As soon as the Obama administration-in-waiting announced its stimulus plan — this was before Inauguration Day — some of us worried that the plan would prove inadequate. And we also worried that it might be hard, as a political matter, to come back for another round.

As we've been reporting, Sen. Majority Leader Harry Reid is demanding an end to efforts to woo fence-sitting Republicans in to supporting a watered-down health care reform legislation. But that will likely alienate just about the entire GOP, and require Democrats to stand united against a filibuster if a bill is to pass through regular order.

What can you say about a public official who ridicules those who would take the "quitter's way out" -- as she faces reporters to announce that she's quitting? A governor who claims that "the worthless, easy path" would be to serve out the remaining 18 months of her term? An ambitious politician who says that "life is too short" to worry about, you know, boring things such as responsibility or duty?

Half a dozen members of the Senate Democratic Conference pose the biggest threat to President Obama’s agenda, giving Senate Republicans a fighting chance to block the administration’s major expansions of government.

 Franken will be sworn in as the second senator from Minnesota and the 60th senator to caucus with Democrats this afternoon -- an arrival long in the making and heavy with expectation (both good and bad).

The President recounts America’s great history of overcoming seemingly insurmountable challenges, and pledges to lead America in continuing that tradition. Focusing on creating a clean energy economy, comprehensive health reform, and revitalizing an education system in need of change, the President pledges not to leave these decades-old problems to yet another generation to solve.

AT A recent congressional hearing I cautiously noted some “glimmers of hope” that the economy could stabilise and perhaps start to rebound later in the year. I was asked if this meant that we should cancel much of the remaining spending in the $787 billion American Recovery and Reinvestment Act. I responded that the expected recovery was both months away and predicated on Recovery Act spending ramping up greatly. Only later did it hit me that I should have told the story of 1937.

O.K., Thursday’s jobs report settles it. We’re going to need a bigger stimulus. But does the president know that?

Employers in the U.S. cut 467,000 jobs in June, the unemployment rate rose and hourly earnings stagnated, offering little evidence the Obama administration’s stimulus package is shoring up the labor market.

Conservatives are jumping up and down over a report by an EPA analyst expressing skepticism about climate change, which, they claim, was suppressed by agency brass because it didn't conform to Obama administration orthodoxy on global warming. The story has sparked explosive claims, on Fox News and other right-wing outlets, that the EPA censored scientific data for political reasons. And Monday, Sen. James Inhofe (R-OK) called for an outright criminal investigation into the matter.

For $25,000 to $250,000, The Washington Post has offered lobbyists and association executives off-the-record, nonconfrontational access to "those powerful few": Obama administration officials, members of Congress, and — at first — even the paper’s own reporters and editors.

Sen.-elect Al Franken (D-MN) just held a victory rally at the Minnesota state Capitol in St. Paul, celebrating his hard-fought and heavily-litigated victory that finally came true yesterday. In some of the most heartfelt terms possible, he thanked his staff, all of his supporters and volunteers, and especially his family -- and paid tribute to a departed friend, the late Sen. Paul Wellstone.

No one seems to know how old Mohammed Jawad was when he was seized by Afghan forces in Kabul six and a half years ago and turned over to American custody. Some reports say he was 14. Some say 16. The Afghan government believes he was 12.

Home prices in 20 major U.S. metropolitan areas fell in April at a slower pace than forecast, a sign the plunge in real-estate values is abating.

And as I watched the deniers make their arguments, I couldn’t help thinking that I was watching a form of treason — treason against the planet.

In Vauban, a suburb of the university town of Freiburg, luxuriant beds of brilliant flowers replace what would normally be parking outside its neat, middle- class homes. Instead of the roar of traffic, the residents listen to birdsong, children playing and the occasional jingle of a bicycle bell.

On the eve of an expected House vote on major energy legislation, President Obama shifted his argument for the bill on Thursday to emphasize its potential economic and environmental benefits.

“Make no mistake,” he said of the House legislation, “this is a jobs bill.”

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has scheduled a vote Friday on a sprawling climate-change bill, signaling the Democratic leadership's confidence that it can overcome objections from Farm Belt Democrats.

THAT First 100 Days hoopla seems like a century ago. The countless report cards it engendered are already obsolete. The real story begins now. With Iran, universal health care, energy reform and the economic recovery all on the line, the still-new, still-popular president’s true tests are about to come.

