ThinkFast: August 31, 2009

Labor Department records show that “more than $3.1 billion in stimulus money for state unemployment insurance programs is sitting in a federal trust fund because 23 states haven’t expanded their jobless benefits.” Eleven states have declined to change their systems to qualify “for about $1.7 billion in stimulus funding.” Roughly 350,000 Americans won’t receive benefits because of inaction.

On CNN yesterday, Sen. Mary Landrieu (D-LA) said that she “would tend not to” support a health care reform bill with a public insurance option. She also said ?it would be very difficult? for her to support a bill that allowed taxpayer-funded abortions, though she acknowledged that “general insurance policies now ? subsidized through the government by the tax code ? allow women to make those choices right now.”

In an interview with ABC, former Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge asserted that, though he was worried that politics may have been influencing the raising of terror alert levels, he did not believe that it happened. He added that he agrees with former Vice President Dick Cheney that there should be no investigation into possible criminal conduct by the CIA, saying that it would be “criminal” to do so.

Former Vice President Dick Cheney said he pushed for a military strike against Iran in the waning days of the Bush administration. “I was probably a bigger advocate of military action than any of my colleagues,” Cheney told Fox News Sunday.

Wall Street banks are fighting to protect one of their ?richest fiefdoms, the $592 trillion over-the-counter derivatives market.? The five biggest banks stand to make more than $35 billion this year trading unregulated derivatives contracts. ?At stake is how much of that business they and other dealers will be able to keep.?

A New York Times analysis has found that nearly a year after the bailout of the nation?s biggest banks, “taxpayers have begun seeing profits from the hundreds of billions of dollars in aid that many critics thought might never be seen again.” However, the government still faces huge losses from bailing out AIG, General Motors, Fannie Mae, and Freddie Mac.

Few federal officials have reported their contacts with lobbyists trying to influence how the government spends funds from the $787 billion Recovery Act, as President Obama had ordered. Since February, federal agencies have disclosed 197 contacts, but only 8 have been reported in August. The Pentagon has reported one such contact, while the Department of Homeland Security has reported none.

A new CBO report says that Medicare beneficiaries “would save money” on prescription drugs “as a result of health legislation moving through the House.” Though beneficiaries “would often have to pay higher premiums for prescription drug coverage,” their “spending on prescription drugs apart from those premiums would fall, on average, as would their overall prescription drug spending.”

The Obama administration has put together a “list of about 50 measurements to gauge progress in Afghanistan and Pakistan.” The results will be presented to Congress by Sept. 24 after “lawmakers set that deadline in the spring as a condition for approving additional war funding.”

And finally: Former Bush adviser Karl Rove went back to Utah for his 40th high school reunion this weekend. “The girls look awfully good,” he told the local Fox affiliate TV station. When asked to describe “the teenage Karl Rove,” he replied, “Nerd. … Completely. Pocket protector, briefcase, hush puppies when they weren’t cool, about 5′10,” high squeaky voice. Weird.”

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http://thinkprogress.org/2009/08/31/thinkfast-august-31-2009/

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The American Eagle Trap: Why a weak dollar won't
save America

Let’s deal with a common misunderstanding, that “dollar devaluation is going to save[...]

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Burton: Obama to be even more bipartisan

AP:

Meanwhile, Obama returned from his vacation in Massachusetts on Martha's Vineyard and, after a few days at Camp David, will redouble his efforts "toward getting a bipartisan result" on health care overhaul, said deputy White House press secretary Bill Burton. "After he gets a little time to recharge his batteries...he's going to come back as rip-roaring as he was before," Burton said.

Yes, the reason that President Obama is now starting to be perceived as a weak leader by the right, independents, and the left in all the polls is because he simply hasn't caved enough on his core principles. If only he'd given the Republicans 50% of the stimulus package as tax cuts, instead of 40%, maybe then Americans would believe him to be a true leader.

PS As rip-roaring as before? The previous "rip-roaring" lost Obama 20 points in the polls, reinvigorated a nearly-dead GOP, fractured a once unified Democratic party, and lost control of your signature issue. It's not clear that Democrats can afford much more of the White House's definition of successful leadership.

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-more-bipartisan.html

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Education Alert: Evolution is Now a Religion

The First Amendment of the constitution, with its establishment clause, has often been used to block the establishment of religion through the teaching of religion in schools. This has been controversial throughout the land as it has been used to keep schools from teaching Christian creationist theories from being taught in science classes. Among the famous recent cases is the Kansas School Board’s acceptance of creationism, a short-lived development that brought us the Flying Spaghetti Monster as a response. We won’t be talking of the Kansas case or that of Dover, Pa in this article, though, though we’ve got a suggestion for the band members of Sedalia, MO., who have been forced to take off their shirts depicting evolution, as members of the community illogically think the shirts are a violation of the establishment clause. From the Springfield News-Leader:

Sedalia ? T-shirts promoting the Smith-Cotton High School band?s fall program have been recalled because of concerns about the shirt?s evolution theme.

