PAUL VOLCKER AGREES WITH ME! :-)

I've noted before that experts like Alan Greenspan have claimed, without offering hard evidence, that new financial products like derivatives are just wonderful for the economy. To which Mr. Volcker replies:

I wish that somebody would give me some shred of neutral evidence about the relationship between financial innovation recently and the growth of the economy, just one shred of information.

LOOK WHO'S TALKING

(Via HuffPo)

Monica Crowley has a Ph.D. from Columbia University yet complains that cream puff Katie Couric is "an elite left wing liberal" who looks down on (real) Americans. She also complained about the liberals' attacks on Pres. Bush and doesn't she to realize that she is as extreme as the worst of them.

SIMON MALOY AT MM HAS A NICE ANALYSIS OF THE BECKSTER

He presents a convincing case that Beck is just another in a long line of conservatives who have a paranoid style of thinking, in which the tiniest connection is significant. Do you recall how Cashill tried to "prove" that Bill Ayers wrote Dreams Of My Father because of the use of the word "skillet"?

Well, Maloy reminds us that Beck connects Pres. Obama and Deepak Bhargava because they both have used the word "transform."

I DON'T KNOW THE PERCENTAGE...

but Atrios was correct to suggest that some of the opposition to health care reform comes from people who think others - like blacks & Hispanics - will benefit at their own expense. You can see a few examples of this attitude on this POLITICO thread.

THIS IS "NEWS ANALYSIS"???

The NY Times has an analysis piece about the polarization of American politics and aside from this line -"a rising influence of lobbying, money, the 24-hour news cycle and hostilities on talk shows and in the blogosphere." - we aren't told about the horrendous remarks by people like Fats Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, Glenn Beck, Mark Levin, Ann Coulter and FAUX News.

A LINE TOO GOOD TO PASS UP

(h/t Atrios)

About a year ago I started to think that the Fundies political power my be on the wane and although that may generally be true, it's not true in the GOP. For example, Gingrich has been hitting the Fundies-only lecture circuit and even Fats Limbaugh is more into Fundie-talk these days. John Cole discusses supposed GOP rising star Tim Pawlenty and his recent avowal of Fundie barbarianism and provides a great line describing the Fundie wing of the GOP: "the Khmer Rogue faction"

MEMO TO SEN. LINDSEY GRAHAM

(h/t Dave Edwards at Raw Story)

- If you can't help set the table, you won't get anything to eat.

Graham is now whining about the high unemployment in South Carolina AND the fact that 31% of the state's population is black. By "black" he seems to have tried to mean "poor."

He could have put his state's interest above GOP right-wing ideology but he decided not to.

J. S. MILL WAS CORRECT

The wingers can't seem to grasp that the Congressional Research Service is an independent group.

From this Politico thread:

#2

Dec. 22, 2009 - 11:19 PM EST

Hilarious.......a Judiiciary Committee Chaired by Conyers supports ACORN? I'm shocked.

#4

Dec. 22, 2009 - 11:22 PM EST

What a shock. John Conyers finds that ACORN is a perfectly innocent little chior group

#28

Dec. 23, 2009 - 2:32 AM EST
The Judiciary Chairman John Conyers’ (D-Mich.) must've mixed Christmas with the April Fools' Day and came up with this joke.

#49
Dec. 23, 2009 - 8:31 AM EST

Let me see, Democrats investigating Acorn. May as well let Acorn investigate themselves.

#62
Dec. 23, 2009 - 9:31 AM EST

First, Conyers is the last person to chair an investigation into the legality of anything

#71
Dec. 23, 2009 - 10:10 AM EST

Conyers' staff absolves ACORN of wrong doing and focuses on the two who filmed them. What a shocker. Who woulda thunk such a thing.

MORE ON ACORN

Rep. John Conyers asked the Congressional Research Service to investigate several charges against ACORN and there's the full report. Of special interest are two findings that refute popular wingnut smears:

3. Effect of alleged false voter registrations by ACORN workers.
You asked CRS to research improper voter registrations that resulted in people being placed on the voting rolls and attempting to vote improperly at the polls. As you discussed with Julius Jefferson (x75593) a NEXIS search of the ALL NEWS file did not identify any reported instances of individuals who were improperly registered by ACORN attempting to vote at the polls.

2. Federal funding received by ACORN.
You asked for a description of all federal funding received by ACORN over the last five fiscal years and a description of instances where ACORN violated the terms of federal funding. The following memo by Meredith Peterson (x78990) presents information on federal funding received by ACORN. A search of reports of federal agency inspectors general did not identify instances in which ACORN violated the terms of federal funding in the last five years.

