Last Call

No matter what Barack Obama does, the GOP attacks him relentlessly. If he says something about race and America, he is attacked for being a racist and the GOP demands an apology.

Congress would demand that President Obama apologize to the officer the president said had "acted stupidly" in the arrest of a prominent Harvard professor under a resolution set to be introduced by one Michigan lawmaker.

Rep. Thaddeus McCotter (R-Mich.) will introduce a House resolution on Monday demanding Obama retract and apologize for remarks he has made about Cambridge Police Sergeant James Crowley this past week.

If he tries to mends those fences like the GOP wanted him to by meeting with both parties, well he gets attacked for that too.

Republican National Committee Co-Chairman Jan Larimer criticized President Obama Friday for his White House meeting with a professor and a police officer, saying the president needs to focus on more important issues.

"We are at war and Barack Obama is talking about beer in the White House," Larimer said at the RNC's Summer Meeting. "And it is wrong. It is not what our country is about."

You see folks? No matter what the man does, the GOP attacks in order to "win" the news cycle. They don't care about the state of the country, or the economy, or the unemployment figures, or the environment, or health care, or any of the things average Americans are concerned with.

All they care about is beating Barack Obama and destroying his agenda. Period. Keep that in mind in August that the plan is to attack, attack, attack Democrats over the recess:

The lobbyist-run groups Americans for Prosperity and FreedomWorks, which orchestrated the anti-Obama tea parties earlier this year, are now pursuing an aggressive strategy to create an image of mass public opposition to health care and clean energy reform. A leaked memo from Bob MacGuffie, a volunteer with the FreedomWorks website Tea Party Patriots, details how members should be infiltrating town halls and harassing Democratic members of Congress:

– Artificially Inflate Your Numbers: “Spread out in the hall and try to be in the front half. The objective is to put the Rep on the defensive with your questions and follow-up. The Rep should be made to feel that a majority, and if not, a significant portion of at least the audience, opposes the socialist agenda of Washington.”

– Be Disruptive Early And Often: “You need to rock-the-boat early in the Rep’s presentation, Watch for an opportunity to yell out and challenge the Rep’s statements early.”

– Try To “Rattle Him,” Not Have An Intelligent Debate: “The goal is to rattle him, get him off his prepared script and agenda. If he says something outrageous, stand up and shout out and sit right back down. Look for these opportunities before he even takes questions.”

It's all they care about. They could give a rat's ass about you or me, but they want to make sure the Democrats lose. That's all that ever matters to them. That's where our political system is these days: a battle between a political party and organized hecklers.

Mind Like A Steele, Trapped

Who's the leader of the Republican Party? Not this guy.

It's been a bad day for RNC chairman Michael Steele, with his authority having now been seriously weakened.

The Republican National Committee has now imposed new controls on Steele's spending, requiring him to set up competitive bidding on contracts costing over $100,000 and to get a second signature on those contracts.

The RNC also also voted to postpone until January any vote on the formation of a special ethics committee, which Steele had proposed as a way to ensure transparency. "My concern is with members appointed by the chairman, as he wanted to do, you potentially don't have the transparency he promised when running for chairman," said North Dakota chairman Gary Emineth.

You really do have to wonder how long Michael Steele is going to put up with being treated like nothing more than the token big tent court jester. Considering how some of the rank and file local and state party officials and organizers view African-Americans, you would think Steele would protest a bit. Then again, we've already established the guy lacks personal pride or shame or, well, basic competence but at some point he's going to just say "screw you guys" and quit.

In Which Zandar Admits He Was Wrong

Well, this morning as the news that the Cash For Clunkers program was going to get more cash broke, and that the House was going to take up adding $2 billion (and the measure did pass today) I said:

Still, even I would have to believe this will get through the Senate next week. Suicidal if they didn't. Even the GOP is not this dumb.

Guess I was wrong!

When Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-NV, tries to take up the House-passed "Cash for Clunkers" bill next week, he will hit a series of bipartisan road blocks.

Fox has learned that Sen. John McCain, R-AZ, will oppose any move to take up the House bill. Around here, we call that a filibuster.

McCain told Fox earlier today, "I not only wouldn't vote for the extra two billion, I was opposed to the initial billion. "

McCain, the 2008 GOP presidential nominee who ran as a deficit hawk, said, "Within a few weeks we will see that this process was abused by speculators and people who took advantage of what is basically a huge government subsidy of corporations that they already own. "I can't imagine that any taxpayer of America would have thought that the TARP, the financial recovery money, would be used now to subsidize the sale of automobiles in America."

This move by McCain has the potential to tie the Senate into procedural knots, just as Reid is planning to take up the nomination of Sonia Sotomayor to be the next justice on the Supreme Court. This debate, alone, is expected to consumer three days, as the Senate heads into the monthlong August recess after next Friday.

Are you kidding me? John McCain is going to try to filibuster Cash For Clunkers? Is he insane? Does the GOP not have enough of a problem with the Party of No label? They're going to to get destroyed over this. The GOP complains that the stimulus isn't working fast enough, and the one blazingly obvious part of the stimulus that is working and working now, the GOP wants to kill.

Now, the article does go on to say that DiFi and a couple other Democrats may have some problems reauthorizing the bill because it's not environmentally strict enough (this is FOX News after all) but realistically, they're not going to kill this bill if McCain is going to walk right into the jet engine intake on this one.

You do that, Maverick Man. Watch what happens!

Obama's American Identity

Expanding on the Birther silliness from this morning, I have to admit that for a conservative, Daniel Larison makes a surprising amount of sense.

If the President were McCain, who was born in the Panama Canal Zone and whose status is therefore very slightly more ambiguous than Obama’s, this movement would not exist. The same people leading the charge today would probably be shouting down anyone who had the temerity to “raise questions” about McCain’s citizenship. I won’t rule out that race may have some role, but nationality and nationalism are far more important. Never underestimate how closely some of these partisans identify their own particular ideology and party with being truly American. The only way to make sense of the explosion of this lunacy is to see it as a continuation of the belief that Obama, by virtue of what he believes, cannot be a “real” American, so the obsession with his place of birth is really an extension of the presidential campaign in which he and his supporters were considered not to be from “real” America.

I'd however have to disagree on that point I bolded above: I think the exact opposite is true. Nationality and nationalism are nothing more than a socially acceptable smokescreen for attacking Obama when the reality is there are people that primarily do not like Barack Obama because of his race. It's nothing more than applied Lee Atwater. Obama's birth certificate is simply an avenue that people can attack him on in order to delegitimize him. You see the GOP play this card all the time on immigration, for instance.

Also, I'd be much more willing to believe that Birtherism was less of a racial attack and more of a "real American" identity issue if it wasn't be accompanied by direct racial attacks on the President, and the woman leading the charge for the Birthers wasn't herself an immigrant from Moldavia via Israel, which nobody in the movement seems to have a problem with.

It's racism with a coat of goofy paint.

You Kids Get Off My Lawn

John Cole brings up a damn good point:

I read somewhere that the fact that our seniors are all covered by medicare really makes health care reform difficult. When the most reliable voting bloc already has their coverage paid for by the state, all the Republicans have to do is peel off a few other haves and convince the old folks that Obama wants to euthanize them.

Why should senior citizens want health care for everyone else? There's really nothing in it for them. If you assume there's a finite number of doctors in America (there is) and a finite number of hospital beds (there is) and the major thing keeping people out of using those resources is cost, if you reduce that barrier so that more of those resources are being used, then while that's great for people who don't have health care, it's not so great for the people already getting it.

And still, that Gallup Poll that John was referencing still has a plurality of all age groups convinced that health care reform will be more expensive and make their own health care worse. Sixteen plus years of health insurance companies promising that the "government will ruin health care" has taken too much of a toll at this point. It's been ingrained into Americans that government is incable of improving the situation, no matter how bad the current status quo is. And after eight years of Bush, well...government hasn't exactly acquitted itself. After Katrina and Iraq and Afghanistan and the everything, would you? Even I have to admit that I can perfectly understand why people would think this way.