Assistant superintendent Brad Pollitt said parents complained to him after the band marched in the Missouri State Fair parade. Though the shirts don?t violate the school?s dress code, Pollitt noted that the district is required by law to remain neutral on religion.

?If the shirts had said ?Brass Resurrections? and had a picture of Jesus on the cross, we would have done the same thing,? Pollitt said.

Designed with the help of band director Jordan Summers and assistant director Brian Kloppenburg, the light gray shirts feature an image of a monkey progressing through various stages of evolution until eventually becoming a human. Each figure holds a brass instrument that also evolves, illustrating the theme ?Brass Evolutions.?

Perhaps most annoying is the teacher in the Sedalia School District who said the following concerning the issue:

?I was disappointed with the image on the shirt,? said Sherry Melby, a band parent who teaches in the district. ?I don?t think evolution should be associated with our school.?

Heaven forbid that science be involved with schools! No, we’ve got to get rid of that right now. I suggest the school look to the Flying Spaghetti Monster (FSM) for guidance. But maybe they shouldn’t be so obvious as to make a shirt with the FSM holding a saxaphone. Instead, they should just go with a pirate theme or something. After all, pirates are devoted followers of the FSM, and this sneaks religion into those performances of the band without going all “evolution” on the Christians who seem to think science is a competing religion.

Read The Full Article:
http://allspinzone.com/wp/2009/08/31/education-alert-evolution-is-now-a-religion/

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Daily Futures Commentary August 31, 2009

Monday, August 31, 2009The theme this morning in the currency markets is risk aversion as Chinese stocks fell nearly 7% overnight triggering a move into the safety of the U.S. Dollar. Sentiment continues to build…

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Rare Double-Play Opportunity in Oil, Gold and
More

Truth be told, I’m even more bullish now on gold, oil and other natural resources than I was when I nailed the start of the massive bull market in commodities nine years ago, in the middle…

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McCaughey returns to CNBC with another false
health care attack

On CNBC, serial misinformer Betsy McCaughey again advanced a falsehood about health care reform, claiming that the "legislation that's now in Congress will force everyone under age 65 to buy the same one-size-fits-all government plan" and that "Page 16" of the House bill "says you must be enrolled in a qualified plan." In fact, McCaughey's claims are false; the provision she referred to does not require anyone to give up their private individual health insurance plan.

McCaughey: Legislation will "force" everyone "to buy the same one-size-fits-all government plan"

From the August 28 edition of CNBC's The Kudlow Report:

McCAUGHEY: The legislation that's now in Congress will force everyone under age 65 to buy the same one-size-fits-all government plan.

JULIE ROGINSKY (Democratic strategist): No, it won't.

McCAUGHEY: You won't have the choice of a high-deductible plan.

ROGINSKY: How is that possible? It's an option.

McCAUGHEY: Because -- no it is not.

ROGINSKY: It's an option. It's a public option.

McCAUGHEY: On Page 16 and 17 of the House Bill 3200, you must be in a qualified plan.

ROGINSKY: Betsy --

McCAUGHEY: It will be defined by the health choices commission --

ROGINSKY: With all -- let me answer that, because with all due -- may I answer your point? With all due respect, this is much like your contention that the government is gonna tell old people to off themselves -- it's just not accurate. It's just not.

McCAUGHEY: They're not going to get the care they need with the $500 billion cut.

ROGINSKY: Actually, it's a public option. The word option means that you have an option. It's not a public mandate, it's a public option.

McCAUGHEY: I'm not talking about the public plan.

LARRY KUDLOW (host): Well let me put a cap --

McCAUGHEY: Page 16 in the bill says you must be enrolled in a qualified plan, whether it's public or private, it's designed by the government. The health choices commissioner is gonna outline --

ROGINSKY: Much --

[crosstalk]

KUDLOW: Let me cap this.

McCAUGHEY: -- how much leeway your doctor will have.

Page 16 does not "force everyone under age 65 to buy the same one-size-fits-all government plan." In fact, the provision to which McCaughey referred claim, which was nonetheless widely repeated in the media, that a health IT provision in the economic recovery act enabled government bureaucrats to "monitor treatments" or restrict what "your doctor is doing" with regard to patient care.

