Politics Plus

Fifteen years ago today, an extreme right wing terrorist, Timothy McVeigh, with Terry Nichols, bombed the Oklahoma City Federal  Building in what was the worst terrorist attack in our history, and remained so until extreme religious right wingers flew airplanes into the twin towers and the Pentagon on September 11, 2001.  Republicans, in the guise of their Teabagger lackeys, are celebrating McVeigh today with Second Amendment demonstrations in and just outside of Washington, DC.  Since the seditionist lies that GOP party leaders like Sarah Palin, Rush Limbaugh, Glen Beck, Michelle Bachmann, and many others seem designed to inspire violence against the US government, I have labeled April 19 as GOP Day to recognize their vision for America: War, hatred, greed, racism, homophobia, and intolerance.

Also today, Rachel Maddow is narrating a special: “The McVeigh Tapes: Confessions of an American Terrorist” at 9 PM EDT on MSNBC.  I suspect she will properly link McVeigh to today’s extreme right.  She has made the MSM quite nervous.

It’s hard to read faces, but voices are even harder to gauge. Timothy J. McVeigh, the anti-government extremist who killed 168 people in the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing, had a calm, almost reassuringly matter-of-fact way of speaking. He could have been a building inspector, a driving instructor or a Persian Gulf war veteran, which, of course, he was, having earned a Bronze Star before he went completely off his head.

“See, with these tapes, I feel very free in talking ’cause I know you’re using the information appropriately,” McVeigh told a journalist in a prison interview. “Here, I’m just letting it all come out.” The reporter, Lou Michel, co-author of “American Terrorist: Timothy McVeigh and the Oklahoma City Bombing,” shared 45 hours of those taped prison interviews to MSNBC.

“The McVeigh Tapes: Confessions of an American Terrorist,” which will be shown on Monday, the 15th anniversary of the bombing, comes at a time when right-wing militia groups are on the rise, or at least more audible, and heightened anti-government talk is heating up anti-anti-government fervor. McVeigh’s descent into violence is presented as much as a cautionary tale as a commemoration.

“Nine years after his execution we are left worrying that Timothy McVeigh’s voice from the grave echoes in a new rising tide of American anti-government extremism,” is how the MSNBC commentator Rachel Maddow, who narrates the film, puts it in her introduction.

But strangely, this film, which claims to be the first ever to present McVeigh in his own words, blunts its impact by relying on stagy computer graphics, and even an actor whose looks are digitally altered, to re-enact McVeigh’s movements. Scenes of this domestic terrorist in shackles during a prison interview or lighting a fuse inside a rented Ryder truck look neither real nor completely fake, but certainly cheesy: a violent video game with McVeigh as a methodical, murderous avatar…

Inserted from <NY Times>

Not having seen it (yet), I can’t say, but I have never seen anything she did that was not superior in quality.  Watch it if you can.

In the meantime, happy GOP day to you all.  Try to keep yourselves sane by avoiding Teabuggery in all its forms.  I hope that the Republican base (all that’s left, really) will be content to hunker down for some Faux Noise and commit no more atrocities.

Let me begin by thanking Justice Stevens for his many years of service to the American people.

When he was appointed by Gerald Ford, a Republican President, he was a moderate conservative.  Over the years, the Court has drifted further and further to the right, so what was a moderate conservative stance then has become very liberal by today’s standards, especially in comparison the extreme, activist ideologues on the Court: Scalia, Thomas, Alito Scalito, and Roberts.  Stevens has big shoes to fill.  Can Obama fill them?

The announcement by Justice John Paul Stevens on Friday that he would retire at the end of this term gives President Obama the rare opportunity to make back-to-back appointments to the Supreme Court during the first two years of his presidency.

But it also presents Mr. Obama with a complex political challenge: getting a nominee confirmed in the thick of a midterm election season, when Republicans, fueled by the intensity of their conservative base, are angling to knock him down, and Democrats, despite having lost their 60-vote supermajority in the Senate, are eager to flex their muscles after passing a landmark health care bill.

Justice Stevens’s announcement, delivered to the White House on Friday morning in a one-paragraph letter that began “My dear Mr. President,” set off an immediate scramble among the parties and a raft of advocacy groups that have been assembling dossiers on potential successors.

