The Scorched Earth Primaries and Republican Tactics

When Obama became President of the United States, there was much talk about an era of "new bipartisanship." He came in and started offering the hand of friendship, nominating Republicans for top offices like ambassadors and important policy decisions. His health care plan was crafted to mostly a wish list of Republican ideas - mandated health insurance, for example.

The Republican response was to basically say "If we don't get our way on *everything*, then you get *nothing*." Ideas they had championed for decades - Pay As You Go legislation to head off deficits, for example, ideas that Republicans proposed were suddenly voted against if Democrats were willing to go along with it. Chuck Grassley proposed mandated health insurance - then attacked it as unconstitutional and dangerous when Obama put it into the health care bill.

The plan seemed simple: All for me, and nothing for you. Not just nothing for you - the Republicans have spent nearly 4 years saying "Screw you" to everything and anything the Democrats propose, even if 24 hours before Republicans agreed with it. Every vote in the Senate is now cancelled unless Democrats can get a 60 vote majority. Every Obama nomination requires the same. Oh, did we pass a law saying there was consumer protections? Yeah, good luck getting anyone to fill the seat to head it up.

The idea is by denying Obama anything and everything, they can get what they want. And for the most part, it worked. When faced with blowing up the entire country or giving in to Republican demands, Democrats have decided not to let the entire system fall apart. So Republicans have learned the lesson: acting like terrorists holding a bomb to the United States will get you result.

And now - that mentality has struck the Republican primaries.

You have Mitt Romney, the would-be nominee. On paper, he doesn't look too bad. Republican who was in governor of a liberal state. Has enough money. No major skeletons in the closet. Clean cut. Looks nice.

And yet - he can't close the deal. Maybe it's the "I was for abortion now I'm against it," "My health care plan for Massachusetts which the Obamacare plan is based on is a horrible thing," "Gay marriage is awesome until I'm running for the Republican presidential ticket and then it's awful" issues. Or it's the "I only pay 15% in taxes and I have $200,000,000 in the bank - yet I pay less money in taxes than a secretary because that's totally fair because mine is investments instead of actual work." Maybe it's the Mormon thing - evangelicals have their scrotums vanish up into their bodies at the idea of a Mormon president ordering the US military to send Mormon missionaries two by two unto every doorstop in America.

Whatever the reason, the scorched earth policy the Republicans took with Obama - is now being visited upon Mitt Romney. Newt Gingrich is totally unelectable, he's been making racist comments about how "black people should stop asking for food stamps and ask for jobs" (Why black people, specifically, Newt? I mean, "poor people" is at least a Republican talking point for the lazy, but why are "black people" the ones not working compared to the what - "hard working white man on medicare who's not on the government dole unlike those lazy black people"?). Same with Senator Rick Santorum. You'd think that they'd fall in line, support their candidate's party-

And yet they are doing everything they can to destroy Romney. Calling him a "moderate liberal." Rick Perry is dropping out and going to support Gingrich. The conservative christian base is nominating anyone but "that Mormon" because well - you know. Mormons aren't Christians (even though they worship Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior from sin forever and forever amen - but that's not Christian enough for those folks).

From what I'm seeing, the Republicans are willing to destroy even themselves if they don't get what they want. "We don't want Romney, and we have this bomb set to go off if he's nominated."

I don't know if Romney could beat Obama in the general election. But at this rate, it won't matter if the Republicans are willing to destroy themselves.

Bank Transfer Day Danger: Leverage

I'm thinking this morning about leverage. This is a financial thing, where you take the money you have, and use it as a base for loans.

For example, if you have $10 in cash, according to leverage rules you can borrow up to $100 out there. There are other rules involves - if it's a unsecured loan, the leverage ratio you're allowed to go with is something like 1:10 (with $10 you can borrow out $100), while for mortgages you can borrow out 1:20 (with $10 you can borrow out $2000).

The idea is that each loan has different risks - home ownership -is- was considered safe, so you could offer more loans based on it. Then again, that was when there was no such thing as "subprime", and even FHA loans (which are insured) were rarer. But "in the day" a mortgage required something like 20% down (so the owners had more cash riding on it, and it was easier to get their equity back).

Anyway. The issue here is that banks have kind of - well, screwed with the system. First by offering more subprime loans, which their leverage is closer to the 1:10 ratio. But that's where out friend bundling comes in, where the investment firms put together a bunch of mortgages and sold "shares" of those mortgages on the stock market. If you bundled enough "good" mortgages with "subprime" mortgages, the entire bundle could be considered "good" so the banks could still leverage the 1:20 ratio.

Which means they could be riskier with their money, which means when those subprimes crashed so went all of the money the banks had used to make those loans, hence why the financial system blew up.
There's a lot more to it than that, but there's the issue in a nutshell.

So why am I thinking about this? Because there's a growing movement of people pegging November 5th as "switch to a credit union" day. The idea here is that:

1. The big banks blew up the economy, so we want to take away their source of power: money.

2. Credit unions are membership owned, not stock market owned, so there's less incentive to take those crazy risks for profit.

3. Regional banks can be bought up by the bigger banks, whereas to buy up a credit union a big bank (like Bank of America) would have to totally redo the credit union's charter, and get the permission of most of the "stockholders" (aka - the credit union members) before they can do so.

Sounds like a great idea. Only - I'm worried.

I'm worried because I wonder just what the "big banks" will do as more and more of their cash deposits vanish. What happens to all of those loans that were made? They'll have to sell them off.
And the problem is there's still a lot of stuff that's toxic, especially all of these home loans that are being foreclosed upon. Now, in an ideal world, the big banks would go out of business, the deposits would be protected by the FDIC and transferred to another bank, the stockholders would lose out and next time form companies that don't take such risks.

I'll wait for the laughter to die down.

The downside of this is another wave of major financial collapse. The stock market alone would take a pounding, which means those pensions/retirement accounts would be even further reduced - and things are bad enough already. Not to say all of the layoffs as the big banks died (and my money says while they went on the CEO's and major executives would still get their nice golden parachutes).
But the other alternative is just as terrible: more bank bailouts. Before, the toxic assets were bought up by the Fed at nearly "paper value" - in other words, if the bank made a bad mortgage for $1,000,000 on a house that is now worth only $200,000, the bank got nearly $1,000,000 from the Fed as part of its toxic asset buy up (this was part fo the "save the financial system from itself" move - and wasn't accompanied by major hard new rules enforcing behavior. Nope - if anything, the financial system has spent millions lobbying congress not to touch them).

So if people take their money out of the banks en masse and put it elsewhere, my greatest fear is the US government will say "oh noes - Bank of America is going to die! Here, we'll buy your stuff at paper value. Granted, you leveraged $1 to become $20 (or more), so really you're making a massive profit, so it's canceling out all of the people who took money out of you, and now you're just as strong as before - but we can't let you special special too big to fail banks die!"

If it sounds like I'm saying "nothing might change if people take their money out", I kind of am. I hope not. What would be best is if the US government, instead of rescuing the big financial firms this time, broke them up into smaller parts, enforced hard regulations and took the financial system back about 30 years so they behave better, like they did between 1940 to about 1980 or so.

Yeah. I'm not confident that's going to happen.

