Showing the Jihadis What We're Made Of

Glenn Greenwald finds definitive proof for the torturing-people-hurts-our-cause argument he's been making for five years now.

The British journalist Johann Hari has written an absolutely vital article for The Independent, examining a growing movement of former hardened Islamic militants who are now devoted to teaching a more moderate and less fundamentalist Islam. Hari focuses on understanding what motivates some Muslims to turn to radicalism and terrorism in the first place, and how that process can be reversed. Though these ex-militants have very diverse backgrounds, they all stress two critical facts: (1) the more the foreign policy of the West is seen as aggressive, violent and oppressive to the Muslim world, the easier it is to convert Muslims to violent radicalism, and (2) the most potent weapon for undermining Islamic extremism is the efforts of Westerners to work against their own governments' belligerent policies:

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In other words, the very policies the U.S. has been pursuing in the name of combating Terrorism -- invading, occupying, and bombing Muslim countries; locking them up without trials; torturing them; violating the values we've been preaching to the world -- have been the most potent instruments for fueling Islamic radicalism and terrorism. By contrast, those who have been continuously accused of being "soft on Terrorism" and even being allied with the Terrorists -- those who opposes our various wars, who demanded and provided basic human rights protections and equal liberties to Muslims, who objected to their own governments' oppressive and belligerent policies -- have done more to diffuse and impede Muslim radicalism than virtually anyone else in the world.

These truths are so self-evident that they shouldn't require journalists like Hari to document.

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Even in the face of mountains of evidence that this sort of heightened aggression and oppression exacerbates the threat of Islamic terrorism, people like Weisberg continue to demand more of it. And even in the face of the most compelling evidence imaginable that accommodation to the Muslim world and treating Muslims equally and respectfully is the greatest threat to the Islamic extremist, people like Weisberg perpetually worry that we're doing too much of that. At some point, a rational person has to wonder whether people like Jacob Weisberg -- who endlessly advocate policies that fuel Islamic extremism and intensify tension between the West and the Muslim world -- aren't desirous of exactly that outcome. After decades of pursuing this blatantly counter-productive approach, what else could explain such moral and intellectual blindness?

Read the whole thing.

Just Bury the Fucking Lines Already

Three times in six years, not-that-unusual storms shut the entire state down.

Not for hours, not for days, but for weeks.

Hundreds of thousands of people - a fifth of the entire state - without heat, without electricity, without even water in the depths of winter. Trapped in their homes by blocked roads, unreachable by civilian emergency agencies, themselves paralyzed. National Guard mobilizing equipment last seen in the Iraqi desert, in order to save lives.

The same insane scenario, played out against solemn promises to prevent it from ever happening again, only to repeat. And repeat again.

This is inexcusable. This is criminal. And this is totally avoidable.

But don't expect the Public Service Commission to figure it out.

Kentucky can take a number of steps to reduce the impact of severe weather on electric infrastructure and other utilities and to improve the preparedness for and response to major power outages, the Kentucky Public Service Commission (PSC) said in a report issued today.

The report makes 64 findings and recommendations. It is based upon the PSC review of the September 2008 wind storm and January 2009 ice storm, which caused the two largest power outages in Kentucky’s history.

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“I can assure you that this Commission is committed to seeing that the lessons of the 2008 wind storm and 2009 ice storm do not go unheeded,” (PSC Chair David) Armstrong said.

Lessons that apparently do not include the blatantly obvious need to bury power lines, starting yesterday.

Placing existing electric lines in Kentucky underground would cost at least $217 billion, a figure that includes only utilities under PSC jurisdiction. The report does not recommend large-scale conversion to underground lines, but recommends that utilities consider conversion to underground lines in specific circumstances, such as lines that are prone to repeated damage.

"Repeated damage." Would that be the power line damage that now costs the state of Kentucky hundreds of millions of dollars every year?

Would that be the damage caused by massive, widespread, skyrocketing unemployment, damage that would be substantially mitigated by a $217 billion, job-creating project to bury power lines across the state?

Would that be the damage caused to working families throughout Kentucky by crushing utility rate increases approved by a corporate-cock-sucking Public Service Commission that works for Big Coal, not the public?

It's going to happen again. If not next year, then the year after. Entire state paralyzed for weeks. A million people trapped without power. A billion dollars to repair the damage.

And the PSC standing by, wringing its hands and whining that there's nothing it can do.

Repugs Block Dem Effort to Freeze Credit Card Interest Rates

Just when you think repugs can't possibly find another way to fuck over working Americans, or get any more shamelessly blatant about it, they do.

Digby gets to the heart of it:

If Democrats can't make something out of this they deserve to lose their majority and be sued for political malpractice.

Moments ago, Senate Republicans blocked a Democratic proposal to freeze credit card rates on existing balances through the holiday season. The bill, sponsored by Senate Banking Committee Chairman Chris Dodd (D-Conn.), would prevent credit card companies from hiking rates and fees on existing balances until the industry reforms passed by Congress earlier this year take effect. Although a few provisions of that law took hold in August, most don’t launch until February or August of 2010. In the meantime, many card companies are hiking rates and fees to beat the law.

“The industry has tried to make one last grab at their customers’ pocketbooks,” Dodd said, just before asking for the consent of Republicans to pass the bill unanimously.

No dice. Sen. Thad Cochran (R-Miss.) objected “on behalf of several senators on this side of the aisle.” There’s no word yet which other lawmakers he was referring to.

These people are sticking up for credit card companies who are gouging their customers during the holidays in the middle of a recession! What do they have to do to provoke some outrage from the Democrats, gun down Tiny Tim? (Of course, the Republicans would simply say they were defending their constitutional right to bear arms.)

Honestly, this should provoke a Democratic outcry of epic proportions because it's good policy and it's good politics. They missed the boat by failing to draw attention to the fact that the Republicans blocked the unemployment insurance extension for over a month but this issue is hitting both the employed and the unemployed, all across the country. It's a perfect example of the "give them and inch and they'll take a mile" attitude of the banking industry and jamming the Republicans for helping them do it would go a long way to getting the public to understand that for all the GOP harping on spending as the cause of the downturn, they are helping their rich buddies shaft average Americans every step of the way when it comes to actual policy.

Zandar has a few choice words:

As repugnant as that is, why should anyone expect the GOP to give a damn about people? Credit card companies are simply more important than ordinary citizens, so when your interest rates go up despite the fact that the government has kept them near zero, know that the GOP specifically decided it would be a winning move for them to allow credit card companies to hike your rates this holiday season in the middle of the worst recession in decades.

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The GOP doesn't give a good pile of rat crap about you, me, or anyone else other than making sure the banking interests that bought them get paid off. That's who they serve.