THIS ISN'T NECESSARILY A BAD THING

In the WSJ, Prof. Richard Epstein of the U. of Chicago Law School AND the Hoover Institution wrote this piece. "Harry Reid Turns Insurance Into a Public Utility", and tries to argue that it's a very bad move.

I have one counter-example: the electric rates in Plattsburgh, NY. Electricity is a public utility in Plattsburgh and the rate is about 4 cents per kilowatt hour. According to recent figures, the average for New York State is 19.74 (residential) and the average of the U.S. is 12.06, also residential.

SO, WHAT DOES "PERFECTIBILTY" MEAN?

(h/t John Holbo at Crooked Timber)

Mike Potemra, one of the Corner Clowns, first wrote this:

Its messages are unabashedly liberal ones of the early post-Cold War era – peace, tolerance, due process, progress (as opposed to skepticism about human perfectibility).

This is a common conservative misconception about liberalism so it really isn't news but Potemra's next post directly contradicts his defense of skepticism:

[Picard] had, as Paul Johnson said of De Gaulle, the historian’s capacity for seeing events sub specie aeternitatis, from the standpoint of eternity, which is perhaps the very most conservative way to view the great stage upon which we are all merely players.”

Let's be honest: No human can really grasp matters from the viewpoint of eternity and if that isn't one notion of human perfectibility, then nothing is.

I'M STARTING TO SEE A PATTERN

Pres. Obama doesn't really seem to be aware (I'm being polite) of not only what he's said to us, he's also apparently been unaware of how homeowners still can get screwed. (h/t Atrios)

Homeowners often rejected under Obama's loan plan
By Kevin G. Hall | McClatchy Newspapers
Posted on Thursday, December 17, 2009

In the fine print of the form homeowners fill out to apply for Obama's program, which lowers monthly payments for three months while the lender decides whether to provide permanent relief, borrowers must waive important notification rights.

This clause allows banks to reject borrowers without any written notification and move straight to auctioning off their homes without any warning.

MONITORING LIMBAUGH, I'VE BEEN AMAZED AT...

how often he contradicts himself during the same show and Media Matters catches him doing it again today. First, he says the DC tea parties didn't work:

Now, there have been two attempts to rally people at the Capitol in opposition to this. And the reason was that e-mails, phone calls, and faxes were not having any impact. It was theorized that bodies on the ground, boots on the ground, people in the faces of members of the House and Senate was what it would take to make a difference. But those two rallies failed because they essentially didn't happen.

"Who knew about 'em? The mainstream media didn't report them. Nancy Pelosi made sure that the vast majority of people that showed up at these rallies never got anywhere near the Capitol. The Democrats knew that all these protesters were being asked and cajoled to show up so they were able to tell themselves it wasn't genuine -- and the numbers reported were not all that repressive. I mean, the peasants didn't show up with any pitchforks.

Within the hour, he flip-flops:

There's no question that these rallies, tea party movement -- do not get spirited -- those worked. Those were spontaneous uprisings this happen they did slow this down. They wanted to get this down did you know in August. They had tremendous exact and tremendous power, but those are spontaneous things.

CARIBOU BARBIE IS AN OUTLIER

Ever since she disparaged people who didn't agree with her as not being "real Americans," I've kept my eye out for information that contradicts her claim and I found that her hometown is an outlier in American society, both in size and in economic importance.

Her state is also an outlier on religiousness, according to a Pew study. It's 45th among the states for people who say "religion is very important in their lives," and 42nd for people who say "they believe in God with absolute certainty."

PRES. OBAMA LIES AGAIN

He falsely states that he did not run on providing a public option as part of health care reform when in fact he did. This follows on another lie he told us and is also inexcusable.

AND I SAY, "BRING IT ON"

Sen. Ensign thinks part of the health care reform bill are unconstitutional, specifically the individual mandate, and there will be a vote in the Senate on this tomorrow. I think that we need these clowns to bring court challenges so we can get this constitutionality issue behind most of us. I wrote "most" because I sure some of the more extreme conservatives will whine about "activist liberal judges" if they lose in court.

SOCIALISM FOR ME BUT NOT FOR THEE

Just like Sen. Grassley, Rep. Michelle Bachmann is also raking in bucks from a socialist government program.

I GOT A CHUCKLE FROM THIS POST ON POLITICO

Mostly because of the poster's screen name:

No Rewriting History

Member Since: Sep. 26, 2008

Party: Republican

Last Visited: Dec. 22, 2009 - 2:27 PM EST

#111

Dec. 22, 2009 - 2:14 PM EST

Winston Smith, read the 28th Amendment to the Constitution,

THERE IS NO 28TH AMENDMENT.