The three leading candidates — Mr. Obama is considering about 10 names all told, the White House says — present the president with a spectrum of ideological reputations, government backgrounds and life experiences. His choice will shape the battle to win Senate confirmation of his nominee.

In effect, the president must choose to be bold or play it safe.

Merrick B. Garland, 58, an appeals court judge here, is well liked by elite legal advocates and is widely considered the safest choice if Mr. Obama wants to avoid a confrontation with the minority party. A former federal prosecutor who worked on the Oklahoma City bombings, he is well-known in Washington’s legal-political community, where some view him as a kind of Democratic version of Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr.

Elena Kagan, 49, is solicitor general but has never been a judge and does not have a lengthy trail of scholarly writings, so her views are less well documented. But as the dean of Harvard Law School, she earned respect across ideological lines by bringing in several high-profile conservative professors, and she is a favorite among some in the extended Obama circle, who see her as smart and capable. Her relative youth means she could shape the court for decades to come.

Diane P. Wood, 59, a federal appeals court judge in Mr. Obama’s home city, Chicago, is seen as the most liberal of the three. She has been a progressive voice on a court that is home to several heavyweight conservative intellectuals. As a divorced mother of three, she brings the kind of real-life experience that Mr. Obama considers important. But her strong support for abortion rights would provoke a confrontation with conservatives. On Friday, the anti-abortion group Americans United for Life warned that a Wood nomination “would return the abortion wars to the Supreme Court.”

In making his selection, Mr. Obama confronts a vastly altered political landscape from the one he faced just 11 months ago, when he nominated Sonia Sotomayor to fill the seat left vacant by the retirement of Justice David H. Souter.

With the election of Senator Scott Brown, Republican of Massachusetts, Democrats can no longer hold off a Republican filibuster. And while Democrats are emboldened by the health care vote, the passage of the legislation — which is already facing legal challenges from Republicans who say it is unconstitutional — has left the Senate more polarized than ever and created a climate in which the courts could easily become an election issue.

For the court, Justice Stevens’s departure will be the end of an era. He is the longest-serving justice by more than a decade, and he is the last remaining justice to have served in World War II. (He joined the Navy, where he served as a cryptographer, the day before Pearl Harbor was attacked.) His leaving will not, however, change the composition of the court; although he was appointed in 1975 by President Gerald R. Ford, a Republican, he has become one of its most reliably liberal members during his nearly 35-year tenure, as the court drifted ever rightward.

Still, for Mr. Obama, who taught constitutional law at the University of Chicago (where he was a colleague of Judge Wood), the vacancy is an unmistakable chance to put his stamp on the direction the court takes for the next several decades. Mr. Obama is already engaged in an unusual public confrontation with the court over its recent decision in the Citizens United case, which lifted strict limits on corporate spending in elections. On Friday, during a brief appearance in the Rose Garden, he made clear that the case was very much on his mind.

He vowed to “move quickly” in announcing a nominee. Senior advisers said they expected a decision within the next several weeks. The president said he would look for a candidate who possessed what he described as qualities similar to that of Justice Stevens: “an independent mind, a record of excellence and integrity, a fierce dedication to the rule of law and a keen understanding of how the law affects the daily lives of the American people.”… [emphasis added]

Inserted from <NY Times>

I consider the first two choices unacceptable.  Garland appears moderate-right, and Kagan appears moderate.  Either of them might be acceptable as a replacement for one of the right wing extremists, but not for Stevens.  Just to preserve the present imbalance we need a progressive capable of assuming Steven’s leadership role.

Wood might fill the bill.  I’ll need to investigate her background further.

Keith Olbermann and Jonathan Turley discuss Steven’s impact and potential nominees.

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Unless Obama appoints someone unacceptable to progressives, a GOP Filibuster is almost certain.  Their objection is likely to focus on health care reform.

Sen. Jeff Sessions, the ranking member of the Judiciary Committee tasked with hearings for President Obama’s Supreme Court nominee, today offered a strong hint about the direction Republicans may take toward the president’s choice.

Sessions (R-AL) used his statement to criticize Obama’s "empathy" standard for selecting Sonia Sotomayor last year for the high court.