Remember that when your rates go up before February on what few holiday purchases you'll be able to make this year. Or maybe your rates have already gone up. Fully half of Americans say that's happened. The other half of us are about to get something in the mail to that effect very soon.

Happy holidays from your GOP friends!

Cat is Out of the Bag: ACORN is SMERSH

We have to admit it now, my dusky, urban comrades in evil. 52 percent of republicans have figured out that ACORN stole the election for Obama last year.

Yes, 9,500,000 votes for McCain/Palin were ripped from the trusting hands of loyal Americans and given to a muslin socialist - a Democrat - who could never have won a fair election.

We thought we'd gotten away with it - who, after all, could believe that an underfunded, understaffed, disorganized collection of uneducated, unemployed, dark-skinned poor people from the inner city could steal that many votes in white, rural, republican enclaves like Virginia and Ohio and Iowa and Indi-fucking-ana?

Steve M:

Of course, right-wingers routinely ascribe superpowers to people they don't like. Bill Clinton -- who couldn't get a health-care bill passed, couldn't get gays in the military approved, couldn't retain congressional majorities, and couldn't have illicit sex without getting impeached -- was somehow powerful enough to have dozens of people killed and get away with it; Barack Obama is believed to have similar powers.

And now we have SuperACORN. (As you may also know, Doug Hoffman is raising funds with a letter claiming that ACORN stole the recent election in New York's 23rd congressional district, even though, as the local Watertown Daily Times points out, he has "provided no evidence to support his claims." I supposed he'd argue that ACORN is so powerful that empirical evidence of the deceit may not even exist.)

If there are any responsible journalists out there and they'd like to perform a public service, they should go up to NY-23 and just report on the vote-counting process -- specifically addressing the question of whether ACORN is even a significant factor in local elections, much less whether it can pump thousands of fake votes into the system while all electoral participants just twiddle their thumbs. (I don't care what Erick Erickson or Glenn Beck thinks, I just don't believe all the locals, across the political spectrum, would simply look the other way and overlook the fact that the fix was in.) Such a report wouldn't change anyone's mind on the right, but the more wingnuts whine, the more likely it is that swing voters will start to believe what they say about SuperACORN. This nonsense shouldn't be ignored. It should be debunked.

No chance - we've been discovered. We were hoping to keep it a secret for at least another year, but it doesn't matter now. It's too late for Caribou Barbie and Real America to save themselves.

The New Socialist Order is in place. Forced abortions for anti-choice christians, death panels for white republicans and mandatory gay sex for five-year-olds is just the beginning. By 2012, Glenn Beck will be begging us to let him emigrate to France.

Cross-posted at They Gave Us A Republic ....

Worse Than We Hoped; Better Than We Expected

The public option survived - that's good. But so did opt-out - that's bad. The bill saves so much money it shuts down the fiscal opposition - that's good. But to get there it had to postpone implementation to 2014 - that's bad. It raises taxes on the rich - that's good. But it also keeps subsidies too low to help the middle-class - that's bad.

The best thing about it is that it can probably get through Congress. The worst thing about it is that it can probably get through Congress.

Steve Benen has the overview:

Cost and deficit reduction: The Senate bill carries a price tag of $848 billion over 10 years, well below the arbitrary White House limit of $900 billion and less than the House version. The CBO estimates that the legislation will cut the federal budget deficit by $130 billion in the first decade, and a hard-to-believe $650 billion in the second decade.

Timing of implementation: To make the bill more affordable, the effective date of the Senate reform package would be 2014, a year later than the House bill.

Financing: To pay for reform, Reid's plan would impose an excise tax on the so-called "Cadillac" plans (insurance packages worth more than $23,000). There would now also be a 5% tax on elective cosmetic surgery (which would exclude procedures on those with congenital abnormalities, disfiguring diseases, or traumatic injuries). Reid also proposes a 0.5% increase to the Medicare payroll tax for families earning more than $250,000.

Subsidies: Medicaid would be expanded to 133% of the poverty line, and subsidies would help those making up to 300% of the poverty line -- which is short of the 400% threshold that many progressive reform advocates had hoped for. Instead, Reid would impose regulations on insurers to cap expenses for those between 300% and 400% of the poverty line.

Coverage: The bill would extend coverage to 31 million uninsured Americans, bringing insurance to 94% of the population. About a third of those left out would be undocumented immigrants.

Public Option: As expected, Reid went with a national public-option plan, which states could pass laws to opt out of.

Abortion: Reid steered clear of the Stupak amendment language, but would separate abortions paid for through premiums and taxpayer subsidies. The provision is a little complicated, but to make a long story short, Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.) loves what Reid came up with, and the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops is livid.

Mandates: There's an individual mandate, but the penalties are fairly weak. There is no formal employer mandate, but there are some modest fines imposed on larger employers who fail to cover their workers.

Anti-trust: Bucking to demands from Sen. Ben Nelson (D-Neb.), the Senate bill does not end anti-trust exemptions for the insurance industry.

Jane Hamsher at Firedoglake has the bad news bottom line.

Yet in the midst of quibbling about $90 billion a year for health care, the President just signed a one year $680 billion defense spending bill, which does not include the cost of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. This represents a serious problem with the priorities of those in government.

But while people struggling with crippling health care costs and pre-existing conditions may have to wait until 2014 for relief, states can begin opting out immediately. That means for the next four years, health care will become a partisan football at the state level, easily gamed by the same insurance company lobbyist dollars that flooded on to Capitol Hill this year. And just as 42 members of the House did the bidding of PhRMA and inserted language into the Congressional Record in support of their endless monopolies on biologic “drugs of the future,” the Senate bill followed suit and included the Anna Eshoo-written language which prevents generic versions of vital lifesaving drugs from ever coming to market.

Seventy-two percent of Americans believe it is important to give people the choice of a public option when forcing them to buy insurance. They do not trust insurance companies. A clear majority of the Senate agrees with them, and would willingly pass a bill with an unfettered public option. But Harry Reid has capitulated to lobbyist money and has allowed the Senate to be held hostage by Senators like Blanche Lincoln and Ben Nelson, who have each received over half a million dollars in campaign donations from insurance companies.

It is time to acknowledge that the Senate process is broken and undemocratic, and is working against the interests of the American people. It is too easily gamed by lobbyist money and has become unresponsive to the needs of small businesses struggling to pay for the health care costs of their employees at a time when unemployment is skyrocketing. The Senate filibuster — and the ability of any one Senator to hold the entire body hostage on behalf of lobbying interests — must come to an end.

If Harry Reid truly cares about fighting for the good of the country over the good of Wellpoint, he will immediately dispense with the opt-out and move to reconciliation and allow a majority in the Senate to deliver to Americans what they want and desperately need.

