Vox Verax

Lobbyists pushed off advisory panels

2009-11-26T22:31:00.000-06:00

White House initiative to limit influence could affect thousands

By Dan Eggen
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, November 27, 2009

Hundreds, if not thousands, of lobbyists are likely to be ejected from federal advisory panels as part of a little-noticed initiative by the Obama administration to curb K Street's influence in Washington, according to White House officials and lobbying experts.

The new policy -- issued with little fanfare this fall by the White House ethics counsel -- may turn out to be the most far-reaching lobbying rule change so far from President Obama, who also has sought to restrict the ability of lobbyists to get jobs in his administration and to negotiate over stimulus contracts.

The initiative is aimed at a system of advisory committees so vast that federal officials don't have exact numbers for its size; the most recent estimates tally nearly 1,000 panels with total membership exceeding 60,000 people.

Under the policy, which is being phased in over the coming months, none of the more than 13,000 lobbyists in Washington would be able to hold seats on the committees, which advise agencies on trade rules, troop levels, environmental regulations, consumer protections and thousands of other government policies.

(More here.)

Half-Truths Dim Chances for Mideast Talks

2009-11-26T17:46:00.000-06:00

By ETHAN BRONNER
NYT

JERUSALEM — In recent years, the international community has made one central demand of Israel and one of the Palestinians to create conditions for a two-state solution: Israel must stop building settlements on land the Palestinians want for their state, and the Palestinians must dismantle terrorist networks and end violent attacks on Israelis.

This week, a casual observer could have concluded that each had carried out its duty and that peace talks would move forward. Israel announced a 10-month settlement freeze on Wednesday; as to the Palestinians, violent attacks against Israelis have essentially ended. As Palestinian officials like to point out, trained Palestinian security forces have been keeping order in West Bank cities for more than a year.

But the casual observer would probably be mistaken. There are unlikely to be peace talks soon. In fact, tensions seem set to rise, partly because the claims of each side amount to half-truths, as the other is the first to note.

The 10-month settlement freeze excludes more than 2,500 housing units being built or recently authorized. The moratorium allows a limited number of schools, synagogues and community centers, the kind of “natural growth” banned by the dormant 2003 “road map” for peace, agreed to by the United States, the European Union, the United Nations and Russia.

(More here.)

German General Quits Over Airstrike

2009-11-26T17:41:00.000-06:00

By NICHOLAS KULISH
NYT

BERLIN — The chief of staff of the German armed forces resigned Thursday over accusations that the military withheld information on a deadly airstrike in Afghanistan in September that killed civilians as well as insurgents.

Germany’s defense minister, Karl-Theodor zu Guttenberg, told Parliament that the chief of staff, Gen. Wolfgang Schneiderhan, as well as a senior official in the Defense Ministry, State Secretary Peter Wichert, had tendered their resignations after a German news report that information on civilian casualties had been withheld from the public and from prosecutors.

Their departures set off political tremors in Berlin and within the German military, with the opposition Social Democrats calling for a parliamentary inquiry. Other opposition groups demanded the resignation of Franz Josef Jung, the labor minister in Chancellor Angela Merkel’s government, who was the defense minister at the time of the attacks.

On Sept. 4, Col. Georg Klein, then the commander of the German base in the Kunduz region, called in an airstrike against two tanker trucks hijacked by Taliban insurgents. In the aftermath of the attack, Mr. Jung repeatedly claimed that only insurgents had been killed in the attack.

(Continued here.)

Church in Ireland Said to Have Covered Up Abuse

2009-11-26T13:25:00.000-06:00

By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

Filed at 12:11 p.m. ET

DUBLIN (AP) -- Bishops of the Roman Catholic Church in Dublin covered up decades of child abuse by priests to protect the church's reputation, an expert commission reported Thursday after a three-year investigation.

Abuse victims welcomed the report on the Dublin Archdiocese's mishandling of abuse complaints against its parish priests from 1975 to 2004. It followed a parallel report published in May into five decades of rape, beatings and other cruelty committed by Catholic orders of nuns and brothers nationwide in church-run schools, children's workhouses and orphanages from the 1930s to mid-1990s.

The government said the Dublin investigation ''shows clearly that a systemic, calculated perversion of power and trust was visited on helpless and innocent children in the archdiocese.''

''The perpetrators must continue to be brought to justice, and the people of Ireland must know that this can never happen again,'' the government said, also apologizing for the state's failure to hold church authorities accountable to the law.

