Christmas Presense

So apparently, there are conflicting reports tonight about a Nigerian Muslim who may or may not be actually affiliated with AQ who tried to detonate "an explosive substance" aboard an airliner that had just landed in Detroit by way of Amsterdam.

The suspect is 23-year-old Abdul Farouk Abdulmutallab, a federal official said, speaking on condition of anonymity to avoid affecting an ongoing investigation. ABC News and NBC News reported that he attends University College of London, where he studied engineering.

While not on the TSA's "no-fly" list, Abdulmutallab's name appears to be included in the government's records of terrorist suspects, according to a preliminary review, authorities said.

Abdulmutallab has told federal investigators that he had ties to al-Qaeda and traveled to Yemen to collect the incendiary device and instructions on how to use it, according to a federal counterterrorism official briefed on the case. But authorities have yet to verify the claim, and they expect to conduct several more interviews before they determine whether he is credible, the official said.

Apparently all this guy did was burn himself rather badly in the process and singe a couple of nearby passengers.  It is a reminder that there are pretty sick people out there who really do want to hurt Americans.

Then again, there are plenty of Americans actually managing to kill other Americans too today.  Perspective, as always.

A Kroogmas Carol

Here's some holiday reading while you're waiting to make room in the downstairs oven for that casserole for later today.  Santa Krugman has a story for you:

Indulge me while I tell you a story — a near-future version of Charles Dickens’s “A Christmas Carol.” It begins with sad news: young Timothy Cratchit, a k a Tiny Tim, is sick. And his treatment will cost far more than his parents can pay out of pocket.

Fortunately, our story is set in 2014, and the Cratchits have health insurance. Not from their employer: Ebenezer Scrooge doesn’t do employee benefits. And just a few years earlier they wouldn’t have been able to buy insurance on their own because Tiny Tim has a pre-existing condition, and, anyway, the premiums would have been out of their reach.

But reform legislation enacted in 2010 banned insurance discrimination on the basis of medical history and also created a system of subsidies to help families pay for coverage. Even so, insurance doesn’t come cheap — but the Cratchits do have it, and they’re grateful. God bless us, everyone.

O.K., that was fiction, but there will be millions of real stories like that in the years to come. Imperfect as it is, the legislation that passed the Senate on Thursday and will probably, in a slightly modified version, soon become law will make America a much better country.

And there's the reality, folks.  Have a merry Christmas.  Something got done for a change in this country.  The lesson for progressives?

If progressives want more, they’ll have to make changing those Senate rules a priority. They’ll also have to work long term on electing a more progressive Congress. But, meanwhile, the bill the Senate has just passed, with a few tweaks — I’d especially like to move the start date up from 2014, if that’s at all possible — is more or less what the Democratic leadership can get.

And for all its flaws and limitations, it’s a great achievement. It will provide real, concrete help to tens of millions of Americans and greater security to everyone. And it establishes the principle — even if it falls somewhat short in practice — that all Americans are entitled to essential health care.

It's not the 30 Rock Christmas tree...but it's not Charlie Brown's beat up little shrub, either.  The lesson of course is to elect people who will be inclined to improve this bill.

Last Call

Something to remember this Christmas Eve, Gallup's annual religion poll shows that 78% of Americans identify themselves as Christian, but that's down from 85% in 1998.

The trend results are based on annual averages of Gallup's religious identity data in America that stretch back over 60 years. One of the most significant trends documented during this period is the substantial increase in the percentage of American adults who don't identify with any specific religion. In 1948, only 2% of Americans did not identify with a religion. That percentage began to rise in the late 1960s and early 1970s.

Eleven years ago, in 1998, 6% of Americans did not identify with a religion, a number that rose to 10% by 2002. This year's average of 13% of Americans who claim no religious identity is the highest in Gallup records.

The percentage of Americans who identify as Catholic, Protestant, or some other non-Catholic Christian faith has been concomitantly decreasing over the years. This suggests that one of the major patterns of religious transition in America in recent decades has been the shift from identification as Christian to the status of having no specific religious identification.

In 1948, 91% of Americans identified with a Christian faith. Twenty years ago, in 1989, 82% of Americans identified as Christian. Ten years ago, it was 84%. This year, as noted, 78% of all American adults identify with a Christian faith.

There has also been a slight increase in the percentage of Americans who identify with a religion that is not specifically classified as Christian. Sixty years ago, for example, 4% of Americans identified with a non-Christian religion. By 1989, 9% of Americans were in this non-Christian religion category, the same percentage as today.