Don't blame the poor, poor bankers!

Every so often, I see or hear someone make a comment like this:

You know, the government required that banks make loans to poor people, and that's what lead to the real estate meltdown.

Usually when I hear that, I can instantly guess the person is either a libertarian or terribly uneducated.

The government yes, did require banks offer more loans to lower income houses - but the potential home owners had to fall under the FHA guidelines, which meant that:

* They had to have proof of income (tax returns, pay stubs, etc).
* They had to buy home owners insurance.
* The loan itself had to have mortgage insurance - the idea here is that if the borrower couldn't pay back, then the bank got at least most if not all of their money back.

Pre-2008 or so, FHA loans had about a 5% failure rate - so the risk/reward for banks was pretty even, and the mandatory purchase of insurance meant that they were still making money overall.

However, the real estate meltdown was caused by subprime mortgages. Mortgages that were paid for by creating a second mortgage to make the down payment on the first. Mortgages with variable rates that would suddenly jump. No income proof required mortgages. No insurance required loans.
In other words, not the style of FHA loans that the government requested the banks make to a small number of low income people.
Basically, saying "Well, the government is to blame not the poor poor banks" is nonsense. If the banks had stuck with the FHA style requirement loans that were asked for on a small group of lower class people, nothing would have happened. If those 5% had failed, they would have been insured.

But the banks went insane. They were making toxic, quick turn around, get those homes into mortgages and then sell them up into CDOs to sell on the market fast fast fast ignore the risk someone else will pick up the tab! Now it went from a failure rate (with insurance to protect on it) of 5% under FHA guidelines, to a failure rate of 13, sometimes up to 25% - with no insurance to pick it up. And once those groups started to fall, the ripple effect took out everything else along the way. After all, the banks weren't going to worry about the cost of the subprimes - they were selling them off onto wall street. Wall street didn't bother to check the validity of their CDO investments - that was up to the individuals. The individuals trusted the rating agencies that had been paid to give good ratings. Everyone else was going to pick up the tab for their bad investments.

And that someone turned out to be the American taxpayers when the financial systems made loans that were not required by the government, were not properly vetted, were not properly insured, and now we know also contained fraud (such as how much people were actually making) or without proper title backing.

Blaming the government in this case is like your doctor telling you to take a couple of aspirin, and then you blame him when you turn into a crack addict selling your body to HIV infected gang rapists. It's not accurate as to the scale, as to the process, or as to the unwarranted thoughtless greed that caused the meltdown.

Republicans: Don't Elect Science Deniers

Today, I saw a great comment: There are people who stand on the shoulders of giants, and show their appreciation by peeing on them.

At a recent Republican debate, Rick Perry was asked about climate change, where 97% of all climate scientists agree that yes, humans digging up ancient stores of carbon dioxide from coal and oil, then burning them to fill the atmosphere with more carbon dioxide faster than the planet can adapt to is causing the world to heat up and weather patterns to change.

Perry's response:

"The science is not settled on this. The idea that we would put Americans’ economy at jeopardy based on scientific theory that’s not settled yet to me is just nonsense,” Perry said. “Just because you have a group of scientists who stood up and said here is the fact. Galileo got outvoted for a spell, (from ABC)

Think about that statement. Why did Galileo did outvoted? Because the political and religious force at the time, mainly the Catholic church, held a "trial" where they said "You're wrong, no matter what you can provide evidence for," then he was taken down into the basements of the church and shown the torture implements and, at the age of 70, was given a choice:

Recent what you've been saying about the Earth not being the center of the solar system, or else we'll use these on you.

What a wonderful analogy from Rick Perry. "Remember that other smarty pants scientists who said somethin' different than what religion and the politicians of the time said? Yeah, he took it back when the real people told him to shut up."

Then there's Michelle Bachman, who has started telling people that the HPV vaccine causes mental retardation. How did she get to this discovery?

“There’s a woman who came up crying to me tonight after the debate. She said her daughter was given that vaccine,” Bachmann said on Fox News. “She told me her daughter suffered mental retardation as a result. There are very dangerous consequences.” (From The Washington Post)

Seriously. Some lady came up and said "My daughter got the shot and now she's a moron!" She doesn't remember the lady's name, didn't consult an actual doctor to see if this was possible, doesn't know if the lady is a troll - she just looked at the tears and went "OMG evidence who needs science!"

I really don't understand the Republican drive against science. It's what made America strong. These are the people who would have stood outside Ben Franklin's house and shouted about how the mandate to build lightning rods on houses and churches was a government conspiracy, how it was subverting the will of God from punishing people, that it was "big science" seeking to make a bunch of money by putting lightning rods everywhere when just because some guy flew a kite that didn't mean nothing everybody knows lightning is when Yahweh lights a fart.

How can anyone vote for these people? You know, at this point, Mitt Romney may be a layoff king asshole, but at least he's not crazy.

Obama Puts Republicans In a Corner

You may have caught President Obama's speech on his job bill on Thursday. If you haven't, you can check it out here.

Now, here's a rundown of the list of what he's requesting from Congress:

1. A tax break for small business employers who hire people or give them a raise.

2. A tax break who hire people who have been out of work for 6 months or more.

3. A tax cut to middle class families.

4. Some job program items championed by Republicans in Georgia who offer temporary jobs to the unemployed (so they're not just collecting an unemployment paycheck).

5. Cut tax loopholes for corporations and make changes to Medicare/Medicaid so the entire bill is budget neutral.

If you notice right there, 4.5 of the 5 items are things Republicans say they want. You hear from people like John Boehner all the time about how "taxes are killing the small business" and so on.

OK - so here's an offer for a tax break for them. And a tax break for the middle class. And those changes to benefit systems like Medicare and Medicaid you always say you want - here you go! Fear the budget after you spent 8 years racking it up - well, this is budget neutral.

All you have to do is pass a bill that's full of the things Republicans say they want.

And therein lies the trap. These are things that will help the economy. Probably not as good as a real public works program, where all of the roads would be rebuilt and fixed, bridges repaired, schools completely fixed up the way they should be, perhaps hiring writers to write the next generation textbooks and so on and so forth - but these things are a good foundation for jobs. And they're all things Republicans say they want.

But if they pass it, it will actually help the economy. But if they don't, they'll be proved as people who are putting party before country. So which is it, Republicans - do you only love tax cuts that are budget neutral if they benefit the top 1% of the country, instead of those small jobs and middle class people you claim to represent?

Or do you lust after being the opposition to everything Democrats propose more?

Balanced Budget Breakdown

During the recent debt ceiling debate, which helped lead to S&P downgrading the US credit because the Republicans have publicly stated that taking the US economy hostage and threatening to blow it up to get their way is a really bad thing, one of the ideas proposed by the Republicans is a concept called the Balanced Budget Amendment.

To most people, this sounds like a reasonable thing. After all, if *I* have to balance my budget, why doesn't the government? Make it so the government can't spend more money than they take in! Pass a constitutional amendment that will make them do so!

Only the more I looked into this issue, the more I've come to decide that this is the worst idea we could possibly go with. You think the 500 point slide on August 04 was bad?

