Christmas is all about the traditions.
The Thin White Duke duetting with the Short White Bing. Prehistoric Matt Taibbi calling out prehistoric Lloyd Blankfein. Cylons. Yuletide hostage-taking.
On a scientific note, the NORAD Santa Tracker.
And, of course, the annual re-telling of the story of
Santa Claus and his old lady.
Merry Christmas, C&L-ers
Nothing quite gives me the chills like hearing the Hallelujah Chorus from Handel's magnificent "Messiah" on Christmas Eve. For more than 30 years, I've heard it performed at the famous domed church of St. Francis DeSales in Philadelphia, at a urban carol service that features a full choir, brass ensemble and antique French organ.
And Mike Finnigan sent in this great version from Quincy Jones:
Our sister site Newstalgia has an especially guilty pleasure for this evening.
Merry Christmas!
There's lots of 'best books of the decade' lists out this month: a couple of us C&L staffers liked The AV Club list.
What's the best book you read this year, or in the past ten? And it's an open thread.
Image of Hemingway's bathroom bookshelf from here.
The progressive "journo/blogospere" is sharply split over the Senate health bill. Some, like Jane Hamsher and Matt Taibbi, are saying "kill it." Others, like Paul Krugman, Ezra Klein, and Jonathan Cohn, are saying "pass it" - as is. Steve Benen says " it's worth appreciating the vibrancy, energy, and seriousness with which progressives are engaging in the debate."
I say maybe - but there's been a lot of condescension and hostility, too. And what bothers me even more is the tendency of some bloggers - good people, people who are seen not only as advocates but as as information gatherers on health policy- to ignore data that undercuts their position while pushing a false political choice. I'm not saying their decisions are deliberate, and I assume they're not. But it's disappointing, and it's worth discussing.
It's difficult for me to name names, since I respect their work a lot, but I'm talking about people like Jonathan Cohn, David Leonhardt of the New York Times, and Ezra Klein (who has been very friendly and helpful to me since the beginning.) Since I know they're people of good will, I can't help wondering if the polarized nature of this debate has something to do with what's been going on.
I've been working on a campaign to resist the excise tax, which I have long thought was based on flawed logic and would turn out to be counterproductive both as politics and policy. (Let the first part of that statement - "I've been working on a campaign" - serve as a disclaimer and full disclosure regarding what follows.) Both Klein and Leonhardt have written admiringly about the tax's ability to "bend the cost curve," but a broad range of studies have been released that challenge that assumption, whole polls have shown that its likely to be highly unpopular politically.
These are not unscientific, flaky studies. Two papers were published in the highly respected journal Health Affairs. These are studies from respected firms that seem to overturn the conventional economic wisdom behind the excise tax. Citizens for Tax Justice has reviewed data from the Joint Committee on Taxation (pdf) and drawn negative conclusions about the tax. Other studies by top benefits consulting firms like Martin E. Segal, Watson Wyatt, Mercer, Towers-Perrin, and Hewitt (whose livelihood depends on a corporate clientele) challenge the arguments made in support of the tax, while polling from a well-regarded firm suggested the tax would have a devastating political impact in front-line states. So how much have Klein, Leonhardt, or Cohn written about all of this new and revelatory information?
As far as I can tell, not a word.
The silence bothers me more than disagreement ever could. These guys are viewed as experts in health policy and as gateways and interpreters of the latest research. Sure, they've come out foursquare for accepting the Senate bill, but does that really excuse the silence? Maybe they're too busy to write about these reports. Maybe they haven't seen them (although I sent a few links to one of them.) Maybe - and I hope this isn't true - they're so concerned about ensuring that a bill passes that they'd rather not muddy the waters with new data that undercuts that position.
Or maybe I'm out of line. Maybe people don't see them as reliable sources for all the new health policy info. Perhaps they're perceived as strong advocates for a certain position, with no newsgathering brief. If so, I apologize - sincerely. But, if I'm right, they really need to address these studies. They can argue that they're methodologically flawed , or that they're inconclusive, or that it's too late to change anything now. But ignore them? That's disturbing.
"Gah," writes Paul Krugman, who also presses for passing the Senate bill. "I see that some people are still using the Rasmussen polling on MA’s health care reform. You shouldn’t do that ..." I'm one of those who has used those polls - but I've written about and linked to his critique, which includes another poll he likes better. That's what we should all be doing if we want to have a serious debate. (Now, as it turns out, I don't interpret the poll data the same way he does - but I'm acknowledging its existence, responding, and letting people decide for themselves.)