That's important.  There are a number of Americans out there who aren't Christian, but there are a growing number of Americans who simply don't see themselves as having a religion.  Keep in mind that 13% represents tens of millions of Americans, too.  So whatever religion you celebrate...or don't, for that matter...have a good one.

And remember, it's not an excuse to find a difference, but a similarity.

A Right Nasty Scrum, Mate

Quite the row over at BooMan's place, where he's even more strident that I am about Jane Hamsher's Devil's bargain with the teabaggers and is wondering when the rest of FDL's progressives will be looking for a way out of there as a result.  Best comments over there so far by Fighting Bill:

Hamsher is a breast cancer survivor, multiple times, and clearly there is a deep personal well to her feelings about reform. She was also a fierce anti-war voice who stepped out of the blogosphere shadows to take on national prominence in helping to lead Ned Lamont to the Democratic senatorial nomination in CT. The problem is that somewhere along the way, the spotlight has gone to her head and clouded her judgement. She didn't help Lamont to victory; instead, Joe Lieberman survived and has more power than ever before. His anemic presidential run in 2004 is a distant memory--he's a playa now.

She had good points to make about Caroline Kennedy's weaknesses as a Senate candidate, but she was strident and absolutist as she went about vilifiying her. We got Gillebrand in the deal.

Now this: she has adopted a self-defeating position that is all about HER and not at all about the 30 million people who can be helped by an imperfect bill. Like it or not, the bill is a foot in the door that will yield opportunities for improvement in short order. Anyone who looks to her for strategy, as so many in the left seem to be doing, are not paying enough attention.

Her passion, her reasoning, her fight, yes I respect it.  Her choice of allies and her all or nothing decision when "all" is impossible right now and nothing is untenable, immoral and unsustainable?  No.

And Yet Another Thing

John Cole makes this point about the totally screwball "Fire Rahmbo" coalition between Jane Hamsher and Grover Norquist:

Another thing that really pisses me off about this jihad against Rahm Emanuel is that the message it implicitly sends is that Obama is not calling the shots- he’s just Rahm’s puppet. That is explicitly a Republican frame- that Obama is weak and an empty suit.

I'll go a step further.  It's more than that, the "Obama is an empty suit meme" has always smacked of implied racism, the same "soft bigotry of low expectations"/"The Bell Curve" bullshit that Obama's just not quite bright enough to be Commander-In-Chief because he's...well...you know. Naturally, the theory goes, he needs a politically smart white guy to run the show for him while just smiles and nods and teaches him the ropes.  Obama's attitude is laissaze faire and all because he has no choice:  he's the just black guy on the outside of the cereal box, the real decisions are made by other, smarter, not_black folks.

That's the stuff that really burns me.  You really can distill much of the whisper campaign against him to racism, and the Right then finds a way to build on it, capturing the impatience of those on the Left to then serve to destroy the progressives altogether.

Now I'm no Annenberg School graduate, but even I can see this crap for what it is.

We Have A Winner, Folks

I knew the Wingers would grimly intone the end of the United States of America as we know it due to today's Senate bill passage, but two reactions stand out as some of the worst punditry I can recall seeing on the entire issue.  First, Rick Moran warms up paragraph after paragraph of mendacious warnings, calling the bill the "worst piece of legislation in my lifetime" while managing to absolve the GOP...

If some of this would have accomplished some of the goals the Democrats set out to fulfill, there’s a chance that reasonable conservatives could have supported it. After all, no bill is going to be perfect, and the opposition, working with the material you have at hand in order to improve it, might have achieved at least the appearance of bi-partisanship.

It’s not the the Democrats were necessarily not interested in bi-partisanship as it was they were not interested in the gradualist approach favored by those few lawmakers in the GOP who would have supported health care reform. When even Olympia Snowe and Susan Collins wouldn’t get on board, this should have been a sign that what the Democrats were proposing was a bridge too far even for moderate Republicans.

Married to process rather than sticking to substance, Harry Reid then took a bad bill and made it infinitely worse by trying to please all segments of his caucus. The buy offs, the favors - all the little ornaments Reid added to this Christmas tree of a bill made it less fair, more complex, and more expensive.

Look, Rick, there was zero amount of GOP Senators that ever would have voted for this bill.  Until 2013 at the minimum, the Republican Party has abdicated any and all responsibility for legislating anything.  They simply vote no and then complain they aren't allowed to run the country anymore.  Over a hundred cloture or procedural votes in 2009 alone, Rick.  You can't be that dense.  Nobody believes for a second the GOP is going to do anything but blockade this Congress.

