Enough With Harold Ford

post from MyDD on 07 January 2010 10:30:50 PM. © MyDD

Look, we've already got plenty of annoying 2010 news. Why are we being subjected to Harold Ford's kabuki flirtation with running?The New York Times says Schumer and Reid want him to drop it, Bloomberg's indifferent, and while Sharpton appeared "open" to[...]

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Whats Good for GM The Lobbyists That Brought You
Telecom Immunity

post from Firedoglake on 07 January 2010 10:28:11 PM. © Firedoglake

GM's CEO wants to improve Congress' impression of the corporation. He can do that by improving the overall brand through a streamlined dealer network and elimination of rebates.[...]

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http://emptywheel.firedoglake.com/2010/01/07/the-lobbyists-that-brought-you-telec
om-immunity/

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NY-Sen: They're coming out of the woodwork

post from DemConWatch on 07 January 2010 10:28:02 PM. © DemConWatch

If Harold Ford can try to revive his political career with a potential run for NY-Sen, why should the GOP be left out:

Former GOP Rep. Susan Molinari is looking at running against Democratic U.S. Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand this year.

Ms. Molinari, 52, who left Congress in 1997 and currently lives in Virginia, said that given the health care debate and the upcoming trials of accused 9/11 terrorists here, "it's an important time to have aggressive leadership in the Senate" in the tradition of Daniel Patrick Moynihan, Alfonse D'Amato and Charles Schumer.

Oh, she lives in Virginia now? Another carpetbagger from the South?

And finally, she complements Moynihan and Schumer? And she's pro-choice? I'm sure she'll do real well in the GOP primary.

Update: Speaking of carpetbaggers (and yes, I realize Molinari isn't really a carpetbagger given her long-time NY roots) check out the latest on Ford:

Harold Ford Jr., the former congressman from Tennessee who is considering a Senate run against Kirsten Gillibrand, has reportedly been living in New York for the last three years.

But he only registered to vote here in November of 2009, according to a spokeswoman for the city Board of Elections.

The spokeswoman, Valerie Vasquez, said Ford registered to vote here on November 23, 2009.

UPDATE: According to Ford's voter registration information, he voted from his Front Street home in Shelby, Tenn. in 2008.

Yes, he changed his registration to NY just a few weeks ago.

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http://www.Demconwatchblog.com/diary/3005/nysentheyre-coming-out-the-woodwork

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NY-Sen:They're coming out the woodwork

post from DemConWatch on 07 January 2010 10:28:02 PM. © DemConWatch

If Harold Ford can try to revive his political career with a potential run for NY-Sen, why should the GOP be left out:

Former GOP Rep. Susan Molinari is looking at running against Democratic U.S. Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand this year.

Ms. Molinari, 52, who left Congress in 1997 and currently lives in Virginia, said that given the health care debate and the upcoming trials of accused 9/11 terrorists here, "it's an important time to have aggressive leadership in the Senate" in the tradition of Daniel Patrick Moynihan, Alfonse D'Amato and Charles Schumer.

Oh, she lives in Virginia now? Another carpetbagger from the South?

And finally, she complements Moynihan and Schumer? And she's pro-choice? I'm sure she'll do real well in the GOP primary.

Read The Full Article:
http://www.Demconwatchblog.com/diary/3005/nysentheyre-coming-out-the-woodwork

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Feed-In-Tariff Bill Introduced in Wisconsin

post from Serious Implications on 07 January 2010 10:14:23 PM. © Serious Implications

Members of the Wisconsin Assembly and Senate have just introduced a bill (AB 649) to create a feed-in-tariff plan for renewable energy. A feed-in-tariff is the best way to create and build the renewable energy economy. Feed-in-tariff laws do three very important things:1. Allow essentially anyone to get into the power generation business: homeowners, [...]

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http://blog.sustainablemiddleclass.com/?p=2235

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Michael Steele Wins BuzzFlash Award For His Book
Tour of Hypocrisy

post from BuzzFlash.org - Progressive News and Commentary with an Attitude | Fight Ignorance: Read BuzzFlash on 07 January 2010 10:00:03 PM. © BuzzFlash.org - Progressive News and Commentary with an Attitude | Fight Ignorance: Read BuzzFlash

Michael Steele

Welcome back to BuzzFlash's GOP Hypocrite of the Week.

There's something about book tours that bring out the hypocrisy in the GOP. Republican National Committee Chair Michael Steele's new screed is apparently a self-help book for the party he pretends to lead, including some sort of 12-step program.

But it appears to be of no use; Steele is incurably addicted to hypocrisy.

For example, Steele spent the last year attacking President Obama for his plan to close the detention center at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. Now that Obama is on schedule to miss the deadline that he set for himself, Steele has changed his tune.

