In Which Zandar Admits Scott Brown Is An Okay Dude Sometimes

I've always said on this blog that if there's a good idea that the Republicans want to see implemented, I'm not going to poo-poo the idea just because Republicans proposed it.  And that brings us to GOP Sen. Scott Brown of Massachusetts, who along with Democratic Sen. Ron Wyden of Oregon, have come up with a wonderful plan to fix health care reform.

If the states can come up with better plans, let them.  Ezra Klein explains:

This morning, Sens. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) and Scott Brown (R-Mass.) introduced the “Empowering States to Innovate Act.” The legislation would allow states to develop their own health-care reform proposals that would preempt the federal government’s effort. If a state can think of a plan that covers as many people, with as comprehensive insurance, at as low a cost, without adding to the deficit, the state can get the money the federal government would’ve given it for health-care reform but be freed from the individual mandate, the exchanges, the insurance requirements, the subsidy scheme and pretty much everything else in the bill.

Wyden, with the help of Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), was able to build a version of this exemption into the original health-care reform bill, but for various reasons, was forced to accept a starting date of 2017 -- three years after the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act goes into effect. The Wyden/Brown legislation would allow states to propose their alternatives now and start implementing them in 2014, rather than wasting time and money setting up a federal structure that they don’t plan to use.

In general, giving the states a freer hand is an approach associated with conservatives. On Wednesday, Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) sent a letter to the Republican Governors Association advocating exactly that. “The most effective path to sustainable health care reform runs through the states, not Washington,” he wrote. If it’s really the case that the states can do health reform better, Wyden and Brown are giving them a chance to prove it.

Do this.  This is brilliant, and something that I'd expect all 41 GOP Senators (and Mark Kirk when Illinois gets off their asses) to vote for.  If your state can come up with a better plan than Obamacare, then prove it.  We'll give you the money to do it.

And it gets even better.

One state that wants to prove it is Sanders’s Vermont. “As a single-payer advocate,” he says, “I believe that at the end of the day, if a state goes forward and passes an effective single-payer program, it will demonstrate that you can provide quality health care to every man, woman and child in a more cost effective way. So I wanted to make sure that states have that option.” Vermont’s governor-elect, Peter Shumlin, is on the same page. “Vermont needs a single-payer system,” he said during the campaign.

Single-payer, of course, is even more objectionable to conservatives than the existing health-care law. But that’s the beauty of this option: It allows the liberal states to go their way, the conservative states to go their way, and then lets the country judge the results. If Vermont’s single-payer system provides universal care at a low, low cost, then maybe that nudges California -- which is facing massive budget deficits -- off the fence. After all, if the state spends less than the government sends it, it gets to keep the remainder. It’s a nice incentive for cost control. And if it works, how long will more conservative states wait before they decide to take part in the savings, too?

But conservatives don’t believe that will happen. They think a consumer-directed system will offer higher-quality health care at a lower price, and with more choice. If Tennessee takes that route and outperforms Vermont, it’ll be their system that spreads across the land.

The funny thing about the health-care reform debate is that for all the arguing, everyone says they’re in favor of it. The GOP’s "Pledge to America," for instance, promises that the Republicans will repeal Obama’s health-care law “and put in place real reform.” Shumlin, too, promises Vermonters that he’ll produce “real reform.” The problem is that no one seems able to agree on what real reform is. The beauty of Wyden and Brown’s approach is that the country doesn’t have to choose.

Even better, individual states can decide, or they can stick with the current schedule of reforms.  Let red states and blue states battle it out with their own plans and see which one works.  Then all the states can use those plans in their own backyard, and we can put this to rest.

This is exactly what Republicans have been asking for:  a chance to prove they can do health care reform better than Obama and the Democrats.

So man up and do it.  Let Tennessee try its plan now.  Let Vermont try its plan.  Let California try its plan.  Let Oregon and Massachusetts try theirs.  Let's see what works in the real world.  Give states the choice.  I am all, all for this.