I identify with Prof. Krugman's frustration, though. Gah, why are people still saying the excise tax "bends the curve"?
There's a basic structural flaw in the Klein/Cohn/Krugman position, too: that it's either this health bill or nothing. I believe that's a false choice. Opponents of the Senate draft don't all believe that no reform is better than this bill. But they should act as if they do. Once you say the Senate bill is good enough, the negotiations with the left are over.
The Senate health bill has been improved in some areas, including strengthening the Medicare cost containment commission and - most critically - once again lifting lifetime caps on coverage. Like McJoan, I believe that's a direct result of the outcry on the left. Fear of a progressive backlash has already improved this bill, and it may continue to do so - if we don't back down too soon. In a very practical sense the Deans, Hamshers, and Taibbis are accomplishing more than any other progressives to get a better bill.
There are many people who disagree vehemently with that statement. By all means, let's keep talking about it. But let's do so openly, with all the information at our disposal, and without either hostility or manipulation. I'm not out to antagonize anyone here. I'd really like to see debate that's based on data and grounded in strategy - and not in false choices.
But hey, look over there! Ben Bernanke's the Man of the Year!
WASHINGTON — The value of loans held by the biggest beneficiaries of the government's bank bailout fell for the ninth consecutive month in October, the Treasury Department reported Tuesday, a day after President Barack Obama criticized top bankers for not doing enough to boost lending.
The department's monthly report, which monitors the top 22 recipients of support from the government's $700 billion rescue fund, showed that their average loan balances dropped in October by $36.8 billion, or 0.9 percent. That followed a decline of 1.1 percent, or $45.9 billion, in September.
Obama on Monday urged the nation's big banks to make "extraordinary" efforts to increase lending to help consumers and businesses who have been staggered by the worst recession since the 1930s.
Hmm. Do you think it's really a good idea that one multinational corporation controls the vast majority of the international food supply? Haha, just kidding. Of course it's a good idea! That's why one of the first things we did when we invaded Iraq was to announce a law that farmers could no longer save their own seed:
ST. LOUIS — Confidential contracts detailing Monsanto Co.'s business practices reveal how the world's biggest seed developer is squeezing competitors, controlling smaller seed companies and protecting its dominance over the multibillion-dollar market for genetically altered crops, an Associated Press investigation has found.
With Monsanto's patented genes being inserted into roughly 95 percent of all soybeans and 80 percent of all corn grown in the U.S., the company also is using its wide reach to control the ability of new biotech firms to get wide distribution for their products, according to a review of several Monsanto licensing agreements and dozens of interviews with seed industry participants, agriculture and legal experts.
Declining competition in the seed business could lead to price hikes that ripple out to every family's dinner table. That's because the corn flakes you had for breakfast, soda you drank at lunch and beef stew you ate for dinner likely were produced from crops grown with Monsanto's patented genes.
Monsanto's methods are spelled out in a series of confidential commercial licensing agreements obtained by the AP. The contracts, as long as 30 pages, include basic terms for the selling of engineered crops resistant to Monsanto's Roundup herbicide, along with shorter supplementary agreements that address new Monsanto traits or other contract amendments.
The company has used the agreements to spread its technology — giving some 200 smaller companies the right to insert Monsanto's genes in their separate strains of corn and soybean plants. But, the AP found, access to Monsanto's genes comes at a cost, and with plenty of strings attached.
d r i f t g l a s s: No, Mr. Middle Class
Truthdig: IRS unit aims at deep pockets
Brilliant at Breakfast: Can we please stop the "Global warming evidence was faked" crap now?
Forensic Science Technician: Six Files the US Government Keeps on You, and How to Obtain a Copy
First Draft: Malaka of the Week: A Faithless Saints Fan
OFF THE BEATEN PATH: Peteykins' Junk Drawer, illiterate Electorate, All The Good Names Were Taken
Time to make noise! They allowed a cap to go through to get a lower CBO score, but how do we know what we'll get instead? Let your congress critter know they don't have their priorities straight. If you get cancer, you shouldn't have to lose your house to pay for it.
WASHINGTON — A loophole in the Senate health care bill would let insurers place annual dollar limits on medical care for people struggling with costly illnesses such as cancer, prompting a rebuke from patient advocates.
The legislation that originally passed the Senate health committee last summer would have banned such limits, but a tweak to that provision weakened it in the bill now moving toward a Senate vote.
As currently written, the Senate Democratic health care bill would permit insurance companies to place annual limits on the dollar value of medical care, as long as those limits are not "unreasonable." The bill does not define what level of limits would be allowable, delegating that task to administration officials.
