The storms came in about 2 Am

Monday September 28, 2009

. . . .First up and off the bat, the Senate Finance Committee votes on Tuesday on the first draft of the Health Care Reform package. The members of the Finance Committee and their home states are:

Democrats	REPUBLICANS
MAX BAUCUS, MT JOHN D. ROCKEFELLER IV, WV KENT CONRAD, ND JEFF BINGAMAN, NM JOHN F. KERRY, MA BLANCHE L. LINCOLN, AR RON WYDEN, OR CHARLES E. SCHUMER, NY DEBBIE STABENOW, MI MARIA CANTWELL, WA BILL NELSON, FL ROBERT MENENDEZ, NJ THOMAS CARPER, DE	CHUCK GRASSLEY, IA ORRIN G. HATCH, UT OLYMPIA J. SNOWE, ME JON KYL, AZ JIM BUNNING, KY MIKE CRAPO, ID PAT ROBERTS, KS JOHN ENSIGN, NV MIKE ENZI, WY JOHN CORNYN, TX

. . . .Clicking any name will take you directly to their home website and their contact information, phone number, e-mail etc.

. . . . . .I mentioned last week's Tim Dickinson's fearless work on exposing who the names and wallets were behind trying to derail the health care reform effort altogether. Jamison Foser picks that ball up, and quoting from Dickinson's article takes it further:

Rolling Stone's Tim Dickinson reports that Betsy McCaughey's mid-1990s lies about health care reform -- lies that helped torpedo the Clinton administration's efforts to provide universal health care -- were, in effect, the result of tobacco-industry propaganda:

McCaughey's lies were later debunked in a 1995 post-mortem in The Atlantic, and The New Republic recanted the piece in 2006. But what has not been reported until now is that McCaughey's writing was influenced by Philip Morris, the world's largest tobacco company, as part of a secret campaign to scuttle Clinton's health care reform. (The measure would have been funded by a huge increase in tobacco taxes.) In an internal company memo from March 1994, the tobacco giant detailed its strategy to derail Hillarycare through an alliance with conservative think tanks, front groups and media outlets. Integral to the company's strategy, the memo observed, was an effort to "work on the development of favorable pieces" with "friendly contacts in the media." The memo, prepared by a Philip Morris executive, mentions only one author by name:

"Worked off-the-record with [The] Manhattan [Institute] and writer Betsy McCaughey as part of the input to the three-part exposé in The New Republic on what the Clinton plan means to you. The first part detailed specifics of the plan."

Now, it isn't necessarily shocking that a reporter would talk off-the-record with business interests while writing an article about legislation that would affect them. But McCaughey's relationship with Big Tobacco was merely not that of "reporter" and "source."

See, McCaughey was working for The Manhattan Institute at the time. And The Manhattan Institute was funded by -- you guessed it -- tobacco companies.

While Phillip Morris was "working with" McCaughey in 1994, the tobacco giant was also budgeting $25,000 for The Manhattan Institute for 1995. The Manhattan Institute has also taken tobacco money from Brown & Williamson, R.J. Reynolds, and Lorillard.

So that's where McCaughey's dishonest New Republic article -- the article that did more than any other to kill health care reform in the 1990s -- came from. The tobacco companies that funded the "think tank" that employed McCaughey "worked off-the-record" with her to shape the article.

The New Republic eventually "recanted" McCaughey's article, a decade after the damage was done, and apologized for it (though then-editor Andrew Sullivan stands by the decision to publish the article.)

So, now that Betsy McCaughey is again trying to kill health care reform, you have to wonder -- who is paying for her deception this time? And which news organizations will eventually have to apologize for promoting her dishonest work?

. . . . . .Let me very, very clear. The Baucus bill coming out of the Senate Finance Committee as is, stinks like a feral pig turd. The would be absolutely nothing more disastrous to the American people than to mandate coverage, impose a fine for no coverage and leave the current health insurance system as is, allowing the cartel they form to price fix. . . . Absolutely nothing worse, in a country whose economy is in shambles as it is, driving it further into the ground for people that have no income and no job would be sheer idiocy and a betrayal of the American people.

. . . .Now as for some of the other manuevering, going on, there is one person who should be applauded. Before I go into that piece, I will say again, on health care reform, I have skin in the game. On this particular one, especially. I know that one of my Mother's scrips alone costs $600.oo a month here in the U.S. but just 60 miles away across the bridge in Canada, it's $127. Tomorrow morning, before that vote, one Senator plans to blow the lid on the rumored deal between the White House, big Pharma and Sen. Baucus. Reporting on it is Ryan Grim:

A Senate Democratic leader is hoping to blow up the deal reached between the White House, drug makers and Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus (D-Mont.), by introducing an amendment on the floor to allow prescription drugs to be re-imported from Canada.