Pass this.  Pass this now.  This is a brilliant idea.  I love it.  Wyden-Brown for the win.

And naturally, I bet Republicans go bugnuts and hate it...even though it's exactly what they say they want.  What they really want is Obama the villain, and this bill would actually make Republicans have to govern.  They don't want that.  They want to win.  There's a difference.

Having said this, this legislation would force the GOP to go on record as being a bunch of douchebags who don't want to give the states the right to try better programs, but that they just hate Obama and want to destroy him.

I Recall When New Jersey Was Sane

And Tea Party nutjobs weren't trying to recall Senators for the crime of being Democrats.  Luckily, New Jersey's highest court just told the teabaggers to go dunk themselves in the Hudson.

"The court finds that ... the federal Constitution does not allow states the power to recall U.S. Senators," Chief Justice Stuart Rabner wrote in a majority 4-2 opinion.

The Committee to Recall Robert Menendez, a group linked to the conservative Tea Party movement, wanted to recall the Democratic Senator because of his support for policies including healthcare and immigration reform and cap-and-trade legislation to limit greenhouse gas emissions.

The committee sought permission from New Jersey's secretary of state to hold a popular vote on the recall effort. Their recall bid was earlier upheld by an appeals court but has now been reversed by the state's highest court.

The court's decision has been awaited by conservative activists seeking recall initiatives against elected members of the U.S. Congress in other states including Louisiana, North Dakota, and Colorado.

And the insanity of this is that Republicans want the option to immediately force a recall vote of any Senator they don't like, which is to say anyone to the left of Jim DeMint.  First it was take the vote of Senators away from the people by repealing the 17th Amendment, now they want to hold do-overs any time a Democrat wins, because that has to be suspect, and voting for legislation is a high enough crime to warrant removal from office based on the Tea-ranny of the Majority principle.

Luckily it seems this lunacy is being stopped cold.  Disagreeing with the Tea Party is not a friggin federal offense.

Yet.

Trying To Assange Your Guilt

The Swedish rape allegations against WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange are back.

A Swedish prosecutor on Thursday requested that Julian Assange, the founder of whistle blowing website WikiLeaks, be detained over rape allegations, a charge he strongly denies.


The prosecutor's office began an investigation into allegations of rape against Assange, an Australian citizen, in September.

The prosecutor's office said in a statement it had now decided to seek to detain Assange on suspicion of rape, sexual molestation and unlawful coercion. A court hearing on the request was due at 1300 GMT.

"The reason for my request is that we need to interrogate him. So far, we have not been able to meet him to carry out the interrogations," said Marianne Ny, leading the case for the Prosecution Authority.

If the request is granted, authorities could issue an international arrest warrant for Assange, said Prosecution Authority spokeswoman Karin Rosander.

Remember, these allegations were made and then withdrawn due to lack of merit back in August.  Now they are being made again.  As I said then, any allegations of rape must be checked out.  But given the public calls for Assange's incarceration for WikiLeaks itself and even calls for his outright assassination from the wingnut right, and given the history of our own intelligence agencies in this country, the fact that these allegations may be false must be at least a possibility.

However if the Swedes have enough evidence to prosecute, Assange must turn himself in.  Period.

Zandar's Thought Of The Day

And that reminds me:  to those of you who decided to vote for the Republicans to punish the Dems for not be progressive enough, particularly women who thought the Democrats weren't good enough on women's issues, LGBT voters who thought the Dems were failures on gay rights issues, and national security voters who think the Dems aren't serious on foreign relations: please keep the consequences of your votes in mind with Republicans killing the Paycheck Fairness Act with 41 no votes, planning to kill DADT's repeal in the Senate, and planning to delay the New START nuke treaty with Russia until next year, when they can kill it more easily.

And that's just this week. Keep that in mind heading into 2012.

Republicans don't give a pile of rat crap about any of that.  They just want to destroy Obama and stop him from signing anything into law over the next two years.

Anything.  And if the country burns, so be it.

Elections have consequences, they keep telling me.