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http://feeds.mediamatters.org/~r/mediamatters/latest/~3/j9DcJ_1tCQw/200908310002

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Your Abbreviated Pundit Round-up

This is your last chance to say something profound in August. We close at midnight.

Paul Krugman:

Many of the retrospectives on Ted Kennedy’s life mention his regret that he didn’t accept Richard Nixon’s offer of a bipartisan health care deal. The moral some commentators take from that regret is that today’s health care reformers should do what Mr. Kennedy balked at doing back then, and reach out to the other side.

But it’s a bad analogy, because today’s political scene is nothing like that of the early 1970s. In fact, surveying current politics, I find myself missing Richard Nixon.

No, I haven’t lost my mind. Nixon was surely the worst person other than Dick Cheney ever to control the executive branch.

Matt Bai on generational politics:

The typical anti-Obama activist tends to be white, male and — perhaps most significant — advanced in age. A poll conducted earlier this month by CNN and Opinion Research showed a rather stark age divide when it came to health care: 57 percent of voters under 50 said they favored the outlines of a Democratic plan, but that number was a full 20 points lower among voters over 65. In three Pew Research Center polls going back to April, senior citizens consistently gave Obama’s job performance lower approval ratings than did than any other age group.

See also: Health Care Polls: All About Seniors? Is it so different than passing a school budget in a small town? Fixed income seniors don't appreciate budget increases, younger voters want more money for schools.

Speaking of school:

For many young Americans, going back to school might seem like rest and relaxation. In the last week before Labor Day, how many students across the country were racing to finish their summer homework, from "A Tree Grows in Brooklyn" to math refresher exercises?

And how useful was the exercise?

Ross Douthat: This is the first column I've written on the Kennedy passing for the Times. So let's talk about choice (I won't call it that) and how Ted and Eunice disagreed. Isn't that what comes to mind when someone says "Ted Kennedy"? Health care, you say? Okay, health care and abortion.

Roger Cohen:  

Since [Julia] Child, in "Mastering the Art of French Cooking," and in her groundbreaking 1960’s television show "The French Chef," brought Gallic secrets to riveted Americans, the shameless gutting and picking-up of real food in ungloved hands has given way to the hurried-hermetic-hygienic U.S. fever of plastic gloves, processed foods and precooked meals.

Those fish guts delivered me to France because, although this country has its share of fast-food outlets, it has preserved a relationship to food distinguished from the American in three essential respects: fear, time and "terroir."

If Americans want their fish pre-filleted, their chicken breasts excised from surrounding bone and conveniently packed, their offal kept from view and the table, and any hand that touches a slice of ham or lox sealed inside a glove, it is because fear of the innards that will not speak their name, the guts that reek of life, and the germs we all carry has become rampant.

We're in the midst of a pandemic, Roger. Wash your hands. [By the way, Julie and Julia is a terrific movie and Meryl Streep is brilliant.]

Bob Dole: If Bob Dole were President, Bob Dole would be writing his own health care bill.

EJ Dionne:

Despite health care's summer of discontent, supporters of change are in better shape than the accounts of recent weeks would suggest. The House is poised to pass a bill in early fall that would achieve most of Obama's major goals. And Obama is a full year ahead of the schedule on which Bill Clinton's administration found itself in the 1990s.

Tom Toles on spine flu vaccine.

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Morning No: No Devolution, Please

- Swine flu is back. It hasn't gotten more deadly, but it does tend to be worse on the young.-[...]

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Bill Richardson Should Be Special Presidential
US-Cuba Envoy

Anyone who knows New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson knows he can be a handful, can be complicated, and can too often want the story about him more than others. Those are characteristics of most who aspire to the presidency.

However, this week during his trip to Cuba allegedly for agricultural trade promotion reasons, Governor Richardson demonstrated why he is such a vital national asset in America's diplomatic game.

Richardson has a knack for dealing with the harder challenges in international affairs -- often extracting American captives from totalitarian regimes but also understanding that in some cases what the game is about is not getting some journalist or innocent released from a gulag but rather using that engagement to create "possibilities" in America's engagement with that nation that did not exist before.

My devout Republican friend Phil Peters writes at his blog, The Cuban Triangle, about RIchardson's recent diplomatic foray to Havana very positively.

Peters reports (and here is a good CBS News clip of some of this in Richardson's press conference):

1. Governor Richardson concludes his visit by saying he will report to President Obama and by offering to set up a dialogue between the Cuban government and Cuban Americans.

2. Richardson urges Cuba to act, "especially in the humanitarian area," and wants both Washington and Havana to ease travel restrictions. "Normalizing relations is going to take time, it is a complicated thing and there are a lot of issues to address...It will take time, but we have to do it," he said.