It's one of the simplest ways to reduce health care costs but was ruled out by the agreement, which limits Big Pharma's contribution to health care reform to $80 billion over ten years.

North Dakota Sen. Byron Dorgan, a member of Democratic leadership, isn't a party to that bargain. "Senator Dorgan intends to offer an amendment to the health reform bill and his expectation is that it will be one of the first amendments considered," his spokesman Justin Kitsch told HuffPost in an e-mail. "Prescription drug importation is an immediate way to put downward pressure on health care costs. It has bipartisan support, and has been endorsed by groups such as the National Federation of Independent Businesses and AARP."

U.S. patients pay far more than the rest of the world for prescription drugs. The Canadian government keeps prices down by using its purchasing power to negotiate for lower rates. Dorgan wants American consumers in on the deal.

A bill to allow re-importation -- S. 1232 - has 30 cosponsors, several Republicans among them, including Olympia Snowe and Susan Collins of Maine, John Thune (S.D.) and David Vitter (La.).

The Congressional Budget Office estimates that the bill would result in $50 billion in direct savings over the next decade, with $10.6 billion of that being savings to the federal government.

Jim Manley, senior communications adviser to Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.), said that he sees no reason the amendment won't get a floor vote. "To the extent possible, we intend to have a full and open amendment process," he said. Reid has himself voted to allow re-importation in the past.

The amendment threatens to blow up the deal Baucus and the White House cut with the drug makers. According to the deal, re-importation would not be part of comprehensive health care reform. And if the measure does save $50 billion, that will come from Big Pharma revenue and take it above the $80 billion in cuts it agreed to over ten years. It puts Congress on a collision course with its trade association, the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America (PhRMA).

. . . . . . .From Politico, Paul Begala with some perspective on what will be set in motion with tomorrow morning's Senate Committee vote:

The right-wing shouting didn’t work

The conservative strategy of blowing up town hall meetings was must-see TV — as when conservatives shouted down a woman in a wheelchair. But the histrionics didn’t change any minds (Gallup shows support essentially unchanged before and after the August recess), and they didn’t change any votes. I can’t think of a single Democrat who has switched from supporting health reform to opposing it because of the right-wing primal scream strategy. It was, as Macbeth said, “a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.”

The train keeps a-rollin’

All five committees involved have, for the first time in history, reported out bills to fundamentally reform our health care system. Previous House committee chairpersons in prior Congresses wouldn’t speak to one another, much less collaborate on three very similar bills, as the Energy and Commerce, Ways and Means and Health, Education, Labor and Pensions committees have. Very impressive and very encouraging.

On the Senate side, even the absence of the irreplaceable Ted Kennedy has not stopped the cause of his life. His health committee produced a first-class bill. And the Finance Committee, where every progressive feared health care would die, is in the process of producing a bill that covers 95 percent of Americans, cracks down on insurance company abuses like the pre-existing condition rule, subsidizes coverage for the poor, wallops insurance companies with taxes and fees and actually reduces the deficit.

Sure, most liberals think we can do more and we can do better. But it’s most likely the Finance Committee bill will be the floor, not the ceiling. Even one year ago, a bill as progressive as Sen. Max Baucus’s would have been unimaginable in George W. Bush’s Washington.

Democrats can go it alone

Democrats must accept that bipartisanship is dead. It’s not sleeping, it’s not comatose, it’s not hiding. It is dead, dead, dead. Republicans clearly have no desire to work constructively for a bipartisan bill.

. . . . .Now remember, that up until now, it was Democrats who were the party of scaring the elderly about Medicare cuts. Now that we live in Alice in Wonderland world, of course, the Republicans, at least on this issue, find themselves far to the Left of the Dems. Lori Montgomery in the Washington Post this morning:

After years of trying to cut Medicare spending, Republican lawmakers have emerged as champions of the program, accusing Democrats of trying to steal from the elderly to cover the cost of health reform.

. . . .Now for, at least for me, what constitutes today's excursions in wingnut land. First up, someone please call Fox News right now. There are more children being indoctrinated to sing to a President. Stop it. Stop it right now. From Cesca:

I can't wait until Michelle Malkin goes after the proprietors of Jesus Camp for teaching children to worship the president. Literally.

Source: Tim F.