The problem is we know that the status quo is unsustainable. Something has to be done, but people are convinced the solution is worse than the problem. If there's a lasting legacy of the Bush years, it's that people in my generation will never trust the government again, even if it's not Bush's government.

Epic Government Cheese Win

House Dem Anthony Weiner of New York called out the GOP on their hatred of government health care and boxed them in on a bill to eliminate Medicare.

Not a single member of Congress voted for the amendment, and Republicans were blasting it as a “political farce.” Last night, Weiner went on MSNBC and explained the GOP’s hypocrisy:

WEINER: Well, for some reason, I guess Republicans don’t like publicly funded, publicly administered health plans except for Medicare, and, I guess, except for the Veterans Administration and except for the health care that our military gets from the Department of Defense. The fact of the matter is, what we’ve learned is that government administered health care works pretty darn well. It’s got lower overhead and people like it.

So, when my Republican colleagues pound the drum and pound the podium about how they hate government-run health care, I guess they haven’t looked at what they get.

So, the good Congressman basically has every Republican on record as supporting government health care, and that the government health care that we have already works for millions of Americans. Despite all the claims to the contrary, not a single Republican will vote against government health care when it comes right down to it.

If that isn't check and mate on these guys, I don't know what is.

Mike Weiner (D-NY): Your EPIC WIN of the day.

Zandar's Thought Of The Day

The GOP is no longer interested in any progress whatsoever for health care reform and are actively saying that those who cooperate will be punished, like Finance Committee Republican Chuck Grassley.

Some Republicans have begun to warn that Mr. Grassley should tread carefully on the health care bill if he wants to become the senior Republican on the Judiciary Committee, a post that he is in line to take in the next Congress, when his term on the Finance Committee will be up.

And there have even been suggestions that Mr. Grassley, who is up for re-election next year, could face a primary challenge because of unhappiness among conservatives in his state over his support of the $787 billion bailout of the financial system last fall.

So of course there's not going to be a bipartisan deal. The Republicans are no longer operating in any semblance of good faith. They are going to sink this bill. Why are Democrats acting like there's still any hope of a bipartisan compromise? What good would it do? The Republicans don't want any bill. Period. I've explained time and time what happens if a health care bill is signed: the GOP is done. The Democrats will run Washington for a generation. They understand what is at stake, and the Democrats are playing Kabuki theater with them anyway.

What is it going to take, guys?

Working For Chicken Feed

While the financial industry is pulling in record bonuses in 2009, keep in mind the rest of us saw the lowest rise in wages on record since 1982.

Employment compensation for U.S. workers has grown over the past 12 months by the lowest amount on record, reflecting the severe recession that has gripped the country.

The Labor Department said Friday that employment costs rose by 1.8 percent for the 12 months ending in June, the smallest annual gain on records that go back to 1982.

The department said that for the April-June quarter, its Employment Cost Index rose by just 0.4 percent, just slightly above the 0.3 percent rise in the first quarter, which had been the smallest quarterly gain on record.

Companies, struggling to cope during the current hard times, have been laying off workers, trimming wage gains and holding down overtime to save costs.

The 1.8 percent increase in overall compensation for the past 12 months included a record low 1.8 percent rise in wages and salaries, which account for 70 percent of compensation costs.

Benefits, which include such things as health insurance and contributions to pension plans, also rose by 1.8 percent during the past year, the lowest annual gain in this category since a similar increase during the 12 months ending in September 1997.

Of course, this recession hasn't hurt compensation for those lucky recipients of taxpayer money:

Citigroup and Merrill Lynch, which each lost more than $27 billion in 2008, handed out, respectively, $5.3 billion and $3.6 billion in bonuses. They also received TARP funding worth about $55 billion. Fun fact: Citigroup handed out bonuses of $1 million or more last year to 738 bankers and traders. That still lagged behind Goldman Sachs, which bestowed bonuses worth at least $1 million to 953 employees. Laissez les bons temps rouler, anyone?

Speaking of Goldman, its bonus totals, as well as those at Morgan Stanley, and JP. Morgan Chase last year exceeded their institutions' individual net income.

• Goldman earned $2.3 billion and paid $4.8 billion in bonuses. It received $10 billion in TARP funding

• Morgan Stanley earned $1.7 billion and paid $4.5 billion in bonuses. It got $10 billion in TARP funding.

• JP Morgan Chase earned $5.6 billion and paid nearly $8.7 billion in bonuses. It received $25 billion in TARP funding.

Another takeawy: the party mindset which predominated during the boom carried over when after the sub-prime crisis hit. While the recession forced the rest of Corporate America to press the reset button, Wall Street - with the exception of a financial institution here and there going under - didn't rethink its compensation practices.

"For instance, at Bank of America, compensation and benefit payments increased from more than $10 billion to more than $18 billion in between 2003 and 2006. Yet, in 2008, when Bank of America's net income fell from $14 billion to $4 billion, Bank of America's compensation payments remained at the $18 billion level. Bank of America paid $18 billion in compensation and benefit payments again in 2008, even though 2008 performance was dismal when compared to the 2003-2006 bull market."

So while folks like you and me are going through the third year with no raise, these guys are making millions a piece, thanks to taxpayer TARP payments.

Something to think about when you are paying your bills here on the last day of July. All the TARP program did was make Wall Street safe for seven and eight figure payouts. Record bonuses for them, record low wage growth for us.

And people wonder how we're going to get out of this economic hole, and why consumer spending is in the toilet.

[UPDATE 3:58 PM] The House has passed a bill allowing company stockholders to have a vote on compensation and authorizing government regulators to limit executive pay.

The bill, which passed 237-185, came in response to public outrage over lavish pay received by executives at Wall Street firms that took billions in emergency aid from the government. But the measure faces a more difficult road in the Senate, where lawmakers have been expressing concerns about whether the bill would draw the government too deeply into the inner workings of scores of firms.

The bill would ban pay that "could threaten the safety and soundness of covered financial institutions" or that "could have serious adverse effects on economic conditions or financial stability."

It also would require that members of corporate compensation committees have greater independence than in the past and would empower U.S. regulators to ban pay that could encourage traders and executives to take "inappropriate risks." The bill would not apply to financial institutions with assets of less than $1 billion.

It's a start.

Not A Good Day

Several news outlets reporting that Sen. Chris Dodd has early-stage prostate cancer. Dodd is expected to have a press conference later today (2 PM EDT) on the subject.

Best wishes that he gets through it, and good news in a sense that it was detected early.

Blue Dogs Chowing Down On Corporate Money

Having long ago figured out that the House Blue Dog Dems were the go to guys to stop corporate reform, the Blue Dogs have been living large in the fundraising department in 2009 thanks to those same corporations making big donations.

On June 19, Rep. Mike Ross of Arkansas made clear that he and a group of other conservative Democrats known as the Blue Dogs were increasingly unhappy with the direction that health-care legislation was taking in the House.

"The committees' draft falls short," the former pharmacy owner said in a statement that day, citing, among other things, provisions that major health-care companies also strongly oppose.

Five days later, Ross was the guest of honor at a special "health-care industry reception," one of at least seven fundraisers for the Arkansas lawmaker held by health-care companies or their lobbyists this year, according to publicly available invitations.

The roiling debate about health-care reform has been a boon to the political fortunes of Ross and 51 other members of the Blue Dog Coalition, who have become key brokers in shaping legislation in the House. Objections from the group resulted in a compromise bill announced this week that includes higher payments for rural providers and softens a public insurance option that industry groups object to. The deal also would allow states to set up nonprofit cooperatives to offer coverage, a Republican-generated idea that insurers favor as an alternative to a public insurance option.

At the same time, the group has set a record pace for fundraising this year through its political action committee, surpassing other congressional leadership PACs in collecting more than $1.1 million through June. More than half the money came from the health-care, insurance and financial services industries, marking a notable surge in donations from those sectors compared with earlier years, according to an analysis by the Center for Public Integrity.