(More here.)

Manufactured failure #5: views from China

2009-11-26T09:54:00.002-06:00

James Fallows
Atlantic

22 Nov 2009 07:19 pm

I won't go on in this vein forever (previously #1, #2, #3, #4), but the topic is important enough to bear a little more elaboration, IMHO. Part of the importance: there is no country with whom America's interactions are more consequential, or perpetually more complicated, than China. Another part of the importance: how the American public understands these interactions makes a big difference, in recognizing the points of disagreement and the areas of possible cooperation. Tomorrow, one more installment from the US government official who participated in important meetings and whom I have quoted twice before. For now:

This morning on the Chris Matthews show I mentioned earlier, a White House reporter for the Washington Post said that the Shanghai town meeting was another item on the disappointment/failure docket for America. Her argument was essentially: the Chinese outsmarted the Obama team and kept their countrymen from seeing it. I don't remember whether she said it was not broadcast at all or only on one "local" network; as mentioned yesterday, that one network reaches 100 million households.

So to a member of the traveling press pool, viewing the session mainly as a campaign stop whose advance work went either well or poorly, this looked like a bust. Here is how it looked to a foreigner who has just written me -- a person who has lived in China for two decades, still does business there, and speaks Mandarin:

"In your series, you touched on the Shanghai town hall, quoting from President Obama's opening and his response to the Twitter/Great Firewall question, and gave voice to a White House insider as to the power of his words and their likely reach inside China. There's been some buzz among western journalists about how the town hall "reached no one".

"I've been monitoring the China internet in the wake of the town hall and, based on my observations of these things over the years I'm very much leaning toward the White House insider's view -- that the reach was vast and deep, in the many millions or tens of millions, though not necessarily entirely positive. But the comment from President Obama that I think will have the most impact inside the firewall was not the one about US principles that you quoted in your followups....

(More here, including hotlinks.)

Catholic Bishops: Suffering is good for you

2009-11-26T09:46:00.002-06:00

"300,000 Terri Schiavos"

by mcjoan
DailyKos
Wed Nov 25, 2009

Not content with being Bart Stupak's puppet-masters, pulling the strings to strip all abortion coverage out of healthcare reform, end all of their social service programs in DC if the city goes forward with a proposed gay marriage law, refusing communion to Catholics because of their political beliefs, the Bishops have outdone themselves on this one. David Dayen reports:

The US Conference of Catholic Bishops released an "Ethical and Religious Directive" this month that would ban any Catholic hospital, nursing home or hospice program from removing feeding tubes or ending palliative procedures of any kind, even when the individual has an advance directive to guide their end-of-life care. The Bishops’ directive even notes that patient suffering is redemptive and brings the individual closer to Christ....

[T]he Church has staked out a radical position on end-of-life care, without patients of the 565 Catholic hospitals and other Catholic care facilities even knowing about it. As Barbara Coombs Lee, president of Compassion and Choices, an advocacy group, put it, "When a patient goes to one of these facilities, they don’t know that they’re choosing Catholic dogma. The bishops see the hospitals as an extension of their ministry."

The "Ethical and Religious Directives for Catholic Health Care Services" put out by the Catholic bishops would build upon a Papal elocution given in the wake of the controversial Terri Schiavo case, where the US Congress stepped in to keep Schiavo alive despite her persistent vegetative state and the wishes of her husband to end care. The papal elocution did state that the permanently unconscious should always have access to a feeding tube, but it did not have the force of doctrinal law behind it. "There was always some wiggle room" for Catholic care facilities, said Coombs Lee. Catholics were allowed to use something called a "benefit/burden balance" to determine the ethical, moral and compassionate result in any individual case.

(Original here.)

Netanyahu's Stubbornness On Settlements Produces American Call For 1967 Borders

2009-11-26T06:23:00.001-06:00

Daniel Levy
HuffPost

Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu announced today his cabinet's decision, "To suspend new construction in Judea and Samaria." (Yes, they still call it Judea and Samaria). The Obama Administration responded within hours with a statement released by Secretary Clinton followed by a press briefing from Special Envoy George Mitchell.

On the face of it, this was a step forward by the Israeli government, acknowledged and welcomed (though not blessed) by the US government, and a move that one hopes will facilitate Palestinian agreement to resume negotiations. But if one digs just a little bit deeper, it becomes very evident that it was nothing of the sort. Rather, today's events closed the first chapter in a game of dare being played out between the new leaderships in Washington and Jerusalem.