3. Richardson said that the United States has suggested that the two governments drop restrictions on their diplomats' movements, and he urged Cuban officials to agree to the idea.

If its reporting is correct, Mexico's La Jornada stated that Richardson offered a "plan of reciprocal actions to normalize relations with Cuban authorities."

Let's call this "The Richardson Plan."

From the Cuban Triangle report on what we are now calling "The Richardson Plan":

The plan would defer larger and more contentious issues and start with the two sides taking humanitarian steps.

The United States would put into effect the announced Obama policy ending restrictions on family travel and remittances; allow greater sports, cultural, scientific, academic, and business exchanges; and allow Americans in general to travel to the island.

Cuba would end "bureaucratic restrictions and high fees" that make family visits more costly, accept a U.S. proposal to end the restrictions that limit both sides' diplomats to the Havana and Washington capital areas, and start an "informal dialogue" with Cuban Americans.

Regarding his own role:

Richardson also said that he sees no need for a U.S. special envoy and doesn't think he will have a role in U.S. diplomacy toward Cuba.

A couple of quick reactions from TWN's corner.

First of all, Bill Richardson is the right guy to upend the institutional inertia at the Department of State and the House Foreign Affairs Committee in charting a new, more constructive course in US-Cuba relations. He gets this issue better than any other major player in US politics and made this clear as well during the presidential debates and his campaign for the White House.

His modest statement that America did not need a "special envoy" -- and did not need him -- for this challenge is incorrect.

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton "promised" Senate Foreign Relations Committee Ranking Member Richard Lugar a "full policy review" during detailed responses to written questions (pdf) posed by Lugar to the then nominee Clinton.

Nothing at all of consequence has happened with this review. There is no broad re-assessment of opportunities and challenges in the US-Cuba relationship, nor a new assessment of what was achieved or not regionally and internationally from Obama's recent Summit of the Americas outreach to Cuba and his efforts to lighten travel and remittance restrictions for Cuban-Americans.

At this point, Secretary of State Clinton has a State Department that is in "non-compliance" with the oversight committee of the US Senate that measures and observes the administration's actions because of the failure to perform this promised "policy review" -- behind which Clinton hid when not responding to a number of important questions.

That is why Bill Richardson is needed.

There are many decades of institutionalized neglect and built in inertia in the US-Cuba relationship that prevent the State Department from not only "seeing what is possible" in a restructured relationship -- but in deploying a strategy that moves us squarely and definitively in a new direction.

Travel for Cuban-Americans is not enough. That is a discriminatory executive order that creates a class of action and opportunities for one class of ethnic Americans and denies equal treatment for other Americans. Obama should know better.

But despite Richardson's own references to Cuban-Americans in his commentary in Cuba, he has frequently endorsed the removal of travel restrictions for all Americans. That is the policy that an American democratic government should embrace.

As Republican Congressman Jeff Flake (R-AZ-6) said on one occasion at the New America Foundation:

Communist governments are supposed to be the ones that restrict the travel of their citizens -- not the government of the United States of America where people are supposed to be free. But it is our government -- the United States government -- that is imposing restrictions on American citizens. This is wrong.

Barack Obama should take a step back from the US-Cuba question and realize that changing US-Cuba relations much more than he has remains the lowest hanging fruit among foreign policy possibilities for him. US-Cuba relations has always mattered far beyond the relationship itself and had important "echo" impacts on broader world affairs.

It's time that Obama realized that this one is easier than it looks. People to people exchange. Travel. Scientific, cultural and educational exchange. All of these are the pathway to taking the US-Cuba relationship in a new and healthy direction.

Drop the counterproductive, compulsive obsessiveness with "conditionality." It does not work and undermines American interests.

Those who wanted conditionality have achieved nothing the last five decades except freezing the relationship in a Cold War status quo that must be shattered.

And the best way to shatter it is to incrementally pull out the foundations of the "theory of the embargo" and to rebuild some degree of trust between regimes that may not learn to like each other for a long time -- but who nonetheless could demonstrate a practical kind of engagement that few thought possible even a few years ago.

Obama should ask Bill Richardson to be his envoy, sherpa and nudge to drive US-Cuba relations beyond the anachronistic Cold War trap they have been in towards new terms of engagement fit for the 21st century and Obama's eventual foreign policy legacy.

-- Steve Clemons

Extra reading: For those interested, my colleague Patrick Doherty's work on a set of humanitarian protocols tied to hurricane diplomacy with former State Department Chief of Staff Lawrence Wilkerson is gaining some real traction.

Read The Full Article:
http://www.thewashingtonnote.com/archives/2009/08/bill_richardson_5/

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