A look at career contribution patterns also shows that typical Blue Dogs receive significantly more money -- about 25 percent -- from the health-care and insurance sectors than other Democrats, putting them closer to Republicans in attracting industry support.

Most of the major corporations and trade groups in those sectors are regular contributors to the Blue Dog PAC. They include drugmakers such as Pfizer and Novartis; insurers such as WellPoint and Northwestern Mutual Life; and industry organizations such as America's Health Insurance Plans. The American Medical Association also has been one of the top contributors to individual Blue Dog members over the past 20 years.

And you wonder why there's no deal in the House yet. Look folks, despite the Blue Dogs smiling and nodding and getting "changes" made in legislation, none of these guys plan to vote for health care reform. They're planning to scuttle it, or force enough changes in the final house bill that the rest of the Democrats revolt and the bill breaks down completely.

Blue Dogs are no allies to Obama right now. They're just waiting for the right opportunity to scrap his entire agenda. The funny part is the Republicans that the Blue Dogs are helping out will be the first to turn on them as the 2010 election campaign heats up. It's the Blue Dogs who will find themselves in the doghouse here, and soon. These guys are working for the insurance companies, period.

I'm not sure why the White House and Pelosi are pretending otherwise. In the end, these dogs are rabid.

It's time to put them down.

More Cash For Cash For Clunkers

With the unqualified "success" of Cash For Clunkers, it looks like Congress is trying to scrape up some more money to keep the insanely popular (but horrifically managed) program running.

The House raced Friday to pass legislation pouring an additional $2 billion into the popular — but financially strapped — “cash for clunkers” car purchase program.

Reps. Sander Levin, D-Mich., and Betty Sutton, D-Ohio, said the House planned to consider the additional funding after lawmakers from the two states were assured by Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood that the program would continue while the Obama administration looked for more money.

Democrats in the House were exploring the possibility of votes as early as Friday to replenish the funding. The Senate was not scheduled to vote on Friday but lawmakers hoped to win approval for additional funding next week.

Sen. Carl Levin, D-Mich., said the administration assured them “deals will be honored until otherwise noted by the White House.” But he suggested that “people ought to get in and buy their cars.”

Nice. I'd consider a little more than $2 billion there guys, but that's just me. The House kind of needs to get this done before they leave this weekend on vacation for sure. The Senate needs to as well. Nice to see Betty Sutton make up for dropping the ball on the program's original amount.

Still, even I would have to believe this will get through the Senate next week. Suicidal if they didn't. Even the GOP is not this dumb.

[UPDATE 11:40 AM] CNN is reporting that the White House is saying the program will continue through this weekend and beyond, so there will no interruption in the program. Trade in your clunkers, America!

Another Glorious Day In The Sandbox

...As at least 26 people are killed in yet another wave of bombings in Baghdad.

Six bombs exploded within minutes near Shi'ite mosques across Baghdad on Friday, killing at least 26 people and wounding scores of others, police and witnesses said.

The blasts, which appeared to target Shi'ite Muslims taking part in Friday prayers, was a reminder of the capability of militants in Iraq despite an overall drop in violence in the country over the last 18 months. At least 67 were wounded.

Shi'ite religious gatherings in the past have been targets of Sunni Islamist al Qaeda, which regards Shi'ites as heretics.

In the worst attack, a car bomb struck people praying outside a crowded mosque in northern Baghdad's Shaab district, killing at least 21 people and wounding 35.

"I saw 15 martyrs," said one Iraqi at the mosque.

But we can't pull our troops out, because that would cause Baghdad to devolve into more violence. Only 29 more months!

Meanwhile in Afghanistan:

The Afghan battlefield is spreading into residential areas where more people are being killed by air strikes, car bombs and suicide attacks, according to a U.N. report published on Friday.

The U.N. Assistance Mission to Afghanistan said that 1,013 civilians were killed on the sidelines of the armed conflict from January to the end of June, compared to 818 in the first half of 2008 and 684 in the same period in 2007.

Victory is just around the corner.

The Rundown

TNR's Jonathan Cohn is on the case with a great summary of the news on the Obamacare front in the last 36 hours:

Let's start with the House, where the storyline is clearer. On Wednesday, House Energy and Commerce Chairman Henry Waxman announced that he had reached an agreement with four Blue Dog Democrats on his committee.

The precise terms of that agreement are still not public. But it appears that Waxman promised to trim the outlays in the bill by $100 billion overall and to change the public plan so that it would no longer pay at rates pegged to Medicare. (This is important, because paying at rates pegged to Medicare would make the plan less expensive--and, naturally, less remunerative for those who provide medical services.)

Waxman also obtained a guarantee from leadership that a full floor vote would wait until after the August recess, so that Democrats wouldn't have to take "tough" votes--to raise taxes, cut back payments to industry, whatever--without first seeing what the Senate decides to do.

The agremeent, if it holds, should allow Waxman to move legislation out of his committee. That would mean all three of the House committees working on health reform legislation will have produced bills--a historic achievement, particularly given that the three bills will remain very similar even after the amendments. And, yes, they are pretty good bills, all things considered.

But word of the compromise angered many liberals. My colleague Suzy Khimm has a dispatch from a Thursday press conference, which we'll be posting shortly. In the meantime, though, some liberals are suggesting they might not vote for a bill at all if it contains all of those compromises. Of particular concern are the changes to the public plan.

Over in the Senate, meanwhile, the Finance Committee remains the center of attention--although not, it seems, the center of productive activity.

Earlier this week, chairman Max Baucus promised (for what I believe is the ninety-seventh time) that his committee was on the verge of producing legislation. It's now became apparent (again, for the ninety-seventh time) that his committee is not on the verge of anything except, perhaps, a breakdown.

Baucus, as you may know, has been trying to hammer out a deal with a bipartisan group of six members. But on Thursday the most conservative member of the bunch, Republican Mike Enzi of Wyoming, made it clear he didn't think it possible to get legislation ready for the August recess.

By all accounts, Enzi has been under enormous pressure from Republican leadership, which wants no bill at all and sees time as its ally. Whether Enzi was responding to their pressure or simply following his own conscience is anybody's guess. But ranking Republican Charles Grassley has made it clear he does not want to be the only Republican not from Maine voting for the bill.

And so, like Enzi, Grassley on Thursday indicated he doesn't think it's possible to get a deal in time for the recess (although neither walked away from the table). Not long after, Baucus announced publicly that there would be no markup before the recess. That's where things stand now, pending further announcements.

Short form:

The House is basically waiting on the Senate to pass stuff out of the Finance Committee, and the Senate Finance Committee basically consists of Max Baucus getting repeatedly pimpslapped by Mike Enzi.

Ladies and gentlemen, your 111th United States Congress in action. Enzi knows right now he's in prime "standing athwart history yelling stop" position, and will basically do it for as long as Harry Reid lets him do it, which will be until the end of the 111th Congress.

60 votes in the Senate, and Mike Enzi is basically holding up the entire deal with a little help from Chuck Grassley. At what point does Obama start calling Max Baucus out? (At what point does any other Democratic Senator take a swing at Harry Reid's position?)

If there is any one positive thing that should come from Obamacare going gurney wheels up, it's the end of Harry Reid as Senate Majority Leader.

We've got an entire month to see.

Birther Of A Nation, Part 7

TPMDC's Eric Kleefield notes the latest Daily Kos/Research 2000 poll shows some bad numbers for the GOP on the Birther front:

A new Daily Kos/Research 2000 poll finds that 77% of Americans believe President Obama was Indeed Born in the United States, with only 11% saying he was not -- but there's no clear verdict among Republicans.

Among Republicans, it's a much weaker plurality of only 42% who say Obama was born in the U.S., with 28% saying he was not. Among Democrats, the number is 93%-4%, and among independents it's 83%-8%.