But one sentence especially stood out: "There is much at stake, as the court’s interpretation of the Constitution in the coming years could significantly affect the implementation of domestic polices approved by the president and Congress over the past year."… [emphasis added]

Inserted from <TPM>

Rachel Maddow offered two clips worth adding.  In the first she analyzes the historical background.

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She was certainly correct about the fundraising.  I’ve received a dozen emails already.

In the second, she and Dahlia Lithwick discuss the balance of the court.

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Once again, unless we get a strong progressive Justice, the imbalance on the court will only be worse.

If I had the choice, who would I pick?  I’m not sure, yet.  However, a seemingly unrelated news story may be significant.

President Barack Obama’s nominee to head the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel has withdrawn her bid for confirmation, after several Republicans objected to her criticism of the Bush administration’s terrorist interrogation policies.

Dawn Johnsen’s withdrawal – a setback for the Obama administration – was announced late Friday by the White House on a day the capital’s legal and political elites were absorbed in the news that Justice John Paul Stevens would retire from the Supreme Court.

The Senate Judiciary Committee had recommended Johnsen’s confirmation on party-line votes. But several Republicans objected to her sharp criticisms of terrorist interrogation policies under President George W. Bush, and the full Senate never voted on her nomination.

The decision about who should lead the little-known office became a political flashpoint because of the controversies surrounding Bush-era interrogations of terror suspects.

During the Bush administration, lawyers at the OLC wrote memos approving interrogation techniques that human rights advocates call torture. Those methods included waterboarding, or simulated drowning.

Lawyers who worked on those legal opinions were investigated for years but ultimately the Justice Department decided their actions were the result of poor judgement, not professional misconduct.

In announcing Johnsen’s withdrawal, both she and the White House blamed what they called politically motivated opposition… [emphasis added]

Inserted from <Washington Post>

I’m almost afraid to hope that the vacancy on the Court and Johnson withdrawing her name on the same day is not a coincidence.  Does Obama have sufficient courage to nominate her or someone like her?  God, I pray that he does!

The argument for appointing a moderate is that the GOP will filibuster a lefty.  In my opinion, they are likely to filibuster a moderate too.  To be sure of a smooth confirmation, Obama would have to nominate a rabid right activist.

Rather than that, there is a better alternative.  I have discussed the nuclear option before.  I’m sure I will be discussing it in detail again.  For now, I’ll just let the graphic say it.

The battle for health care reform is over, for now.  When the Senate voted on the Reconciliation Act, three cowardly DINOs voted with the Republicans.

Blanche Lincoln, Ben Nelson, Mark Pryor

They should lose their funding from the Democratic Party.  They should be challenged by progressives in their next primaries.  They should be stripped of plum committee assignments.  They should be retired.

Yesterday, the House passed the amended version of the Reconciliation Act.

Congress on Thursday gave final approval to a package of changes to the Democrats’ sweeping health care overhaul, capping a bitter partisan battle over the most far-reaching social legislation in nearly half a century. The bill, which Democratic leaders hailed as a landmark achievement, now goes to President Obama for his signature.

“The American people have waited for this moment for a century,” the Senate majority leader, Harry Reid of Nevada, said at a news conference. “This, of course, was a health bill. But it is also a jobs bill, an economic recovery bill, was a deficit-reduction bill, was an antidiscrimination bill. It was truly a bill of rights. And now it is the law of the land.”

In a fitting finale to the yearlong health care saga, the budget reconciliation measure that included the final changes was approved first by the Senate and then by the House on a tumultuous day at the Capitol, as lawmakers raced to complete their work ahead of a two-week recess.

The final House vote was 220 to 207, and the Senate vote was 56 to 43, with the Republicans unanimously opposed in both chambers.

The reconciliation bill makes numerous revisions to many of the central provisions in the measure adopted by the Senate on Dec. 24, including changes in the levels of subsidies that will help moderate-income Americans afford private insurance, as well as changes to the increase [for those earning over $250,000] in the Medicare payroll tax that will take effect in 2013 and help pay for the legislation.