Today's statements appeared to be part of an elaborate and ongoing dance of suspicion between the two supposed allies. During his first term as prime minister in the late 90's, Benjamin Netanyahu made an enemy of then US President Clinton and played the Republican congress against the Democrat president. This directly led to the collapse of Netanyahu's government and his fall from office. Judging by today, Netanyahu is keen for a repeat performance albeit under circumstances even less propitious for him politically. The response of the Obama team might be an interesting pointer as to where things might be headed on the peace front.

The Obama administration has been calling on Israel to make good on a settlement freeze commitment dating to the 2003 Bush-era Road Map (and, questionably to the 1993 Oslo DoP). Netanyahu has been unwilling to do anything of the sort. He sought to codify a set of exemptions to a settlement freeze or in plainer English, guidelines for ongoing settlement expansion, and to have those blessed by Washington. The Obama team refused to become the first ever American government to formally authorize settlement expansion. That is the situation we have reached with today's announcement.

(Continued here.)

Obama's skeptic in chief

2009-11-26T06:07:00.000-06:00

By David Ignatius
WashPost
Thursday, November 26, 2009

With President Obama finally ready to announce his decision about Afghanistan, it's a good time to examine the role played by Vice President Biden, who emerged during the policy review as the administration's in-house skeptic -- the "questioner in chief," as one insider puts it.

Biden has been the point man in challenging some premises of Gen. Stanley McChrystal's strategy, according to civilian and military officials involved in the review. He was dubious about committing more troops when the administration announced its initial strategy in March, and over the months his doubts came to be shared, increasingly, by the president.

Biden's questions sometimes peeved advocates of the military buildup -- one official describes a process of discussion that resembled bashing a piñata -- and they added weeks of delay. But administration officials argue that the review, protracted and painful as it has been, will produce an Afghanistan policy that can better withstand public scrutiny.

Obama is still working on the final details, and one participant describes the narrow balance as "51-49." Officials predict that he will send some additional troops to secure Afghanistan's population centers, though probably not the full 40,000 McChrystal requested. Obama's support for the mission will be hedged and time-limited, as Biden has urged.

(More here.)

President vs. party on troop increase

2009-11-26T06:02:00.001-06:00

Caucus wouldn't back a costly expansion of Afghan war

By Michael D. Shear and Paul Kane
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, November 26, 2009

President Obama will reveal his new Afghanistan war strategy in a speech Tuesday evening to cadets at West Point, but his most skeptical audience is likely to be the powerful Democrats on Capitol Hill who oppose a troop buildup.

Top Democrats have made it clear to Obama that he will not receive a friendly reception should he announce what is considered the leading option: sending 30,000 more U.S. troops to Afghanistan. The legislators have indicated that a request for more money to finance a beefed-up war effort will be met with frustration and, perhaps, a demand to raise taxes.

Even so, Obama appears ready to come close to accepting the recommendation of Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal, the top U.S. and NATO commander in Afghanistan, to add 40,000 more troops to the war effort. British Prime Minister Gordon Brown said Wednesday that several NATO countries will send an additional 5,000 troops to Afghanistan. White House press secretary Robert Gibbs said Wednesday that Obama had not yet informed members of his war council of his decision.

On Tuesday, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) described what she called "serious unrest" in her caucus over the prospect of another vote to finance billions of dollars for an expanded war. It is, she said, the most difficult vote she can ask of the members of her party. "We need to know what the mission is, how this is further protecting the American people and is this the best way to do that, especially at a time when there's such serious economic issues here at home," she told bloggers on a Tuesday conference call.

(More here.)

The Religious Wars

2009-11-26T05:58:00.002-06:00

By NICHOLAS D. KRISTOF
NYT

Just a few years ago, it seemed curious that an omniscient, omnipotent God wouldn’t smite tormentors like Richard Dawkins, Christopher Hitchens and Sam Harris. They all published best-selling books excoriating religion and practically inviting lightning bolts.

Traditionally, religious wars were fought with swords and sieges; today, they often are fought with books. And in literary circles, these battles have usually been fought at the extremes.

Fundamentalists fired volleys of Left Behind novels, in which Jesus returns to Earth to battle the Anti-Christ (whose day job was secretary general of the United Nations). Meanwhile, devout atheists built mocking Web sites like www.whydoesGodhateamputees.com. That site notes that although believers periodically credit prayer with curing cancer, God never seems to regrow lost limbs. It demands an end to divine discrimination against amputees.