MORE WINGER HYSTERIA BASED ON A LIE

The Weekly Standard has falsely claimed that the Senate bill includes a section which makes the entire bill permanent and the Noise Machine is spreading the word. The offending passage is in Sec. 3403, "Independent Medicare Advisory Board":

15 ‘‘(C) LIMITATION ON CHANGES TO THIS
16 SUBSECTION.—It shall not be in order in the
17 Senate or the House of Representatives to con
18 sider any bill, resolution, amendment, or con
19 ference report that would repeal or otherwise
20 change this subsection.

The subsection referred to is "‘‘(3) LIMITATION ON CHANGES TO THE BOARD
22 RECOMMENDATIONS.—" and immediately after (C), we have this crucial exception:

21 ‘‘(D) WAIVER.—This paragraph may be
22 waived or suspended in the Senate only by the
23 affirmative vote of three-fifths of the Members,
24 duly chosen and sworn.

So, not only does this deal only with the recommendations of the Advisory Board, which cannot recommend rationing:

3 ‘‘(ii) The proposal shall not include
4 any recommendation to ration health care,
5 raise revenues or Medicare beneficiary pre
6 miums under section 1818, 1818A, or
7 1839, increase Medicare beneficiary cost
8 sharing (including deductibles, coinsur
9 ance, and copayments), or otherwise re
10 strict benefits or modify eligibility criteria.

the restriction on changing the recommendations can be overridden in the Senate.

CATCHING UP WITH JANE HAMSHER

I haven't looked into the objections many on the left have about health care reform but Ken Hoop drew my attention to this post by Jane Hamsher and I'd like to discuss parts of it. She lists a number if issues that both some on the left and the baggers have in common:

There is an enormous, rising tide of populism that crosses party lines in objection to the Senate bill. We opposed the bank bailouts, the AIG bonuses, the lack of transparency about the Federal Reserve, "bailout" Ben Bernanke, and the way the Democrats have used their power to sell the country's resources to secure their own personal advantage, just as the libertarians have. In fact, we've worked together with them to oppose these things. What we agree on: both parties are working against the interests of the public, the only difference is in the messaging.

Opposing the bank bailout is like objecting to a blood transfusion because you really don't like the person who donated. I agree that this was an opportunity to overhaul a financial system that is run by and for the MOTU and we may have missed that chance but initially the bailout was a necessity. In addition, she is simply wrong that "the only difference is in the messaging." Libertarians have an irrational belief in the Free Market Fairy, this most of their stances on social issues aren't that different from von Mises.

TWO POSITIVE DEVELOPMENTS

First, the AMA has endorsed the Senate health care bill. Second, Kaiser Health News and Jonathan Cohn of The New Republic asked respected MIT health care economist Jonathan Grub to do an analysis of the Senate bill and his results show it's a good deal for over 90% of Americans. Here's a summary table - CLICK ON FOR LARGER IMAGE

PRES. OBAMA AS PRESIDENT

I've noticed that Pres. Obama doesn't try to run a top-down government by attempting to force his positions on Congress and I think that's a defensible retreat from the "Imperial Presidency." The psychologist Drew Westen makes an interesting case that refusal to take a firm stand is just part of his weakness as a leader and I find it difficult to disagree. Pres. Obama didn't even try to convince Lieberman to support a public option or, in lieu of that, a Medicare buy-in.

7 DAYS AGO OR OVER 7O YEARS?

The New Republic made a brief list of some of the reactionary statements made by conservatives in the past and I was struck most by this one:

“[The Act represents] a step in the direction of Communism, bolshevism, fascism, and Nazism.”

This is what Limbaugh, Hannity, Beck, Savage and Levin, have been saying and continue to say about health care reform.

Here's the source of the quote:

-The National Association of Manufacturers, in 1938, condemning a national minimum wage and guaranteed overtime pay

WHY THE GOP SENATORS ARE ACTING LIKE BRATS

UPDATE: Matt Yglesias also noticed Coburn's statement and finds a more explicit one from winger blogger Confederate Yankee.

There really isn't any point in further delaying the vote on the health care bill so I couldn't understand why they were still determined to obstruct as much as possible. I then began worrying that Sen. Robert Byrd's health problems may increase because of the additional hours.

Others are a little more observant that I am; they think the GOP senators are hoping for that.