Now imagine how much worse it is under a balanced budget amendment. And it would be. Here's a few of my (admittedly inexpert) reasons.

First, the government isn't a business. And even if it is - it has to operate like one. Which means having a forced "balanced budget" is still a bad idea overall.

1. Expectations and Realizations

Every year, the US government tries to figure out how much money is going to come in, and then figure out how much money they should spend on things. This is little different than a business - they're looking at the balance sheets, and trying to look ahead for next year on how much they should spend.

But suppose that things go bad that year. Perhaps there's a bad economy so you don't bring in as much as you expected. In the real world, you look at your options - do you raise costs to meet expenses? Fire employees? Or perhaps you take out a loan knowing "OK, if I take out a loan now, continue to keep my employees and finish my upgrades, I can pay this off next year when things get good."

It's an option to go into debt. For many companies, it's a valid option to do so that when things go better, you'll be stronger than your competitors and kick their asses next economic cycle. Or you'll hold onto that one really great salesperson or manager or employee. Either way, the best option isn't to limit yourself to only two options: raise prices or cut spending. You want the third option - get a credit extension - to keep you through the bad times.

Now imagine how chaotic that would be on the United States level. Year 1 under the Balanced Budget Amendment world you have a balanced budget. Year 2 - oh, that was a great economy we have a lot of money spend more! Year 3 - whoops, revenue projects were too high cut spending or jack up taxes!

You'd have such a roller coaster effect that the "business stability" that Republicans like to blame for when businesses don't spend money because "they don't know what the government is going to do" becomes a year to year prediction as taxes and spending go up and down *every year* in order to figure out where the budget should be.

2. War and Disaster

In a real world business scenario, you make the best plans you can, then through careful risk analysis, you try to either have enough cash on hand to get you through a bad time (like, your servers crash and you need to replace them), or insurance so you can rebuild (like fire insurance).

Ultimately, though, some things you just can't plan for. And then, as a business, you have to make a decision: you either say "The losses are not worth the profits," and walk away, or decide you're going to whether through the bad time and make it through any way you can.

If you're the United States Government, though, you can't just "walk away." China finally goes crazy and invades Florida? The United States can't just say "Well, we *would* ramp up money to go pay for the war - but we're operating under a balanced budget amendment now. So I guess we have to jack up taxes. Or cut out payments to Social Security or something."

Or perhaps a hurricane that destroys a major industrial town in Texas, or a tidal wave takes out Seattle - how do you invoke the power of the US government if you're not allowed to take out a loan to cover these emergency moments of war or disaster?

Now, I know some people will be saying "John, that's an easy solution - put in the War and Disaster clause!" Yes. Because the United States isn't involved in a pair of wars now. Or can't declare a disaster at the drop of a hat. Having that clause would let it be exploited every chance that politicians could take.

3. Debt is a powerful tool for a bad economy

This gets to the heart of the matter of the philosophy behind the Balanced Budget Amendment: the Republican idea that the government is useless to the economy, and if anything, is a necessary evil so people don't get their hands on drugs or birth control.

But history has shown differently. After the crash of 1929, Herbert Hoover tried the current Tea Party based Republican thinking: that the US government debt was the problem (not, say, all of the richest 1% of the population engaging in riskier and risker financial shenanigans while the rest of the country had to borrow more and more to keep up, so when the credit bubble finally popped there was no one holding the bag). So based on Hoover's ideals, you cut government spending, balance the budget, and reduce taxes on the richest and things will get better.

As we saw, it did jack shit. It wasn't until Roosevelt was convinced that the problem wasn't cutting government spending, but increasing employment by the government spending on investments to the country (roads, schools, etc) that the economy started to turn around. The economy really got going during the biggest government spending in World War II, which employed millions of men and women all across the line.

After WWII, the country continued with some of the ideas - high taxes on the wealth (which goes with a previous discussion about why that's a good thing to prevent concentration of revenue into an extreme minority), regulation of the financial industry and methods of keeping them from growing too large (like preventing commercial banks and investment banks from mixing together, keeping banks from having too many branches per geographic area).

And one more thing - in good times, you increase taxes, increase the interest rate to encourage people to save and pay off the debt. In bad times, you drop taxes and interest rates to encourage people to borrow and spend, and increase spending in order to make up for the drop in economy. Now, if you're 1950 to nearly 1980, if you have good enough economic policies you don't have big economic disasters, like occurred with the Savings and Loans scandals of the late 80's, then the Internet Bubble of the 1990's, then the major financial collapse of 2008 which has nearly exactly the same symptoms of the 1929 Great Depression crash.

You remove the ability of the government to do those things because of the Balanced Budget Amendment - and you've just removed an entire slew of tools the government can use to help fix an ailing economy. Yes, I know - Republicans will say that there's nothing the government can do anyway except "get out of the way." And they can say that as long as they ignore the last 100 years of history, ignore how their own policies enacted since 1980 have lead to lower and lower income for the middle class, and increased recessions.

The Balanced Budget Amendment is one of those "it seems like common sense" ideas. Until you think about it. And then discover it makes no sense *at all*.

ABC: You're Demonstrating how the media is failing us

Breitbart. If the name sounds familiar to you, you might first need to put the words "liar" and "complete and utter asshole" around the word. Andrew Breitbart is probably most famous for giving the world James O'Keefe's selectively edited videos that made ACORN look like an organization that supported prostitution and drug trafficking . As the world has since found out, it turns out O'Keefe's "pimp" outfits were staged, and the ACORN employees "interviewed" were trying to stop what they thought were crimes about to be perpetrated by O'Keefe.

Of course, Breitbart said it wasn't his fault, it was all the fault of the media for not checking the facts. Which leads us right to the Shirley Sherrod scandal, where Breitbart released a video acquired through "anonymous" sources that painted Dept of Agriculture employee Shirley Sherrod as a racist black woman who hated white people.

You might be shocked to hear this, but it turns out that the video of Ms. Sherrod speaking was edited to make the exact opposite point that she was originally trying to make, that it's wrong to discriminate against people.

So we have an established pattern from Breitbart, to have people shoot videos, then edit them to make them look bad. He promotes liars. He targets minorities or organizations that help minorities and works to discredit them through lies.

And now ABC has hired Breitbart to be part of their election coverage on Tuesday.

I'm not going into the problems ABC is having with their new coworker. What I am going to say is that this is the problem with the modern news media. They're not interested in the truth - we know this because they hired Breitbart in the first place. They're interested in controversy, in having monkeys screeching at each other and people watching the poo flinging competitions.

There's any number of people they could have asked to participate. Experts in political opinion. Statisticians who can compare polling results against incoming information. Former politicians discussing their views on what went right or wrong.

But - no. They hired for "controversy", for entertainment of having people on opposing sides of the political spectrum "fighting it out." They could have brought us useful information, an interesting debate between conservative and progressive ideas.

Instead, they opted to serve up a bullshit sandwich slathered with douche drippings and call it a meal. So I'm just letting ABC know:

You're cut off. I'm not watching you in any way, shape or form. No web site, no TV shows. Nothing. Because you're not worth it.

Call me when you're interested in delivering actual worthwhile information that will help people make intelligent decisions, instead of sitting back with the popcorn watching the equivalent of professional wrestling disguised as political discourse.