This year is different, with a crop of books that are less combative and more thoughtful. One of these is “The Evolution of God,” by Robert Wright, who explores how religions have changed — improved — over the millennia. He notes that God, as perceived by humans, has mellowed from the capricious warlord sometimes depicted in the Old Testament who periodically orders genocides.

(More here.)

A Tale of Two Turkeys

2009-11-26T05:54:00.000-06:00

By GAIL COLLINS
NYT

On Wednesday, President Obama pardoned his first Thanksgiving turkey.

There is something wrong with this concept.

Here is how our beloved national tradition works: One lucky turkey gets to live — and fly first class to Disneyland, where he is grand marshal in the Thanksgiving Day parade (I am not making this up). While another nameless bird gets slaughtered in his place.

It’s “A Tale of Two Cities,” except somehow I doubt that the doomed turkey volunteered for the job.

Who mourns the Backup Bird? What fickle finger of fate decided that he should literally get the ax, while the one who was supposed to go next lives happily ever after on the Big Thunder Ranch in Frontierland?

(More here.)

Filibuster Follies

2009-11-25T22:11:00.000-06:00

Katrina vanden Heuvel
The Nation

With 35 million people uninsured, and Big Insurance on the verge of receiving hundreds of billions of dollars in subsidies through health care reform, the idea that a Blanche Lincoln, Joe Lieberman, Ben Nelson or Mary Landrieu could sabotage a public option should be a wakeup call to all of us as to the dysfunctionality of our Senate.

Of course, the reason conservative members of the Democratic Caucus are able to wield such power is the anti-democratic, not constitutionally-mandated filibuster, which requires a super-majority of 60 Senators to pass legislation.

That's why so many pro-democracy folks are urging Majority Leader Harry Reid to use the procedural process of " reconciliation" to pass a public option if they can't muster 60 votes. Reconciliation allows for a simple majority of 51 Senators to approve certain budgetary matters.

(Continued here.)

Wedge issue: John Boehner PAC splurges on golf

2009-11-25T21:59:00.000-06:00

from Politico.com

By all public estimations, House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-Ohio) is a pretty good golfer.

He should be, given the $82,998 his political action committee has spent on golf outings so far this year, according to Federal Election Commission filings.

The golf events this year sponsored by Boehner’s Freedom Project political action committee have stretched from April until October, from Florida to Ohio. And the minority leader doesn’t hold his events at worn-out municipal courses. The most recent outing was a $20,921.34 event at the plush Robert Trent Jones track in Gainesville, Va., an invitation-only private club that was once also home to the Professional Golfers Association's President’s Cup.

The highest expenditure was a September event at the Jack Nicklaus-designed Muirfield Village Golf Club in Dublin, Ohio. The Freedom Project spent $29,501.20 for an event on the course, which hosts the annual PGA Memorial Tournament.

(Continued here.)

Before Obama's visit, NSC warned leaders of Mideast turmoil

2009-11-25T21:34:00.001-06:00

China's backing on Iran followed dire predictions

By John Pomfret and Joby Warrick
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, November 26, 2009

Two weeks before President Obama visited China, two senior White House officials traveled to Beijing on a "special mission" to try to persuade China to pressure Iran to give up its alleged nuclear weapons program.

If Beijing did not help the United States on this issue, the consequences could be severe, the visitors, Dennis Ross and Jeffrey Bader, both senior officials in the National Security Council, informed the Chinese.

The Chinese were told that Israel regards Iran's nuclear program as an "existential issue and that countries that have an existential issue don't listen to other countries," according to a senior administration official. The implication was clear: Israel could bomb Iran, leading to a crisis in the Persian Gulf region and almost inevitably problems over the very oil China needs to fuel its economic juggernaut, said the official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity.

Earlier this week, the White House got its answer. China informed the United States that it would support a toughly worded, U.S.-backed statement criticizing the Islamic republic for flouting U.N. resolutions by constructing a secret uranium-enrichment plant. The statement, obtained by The Washington Post, is part of a draft resolution to be taken up as soon as Thursday by the 35 nations that make up the governing board of the International Atomic Energy Agency, the U.N. nuclear watchdog.

(More here.)

Bankers making turkeys out of taxpayers

2009-11-25T21:18:00.001-06:00

By Dana Milbank
WashPost
Wednesday, November 25, 2009

The nation's bankers have much to be thankful for as they sit down to their turkey dinners on Thursday.