Study: Kentucky's Poor Pay Highest Taxes

Print out this story, stick it in your wallet, and the next time some tax-break-sucking, McMansion-dwelling, SUV-driving repug starts whining about entitlements, pull it out and whip her to death with it.

Linda Blackford at the Herald:

Low and middle-income Kentuckians pay a larger share of their incomes on state and local taxes than wealthier people do, making the tax system one of many in the country that is inherently unfair, according to a new study.

The Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy in Washington, D.C., studied tax codes in every state and concluded that the vast majority depend too much on sales and property taxes, which then puts a greater burden on the lower-income population.

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The study found that, in 2007, people making less than $15,000 a year paid 9.4 percent of their income to sales, property and income taxes, while those making about $36,000 paid 11 percent.

In contrast, the wealthiest 1 percent of Kentuckians, those making more than $346,000 a year, paid 7.1 percent. After federal deductions, the percentage is 6.1.

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Wealthier people do pay more in income taxes, about 5.2 percent of their income, compared with 1.3 percent for the poorest fifth of the population. But, Gardner said, the income tax is the only one designed to be progressive and does not offset the effects of the other two.

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Steve Boyce, vice-chair of Kentuckians for the Commonwealth, a public-policy group, said the report should spur legislators to pass laws that will replace Kentucky's antiquated tax system with one that is more fair, more adequate and more sustainable.

"It should not disproportionately impact the poor," Boyce said.

KFTC and a host of other public-policy groups are pushing a tax-reform bill from Rep. Jim Wayne, D-Louisville, that would give more tax credits to the poor and raise income taxes on the wealthy, while taxing more services, a growing sector of the economy.

"This study is a great opportunity to take a second look at the tax-reform package we're pushing because it's a step in the right direction," in terms of fairness and adequacy, Wayne said.

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But Gov. Steve Beshear has said he opposes both measures because they would cause tax increases. Instead, he has put his support behind an effort to pass an expanded-gambling bill to raise more revenue.

Of course the Cowardly Waste of Oxygen opposes reforming the tax system to help the non-rich. He's interested in nothing but helping his rich buddies in the gambling, finance and coal industries finish raping the last dime out of the state's hide before it's all gone.

We Knew Henry Clay: Henry Clay Was a Senator of Ours, and You, Mitch McConnell, Are No Henry Clay

Via Jake, a long-lost painting of the great U.S. Senator and Speaker of the House from Kentucky Henry Clay has been restored and hung in a place of honor in the U.S. Capitol.

Unfortunately, the usually impeccable Smithsonian Magazine falls victim to Villager cowardice and allows Mitch McConnell to get away with implying today's scorched-earth repugs honor Clay's tactics of compromise.

What, one wonders, would Clay make of the heated exchanges that occur across the aisle in Congress today? "Our discourse pales with comparison to the early history of the country," says Senator Mitch McConnell, a lifelong admirer of his Kentucky predecessor. For 14 years, McConnell sat at Clay's Senate desk. (Kentucky's junior senator, Jim Bunning, currently occupies it.) "The compromises he wrought were life and death issues for the nation, at a time when not everyone was sure the nation would last. If you are going to be able to govern yourself, you have to learn to compromise. You can either get something, or get nothing; if you want to get something, you have to compromise."

Democratic "leader" Schumer is hardly better:

Senator Charles E. Schumer of New York concurs. "Henry Clay's talent repeatedly drew us back from the brink of calamity," he says. "The hanging of Clay's painting couldn't come at a more symbolic time. I hope it will be a reminder to all of us in the Senate that bipartisan agreement can help push us toward becoming a more prosperous nation."

The Great Compromiser understood, as Doctor No and Mr. Slippery do not, that compromise is only a tool, and only one tool among many.

Senate repugs today are the direct descendants of John C. Calhoun's Nullifiers, willing to burn the nation to the ground in pursuit of political victory.

Senate Democrats today are taking their cue from the slavery apologists, eager to condemn the "peculiar institution" but refusing to do what was necessary to end it.

Not even the ghost of Clay himself threatening eternal damnation could persuade Senate repugs to reconsider mindless obstruction, but perhaps Democrats will take inspiration from the Clay portrait to emulate this side of the Great Compromiser:

Those who resisted efforts to achieve compromise, however, experienced Clay's wrath as "continuous peals of thunder, interrupted by repeated flashes of lightning."

Read the whole thing.

The Bushies' Sexual Torture Fetish

I've said it all along:Only Perverts Torture.

Now Marcy Wheeler identifies the perversion at the heart of the Bushies' hysterical opposition to civilian trials for the criminals they tortured.

I’m not amused that the Wall Street Journal solicited an op-ed attacking the decision to try KSM in civilian court from one of the people–John Yoo–with the biggest conflict on such a decision. It’s yet more proof that Rupert Murdoch is engaged in a partisan pursuit, even with the WSJ.

But I am amused at the way John Yoo dismantles his own argument.

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Of course, what John Yoo is really worried about are precisely those sources and methods: that is, torture. He’s worried that prosecutors may have to reveal the details of the torture they did to KSM.

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But there’s one further premise that makes this entire argument wrong. Yoo’s concerns about the exposure of torture-related information–to the extent that they might be valid–are all premised on the notion that the only information we got is so secret that introducing it at trial would violate sources and methods. Aside from the issue of competency hearings (which I think does risk exposing details on torture), torture (and illegal wiretapping–but it wouldn’t be illegal against any of these terrorists) would only be exposed if that’s the only kind of evidence the government has.

And Eric Holder is convinced there’s plenty that comes from clean sources.

John Yoo pretends he knows the universe of information on KSM. His argument suggests that the only evidence came from illegal or highly sensitive means.

What the trial will likely show, instead, is that there was a great deal of information already available before they started torturing KSM. It’ll show that the KSM expert in FBI–who we know was never allowed to get close to the Yoo-sanctioned torture sessions–knew much if not all of the stuff that KSM was blabbing away after being waterboarded the 183rd time.

That’s the real risk for Yoo: not the illegal actions that the trial will expose. But how much evidence there was independent of Yoo’s little torture shop.

At this point, we don't even need video of Yoo and Cheney and Bush giggling and jerking off to the screams of 11-year-olds being ass-raped by American soldiers. We know that's the real reason they ordered torture.

"An insult to women ... that we're even talking about her"

Everybody and his grandmother has something to say about Caribou Barbie's 400-page whine-fest, but the one who really nails it is the Rude Pundit:

Now imagine Hillary Clinton in that situation. Do you think for a second that she would have allowed herself to be forced away if she had wanted to answer a question? Feminism is about agency - that is, the ability to act on one's own. In that moment, as in so many others, Palin didn't assert her agency. Now she claims she finally is. It's a bullshit conversion to a depoliticized feminism, and she reflects, about as clearly as anyone, the kind of feminism-lite that passes for liberation. It's reaping the benefits of the feminist movement without giving a shit about the actual goals of the movement.