Don't Ask, Don't Tell, Do Force A Showdown

Looks like the fight to repeal DADT is on in the Senate.

As recently as last week, there was quite a bit of talk about Senate Democrats caving on "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" repeal. Leaders knew they have to pass the military spending bill (the National Defense Authorization Act, or NDAA), and if Republicans were prepared to kill the measure over DADT, Dems looked like they'd blink first.

This week, there's been a shift in the other direction. President Obama has reportedly been working the phones, urging "dozens of Senators from both sides of the aisle" to approve the spending bill just as it is, leaving the repeal language intact.

By late yesterday, the Senate leadership announced it's not caving, setting the stage for a December showdown.

The problem is who on the Republican side will do the right thing when the base will see working with the Democrats as treason that must be ripped out?  Reid will offer amendments to both sides in order to get his two votes, but that will eat up two weeks of Senate business, leaving not a whole lot of time to get votes on anything else.

I just don't see how this works out.  I fully expect another last minute 180 by the GOP and this measure fails to advance by that same 58-42 vote, and then the real problems begin.  I hope I'm wrong.  How will the GOP be punished if they scuttle the bill?

More than enough LGBT voters went to the Republican side to reward them for the Log Cabin Republicans' efforts to attack DADT in the courts.  If things play out like I forsee it, these same folks will blame the 58 yes votes and not the 42 no ones...and vote increasingly Republican in 2012.

If It's Thursday...

Jobless claims remained essentially flat at 439k.  Continuing claims down 48k to 4.3 million, the lowest in two years.  That's not good, that means people are falling off the 99-er cliff.

It's going to be the 26-er cliff if Congress doesn't act.

Irish Eyes Are Crying, Part 7

As I predicted the bailout of the Irish economy is on, now it's time to work out how much.

Ireland's central bank chief said on Thursday he expected the country to receive tens of billions of euros in loans from European partners and the IMF to help shore up its shattered banks and stabilize the economy.

Central bank governor Patrick Honohan was speaking shortly before the start of talks with a joint mission of the European Commission, the European Central Bank and the International Monetary Fund on a possible rescue package.

"The intention is and the expectation is, on their part and personally on my part, that negotiations or discussions will be effective and a loan will be made available and drawn down as necessary," he told state broadcaster RTE.

"We're talking about a very substantial loan for sure — tens of billions, yes," Honohan said, acknowledging that there had been substantial outflows of funds from the Irish banking sector since April.

Word is that we could see some 100 million euros thrown at the problem or more.  Meanwhile, Greece continues to collapse under its own failure as sharp contractions in 2011 and 2012 mean that Greek citizens will have to tighten their belts even more as the country faces rapidly increasing unemployment.  Austria has already said it will not make its bailout payment to Greece unless it meets economic targets, and that means bad news for already beleaguered Greeks.

Then Portugal may be next in line and then the big one:  the UK, as they are involved in backing bailouts to everyone else.  We'll see.

StupidiNews Focus: The Ghailani Trial Was A Success

Wingers are furious that 1988 African embassy bomber Ahmed Ghailani was tried as a civilian and was only convicted of one count out of 280 plus, including murder charges for every embassy bombing victim.  But the reality is that the Obama Administration just proved that civilian trials do work, and the 20 to life sentence Ghailani will get is a far tougher conviction that what we've gotten in military tribunals.

Meanwhile, the right is indulging in fantasy.  John Hindraker:

Having failed to convict Ghailani on more than a single count, the administration can only hope for a substantial sentence. Absent that, they presumably will continue to hold him indefinitely, much as they are holding Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, thus demonstrating the essentially sham nature of the proceeding that has just concluded. The Obama administration is truly a ship of fools. Some are already speculating that this disaster will be the occasion for Eric Holder to step down as Attorney General. I have no idea whether he is on the way out or not, but if so, Republicans in the Senate should question his replacement closely about Holder's politicizing of the Department of Justice, and should extract whatever commitment they can from his successor not to pursue the same course.