. . . .More on (moron) singing:

Yesterday on Hardball, Barnicle spent an entire segment debating whether or not a group of elementary school kids should have been singing a song about President Obama.

Pat Buchanan was on the show. Of course. Because you can't have a debate on MSNBC without the Nazi-apologist mastermind of the Southern Strategy. Buchanan's verdict -- and Barnicle kind of agreed with him -- was that public school kids shouldn't be forced to sing about the president because it sounds like indoctrination.

Horseshit.

Here's an example of school kids singing about President Bush.

And coincidentally, I was watching a special on History Channel the other night called "Nixon: A Presidency Revealed" and was shocked to learn that when Nixon triumphantly returned from China, there was an event in the Rose Garden in which a high school glee club of some sort were singing directly to Nixon: "We love you Mr. President, oh yes we doooo. President Nixon weee love yooooou!"

Indoctrination!

Pat Buchanan, by the way, was a Nixon political adviser and speechwriter. Buchanan also accompanied Nixon on the China trip.

. . . .From Andrew Sullivan today:

Do yourself a favor and read Dave Weigel's full account of the just-concluded “How to Take Back America” conference. Headed by Phylis Shlafly, this year's attendance was twice the previous record. Its main focus: Obama's transformation of America as Hitler transformed Germany.

“Kitty has pointed out the parallels between the slow, incremental Hitler takeover of Austria and some of the things that are happening today,” said Schlafly, asked about Werthmann’s “How to Recognize Living Under Nazis and Communists” session. “She’s an expert on that. I see what [Obama] is doing as absolute socialism, as government ownership of the means of production.”

The liberal fascism argument is alive and well on the right. Huckabee showed up, as did neocon Frank Gaffney. The opening speaker was Christianist retired Lt Gen William Boykin, who had in uniform declared the war on terror to be a war between Islam and Christianity. Weirdly, he doesn't credit torture with preventing a second terror attack. His theory is more complex:

“It’s only because of intercessory prayer that we haven’t been hit again since September 11,” said Boykin. “Pray for America for 10 minutes a day. If we can mobilize millions of prayer warriors that can pray for 10 minutes a day, we can open the gates of heaven.”

Of course, the gays were just behind the Nazis and the Muslims in destroying America:

In the halls and from the stages of the conference, there were constant warnings of fascist, anti-Christian campaigns to break down American morals and sovereignty. Rev. Rick Scarborough, a pastor who advised Mike Huckabee’s presidential campaign, pounded the podium at his Friday afternoon speech, warning that the president’s pro-gay agenda was endangering Christians who spoke out against gay rights.

“The day the president put his hand on the bible,” said Scarborough, “his minions were changing official White House Website to reflect a whole new understanding of civil rights, to refer to homosexuals.” The Bible, said Scarborough, called these people “sodomites, which no one wants to talk about because it reminds them of their behavior.”

Some activists followed this up with a breakout session on “How to Counter the Homosexual Extremist Movement,” where they learned about transgender awareness days at public schools. And some went to “How to Stop Feminist and Gay Attacks on the Military,” where they were informed that upwards of 200,000 active duty members of the military might quit if “Don’t Ask Don’t Tell” is repealed.

. . . .And if you need another reason to hate the Religious Right and their attempt to hijack the American political scene with their wholesome family "values", for your thoughts, the meatsacks from the Westboro Baptist Church in Kansas, those wonderful folks who like to go to the funerals of fallen warriors and picket with lovely messages like "God Loves Dead Soldiers", took a trip to the big city this weekend, where they picketed a Brooklyn synagogue.

. . . .And finally tonight, with one more cheery note, Krugman on the largest issue facing us as a species:

Every once in a while I feel despair over the fate of the planet. If you’ve been following climate science, you know what I mean: the sense that we’re hurtling toward catastrophe but nobody wants to hear about it or do anything to avert it.

And here’s the thing: I’m not engaging in hyperbole. These days, dire warnings aren’t the delusional raving of cranks. They’re what come out of the most widely respected climate models, devised by the leading researchers. The prognosis for the planet has gotten much, much worse in just the last few years.

What’s driving this new pessimism? Partly it’s the fact that some predicted changes, like a decline in Arctic Sea ice, are happening much faster than expected. Partly it’s growing evidence that feedback loops amplifying the effects of man-made greenhouse gas emissions are stronger than previously realized. For example, it has long been understood that global warming will cause the tundra to thaw, releasing carbon dioxide, which will cause even more warming, but new research shows far more carbon locked in the permafrost than previously thought, which means a much bigger feedback effect.