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Of course, the absurd reality is that Hillary Clinton has worked her ass off endlessly for her country; agree or disagree with her or her goals, she has sure as fuck had a lot more on her mind than how funny it would be to make reporters walk in muck (as Palin delightfully recounts). Sarah Palin wouldn't know a policy debate if it tweaked her tits and called itself Jesus. She invokes Clinton in order to try to make some of Clinton's accomplished glow rub off on her through a confusing conflation. It's sort of like when people try to say that Michael Moore is the liberal Ann Coulter. It discredits Moore while legitimizing Coulter.

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She is worse than a joke. She is a disgrace. If she is the end result of the work of Gloria Steinem and Bella Abzug and Betty Friedan and so many other women, who were attacked with the language of violence and rape by politicians and the mainstream media (not from some asshole bloggers) that makes Palin's little buffeting about gentle, then that work needs to kick back into high gear. And now she's out there as if she's standing up for women's rights to...speak, one supposes, as long as the lines are the in a general framework of what the right wants her to say.

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It's a goddamned insult to women, to the American political system, to the media that we're still even talking about her.

Read the whole thing.

The Kids Are All Right

The next time you're tempted to despair over the younger generation's ignorance of history, or the refusal of southerners to acknowledge the existence of the Bill of Rights, click here to watch the video, and remember that the Constitution is stronger and more inspiring than any of us imagine.

A 10-year-old Arkansas boy name Will Phillips has decided that he cannot in good conscience pledge allegiance to the flag as long as the country for which it stands refuses legal equality to its GLBT citizens.

That stand has brought young Mr. Phillips anti-gay taunts in the lunch room, but admiration from around the country, reports a Nov. 5 Arkansas Times article. The West Fork School District fifth grader clashed with a substitute teacher for his refusal to stand for the pledge, prompting a call to Will’s mother, Laura Phillips. When the principal acknowledged that Will has the right to refuse to say the pledge, Ms. Phillips asked that her son receive an apology--a request that the principal declined to honor.
...
That led the young man to his decision not to pledge his allegiance due to the injustice he perceived to prevail against gays and lesbians. He discussed the matter with his family and then took his stand--or rather, refused to stand with the rest of the kids when the time for the pledge came around each morning. The first week of the young man’s protest happened to be a week when a substitute teacher, a friend of Will’s grandparents, was in charge of the class; as days went by, the teacher grew more aggravated, until finally she took Will to task.

"She got a lot more angry and raised her voice and brought my mom and my grandma up," Will told the Arkansas Times. "I was fuming and was too furious to really pay attention to what she was saying. After a few minutes, I said, ’With all due respect, ma’am, you can go jump off a bridge.’"
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Moreover, Will’s stand for equal rights for gays has led those who disagree to attack him personally with anti-gay epithets: "In the lunchroom and in the hallway, they’ve been making comments and doing pranks, and calling me gay," Will said. "It’s always the same people, walking up and calling me a gaywad."

That hasn’t been easy for Will, who skipped fourth grade but seems older than his age, especially in contrast to some of his peers. Said Laura Phillips, "It’s really frustrating to him that people are being so immature."

The interviewer from The Arkansas Times asked Will what it means to be an American. The answer: "Freedom of speech. The freedom to disagree. That’s what I think pretty much being an American represents."

Killian Melloy at the EDGE has the details.

Senior Kentuckians: DON'T Cut Budget

We still don't have any actual evidence that Kentuckians who are not politicians or big media give a flying fuck about budget deficits, but we have definitive proof that some Kentuckians care very much about stopping Governor Beshear from gutting state spending.

Several hundred elderly people rallied in Frankfort Monday against further state budget cuts in programs for the aging while lawmakers held a host of meetings to discuss Kentucky’s financial woes.

“No cuts, we vote” was the message AARP supporters sent to Gov. Steve Beshear and legislators at a rally in the Capitol’s House chamber.

Their event came on the heels of Beshear’s move last week to notify some state agencies to plan for 6 percent cuts to their current budgets to deal with an expected $161 million revenue shortfall this fiscal year. Exempted programs included Medicaid, higher education, the funding formula for schools, local jail support and state prison beds.

Read the whole thing.

The more time that passes without a professional poll of Kentuckians on the public option in health care reform and the budget deficit versus a new jobs program, the more I'm sure that the people who baselessly claim to already know what Kentuckians think are avoiding such a poll because they know the results will go against them.

Gary Wills Gets it Completely Backwards

Is this Backwards Week? What in the name of Fuck-All is Garry Wills thinking?

I am told by people I respect that Barack Obama cannot pull out of both Iraq and Afghanistan without becoming a one-term president. I think that may be true. The charges from various quarters would be toxic—that he was weak, unpatriotic, sacrificing the sacrifices that have been made, betraying our dead, throwing away all former investments in lives and treasure. All that would indeed be brought against him, and he could have little defense in the quarters where such charges would originate.

These are the arguments that have kept us in losing efforts before. They are the ones that made presidents Kennedy, Johnson, and Nixon pass on to their successors in the presidency the draining and self-lacerating Vietnam War. They are the arguments that made President George W. Bush pass on two wars to his successor.

One of the strongest arguments for continued firing up of these wars is that none of these presidents wanted to serve only one term (even Lyndon Johnson, who chose not to run for a second full term). But what justification is there for buying a second presidential term with the lives of hundreds or thousands of young American men and women in the military?

I have great hopes for the Obama presidency, even in his first term, and especially if he could have two terms to realize the exciting new things he aspires to do in the White House. But I would rather see him a one-term president than have him pass on another unwinnable war to the person who will follow him in office.

Is there a form of dementia particular to historians that make them draw the exactly wrong lessons from history? Because Wills has it.

LBJ escalated instead of withdrawing and what happened? He became a one-term president.

LBJ, like Obama, inherited a stupid, unwinnable war.

JFK was assassinated before he could execute a war policy or be electorally judged on it. Nixon escalated secretly while publicly negotiating for peace. Smirky/Darth, UNlike Obama, started their stupid, unwinnable wars.

Wills' claim that presidents who withdraw from stupid, unwinnable, unpopular wars always lose re-election is completely baseless. Because it's never happened.

With precisely the same amount of evidence Wills has, I can confidently predict that if President Obama withdraws immediately from both Iraq and Afghanistan, then uses the trillion-dollar-per-year savings to launch the massive jobs program he should have launched last spring, then not only will he be re-elected with 538 electoral votes and 85 percent of the popular vote, but a national referendum will overturn the 22nd Amendment, allowing Obama to serve not two, not three, not four, but FIVE terms as president.