Adding to the puzzle, the new language was quietly tucked away in a clause in the bill still captioned "No lifetime or annual limits."
As Marcy points out, this is another cute deal:
So what Ezra’s sources really mean is that the Senate bill–partly because it has traded off other means to keep premiums down–has had to eliminate a key promise of health care reform: that families experiencing a catastrophic health care event wouldn’t lose coverage at the time they needed it the most. What Ezra’s sources really mean is that, because they chose not to pursue other strategies which would have made it unecessary to eliminate the cap, they have instead been forced to eliminate the caps to keep the bill competitive with the House bill.
Don’t let Harry Reid fool you. The problem is not that health care “premiums would go through the roof” without caps. The problem is that Harry Reid has deliberately chosen not to use other means to prevent health care premiums from going through the roof, means that wouldn’t mean families bear the brunt of the problem.
Sara Bareilles - Many the Miles
How far do I have to go, to get some truth? Many the miles...many the miles. Obviously, the news this Sunday revolves around Obama's decision to send a surge to Afghanistan: Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Secretary of Defense Robert Gates will be on no less than three of the bobblehead programs. Maybe on one of them, someone will ask them how we can justify $1,000,000 per year per troop to hunt down the less than 100 al Qaeda left in Afghanistan. At least soon-to-be GMA host George Stephanopoulos will have on Russ Feingold, who has been openly questioning the wisdom of the surge. And I know you've been missing him...John McCain back for his 878,967,543rd appearance on the Sunday shows. Will anyone ask him about his hypocrisy on his cozy relationship with big PhRMA lobbyists, despite decrying them on the Senate floor yesterday. Or judging by the Meter Questions on The Chris Matthews Show, maybe it doesn't matter, and the chance for health care reform has slipped by.
ABC's "This Week" - Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton; Defense Secretary Robert Gates; Sen. Russ Feingold, D-Wis.
CBS' "Face the Nation" - Clinton; Gates.
NBC's "Meet the Press" - Clinton; Gates; Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz.
NBC's "The Chris Matthews Show" - Panel: John Heilemann, Katty Kay, Gloria Borger, Michael Duffy. Topics: Can Obama Do Anything Big Enough and Fast Enough to Help Unemployment? The Fame Game Behind the Grifters Who Crashed the White House State Dinner. Meter Questions: Will Obama Push A Big Jobs Bill Next Year? YES: 6 NO: 6; Will President Obama Sign a Health Care Reform Bill This Year? YES: 5 No: 7.
CNN's "State of the Union" - Gen. Jim Jones, national security adviser to President Barack Obama; Sens. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., and Jon Kyl, R-Ariz.; former Gov. Mitt Romney, R-Mass.
CNN's "Fareed Zakaria GPS" - Afghanistan: what will happen now that the president has announced a surge of troops? Fareed speaks with Richard Holbrooke, President Obama's Special Representative to the region, and Thomas Friedman. Plus, Mohamed ElBaradei -- who just left his post as head of the International Atomic Energy Agency - on whether we are reaching a dead end with Iran.
CNN's "Amanpour" - Afghanistan's President Hamid Karzai on President Obama's new military strategy in Afghanistan.
"Fox News Sunday" - Gen. David Petraeus, commander of the U.S. Central Command; Sens. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., and John Cornyn, R-Texas.
So what's catching your eye this morning?
Dave Neiwert and I have been writing a book for over two months now and in my research I discovered how easily manipulated movement conservatives from the 70's and 80's are when it comes to characters they see in film and television. It also extends to today, since we've seen how the torture scenes in 24 have also had an impact on right-wingers.
I never believed previously that music or TV shows could really influence people in their thinking because we can discern the difference between reality and fiction, but not so for conservatives. After right-wing extremist conservatives like Ralph Reed and Grover Norquist watched the movie Patton, they totally flipped out over it and became obsessed with the anti-communism and pro-military stances it championed. They believed Scott was real.
In Nina Easton's book, Gang of Five, she detailed Ralph Reed and other College Republican leaders' reactions to George C. Scott's performance in the movie:
Several hundred college students cheering a call to arms is something I shall not forget. In short order, gruesome Patton guerrilla talk became Ralph's forte: "I paint my face and travel at night," he infamously explained to a reporter ten years later. "You don't know it's over until you're in a body bag."
--
One year, the College Republicans Christmas card featured a photo of Patton standing on a stone, binoculars in hand, under the words, "Merry Christmas from the front." Abramoff, who cultivated an image of a reasonable adult, forswore Patton's gutter language (though he got a thrill out of the fact that screen writer Francis Ford Coppola had intended his audiences to be horrified by Patton's antics, when in reality young conservatives fell in love with the tyrannical general.)