Granted, I tend to take any DK/R2K poll with the same grain of salt as anything out of Rasmussen (they tend to average each other out on most things) but the inability to even get a majority should be disturbing as hell to the GOP. A majority of Republicans have doubts that our President is even an American citizen. One, that's just idiotic on its face. Your average Republican either is unsure or thinks the President is not a U.S. citizen, which means your average GOP lawmaker will have to adopt the same position. This explains quite succinctly why so many GOP lawmakers refuse to go on tape saying they are sure President Obama is a U.S. citizen...they'd be instantly alienating 58% of their voters!

Two, that's a position that is going to become increasingly untenable for the Republican Party. They're going to have to take a side eventually, particularly the ones sure to be facing House primary challenges for voting for the stimulus package and other "traitorous acts" of supporting "Obama's tyranny" and whatnot. Coming out that far into the Birther Zone will almost guarantee a blistering loss in the general elections in 2010 (which is one of tha main reasons I don't see the GOP magically regaining the House or Senate in 2010.)

Three, seeing the Republican Party go into an internal battle over something the rest of the country sees as meaningless racial-inspired drivel is not going to endear them as any sort of valid solution to the problems we have and will still have going forward.

The rest of us have an economy, health care, education and two wars to deal with.

[UPDATE 11:05 AM] Steve Benen notes the Birther breakdown by region is just as depressing:

The GOP Southern Strategy lives.

Not So Much Shrinkage

The good news, the GDP numbers for second quarter only showed a 1% contraction, better than expected. The bad news is that consumer spending was way, way down in April through June.

Gross domestic product, which measures total goods and services output within U.S. borders, fell at a 1.0 percent annual rate, the Commerce Department said, after tumbling 6.4 percent in the January-March quarter, the biggest decline since a matching fall in the first quarter of 1982.

It was previously reported as a 5.5 percent drop.

With the contraction in the second quarter, U.S. GDP has fallen for four straight quarters for the first time since government records started in 1947.

"It's still a shaky outlook for the economy, but no shakier than before. No one's world view will shift. Consumer spending is very shaky now. That's the major risk in the economy," said Pierre Ellis, senior economist at Decision Economics in New York.

Consumer spending, which accounts for over over two-thirds of U.S. economic activity, fell at a 1.2 percent rate in the second quarter after rising 0.6 percent in the previous quarter.

That sliced 0.88 percentage points from second quarter GDP, the department said.

U.S. stock index futures fell on the report, with investors taking a dim view of the drop in consumer spending, while Treasury debt prices rose. Analysts polled by Reuters had forecast GDP falling at a 1.5 percent rate in the second quarter.

Bad, bad news for a consumer-driven economy. While the official recession may be over soon, the functional recession is going to most likely continue on for several quarters more as what little growth there is ends up being anemic. The high unemployment rate and still weak housing market (and collapsing commercial real estate market) will offset most if not all the growth in the economy for the next year or more.

Going to be a long trek out of this hole, gang.

Florida Republicans Go After Mandates

Back at the end of last month I noted Arizona Republicans were trying to put a ballot initiative forth in 2010 that that would exempt the state from any federal health care mandates under the auspices of the Tenth Amendment, effectively removing the state from federal health care programs that required a mandate. Now, news that Florida Republicans are considering the same measure for the Sunshine State and its four million uninsured.

Earlier this week, Florida State Senator Carey Baker (R) and State Representative Scott Plakon (R) introduced a state Constitutional amendment that, if adopted, would prevent Floridians from enrolling in any federal health care plan. The language of House Joint Resolution 37 states:

To preserve the freedom of all residents of the state to provide for their own health care:

A law or rule shall not compel, directly or indirectly, any person, employer, or health care provider to participate in any health care system.

“We believe this unprecedented power-grab by President Obama and Congress is clearly not in the best interests of the citizens of Florida,” Baker and Plakon said in a joint statement. Baker, who is a Republican candidate for Commissioner of Agriculture and Consumer Services, participated in the right-wing tea parties on July 4. Both he and Plakon are sponsors of a “sovereignty” memorial, a measure meant to serve “as a notice and a demand to the Federal Government…to cease and desist, effective immediately, from issuing mandates that are beyond the scope of [their] constitutionally delegated powers.”

Which is funny. Pray tell, would Medicare or Medicaid fall under this measure there, guys? What's going to happen to states that do this? Will they be cut off from federal health care funds? Can you imagine that happening in a state like Florida, with millions of retirees on Medicare and millions more getting some benefit from Medicaid?

State Republicans are trying to exempt their states from any health care reform with any mandates in it whatsoever for consumers or providers, assuring the programs fail. Smugly, they figure that federal officials would never dare to react with punitive action, basically using voters as human shields against health care reform legislation.

Nice bunch of guys, so very much against government health care in a state where maybe 1 in 4 people are on...government health care. That'll help them in the polls, certainly.

Epic Attention To Legislative Detail Fail

While I know it's hard getting in those late night sessions before your four-week vacation there, guys, it's still important to actually check the fine print on those amendments, just in case people are trying to, you know, pull one over on you.

In a series of late night votes Thursday, the House Energy and Commerce Committee passed, then went on to reject, an amendment that would prevent a healthcare "public option" from covering abortion.

The amendment, offered by Rep. Stupak (D-Mich.), Reps. Joe Pitts (R-Pa.) and Rep. Roy Blunt (R-Mo.), originally passed 31 to 27. Republicans voted unanimously for the measure. On the Democratic side, all but one Blue Dog–Rep. Zack Space (D-Ohio) who did not vote–supported the amendment. ("I just missed the first vote," said Space, who went on to vote against the amendment.)

But before the first round of voting closed, Chairman Henry Waxman (D-Calif.) changed his vote from NO to YES. The switch let him to take advantage of a House rule that allows supporters to bring an amendment back for consideration later. The tactic paid off: Waxman brought the amendment up for another vote, and the committee defeated it 30-29.

Ahh, the surprise amendment. Here's a hint, Dems...anything that House Republicans in your committee are voting unanimously FOR is probably suspect, so you might want to check it out first before voting for it.

The amendment would have prevented the public plan from covering abortion unless the mother's life was at risk.

"I misunderstood it the first time," said Rep. Bart Gordon (D-Tenn.), who originally voted for the amendment but opposed against it the second time around.

"Misunderstood". Right. Ol' Bart here? Blue Dog from Tennessee, been in the House for 25 years almost, and is the Chairman of the House Science Committee. But...he "misunderstood" an amendment. Sounds to me he got caught being a knee-jerk Blue Dog, but he came around in the end.

Nice save by Henry Waxman, by the way.

Still, Bart Gordon's not a Congressional newbie and should know better. Or, maybe he did.

EPIC FAIL.

StupidiNews!

• GOP Senators and Blue Dog Democrats in the House have successfully put the brakes on health care reform.
• A town of 72,000 in Texas has been evacuated due to a raging chemical fire.
• Evidence that the U.S. Army has infiltrated a Washington state anti-war group is raising legal questions.
• The House "say-for-pay" bill that could give the government control over executive bonuses faces an uncertain future.
• World of Warcraft players have a real world problem: having their credit cards charged for unauthorized transactions.

Cash For Clunkers Cashes Out Already?

Turns out that Cash For Clunkers has too many clunkers and nowhere near enough cash...the program, which started July 1 (and really didn't get underway until last week on the 24th when claims could be processed) has already run through the entire $1 billion allocated to it.

The so-called "Cash for Clunkers" program will be suspended because the funds set aside for the effort are on the verge of running out, Capitol Hill sources told CNBC.

Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood has notified key senators that the program will "run out of money at midnight tonight," sources said.

That means there was only enough money in the program for about 222,222 of those max $4,500 rebates, and America apparently went through THAT number like, well, the program was going to run out of money or something. You figure some got the $3,500 rebate or less, so maybe that's 250,000 people, but that's the insane part, because yesterday, and I mean yesterday as in July 29th, the Kansas City star was reporting that only $150 million of the $1 billion had been allocated.

Consumers who want to take advantage of the cash assistance deal for new cars have to move relatively quickly and make sure they understand the rules. Help is available on the Web and on the showroom floor. The government has said it will spend the billion dollars on the program or pull the plug on it by November — whichever comes first.