At this time last year, the American financial system was near collapse, rescued only by hundreds of billions of taxpayer dollars. Now the system has stabilized, and the industry is on the verge of a coup that many would have thought impossible a year ago: an escape from any major reform of financial regulations.

On Tuesday, the American Financial Services Association even held a conference call with reporters to update them on its efforts -- successful so far -- to torpedo plans for a new Consumer Financial Protection Agency, which would protect people from the sort of lending abuses that led to last year's implosion.

The ASFA, a trade group of credit card issuers, auto-finance companies, mortgage lenders and others leading the fight against the CFPA, took the unusual approach on Tuesday of publicly celebrating the reform's fading prospects.

(More here.)

Surprise "Housewives" dinner guests not invited, White House says

2009-11-25T19:37:00.003-06:00

A screen capture of a photo posted to Facebook after Tuesday night's state dinner

WashPost

A couple of aspiring reality-TV stars from Northern Virginia appear to have crashed the White House's state dinner Tuesday night, penetrating layers of security with no invitation to mingle with the likes of Vice President Biden and White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel.

Tareq and Michaele Salahi -- polo-playing socialites known for a bitter family feud over a Fauquier County winery and their possible roles in the forthcoming "The Real Housewives of Washington" -- were seen arriving at the White House and later posted on Facebook photos of themselves with VIPs at the elite gathering.

"Honored to be at the White House for the state dinner in honor of India with President Obama and our First Lady!" one of them wrote on their joint Facebook page at 9:08 p.m.

(Continued here.)

Book Calls Jewish People an ‘Invention’

2009-11-25T19:30:00.000-06:00

By PATRICIA COHEN
NYT

Despite the fragmented and incomplete historical record, experts pretty much agree that some popular beliefs about Jewish history simply don’t hold up: there was no sudden expulsion of all Jews from Jerusalem in A.D. 70, for instance. What’s more, modern Jews owe their ancestry as much to converts from the first millennium and early Middle Ages as to the Jews of antiquity.

Other theories, like the notion that many of today’s Palestinians can legitimately claim to be descended from the ancient Jews, are familiar and serious subjects of study, even if no definitive answer yet exists.

But while these ideas are commonplace among historians, they still manage to provoke controversy each time they surface in public, beyond the scholarly world. The latest example is the book “The Invention of the Jewish People,” which spent months on the best-seller list in Israel and is now available in English. Mixing respected scholarship with dubious theories, the author, Shlomo Sand, a professor at Tel Aviv University, frames the narrative as a startling exposure of suppressed historical facts. The translated version of his polemic has sparked a new wave of coverage in Britain and has provoked spirited debates online and in seminar rooms.

Professor Sand, a scholar of modern France, not Jewish history, candidly states his aim is to undercut the Jews’ claims to the land of Israel by demonstrating that they do not constitute “a people,” with a shared racial or biological past. The book has been extravagantly denounced and praised, often on the basis of whether or not the reader agrees with his politics.

The vehement response to these familiar arguments — both the reasonable and the outrageous — highlights the challenge of disentangling historical fact from the sticky web of religious and political myth and memory.

(More here.)

PTSD (language warning)

2009-11-25T15:11:00.005-06:00

via e-mail

By J.R. 7. November 2009 03:47

I’m more than a little angry right now. Yes, I’m irate that some shitbag Major (“shitbag” is often used as a technical term in the Army) opened fire on a group of his fellow Soldiers killing 12 and wounding 30. But that’s not even what is under my skin right now. What is bothering me is the general reaction of our media and those stupid enough to think this was not an act of terrorism, but was caused by supposed PTSD caused at Walter Reed Army Medical Center.

You want to know what fucking PTSD is like? I'll tell you. You have nightmares that go on for weeks. Mine would always be the same. Wherever the window was in the room in which I was sleeping I would see a bright white flash. I would wake up screaming to my wife “Get up! Get the fuck up! An IED just went off!” Sometimes I would just wake up screaming in agony as I relived the moment where my right arm was ripped from my body by an Iranian shape charge. (I may not know what childbirth feels like, but I know what it's like to go an hour with my arm ripped off without painkillers (I'm allergic to morphine).) PTSD makes you paranoid as hell. “Why is that person staring at me? Are they a threat? Where is the nearest exit? Why are these people so close to me? Why is no one pulling security? What was that noise? Where is the nearest cover? I need to get out of here.” You lie wide awake in bed at night wondering if it's safe to go to sleep or if you should get up and start pulling security. When I got home from Walter Reed and started college (a week later, stupid idea) I would often stay up for days at a time without sleeping.

