Last Call

George Will has apparently thrown in the towel on another war...the war on pot.

Appearing on ABC's This Week With George Stephanopoulos on Sunday, the Pulitzer-winning journalist and longtime icon of America's political right declared that with President Barack Obama's new policy which respects the states right to allow medical marijuana, the United States is "probably in the process now of legalizing marijuana."

He added that if there were to be a serious effort to fight the increasingly violent, powerful Mexican drug cartels, "you'd legalize marijuana," the sale of which provides the gangs the vast majority of their funding.

Will's comments come not even a week after a Gallup poll found record-breaking support across the United States for the legalization of marijuana, with nearly half of U.S. citizens in favor and a clear majority of support emerging among liberals, Democrats and moderates.

Will's proclamation, as a well-respected conservative thinker, is especially significant given that Gallup found the only two political groups in the U.S. that are still very strongly opposed to legalization are conservatives and Republicans.

Honestly, you'd think Republicans and conservatives would jump at the chance to have Big Pharma or Big Tobacco sell pot.

Go fig.

They Do It Because They Care

The Denver Post is reporting that women, on average, pay up to 50% more for the same insurance coverage, if not higher.

Checking the "female" box when buying health insurance is likely to cost extra — perhaps up to 50 percent more than a man would pay for the same coverage.

Gender-rating — or what some term as flat-out sexual discrimination — is linked to the simple fact that women, particularly those under age 50 or so, go to the doctor more often than men.

But outrage over how women are treated in the individual health insurance market is mounting as stories emerge of companies refusing to cover maternity benefits and denying coverage because of past domestic violence or cesarean sections, including a Colorado woman who was told she would have to get sterilized to qualify for insurance.

Federal proposals, as well as pending state legislation, would ban gender-rating and require maternity coverage, even as the insurance industry warns that lowering premiums for younger women could mean higher premiums for most everyone else.

Colorado women age 40 and under shopping for health insurance in the individual market, not through an employer, pay from 10 percent to 59 percent more than men, according to analysis by the National Women's Law Center.

They pay more even when maternity coverage is not included. And in many cases, a female nonsmoker pays more for health coverage than a man who smokes.

But in America, that's fair. And the insurance companies are more than happy to gouge the millions of American women who have no health insurance the same way.

Suzanne Pariser, a Denver lawyer and mother of 2-year-old Willa, is putting off expanding her family because she cannot find an affordable insurance plan that includes maternity coverage.

"That's the main reason we're not having a baby right now," she said. "We definitely want to have another child."

Pariser is annoyed that insurance company executives, in essence, are determining her family planning.

"My anger is mostly that insurance companies view having a baby as a medical complication that costs them money," she said. "They view it as a disease."

The only plan she could find that offered maternity coverage was more expensive in the long run than paying out of pocket to have a baby, Pariser figured.

Costs vary by hospital or birthing center, but the average bill for a vaginal birth with no complications is about $7,500 and for a cesarean section, $13,200.

A uterus is nothing more than a pre-existing condition to insurance companies, and that means dollar signs.

But Republicans keep telling us that the key is removing insurance regulations to foster more competition.

Sure it is. Insurance companies really do want to compete over which company will be able to overcharge people, you know.

Are there no women who work in the insurance industry? Honestly?

The Spin We're In

It doesn't actually matter what Doug Hoffman does in NY-23's special election a week from Tuesday. If the Conservative party candidate wins overwhelmingly, loses badly, splits the GOP vote allowing the Dems to win with less that 50% of the vote, comes in dead last with a single digit total or gives the Dems a substantial win, the message will be that only ideological purity can save the GOP.

The National Republican Congressional Committee remains committed to embattled GOP nominee Dede Scozzafava in the upstate New York House special election, even as many of the party's top names throw their support to Conservative Party nominee Doug Hoffman.

Two party officials tell POLITICO that the NRCC will continue to air TV ads propping up Scozzafava in the days leading up to the Nov. 3 contest and plans to keep up a near relentless barrage of press releases slamming Hoffman.

Scozzafava, a state assemblywoman who supports gay marriage, abortion rights and has a close relationship with leading labor officials in her region, has been the target of sustained criticism from conservatives who claim she is too liberal for them to support her candidacy.