Let’s start with the good news.

Our current system of financial regulation dates back to a time when everything that functioned as a bank looked like a bank. As long as you regulated big marble buildings with rows of tellers, you pretty much had things nailed down.

And for those who have no idea what I'm talking about:

Is it any wonder the GOP isn't just losing youth, but also any group that isn't white and male? Those who already enjoy the fruits of privilege are those most hostile to "empathy" as a governmental value. They've got theirs and they want to keep it. Yet everyone else sees the value in working toward community success, rather than just focusing on the individual.

Over the past two years, we have faced the most severe financial crisis since the Great Depression. The financial system failed to perform its function as a reducer and distributor of risk. Instead, it magnified risks, precipitating an economic contraction that has hurt families and businesses around the world.

The debate over economic policy has taken a predictable yet ominous turn: the crisis seems to be easing, and a chorus of critics is already demanding that the Federal Reserve and the Obama administration abandon their rescue efforts. For those who know their history, it’s déjà vu all over again — literally.

Mon Jun 15, 2009 at 09:16:51 AM PDT

WHEN a Fox News anchor, reacting to his own network’s surging e-mail traffic, warns urgently on-camera of a rise in hate-filled, “amped up” Americans who are “taking the extra step and getting the gun out,” maybe we should listen. He has better sources in that underground than most.

After years of deadlock over climate policy, Congress appears poised to enact the first federal limits on greenhouse gas emissions this fall. Yet a growing number of climate scientists and scholars believe that such efforts are likely to be too little, too late to stop warming -- and that, consequently, a broader view of our climate policy options is needed.

The President has long noted that skyrocketing health care costs will be disastrous in terms of our long term national debt unless we pass real reform.  In this Weekly Address, the President also explains how he will cover the upfront costs of reform by eliminating overpayments from Medicaid and Medicare and driving down costs contributing to government’s health care expenditures across the board. 

• Read a full fact sheet on the details.

Congress is about to approve a new federal program to pay car owners up to $4,500 for trading in gas-guzzling automobiles for more fuel-efficient cars, to the applause of the struggling auto industry. But the program is drawing heavy criticism from an unlikely quarter: environmentalists who are sworn enemies of big, old clunkers that get poor mileage.

 Back in April, there was a huge fuss over an internal report by the Department of Homeland Security warning that current conditions resemble those in the early 1990s — a time marked by an upsurge of right-wing extremism that culminated in the Oklahoma City bombing.

Democratic Reps. John Murtha of Pennsylvania, Pete Visclosky of Indiana and Jim Moran of Virginia, all members of the money-dispensing House Appropriations Committee, received significant campaign donations from lobbyists from a defunct firm, PMA, and its clients — companies that got money for pet projects.

We are blessed to live at a time when violent acts of hatred based on race, ethnicity or religion have become rare, at least in this country. As the act of terrorism committed Wednesday at the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum should remind us, though, rare doesn't mean nonexistent.

 Mr. Obama — responding to recent signs of skittishness among those lenders — met with 40 members of Congress at the White House on Tuesday and called for the re-enactment of pay-as-you-go rules, requiring Congress to pay for any new programs it passes.

Asked to name the "main person who speaks for the Republican Party today," Republicans across the country are most likely to name three men: Rush Limbaugh, Newt Gingrich, and Dick Cheney. Democrats are most likely to say Limbaugh speaks for the GOP, followed by Cheney. Both Republicans and Democrats overwhelmingly say Barack Obama is the main person who speaks for the Democratic Party, although Republicans are significantly more likely than Democrats to mention Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi.

 This is a quarterly forecast: in Q1 the unemployment rate was higher than the "more adverse" scenario. The Unemployment Rate in Q2 (only two months) is already higher than the "more adverse" scenario, and will probably rise further in June.

President Barack Obama promised Monday to deliver more than 600,000 jobs through his $787 billion stimulus plan this summer, with federal agencies pumping billions into public works projects, schools and summer youth programs.

It's official. Stephen Colbert has declared victory in the war in Iraq. But the top U.S. commander in the country says not so fast.

President Obama has noted that it would be impossible to balance the federal budget without constraining our health-care expenditures. Federal government health-care outlays and tax breaks of more than $1 trillion in 2008 consumed 7.5 percent of America's gross domestic product (GDP). 