The bill also delays the start of a new tax on high-cost employer-sponsored insurance policies to 2018 and raises the thresholds at which policies are hit by the tax, reflecting a deal struck by the White House and organized labor leaders. It also includes changes to close the gap in Medicare prescription drug coverage known as the doughnut hole, and to clarify a provision requiring insurers to allow adult children to remain on their parents’ insurance policies until their 26th birthday.

Many of the changes were intended to address the concerns of House Democrats, as well as to bridge differences between the original House and Senate bills and to incorporate additional provisions sought by Mr. Obama.

The bill also included a broad restructuring of federal student loan programs, a centerpiece of Mr. Obama’s education agenda.

As the Senate voted, Mr. Obama was in Iowa City where he opened an aggressive public relations blitz to sell the health care overhaul with a campaign-style rally at the University of Iowa Field House.

Speaking to a crowd of about 3,000 Mr. Obama dared Republicans to follow through on their efforts to repeal the legislation, which would require them to win back big enough majorities in Congress to override his veto… [emphasis added]

Inserted from <NY Times>

GOP appeals are gushing to their brainwashed base, begging for contributions to help them repeal health care reform.  That is nothing but a cheap trick, trying to extract money from their Faux Noise sheep with a completely empty promise.  Even the GOP leadership is starting to admit it.

Throughout the week, many Republicans have said that repealing the Affordable Care Act should be part of the Party’s campaign platform for this year’s midterm elections. Yesterday, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) said “repeal and replace will be the slogan for the fall.” Congressional Republicans such as Reps. Pete Hoekstra (MI), Michele Bachmann (R-MN), Zach Wamp (TN) and Sens. John McCain (AZ) and Jim DeMint (SC) have signed on to the cause as well.

But other Republicans are candidly acknowledging that the GOP’s new big agenda is mere political gamesmanship:

– Sen. Jon Kyl (R-AZ): “Our view is that we should repeal and replace the bill with the solutions that we think actually work. Obviously, the president will not sign a repeal bill that the Congress passes, so that’s more of a symbol. … Barack Obama is president. He would never sign a repeal law. We don’t have the votes to get it passed right now. We’re not going to waste our time on that.”

– Newt Gingrich: [Faux Noise Delinked] “What you have to do is be politically honest. If the Republicans win a majority in the House and Senate next year, they will not be able to repeal the bill. The president would veto it.”

House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-OH) proclaimed yesterday that the GOP should “repeal this bill,” yet seconds later, even he acknowledged that with Obama as President, “it’s going to be very difficult to repeal this bill outright.” Watch the compilation:

 

Republicans whined about repealing the bill before it passed but even then, National Republican Senatorial Committee head Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX) noted that the repeal effort would likely go nowhere “because obviously we don’t have the White House, we don’t have 60 votes in the Senate.”… [emphasis original]

Inserted from <Think Progress>

One of the biggest complaints I have heard is the time it will take to implement some of the benefits the bill contains.  An excellent editorial by Jonathan Kohn explains the delays.

HEALTH care reform, the most ambitious domestic policy initiative of our time, is now law. And already there is talk of how to make it even better. Some want to improve the subsidies and financial protections, so that people aren’t as exposed to high medical bills. Others would like to add some sort of public option, whether it’s a new stand-alone government-run plan or expanded access to Medicare.

Those are good ideas. But making the most out of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act will also depend on something a little less exciting: putting the existing plan into action. The challenges ahead fall into four categories.

DELIVERING THE DELIVERABLES President Obama promised that some of the benefits of reform would appear in the first year. For starters, within 90 days the Department of Health and Human Services must set up a high-risk pool as a temporary source of insurance for people who have pre-existing conditions.

Some of the new consumer protections will take effect within six months; first, though, federal officials have to translate that law into regulation. The government is also supposed to provide a new, easy way for consumers to compare benefits from insurer to insurer.

EDUCATING THE PUBLIC It’s one thing to create a health insurance program and quite another to get people to sign up for it. Today, many more people are eligible for Medicaid than actually enroll, in no small part because some states — wary of adding too many people to the rolls — make it hard to apply for and stay in the program.

That said, more than 97 percent of people in Massachusetts now have insurance, thanks in part to an aggressive public relations campaign that enlisted the Red Sox to raise awareness about the state’s own health care overhaul. A similar effort to increase public knowledge and to undertake direct outreach to individuals will be necessary. While states and nonprofit organizations will play vital roles, the federal government should probably take the lead.