An ugly finale for health-care reform
By Dana Milbank
Monday, December 21, 2009; 2:00 AM

At 4 p.m. Sunday afternoon -- nine hours before the 1 a.m. vote that would effectively clinch the legislation's passage -- Sen. Tom Coburn (R-Okla.) went to the Senate floor to propose a prayer. "What the American people ought to pray is that somebody can't make the vote tonight," he said. "That's what they ought to pray."

It was difficult to escape the conclusion that Coburn was referring to the 92-year-old, wheelchair-bound Sen. Robert Byrd (D-W.V.) who has been in and out of hospitals and lay at home ailing. It would not be easy for Byrd to get out of bed in the wee hours with deep snow on the ground and ice on the roads -- but without his vote, Democrats wouldn't have the 60 they needed.

Joe Klein of TIME also noticed this latest GOP disgrace.

EVEN MORE EVIDENCE FOR MY 10-13 RULE

(h/t Atrios)

To refresh your memory, I have claimed that between 10 and 13 percent of adult Americans are clinically deluded. Amanda at Think Progress found another confirmation from an NBC/Wall Street Journal poll: 12% responded that the last decade was either “good” or “great.”

BACK BENCHER WEEK

Many of the right-wing radio gasbags have taken the week off so we get to listen to the 2nd string. Beck has Doc Thompson, Ingraham had Jamie Allman and Hannity had Rose of Quinn & Rose. Like the 1st string, they also lie: Rose claimed that Sen. Bernie Sanders got a $10 billion payoff for Vermont. Here's the truth:

Another compromise was won by Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., who had argued that the bill did not go far enough to help uninsured families. Sanders nevertheless took credit for $10 billion in funding for community health centers, which provide low-cost care to people across the country.

JOHN EMERSON ONLY GETS AT PART OF THE PROBLEM

He writes about low-information voters who vote conservative in this Open Left post:

Low-information voters decide how to vote based on ambient information (i.e., free media and local scuttlebutt), and the free media are predominantly right wing.

That doesn't explain WHY they believe the wingnut lies, however. In part, it's because of their personalities and in part because of their preferred cognitive style:

Talk Radio, Top Volume On the Right; Bill O'Reilly's Debut Points Up The
Dearth of Liberal Voices; [FINAL Edition]
Paul Farhi. The Washington Post. Washington, D.C.: May 8, 2002. pg. C.01

O'Reilly thinks those left of center can't get the job done on the air. That's not a knock on their ideology, he says, but a comment on the liberal tendency toward inclusiveness and reflectiveness -- both deadly qualities in a medium that talk-show producer Randall Bloomquist describes as "the World Wrestling Federation with ideas."

"Conservative people tend to see the world in black and white terms, good and evil," says O'Reilly in an interview. "Liberals see grays. In any talk format, you have to pound home a strong point of view. If you're not providing controversy and excitement, people won't listen, or watch."

SOME ENDORSEMENTS

The AARP and the Federation of American Hospitals have endorsed the Senate bill. More important, so has a major academic supporter of the public option, Prof. Jacob S. Hacker of Yale:

As weak as it is in numerous areas, the Senate bill contains three vital reforms. First, it creates a new framework, the “exchange,” through which people who lack secure workplace coverage can obtain the same kind of group health insurance that workers in large companies take for granted. Second, it makes available hundreds of billions in federal help to allow people to buy coverage through the exchanges and through an expanded Medicaid program. Third, it places new regulations on private insurers that, if properly enforced, will reduce insurers’ ability to discriminate against the sick and to undermine the health security of Americans.

A GOOD SUMMARY OF UNNECESSARY AMERICAN DEATHS

Truthfairy posted this summary of the research on deaths caused by lack of health insurance.

Here's the link to the John Hopkins study, Analysis of 23 million US hospitalizations: uninsured children have higher all-cause in-hospital mortality, published in October 2009.

http://jpubhealth.oxfordjournals.org/cgi/content/abstract/fdp099

And here's some background to the adult deaths - these studies have been conducted on an ongoing basis by several different legitimate organizations - they are NOT bogus. Claiming they are bogus is just another convenient way of denying the truth. A big truth being that Republicans disabled the Clinton health reform initiative and have done their best to derail Obama's. During this time UNINSURED AMERICANS HAVE BEEN DYING, but insurance company profits rose over 400% between 2001 and 2007 (funny...isn't that the same time period when insurance premiums increased by over 80%?) and 8.000,000 more Americans lost their jobs and their health insurance.

Ayanian’s testimony to Congress, March 2009: Uninsured Americans frequently delay or forgo doctors’ visits, prescription medications, and other effective treatments, even when they have serious disease or life-threatening conditions. … Because uninsured adults seek health care less often than insured adults, they are often unaware of health problems such as high blood pressure, high cholesterol, or early-stage cancer. Uninsured adults are also much less likely to receive vaccinations, cancer screening services such as mammography and colonoscopy, and other effective preventive services.