Actually, my basis for that prediction is much stronger than Willis' for his: In 1965, LBJ was in the same position Obama is in now: an inherited war with no path to success, and a monster domestic agenda at stake. LBJ chose to escalate.
What were the consequences? 57,000 dead, the Great Society strangled in the cradle, a near-civil-war at home, and 40 years of republican domination.

And one more thing: LBJ left office a one-term president.

Cross-posted at They Gave Us A Republic ....

The Wages of Compromise: Defeat

If the White House and Senate Democrats still think, despite all evidence to the contrary, that compromising with the anti-healthcare forces is going to lead to a better reform bill - or any bill at all - they would do well to study the fresh, still warm and bloody lesson of the Stupak Amendment.

Scott Lemieux at Lawyers, Guns and Money explains:

Conceding That Abortion Is Icky -- Not An Effective Strategy

Lizardbreath is 100% right about this:

I can't help thinking of the Stupak amendment, prohibiting abortion coverage in any health insurance plan that's paid for in part by federal subsidies under the House health reform bill, as the payoff from all that talk about how pro-choice voters should be more respectful of pro-lifers' beliefs. If we just acknowledged that abortion was always tragic, and always kind of wrong somehow, and that prolifers' total opposition to anyone being able to get an abortion ever was a deeply held moral belief that pro-choice voters shouldn't hold against them, then they'd respect us more in return and abortion would stop being such a hotly contested political issue.

Turns out, no. What happens when you treat pro-life views with solicitous respect and make sure pro-life politicians feel completely welcomed in your big tent party is that sixty-four House Democrats vote for poor women to be unable to get abortions or, most likely, to in at least some cases get late-term rather than early abortions because they can't get the money together in time. Solicitious respect isn't just interpersonal decency that will make political conflict over abortion less intense, it's unilateral political disarmament, and it has real policy consequences.

The logic that by which "emphasizing that abortion is gross and women who get abortions are immoral" actually benefits the pro-choice position has never made any sense, and surely the Stupak amendment settles the question. The idea that anti-choicers don't actually want to legally restrict abortion for poor people but just want Democratic politicians to give them a pat on the head makes no sense in theory and is pretty clearly wrong in practice.

Katha Pollitt at The Nation makes a passionate case for those of us who support full human rights for women to stop surrendering for the sake of a future victory that never arrives.

You know what I don't want to hear right now about the Stupak-Pitts amendment banning abortion coverage from federally subsidized health insurance policies? That it's the price of reform, and prochoice women should shut up and take one for the team. "If you want to rebuild the American welfare state," Peter Beinart writes in the Daily Beast, "there is no alternative" than for Democrats to abandon "cultural" issues like gender and racial equality. Hey, Peter, Representative Stupak and your sixty-four Democratic supporters, Jim Wallis and other antichoice "progressive" Christians, men: why don't you take one for the team for a change and see how you like it?

For example, budget hawks in Congress say they'll vote against the bill because it's too expensive. Maybe you could win them over if you volunteered to cut out funding for male-exclusive stuff, like prostate cancer, Viagra, male infertility, vasectomies, growth-hormone shots for short little boys, long-term care for macho guys who won't wear motorcycle helmets and, I dunno, psychotherapy for pedophile priests. Men could always pay in advance for an insurance policy rider, as women are blithely told they can do if Stupak becomes part of the final bill.

President Obama, too, worries about the deficit. Maybe you could help him out by sacrificing your denomination's tax exemption. The Catholic Church would be a good place to start, and it wouldn't even be unfair, since the blatant politicking of the US Conference of Catholic Bishops on abortion violates the spirit of the ban on electoral meddling by tax-exempt religious institutions. Why should antichoicers be the only people who get to refuse to let their taxes support something they dislike? You don't want your tax dollars to pay, even in the most notional way, for women's abortion care, a legal medical procedure that one in three American women will have in her lifetime? I don't want to pay for your misogynist fairy tales and sour-old-man hierarchies.

SNIP

The big prochoice and feminist organizations are up in arms--NOW and Planned Parenthood want to see healthcare reform voted down if Stupak is retained--but writing in the Daily Beast, Dana Goldstein nicely captures the bewilderment of leaders caught by surprise. "It's the feeling that you've been rolled," said Eleanor Smeal, of Feminist Majority. Or haven't been paying attention. Smeal was onto something, though, when she told Goldstein, "Here we are playing nice guy again, we didn't want to make a fuss." Consciously or unconsciously, by not organizing in advance to insist on coverage of abortion, prochoicers set themselves up to be out-maneuvered. In fact, as Sharon Lerner reported on TheNation.com, Democrats stood by while antichoicers kept contraception out of the reform bill's list of basic benefits all insurers must cover. So much for the "common ground" approach where we all agree that birth control is the way to lower the abortion rate.

Enough already. Prochoicers have been taking one for the team since 1976, when Congress passed the Hyde amendment, which Jimmy Carter would later defend with the immortal comment, "There are many things in life that are not fair." Time for the theocrats and male chauvinists to give something up for the greater good--to say nothing of the twenty prochoicers, all men, who supported Stupak out of sheer careerism. After all, if it weren't for prochoicers, there wouldn't be much of a team for them to play on.

Read the whole thing.

Fuck it. From now on - for abortion, for universal health care, for stopping climate change, for a real jobs program, for gay rights, for bulldozing Wall Street, for the whole liberal wish list:

No Retreat. No Surrender. No Quarter.

Is Camp Lejeune Next?

"... in my more than 25 years of clinical practice, I've never seen such immense emotional suffering and psychological brokenness -- literally a relentless stream of courageous, well-trained and formerly strong Marines deeply wounded psychologically by the immensity of their combat experience ... inadequate treatment ... callous indifference ... This is akin to somebody dying on the battlefield and not being attended to. These guys are saying they are broken and need help, and the system is saying, 'next, next, next.'"
---Psychiatrist fired from Camp Lejeune after reporting inadequate treatment for combat-stressed Marines.

He wrote that in a letter to President Obama in August, according to a shocking article in Salon.

Last April, two Marines at Camp Lejeune predicted to a psychiatrist that some Marine back from war was going to "lose it." Concerned, the psychiatrist asked what that meant. One of the Marines responded, "One of these guys is liable to come back with a loaded weapon and open fire."

They weren't talking about Marines suffering from a tangle of mental and religious angst, like news reports suggest haunted the alleged Fort Hood shooter, Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan. The risk they reported at Camp Lejeune was broader and systemic. Upon returning home, troops suffering mental health problems were getting dumped into an overwhelmed healthcare system that responded ineptly to their crises, the men reported, and they also faced harassment from Marine Corps superiors ignorant of the severity of their problems and disdainful of those who sought psychiatric help.