Hoffman, an accounting executive, is attracting an ever-growing group of conservative backers, including former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, former House Majority Leader Dick Armey, and former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum. Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-Minn.) and Rep. Todd Tiahrt (R-Kan.) have also endorsed the third-party candidate.

Public and private polls have shown Hoffman gaining on Scozzafava but both trail the Democratic nominee, attorney Bill Owens.

Democrats may have their differences but in the end, they're together. The Republicans? By the time this civil war clears, there won't be much of a party left.

The Problem Is Affordablity

Remember, when you see articles like this in the Village media and the Wingers claim a mandate to buy health insurance will destroy America, isn't the problem the affordability of the insurance and not the mandate?

The proposals now before Congress would require just about everyone to buy health insurance or to get it through their employers — which would generally result in lower wages. In other words, millions of people would be compelled to spend lots of money on something they previously did not want, at least not at prevailing prices.

Estimates of this burden vary, but for a family of four it could range up to $14,000 a year over the next decade, according to the Congressional Budget Office. Right now, many Americans take the gamble of going without insurance, just as many of us take our chances with how much we drive or how little we exercise.

The paradox is this: Reform advocates start with anecdotes about the underprivileged who are uninsured, then turn around and propose something that would hurt at least some members of that group.

To ease the burdens of the insurance mandate, the reform proposals call for varying levels of subsidy. In some versions, such as the current Senate bill, subsidies are handed out to families with incomes as high as $88,000 a year. How long will it be before just about everyone wants further assistance, and this new form of entitlement spending spins out of control? It’s possible to lower insurance subsidies, but then the insurance mandate would impose a bigger burden on the people we are trying to help.

The solution therefore is an affordable government run plan, is it not? Glad to see Wingers are on board then!

On Again, Off Again

Friday and Saturday we had news that the White House was behind the public option and had finally weighed in supporting Dems in the House and Senate to get the plan to his desk.

Today however HuffPo is reporting that Obama is now trying to stop the public option in Congress and he's pushing for the Snowe Queen's trigger plan.

"The leadership understands that pushing for a public option is a somewhat risky strategy, but we may be within striking distance. A signal from the president could be enough to put us over the top," said one Senate Democratic leadership aide. Such pleading is exceedingly rare on Capitol Hill and comes only after Senate leaders exhausted every effort to encourage Obama to engage.

"Everybody knows we're close enough that these guys could be rolled. They just don't want to do it because it makes the politics harder," said a senior Democratic source, saying that Obama is worried about the political fate of Blue Dogs and conservative Senate Democrats if the bill isn't seen as bipartisan. "These last couple folks, they could get them if Obama leaned on them."

But with fundamental reform of the health care system in plain sight for the first time in half a century, the president appears to be siding with those who see the Senate and its entrenched culture as too resistant to change. Administration officials say that Obama's preference for the trigger, which is backed by Maine Republican Sen. Olympia Snowe, is founded in a fear that Reid's public option couldn't get the 60 votes needed to overcome a GOP filibuster. More specifically, aides fear that a handful of conservative Democrats will not support a bill unless it has at least one Republican member's support.

The president's retreat leaves Reid as the champion of progressive reform -- an irony that is not lost on those who have long derided the Majority Leader as too cautious.

"Who knew that when it came down to crunch time, Harry Reid would be the one who stepped up to the plate and Barack Obama would shy away from the fight," emailed one progressive strategist.

HuffPo's usually better than this, but it's clear that there's a long way to go in this fight still, and that the President's current level of support is not good enough for some.

We've seen this before. Bob Cesca has some good advice:

Over the last several months it's almost become a regular feature of the news, like weather reports and stock market updates. Every week, stories about how the public option isn't going to happen, or how the White House is telling the House progressives to STFU about it. We've seen numerous stories about alleged White House support for co-ops or triggers or nothing at all. And every time, there's a wild kneejerk spaz attack about it.

The fact remains that the only named source in the piece is Dan Pfeiffer who insists that the whole trigger/Snowe story "is false." Now any quote should be taken with a grain of skepticism, but in relative terms, it's a good rule of thumb to take a named quote more seriously than an unnamed one.