The result of all this is that climate scientists have, en masse, become Cassandras — gifted with the ability to prophesy future disasters, but cursed with the inability to get anyone to believe them.

And we’re not just talking about disasters in the distant future, either. The really big rise in global temperature probably won’t take place until the second half of this century, but there will be plenty of damage long before then.

For example, one 2007 paper in the journal Science is titled “Model Projections of an Imminent Transition to a More Arid Climate in Southwestern North America” — yes, “imminent” — and reports “a broad consensus among climate models” that a permanent drought, bringing Dust Bowl-type conditions, “will become the new climatology of the American Southwest within a time frame of years to decades.”

So if you live in, say, Los Angeles, and liked those pictures of red skies and choking dust in Sydney, Australia, last week, no need to travel. They’ll be coming your way in the not-too-distant future.

Now, at this point I have to make the obligatory disclaimer that no individual weather event can be attributed to global warming. The point, however, is that climate change will make events like that Australian dust storm much more common.

In a rational world, then, the looming climate disaster would be our dominant political and policy concern. But it manifestly isn’t. Why not?

Part of the answer is that it’s hard to keep peoples’ attention focused. Weather fluctuates — New Yorkers may recall the heat wave that pushed the thermometer above 90 in April — and even at a global level, this is enough to cause substantial year-to-year wobbles in average temperature. As a result, any year with record heat is normally followed by a number of cooler years: According to Britain’s Met Office, 1998 was the hottest year so far, although NASA — which arguably has better data — says it was 2005. And it’s all too easy to reach the false conclusion that the danger is past.

But the larger reason we’re ignoring climate change is that Al Gore was right: This truth is just too inconvenient. Responding to climate change with the vigor that the threat deserves would not, contrary to legend, be devastating for the economy as a whole. But it would shuffle the economic deck, hurting some powerful vested interests even as it created new economic opportunities. And the industries of the past have armies of lobbyists in place right now; the industries of the future don’t.

Nor is it just a matter of vested interests. It’s also a matter of vested ideas. For three decades the dominant political ideology in America has extolled private enterprise and denigrated government, but climate change is a problem that can only be addressed through government action. And rather than concede the limits of their philosophy, many on the right have chosen to deny that the problem exists.

So here we are, with the greatest challenge facing mankind on the back burner, at best, as a policy issue. I’m not, by the way, saying that the Obama administration was wrong to push health care first. It was necessary to show voters a tangible achievement before next November. But climate change legislation had better be next.

And as I pointed out in my last column, we can afford to do this. Even as climate modelers have been reaching consensus on the view that the threat is worse than we realized, economic modelers have been reaching consensus on the view that the costs of emission control are lower than many feared.

So the time for action is now. O.K., strictly speaking it’s long past. But better late than never.

. . . .And that's how bad it really is.

. . . .We can salvage this shipwreck of a Nation. It will take all of us working together. It will take all of us understanding the concepts of the Great American Experiment, the political process of the Republic. It's amazing, I don't see eye-to-eye on every issue with my friends, but we respect one another's opinion, share information, share facts, and we don't talk over one another or at one another, we talk with one another. It's amazing what happens when a group of people who share the common goal of leaving a better country for their children and grandchildren can do when they sit down with one another as human beings, and realize that we each have power, and together, we are unstoppable.

. . . .I'm going to ask this of you for the next 30 days. Turn your TV off, turn your radio off. Start to use that beautiful mind that your Creator gave you, that your underpaid, underappreciated High School teachers tried to develop. If you hear something, if you read something, if someone sends you an e-mail that says "this bill will do this", or "this politician says this", I'm asking you to check it out. Check it out this way, use some of the following fact-based sites, who exist solely for the purpose of data and fact-checking.
- If whatever you've heard or read concerns a bill in Congress, use the following -
- Open Congress, it's non-partisan and devoted to a complete tracking of every bill in Congress, both houses. How a bill is developed, who is sponsoring it, what the riders are, what the discussion around it is.
- GovTrack, again non-partisan, non-commercial and open source; devoted to the same things, tracking Congress.
- Open Secrets, one of the most important ones, it tracks the lobbying money and campaign contributions flowing to your congressperson, and most of the time is a pretty good predictor of how they'll vote.
- Political Party Time, non-partisan, devoted to solely tracking political fundraisers, and letting you know exactly what parties your Representative and Senators are throwing for fundraisers and who is attending and how much money they're throwing at them to gain influence.