Judging by the initial enthusiastic reaction, the government won’t have much trouble giving away the taxpayer funds. By Wednesday, more than $150 million had been allocated to new car buyers.

There’s already talk about a second, similar effort in 2010. However, federal officials ought to see exactly how Cash for Clunkers works out over the coming few months before renewing it.

That plug apparently is going to be pulled today, less than 24 hours after this story ran. It's out of money as of midnight. Guess consumers had to move REEEEEEEALLY quickly.

Now, either 200,000 clunkers got traded in today across the country on an average July Thursday, or something's the hell up. Yes, it's possible that the government just got around to getting all the paperwork done, but to suspend the program after just one week of claims being processed, for $850,000,000 worth of clunkers to get processed in one, maybe two days? I mean did all the paperwork just land today? All of it? To go from $150 million to the full one billion dollars in the middle of the week like that?

Naah. This stinks. Something's damn weird here. And I hope people follow up on this. This one's setting off alarms. I dunno if it's bait and switch, I dunno if it's massive fraud, I dunno if the Kansas City Star story is off by $700,000,000, or the program was just an order of magnitude too small, but something is not right.

[UPDATE 9:15 PM] The qualification list for eligible "clunkers" was changed on Tuesday by the EPA, with about 75 models delclared ineligible, and 75 other models declared eligible. I wonder what effect that had on the program.

[UPDATE 9:32 PM] MSNBC is indeed reporting that the massive backlog of unprocessed clunker deals from July 1 has prompted the government to suspend the program.

Through late Wednesday, 22,782 vehicles had been purchased through the program and nearly $96 million had been spent. But dealers raised concerns about large backlogs in the processing of the deals in the government system, prompting the suspension.

A survey of 2,000 dealers by the National Automobile Dealers Association found about 25,000 deals had not yet approved by NHTSA, or nearly 13 trades per store. It raised concerns that with about 23,000 dealers taking part in the program, auto dealers may already have surpassed the 250,000 vehicle sales funded by the $1 billion program.

"There's a significant backlog of 'cash for clunkers' deals that make us question how much funding is still available in the program," said Bailey Wood, a spokesman for the dealers association.

So, looks like my answer to my own question is answer number four...the program was way, way too small for the number of clunkers people wanted to trade in. With 13 unprocessed claims for 23,000 dealers, that's 299,000 claims, meaning the program is most likely over its limit by 49,000, plus the 22,000 already processed...a little math here shows the program could be...oh, $250 million over its limit already.

That's a major league foul-up on the part of the lawmakers who designed this one, meaning I get to add Democrat Stupidity to the Stupiditags down there: Democrat Rep. Betty Sutton of Ohio, come on down! You've made a government program that worked too well for once, so well it in fact burned itself out.

Nice.

Fish, Barrel, Gun

Ted Kennedy will be one of 16 recipients of the Presidential Medal of Freedom in August, along with Dr. Stephen Hawking, Billie Jean King, Sidney Poitier, Jack Kemp (posthumously) and Desmond Tutu, among others.

Needless to say, the Weekly Standard's Rachel Abrams could barely contain herself on the issue of Teddy getting the award:

But of Mr. Kennedy it can most assuredly be said that he has been “an agent of change” in his lifetime—and especially with respect to one Miss Mary Jo Kopechne, for whom he was “an agent of change” in the most essential way. Indeed, he “lifted up his fellow citizen”—right off Dike Bridge and into Chappaquiddick’s Poucha Pond. And yes, it really was “an imperfect world” when he left her there to drown, but he successfully “improved it” by running away and not reporting the accident until the next day. And he did, with “relentless devotion,” use every means at his disposal (and, being a Kennedy, they were legion), overcome the very “great obstacle” this event might have presented to his political career.

So bravo, Mr. President, for singling out such a deserving medalist, and bravo, Sir Dunksalot—you’ve earned it!

Yeah, class act there Rachel, hitting the guy with the brain cancer right in the crotch with something folks like you have been swinging at Kennedy for 40 years now. I doff my hat to thee.

You win a Blogger Ethics Panel award for that one. On the other hand, this is the same award that Norman Podhoretz, Irving Kristol and Paul Bremer got, so maybe Sen. Kennedy should turn down the offer.

Ironically, should Teddy's health care legislation pass, you might be able to have a doctor do something about that gaping chasm in your soul there where some basic human decency should be.

Ai-ya.

So You're Saying There's A Catch, Then?

Zachary Roth, doing yeoman's work over at The Muck is reporting that the same U.S. Army colonel that wrote this memo on Iraq:

Referring to the Iraq Security Forces, the memo said: “The massive partnering efforts of U.S. combat forces with I.S.F. isn’t yielding benefits commensurate with the effort and is now generating its own opposition. We should declare our intentions to withdraw all U.S. military forces from Iraq by August 2010. This would not be a strategic paradigm shift, but an acceleration of existing U.S. plans by some 15 months.”

Before deploying to Iraq, Colonel Reese served as the director of the Combat Studies Institute at Fort Leavenworth, the Army’s premier intellectual center. He was an author of an official Army history of the Iraq war — “On Point II” — that was sharply critical of the lapses in postwar planning.

Colonel Reese’s memo comes at a sensitive time in the Iraq conflict as American forces are gradually shifting to an advisory role. American combat troops moved out of Baghdad and other Iraqi cities last month, as required by the Status of Forces Agreement concluded by the United States and Iraq.

Colonel Reese’s memo lists a number of problems that have emerged since the withdrawal. They include, he wrote, a “sudden coolness” to American advisers and the “forcible takeover” of a checkpoint in the Green Zone. Iraqi units, he added, are much less willing to conduct joint operations with their American counterparts “to go after targets the U.S. considers high value.”

The Iraqi Ground Forces Command, Colonel Reese wrote, has imposed “unilateral restrictions” on American military operations that “violate the most basic aspects” of American-Iraqi agreement.

“The Iraqi legal system in the Rusafa side of Baghdad has demonstrated a recent willingness to release individuals originally detained by the U.S. for attacks on the U.S.,” he added.

...is apparently the same Colonel Reese that wrote this "memo" on Obamacare.

Entitled "The Camel's Nose of Health Care," Reese's post takes an alarmist, paranoid, view of the president's plan to reform health care, and rehashes many of the most far-fetched, misinformed, and flatly false fears about reform that currently circulate on right-wing blogs and email lists.

Reese warns that "the inexorable logic of government health care costs will drive big brother to intrude ever more deeply into your life in the vain hope of making it work by making you work to change your life." He adds: "[M]any in government will seize this as the opportunity to shape your lives in their image of the new dependent class."

Later, he warns that health-care reform will bring on rationing so extreme that a future couple will be forced by the government to abort a damaged foetus:

More Orwellian will be this, "Mr. and Mrs. Jones, while we appreciate your desire to give birth to your fetus, but its deformity / disease / syndrome exceeds allowable limits over its expected lifespan."

Reese also invokes future "restrictions on your lifestyle," again imagining a conversation between a government bureaucrat and a patient:

Mr. Smith, I see you have failed to lose the 25 lbs we have been talking about during your last three required checkups. I'm afraid we are going to raise your premiums 25% until you lose the weight. Or you could join the walking club at the government health club next door; as long as you walk every day with them we'll keep your cost share as it is now. But smoking is right out - give it up in 30 days or be denied care.

And Reese suggests that the government will use food vouchers to force people to eat healthier foods, thereby reducing medical costs:

Mrs. Brown, here is your new food voucher for the month. It has been encoded to allow the purchase of balanced combination of food items specially tailored to maintain a healthy, "low health care cost you," based on your medical history and condition. It can be used at any government approved grocery or supermarket, just buy the correct number of each type of item as shown on the attached printout. If you try to purchase an item that doesn't have the ObamaCare stamp on the label, the cashier will simply remove it from your basket.

You can read the whole thing here.