HANDLING THE INSURERS Speaking of Massachusetts, that’s the one state with a fully working model of an insurance exchange: a place where individuals and small businesses can buy relatively affordable coverage, with clearly defined benefits and no exclusions or mark-ups based on the health of the people applying. And the model seems to work overall. But replicating that in 49 other states won’t be easy.

It requires appointing people to run the exchanges and figuring out how Americans will use them, but it also means preparing to regulate insurers more closely than anybody regulates them now. The law creates minimum standards for what insurance covers and requires insurers to spend most of their money on actual patient care, to name only two obvious changes. The states will have primary responsibility for enforcing these standards, but first the federal government will have to write them.

BENDING THE CURVE Dozens of new initiatives are intended to control, or at least reduce, the cost of medical care. But most of them require work to get up and running.

Everyone hopes that wider use of electronic medical records can improve quality while reducing expensive duplication. Again, somebody first has to set up a standard for the records. Studies show we’d save money if we stopped paying for so many treatments that don’t work (or don’t work better than the alternatives). But we can’t start paying for treatments more intelligently without better information about what drugs and procedures do work, not to mention which ones doctors and hospitals already use.

Progress on many of these goals is already under way. (Development of electronic records, for instance, began with the stimulus.) But there are obstacles ahead: some states are eager to do their part; others are busy suing the federal government because they don’t like the law. The Obama administration also needs to find the right people to manage these programs.

Getting reform right may ultimately require making sure one official is responsible for coordinating activity among the different agencies and levels of government. It should probably be someone who reports to the White House but is also accountable to Congress; someone with a head not just for politics but also for the world of insurance, regulation and medicine; someone who can push the many groups and institutions that will need pushing, while also listening to people’s concerns…

Inserted from <NY Times>

Considering what is involved in setting up the mechanisms to implement the most ambitious legislation in many of our lifetimes, the delays seem reasonable.  After all, to quote a famous politician, it’s a big f*ck*ng deal! 😈

So it’s over.  I have never witnessed such a contentious floor fight, but I remember I made a promise, and now is the time to keep it.

One positive aspect of the delays is that the mandate, in the absence of a strong public option does not take effect until 2014.  That gives us time to get it changed.

In addition, even as I type these words, there is a legion of insurance company lawyers dissecting every phrase, looking for loopholes  they can use to deny coverage to those with preexisting conditions, to dump sick patients, to deny covered procedures dying patients desperately need to save their lives, and to evade the requirement that they spend 85% of what they take in on direct benefits payments.  If you think they won’t find such loopholes, email me.  I want to talk to you about a bridge I just happen to have for sale.

While I do support a strong public option, that is a fallback position.  What this country really needs is universal, single-payer health care: Medicare for all.  I can almost hear GOP screams of “socialized medicine”.  What’s wrong with that?  We have socialized police protection.  Why?  Protecting our lives and property is far too important to leave it to greedy corporations, who would consider profit more important than our lives and property.  We have socialized firefighters.  Why?  Protecting us from fire is far too important to leave it to greedy corporations, who would consider profit more important than fighting fires.  With this in mind, health care is far too important to leave it to greedy corporations, who have proven over and over again, that they consider profit more important than our lives and health.  Furthermore, every penny that goes to insurance company profits is a penny that doesn’t get spent on health care.

Yes it’s over, but it’s just begun.

In 1965, I was a Junior in High School.  Four days after I turned 17, the House passed the Voting Rights Act.  Two months later, The Senate passed it’s version.  Three months after that the conference report was approved by both parties, and President Lyndon Johnson signed it into law on August 6.  Despite my tender years, I sensed that I was a witness to and a participant in history, because I had already travelled to the south to protest for civil rights.  I have had that sense only twice since then.  The first was the historic election of a minority President.  The second was the passage of Health Care Reform yesterday.  Not since 1965 has Congress passed such significant legislation.  My friends, we are witnessing historic events, and we are part of them, so here are some of my observations on the day.