Holder resigning over a successful 20 years to life conviction of a terrorist?  No doubt Hinderaker's mad because Ghailiani isn't being fed to the Sarlacc.  Hugh Hewitt is equally upset.

224 innocents were killed by this terrorist, including 12 Americans.  They will never receive justice because of the absurd legal theories of a small group of justices and the refusal of Barack Obama and Eric Holder to demand of their left-wing colleagues inthe Congress a continued insistence on military tribunals.

So when will an Adminstration official emerge to declare "they system worked" as Janet Napolitano did after the underway bomber got into American airspace?

20 to life, and I'm guessing he gets the life end of this, isn't justice.  Apparently he has to get a million billion life sentences and be forced to watch Ishtar on eternal loop.  But it's American Spectator's John Tabin who makes the strangest argument:

He's still going to prison for at least 20 years and maybe for life (sentencing comes in January), but the verdict -- which seems to suggest that Ghailani is guilty of conspiracy to blow up the buildings but somehow not guilty of killing the victims -- is an embarrassment for the Obama justice department, and opponents of trying Guantanamo detainees in civilian court are rightly seizing upon it. 

Yes, so very upset that we couldn't just arbitrarily declare him guilty and dispense with the trial altogether.  What a sham actually trying a man in court is!

I don't get conservatives.  They were going to attack this verdict no matter what happened, and now that Holder and Obama have proven a civilian trial works and can get far nastier penalties than military tribunals, they have to tell us "how the families of the victims must feel" and use them as props in order to justify their own lack of merit.

But then again to conservatives, the Ghailani trial was never about Ghailani, or his victims, or their families, or justice, but about convicting the President in the court of wingnut opinion.

[UPDATE]  The Double G weighs in with this insight:

Most news accounts are emphasizing that trying Ghailani in a civilian court was intended by the Obama DOJ to be a "showcase" for how effective trials can be in punishing Terrorists.  That's a commendable goal, and Holder's decision to try Ghailani in a real court should be defended by anyone who believes in the rule of law and the Constitution.  But given these realities, this was more "show trial" than "showcase" since the Government would simply have imprisoned him, likely forever, even if he had been acquitted on all counts.

Can't say he's wrong, either.

StupidiNews!

• Sen. Lisa Murkowski is declaring victory in her write-in bid in Alaska, becoming the first write-in candidate to win in 50 years in the Senate.
• The first Gitmo detainee to face a civilian trial has been found guilty on only one of more than 280 counts, but the conspiracy conviction carries a 20-year to life sentence.
• The GOP controlled House wants to deny citizenship to children of undocumented immigrants under the 14th Amendment, saying it doesn't apply.
• German law enforcement officials are looking into a detonator device found on an Air Namibia flight headed for Berlin.
• Large Hadron Collider scientists have collected 38 anti-hydrogen atoms in a magnetic trap for study.

Last Call

Ohio is completely dominated by Republicans heading into 2011, and the state GOP and Gov.-elect John Kasich are wasting no time in making ordinary Ohioans feel the pain.

According to the Columbus Dispatch, the Republican legislature that will be working with Kasich is very much of the same mind, with potentially devastating effects on the way for the state’s education system. Incoming state Senate President Tom Niehaus has warned school districts to prepare for huge cuts, as “the GOP majority will keep its promise to not raise taxes,” no matter what:

Sen. Tom Niehaus, a New Richmond Republican expected to be the next Senate president, said last week that there will be a projected shortfall of $6 billion to $8 billion in the next state budget and that he is confident the GOP majority will keep its promise to not raise taxes – meaning that deep cuts will be necessary to balance the budget. Asked if some district officials preparing financial forecasts and deciding whether to put levies on the ballot were correct to assume a 15 to 20 percent cut in state aid, Niehaus said that’s what he would plan for if he were in their shoes.

Ohio has already cut both K-12 and higher education funding in response to the Great Recession. To put the new cut that the GOP has proposed in perspective, a 10 percent cut in school funding would amount to districts losing $1 billion. But the Ohio GOP is standing firm against any raising any new revenue, and Kasich himself believes that broadening the tax base or closing tax loopholes qualifies as an unacceptable tax increase.