As Dr. Kernan Manion investigated the two Marines' claims about conditions at the North Carolina military base, the largest Marine base on the East Coast, he found they were true. Manion, a psychiatrist hired last January to treat Marines coming home from war with acute mental problems, warned his superiors of looming trouble at Camp Lejeune in a series of increasingly urgent memos.

But instead of being praised for preventing what might have been another Fort Hood massacre, Manion was fired by the contractor that hired him, NiteLines Kuhana LLC. A spokeswoman for the firm says it let Manion go at the Navy's behest. The Navy declined to comment on this story.

SNIP

Manion left Camp Lejeune after he got fired, but he did not stop worrying about the potential for violence there. In mid-September, Manion filed a 14-page complaint with the Department of Defense inspector general. On Sept. 29, he warned the Navy's Bureau of Medicine and Surgery inspector general in writing of "serious mismanagement of post-deployment mental health services that was both endangering patient, staff and community safety as well as severely compromising the quality of care" for returning Marines. Manion noted that the poor care at Camp Lejeune continued despite "the ever present threat of life-threatening violence by distraught service members towards themselves or others."

Finally, Manion wrote President Obama that same day. "Frankly, in my more than 25 years of clinical practice, I've never seen such immense emotional suffering and psychological brokenness -- literally a relentless stream of courageous, well-trained and formerly strong Marines deeply wounded psychologically by the immensity of their combat experience," he wrote to the president. Manion added, however, that at Camp Lejeune, that immense problem was being met with "inadequate treatment" and "callous indifference."

He still worries. "I don't like seeing these guys mistreated," Manion said. "This is akin to somebody dying on the battlefield and not being attended to," he added. "These guys are saying they are broken and need help, and the system is saying, 'next, next, next.'"

Read the whole thing.

The Last Man of Conscience

Rest in peace, Assemblyman Michaels.

Digby:

When's the last time a person was willing to lose his or her seat in order to keep a women's right to choose from being restricted much less advancing it.

This man did it a long time ago:

Saturday, December 5, 1992

Former Assemblyman George M. Michaels, who cast the deciding vote to liberalize New York's abortion law in 1970, thereby ending his political career, died on Thursday at his home in Auburn, N.Y. He was 80 years old.

He died after a long illness, according to the Brew Funeral Home in Auburn.

A Democrat, Mr. Michaels represented a largely rural, mostly conservative and heavily Roman Catholic constituency in the Finger Lakes region of west-central New York.

That put him in a difficult position on the abortion issue. An 1832 state law forbade abortion except "when necessary to save a life." In the 1960's, legislation was introduced to make New York's law the most liberal in the nation, allowing abortion in the first 24 weeks of pregnancy if a woman and her doctor agreed to it. The proposal became the most dramatic, contentious and emotional issue before the 1970 Legislature.

A groundswell for change in abortion laws, which dated to the 19th century, had been building in the country. In 1965, Colorado became the first state to lessen the restrictions on abortion. A Reversal of Conscience

Mr. Michaels personally favored a woman's right to choose but had voted against the proposed law twice at the behest of the Cayuga County Democratic Committee. He did so at the beginning of April 1970 when the bill went down to a narrow defeat.

But on April 9, he realized that the measure was doomed without his support. He rose to take the microphone, his hands trembling. "I realize, Mr. Speaker, that I am terminating my political career, but I cannot in good conscience sit here and allow my vote to be the one that defeats this bill," he declared. "I ask that my vote be changed from 'no' to 'yes.' "

His tearful reversal provided the 76th vote needed for passage. The State Senate quickly added its approval and Gov. Nelson A. Rockefeller signed the bill into law. "I found myself caught up in something bigger than I am," Mr. Michaels said about his agonizing decision. "I'm just a small country lawyer."

Mr. Michaels sought a sixth term that year, but piqued county leaders denied him renomination and he lost the June primary in a four-way race.

I guess that would be considered to be foolishly self-sacrificing in these days of "common ground" and looking for an easy way out. It's just a bargaining chip for more important issues about which Real Americans feel strongly. But there was a time when it was a matter of conscience and people thought such things were worth paying a political price for.

Society's acknowledgement of women as sentient adults with full legal rights, including control over their own bodies, is a good example of how history - even American history - is not a constantly rising arc of progress, but a roller-coaster of setbacks and renewed battles.

Domestic violence

The Courier-Journal has a 10-piece package on fighting domestic violence in Kentucky:

In the past three years, 49 Kentuckians have been killed by their husbands, boyfriends or former mates — victims of the ultimate form of domestic violence, according to a state advocacy group and news accounts.

Yet only seven of those victims had domestic-violence orders from the courts to protect themselves from their alleged abusers, according to a Courier-Journal review.

Advocates say there are a variety of reasons that battered women don't seek protective orders, including embarrassment and fear — and the perception that they don't work.

But statewide figures indicate they generally do keep abusers at bay — while 23,378 protective orders were issued last year, there were only 3,501 charges for violations of orders.

SNIP

Victim advocates say it's difficult to reconcile those findings with the reality that so few of the victims in the domestic-violence homicide cases reviewed by The Courier-Journal tried to protect themselves with protective orders.

“We are trying to do a better job letting women know what remedies are out there,” said Sherry Currens, executive director of the Kentucky Domestic Violence Association. “But I talk to people all the time who don't really have a good sense of what protections are available.”

Read the whole thing.

"Fiscal Conservatism" is Neither

Via Digby, a great piece on deficit stupidity by Chris Hayes:

The discussion about deficits and debt in Washington is so colossally stupid and disingenuous that even engaging it makes me despair. But today's Politico so expertly packages together every conceivable Beltway Establishment inanity about "spending" and "deficits" into one glib little piece of analysis that I can't help myself ....

There's one big maddening conceptual error at the heart of this piece (whether committed in good faith or bad I can't say) which is to confuse relatively substantial pieces of domestic legislation with a spending "binge." See, a government, like any organization, institution, or firm has expenditures and revenues. Miraculously, it can increase its expenditures, without increasing its deficit, if it also increases its revenues. This is called "deficit neutral" and it's what the current health care bill, in all its incarnations, is. It is what the cap and trade bill will also be.

SNIP

You may object to government doing the things it's doing. You may think the working poor should just suck it up when they get sick, or that we should subject Bangladesh to a horrific future in which it is plunged into the sea, but you can't say that the motivation for your objection is accounting.

This disingenuousness drives me bonkers, particularly since, as I and others have noted ad nauseum, military spending is simply never considered a relevant part of the balance sheet.

SNIP

Fiscal conservatism and deficit concern is nearly always code speak in Washington for something else: sometimes it's class warfare, or just a cheap partisan attack. Most often, when someone in Washington says they're concerned about the deficit, what they're really saying is "I would like to make sure we have a government that focuses maximally on blowing people up."