The President makes clear that as Congress works through health care reform legislation, it must include fundamental changes that lower costs, ensure Americans have choices, and establish access to quality, affordable health care for all Americans. "But what we can’t welcome," the President says, "is reform that just invests more money in the status quo – reform that throws good money after bad habits."

What many economists and other observers consider a more complete measure of unemployment – U6 – which includes underemployed part-time workers and jobless Americans who have grown so discouraged they've stopped looking for work - edged up in May to 16.4% from April’s 15.8%. Thus more than 25 million Americans count as unemployed or underemployed.

 When President Bush spoke in the months and years after Sept. 11, 2001, we often — chillingly — felt as if we didn’t recognize the United States. His vision was of a country racked with fear and bent on vengeance, one that imposed invidious choices on the world and on itself. When we listened to President Obama speak in Cairo on Thursday, we recognized the United States.

 President Obama asked Thursday for a "new beginning between the United States and Muslims around the world" in a speech that urged Islamic nations to embrace democracy, women's rights, religious tolerance and the right of Israel to co-exist with an independent Palestinian state.

The insurance industry says it wholeheartedly embraces a health care overhaul, promising Congress and the president that it will make it much easier for individuals to buy insurance on their own.

Max Baucus is "fighting tooth and nail" to make sure a public health care option is included in the final overhaul package that goes through the Senate, his chief of staff, John Selib, told a Montana town hall during last week's recess.

Top officials from the Bush administration have hit upon a revealing new theme as they retrospectively justify their national security policies. Call it the White House 9/11 trauma defense.

President Barack Obama remains by far the most popular world leader among people in major Western nations and is the one political figure on whom people consistently pin their hopes in the economic crisis, according to new polls conducted for the International Herald Tribune.

AFTER watching the farce surrounding Dick Cheney’s coming-out party this month, you have to wonder: Which will reach Washington first, change or the terrorists? If change doesn’t arrive soon, terrorists may well rush in where the capital’s fools now tread.

That sentiment is certainly going to be put to the test in the coming days -- assuming that the traditional media covers the stunning admission made two days ago by General David Petraeus:

The President discusses the breadth and depth of experience held by his nominee for the Supreme Court. In the course of a life that began in a housing project in the South Bronx and brought her to the pinnacle of her profession, Judge Sonia Sotomayor accumulated more experience on the federal bench than any incoming Supreme Court Justice in the past 100 years, touching nearly every aspect of our legal system.

A group called Conservatives for Patients' Rights began airing a television ad this week that criticizes government-run health care and falsely suggests Congress wants a British-style system here in the U.S.:

OVER THE LAST YEAR, I've seen our healthcare system up close. I've benefitted from the best of medicine, but I've also witnessed the frustration and outrage of patients and doctors alike as they face the challenges of a system that shortchanges millions of Americans.

Which reality do you inhabit, Obama World or Cheney World? If it's the latter, remember that storm clouds are always gathering. Don't forget your umbrella.

That didn’t take long. Less than two weeks have passed since much of the medical-industrial complex made a big show of working with President Obama on health care reform — and the double-crossing is already well under way. Indeed, it’s now clear that even as they met with the president, pretending to be cooperative, insurers were gearing up to play the same destructive role they did the last time health reform was on the agenda.

Banks negotiating to reclaim stock warrants they granted in return for Troubled Asset Relief Program money may shortchange taxpayers by almost $10 billion if Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner’s first sale sets the pace, data compiled by Bloomberg show.

(Including Dubin and Burris) - Twenty-eight U.S. Senators today introduced a resolution calling for the inclusion of federally-backed health insurance option in health care reform. The Senators resolution says that any reform of our nation’s health care system should give consumers a choice of an affordable, federally-backed option to introduce competition in the health insurance market and contain health care costs.

Watch:

Paging Sean Hannity...

Full video of speech:

Liberals pushing for the creation of a federally run health insurance plan won a major victory Thursday when Sen. Edward Kennedy (D-Mass.) strongly indicated his commitment to the policy, one of the most controversial elements of healthcare reform.

As a Justice Department attorney,* I would like to comment on Obama's speech with regard to the issue of prosecutions over torture and the establishment of a Truth Commission, issues that have been the subject of much debate and discussion here.  I know that there has been a fair amount of consternation based on the premise that the President has all but ruled out investigations or examinations into possible violations of the law concerning torture.