Crazy Comes Full Circle

Several years ago I listened to a book on tape The Crisis of Islam: Holy War and Unholy Terror. I hope any readers of this blog and the author will forgive me for any mistakes I make in referencing that book.

That said, there was a fascinating part discussing how the ideas of Millennial Rule propogated from one group to the next. The idea isn't new, but the most common thread starts with the Book of Revelations in the Bible. It goes something like this:

• There's going to be a time of great trouble.
  
• The world is divided into The Good and The Evil.
  
• Eventually, the Evil will be destroyed.
  
• Once all evil has been eradicated, there will follow 1,000 years of happiness and joy for the Good people left over.
  

In the case of the original story in Revelations, this was tied into the early Christian church and Yahweh worship. Eventually, everybody would believe that Jesus Christ was the Son of Yahweh and the Redeemer of the World, all the bad people would be cleansed off the earth, and everything would be awesome.

Ever since then, various groups tried to use this idea, only with changes, and with each adaptation the concept, the Good and the Evil was changed. You start off with Christians being The Good and everybody else being The Bad.

Then came along people like Lenin and Stalin. But in their view, it was the bourgeois (aka the rich and powerful) versus the proletariat (aka the regular/poor people). Once you got rid of all of the rich people and destroyed their power, then you'd have a utopia that would last for at least a thousand years.

Then the Nazi's came along, and they said "Oh, no no no. You guys have this all wrong. See, it's the Aryans who are the Good and the pure ones, and the Jews/gypsies/homosexuals/anybody but Aryans who are the Evil - especially the Jews. So if we just kill off all of the Jews, then anyone else non-Aryan, then we'll have a 1,000 year Reich where everyone will be happy."

Then, if my recollection of The Crisis of Islam is correct, this idea was then picked up by the Baathists. Certain scholars were in Germany as World War II was starting up,and when they returned to the Middle East they said "You know, these Germans have a great idea - only they got it all wrong. Clearly, the Arabians (or the Persians if you were in Iran) are The Good, and everyone else (especially the Jews!) are The Evil. So if we just get rid of all of the Jews and then the non-Arabians, only Good people will be left and we'll have a thousand years of peace."

Guess what happened when Al-Qaida popped up? In their case, The Good were Muslims (at least, their brand of Islam which was much more strict and something like you see the Taliban go by), and the Evil was everybody who wasn't Muslim - or their brand of Islam. Originally, they were attacking other Muslims in the Middle East, since if they could get rid of the "not strict enough Muslims" then they'd have peace. But then they decided that they had to get rid of the non-Muslims first, then go after the not-strict-enough Muslims - so Al-Qaida shifted its attention to the United States.

So where am I going with this? Well, it turns out that this crazy, stupid notion that if only you could get rid of (really, kill off) The Evil and then everything will be wonderful has once again returned to Christianity.

OK, it never really left it - there have been groups that have been looking forward to The End Of The World and the Destruction of the Non-Believers since at least 50 CE. This has been true in the United States, between the Mormons, Jehovah's Witnesses and so on.

That said, those groups have been fairly benign compared to the other groups I mentioned. However, the US is now facing a new round of crazy. Take Hawaii, where a candidate for governor who's a member of a church that is campaigning against witches.

Witches. In the year 2010. And not just witches, but they want to go about and "If you have any idols in your home, we're gonna burn 'em! If you have any witchcraft items in your home, we're gonna burn 'em!" It's what you see in the Tea Party/David Barton/Glenn Beck historical revisionism that tries to convince people that the United States was always meant to be Christian, that the Founders didn't want any other religion than Christianity - and if you're of any other religion, or believe set, or even don't have a religion other than Christianity: then you must be evil.

It's a notion that seeks to replace all knowledge such as in the Texas schoolboard system to get rid of the ideas of The Evil (aka - non-Christian), because if we could just get rid of those, then we'd have a perfect country and have 1,000 years of peace and happiness. It's the same thinking that produces people like Christine O'Donnell, a Senate candidate who doesn't believe that the 1st Amendment to the United States Constitution prohibits government from establishing religion. It's what leads people to make stupid comments like "Not all Muslims are terrorists, but all terrorists are Muslims.".

The stupidity, the rank fearmongering isn't astounding. What's astounding is how many people are falling for it, and willingly embracing it.

It's the same old tribalism that "if only The Other" would

Financial Reform: Republicans want to remove one of the best parts

During the financial crisis, there was a phrase seared into the collective consciousness of the population:too big to fail. The notion that the failure of a particular company or business would lead so such catastrophe, it must be saved at all costs.

There are really only four ways to deal with the problem of "too big to fail":

1. Let it fall anyway. That was tried during the run up to the Great Depression. Didn't work out so well.
2. Bail it out. We did that in 2008' and yeah, the financial system was saved, but the people who helped ruin the economy elated away with their millions of dollars in bonuses, and the financial organizations have no disincentive to act like addicted gambler's with Grandma's retirement money.
3. Make being too big illegal. I personally like this one. You basically expand the monopoly laws to encompass "too big". If a company is too big, you break it up into smaller pieces that have to compete with each other. This insures that the government, which is answerable to the populace at large and not just those rich enough to buy shares, is always much more powerful than the business community. It also has a tendency to make Republican heads explode.
4. Create procedures to shutndown a "too big to fail bank" safely. I rather like this one too. It's also the way the current financial bill works.

Right now, the FDIC exists to make sure that is a bank fails, that the people with accounts in the bank (checking and saving accounts, CDs, etc) still get their money. Basically the FDIC swoops in, takes control of the bank, insures the accounts and gives them to a responsible bank. Usually this takes 48 hours for the transfer to occur, and then the cleanup goes from there.

During the financial collapse, there were plans to take over a giant bank if need be, but the billions of dollars-and the will to use such plans- wasn't there.

The new financial reform bill fixes that. It would set up a banking industry paid for fund of $50 billion dollars and procedures that, should a "too big to fail" bank is about to fail, the answer is "guess what? You're not too big after all. We're taking your assets, firing your management, your investors who encouraged your bad behavior get *nothing*, your customers with checking and savings and mortgages get saved."

It creates a giant Sword of Domacles over the heads of the financial institutions that tells them "you are *not* to big to fail-and if you fail, you lose everything. There will be no more bailouts where you get to go on with business as usual at the expense of the taxpayer."

Which, naturally, is why the Republicans are now lying and calling it a "eternal bailout machine", and why Mitch McConnell is lining up every Republican to filibuster it.

Because unlike the corporate welfare systems the Republicans love, that socialism for the rich and none for the poor, the banks get the profits and the public gets the losses- the financial reform bill stops bad bank behavior. So the banks and their bought politicians will do anything to stop it.

This part of the financial reform bill must not be removed. It must be kept in so big banks know they are not "too big to fail". Sadly, there's word that President Obama will let that part be removed to get Republicans on board.

That would be a horrible idea, and I hope both the President and the Congress fight to keep that part in. Because it's too important.

Bush knew prisoners were innocent

When 9-11 hit, everybody wanted to plant a bullet inside Osama bin Laden's brain.