The 45,000 estimate is at the high end of estimates, but earlier studies also have put the number of excess deaths from lack of insurance coverage in the thousands:

• A 1993 examination of 1971 through 1987 data on 25- to 74-year-olds from the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey found a 25 percent higher risk of mortality for the uninsured compared with the insured, after adjusting for various factors, such as age, smoking, alcohol consumption, obesity, education and income. The study, by lead researcher Peter Franks, was published in the Journal of the American Medical Association.
• In 2002, the Institute of Medicine, basing its work on the Franks study and another examining Current Population Survey data, found that 18,000 people (age 25 to 64) died because they lacked health insurance in 2000. (Ayanian added in his testimony that for those with heart disease or cancer and without health insurance, the risk of death for the uninsured could be 40 percent to 50 percent higher.)
• In 2008, the Urban Institute updated the IOM numbers, using later Census Bureau estimates on the uninsured. It found that in 2006, the number who died because of a lack of insurance was 22,000. The Urban Institute also said that the IOM figure "may have underestimated the number of deaths" by trying to calculate different mortality-rate differences for each age group, an approach the Urban Institute said wasn’t well grounded in the research. Applying a mortality-rate difference to the entire population under study produced an even higher number, 27,000.
• The latest report by Harvard researchers used the methodology of IOM but more recent data. It found that the uninsured are 40 percent more likely to die prematurely. And it expanded the age group a bit, estimating that among adults age 18 to 64, there were 35,327 deaths linked to a lack of insurance in 2005. Calculating the estimate without a breakdown by age group increased the figure to 44,789.
• A 2007 report published in the Journal of General Internal Medicine examined data for adults age 45 to 64 from the Atherosclerosis Risk in Communities Study, sponsored by the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute, finding that the uninsured had a 26 percent higher mortality.
• A 2004 study published in the journal Health Affairs looked at data for those age 55 to 64 in the Health and Retirement Survey. It controlled for socioeconomic factors and found the uninsured in the group had a 3 percent higher risk of dying over an eight-year period. The study called uninsurance the third leading cause of death for that age group, saying that more than 13,000 yearly deaths "may be attributable to the present lack of insurance coverage among the near-elderly."

CONSERVATIVES OFTEN HAVE "404" ERRORS

For months now, conservatives have falsely claimed that there are no online versions of the health care reform bills and just today one poster at POLITICO said the newest changes to the Senate bill are unavailable: "The senate bill was cobbled together last night. It isn't available"

That's another FAIL:

Manager's Amendment Now Available, 12/19/2009
Download the complete text of the Manager's Amendment, #3276 to Reid Substitute amendment #2786 (Click for PDF)

Download the complete text of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, the Senate health insurance reform bill. (Click for PDF)

DEMOCRATIC PARTY CORPORATISM

(h/t Ken Hoop)

Glenn Greenwald points out that we have seem to have returned to the DLC-style of governing, which means that corporations, even the fat cat banksters, get catered to and the rest of us will just have to bear the full brunt of an angry Free Market Fairy. It's hard to argue with this when we see how much influence the fat cats have over Federal legislation:

On Friday, as the House passed a series of new financial regulations, it narrowly defeated a provision that would have allowed bankruptcy judges to modify the terms of mortgages. The measure was strongly opposed by the banking industry.

Aside from not even attempting to punish the guilty, we can't even find out who is guilty:

Today’s must read article comes from Eliot Spitzer (former NY Governor and AG), Frank Partnoy (University of San Diego law professor), and William Black (University of Missouri-Kansas City economics and law professor). Their request: Make public all of AIG’s emails, documents, and correspondence public. Put it all online where is can be read, analyzed and dissected by the public. That’s the only way to figure out, they argue, what actually happened.

THE CSM NEEDS TO DO A BETTER JOB

In this article - "Obama faces new global warming skeptic: Joe Sixpack" - the Christian Science Monitor fails to completely identify one of the persons quoted:

The result could be flagging public support of drastic climate change measures, says Glenn Reynolds, a law professor at the University of Tennessee.

“[Climate policy advocates including Obama] built up a narrative that, instead of bringing the public on board with dialogue and understanding, relied on emotion and authority,” writes Mr. Reynolds, who covered the summit for his blog on Instapundit, in an e-mail. “Now, the authority figures are losing authority, and the emotion is swinging the other way, as emotion generally does.”

Reynolds is a well-known conservative/glibertarian gasbag and should have been indentified as such.