Yeah, turns out the guy's a regular on Townhall.com and posted both items there on July 20th. Absolutely nice grab by the Muckraker crew. Reading his archived copy of the original Townhall.com Iraq post, it's actually a very coherent and moving argument for our accelerated withdrawal. As he says, "The use of the military instrument of national power in its current form has accomplished all that can be expected." His comment on the June 30th handover to Iraq that "The limitations place[d] on US combat operations are no so restrictive as to make our presence here irrelevant to the overall security situation" is something I've talked about before, our troops are being hamstrung by the Iraqis and are being left on the inside of a shooting gallery. Payback is a bitch. Declaring victory and going home in 2010 instead of 2011 makes absolute sense at ths point. There is nothing another 30 months in Iraq will accomplish for us, other than more deaths. I absolutely agree with the Colonel on this point.

Which is what makes Zachary Roth's discovery all the more shocking. If this guy is the same Colonel Reese (and indications are so far that they are) then as coherent and persuasive as his argument on Iraq is, his view of health care reform is bugnuts, assuming that the kind of health care Americans will receive will be all of the worst aspects of Walter Reed's Building 18 plus the worst aspects of the military bureaucracy he has apparently come to know and loathe over 30 years, describing the nightmare scenario a few paragraphs above where the government seeks to control every aspect of Americans' lives to make sure taxpayers get the maximum benefit of their dollars.

The reality of course is that the health care reform legislation being discussed includes none of those draconian measures, and he somehow neglects to include the fact that insurance companies already have a nightmare bureaucracy out there that we all have to deal with, that deny us care based on cost-benefit analysis anyhow, that's how insurance companies stay in business.

It bothers me that a person that can write such an intelligent and reasoned defense on one subject, and then goes off into insane-o-land on another.

Then again, I'm betting some of you say that about me, too.

Here endeth the lesson.

The Spooky Invisible Hand Of Karl Rove

Least shocking political news headline of 2009 is breaking here from the WaPo's Carrie Johnson: "Rove Had Heavier Hand in Prosecutor Firings Than Previously Known"(emphasis mine):

Political adviser Karl Rove and other high-ranking figures in the Bush White House played a greater role than previously understood in the firing of federal prosecutors almost three years ago, according to newly obtained e-mails that shed light on a scandal that led to mass Justice Department resignations and an ongoing criminal probe.

The e-mails and new interviews with key participants reflect contacts among Rove, aides in the Bush political affairs office and White House lawyers about the dismissal of three of the nine U.S. attorneys fired in 2006: New Mexico's David C. Iglesias, the focus of ire from GOP lawmakers; Missouri's Todd Graves, who had clashed with one of Rove's former clients; and Arkansas's Bud Cummins, who was pushed out to make way for a Rove protege.

The documents and interviews provide new information about efforts by political aides in the Bush White House, for example, to push a former colleague as a favored candidate for one of the U.S. attorney posts. They also reflect the intensity of efforts by lawmakers and party officials in New Mexico to unseat the top prosecutor there. Rove described himself as merely passing along complaints by senators and state party officials to White House lawyers.

The e-mails emerged as Rove finished his second day of closed-door-testimony Thursday about the firings to the House Judiciary Committee. For years, Rove and former White House counsel Harriet Miers had rejected efforts by lawmakers to obtain their testimony and their correspondence about the issue, citing executive privilege. The House of Representatives sued, igniting a court fight that was resolved this year after discussions among lawyers for former president George W. Bush and President Obama.

Robert D. Luskin, Rove's attorney, said, "I certainly can confirm that Karl answered all of the committee's questions fully and truthfully. His answers should put to rest any suspicion that he acted improperly."

Rove and Miers, as well as other Bush administration figures, still could be called to testify at a public hearing on Capitol Hill. Transcripts of their behind-closed-doors accounts could be released by the House Judiciary panel as early as August under the terms of the court settlement.

At the same time, assistant U.S. attorney Nora R. Dannehy continues to investigate whether the firings of the prosecutors and the political firestorm that followed could form the basis of possible false statements, obstruction of justice or other criminal charges. Rove and Miers each met with Dannehy this year.

This looks like it has the potential to meet 3 or 4 of the 5 requirements of Nate Silver's EMPSCAT test, (Is it sound bite worthy, is it against the core element of the person, does it prove a negative perception about the person, and can the opposition use the scandal without looking foolish, with #5 being "Is the media bored?")

Certainly during the August recess, the Village won't have wall-to-wall Washington news, and should those potentially juicy transcripts be released in the August news dead zone, it could be a clean EMPSCAT sweep. Granted, Karl Rove isn't a political candidate, but he does represent a large chunk of the Bush/GOP brand, and it certainly won't help the GOP to remind voters why they dumped the Republicans in 2008 should this become the big news story in a hot, boring recess month.

Then again, this could become the bext Scooter Libby flameout, too. I don't know. But I seriously doubt that this story is going away, and I'm thinking the White House isn't going to be terribly upset if the Village lays off the race issue and healthcare for a bit.

We'll see where it goes. Zachary Roth at the Muck has more.

Next, Look Up George Washington

Via Melissa McEwan at Shakesville:

Ahh, the power of national criminal databases. It's like apparently like Wikipedia, only with rap sheets and a few more mug shots. It must be tempting to just look up people in them if you're a cop. Of course, misusing that information is a major no-no, but that's besides the point.

The point is, if there's one person out there where trying to run a background check on would get you neck deep in Internal Affairs, the media, the Feds, the Secret Service, G.I. Joe, and black helicopters flown by government ninjas carrying little water bottles full of Vitamin Screwed, it would be Barack Obama.

Two DeKalb County police officers have been placed on paid administrative leave after an investigation revealed they ran a background check on President Barack Obama.

A representative for the DeKalb County CEO’s office identified the officers as Ryan White and C.M. Route.

Officials said Obama’s name was typed into a computer inside a DeKalb County police car on July 20 and ran through the National Crime Information Center.

The secret service was immediately notified and contacted the DeKalb County Police Department.

Oh, my favorite part?

It is unclear why the officers ran a check on the president.

Oh gosh, why would anybody want to question the background of the President? Why, I can't think of anybody who would seriously be questioning that on or before July 20th.

Can you?

[UPDATE 5:40 PM] Well actually, the answer to my rhetorical question above there is Pam Gellar, who apparently believes that Obama is in fact smart enough to con us all into electing him President, but not smart enough to take his Top Ultra Secret Black Ops Code Umbra Rainbow Barry Hussein X criminal record off the federal NCIC database, which these two cops would have found in like 10 seconds if it hadn't been for the Secret Service's super compartmentalized code word access only Obama Crime Database Hacking Squad.

The media wouldn't have checked that one first or anything. Nope. They're in the tank for Obama, right Pammy?

Message And Messenger

Greg Sargent gets wind of The Axe's marching orders for House Dems before they leave this weekend for recess.

With a House Dem bill closer to reality, the battle will shift to a new phase: Selling it. And according to an email to House Dems that was sent over by a source, Axelrod and top White House health care adviser Nancy DeParle will be attending a breakfast with members to discuss “health care reform messaging.”

“This meeting is MEMBERS-ONLY,” the email reads, meaning no press and no staff.

The health care delay has dramatically upped the stakes for the White House and individual members of Congress, who will be at home for a month while their constituents are strafed by advertising from all sides. As Nancy Pelosi put it today, “insurance companies are out there in full force carpet bombing” in a “shock and awe” campaign.

“We have a month where 256 members will be in their districts with a bill to sell,” a senior Dem aide tells me. “Axelrod is going to talk to them about getting out and there selling it. House Dems are going on the offensive in August.”

And hopefully next week, the same meeting plans will be made for the 60 Democratic senators. I'm encouraged mightily that the White House is finally treating this with the seriousness that it deserves.

The Dems have completely dropped the sales pitch on health care reform, and they've flubbed it from the beginning. By not putting out specifics, the GOP has ever so kindly filled in the public with snuff fantasies for old people and medical fascism nightmares where government bureaucrats assign you to die by dartboard because your life is costing too much taxpayer scratch.