Eventually my body would completely shut down from exhaustion and I would sleep for 12 hours or more only to complete the cycle all over again. (I still cannot believe I got all As and Bs.) Since I was injured in a humvee I am especially susceptible on the road to the effects of my PTSD. I still get nervous and hold my breath every time I drive by a piece of trash or tire debris on the shoulder or median. I avoid guardrails and broken down cars on the side of the road. On a couple different occasions I yelled out “tire!” to warn my wife (who was driving) of a potential IED in the road. There was nothing there (no tire, no nothing). One late night while driving home completely exhausted on our small two lane country roads at slow speed I locked up all four tires on my car to keep from hitting a cardboard box in the middle of the road. At that moment I would have bet the contents of my bank account it was an IED. That's what fucking PTSD is like. At no point in time have I ever felt the desire or need to grab a weapon and go shoot someone or something up. At no point in time have I ever grabbed a weapon and broken a law because I felt the need to protect myself. PTSD urges you mitigate the risk of events that happened in your life. But if you've never had anything traumatic happen in your life, you can't fucking have PTSD.

If you can get PTSD from treating soldiers at Walter Reed Army Medical Center then why the hell haven't more people snapped? Why haven't all the therapists in physical therapy and occupational therapy, and all the staff on Ward 57 ran around shooting up the place? They have seen far more wounded soldiers than this piece of shit ever did. My occupational and physical therapists, like many of the civilian personnel at Walter Reed, have been there since the beginning of OEF. They have taken care of countless (probably hundreds) Soldiers with a variety of different injuries. Missing arms (like me). Missing legs. Missing both. Missing parts of the face. Severe burns. Whole chunks of the skull missing. Missing jaws. Ears. Eyes. Severe PTSD. Severe TBI (traumatic brain injury) to the point that Soldiers would forget where they were going while walking the 50 feet from physical therapy to occupational therapy (they would be found wandering the halls unsure where they were supposed to be going. I had a buddy who used to do that walking the 20 feet to prosthetics. My TBI is bad, but not that bad).

So why haven't they gone crazy? Because you don't get PTSD from sitting on your ass around Walter Reed. Not only is it not possible to “catch” secondhand PTSD, but it is not that kind of a place. I would know, I was a patient there for nine months. The place is simply not that stressful or chaotic. When I was there my PTSD got better, not worse. And I would be willing to bet my dog tags that I saw far more wounded Soldiers than shit bag major did during our overlapping time there in 2007. I regularly visited Ward 57 to give advice to the new wounded. Other Soldiers and amputees did it for me when I was there so I considered my visits “paying it forward”. I had daily physical and occupational therapy. I regularly partook in activities in and out of Walter Reed with present and past wounded Soldiers. To say that this guy got PTSD from being stationed at Walter Reed is an absolute fucking farce. The people who are making this shit up have never set foot on Walter Reed, let alone met a soldier with PTSD.

In order to actually have Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, you have to go through some sort of traumatic event(s) to have “post stress.” Can therapists be emotionally troubled by the things they hear from patients? Yes. But you cannot catch PTSD from someone. It's not the fucking swine flu.

I cannot tell you how angry I am right now as a former patient of Walter Reed. It is an absolute fucking slap in the face for people to use his time there as an excuse for what he has done. It is an absolute fucking slap in the face for all the wonderful people there who help soldiers every single day. Some of the most kind, caring, and noble people I have ever met in my entire life work at Walter Reed Army Medical Center day in and day out helping wounded Soldiers like me.

To fallaciously say this guy has PTSD from his time at Walter Reed as an excuse for opening fire on a group of innocent Soldiers is beyond reckless. It's an absolute slap in the face for every caregiver and every wounded warrior who ever set foot on Walter Reed Army Medical Center.

U.S. Deports Lou Dobbs

2009-11-25T13:36:00.005-06:00

Luis Miguel Salvador Aguila Dominguez, alias "Lou Dobbs," is escorted by DHS agents to the airport to be sent back to Mexico.

CNN Host Had Been Living Illegally In Country Since 1961

November 12, 2009 | The Onion, Issue 45•47

WANTAGE, NJ—Acting on anonymous tips from within the Hispanic-American community, U.S. Customs and Border Protection officials on Wednesday deported Luis Miguel Salvador Aguila Dominguez, who for the last 48 years had been living illegally in the United States under the name Lou Dobbs.