Early in the day, much of the attention was focused on Republicans and their Teabagger storm troopers.  GOP politicians and pundits kept repeating the same tired lies, claiming that it is socialism, a government takeover of health care, too expensive, contains death panels, etc. One of the most ridiculous claims was that Democrats allowed no input from the GOP, when time and time again, Obama reached across the aisle and tried to draw them into the process.  The bill included over 150 amendments offered by Republicans.  The final bill looks more like Nixon’s proposal that Obama’s original proposal, and it’s problems stem mostly from the inclusion of GOP requests.  Meanwhile the Teabaggers continued their protest, egged on by Republican Representatives, who left the House chamber to whip-up their minions from the balcony.  The Teabagger storm troopers threatened violence.  The yellow sign in the graphic reads, “If Brown can’t stop it, Browning can.”

Bart ‘coat hanger’ Stupak finally caved in and agreed to vote for the bill in return for the promise of an executive order that guarantees nothing more than enforcement of the Hyde Amendment provisions that were already in the bill, and for some time in the spotlight.  He got to do a colloquy on the House floor.  At one point during his speech, someone in the chamber yelled, “baby killer”.  Now, if you haven’t guessed, Stupak is so low on my list that I would happily support any Democrat challenging him in his upcoming run to become Michigan’s Governor.  But even he did not deserve that.  Republicans have tried to say that it may have come from the gallery, but one Republican Representative admitted that it came from where the Texas delegation sits.  I have no doubt that the GOP knows who breached decorum, but won’t give him up.  If I had to guess, I’d say it’s in character for Louie Gohmert (R-TX), but I have no evidence to support it.

In the House debate, which seemed endless, I heard nothing new from either side, and finally, the Senate bill passed 219 – 212 and the reconciliation bill, 220-211.  Not one single Republican voted for either.  Obama plans to sign it tomorrow.  When I know which Democrats voted No on the bill, I shall post it.

Here is a timeline for the bill:

Here are the effective dates of major provisions of the health care overhaul legislation approved Sunday:

WITHIN A YEAR

– Would provide a $250 rebate this year to Medicare prescription drug beneficiaries whose initial benefits run out.

90 days after enactment:

– Would provide immediate access to high-risk pools for people with no insurance because of pre-existing conditions.

Six months after enactment:

– Would bar insurers from denying people coverage when they get sick.

– Would bar insurers from denying coverage to children with pre-existing conditions.

– Would bar insurers from imposing lifetime caps on coverage.

– Would require insurers to allow people to stay on their parents’ policies until they turn 26.

2011

– Would require individual and small group market plans to spend 80 percent of premium dollars on medical services. Large group plans would have to spend at least 85 percent.

2013

– Would increase the Medicare payroll tax and expand it to dividend, interest and other unearned income for singles earning more than $200,000 and joint filers making more than $250,000.

2014

– Would provide subsidies for families earning up to 400 percent of poverty level, currently about $88,000 a year, to purchase health insurance.

– Would require most employers to provide coverage or face penalties.

– Would require most people to obtain coverage or face penalties.

2018

– Would impose a 40 percent excise tax on high-end insurance policies… [emphasis added]

Inserted from <McClatchy DC>

Bear in mind that this applies to the Senate bill.  The reconciliation bill has several improvements, but before I include them, I’m waiting for the reconciliation bill to clear the Cesspit Senate.  On that note, MoveOn is sponsoring an online petition for the Senate to keep their promise.  Even if you opposed this plan, I hope you will now support it, because choice has changed.  The Senate bill will become law, as is, the moment Obama signs it.  The choice is now only on whether or not the reconciliation fixes will be included.  To sign the MoveOn petition, click here.

I just heard a GOP pundit say that Obama is a fool, because he has spent all his political capital on getting this passed.  That is another GOP lie.  Obama would have lost his political capital, only if the measure had failed.  The passage of this historic measure is an achievement that took 100 years of failures before its final success.  This success can only increase Obama’s political capital.  The more time that passes, the more that people realize that all the GOP lies were exactly that, the more people see that this will benefit them, the more Obama’s political capital will increase.  That does not mean we are done.  This is only a step toward universal, single-payer health care.

In closing, I heartily congratulate President Barack Obama, Speaker Nancy Pelosi, all the Representatives who worked to deliver reform, and all of us who made our own contributions to changing future history.  Together, we made it happen.