is there already such a tax break, this is obviously, to anyone who's been in this situation, almost no help at all. Suppose you're earning $30K a year and have $100K in medical expenses that your insurance doesn't cover. This situation isn't at all unusual. How much good is the $8K a year (maximum) that you'd see from this tax break? I suppose after you've sold your house and all your other assets, you can use that $8K to put an addition on your refrigerator box.

The Power of Protest

image credit: Elvert Barnes

I was checking the sitemeter, which shows what computers have chosen to view pages of my blog, and found several over the last two days related to Oriana Futrell, whom I'd mentioned in an article on the Washington, DC protests that Congress and the Bush Administration have largely ignored. This mention has produced quite a few hits in the last couple of days. Determined to find out why, I did my own Google search of her name. Sure enough, she was on TV this week. She also, according to a German newspaper, was going to speak with some Senators in the following days.

There are literally a dozen unique hits having to do with this subject. By contrast, my recent mention of Molly Ivin's passing has netted a single hit. Ivins was a nationally known syndicated columnist who excited strong views. Mrs. Futrell, by contrast, is a 21 year-old college student.

Her home town newspaper's blog mentioned her yesterday:

Members of anti-war group CODEPINK spotted Oriana in her pink sweatsuit before a 10 a.m. rally at the U.S. Navy Memorial and invited her to speak.

Thanks to her sign, Oriana was soon telling thousands of protesters about the man she married in April.

She shared a stage with Academy Award winner Sean Penn and a Democratic presidential candidate, Rep. Dennis Kucinich of Ohio. But accounts of the event suggest Oriana outdid the professionals, moving many in the audience to tears. [1]

Army wife expresses love through protest

She's also been mentioned by the Miami Herald, two German newspapers, and one in Australia.

Why has this subject evoked so much interest? No one has left comments recently on that page. It is certainly a human interest story of the sort our 21st century news organizations love to indulge in - the ones about pretty white people. Beyond that, I have no idea.

Perhaps I should mention Maria Sharapova or Tom Cruise occasionally.

In addition to what it says about our priorities, I think this also points out why protests, those noisy and sometimes disruptive things that many criticize as being ineffective in changing minds, actually are not. Jane Hamsher and Patrick Lang, whose opinions I respect greatly, have recently written that they don't find protests to be effective. I respectfully disagree, and I say this as someone who hates being in a crowd and who finds chanting and some of the other behaviors one sees at protests to be absurd. While they certainly turn some against a cause, they also bring notice to that cause, when otherwise people might pay no attention at all. Several people came to my article because they had some interest in a pretty young woman. Maybe one or two read the article and thought about the subject in a new way. That, among other things, is the value of protests.

Even when what really spurs that interest is celebrities or pretty white people.

Get Well Soon, Jane

Jane Hamsher, the founder and chief of Firedoglake has been diagnosed with cancer. I don't like talking about other folks' medical conditions, since I'm not an expert in the field nor is it my place to do that for someone I really don't know. So, I'll let Jane do it:

In mid-December I was diagnosed with breast cancer for the third time. It's a bit more serious this time and treatment is going to have to be more extensive.
...
On Thursday I go in for surgery at St. John's Hospital in Santa Monica. My surgeons are Dr. Armando Giuliano, with whom I've been down this road before, and Dr. Jay Orringer, who comes highly recommended by both friends and his own superb work. Thanks to the time that all of those who contribute to this blog have afforded me to investigate all my options, I feel really confident in my choice of treatments.

Three Time Loser Winner

If you can know someone by their work, then I know that Jane is a courageous and thoughtful woman. The place she built at Firedoglake, and I call it a "place" because "blog" doesn't begin to describe it, is one of the most vital and interesting political places on the web. It draws a wide assortment of regular commenters, many of whom are active politically, and most of whom have a great many interesting things to say. That achievement alone points to her generosity and spirit. Several folks who are now writing guest articles there have started out as commenters, and gone on to write articles of their own. More than a few, including me, learned a lot about this medium just by watching her.

If you know Jane or like her work and haven't yet heard about this, please click on the link in the quotation and wish her well.

UPDATE: (Jan. 17, 2007) Apparently, this has been a tough time for FDL on another front. Please stop by and help if you can, even if it's only with a kind word.

UPDATE 2: (Jan. 18, 2007) Updates on Jane's condition here and here.