But then we have a winner for worst Wingnut douchebaggery of 2009 hands down as Dan Riehl directly compares the passage to a terror attack on America:

Sixty suicidal terrorists aka Socialist-Democrat Senators strapped over 2,000 pages of dynamite to themselves in the Capitol this morning, as they vowed to blow up America's superior health care system in coming months. The group is being coordinated by a Washington, DC man identified as Barack Hussein Obama.

Reid opened the Senate floor at 7 a.m. and channeled Ted Kennedy: “The work goes on. The cause endures… and yet here we are, minutes away from doing what others have tried but none have achieved.”

Republican leader Mitch McConnell responded: “This fight isn’t over. My colleagues and I will work to stop this bill from becoming law. That’s the clear will of the American people — and we’re going to continue to fight on their behalf.”

Obama supplies the terrorists with funding through a large criminal enterprise referred to as an Internal Revenue Service, or IRS. The IRS steals monies from innocent Americans, including the unborn of future generations, to fund the groups destructive plans. Reports suggest the terrorists within the Capitol are prepared to die for their cause if they must.

Only citizen political militias scattered across the country stand between the terrorists and the destruction of what has long been hailed as the greatest and freest nation in the world. For Americans, the international war against totalitarianism has come home.

Cry havoc! and let loose the dogs of war, that this foul deed shall smell above the earth with carrion men, groaning for burial. *

Really.  This asshole just outright called them terrorists, called the President a terrorist mastermind, and called for the people to rise up against them.

Riehl is so far off the map he's in another year's atlas.  This is the kind of stuff that I've been talking about since I started this blog, the level of unbridled, blood-drunk hatred against the Democrats that borders on the delusional and sociopathic.

This is Obama Derangement Syndrome.  And it's only getting worse.

StupidiNews!

(slightly late edition.  Sorry, day off and overslept a bit.)

• Along a straight party line vote the Senate passed a health care reform bill this morning, 60-39 (minus KY's own Jim Bunning.)
• New jobless claims fell to 452,000, a fifteen-month low.
• New Census numbers show Texas remains the fastest growing state in the nation.
• California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger plans to ask the President for help with the state's $21 billion 2010 budget gap.
• Last minute online Christmas shoppers found Amazon and Walmart's sites were down last night, knocked out by a denial of service attack Grinch.
  

Last Call

Oh for crying out loud.

There are few stranger political bedfellows than conservative anti-tax crusader Grover Norquist and liberal blogger Jane Hamsher. But the two joined forces on Wednesday to call for the resignation of White House chief of staff Rahm Emanuel, in a letter they penned to Attorney General Eric Holder.

...what the Rumpies said.  I mean honestly.  As much as I'd like to see Rahmbo taken down a notch for his "we're dealin!" mentality, this is soooooo not the answer.

Sure, I'll Play

Betty Cracker and the Instaputz crew have given their Top 5 people who need to simply smeg off in 2010.

I'll go with mine:

1. John McCain.  Nobody gives a damn about what you have to say about Washington except for the people who book MTP.  Flying Spaghetti Monster willing, you'll be primaried out of a job in 2010.
2. Cokie Roberts.  You're an annoying clueless chucklehead on NPR every Monday morning on my drive into work.  Honestly NPR, my donations should be paying for better Washington insider concern trolling.  Fire her ass already.
3. William A. "Col. Mustard" Jacobsen.  This guy's a law professor with a public blog?  Really?  I'd rather take legal advice from Lionel Hutz.  Specious, easily annihilated arguments for the loss.
4. Joe Scarborough  Why does this guy have a show still?  It's like MSNBC has some sort of unwritten rule that Rachel Maddow, Ed Schultz and KO have to be balanced by this chode.  You have PAT BUCHANAN for that.
5. Rand Paul  Look, Kentucky, if you vote this chowderhead in as Senator, I will have to Do Something.  Mongiardo, Conway, even Trey Greyson I can deal with.  But not this guy.
   

2010 needs some serious smackies administered.

More Useful Idiots Carrying Water For The GOP

Politico's team is reporting that the White House "doesn't expect" the health care reform bill to get to Obama's desk until well after the State of the Union, allowing the White House to make a "hard pivot" to jobs legislation in January in the meantime.

The White House privately anticipates health care talks to slip into February — past President Barack Obama’s first State of the Union address — and then plans to make a “very hard pivot” to a new jobs bill, according to senior administration officials.