So I fell off my couch laughing when Bill O'Reilly inserted scenes from Patton to attack President Obama's Afghanistan speech with the other night. Movement conservatives obviously view war as a fictitious movie, explosions and intense battles used for nothing more than dramatic effect. And the lives lost are but mere props.
They actually believed that George C. Scott was General Patton, and so they want Democratic politicians to live up to an Oscar-winning actor's performance rather than the reality we actually face. Whenever progressives pointed out Bush's awful communication skills, they defended him at every turn. Conservatives often criticize Obama's speeches because he's too mesmerizing and effective for them and they hate that, because George Bush failed miserably when he tried to communicate with the public.
O'Reilly: Talking points believes the bigger problem is Mr. Obama's lack of passion for victory. What the nation needed to hear last night was a little General Patton...
No matter how you feel about the speech (I want out of Afghanistan)this illustrates the kind of delusional reality conservatives labor under on a daily basis. BillO is looking for Obama to be George C. Scott instead of the president of the United States. Simply amazing. We want action not words.
Forgive me for going Godwin-esque from the get-go, but in reading this article, I couldn't help but think of Europe in the 1920's, with the word "Muslim" replacing "Juden":
Switzerland approved Sunday a ban on new minarets from being built, with the referendum initiated by far-right politicians picking up strong support.
To the dismay of the Muslim minority here, some 57.5 percent of voters who cast ballots and 22 out of 26 cantons voted to ban the towers or turrets attached on mosques from where Muslims are called to prayer.
Far-right politicians across Europe celebrated the results, while the Swiss government sought to assure the Muslim minority that a ban on minarets was "not a rejection of the Muslim community, religion or culture."[..]
They said that the minarets -- of which Switzerland has just four -- were not architectural features with religious characteristics, but symbolised a "political-religious claim to power, which challenges fundamental rights."
Having won a double majority on turnout of 53 percent, the initiative will now be inscribed in the country's constitution.
"The Federal Council (government) respects this decision. Consequently the construction of new minarets in Switzerland is no longer permitted," said the government, which had firmly opposed the ban, in a statement.[..]
Switzerland has had an uneasy relationship with its Muslim population, which makes up some five percent of its population of 7.5 million people. Islam is the second largest religion here after Christianity.[..]
"The most painful for us is not the minaret ban, but the symbol sent by this vote. Muslims do not feel accepted as a religious community," said Farhad Afshar, who heads the Coordination of Islamic Organisations in Switzerland.
The Conference of Swiss Bishops also criticised the result, saying that it "heightens the problems of cohabitation between religions and cultures."
It's a little disconcerting to me that memories in Europe could be so short as to forget another generation--not that long ago--when this kind of of fear-based bigotry became institutionalized. And sadly, with the success of this Swiss ban, conservatives in the Netherlands are considering a similar ban.
David Neiwert has written about this institutionalized fear of the other, and if I may be so lazy as to co-opt his (and Orcinus blogging partner Sara Robinson's) breakdown of the construct to make some group the feared "Other". Read and see how familiar this sounds:
I really thought the day of the Neocon was over when most people admitted what a screw-up the Iraq war had been, from start to almost-finish. But here we have Fred and Kim Kagan gloating in the Washington Post about the inevitable "troop surge that President Obama will be authorizing for Afghanistan next week.
Adding forces gives us leverage; military forces are vital to the success of any political strategy because they contribute directly to improving governance as well as to improving security.
The recent American experience in Iraq illustrates how U.S. forces and diplomacy helped correct the behaviors of a sometimes malign government in ways that helped neutralize insurgent groups.
For those of you just joining our show, the Kagans were loud proponents for dramatic increases in the number of US troops for Afghanistan. Yes, folks, the first thing we're supposed to believe is that Afghanistan is just like Iraq, and that adding tens of thousands of American troops will solve any problem in nation-building. Really! There are no problems in Iraq now...
If the Afghan government were fully legitimate, there would be no insurgency. ... [We] must persuade and even compel Afghan leaders to stop activities that alienate the people and create fertile ground for insurgents.
Wow. I'm torn between thinking that that paragraph is either the most patronizing or the most idiotically simple statement ever made. Do the Kagans really believe that if the Karzai government were less corrupt, that the Taliban would all say, "oh, obviously we can deal with this man, let's all give up our arms and drug money and participate in a democratic government." The Taliban are inherently opposed to a democratic-type government, they want to be in charge.