At the same time that the GOP legislature is telling school districts to prepare for huge cuts, Kasich may also be endangering Ohio’s $400 million Race to the Top grant — awarded as part of the administration’s education reform effort — due to his insistence on dumping some of his predecessor’s policies, which led to Ohio winning the grant in the first place. So Ohio’s schools may be taking a pair of hits from the incoming class of lawmakers.

Throwing away millions in rail stimulus, throwing away $400 million in Race to the Top education grants, and now a 15-20% across the board cut in funding.   Way to go Ohio!

You voted them in.  Enjoy your smaller government, especially when it fails to do anything to alleviate the state's ailing manufacturing and job base.  I'm sure other states will be glad to take that funding off your hands, along with the jobs that funding will create.

Zandar's Thought Of The Day

Your number of the day is 53...the percentage of Republicans who now say there is no solid evidence of global warming.

As I keep saying, our grandkids are never going to forgive us.

Absolutely Taxing My Patience

If you thought Simpson-Bowles was a stupid, cowardly plan that did nothing to deal with health care costs and made punishing cuts to Medicaid, Social Security, and cut taxes for the rich, well you're going to hate the Domenici-Rivlin plan.  Froomkin:

This latest group hails from the Bipartisan Policy Center, and its signature proposal may end up being a whopping 6.5 percent national "Deficit Reduction Sales Tax" -- just the sort of thing that is devastating to people who live on a budget while not really mattering so much to the rich.

In the name of allegedly controlling health care costs, the group also recommends significant increases in Medicare premiums in the short term. And after 2018, Medicare beneficiaries would either be forced to pay out of pocket for any and all cost increases more than one percent greater than the growth rate of the economy -- or they would be invited to leave the government program entirely and find private insurance instead. That would no longer be Medicare as we know it -- or as future retirees expect it.

The group's next most major recommendation for cutting healthcare spending is the imposition of an excise tax on the manufacture and importation of beverages sweetened with sugar or high-fructose corn syrup.

Like the plan from presidential commission chairmen Erskine Bowles and Alan Simpson, this one also would significantly reduce Social Security benefits for most retirees. It doesn't technically call for an increase in the retirement age, like Bowles-Simpson does, but it accomplishes essentially the same thing under another name.

This plan would "index the benefit formula for increases in life expectancy" starting in 2023. In both cases, the net result would be lower monthly benefits. It would also dramatically reduce benefits by changing the calculation of cost-of-living adjustments, and by chopping checks for top quarter of beneficiaries.

Meanwhile, much like Bowles-Simpson, it would actually lower income tax rates for the rich (albeit while removing hugely lucrative deductions). There would be two individual income tax rates, 15 percent and 27 percent, instead of the current six rates that range up to 35 percent. The corporate rate would drop to 27 percent from 35 percent. Capital gains would be taxed at a higher rate, as ordinary income.

Almost all deductions would be wiped away, including the deduction for employee-paid health insurance. The mortgage interest, charitable donation and retirement savings deductions would be replaced with a capped 15 percent credit.

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In other words,  cut Medicare, cut Social Security, and add a national 6.5% sales tax on everyone just to pay for lowering taxes on the wealthy...and the plan does nothing to lower health care costs, only what the government is allowed to spend on health care.

Even worse than Simpson-Bowles, the Domenici-Rivlin plan would hammer the poorest 80% of America on food, clothing, and other everyday items and make them pay for more while the wealthiest would end up paying less to the government every year.

"Serious bipartisan deficit reduction" is code for "finish destroying the middle class".

Turn On The Lights, Watch The Roaches Scatter, Part 41

David Dayen recaps yesterday's Senate Foreclosuregate hearings.