OK, maybe not everybody, but I'm sure outside of Ghandi, Jesus and Buddha, everybody else was debating whether to nuke the terrorists or shoot them into the stone age.

The feeling was so great that, as Glenn Greenwald writes in his book "How Would a Patriot Act", after 9-11:

The bipartisan support for President Bush was so great that Democrats waived their right to present the traditional response to the president's address.

Anything Bush asked for the country gave him. New powers to wiretap people? Go for it. A war with Afghanistan? Awesome. Expanded military? You got it.

Turns out, it wasn't enough for the the Bush administration. Now we learn Bush, Cheney and Rumsfeld knew there were people innocent of any crimes whatsoever, and wanted them kept in Guantanamo prison because it would hurt their case against Iraq.

A man taken from his home, his family, locked into a cell for no reason. Not even a chance at a trial so he can stand before a judge and say "I didn't do it", and people in power, people who swore an oath to defend the values of the Constitution that includes the right of habeas corpus - the right just to question why you've been arrested - they decided that "Well, we could do the *right* thing, but then we couldn't have this awesome war against someone who had nothing to do with 9-11 except that he's brown too."

Oh, I know, I know - "It was all in the past, John." "It was another time, John." "We need to look forward, not backwards."

Only whenever Cheney or his daughter step out to defend those policies, all I can see now are people who when they're confronted with the fact that they've done horrible, monstrous things, the response is a smirk and "So?"

If there's any reason to take any of them seriously, to ever accept them into polite society again, I can't think of a one.

Layman's view of Attorney General Case Against Insurance Mandates

Since the health care bill passed, there have been 14 states that have sued to prevent some of the provisions within the health care law from effecting them.

Mainly, the insurance mandates.

Their argument, as described in this Daily Cougar article over the lawsuits, goes like this:

Their main issue with the legislation is the requirement that individuals purchase health insurance or face financial penalties.

For more than 230 years, the government has never forced its citizens to purchase anything, as there is no provision in the Constitution that grants the Congress this authority.

An interesting argument.

Too bad it's not true.

In 1792, Congress passed and George Washington signed the Militia Act of 1792 (stolen from a reference from a Salon.com article). Here's the important part:

e it enacted . . . That each and every free able-bodied white male citizen of the respective states, resident therein, who is or shall be of the age of eighteen years, and under the age of forty-five years (except as is herein after excepted) shall severally and respectively be enrolled in the militia . . . . That every citizen so enrolled and notified, shall, within six months thereafter, provide himself with a good musket or firelock, a sufficient bayonet and belt, two spare flints, and a knapsack, a pouch with a box therein to contain not less than twenty-four cartridges, suited to the bore of his musket or firelock, each cartridge to contain a proper quantity of powder and ball: or with a good rifle, knapsack, shot-pouch and powder-horn, twenty balls suited to the bore of his rifle, and a quarter of a pound of powder. . . .

So not only were they telling every "free able-bodied white male" that you're now in the militia, but you have to go out and buy yourself a gun.

"But that's not health care!" I'm sure those attorney generals would say. Sure - so how about John Adams - truly a rampant socialist signed into law an insurance mandate on all sailors making them pay 1% of their income to an insurance program.

So that shuts down the concept that the US government never made people buy things.

Let's go to the usual argument from there. Usually it goes like this:

1. States have mandates for auto insurance, so why can't the federal government make the same kind of insurance mandate?

2. But people *choose* to drive or not to drive. (A point I'd quibble with in a society that puts such low value on public transportation.) They don't choose to live, so it's not right to make them buy insurance.

Let me lay out a few arguments regarding this.

First, is in how the insurance mandate works. If you don't have insurance, then the IRS can lay a 2.5% tax on you. Contrary to hysterical belief, IRS commandos with guns aren't going to kick in your door and make you pay at gunpoint. In fact, Politifact found that you'd have to build up a lot of fines before the IRS would even care about going after you.

The mandate won't kick in until 2014, and typically the way it will come to people's attention unless they file for a tax refund and the IRS spots they don't have insurance (in which case the tax will be applied), or if they show up to the emergency room and found not to have insurance, the IRS could find out.

This is the most important piece, and ties into the basic argument regarding why the insurance mandate is justified.

In 1986, Congress passed the Emergency Medical Treatment and Active Labor Act. In it, it mandated that hospitals must provide emergency care and assistance to people, regardless of their citizenship, or their ability to pay.

Hence, the entire purpose of the insurance mandates. When people go to the emergency room and either don't have insurance or the ability to pay for themselves, everyone else that pays into the system is paying their costs.

"But John - the hospital can bill them!" you say.

Yes. But the hospital can't make them pay.

The idea was mentioned that people choose to drive so it's fair to make them get auto insurance. Everyone is also able to go to the emergency ward. If you're going to take advantage of the fact that hospitals must pay for your care, then it's only fair that you are a part of that system.

It should be mentioned that the insurance mandates also include subsidies for the poor, expanded Medicaid so that those without aren't forced to purchase insurance when they clearly can't pay for it. However, for everyone else, it's not only Constitutional based on precedent, but warranted that everyone who can take advantage of that system should pay into the system.

The choice was either a direct tax on the population, or allow people to use the market. If anything, a Republican idea for mandates (as Mitt Romney would remind people during the 2008 elections, or Chuck Grassley who pushed for mandates for ages before he decided to oppose them the second the Democrats put them in to get Republican support.

And, just for added benefits, there's one more ace in the whole that gets this *whole case* thrown out:

The mandates are optional.

That's right, kids. Don't like the mandate? Well, then your state can opt out of them - all it needs is to come up with their own plan:

It's called the "Empowering States to be Innovative" amendment. And it would, quite literally, give states the right to set up their own health care system -- with or without an individual mandate or, for that matter, with or without a public option -- provided that, as Wyden puts it, "they can meet the coverage requirements of the bill."

That's right-if you have a state plan, then there's no mandate needed. Single payer, Belgian system, some co-op thing - whatever. Just have a plan that might work, and the mandate goes away.

Either way, I'd say the 14 state attorney generals have a hard time ahead of them. But, I'm sure spending tax payer dollars to make themselves look good will be well worth it.

For them.

What is reconciliation, and the Public Option might not be dead yet

I know there's been a lot of confusion about reconciliation, what it is, what it does, and all the rest. So let's take a look at what's been going on.

Usually, when a bill becomes law, the House passes a version - call it A. The Senate passes a version - call it B. If there are any differences between the two bills, they go into a committee made of up members from the two groups that smooths out any differences - call that one AB. Then, the House and the Senate vote on the two.

Here's the problem right now. Republicans aren't letting *any* bill pass in the Senate unless it has 60 votes, and there are 41 Republicans and 59 Democrats. So the Senate passed Health Care Version A when they had 60 Democratic votes, the House passed Health Care version B.

Problem is - when Scott Brown (R-MA) got into the Senate, that killed any chance of the Senate voting on the AB version.

This is where reconciliation comes up. Turns out there's a way to get things passed in the Senate via simple majority. First, the House has to pass the Senate version of the bill. Remember how the Senate passed Health Care Version B? Well, the House of Representatives just has to say "OK, we get rid of *our* version, and we pass the Senate version."

Done.