Agreed. Every news cycle it's how the public option is doomed...when it refuses to die and a majority of Americans still want it. The always reliable BooMan with some much needed perspective:

Let me tell you something. If Harry Reid went up to the White House with a plan to pass a public option and the president did not like the plan, you never would have heard about it. Reid never would have taken the step to float putting the public option in the base bill if he didn't already have a green light from the White House. The truth is that the administration never believed they could pass a public option through the Senate on the first pass. That was what Obama was telling us on that conference call back in July. But things changed when Kirk replaced Kennedy and Byrd regained his health. We have 60 senators now, and if Reid thinks he can get 60 votes for cloture that changes the plan.

In the end, we have to trust somebody. It's a representative democracy, after all.

My Katrina, Your Katrina, His Katrina, Her Katrina, Wouldn't You Like Katrinas Too?

Last night I predicted after President Obama declared a national emergency over H1N1:

No doubt this will be viewed as more Obamafascism, trying to get more vaccine to Americans faster in order to save American lives and prevent illness is of course an egregious offense that no doubt requires impeachment by a court of armed patriots.

And lo and behold this morning, we have the Wingnut Response.

Wizbang's Shawn Mallow could give a damn about those that Swine Flu have killed already.

For some perspective, here are death statistics for several flu viruses that have occurred:

Spanish Flu (1918-1920): 50 million
Asian Flu (1957-1958): 1.5-2 million
Hong Kong Flu (1968-1969): 1 million
Asiatic Flu (1989-1990): 1 million
Influenza (Normal yearly world-wide): 250-500,000
H1N1/Swine Flu (2009 world-wide): 5,000

Yawn.

It's a variation of the classic Winger trope, The Ol' Iraq War Didn't Really Kill That Many Americans, Quite Whining, It's Fine You Liberal Pussies play. That of course didn't go over real well when families of those killed started calling the Wingers out on this one, but it's nice to see assholes believe in recycling.

Clifton B at Another Black Conservative has a similar response:

I know I may catch hell for saying this, but I just cannot get all worked up about H1N1. When I look at the numbers, especially in light of the fact that there are 300 million of us, I just don’t see what all the panic is about

Nope. Nothing to worry about here, stupid libs...or IS there?

Jules Crittenden is scared that Obama has already failed America on stopping the deadly H1N1 virus and brings up the K word...Katrina.

I got the news yesterday on the car radio while driving back from the supermarket with my son. He and his sisters got their swine flu shots at the pediatrician’s office the other day. But he’s been studying the Black Death in history class. (So proud. In parent-teacher conference last week, the teacher related that she asked the class, “Who knows what the Black Death is?” and his hand shot up. “It’s a disease that killed half of Europe in the Middle Ages!” Their minds are like little sponges.) Anyway, just yesterday morning, he and I had been discussing again how the Black Death caused massive social turmoil, how all of us alive today are plague survivors.

So, about this swine flu state of emergency, I told him:

There are two pieces to this. One is that it makes sense, if you have a serious situation, to let the hospitals and various government agencies bypass regulations so they can treat more people.

Then, there’s something called CYA. It means, “cover your behind.” It’s political. When you have a disaster looming, you need to look like you’re doing something.

I told him swine flu is like Hurricane Katrina. It’s coming, and it’s going to do what it’s going to do. Big force of nature. Might be bad, might not be so bad. Dunno yet. But when it’s over, everyone is going to want to know whether the president did everything he could do to limit the damage. People are already starting to talk about swine flu as Obama’s Katrina.

And, given the headsup the feds had, and the drastic shortfall and delay in vaccine preparation and distribution, it isn’t looking good for him if this thing gets bad.

Wait, what? H1N1 is Obama's Katrina? Are you f'cking serious? Talk about intellectual dishonesty. It seems that Obama has simultaneously destroyed the Constitution by declaring a health emergency for nothing and has failed to protect America from a deadly virus, resulting in his "Katrina" event...at the same time. H1N1 is harmless and Obama is wasting America's time with his feeble attempts at fascism and we're not scared unless he has failed to craft a strong enough government response to this DEADLY KILLER YOU MUST FEAR THE OTHER IN THE WHITE HOUSE REBEL NOW PATRIOTS!