Digby adds her inimitable insight:

None of that matters. What matters is that the Villagers believe that Americans must suffer. It isn't about economics, it's about some sort of religious sacrifice. They've been leading up to this since Obama's election.

SNIP

The deficit is the bludgeon used by the wealthy bondholders to beat liberals into retreat on doing anything that might make average citizens feel that democratic government might be a better guarantor of economic security than their rich overlords (who are doing "God's Work" allegedly on their behalf.)

The press corps and the political establishment are happily doing their bidding and the fact that they are actually blabbering on about the deficit while we have more than 10% unemployment proves that we have gone down the rabbit hole -- and they are filling it in behind us.

It's class warfare. It always has been and it always will be. Those at the top who are waging it and those at the bottom who are dying from it know this. It's only we in the middle who still believe they have a chance to move up who deny the reality. But as more of us fall into the ranks of economic cannon fodder, it's just a matter of time before there's no middle left and we all take sides.

Because Kentucky Needs More Democratic Cowards in Congress

So you're one of the top two candidates for the Democratic nomination for U.S. Senate, and what you really need is a way to separate yourself from your primary competition. Hey, how about using a statewide conference of Democratic women to condem the Stupak "wire hanger" Amendment and announce your strong support of the healthcare public option desperately needed by Kentuckians?

Jack? Dan? (crickets)

This is no longer about the issues. This is now a contest of who can be a bigger sniveling, repug-fellating coward.

Lt. Gov. Daniel Mongiardo and Attorney General Jack Conway refused Saturday to say whether they would have voted for a health care reform bill that passed the U.S. House of Representatives on Nov. 7.

But the other two Democratic candidates for the U.S. Senate who appeared at an event hosted by the Women’s Network, a group that pushes the Democratic agenda in Kentucky, said they would have supported the bill.

Darlene Fitzgerald Price, a retired customs officer from McCreary County, said that she would prefer a single-payer health care system like the one in Canada, but would have backed the House proposal even though it didn’t go far enough.

She called the House plan “a big butt kiss for the insurance companies” but said she would have supported it because “60 percent of something is better than 100 percent of nothing.”

Maurice Sweeney, a businessman from Eastwood, said he would have supported the measure because he believes the current system is broken and something needs to be done to fix it — although he isn’t sure the plan is exactly what’s needed.

“I’m a firm believer that you work with what you’ve got,” he said.

I'd recommend you read the whole thing if Joe Gerth hadn't wasted precious column inches repeating false and idiotic Village conventional wisdom.

No, Joe: Mangy and Unway aren't front-runners because they are more high profile; they are more high-profile because you and the rest of the state media ignore their competitors, including Price and Sweeney.

No, Joe: you can't claim Kentucky voters are "concerned about rising federal spending" until you produce poll numbers proving it. Meanwhile, try calling random phone numbers and asking people which they're prefer: affordable health care or a balanced federal budget.

No, Joe: letting supposed "front runners" spout without challenge lies that have been repeatedly debunked isn't journalism; it's transcription.

I'm still in pox-on-all-their-houses mode, but if you're interested, here are the websites for Price and Sweeney.

To the Catholic Conference: Pay Up Or Shut Up

Ever get the impression the Catholic Church has never gotten over Martin Luther getting away with telling it to fuck off and die? For 1,000 years it tortures and burns to death anybody who so much as looks at it cross-eyed, then along comes this little shit with the 95 different ways of saying "you can't tell us what to do anymore, nyah, nyah, nyah."

It still thinks the last five centuries of renaissance and rejection are just a momentary setback, and it can intimidate its way back into world domination. Thus its ludicrously self-destructive interference in politics last week.

The inclusion of a restrictive abortion clause in the House health care bill, and the Catholic Church's involvement in its passage, has legislators and others debating the extent to which religious organizations can appropriately delve into politics.

Anti-abortion rights lawmakers successfully added an amendment from Rep. Bart Stupak (D-Mich.) into the health care bill Saturday that would restrict some health insurance plans from offering coverage for abortion. The amendment came up for a vote after Democrats faced pressure from the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB), the official leadership body for the Roman Catholic Church in the United States.

Rep. Lynn Woolsey (D-Calif.), co-chair of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, wrote an op-ed in Politico on Monday saying the IRS should pay closer attention to the Conference's involvement in efforts to influence legislation, given its tax-exempt status.

"The role the bishops played in the pushing the Stupak amendment, which unfairly restricts access for low-income women to insurance coverage for abortions, was more than mere advocacy," Woolsey wrote. "They seemed to dictate the finer points of the amendment, and managed to bully members of Congress to vote for added restrictions on a perfectly legal surgical procedure."

According to the IRS, nonprofit organizations like the USCCB are prohibited from attempting to "influence legislation as a substantial part of its activities" and from all campaign activities.

Give me a moment ... I just need to revel in the fantasy of the Vatican forced to disgorge billions, possibly trillions of dollars in back taxes, penalties and interest for the past, oh, 218 years ... Won't happen, of course, but just imagine ... OK, that's enough.

The point is that the godbots are seriously over-reaching, and in the process revealing their utter disregard for the precepts of the very religion they use to justify their criminal behavior. Steve Benen explains:

I've always found the Book of Matthew rather beautiful: "For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in, I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison and you came to visit me...."

It goes on to say, "Unless you live in a city where gays can get married, in which case, to hell with it."

OK, it doesn't really say that last part, but the D.C. Archdiocese may be confused on the point.

The Catholic Archdiocese of Washington said Wednesday that it will be unable to continue the social service programs it runs for the District if the city doesn't change a proposed same-sex marriage law, a threat that could affect tens of thousands of people the church helps with adoption, homelessness and health care.

Under the bill, headed for a D.C. Council vote next month, religious organizations would not be required to perform or make space available for same-sex weddings. But they would have to obey city laws prohibiting discrimination against gay men and lesbians.

"If the city requires this, we can't do it," Susan Gibbs, spokeswoman for the archdiocese, said Wednesday. "The city is saying in order to provide social services, you need to be secular. For us, that's really a problem."

Keep in mind, Catholic Charities receives quite a bit of taxpayer money to do social service work -- contracts that existed long before Bush's "faith-based" initiative. The archdiocese is now saying it would abandon its charitable contracts with the city if local officials legalize same-sex marriage.

Or as my friend Rob Boston put it, "Let me get this straight: The church is saying, 'Unless you bow to our demands, we'll stop taking your money'?"

Catholic Charities seems to want tax funds with no strings attached. The Post reported that from 2006 through 2008, Catholic Charities received about $8.2 million in city contracts to provide various services. The city is now asking them to abide by some reasonable anti-discrimination laws, laws that in my view they should have been following all along.