Now, you still have all of those fixes. So the House can say "We propose these changes to the Senate Bill B, called B1." If that passes, then the Senate can say "We accept the House version - and that doesn't take 60 votes, it only takes 51."

That's where we are right now. The House passed Health Care B1 (the fixes to the Health Care Bill). The Senate is debating it right now. Republicans are trying everything to stop the process - mainly, by proposing changes to the changes. If there's so much as 1 change, then it has to go back to the House for another vote, and if they make so much as 1 change, it has to go back to the Senate, and it could ping-pong forever.

Right now, Democrats are standing firm, even though Republicans are bringing up tons of changes like "Vote to deny erection medications for pedophiles." Something Democrats know will look bad in commercials when they see "This Democrat wants criminals to get boners!"

Now things have gotten really interesting. Turns out the Senate must make 2 changes to the bill because there were mistakes after all. (It deals with something called a Parliamentarian deciding things.) So the Senate *will* have to make these two small changes, then send it back to the House.

Here's where it becomes awesome: there was a lot of talk of a Public Option. A government run alternative people could choose to use instead of insurance companies. Because the Republicans have forced a vote on all of these amendments instead of just approving all of the fixes, this now gives a chance to the Democrats to bring up a new amendment (since they have to make these two fixes anyway).

And then, someone could submit for an amendment the Public Option. The House had the votes for it when they passed their bill, the Senate didn't since they needed 60 votes. Now, the Senate only needs 51.

We might have the Republicans to thank if this happens. But you know I'm going to be on the phone with my Senator telling them they should propose it.

Health Care Socialism: Bad! Buying Drugs Cheapened by Socialism: Good!

Please. Someone explain this to me. Evidently, it's a bad thing to put in the price controls on drugs that other countries like Britian and Canada have - a combination of government negotiation (which was actually not allowed during the Bush Medicare drug plan - that's right, the government can't negotiate for cheaper drugs in the United States. Hooray for "free market" forces!)

However, people want to import the drugs from Canada - after that country has used their "OMG SOCIALISM" government to make the drugs cheaper.

So remember - putting in price controls and regulations to control runaway costs? Bad.

Buying from other countries who put in the price controls and regulations to get around the fact that your government is too scared of the pharmaceuticals to, you know, negotiate for cheaper prices for its citizens - good!

It's not honesty to confess after you've been caught

All hail Republican House Majority Leader Kevin Garn, who confessed he paid $150,000 to silence a woman he had been with. In a hot tub. Naked.

When she was a minor and he was 28.

What strength of character to confess his sins on the House floor, and how his fellow politicians applauded his honesty!

Only one problem:

It's not brave to confess after you've been caught.

It would have been brave if he had left it out there and said "You know what, 20 years ago, I was a jackass and did something stupid-judge me by my actions since them" before the incident came out.

Or maybe if he had told the woman "You know - I was stupid, but I'm not paying you hush money."

But to do the stupid thing of being almost 30 and hanging out with a 15 year old girl naked in a hot tub, then pay her money to keep quiet, then confess only *after* the newspapers started picking up the story - that's not bravery.

That's damage control.

So bravo, Mr. Garn. Bravo. Truly, the heart of a lion. Well, after the lion has run away, hid in the bushes, waited until everybody went away.

More Fiscal Responsibility: Tax cuts for the rich, tax increases for the middle class

Republicans: party of fiscal responsibility! Just ignore all of that massive deficit spending during the Reagan and Bush years.

Republicans: Party of cutting your taxes! Well, at least rich people anyway.

And Republicans, who evidently think people have really short memories when they come out with a tax and budget plan that cuts taxes for the rich, gives little to the poor/middle class, and introduces even bigger deficits.

It's like a broken record. Republicans get out of office. And as soon as the Democrats are in power, Republicans start going on about the "tax and spend" Democrats. How the Democrats are the ones "breaking the budget." How the Democrats have these crazy schemes.

And, in the meantime, the Democrats pass Pay-Go legislation that calls for any new spending to be matched with either tax increases or budget cuts elsewhere to pay for the new spending - and do so over every Republican who voted against it.

Democrats propose a health care bill that includes measure to have it be paid for, as opposed to Republican tax cuts and Medicare drug expansions that didn't.

And then, along comes Congressman Ryan who says "You know what would be awesome? Get rid of Medicare, cut taxes to the rich, and magical fiscal fairies will make up the difference! Yes, I know, we tried it under the Reagen years, under the Bush years, but it'll *really really really* work this time!"

And the worst part is - people with political memories of a goldfish are lining up to go "Yeah, great idea!"

Man is tried as terrorist in civilian courts, and I get rude

Today in the news, Najibullah Zaza was tried in court.

In Brooklyn.

Of terrorism.

For the last few months, there's been a group of people who pee their pants protesting the idea of having terrorist trials in New York. You shouldn't read people their Miranda rights when you want to charge them with terrorism, you don't give them any Constitutional rights.

This group of people who wake up in the middle of the night with sopping wet diapers go on about how you can't give non-US citizens protections of the Constitution, even though the Supreme Court has said so for 150 years. Nope, it's all too much to use all of that "law" stuff on people whom, with their scary middle eastern brown skinned powers, will vanish and pop in and out like djinns from that Alladin movie and unleash their attacks on the US. It's like they're all The Joker from Batman or a character from "24". Save me, Jack Bauer! Save me!

Then we get back to Najibullah Zaza, who was tried in Brooklyn under terrorism charges. He had been read his Miranda rights, he had been brought into the courthouse by a New York police department that, contrary to what Cheney and Bloomberg and yes, I'm including those scaredy pants Democrats of New York who ran around screaming "Terrorists! Terrorists! Find me my mommy!" - somehow, the New York police officers didn't let a prisoner flip off the lights and run amok in the streets killing everyone he saw.

Granted, I'm sure this won't have these complete cowards give up their teddy bears at night, for fear that somewhere, someone is actually upholding the rule of law that this country was based on. I mean, according to these people who probably throw their children out the door at the first sign of danger screeching "take them first and leave me alone", it's unAmerican to actually arrest people, try them, and actually follow through what the Constitution and all of those pesky laws say.

Though, I think I'll stick with the law. Then again, I don't need a night light by my bed.

Health Reform Success Criteria: Part 2

OK, so the other day we talked about some basic things that would make for good health care reform: denying the "preexisting condition" clause that health care companies pull, and requiring that everyone sign up for health care insurance if they could afford it, and government assistance for those who can't.

With all of that money rolling in from an additional 50,000,000 new clients, this gives insurance companies plenty of money to provide care for people. But we still have a basic problem of how do we know we're getting *good* health care coverage? What's to stop the health insurance companies from just running off with the money? What if you sign up with a health insurance company because it's the cheapest - then find out you're going to die because the only thing they cover are cotton swabs and you signed up for a crappy insurance service. Congratulations, it's the market at work, and now you're going to die!

Yeah. Doesn't sound that great to me. So there are few more reforms so we can make sure we get a good health care system.

Minimum Health Care Standards

One of the things I got our of reading Tom Daschle's book is the idea of the Government Health Agency - kind of like the FDA or the FED. Now, hold up. People are now going to start running screaming through the streets. OMG THE GOV'MENT IS GOING TO TELL MY DOCTOR WHAT TO DO! WE'RE ALL GOING TO DIIIIIEEEEE!