According to the Department of Homeland Security, federal agents stormed the undocumented immigrant's home in an evening raid just hours after the 64-year-old newscaster suddenly announced that he was resigning from CNN, and immediately placed him on an Aeromexico flight departing from Newark Liberty Airport.
Enlarge Image Family

"Dobbs," around 1970, still returned regularly to Mexico to be with his family and work as a farmer.

"Mr. Dominguez did not come quietly, but in the end he came," said Sam Whitlock of the U.S. Border Patrol, who was injured during the arrest. "He pulled a knife on me, like they will, and swore a bunch in Spanish and spit on us when we finally managed to grab him by the serape and throw him against a wall. But the important thing is that he's now back where he belongs."

Evidence collected by investigators indicates that Dominguez/Dobbs, who has long claimed Texas heritage, was actually born in the Mexican state of Puebla to parents of Colombian descent, neither of whom were U.S. citizens. In the summer of his 16th year, he and 14 of his brothers and sisters paid smugglers to let them ride atop packages of cocaine in the cargo hold of a fishing boat bound for Texas under cover of night.

(More here.)

Whose side is Obama on?

2009-11-25T07:15:00.001-06:00

By Steven Pearlstein
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, November 25, 2009

There is much to be thankful for this holiday, including the fact that we live in a country that has been remarkably good-natured, generous and pragmatic in the face of a nasty economic crisis. The rates of unemployment and under-employment have already hit a combined 17 percent. Household wealth has been significantly diminished. Reluctantly, we agreed to take on more public debt to finance a massive bailout of a financial sector that badly let us down. We stepped up our household savings and embraced the new frugality.

What really sticks in our craw, however, is that while most of the country is hunkered down, Wall Street continues to feast on a bounty of trading profits. You'd expect that a new liberal Democratic president would find a way to give voice to this populist outrage and constructively channel this public anger. But too often, the response from the administration has been to try to convince us that there's little we can do, or should do, to ensure that the economic harvest is more equitably distributed. Now, the White House and congressional leaders find themselves scrambling to get ahead of a growing political backlash that threatens to upend their carefully calibrated agenda, not to mention their political fortunes.

Fairly or unfairly, the official who has come to personify this let-them-eat-stuffing attitude is Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner, who can't seem to decide whose side of the buffet table he's really on. It was Geithner who, at the height of the financial crisis last year, was able to best articulate the unpleasant truth that we could save the financial system or we could punish the banks but we couldn't do both at the same time. But now that the system has been saved, he seems to have lost his appetite for retribution.

(More here.)

False Alarm on Abortion

2009-11-25T07:12:00.000-06:00

By PHILLIP B. LEVINE
NYT

Wellesley, Mass.

ABORTION financing has become an important stumbling block in negotiations over health care reform. An amendment sponsored by Representative Bart Stupak, Democrat of Michigan, which was added to the House bill at the last minute, would prohibit both government-run insurance plans and any private insurance plans purchased with government subsidies from covering abortions.

The amendment quickly led to a burst of rhetoric and lobbying on both sides of the abortion debate. But this public battle exaggerates the extent to which the Stupak amendment would really change things for women seeking abortions. And, at the same time, it obscures the other benefits that expanded health insurance coverage could bring to women’s reproductive health. Ultimately, providing greater access to family planning could significantly reduce the total number of unintended pregnancies.

The Stupak amendment’s effect on any individual woman’s insurance coverage for abortion depends on what kind of insurance she has now. About 12 percent of the 62 million American women of childbearing age — ages 15 to 44 — are now covered by public insurance plans like Medicaid. For them there will be no change because current law already prohibits the use of federal funds to cover abortion costs.

Likewise, the amendment would change nothing for women who now have no insurance — about 20 percent of women of childbearing age.

(More here.)

Thanks for the Memories

2009-11-25T07:07:00.000-06:00

By MAUREEN DOWD
NYT

WASHINGTON

At his Cabinet meeting Monday afternoon, President Obama took a moment to give thanks to his team.

Sipping a glass of water, the president offered special gratitude to the woman on his right.

“I advised this hard-working Cabinet to get a little bit of rest this week,” he said, looking at Hillary Clinton, “particularly the people who have been traveling around the globe day-in and day-out and don’t know what time zone they’re in.”

The secretary of state, with a china cup and saucer in front of her, smiled.

(More here.)