For the record, I thought the Cash For Clunkers program was Obama's Katrina. No wait, it was the ice storm here in Kentucky last year. No wait, it was the Georgia floods in August, yeah that's it...no no no it's the economy...no wait it's just everything Obama has even tried this year!

Boy with all those Katrinas, America must hate the President worse than George W. Bush's low 20's approval numbers.

Wait, Obama's approval rating average is still thirty points higher than Bush's nadir and rising?

Gosh, it's almost like conservatives are full of bullshit or something and have no idea what they are talking about, automatically declaring anything Obama does to be the most evil thing since Hammurabi's code of laws.

Last Call

Been a day away from the blog, even I get those. A couple of events to note today:

First, President Obama has declared a national emergency over the H1N1 virus.

The emergency declaration, signed by the president late Friday, enhances the ability of medical treatment facilities to handle a spike in influenza A (H1N1) patients by allowing medical officials to temporarily bypass certain federal requirements.

"The 2009 H1N1 pandemic continues to evolve," Obama said in the declaration.

"The rates of illness continue to rise rapidly within many communities across the nation, and the potential exists for the pandemic to overburden health care resources in some localities."

The declaration comes just days after Health Secretary Kathleen Sebelius warned that demand was outstripping supply of vaccine for the novel flu strain.

As Americans waited for more shipments of vaccine, 46 of the 50 states now report widespread swine flu activity -- an unusually early uptick that ordinarily takes place in January or February at the peak of a normal flu season.

No doubt this will be viewed as more Obamafascism, trying to get more vaccine to Americans faster in order to save American lives and prevent illness is of course an egregious offense that no doubt requires impeachment by a court of armed patriots.

Meanwhile in financial news, the commercial real estate depression I've been warning about just tripped a major set of alarm bells as lender Capmark Financial is about to declare bankruptcy.

It's happening. The long-awaited bankruptcy of big-time commercial real estate lender Capmark is just about here.

WSJ: In 2006, a group led by KKR & Co., Goldman Sachs Capital Partners and Five Mile Capital Partners acquired the lender GMAC LLC's commercial-real estate business and renamed it Capmark. As of March 31, the investor group owned about 75% of the company, with GMAC and its employees owning the balance.

The Horsham, Pa., company recently reported a $1.6 billion second-quarter loss and warned it might be forced to seek Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection. KKR has already written down its investment in Capmark to zero.

Capmark recently entered an agreement to sell its North American servicing and mortgage-banking operations to a new company owned by Warren Buffet's Berkshire Hathaway and Leucadia National Corp. for as much as $490 million. Under the deal's terms, the sale could occur while Capmark is in bankruptcy, but would require a bigger cash payment. Read the whole thing >

Even before the filing, the battles have begun.

Capmark is just the first. More will follow. We're nowhere near out of the woods, Dow 10,000 or not. The Icarus markets are about to rediscover that gravity is a harsh mistress.

A more regular schedule tomorrow.

Pushing Back

The White House is letting Washington know that the fight for the public option is on.

Multiple sources tell TPMDC that Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid is very close to rounding up 60 members in support of a public option with an opt out clause, and are continuing to push skeptical members. But they also say that the White House is pushing back against the idea, in a bid to retain the support of Sen. Olympia Snowe (R-ME).

"They're skeptical of opt out and are generally deferential to the Snowe strategy that involves the trigger," said one source close to negotiations between the Senate and the White House. "they're certainly not calming moderates' concerns on opt out."

This new development, which casts the White House as an opponent of all but the most watered down form of public option, is likely to yield backlash from progressives, especially those in the House who have been pushing for a more maximal version of reform.

It also suggests for perhaps the first time that the White House's supposed hands off approach that ostensibly allowed the two chambers in Congress to craft their own bill has been discarded.

High level White House officials have floated the trigger idea a number of times, and it seems they continue to do so, even at this, crucial stage of the health care reform process, when their involvement is greatest. That has senators who support the public option concerned.

The question now is what form will the public option take? Will it be strong, or will it be a gift to the insurance companies?

StupidiNews, Weekend Edition!