Obama has been told that disputes over abortion and the tight schedule are highly likely to delay a final deal, a blow to the president, who had hoped to trumpet a health care victory in his big speech to the nation. But he has also been told that House Democratic leaders seem inclined, at least for now, to largely accept the compromise worked out in the Senate, virtually ensuring he will eventually get a deal.

Yet another case where "officials" are telling Mike Allen and company that Obama is being told by Congress what they will allow to happen, and that there's nothing Obama can do about it.  The fact that this is dropping even before the bill is approved is a major clue as to the motivations here to try to raise hopes for more "kill the bill" concern trolling.

House Democrats have been pretty muted in their criticism of the Senate bill to this point.

That changed Wednesday when New York Rep. Louise Slaughter posted an opinion piece on CNN.com blasting the Senate bill because it lacks a public option, a key means to impose more competition on the private insurance industry.

"The Senate health care bill is not worthy of the historic vote that the House took a month ago," Slaughter wrote.

The status quo is still playing the "Even the Liberal..." game here in order to absolutely (if you'll excuse the pun) slaughter Obamacare.  They want this dead, and they want folks unhappy with the lack of public option to try to preserve the status quo and give the Republicans the complete win here.

It's like people haven't even heard of 1994.

Add Rep. Slaughter to the Useful Idiots category.  And the Village is more than happy to give them a platform to help out the insurance companies, the Republicans and the moneyed interests in Washington.  When you need a hole dug to bury something, it's always helpful if you have volunteer gravediggers.

Another House Of Cards Moment

New home sales down sharply last month, an 11.3% drop in November is just another sign that the housing depression will continue through 2010.

Michael Zoller at Moody's Economy.com said the surprisingly weak report negates several months of gains.

"Price discounting eased in November, although the median new home price is notoriously volatile," he said.

Economists were expecting 440k sales, instead the number came in at just 355K. CalcRisk has hit upon the really distressing figure here: the ratio of existing homes being sold to new homes being sold has hit an all-time high.

The ratio of existing to new home sales increased at first because of the flood of distressed sales. This kept existing home sales elevated, and depressed new home sales since builders couldn't compete with the low prices of all the foreclosed properties.

The recent increase in the ratio was partially due to the timing of the first time homebuyer tax credit (before the extension) - and partially because the tax credit spurred existing home sales more than new home sales.

On timing issues: New home sales are counted when the contract is signed, and usually before construction begins. So to close before the original Dec 1st deadline, the contract had to be signed early this Summer. Existing home sales are counted when escrow closes. And the recent surge in existing home sales was primarily due to buyers rushing to beat the tax credit.

What this means is the number of homes available on the market is increasing rapidly, both with a supply of new homes being built that are not being sold, and available homes merely changing hands.  New homeowners are NOT making the jump from renting to ownership, and that means there's too many homes on the market right now, even with the Obama tax credit.

That means supply is too high...and that means home prices are going to start falling sharply again as opposed to stabilizing.

2010 is going to be ugly for the housing market, folks.  Really ugly.  We're hitting now the third wave of home price drops.

Default To Racist Asshole Mode

GOP politicians have these devices that usually moderate their default racism, but when those devices go on the fritz and the truth about how they feel about anyone who's not white comes out, it's both instructive and angering.  Today's contestant is good ol' Lindsey Graham, who used this argument twice, on the Senate floor and again on the Today Show:

"Throughout the nation there are going to be thousands more people enrolled in Medicaid and every state except one is going to have to come up with matching money," Graham remarks. "I have 12 percent unemployment in South Carolina. My state's on its knees. I have 31 percent African-American population in South Carolina."

"We've got it tough," he adds. "We're on our knees. 12 percent of our people are unemployed and 31 percent of our people are black."

Graham later says: "My state, with 30 percent African-American citizens, a lot of low income people in South Carolina is going to cost my state a billion dollars, that's the same old stuff that I object to. That's not change we can believe in. That's sleazy."

Now, there's a couple of problems with these statements, besides the fact that Lindsey here is a racist assclown.  First of all, somebody needs to tell Lindsey that there are more people who are on Medicaid in South Carolina who are white, as Media Matters explains:

DISTRIBUTION OF THE NONELDERLY WITH MEDICAID BY RACE/ETHINICTY (2008)                            
 

And secondly, that if Lindsey there wants to really make this bill about race, the GOP is going to lose this battle terribly.

Now I know that I've said that the real reason the GOP wants to kill this bill is exactly because of race:  that this bill will help minorities is anathema to the teabagger jagoffs who "want to take the country back".  Some, not all, but some of the opposition to this bill is racism, pure and simple.