In an interview on NBC's "Today," Steele ironically responded to a question about Republicans politicizing the recent terrorist attempt over Detroit by launching into an unrelated diatribe against Obama's foreign policy credentials, saying in part:

...the approach this administration has taken from its very first moments coming in talking about closing down Gitmo with no strategy or plan to do that, and here we are a year later and Gitmo is still part of the mix.

OK, Steele: Gitmo or no Gitmo. What's it gonna be?

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http://blog.buzzflash.com/honors/270

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GOP Strategist Todd Harris Can't Name One Thing
Republicans Have Done for the Country in 20 Years

post from Crooks and Liars on 07 January 2010 10:00:01 PM. © Crooks and Liars

Republican strategist Todd Harris has some trouble giving Chris Matthews one example of anything Republicans have done that's positive for America in the last 20 years. I'll be curious if he does any better when Matthews has him back on. I'm not counting on it.

MATTHEWS: I just wanted to get the Republican bragging points straight here. So the Republican Party has kept us safe, except for 9/11. Is that the argument? No, really, because you had the worst attack on the American homeland in history, but you`re bragging about your ability to defend the country because you say -- you defended America, except for 9/11. That`s your defense, right?
HARRIS: Look, Chris...
MATTHEWS: That`s the bragging point of the Republican Party for the last -- I asked you to name one thing they`ve done for this country in 15 to 20 years. I`ll keep going back further. And you`re having a hard time giving me an answer. What has the Republican Party...
HARRIS: No, no. I`m...
MATTHEWS: ... done for the country?
HARRIS: I`m not...
MATTHEWS: I`m just -- it`s a good question.
HARRIS: Chris, I`m not having...
MCMAHON: Squandered the surplus.
HARRIS: ... a hard time giving you an answer.
MCMAHON: Don`t forget, squandered the surplus.
HARRIS: When I decide to write a book about the history of the last 20 years of the Republican Party, I`ll be happy to talk to you about that.
MATTHEWS: No, just give me one...
HARRIS: My job is to win elections -- my job is to...
MATTHEWS: Just give me one.
HARRIS: ... win elections in 2010.
MATTHEWS: OK.
HARRIS: And I`m going to keep my eye on the ball.
MCMAHON: He doesn`t have one. He doesn`t have one!
MATTHEWS: Steve McMahon -- Steve McMahon, YouTube is watching. You`re the Republican consultant, one of the best in the country. Tell me what the Republican Party has done for this country in the last 10 to 20 years? Thank you, Steve McMahon.
(LAUGHTER)
MATTHEWS: Thank you, Todd Harris. You got plenty of time, `64 -- we`ll have you back with the answer.

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Cat catches Swine Flu

Today, the University of California at Davis confirmed that a housecat had H1N1 influenza:

Experts at the California Animal Health & Food Safety Laboratory on the UC Davis campus told Los Angeles County Veterinary Public Health officials on Dec. 22 that the cat suffered from swine flu.

The cat was sneezing and had developed a nasal discharge and occasional cough, officials said. The cat had spent a considerable time on her owner's lap.

The owner was also confirmed to have H1N1 flu and had been ill a few days prior to the cat becoming sick.

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Connecting the Cliches

Quelling public panic is part of a President's job description, but yesterday's homeland security dog-and-pony show, while necessary, was not Barack Obama's finest hour.

He offered classic bromides--"The buck stops here" and "connecting the dots," along with the newest, "systemic failure"--followed by a laundry list of proposed bureaucratic "improvements" to paper over the stark fact that predicting and preventing terrorism may be all but impossible in today's world of easy mobility, instant communication and porous borders.

"Here at home," he said about threats from al Qaeda, "we will strengthen our defenses, but we will not succumb to a siege mentality...and hide behind walls of suspicion and mistrust," while at the same time promising "to develop a strategy that addresses the unique challenges posed by lone recruits."

Yet it was a nondescript lone recruit, helped by who-knows-how-few planners in Yemen, who eluded detection, came within seconds of committing mass murder on American soil and managed to tie up the national security leadership for days examining the mechanics of his fumbling failure.

Worse than all this small-scale frustration is what it reflects about prospects for the larger "war on terror" with massive amounts of military might and money on the ground in unreliable Afghanistan and Pakistan, while doing diplomatic dances from afar with failed governments in Yemen, Somalia and elsewhere.

All this suggests that fighting terror is less a war than an intensive daily grind of information gathering and collating, pairing defensive screenings with aggressive and, for the most part, necessarily covert actions against targets such as Anwar al Awlaki, the American-born cleric with ties not only to the Christmas bomber but the Fort Hood shooter last month.

It's going to be a long, hard and dirty business and reassuring the public by tweaking the bureaucratic aspects won't make it fit neatly into the familiar clichés. We will not only have to collect dots and connect them but, in many cases, go on to obliterate them at the source without public postmortems.