American military forces can also help restrain politicians' abuses of power. U.S. forces can develop a picture of local power structures, including those through which Afghan officials abuse their power and exacerbate the insurgency. American commanders can collect evidence on individual offenders that a reformed Afghan judicial system would one day be able to use.
That's a great idea, if Karzai doesn't go legit, we'll make him - by embarrassing him, because the blatant evidence of corruption in Kabul hasn't really done it enough. As for the Afghan judicial system, does "decades from now" count as "one day"? This is not a culture that will adopt Western values, but again, somehow the Kagans think that we can impose it on them. The Kagans' argument - that we need to force the Afghan government to behave so that our "security concerns" are met via the McChrystal options - is illegitimate and boastful. It could only appear on the Wall St Journal or - embarrassingly for the alleged liberal MSM - in the Washington Post op eds.
Sen. Bernie Sanders hasn't heard President Barack Obama's proposal for how to move forward with the war in Afghanistan but he's already saying that he will have a "real problem" supporting an increase of 30,000 or more troops. "You have to put Afghanistan into the context of what's happening in America today. What's happening now, not only a trillion-dollar national debt, we're in the mid midst of the worst recession since the great depression," Sanders told ABC's George Stephanopoulos Sunday.
Cost estimates put the cost of escalation at $1 million per soldier each year.
According to a report in the Financial Times, Microsoft has approached News Corp. about de-listing their sites from Google, which would be an apparent escalation in the search engine wars.
It appears that Microsoft isn’t limiting this to just News Corp either. It’s reported that they are approaching numerous online publishers and offering to pay them for content if they delist from Google. One publisher approached by Microsoft said this is all about “Microsoft hurting Google’s margin”.
Microsoft’s new search engine Bing is their latest attempt to give Google a run for the money. Here are the October search engine market shares, and as you can see Microsoft has a long way to go to beat out Google:
Bing has increased at the same rate that Google has, but what is interesting is that it appears their shares are coming from Yahoo. In July of this year Microsoft and Yahoo entered a deal for Yahoo to use the Bing search engine on their sites in exchange for a split on advertising revenue, so Yahoo’s decrease in the market share also directly effects Microsoft.
Of course the whole basis of this plan depends upon the belief that Google is actually “stealing” content, something that is in serious debate in both the tech and legal worlds. If this war does escalate and end up in the courts then we could finally see a ruling come out on exactly what the “fair use doctrine” covers – something we have been running blind on for years. Given the fact that Google only reproduces the headline and first few words of an article and that this use is both for research and archival purposes, it appears that Google would have a very strong case in the courts. To really solidify their case and put the final nail in the coffin of this war, Google could remove advertising from the news section of their search engine, which is the only questionable part of “fair use” when it comes to their service. Even better would be for Google to spin off the news part of their search engine and make it a non-profit partnered with Google. Google can surely afford it, and this would destroy any battle Microsoft or News Corp may be planning.
Whatever happens with this, it is clear that Murdoch still isn’t set on removing his sites from Google. I just checked again and what I reported a couple of weeks ago still stands – News Corp sites have explicit directions asking Google to index them. This could also be used against the Murdoch/Microsoft plan. What would happen if Google showed that News Corp sites saw a large percentage of their visits originate from Google? I know that they have records of those kind of metrics, and it would be interesting to hear News Corp argue that they didn’t mind Google increasing their online visibility all these years for free.
(cross posted at IntoxiNation)
Yep, I did a double take too.
WASHINGTON — President Barack Obama has tapped a former top aide of his predecessor George W. Bush to a key post on a board overseeing government-sponsored international broadcasting.
Dana Perino, the first Republican woman to serve as White House press secretary, was appointed late Wednesday to the Broadcasting Board of Governors (BBG).
Created in 1994, the BBG oversees all of the US government's non-military international broadcasting outlets, including Voice of America, Alhurra television, Radio Sawa, TV Marti, Radio Free Asia and Radio Free Europe. Read on...
Where to begin? I understand that President Obama campaigned on the idea of bipartisanship, but this is truly an insult. Forget that he is appointing an intellectual lightweight who ran cover for, and spread propaganda for the worst president in American history. Dana Perino stood before reporters and routinely lied to them and the world -- even defending the use of torture, calling it "effective, safe and legal."
And now President Obama believes that she has the integrity to hold a key position in an agency that oversees government-sponsored, international broadcasting?
Perino's appointment must be confirmed by the Senate, so it's not a done deal, but we have to make our voices heard. Contact your Senators and let them know your thoughts on the matter.
As Digby sez -- Perino is just a member of the club, playing the game.