Might want to spend the next month, I dunno, fighting back.

Meet Lucy And Her Football

(Via AmericaBlog) Somebody want to explain to me with with 60 Democrats in the Senate, why the decisions on the top legislative priority of the year, affecting basically every American out there, are being made by a Senator from the minority party representing the least populous state in the nation?

Enzi, who spoke while leaving the Capitol on Wednesday night, echoed Grassley’s desire for more time before he’d agree to a deal.

“We have huge parts that have not been discussed yet. We have other parts that we asked questions on that we haven’t gotten answer back yet. I don’t know how we make decisions on those parts — they’re pretty big issues,” Enzi said.

“You can’t say you got to do it in a week, you got to do it in a month,” he said. “You got to do it in the amount of time it takes.”

Enzi, a soft-spoken conservative, was furious about headlines Wednesday morning that suggested he was close to reaching a deal with the Democrats.

“I felt my reputation was in danger,” he said.

He issued a statement batting down the stories and insisted any deal he might ultimately sign onto would have to be preserved by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-California, and Reid when it is merged with other more liberal legislation in the Senate and House.

“I’m not interested in lending credibility to disaster,” Enzi said.

Let's review.

Mike Enzi represents the least number of Americans in the Senate as Senator from Wyoming.

He is in the minority party where the majority has a filibuster-proof 60 votes in the Senate.

He is now making demands that his legislation defines the entire bill.

Somebody please explain to me what in the name of Kal-El, son of Jor-El, is going on here, and why Harry Reid's response is not "And Mike Enzi can walk back to Wyoming and suck off a mountain goat?" Anyone?

I can explain it, but my explanation is that the Democrats are a bunch of useless, greedy, corporate whores. So, if anyone has a better explanation, I'm all ears.

[UPDATE 4:13 PM] Well, Harry Reid says he can count to 60...but he still needs Republican support for the bill. We "can't do it without Republican support" he says.

Which means the dude obviously can't count to 60. At what point do the Democrats consider jettisoning Reid?

Asterisks For Everybody

As if Boston didn't have enough problems this week, the NY Times is reporting that Manny Ramirez and David Ortiz tested positive for steroids during the Red Sox's 2004 world championship season.

Manny Ramirez and David Ortiz, the sluggers who propelled the Boston Red Sox to end an 86-year World Series championship drought and to capture another title three years later, were among the roughly 100 Major League Baseball players to test positive for performance-enhancing drugs in 2003, according to lawyers with knowledge of the results.

Some of baseball’s most cherished storylines of the past decade have been tainted by performance-enhancing drugs, including the accomplishments of record-setting home run hitters and dominating pitchers. Now, players with Boston’s championship teams of 2004 and 2007 have also been linked to doping.

Baseball first tested for steroids in 2003, and the results from that season were supposed to remain anonymous. But for reasons that have never been made clear, the results were never destroyed and the first batch of positives has come to be known among fans and people in baseball as “the list.” The information was later seized by federal agents investigating the distribution of performance-enhancing drugs to professional athletes, and the test results remain the subject of litigation between the baseball players union and the government.

Five others have been tied to positive tests from that year: Barry Bonds, Alex Rodriguez, Sammy Sosa, Jason Grimsley and David Segui. Bonds, baseball’s career home runs leader, was not on the original list, although federal agents seized his 2003 sample and had it retested. Those results showed the presence of steroids, according to court documents.

The information about Ramirez and Ortiz emerged through interviews with multiple lawyers and others connected to the pending litigation. The lawyers spoke anonymously because the testing information is under seal by a court order. The lawyers did not identify which drugs were detected.

Unlike Ramirez, who recently served a 50-game suspension for violating baseball’s drug policy, Ortiz had not previously been linked to performance-enhancing substances.

Scott Boras, the agent for Ramirez, would not comment Thursday.

Asked about the 2003 drug test on Thursday in Boston, Ortiz shrugged. “I’m not talking about that anymore,” he said. “I have no comment.”

I can't say I'm shocked about Manny or Big Papi, really. Juicing has been going on for years in baseball, and I'm not honestly sure anyone really cares too much anymore.

Maybe that comes from not growing up in a major league city, nearest MLB games for me growing up were the Atlanta Braves. Minor league baseball we had buckets of in western NC however.

Having lived in Minneapolis and now Cincinnati, I do notice baseball more, but people in the Twin Cities cared much more about hockey, and here in Cincy we're more worried about Pete Rose than Manny. Still, that does throw a wrench into that 2004 Red Sox miracle season. They may have beaten the Curse, but they may never lick the Asterisk.

Budweiser, King Of Parks

Via David Dayen at Calitics, it turns out California's state parks are turning to corporate sponsorships to try to keep them open.

State parks officials and nonprofit organizations scrambled Wednesday to find funding and possibly new corporate sponsors to keep as many as 100 parks and beaches open after Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger slashed an additional $6.2 million out of the state parks system.

Budget cuts also suspended a land conservation program that has been hailed as a key to preventing sprawl and easing economic pressure on farmers and ranchers.

State officials won't finalize a list of park closures until Labor Day and said they hope to see the parks reopened in one to two years.

"We are actively seeking anyone who can help us with these places, all of them jewels, at a time when people need them most," said state parks Director Ruth Coleman.

Hey, why not? I'm sure there's plenty of corporate citizens who wouldn't mind a lucrative deal to slap logos on every tree they can find in some of these parks, right?

"We're reaching out to all possible partners -- cities, counties, nonprofits, banks, corporations, newspapers, individuals -- who would be interested in helping us," said Roy Stearns, spokesman for the state parks department. "Maybe we can find agreements that don't alter, commercialize or degrade our state park system.

"For example, if Budweiser came forward with money for Malibu Beach State Park, we wouldn't change the name to Budweiser Beach," he said. "But why not put up a banner saying, 'This park is kept open by Budweiser' for as long as they continue helping us?

"Will it work?" he added. "We really don't know. We're not sure what awaits us at the end of this road."

I do. It's classic disaster capitalism. Underfund something to the point the corporate world has to step in, declare big government is a failure, have the good corporate citizen "help out financially" and then wonder why government is full of conflicts of interest, graft, corruption, and pay-for-play sleaze. You can bet the corporate sponsors won't "alter, commercialize or degrade" the state park system at first, it would be bad press after all. They'll wait until the jobs, the revenue, and the system become dependent on the corporate partnership, then start making helpful suggestions.

Is it better to close the parks instead? No...but ask yourself whose fault it is that the parks are closing in the first place.

Zandar's Thought Of The Day

Justin Barrett's mea culpa:

A Boston police officer who sent a racially charged e-mail protesting newspaper coverage of the arrest of Henry Louis Gates Jr. apologized Wednesday night and said "I am not a racist."

Justin Barrett, 36, admitted using the term "jungle monkey" in writing about the arrest of the Harvard professor by a Cambridge police sergeant.

"It was a poor choice of words. I did not mean to offend anyone," Barrett told NewsCenter 5's Cheryl Fiandaca.

My response to those three statements?

"Bullshit, you're damn right, and bullshit." In order.

Enjoy your free time there, man. You're going to have an awful lot of it. I personally suggest taking up a constructive hobby to help you reflect on your life, like photography or creative writing or not being a racist asshole.

Meanwhile, Pam Spaulding asks some very important questions while I try to cool off for a while:

Help me out here -- If Officer Justin Barrett's that transparent in his racism and yet doesn't consider himself racist, what in his mind constitutes racism? Burning a cross on a lawn? Lynchings? Unleashing dogs and training high-blast fire hoses on people? Fire-bombing a church and killing four girls? If that's the line that people like Barrett draw to cleanse their consciences of any ability to say or do anything racist, then we are so far away from a post-racial society that I want to weep.