David Catania, a member of the D.C. who has pushed the same-sex marriage law, got it exactly right when he said, "If they find living under our laws so oppressive that they can no longer take city resources, the city will have to find an alternative partner to step in to fill the shoes."

For the record, there are other charities in D.C. that contract with the city on social services. The archdiocese is the only one threatening to stop working with local officials over the marriage equality issue.

But there's more! Controlling women's bodies and denying social services to the needy is only the beginning. Next is forcing people to endure slow, painful, tortuous deaths against their will.

Here's Susie Madrak at Crooks and Liars:

I got this via email yesterday, and gee, I hope the media covers this one. Because there are all kinds of implications: Does the Catholic Church get to decide that, government health insurance will pay for the indefinite maintenance of someone in a persistent vegetative state because they've suddenly decided to up the ante?

And do Catholic hospital officials intend to override advance directives or medical powers of attorney? Remember, many people live in a community that has only a Catholic hospital. (While my father was dying from excruciatingly painful pancreatic cancer, he was denied a morphine drip by his Catholic pro-life doctor. The Saint said it might make dad might die a few hours sooner than he was "supposed" to, so this is more than a theoretical issue to me.)

I'd just like to remind everyone that the Catholic Church continues to make disapproving noises about unjust war and the death penalty, but I never see any public denouncements of the politicians who support them them. Instead, they throw their weight behind issues like this.

What would Jesus do? I'm guessing not this.

The full body of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) will take into account the most recent Catholic teaching on care for the chronically ill and dying when they vote on a proposed revision of the Ethical and Religious Directives for Catholic Health Care Services at their November 16-19 general assembly in Baltimore. The proposed revision states more definitively the moral obligation to provide medically assisted nutrition and hydration to patients in a "persistent vegetative state."

[...] "It would be useful to update the Ethical and Religious Directives by inclusion of references to these authoritative documents as well as byincorporation of some of their language and distinctions," said Bishop William Lori of Bridgeport, Connecticut, Chairman of the U.S. bishops' Committee on Doctrine. "It is particularly appropriate to do so since the recent clarifications by the Holy See have rendered untenable certain positions that have been defended by some Catholic ethicists."

The current Ethical and Religious Directives for Catholic Health Care Services says, "There should be a presumption in favor of providing nutrition and hydration to all patients, including patients who require medically assisted nutrition and hydration, as long as this is of sufficient benefit to outweigh the burdens involved to the patient."

Along with other changes, the proposed revision says, "As a general rule, there is an obligation to provide patients with food and water, including medically assisted nutrition and hydration for those who cannot take food orally. This obligation extends to patients in chronic conditions (e.g., the 'persistent vegetative state') who can reasonably be expected to live indefinitely if given such care."

To be adopted, the proposed revision must be approved by a majority of bishops present and voting at the November meeting.

Catholic hospitals, by the way, rake in millions in taxpayer dollars through tax exemption, government contracts, and Medicare/Medicaid payments.

Only Repugs Get Abortions

Anyone who's worked in reproductive health will tell you that women who get abortions represent a pretty fair cross-section of their communities: age, race, religion, wealth, politics. It's why the more wingnut/freakazoid a community is, the higher the percentage of wingnut/freakazoids among those getting abortions.

And it's why the only surprising thing about the Republican National Committee paying for abortion coverage is that they didn't do a better job of hiding it.

The debate over financing of abortions -- the basis for the offensive Stupak amendment -- is all about money being fungible. Amy Sullivan explained the problem nicely recently: "The problem, they say, is that if any insurance plan that covers abortion is allowed to participate in a public exchange, then premiums paid to that plan in the form of taxpayer-funded subsidies help support that abortion coverage even if individual abortion procedures are paid for out of a separate pool of privately-paid premium dollars."

But applying this argument can prove problematic. Focus on the Family, for example, one of the nation's largest religious right organizations and a fierce opponent of abortion rights, has health insurance for its employees through a company that covers "abortion services." The far-right outfit, by its own standards, indirectly subsidizes abortions.

Apparently, the Republican National Committee has the same problem. Politico reported yesterday afternoon that the RNC -- whose platform calls abortion "a fundamental assault on innocent human life" -- gets insurance through Cigna with a plan that covers elective abortion. The Republicans' health care package has been in place since 1991 -- thanks, Lee Atwater -- meaning that, by the party's own argument, it has been indirectly subsidizing abortions for 18 years.

Complicating matters, Politico found that Cigna offers customers the opportunity to opt out of abortion coverage -- "and the RNC did not choose to opt out."

The Republican National Committee, not surprisingly, scrambled. By last night, it resolved the issue. Sort of.

The Republican National Committee will no longer offer employees an insurance plan that covers abortion after POLITICO reported Thursday that the anti-abortion RNC's policy has covered the procedure since 1991.

SNIP

But does that actually "settle" the matter? The new RNC policy, apparently, is to have insurance through Cigna, opting out of abortion coverage. But let's not lose sight of the original fungibility problem -- the RNC is taking Republican money and giving it to an insurance company through premiums. That company will then use its pool of money to pay for abortion services, not for RNC employees, but for other customers.

In other words, the Republican National Committee will still indirectly subsidize abortions, every time it writes a check to Cigna.

And if the RNC disagrees with this reasoning, and believes the issue is "settled," then the party has rejected the reasoning of the Stupak amendment at a fundamental level.

Seems the slavering hordes aren't buying it.

Ben Smith reports this afternoon that RedState's Leon H. Wolf wants heads to roll at the Republican National Committee for having a health care policy -- for 18 years -- that covered abortion services.

For thirty years, we have fought tooth and nail to prevent our tax money from being used to pay for abortions. Turns out, we were apparently doing it through donating to the political party that was ostensibly on our side.

SNIP

In order for the RNC to regain the trust of their donors, they must disclose the names of all people involved in any way of the selection of their health care plan. And those people must be summarily fired. No severance packages, no golden parachutes; fired. For cause.

No pro-lifer in good conscience can give them a dime until this happens.

But more important is the underlying logic. The new-and-improved RNC policy will insure its employees through Cigna, and Cigna will still pay for abortions, just not for RNC employees. In other words, RNC premiums will go to the company, and the company will then use its pool of money to pay for abortions. That's the "fix" RNC Chairman Michael Steele scrambled to make.

RedState and the Republican National Committee support the Stupak amendment, and according to its reasoning, the RNC will still be indirectly subsidizing abortions with its premiums. Leon H. Wolf wants an explanation for the previous mistake, without realizing that very little has actually changed here.

Either the RNC agrees with this assessment or it rejects the reasoning behind the Stupak measure. It's one or the other.