• The H1N1 vaccine is in short supply in some areas of the country.
• Michigan lawmakers are looking to pass a bill that defines a fertilized egg as a person in the state's constitution.
• Iranian officials appear shaky on an international agreement to move the country's uranium stockpile to Russia.
• Germany's government will reportedly ask the U.S. to remove its nuclear weapons from the country permanently.
• A new NASA committee report suggests the space agency should put plans for Mars on hold.

Last Call

Now they're just making up crap wholesale about Obama.

If you listened to Rush Limbaugh today or visited Fox Nation, then you might have heard about President Obama's supposed college thesis in which the college-aged commander in chief allegedly wrote: "The so-called Founders did not allow for economic freedom. While political freedom is supposedly a cornerstone of the document, the distribution of wealth is not even mentioned. While many believed that the new Constitution gave them liberty, it instead fitted them with the shackles of hypocrisy."

Now, you might be thinking: "Wait a minute, I thought conservatives didn't like Obama's elusive thesis because it was on nuclear disarmament." Well, this is a different thesis, it would seem, and blogger Michael Ledeen wrote about it two days ago:

I missed this first time around. Brian Lancaster at Jumping in Pools reported on Obama's college thesis, written when he was at Columbia. The paper was called "Aristocracy Reborn," and in the first ten pages (which were all that reporter Joe Klein -- who wrote about it for Time -- was permitted to see).

So Ledeen sources this bombshell to another, more obscure conservative blogger, who wrote -- back on August 25, mind you -- that Time's Joe Klein had seen Obama's damning thesis and was going to report on it for "an upcoming special edition about the President." No indication was given as to how this obscure blogger came to know that one of America's premiere journalists had obtained this information. There was no indication as to how this blogger was able to quote material only Klein had had access to. Oh, and let's not forget that this very same blogger was busted by PolitiFact.com for fabricating stories about President Obama.

But hey, why speculate on whether it's true or not? Let's go to the source. Mr. Klein? "A report is circulating among the wingnuts that I had a peek at Barack Obama's senior thesis. It is completely false. I've never seen Obama's thesis. I have no idea where this report comes from -- but I can assure you that it's complete nonsense."

This story is fake and falls apart under the slightest scrutiny. Corrections and apologies are due from Ledeen, Limbaugh, and Fox Nation, but if you believe you'll get an apology from pathological liars of that sort, then you're more gullible than they are.

But remember folks, the difference between the Winger bloggers and the Horribly Biased Old Print Liberal Media That Will Soon Be Out Of Business is that the Wingers fact-check.

I mean, they wouldn't lie about the President, would they?

This Week's Busted Banks, Unhappy Century Mark Edition

Banks number 100 and 101 failed in 2009.

Still nine weeks to go.

[UPDATE 6:55 PM] Make that 102 and 103...

[UPDATE 2 11:03 PM]...and 104 and 105!!!

Epic You Picked The Wrong Horse There Joey Fail

Joe Scarborough decided to pick a Twitter fight with the Double G today and ended up pwning himself as he asks the following:

Well, as Dave Weigel points out, the answer of who has the lower rating is in fact Dick Cheney according to Morning Joe's own employer.

There aren’t a lot of polls that ask for public opinion of both Nancy Pelosi and Dick Cheney, as the former vice president is a has-been who only makes news when launching dishonest attacks about foreign policy. But the June NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll — in other words, the poll produced by the company Scarborough works for — found that only 26 percent of Americans had a favorable opinion of Cheney, while 48 percent had a negative opinion of him. The same poll found that 27 percent of Americans had a favorable opinion of Pelosi, while 44 percent viewed her negatively.

So: Cheney’s net negative rating is -22, while Pelosi’s is -17. The answer to Scarborough’s question is “Cheney.”

Greenwald didn't even have to take Joe down...he did it to himself.

EPIC FAIL.

The Problem With The Village

The GOP is polling its worst numbers in over a decade.

Thirty-six percent of people questioned in a CNN/Opinion Research Corporation survey released Friday say they have a favorable opinion of the Republican Party, with 54 percent viewing the GOP negatively.

According to the poll, 53 percent have a positive opinion of the Democratic Party, with 41 percent holding an unfavorable view. The survey indicates that favorable ratings for the Democrats have dropped 5 points since February, with the Republican number slipping 3 points.