It's telling how desperate the Repubs are that they are now playing this card as a last resort.  It's also a sign of how much better than the status quo it will be.  Right now the focus is on this being a "big government spending" bill.  But if the GOP wants to make it a "welfare handout to blacks" issue, the center is going to turn on the Republicans again.

Hell, go ahead, guys.  Play the race card as hard and as loudly as you can.

Zandar's Thought Of The Day

I don't want to think of Jane Hamsher as being in the "useful idiot to Wingers" category, but Steve M at NMMNB makes the blunt and very compelling case that Jane's being played like a Stradivarius.

Do you think Rupert Murdoch's propaganda operation actually made a mistake? Do you really think this corporate behemoth let its guard down, booking you even though you're so dangerous you can help bring destroy structures Rupe desperately wants to see in place?

Don't be naive. Fox books liberals for two reasons: to be punching bags or to help reinforce messages Murdoch wants to deliver. I watched your clip and you weren't treated like a punching bag -- so that leaves only one choice: you were there to play "Even the liberal..." -- that is, you were there to deliver the message "This bill is so awful even some liberals loathe it."

No one on the right is "uniting" with you on principles. The Fox audience doesn't want to join you to help make a good bill. The Fox audience wants to kill this bill, brutally and mercilessly, and then get every single Democrat out of office. (And if Big Medicine really didn't like the idea of seeing this bill killed, it would tell Fox and the GOP to call off their dogs, and they'd dutifully comply. Big Medicine loves this bill compared to what it could have been, but no bill at all is still the fat cats' preference. Watch this report in its 2 1/2-minute entirety if you doubt that.)

I agree that the bill is rather awful, and I've been vacillating on the question of whether it's worth voting for, so I respect your intentions. But if you think left and right are meeting right now, your vision field is almost as warped as that of the we-love-Hillary-and-Sarah PUMAs. The Fox audience doesn't hate the fat cats -- the Fox audience hates you, Jane, and everything you stand for, and your readers and everything they stand for, and Barack Obama and everything (they think) he stands for. But they'll suspend their contempt when they can use you as a stick to beat Obama with. You know the old saying: "Let's you and him fight!" That's what they're saying to you.

You were used, Jane. If you weren't of use to the right, you wouldn't have been booked.

And frankly, if Hamsher's not smart enough to see that, then she deserves scorn like this.  New, long, long, long overdue tag:  Useful Idiots Are Useful.

[UPDATE 11:37 AM] And Kevin K.'s beaten me to it.  Take his advice and read Matt Bastard's piece, too.

Epic Wingers Fail At Math Fail

I'd almost pay Nate Silver to teach Wingnuts how to read polls correctly.  Jim "Gateway Pundit" Hoft gleefully declares that Obama now has worse numbers than Bush did when he left office eleven months ago and that the Kenyan Usurper is "more loathed".

Now, what polling outfit would Jimbo there be able to pull that number from?  I'll give you three guesses, and the first five don't count.  Yep, our old ODI friends at Rasmussen had Dubya's "Strong Disapproval" numbers at 43%, while the same question for Rasmussen's "fair and balanced" poll shows Obama at 46% on Tuesday who Strongly Disapprove of the Other in the White House.  This is proof America hates Obama more than Bush to Jim there, and that Obama is the Worst Person on Earth.

Well, before you fire up the pitchforks and chainsaws, note that Bush's Rasmussen number was a whopping -30, still 8 points ahead of Obama's worst day in Rasmussen's deranged Obama landscape, and Obama's average at RCP is still 49.7%  with a +4.8 spread, while Rasmussen has him at negative 10.

When your approval poll is almost a full 15 points off the average, your poll is useless.  Even the more grueling and thorough Pollster.com average finds Obama at 48.0% to 46.7%, a slight positive spread where Rasmussen is off the charts.

The ODI for Tuesday would then be a massive -23.3%, a number so far off the scope of reality as to prove Rasmussen's numbers useless.  Naturally, the Wingers are grasping at generalized pictures of straws miles out of reach to prove their Obama Derangement Syndrome issues...but that's why they EPIC FAIL time and time again.

StupidiNews!

• Three in five Americans back President Obama's Afghanistan plan according to the latest CNN poll.
• The wife of Sen. John Kerry, Teresa Heinz Kerry, is fighting breast cancer.
• The GOP plans to keep the Senate health care bill from ever becoming law by suing over sweetheart deals for individual Senators.
• Stimulus spending is now exceeding bailout money, but the economy is still addicted to government largess.
• Microsoft is being told is must essentially stop selling Word 2010 due to a patent infringement judgment against it.