I’m going to agree with Yves Smith that yesterday’s Senate Banking Committee hearing on foreclosure fraud went really badly for the banks. Now, it’s a Senate hearing, and it’ll soon be filed away with all the other Senate hearings, never to threaten a banker again. But we’ve gone from a point where this issue was basically just a backwater on blogs to an issue where the chair of the Senate Banking Committee is calling it a crisis and begging the Financial Stability Oversight Council to get involved, because it represents an extreme systemic risk.

That’s not nothing. And if it doesn’t mean anything in terms of Senate legislation, it certainly pricks up the ears of investors, who probably saw dollar signs lighting up in their eyes when they watched this hearing. The exposure of the banks is so clear, the violations of the pooling and servicing agreements so multi-faceted, that their prospects of putting back bad mortgages on the banks just went up. You can read my Twitter colloquy with some other bloggers, preserved by Kevin Drum, on this issue. I would add that the mortgage-backed securities market is so big – $7.6 trillion dollars – that you would only need 8% of them to be put back to wipe out the capital of every major bank. And as soon as one – just one – of these put-back suits is successful, you will see an avalanche of filings.

And the banks will be crushed under the sheer mass of them.  There's a reason why the banks are scrambling to get MERS off the liability hook.  People are PISSED OFF.



Dayen concludes:

What I noticed the most is that the Senators understood the worst of the issue because their constituents told them. Every single one of them had a series of stories to tell about homeowners being victimized by their servicers. This is dangerous territory for the banks and they know it. Reports are that they’ve been scurrying to prevent legislative fixes and basically lobby their friendlies in the Congress. The other day, a Treasury spokesman called the behavior of the servicers “simply unacceptable, and servicers who have failed to follow the law must be held accountable.”

The issue is starting to hit some critical mass, and that’s important.

And baby, this critical mass is going to hit the hell back.  The clock is ticking now for every mortgage bank in the country and they know it.  If the banks lose one of these put-back lawsuits before Congress can sneak a bill through clearing them of all wrongdoing that Obama has to sign, it's over.

The race is now on.

Gender Offenders

Once again, one has to ask why Republicans are misogynists.

Senate Republicans have succeeded in blocking a measure designed to reduce wage disparities between men and women.

The 58-41 vote to take up the Paycheck Fairness Act fell short of the 60 needed to overcome GOP opposition.

Civil rights groups, labor leaders and the Obama administration all supported the bill, which would make employers prove that any disparities in wages are job-related and not sex-based.

Republicans and business groups said the bill would expose employers to more litigation by removing limits on punitive and compensatory damage awards.

The bill was one of the first measures passed by the House last year after President Barack Obama was elected.

Every single Republican voted against this, including Sens. Snowe and Collins (Lisa Murkowski was not present) and Ben Nelson decided to be a dick just because he could to make sure that the White House won't attack the GOP on this, because of course Ben Nelson is the most important guy on Earth.

Meanwhile, the Republican explanation as to why gender paycheck disparity exists in America is interesting.  They freely admit it does exist and that they couldn't support the bill because people would be able to sue because of the disparity.  As to why the disparty is still there in 2010, the reason is because shut up and get in the kitchen you dumb broad, that's why.

Do The Crime, Do The Time

The FDIC is finally, finally looking into criminal investigations of some 50 failed banks.

The FDIC, which is responsible for dealing with bank failures, is probing former executives, directors and employees at failed U.S. banks and is taking efforts to punish alleged recklessness, fraud and other criminal behavior, the Journal said.

Fred Gibson, deputy inspector general at the FDIC, told the Journal in an interview that the probes involve failed banks of all sizes in cities across the U.S.

FDIC is also stepping up civil claims to recover money from former bankers at busted lenders, the newspaper said.

Gibson declined to identify the people or banks under investigation, the Journal said.

"We anticipate results from our investigations, although we cannot predict when a particular case will reach a stage at which disclosure of specifics would be appropriate," Gibson told the Journal. 

As the old joke about a dozen lawyers chained to the bottom of the ocean goes, "It's a good start".  I wonder if the FDIC will ever investigate the big banks that created this mess?  Seems to me there's a lot of fraud going around these days, especially in the mortgage services division.