A Democratic leader misspoke on Tuesday about the health of Sen. Edward Kennedy (D-Mass.), who is suffering from brain cancer.

The Hill newspaper reported that Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) said Kennedy's cancer is in remission and that the Massachusetts Democrat will return to the Senate after the Memorial Day recess.

In a way, it was easy to take stands during the Bush years: the Bushies and their allies in Congress were so determined to move the nation in the wrong direction that one could, with a clear conscience, oppose all the administration’s initiatives.

"Don't make the perfect the enemy of the better" is a favorite slogan in Washington because compromise is necessary to get anything done. But the way things are going with health care, a better admonition would be: "Don't give away the store."

TO paraphrase Al Pacino in “Godfather III,” just when we thought we were out, the Bush mob keeps pulling us back in. And will keep doing so. No matter how hard President Obama tries to turn the page on the previous administration, he can’t. Until there is true transparency and true accountability, revelations of that unresolved eight-year nightmare will keep raining down drip by drip, disrupting the new administration’s high ambitions.

Health care leaders who attended the meeting have a different interpretation. They say they agreed to slow health spending in a more gradual way and did not pledge specific year-by-year cuts.

“There’s been a lot of misunderstanding that has caused a lot of consternation among our members,” said Richard J. Umbdenstock, the president of the American Hospital Association. “I’ve spent the better part of the last three days trying to deal with it.”

 China’s emissions, which come largely from its coal-burning electricity plants, doubled between 1996 and 2006. That was a much faster pace of growth than in the previous decade. And the trend seems set to continue: In January, China announced that it plans to continue its reliance on coal as its main energy source and that to feed its economic growth it will increase coal production 30 percent by 2015. That’s a decision that, all by itself, will swamp any emission reductions elsewhere.

Both the health care and climate-change proposals still face many obstacles before passage. But these early steps show that Obama's instinct for inclusion could allow him to expand his political coalition even while advancing two of his party's top priorities. That's how lasting majorities are built.

Here's the Obama administration's plan for emptying out Guantanamo, as I understand it: Take each prisoner out of his cell. Give him a personal apology, a big kiss and an AK-47. Then hand him a free airline ticket good for any destination in the continental United States.

5. Sen. Feingold, one of the people who has seen Dick Cheney's "torture worked" memos, says they are not as significant as Cheney would have us believe, saying that they won’t prove torture was "necessary" or that the techniques "were the best way to get information out of detainees."

A member of the Republican National Committee told me Tuesday that when the RNC meets in an extraordinary special session next week, it will approve a resolution rebranding Democrats as the “Democrat Socialist Party.”

Sun May 10, 2009 at 05:42:01 AM PDT

It’s a measure of just how terrible the economy has become that a loss of more than a half-million jobs in just one month can be widely seen as a good sign. The house is still burning down, but not quite as fast.

Americans know that they have a responsibility to live within their means and pay what they owe. But they also have a right to not get ripped off by the sudden rate hikes, unfair penalties, and hidden fees that have become all-too common in our credit card industry. You shouldn’t have to fear that any new credit card is going to come with strings attached, nor should you need a magnifying glass and a reference book to read a credit card application.  And the abuses in our credit card industry have only multiplied in the midst of this recession, when Americans can least afford to bear an extra burden.

Hooray! The banking crisis is over! Let’s party! O.K., maybe not.

 
Ben was on the hill yesterday. He gave a generally happy talk. Personally, I think he's lying through his teeth.Here's why:

Thu May 07, 2009 at 05:06:01 AM PDT

In his Weekly Address, the President discusses the government’s response to the 2009 H1N1 flu virus, from school closings to activating online social networks. He urges Americans to be calm but cautious.

The 2008 election ended the reign of junk science in our nation’s capital, and the chances of meaningful action on climate change, probably through a cap-and-trade system on emissions, have risen sharply.

I've made this point before, but it bears repeating.

Back in 2002, the Democratic Party was a disaster. It was beset by an establishment convinced that this was a center-right nation, and that the only path to victory was to be Republican-lite. It was outgunned by a conservative movement that had a well-established idea factory and message machine, with a traditional media more eager to pick up Fox News themes than to hold the administration accountable. And it was plagued by a consultant class that still thought the calendar read 1968, and that their campaigns couldn't associate with dirty fucking hippies or innovate with new tools like the "internets".