"The Republican party may still be battling the legacy left to them by George W. Bush," says CNN Polling Director Keating Holland. "They have also spent a lot of time in 2009 working against Democratic proposals. That hasn't left them a lot of time so far this year to present a positive, post-Bush message. Of course, there is still plenty of time for them to do so before the 2010 midterms."

And what does this mean with the Democrats having a massive popularity lead?

Good news for the Republicans, of course.

"The problem for Democrats is that the midterm elections are going to be about the Democratic Congress," says Stuart Rothenberg, editor and publisher of the non-partisan Rothenberg Political Report.

While next year's contests will partially be a referendum on President Barack Obama, who remains personally popular, at the end of the day it's the Democrats who control Congress who are on the ballot.

"If Congress continues to be unpopular, it will give Republicans a message to use against those Democrats," adds Rothenberg.

Republicans can have approval ratings in the single digits. It would still mean the Democrats are the ones in trouble. If you can understand that logic, congratulations: you qualify for official Villager status.

Zandar's Thought Of The Day

To recap, you're supposed to feel bad for the Masters of the Universe as they quit their jobs at companies that were bailed out where Obama's mean ol' pay czar is limiting bonuses. They are quitting in order to work for companies where the pay czar isn't cutting pay, where they expect to make mad crazy bonuses again right up until the next bubble pops.

You're then supposed to scream and whine at the horrible Obama administration for not paying these wonderful examples of humanity the hundreds of millions in bonuses at taxpayer expense they supposedly earned, earned by instituting practices and financial products that wrecked our entire economy.

You're supposed to be equally angry that the "consequences of such government interference" is to rob the financial industry's largest companies of the brilliant leadership that got America into this giant quagmire in the first place.

And then, if you're like me, you laugh at the entire notion of such stupidity and you wish these multi-million dollar assholes good luck while they scrounge enough on savings to make the payment on their third vacation home in Aspen. Such a heartbreaking situation for them. the plight of America's super-rich is so poignant. Remember that when you pay your own bills this month.

[UPDATE 3:42 PM] Digby points out the same people that bemoan the plight of the Financial Exec are the same people that told GM and Chrysler workers and dealers to go Cheney themselves.

Well, He Is A Leading GOP Official After All

FOX News president Roger Ailes may be exploring getting into the ring in 2012 for Obama's job.

Friends and associates are encouraging Fox News chief Roger Ailes to jump into the political arena for real by running for president in 2012, top sources tell POLITICO.

"Ailes knows how to frame an issue better than anybody, and that's what we need now," says one Ailes friend who is encouraging the Fox founder, chairman and CEO to seek the Republican nomination to run against President Barack Obama.

Ailes, 69, has an aggessive, winning personality that made Fox News a huge success — and a huge target for liberal critics.

Frank Luntz, the well-known Republican pollster, said Ailes could be a force if he makes the run.

"I have known Roger Ailes for 29 years," says Luntz. “No one knows how to win better than Roger."

Talk of an Ailes run, which informed sources said is based on more than mere speculation, could escalate the White House war with Fox war in wildly unpredictable – and fun – ways.

It was Ailes who recently held a private meeting with top White House adviser David Axelrod to ease tensions. The meeting was not a success.

Shortly after, the White House stepped up its attack on Fox – and Fox has proudly fired back.

Fox executives are relishing the public spat – so much so that virtually every on-air personality talks about it, and Sean Hannity has made it a central part of his show’s promo.

The biggest reason: ratings at Fox are through the roof.

That loud slamming sound you just heard is a good three-quarters of the Village and all of the Wingers vigorously shutting their bedroom doors for some quality alone time.

The way I see it, the Wingers want the entire country run like FOX News, and they are dreaming of cabinet positions while they, ahem, tend to business back there.

Ailes is just removing the middleman. By all means, let Ailes do this. Unleash the full, horrifyingly brilliant power of FOX News all over America.

Only then will Americans roll up their sleeves and get rid of these assholes. You thought Obama Derangement Syndrome was a GOP platform plank before?

You have no idea.

[UPDATE 4:43 PM] Ailes is smarter than I thought and has decided not to run, saying in part "he can't take the pay cut."