Tell me about it. I was up at 3:30 AM over this guy, trying to find one redeeming quality in a guy who supposedly had the duty to protect and serve when all it was apparently was a way to make this guy feel powerful at the expense of others. This guy really didn't think he was being a racist. It's staggering. Whatever race sensitivity training these cops are going through in Cambridge or Boston, they need to get the city's money back.

It's the good cops out there in the country who should be the most upset, regardless of race. They are the ones who still have to go out there and clean up after this mess day after day long after the media attention is over. And they'll have to deal with the next incident like this, wherever it may be.

Post-racial era, my ass.

Stop Picking On Bibi

Now, I'm the first guy to admit the Palestinians are a disingenuous mess that can be just as intransigent and stubborn...even more so than Israel at times. However, the whole insanity over Israeli settlements in the occupied territories is just ridiculous, the concept of the United States asking Israel to not build settlements in land Israel originally took from the Arabs by force seems like a no-brainer on the path to peace.

But asking Israel to actually do something they're not to fond of is of course frowned upon by our own Village Chiefs, in today's unsigned WaPo editorial on the subject that Obama is just too darn mean to Bibi and Friends.

In part the trouble was unavoidable: Taking office with a commitment to pursuing Middle East peace, Mr. Obama faced a new, right-wing Israeli government whose prime minister, Binyamin Netanyahu, has refused to accept the goal of Palestinian statehood. In part it was tactical: By making plain his disagreements with Mr. Netanyahu on statehood and Jewish settlements, Mr. Obama hoped to force an Israeli retreat while building credibility with Arab governments -- two advances that he arguably needs to set the stage for a serious peace process.

But the administration also is guilty of missteps. Rather than pocketing Mr. Netanyahu's initial concessions -- he gave a speech on Palestinian statehood and suggested parameters for curtailing settlements accepted by previous U.S. administrations -- Mr. Obama chose to insist on an absolutist demand for a settlement "freeze." Palestinian and Arab leaders who had accepted previous compromises immediately hardened their positions; they also balked at delivering the "confidence-building" concessions to Israel that the administration seeks. Israeli public opinion, which normally leans against the settler movement, has rallied behind Mr. Netanyahu. And Israeli-Palestinian peace negotiations, which were active during the Bush administration's final year, have yet to resume.

U.S. and Israeli officials are working on a compromise that would allow Israel to complete some housing now under construction while freezing new starts for a defined period. Arab states would be expected to take steps in return. Such a deal will expose Mr. Obama to criticism in the Arab world -- a public relations hit that he could have avoided had he not escalated the settlements dispute in the first place. At worst, the president may find himself diminished among both Israelis and Arabs before discussions even begin on the issues on which U.S. clout is most needed. If he is to be effective in brokering a peace deal, Mr. Obama will need to show both sides that they can trust him -- and he must be tough on more than one country.

Those peace negotiations have yet to resume because Israel has no intention to stop building settlements. All this is is a game of chicken, Bibi fully expects the pressure that Israeli interests in the US can bring to bear on the Obama administration will get him to drop the settlements issue and Israel can go back to the "America as our sugar daddy" relationship that they are used to, and the Obama administration is fully expecting the pressure they can bring along with the rest of the international community to get Bibi to back down.

But categorizing Obama's insistence that Israel follow through on the settlement freeze as a "misstep" is the main problem with the level of discourse (or lack of it) we have in America concerning Israel. The last eight years have been horribly one-sided. Both sides have blood on their hands, both sides need to make sacrifices and changes. I can understand the political climate in Israel right now dictating what the Prime Minister can and cannot do, but America setting limits is not automatically asking Israel to commit suicide here.

As long as Israel is getting billions in aid and military equipment from the American taxpayer, I think we have the ability to call some shots down there. People conveniently forget that.

GOP Lifeclocks All On Lastday

Greg Sargent reminds us that the Medicare end-of-life debate has been around for a while, and that it started again this year at least not in the House, but in the Senate. The GOP has been unfairly attacking the House Democrats for including that provision in their health care bill, railing against it as a "measure to euthanize seniors".

But it turns out over in the Senate that a similar bi-partisan measure to include the same type of counseling in Medicare was introduced earlier this year by Senators Jay Rockefeller (a Democrat) and Susan Collins (a Republican).

This sharply undercuts the GOP and conservative claim — unless, of course, you believe Collins backed an initiative she thinks could lead to mass government extermination of the elderly. Though this talking point has been debunked multiple times, conservatives and GOP leaders like John Boehner continue to employ it with abandon.

On May 22nd, Senators Collins and Jay Rockefeller introduced the “Advance Planning and Compassionate Care Act,” according to a press release sent over by a source. The measure provides Medicare funding “for advance care planning so that patients can routinely talk to their physicians about their wishes for end-of-life care,” the release says.

Collins praised the measure, which may be included in the Senate health care bill, in the release. “Our legislation will improve the way our health care system care for patients at the end of their lives,” she said, “and it will also facilitate appropriate discussions and individual autonomy in making decisions about end-of-life care.”

Which is almost exactly what the House measure provides for. Funny how that works. The bill was referred to Max Baucus's committee with little fanfare.

Forbes has a very good article on both the APCCA in the Senate and the House health care bill:

The end-of-life language originates from a different bill, called the Advance Planning and Compassionate Care Act, introduced earlier this year by Sens. Jay Rockefeller, D-W.Va., and Susan Collins, R-Maine. In addition to the consultation, which Medicare will pay for every five years, the bill also says that patients will be informed about the benefits of hospice and palliative care. Hospices are facility or home-based services for terminally ill patients to receive pain medicine and other comforts before they die.

The proposed legislation says that patients should be instructed on how to write an advanced health care directive. It defines standard categories of care that can be included in such a document as nutrition, hydration, antibiotics and resuscitation in the event of a lack of pulse. It also would create a tracking system to see if doctors are promoting advanced care directives and following them. Sen. Rockefeller's office released a statement Friday saying the measure has bipartisan support as well as the backing of groups like the AARP.

Why the focus on end-of-life care? Sen. Rockefeller announced at the time of the original bill's introduction that he wants to encourage the use of hospices and help families make the right decisions as death approaches.

Yet end-of-life care is also a key issue when it comes to slowing the growth of health care costs. About a quarter of all spending by Medicare, more than $100 billion, takes place during a patient's final year of life. President Obama has made reference multiple times to the fact that his grandmother received an expensive hip replacement while she was terminally ill with cancer, holding it up as an example of spending that sometimes takes place near the end of life. He's wondered whether the country can afford those kinds of bills, even though he said he would have paid for grandmother's hip out of pocket.

Which is true. End-of-life care is a massive issue, and I'm glad to see that at least some Republicans (well, one anyway) are willing to deal with it. But the rest of the rhetoric has been just absurd.

The idea that ObamaCare is promoting physician-assisted suicide for old people, or encouraging them to forgo medical care late in life, has made its way into partisan rhetoric among the bill's opponents. "[The bill] would require every senior to have a mandatory counseling session with a government bureaucrat every five years on ways to 'die with dignity;' starvation, dehydration, stuff like that," Republican strategist Lawrence Lindsey wrote in a memo.

In a post entitled "The Democratic Culture of Death is Absolutely Terrifying." one blogger wrote "First they came for our light bulbs, then they came for our SUVs. Now, they are coming for our senior citizens," Other commentators have made a connection between the bill and the Terry Schiavo episode, in which a woman on life support in Florida starved to death after a feeding tube was removed when her husband prevailed in a prolonged legal battle.

In fact, the bill says nothing about death with dignity or any other code words for euthanasia. It also does not make these counseling sessions in any way mandatory--it just says that Medicare will start reimbursing for them.

Which apparently is a massive crime, at least if you're a Republican. How this became Logan's Run, well, you'll have to ask our moderately delusional GOP House friends and their media enablers about that. The GOP decided to turn it into a talking point, strategists like Lawrence Lindsey communicated it with the usual suspects, and the Wingers and the Village Steno Pool crapped the lie back out while making fools of themselves, it's what they do best after all.

It's a cruel and degrading lie. But we are talking about the Republican Party, after all.