In some ways, Specter's switch doesn't give us anything much. As his statement says, he's not switching back on EFCA, he won't be a reliable Democratic vote, and he'll probably duke it out with Lieberman to be the most obnoxious anti-Democratic voice from within the caucus.

ASHINGTON — At the prodding of the White House, Democratic Congressional leaders have agreed to pursue a plan that would protect major health care legislation from Republican opposition by shielding it from last-minute Senate filibusters.

In this performance on MSNBC Liz Cheney, daughter of the Former Vice President, was absolutely stunning in her delivery of rapid-fire talking points in an attempt to obfuscate the fact that under her Father and President Bush this country engaged in Totalitarian Methods and War Crimes - and in the process still failed to protect America by using false intelligence and false confessions to begin an unwarranted invasion of Iraq.

A Timeline with links...

 Watch another example of our Republican friends' disgraceful and failed attempt at "gotcha" politics...

The most important high value information obtained by the waterboarding of Abu Zubaydah - the identify of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed - was obtained without the use of such methods, but rather through traditional interrogation.  So was the identity of Jose Padilla, himself later subjected to such abusive methods that his mind was effectively destroyed - and we should remember, that Padilla was never charged with the high value crimes for which government officials justified his mistreatment.

The Bush administration applied relentless pressure on interrogators to use harsh methods on detainees in part to find evidence of cooperation between al Qaida and the late Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein's regime, according to a former senior U.S. intelligence official and a former Army psychiatrist.

Watch...

 There is no doubt that sometime in 2002 - if not before - Bush administration officials and their lawyers began orchestrating a torture campaign, which they calculatedly attempted to justify through specious legal memos. They continued to abuse prisoners, and to conceal that mistreatment from Congress and the public, through at least 2008. In all of this conduct, they have committed grave crimes for which they must be held accountable. I believe this to be a national imperative of the highest order. I have pored over every available book and report about torture, disturbing as they are, and I have read the lurid facts and twisted legal reasoning laid out in the Office of Legal Counsel torture memos just released by the White House. I am increasingly outraged by the day, disgusted by years of inaction, and impatient for results. Consequently, I would like nothing more than to join with so many friends and associates whom I respect in calling for immediate appointment of a special prosecutor.

President Obama’s speech at Georgetown University this week was perhaps the most comprehensive explanation he’s offered of his economic policies. Here’s a full text, as provided by the White House:

With the process of going through the budget line by line in full swing, the President uses his Weekly Address to give some examples, big and small, of how the Administration is working to cut costs and eliminate waste. The President also announces two new key appointments, Jeffrey Zients as Chief Performance Officer and Aneesh Chopra as Chief Technology Officer, who will be invaluable in streamlining the way government functions through efficiency and innovation.

No one likes to pay taxes, so tax day typically attracts a range of right-wing Republicans, kooks, and demagogues, all of whom tell us how awful we have it. Herewith a short citizen's guide (that is, a citizen's guide that's short rather than a guide for short citizens) responding to the predictable charges:

1. "Americans pay too much in taxes." Wrong: The United States has the lowest taxes of all developed nations.

Don’t count your recoveries before they’re hatched.

If you're wondering where to come down on the Gates plan, here's a simple guide: John McCain, the most thoughtful, reform-minded legislator on military issues, "strongly supports" it. Oklahoma Sen. James Inhofe—who has compared the EPA to the Gestapo, Carol Browner to Tokyo Rose and environmentalists to the Third Reich—warns that it will lead to the "disarming of America." You choose.

Referring twice to Dick Cheney as “Darth Vader,” ElBaradei told me in an interview that “U.S. policy consisted of two mantras — Iran should not have the knowledge and should not spin one single centrifuge. They kept saying, wait, Iran is not North Korea, it will buckle. That was absolutely a mistake.”

President Barack Obama could have only hoped for modest, small-bore successes to come out of his eight-day, three-summit jaunt through Europe and the Middle East. After all, repairing the world in the wake of the Bush administration is a complicated matter. It will be a while before we know with any certainty whether Obama achieved anything of lasting value, and it may even turn out that the critics who say it was all style and no substance will be proven right. But their validation will come at a cost. The virulent reaction from conservatives has been bizarre enough to render them irrelevant in any serious conversation about the country's future.