As opposed to know, where INSURANCE COMPANIES TELL YOUR DOCTOR WHAT THEY'LL PAY FOR, YOU GIT. That's right. When you go to the doctor, and they say "Guess what - you need to have your filangee removed - but your insurance company doesn't cover that," you've just had a private industry bureaucrat decide your health care procedures.

That's not to say the doctor *won't* remove your filangee anyway - but now you have to pay for it out of your own pocket. That's what already happens, folks - if the insurance company doesn't pay for it, you have to.

What the Government Health Agency (GHA) would look like - if you follow the Daschle plan - is a committee formed of various doctor representatives, nurse representatives, some insurance representatives, patient advocacy representatives, and some others. How these will be selected is probably the same way the Fed is - the President appoints someone, Congress approves, and off we go.

The GHA would look at the various diseases and treatments out there, then say "OK - if you're a health insurance company, by law you have to provide these minimum things. Like, check ups every six months with tests A, B, C. If someone gets leukemia, you have to pay for X percent of bone marrow transplants. You must provide contraceptives for women as part of the package. So on and so forth."

Now, if a health insurance company wanted to offer *more* than the minimum government mandates amount, great! It's like how some states require car insurance if you drive - they have to offer at least a minimum coverage amount, but then insurance companies compete over who can offer more coverage and what kinds at the cheapest price.

This makes sure that everyone, even the people who get the cheapest health insurance, at least gets certain minimum of care. Highest on my list would be preventative measures, like checkups every six months with tests like mammograms for women, prostate checks for men - simple things that can detect diseases far before they get into trouble.

Now, with that, there will have to be minimum standards for the patients as well. If you don't get your checkups every six months or so, or don't show up for your tests - you can't complain if you get sick. Now, if you do the things you're asked to do - within reason, of course - and you get sick anyway, then the insurance company has to cover what they contracted to.

This does two things:

1. Makes sure people are getting preventative care which reduces costs for health insurance companies and the patients.

2. Makes sure insurance companies don't go broke when people people get sick, because they'll be catching diseases at the earliest, most preventable state. And, if they're really smart, they'll encourage patients to do things like lose excess weight, watch their diet, so on and so forth.

There is one other element that I believe will make health care reform a success. And that is - the Public Option.

The Public Option

OMG, run for the hills! It's government provided health care! Run for the wind!

Or, that's what some people want you to believe. Think about the FDIC a moment. Every bank is *required* to use some form of insurance on accounts in the event that they go under, their client's checking and savings accounts are protected.

The FDIC isn't the only game in town, though. There are other alternatives, but every bank is under a requirement to own account insurance, whether through the FDIC or some other institution that offers similar protection.

The Public Option Health Insurance plan would be like the FDIC - it's kind of the option of last resort for people. If you don't have any good health care insurers in your area, or they're too expensive, or maybe you can't afford insurance on your own - there's the Public Option to cover you. It will likely only cover the minimum level (I believe the current proposals have a 3 tier system, with minimum care being the lowest and cheapest).

Why even have the Public Option instead of just letting the private industry cover it? Well, for the reasons above. Some private insurance companies don't cover small towns or rural areas.

The Public Option would simply be a not-for-profit health insurance company, like the FDIC, started up with taxpayer seed money, and after that would rise or fall on its own. If it can succeed better than private insurance companies by not worrying about paying out stockholders or owners - then I guess private insurance companies will have to work harder to keep up. Which means people will get better care, and everyone wins.

I think that's everything I can think of for what I'd consider to be Success in health care reform. Will we get any or all of these? I hope so. I'd expect it.

I guess we'll have to see of Congress will deliver it - or give the insurance companies what *they* want - which is to keep the status as it to keep things the same so they make the most money while we spend more on less health care.

OK - Seriously? The faux Obama scandals are getting seriously stupid

Glenn Greenwald. I don't always agree with him, but he's been putting up a very consistent analysis of things he thinks the Obama administration is doing right and wrong. These days, a lot wrong - like how the Obama administration is continuing the bad Bush policies regarding court challenges for terrorism suspects.

Every time, Mr. Greenwald backs up his opinions and assertions with facts. He seeks out the opinions of those who disagree with him. While he did want Obama to win over John McCain, he hasn't let partisan loyalties blind him from calling out actions of the Obama administration he feels are against the US constitution or legal morality. He has no problem pointing a finger at Obama administration scandals.

Then - you've got the dickheads.

The headline? Obama seeks $83.4 billion more for Iraq, Afghanistan wars

President Barack Obama asked Congress on Thursday for $83.4 billion for U.S. military and diplomatic operations in Iraq and Afghanistan, pressing for special troop funding that he opposed two years ago when he was senator and George W. Bush was president. This would push the costs of the two wars to almost $1 trillion since Sept. 11, 2001.

This is the headline from a submitter on Digg. Wait - Obama opposed troop funding two years ago? I mean, that would be kind of horrible, right? Especially if he wants to spend money now-

Then, you can read the article:

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Barack Obama wants Congress to act quickly on his $83.4 billion request for U.S. military and diplomatic operations in Iraq and Afghanistan, an appeal that's disappointing the most liberal, anti-war wing of his party.

But with the president promising to remove all combat troops from Iraq by the end of August 2010, his Democratic allies in control of Congress are sure to approve the spending without the type of tortuous battle that characterized their dealings with former President George W. Bush.

Obama's request Thursday, which included money to send thousands more troops to Afghanistan, would push the cost of the two wars to almost $1 trillion since the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, according to the Congressional Research Service. The additional money would cover operations into the fall.

Huh - so he's spending money so he can support the troops while pulling them out of Iraq. But - didn't he oppose troop funding?

First of all, the bill in question funded all of the ongoing military operations in both theaters, not just "the troops who carried out the surge," as McCain's comment implied.

Secondly, it's misleading to say Obama didn't want to fund "the troops." He said he would support a bill that included a plan for bringing troops home. "We must fund our troops," Obama said. "But we owe them something more. We owe them a clear, prudent plan to relieve them of the burden of policing someone else's civil war. ... We must negotiate a better plan that funds our troops, signals to the Iraqis that it is time for them to act and that begins to bring our brave servicemen and women home safely and responsibly."

If that one vote of Obama's constituted an attempt to "prevent funding to the troops," then almost every Republican in the Senate did the same when they voted against a $124-billion appropriations bill on April 26, 2007, that would have funded operations in Iraq and Afghanistan but also required Bush to begin withdrawing troops from Iraq. (McCain missed the vote on that bill, which passed 51-46 and was subsequently vetoed by Bush.) It wasn't the idea of funding the troops that Bush and the other Republicans were opposing, it was the strategy that the bill would have enabled.

OK - so Obama never opposed troop funding, and he wants to fund their needs in the Iraq war while he pulls them out. That actually sounds - reasonable.

But wait - what about the pizza that Obama ordered? From, across the country?

How much does Obama love his pizza? So much that he is willing to fly a chef 860 miles to Washington D.C. to make him a personal pizza.