In an earlier time, Americans would trust their government to do the right thing and correct any mistakes, excesses or abuses later. Is that still possible?

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http://ajliebling.blogspot.com/2010/01/connecting-cliches.html

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The Policy Arguments Against an Excise Tax

House Democrats are steadfastly opposed to the Senate's excise tax in the health insurance bill, despite Obama's support for it. But politics is certainly not the only reason to nix this tax. There are serious economists who question whether it would achieve the goal of curbing health costs or raising wages, the two prongs of the argument in support of it. There's also the problem of who it's actually going to hit:

Health analysts recently questioned the assumption that the tax would target only the most lavish insurance packages, nicknamed "Cadillac plans." The analysts, writing in the journal Health Affairs, found that some less-generous plans could be taxed because they are costly for other reasons. The location of an employer and the type of industry, for example, have as much to do with the cost of plans as the generosity of the benefits and the kind of plan. Smaller businesses, especially those with a preponderance of older workers, tend to have higher premiums, as do certain industries, including the health-care sector.

The Senate bill would phase in the tax more slowly in some higher-cost states and exempt a few industries that tend to have expensive plans, such as mining. But opponents say it is impossible to find a workable way of targeting the tax so it would spare people whose plans are not particularly generous.

"It's a very blunt instrument," said former labor secretary Robert Reich. "It makes far more sense on policy and political grounds to tax the top 1 percent rather than sweep in so many people that are paying more for health care, not because they are getting more health care but because they're older or working for small businesses."

And in terms of lowering costs? As long as the cost of care remains as high as it is in the U.S.--and the bill does little to force providers to bring down those costs--putting the burden of cost cutting on consumers isn't the most effective, or fair, way to slow spending.

Separately, several health-care experts question whether shifting people into lower-cost plans is the best way to slow spending. It is possible, they concede, that the tax could move more employees into HMOs known for more efficient spending. But many markets lack such options.

It is more likely that employers would lower the cost of plans by increasing deductibles and co-pays, which skeptics say would not necessarily bring down health-care costs. Most costs are incurred by a minority of chronically ill patients. And health care is not like other markets, where consumers can make their own judgments based on quality and price; instead, patients make most major health-care decisions based on what their doctors tell them, skeptics point out.

A Rand study from the 1970s found that higher co-pays and deductibles led patients to limit medically necessary care as much as wasteful care, possibly leading to more costly health-care needs later....

Opponents of the tax say the case for it assumes that the country's high health-care costs are the result of patients' overuse of care. But, they note, the country's usage of medical care is by many measures lower than in other developed countries; it is the price that is so much higher here.

"The biggest problem we have isn't that we're demanding so many services, but it's that the type of services we're providing are so expensive," said Thomas Rice, a UCLA health-care expert.

Finally, the Economic Policy Institute, among others, debunks the idea that the cost savings employers receive from cutting back high value plans will actually end up back in workers' pocket in wage increases.

Economic Policy Institute president Lawrence Mishel takes apart that argument in a short, new issue brief.

First, even though unions often lament that in negotiations they face uncomfortable choices between protecting insurance and raising wages, Mishel argues that health insurance cost increases haven’t been big enough to greatly suppress wage growth:

The share of health care in total wages (in nominal, non-inflation adjusted terms) grew from 7.2% in 1989 to 9.4% in 2007, suggesting that the expanded role of health costs could have reduced wage growth by 2.2% over this entire 18-year period, or 0.12% each year....Further, overall benefits’ (health care plus all other fringe benefits) share of total compensation has actually been stable for the last 20 years or so....Hence, the story of stagnant wages in the U.S. economy is not one of growing non-wage competition.

Second, wages grew in the late ‘90s because productivity was increasing rapidly, and tight labor markets combined with a higher minimum wage pushed up wages. In any case, health care expenditures grew about the same rate throughout the ‘90s. Virtually no job creation and weak union or other institutional elevations of wages, not much higher healthcare costs, accounted for low wage growth in the 2000s.

Third, over several decades, low-paid workers have lost the most ground–but they’re also least likely to have employer paid health insurance. And in the late 1990s, when low-paid workers made their biggest gains, it wasn’t a result of health cost containment. Most still didn’t have employer-provided insurance. Finally, Mishel writes, “the worst wage growth in the 2000s was for low- and middle-wage workers, the groups with the least health care coverage.”

The excise tax as currently written is, as Reich says, too blunt an instrument to effectively control costs. With the Senate bill's already discriminatory rating for older Americans, where they could pay as much as three times for a policy as younger workers, this tax could disproportionately hit them. It was a bad idea when McCain proposed it in the 2008 campaign, and the Obama campaign opposed it, and it's a bad idea now.