. . . .If someone sends something to you saying "this is so" or "that is so" or "the President/Senator/Representative said this" use the following:
- Fact Check, non-partisan, designed to separate fact from bullshit and fiction
- Snopes, devoted to the same thing.
- Politifact, devoted to getting to the truth, and separating out the lies that are spread.


. . . .I keep doing this not because I don't have faith, but because I do have faith. I have faith in the ultimate triumph of the spirit, intellect and heart of the American people. I have faith that the people I know want to leave something better for future generations, and know that something is terribly wrong, and want to do something about it. I do it because Paine and Jefferson were brilliant, unique singularities and were right.

. . . .I keep doing this because I don't believe in big imaginary friends for adults, I don't believe in alien conspiracies running the Government, I don't believe the Roswell bodies are at Wright-Patterson, I don't believe that a big portal will open up on Dec. 21, 2012, I don't believe that the spaceships will show up.

. . . I do believe that the people who have fucked everything up are greedy, avaricious human beings who have been able to steal from the American people, to harm them, who have run unchecked because no one calls it out for what it is. I believe that if we shine the light of day on it, if the people of this country have had enough, we can change it, and change it for the better.

. . . . I keep doing this because I do believe that people, human beings, unchecked will continue to do what they've done throughout history, and throughout the history of this country. Together, they will find the solutions and provide better for their children and grandchildren.

. . . .I believe in us, I believe in people. I believe in the beauty, power and grace of the individual.

. . . .I do this for everyone who's ever walked that lonely road of knowing what they do, what they believe, what they know is right. I do it for everyone who's ever walked that lonely road of faith, hope, love, hate, justice, war and peace.

. . . .I do it because I believe in justice, in all it's forms.

. . . .I do this everyday for the people and kids who are tattoed, pierced and inked and keep getting told to get "into the mainstream". I do this everyday for those guys who wear black that you don't understand, you just know there's something about them, and that when the chips are down, when you have to walk down a dark alley somewhere, and you know what's waiting for you at the end of it, and you can only take one person with you, that's who you want walking with you, because you know you'll come back out alive, and that guy doesn't care what it costs him.

. . . .I do this everyday for the outcasts, the misfits, the ones who don't fit and who will turn their back on you and walk away when you try to make them fit into a mold. I do it everyday for everyone who does it their way, knows that they're paying a high price for it, but the freedom is worth the cost.

. . . . I do this everyday for outlaws, cowboys, renegades, pirates and fallen angels. I do it everyday for the people who understand that rock and roll can save their soul, that redemption can be found in a 3-chord lick from a vintage Les Paul. I do it for the men and women who aren't afraid to turn it all the way up, who keep looking for an 11 setting on a volume knob that only goes to 10, who know that rock and roll's got nothing to do with age.


. . . .If right now, you're doing something you don't want to do, stop it. If you've surrounded yourself with people who want you to do or be something other than who you are, walk away. If you've got people around you who actually let it slip out that they think you "should be doing (fill in the blank here)" and it involves your life, your future, your existence as an individual, walk away, right now, and don't look back. You don't owe anyone anything. Live fearlessly. If the people around you can't accept it, can't accept you as you are, really are, they aren't and weren't friends anyhow.

. . . .Don't march to anyone else's drumbeat, don't drink the Kool-Aid, anyone's. Right, Left, conservative, liberal, Democrat, Republican, Christian, Buddhist, Pagan. Use your own mind, that's why you were given one. Examine, question, do what's right for you first, everything else will fall in place from there, quit looking for the path, you're already on it.

. . . .Come out of the gate each morning with both barrels blazing, pedal-to-metal, full-tilt boogie, all-in and balls-out, what's stopping you? Do you want to live forever? That'd be boring.

. . . .Got your back. somewhere out there in the night

. . . .Kiss your kids, tell the ones you love out loud that you do. Seize the precious moments before they're ripped away from you. This rodeo is a one-way ticket and no one, absolutely no one gets out alive. There aren't a lot of second chances, and we don't get to dictate terms and circumstances of how the ticket gets punched. This ain't no dress rehearsal, and the curtain's gone up, it's real and right now. It's not about yesterday or tomorrow. It's about right fucking here, right fucking now. This, what you're reading, what you're hearing, is the proof, the words, the sounds and the sights of someone changing his own life and his own world and not being afraid to put it out there. What have you done for yourself lately and why are you waiting? Do it now.

The Desolation Angel
from somewhere halfway to Heaven, and just a mile out of Hell

You know someone like me, there's still a few of us left. If we have to, we'll stand at the gates of Hell and hold the last train home for you.. . . . . .