When you're the president of the United States, only the best pizza will do - even if that means flying a chef 860 miles.

Chris Sommers, 33, jetted into Washington from St Louis, Missouri, on Thursday with a suitcase of dough, cheese and pans to to prepare food for the Obamas and their staff.

He had apparently been handpicked after the President had tasted his pizzas on the campaign trail last autumn.

Hey, you guys know what says you are really sincere about this whole Global Warming thing that you want to use to justify an economy crushing cap and trade program? Jetting a dude across the country to make you a freaking pie.

Dude, what a douchenozzle that Obama must be! Ordering pizza from across the country and - wait, what's that? It's a big fat lie?

The best one is the first: Ace of Spades slammed Obama's environmental cred for "jetting in" Pi's chef, making it seem as though the guy was hopping a private gulfstream, or worse, partying down on Air Force One .

* In fact, Chris Sommers flew commercial.
* Not only that, he flew coach.
* Not only that, he had already planned a business trip to DC, so the restaurant paid for his travel!


John also told me that Chris Sommers is one of the most dedicated people he knows to the environmental cause.

* In fact, his restaurant buys carbon credits from a wind farm in Colorado.
* Not only that, they recycle about 75% of their waste.
* Not only that, John himself is going into the green building business. You couldn't find a worse case for environmental hypocrisy.


Finally, Barack Obama isn't saddling the American taxpayer with the tab for this feast. He's picking up the tab, for local ingredients, out of his own pocket.

The problem here, is that there are very reasonable and fact based debates that should be going on with the Obama administration, over defense spending, speed of Iraqi troop withdrawals (or whether we should at all), TARP money - all sorts of things can and should be debated.

Based on facts. Based on things that have actually happened. Based on reasonable, realistic arguments and debates. There's plenty there - look at how much stuff Greenwald is getting!

When you feel the need to lie and make stuff up to support your position - especially lies that are easily and quickly disproven, then you make yourself look worse to everyone but your ever dwindling base. And just makes us want to trust you that much less.

This is why I don't watch Fox News: Tolerance of lazy liars

There's a reason why "The Daily Show with Jon Stewart" is now becoming an actual source of news for younger (and by "younger", I mean "20-something and younger). Oh, sure, it's entertaining. But really, the whole shtick of Stewart is:

Stewart: Hey, did you hear about this crazy thing somebody in power said?
(Plays tape of crazy thing.)
Stewart: Isn't that crazy?

But even if you don't find Stewart *funny*, you have to find him *informative*. And honest - he shows what people are *actually saying*. So even if you disagree with him, he's giving people the chance to see the actual quotes, the actual events for themselves.

Then - there's Fox news.

I won't rip on the individual people of the Fox News channel. It would be petty to go after people like O'Reilly or Beck who are hypocrites who contradict themselves depending on what the subject is.

No, I just want to rip on Fox News in general. Not even for being dishonest. But for being lazy about it.

Take this clip of Fox News going on about Harold Koh. According to Fox, Mr. Koh said that Sharia Law - the traditional law used in some segments of the Middle East and Asia - applied in the United States.

If you don't know anything about Sharia Law, it is pretty horrible. First, it's not even Islamic law (though its practitioners tend to live in Islamic communities). It's really old traditional law passed down for thousands of years - and yeah, it's pretty sucky. It's horribly misogynistic, allows for female rape victims to be stoned for losing their "purity", chopping off of limbs for crimes, and so on. By any modern standards (and by "modern" I mean "about 500 years old), it's overkill, barbaric, and just plain stupid.

So the charge that the Obama Administration wanted to appoint Mr. Koh to State Department Legal Adviser is pretty scary if Mr. Koh wants to say that Sharia Law applies in the United States. Alert the masses! The black president with the Arabic sounding name who had a Muslim father is trying to put a faux Islamic law into the US courts! Man the guns! Alert the militia! One if by land, two if by sea, three if by Holy God the Rapture is upon us!

Only one problem.

Fox News is the most fucking lazy news network on the planet.

How did they get their information that Mr. Koh was a big lover of a legal system that enforces stoning? Did they have a camera at some event where Mr. Koh said this? A legal brief about Mr. Koh waxing on about how awesome it would be to behead someone for walking backwards on the Sabbath? (BTW: I'm not sure if that's in Sharia Law.) Or maybe Fox News got their hands on Mr. Koh's family medical records showing that every female had female circumcision?

No. I mean, that would take work. Instead, Fox found an email, sent to a conservative blog on the National Review web site, where the writer says Koh made some statement about Sharia Law:

In your discussion of "global law" I recall at least one favorable reference to "Sharia", among other foreign laws that could, in an appropriate instance (according to you) govern a controversy in a federal or state court in the US.

We don't know what the quote was. Maybe Koh was talking about foreign law in general as an example. Maybe he was talking about one aspect. Maybe he was just discussing that the US courts shouldn't just include one national precedent, but can read from countries other laws for new ideas. Maybe he thought stoning really is *awesome* and was planning a party. Maybe Koh was talking about marriage laws, and the how a custody case between an American citizen and the citizen of an area practicing Sharia could be resolved.

But we don't know. The author doesn't say. He just says "Oh, you said something favorable about Sharia, so I'm going to quote a whole long line of stuff about how awful Sharia is."

Fox News, of course, being the lazy asshats that they are, took it an ran. No, they didn't know what Koh said either. Couldn't waste their time talking to people who were there, or seeing if there was a transcript of Koh's comments, or maybe even asking Koh himself.

Because that would take work. I'm not so much annoyed that Fox is a slanted news organizations that exists only to make conservationism appear to be the greatest invention since the orgasm - as their sheer laziness about even attempting to appear credible.

I've caught someone like Rachel Maddow in an exaggeration - she made some comment about John McCain that was *mostly* true, but at least she backed it up by showing an actual clip of John McCain saying it. In the case of Fox, they couldn't be bothered with that whole "fact checking" thing. Nope - a random email from someone who remembers something somebody said that was favorable to some unknown portion of Sharia law was good enough to freak out about how the Obama administration is trying to appease Muslim terrorists who want to come kill us all because they hate freedom and bacon.

Oooo. Scary, Fox news. Scary.

Paul Kurtz is a moron. Again.

Oh, Paul Kurtz. Is it just me, or are you terminally stupid? You start your most recent article about how much harder the press is on Obama on his second press conference compared to his first one.

First of all - did you hear some of the questions? They were OK, I guess - I did like Chris Todd asking about sacrifice. But where were the questions about executive privilege and if he's going to let Rove claim it during testimony? Where were the questions asking about the use of presidential powers to deny access to reporters to treaty documents or allow terrorist defendants access to their accusers documents?

Second, and this is where Commander Stupid comes in, is this:

Breaking with tradition and using a prepared list...

First sentence, and Kurtz is forgetting that other presidents - like the *last one* used a prepared list of which reporters to call upon. And, for the most part, odds are that every president knows which reporter they're going to call upon beforehand.

But good old Paul Kurtz, he of the "the press is soooo important, even when we're acting like lick spittle dogs towards any presidential administration and asking hard questions of CEO's like CNBC did", must have the memory of a goldfish when it comes to other presidents.