Rationing, the Unspeakable, But Honest Solution

2009-11-24T08:51:00.000-06:00

By Eugene Robinson
WashPost

WASHINGTON -- The uproar over the on-again, off-again guidelines on when women should have mammograms is proof of the blindingly obvious: Health care reform that actually controls costs -- rather than just pretending to do so -- would be virtually impossible to achieve.

I say "would be" because none of the voluminous reform bills being shuttled around the Capitol on hand trucks even tries to address a central factor that sends costs spiraling out of control, which is that each of us wants the best shot at a long, healthy life that medical science can offer. Just as all politics is local, all health care is personal. Skimping on somebody else's tests and procedures may be worth debating, but don't mess with mine.

Intellectually, it's simple to understand why it might make sense for women -- those who have no special risk factors for breast cancer -- to wait until they're 50, rather than 40, to start getting mammograms. The analysis by the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force, which made the recommendation, looks sound. According to the panel, a whopping 10 percent of mammograms result in false-positive readings that lead to unjustified worry and unneeded procedures, such as biopsies. In a small number of cases, women are subjected to cancer treatment or even a mastectomy they didn't need.

(Continued here.)

Praying for Obama's death

2009-11-24T08:34:00.002-06:00

Wiley Drake, pastor of First Southern Baptist Church in Buena Park, Calif., was second vice president of the Southern Baptist Convention in 2006-2007.

Pastors are invoking Psalm 109 -- "May his days be few" -- in hopes of saving our country, and our souls

By Lilly Fowler
Salon.com

Pastor Wiley Drake preaches on most Sundays in a church tucked in between California’s big amusement parks, a place some people refer to as "Wiley World."

The particular Sunday I visited First Southern Baptist Church was the weekend following the Fort Hood tragedy, when U.S. Army psychiatrist, and Muslim, Maj. Nidal M. Hasan, shot and killed 13 people.

“Ladies and gentlemen,” Drake said as he addressed the group of about 60 gathered in Buena Park that evening, just down the street from Knott’s Berry Farm. “If they’re a Muslim, they’re a danger to this country.”

Statements like these are a dime a dozen in “Wiley World.” Political correctness isn’t a concern to Drake. And yet, his assertions about Muslims are far from his most controversial. What has garnered him the most media attention is what he said to national radio talk show host Alan Colmes in June.

(Continued here. Update below:)

Wiley Drake lifts call for 'imprecatory prayer' against President Obama

By Bob Allen
Associated Baptist Press
Friday, November 20, 2009

BUENA PARK, Calif. (ABP) -- A former Southern Baptist Convention officer who made headlines in June when he said on national radio that he was praying for Barack Obama to die now says he wants to see the president live long enough to stand trial for treason.

Wiley Drake, pastor of First Southern Baptist Church in Buena Park, Calif., issued a press release Nov. 19 calling for an end to "imprecatory prayer" -- words of judgment from the Book of Psalms prayed back to God, directed toward Obama.

Drake said he is now "calling for all of God's people and prayer warriors to cease the imprecatory prayer, and pray for Mr. Obama's protection until he can be properly tried for treason."

Drake attributed his change of heart to "spiritual counsel" of James David Manning, pastor at ATLAH World Missionary Church in New York, contained in a 16 1/2-minute video recorded Nov. 18.

(Continued here.)

Nuclear power regains support

2009-11-24T06:08:00.000-06:00

TOOL AGAINST CLIMATE CHANGE
Even green groups see it as 'part of the answer'

By Anthony Faiola
Washington Post Foreign Service
Tuesday, November 24, 2009

LONDON -- Nuclear power -- long considered environmentally hazardous -- is emerging as perhaps the world's most unlikely weapon against climate change, with the backing of even some green activists who once campaigned against it.

It has been 13 years since the last new nuclear power plant opened in the United States. But around the world, nations under pressure to reduce the production of climate-warming gases are turning to low-emission nuclear energy as never before. The Obama administration and leading Democrats, in an effort to win greater support for climate change legislation, are eyeing federal tax incentives and loan guarantees to fund a new crop of nuclear power plants across the United States that could eventually help drive down carbon emissions.

From China to Brazil, 53 plants are now under construction worldwide, with Poland, the United Arab Emirates and Indonesia seeking to build their first reactors, according to global watchdog groups and industry associations. The number of plants being built is double the total of just five years ago.

Rather than deride the emphasis on nuclear power, some environmentalists are embracing it. Stephen Tindale typifies the shift.

(More here.)